By the time they left the vehicle, Daniel no longer needed to stop and search for the direction.
It drew him down the slope towards a cluster of rocks below the road. Vale walked beside him, occasionally correcting their course by a few yards, while Jonathan followed with his folded map in one hand. The ground was rough enough to keep conversation brief. Gabriel carried the equipment; Kane watched the route behind them, making sure they would recognise it on the return.
They passed two places Jonathan wanted to examine. At the third, Daniel stopped.
A broad slab lay against the hillside, its lower edge buried in loose stones. Nothing about it distinguished it from the rocks around them, but Daniel felt the objects beyond it with such certainty that he reached out before considering what he might touch.
Vale caught his wrist.
“Let us look first.”
Jonathan came around the slab and crouched near its base. A strip of worked stone showed through the rubble. He brushed it clear, then unfolded his drawing.
There were six shallow marks along the exposed edge.
For a moment, he held the paper beside them without speaking.
“Well,” he said at last. “That saves an argument.”
Clearing the loose stones took longer than finding the entrance.
Beneath them was a narrow opening, almost entirely blocked by the slab. Gabriel shone a torch through the gap. The beam caught a short passage and, farther in, timber supporting something overhead.
Jonathan knelt to look.
“Can you move it?”
Daniel studied the stone. It was too large for them to shift by hand, and its upper edge rested beneath another outcrop. Pulling it away might bring more than the entrance down.
He placed his palm against it.
Since England, creation had begun to feel less like forcing an idea into existence. Sometimes he could sense what was already there closely enough to work with it. Now, beneath his hand, he felt the weight of the slab and the pressure where it met the rock above.
He looked at Vale.
“I think we can lift it.”
Vale removed his jacket and set it beside the bags.
They worked quietly at first. Daniel kept one hand against the surface while Vale stood on the other side of the opening. The pressure gathered between them, familiar enough for Daniel to recognise, weaker than it had been with everyone present.
Dust stirred at the slab’s lower edge.
Then the stone rose.
Jonathan stepped back as daylight reached the passage. Daniel felt the weight settle into what he was holding in his mind, and adjusted before it could tilt.
Vale’s eyes brightened.
“Only as far as we need.”
They lifted it another foot and held it there.
Gabriel tested the space with the torch. Beyond the entrance, the passage widened sufficiently for a man to stand.
Jonathan took the light from him.
“I’ll be quick.”
He ducked beneath the slab before Daniel could think of a useful reply.
The chamber was smaller than Jonathan had expected.
His torch passed across six low stone enclosures arranged along its sides. He could not tell what lay beneath them, and there was no time to find out. At the far end, sheltered beneath a fitted lintel, two metallic cases rested together.
Even in the torchlight, they looked misplaced.
The stone around them was worn. Dust lay thickly on the floor. The cases were smooth and clean, each enclosed in a dull outer shell without any obvious fastening.
Jonathan photographed them where they lay, then lowered the sack from his shoulder.
Outside, Daniel heard the faint scrape of movement and tried to judge how much longer they could hold the slab. His arms had begun to tremble, though the strain seemed to come from somewhere beyond muscle.
“Jonathan?”
“Found them.”
The answer brought a surge of relief strong enough to disturb his concentration. Vale glanced towards him, and Daniel steadied the stone.
Jonathan emerged into the passage with the sack held close to his body. He was nearly at the entrance when his torch caught something beneath the edge of one of the timber supports.
He stopped.
There was a third object in a shallow recess, partly concealed behind fallen wood.
“Just a moment.”
Daniel saw him turn.
“We have the pair.”
“I know. There’s something else.”
Jonathan went back only a few paces. He crouched, put the sack beside him and reached into the recess.
Vale shifted his feet.
The slab moved a fraction.
Daniel corrected it, but the pressure between them had begun to waver. He could feel Vale trying to anticipate each movement while he tried to prevent it. For several seconds their efforts worked against one another.
“Jonathan, come out.”
Jonathan had freed the object. He slipped it into the sack and caught up the torch.
A sharp crack sounded above him.
He looked up as the timber split.
Daniel felt the stone drop and threw everything he had into holding it. The slab stopped, but farther inside the passage a wooden section gave way. Jonathan disappeared beneath a fall of debris.
His torch struck the floor.
For an instant, its beam pointed straight towards them.
Then something covered it.
Kane was through the opening before the dust settled.
Gabriel followed him, bent almost double beneath the slab. Daniel could hear them moving stones, hear Kane calling Jonathan’s name, but no answer came.
Vale had one hand braced against the rock now. His face was pale.
Daniel fixed his attention on the space beneath the slab. He needed it to remain open. Nothing else could enter his thoughts.
When Kane appeared again, he was moving backwards.
Gabriel had Jonathan beneath the shoulders. Between them they dragged him clear, then lifted him onto the ground beyond the entrance.
Blood had spread across the front of his shirt.
Daniel waited until Gabriel’s boot passed the stone before letting go.
The slab struck the earth behind them with a sound he would remember afterwards. At the time, he barely heard it.
Jonathan’s eyes were closed. One arm lay at an angle beneath him, and his breathing came in shallow, uneven movements.
Kane pressed a folded jacket against the wound.
“Help me lift him.”
The sack was still caught around Jonathan’s wrist. Vale eased it free and took it as Daniel knelt beside him.
They carried him up the slope.
Isobel heard the shouting before she saw who had returned.
She came out of the office to find Gabriel forcing the outer door wide. Behind him, Kane and Daniel carried Jonathan between them, with Vale supporting his legs.
For a moment she could make no sense of the blood.
Then Kane told her to clear the table.
She swept the papers aside. A cup fell and broke beneath the desk, but she left it where it landed. Ernesto pulled a chair out of the way while they lowered Jonathan onto the surface.
His head rolled towards her.
“Jonathan?”
Kane kept pressure against his chest. The jacket beneath his hands was soaked through.
Elena appeared in the doorway with Sal. Lucía stopped behind them, saw the table and turned towards the telephone.
“He fell,” Daniel said. “Something gave way.”
Mara caught his arm. He looked at her, his face grey beneath the dust, and she felt how close he was to losing whatever control had brought him this far.
Lindiwe moved to the other side of the table. Jonathan drew a shallow breath. They waited for the next.
When it came, it was barely visible.
Kane looked towards Sal.
“When I was shot, he helped me.”
Elena held her son close, watching the blood beneath Kane’s fingers.
“He was still hurt afterwards.”
“I know. But in Hertfordshire…”
He looked around at the others. They remembered the pulse passing through the room, the sudden ease in their bodies. Kane’s wound had disappeared. Even the smaller injuries they had brought into the house had gone.
Sal slipped from beneath his mother’s arm.
“Move your hands.”
Kane hesitated only long enough to understand him. Then he lifted the jacket.
Elena drew a sharp breath.
Sal pulled a chair to the table and climbed onto it. He placed both hands against Jonathan’s chest, carefully, as though he already knew where they belonged.
His eyes brightened.
Jonathan remained still.
The boy adjusted his palms. Mara could feel the effort reaching beyond him, searching for something he could not sustain alone.
She took Daniel’s hand.
Lindiwe reached for Vale, and Kane moved closer. For the first time, all six deliberately joined hands around the table, with Sal completing the circle between them.
Daniel felt the connection take hold.
He had expected the others’ familiar presence. Instead, their nearness opened into something so much larger that he almost pulled away. Mara’s grip tightened, keeping him there, while Lindiwe steadied the fear passing between them.
Sal looked towards Jonathan.
“Together.”
They moved without discussing it. The boy returned his hands to the wound. Mara and Kane rested theirs on his shoulders; Daniel kept hold of Mara’s free hand, Vale took Kane’s, and Lindiwe joined them on the far side, closing the connection around Sal.
The light in their eyes strengthened until Isobel could see it across the room.
She had watched them create something the previous evening. She had seen the stones respond and accepted, as far as she could, that the people standing before her could do things she had no explanation for.
Now she could scarcely bring herself to move.
Jonathan lay beneath their hands, his shirt soaked with blood, and none of them was looking anywhere else.
The four amulets brightened against their chests. Light spilled through the torn edge of Kane’s shirt and shone between Mara’s fingers where her arm crossed the frame Ernesto had made.
Daniel felt Sal’s effort reach him.
This time he let it.
He stopped seeing the stone falling at the entrance. Beneath the boy’s hands was something damaged, something that could be made whole. He could feel its shape without looking at it.
Vale’s grip tightened around Kane’s hand. Lindiwe drew them closer, holding their attention together while Mara quietened the competing impulses that had begun to pull at it. Kane found a steadiness within the movement and followed it.
Sal took a breath.
Jonathan took one with him.
It was deeper than the last, but it caught halfway. The boy frowned, and Daniel felt them all press forward too quickly.
Lindiwe steadied them again.
They waited.
Across the table, Isobel watched Jonathan’s chest rise a second time. Blood still glistened beneath Sal’s palms, but it had stopped spreading.
Then the boy lifted his head.
For an instant, the light in all six pairs of eyes became too bright to look at.
A burst of energy passed through the room.
Isobel felt it strike beneath her ribs and move through her before she could step back. The papers rose from the desk. Loose sheets turned in the air, and the window beside Ernesto shuddered in its frame.
Elena caught the edge of a chair. Gabriel braced himself against the doorway. Lucía stood with the telephone receiver forgotten in her hand.
At the centre of it, Jonathan arched from the table and drew a full, sudden breath.
The light spread across his chest beneath Sal’s hands. Daniel felt the last resistance give, and the effort they had been holding together opened into a warmth that passed through every one of them.
Then it was over.
The papers settled.
For several seconds, the only sound was Jonathan breathing.
Sal’s shoulders lowered beneath their hands. Mara looked across at Daniel, but neither seemed ready to break the connection.
It was Vale who gently loosened his grip.
One by one, they let go.
Elena came to the chair and helped Sal down. She held him close, looking over his head at the table.
Beneath Jonathan’s torn shirt, the wound had closed.
The blood remained. It covered his clothes, marked Kane’s hands and lay in a dark pool along the table’s edge. Isobel stared at it, then at the unbroken skin, unable to reconcile the two.
Ernesto went to fetch a clean cloth. Halfway to the cupboard, he stopped and looked back, as though he needed to make certain Jonathan was still there.
Daniel rested both hands on the table.
Mara touched his back. He turned towards her, and only then did she feel how badly he had been frightened.
Across the room, Gabriel quietly took the receiver from Lucía and returned it to its cradle.
No one attempted an explanation.
Isobel moved to the foot of the table while Ernesto folded the cloth beneath Jonathan’s head. She had questions, but they would not arrange themselves into anything she could say.
His eyelids moved.
She watched them open.
Jonathan looked at the ceiling first, then at the faces around him. He seemed puzzled by their silence. His gaze travelled down the length of the table and found Isobel standing at his feet.
He tried to lift his head.
“What happened?”