Four or five corridors later, I realised I was hopelessly lost. It was a maze, this place, and I didn't have the first idea where I might find the kids. And although I was inside the building now and I could feel the minds of almost a dozen humans, I still couldn't link Bran.

I'd stumbled upon another sniper's nest. The man inside was dead, like all the others, but the shadows responsible were starting to disperse now. One coiled on his chest and another swirled around his skull. All of them were fading now. I didn't know how to call them back, let alone how I'd called them in the first place. I didn't even know for certain that it had been me.

I crouched down beside the corpse. Death had captured the terror in his blue eyes, and it was frozen there now for all eternity. I reached down to take his handgun. If I didn't have the shadows helping me, and I was too weak to kill with my mind, I'd have to resort to the more traditional methods.

My fingertips brushed against his arm as I withdrew. His skin was already icy to the touch, and it had been less than a minute. It wasn't natural. A shiver ran down my spine, and I found myself staring at those wisps of blackness. They were crawling their way towards me now, inch by inch. The closer they got, the stronger they seemed to get, and the colder I felt. They must have fed off heat.

As I straightened again, checking that the gun was loaded, I heard a scuffling sound. It was soon followed by a mechanical click. Slowly, I turned around. At the end of the corridor stood a man with a rifle against his shoulder.

I was looking straight down the barrel, and his finger was squeezing the trigger. I considered it for a moment — taking a shot and hoping I was quicker — but I'd just dropped the magazine. There wasn't a chance in hell that I could replace it before he shot me. Maybe there was still a bullet in the chamber. Maybe not.

"Drop it," he told me, his voice shaking a little.

I let the gun fall to the ground.

"Good. Now kick it towards me."

I did. He didn't make any move to collect it. Instead, he just used his foot to shunt it even further down the corridor. While he was doing that, I nudged his mind. He had walls, and they were strong as any I'd ever felt. I could still break through, but he would feel me trying. If I wasn't quick enough, I'd end up with a bullet in my head.

But ... and here was the question nagging at me ... why hadn't he just shot me on sight? Why was I still alive? Maybe, just maybe, he wasn't entirely down with the regime here. I thought perhaps I recognised him as the man who'd been at the crime scene with Scott. He had seemed sensible enough back then...

I licked my lips, and then I said quietly, "I'm not who you think I am."

His eyes flicked to the dead man pointedly, and he raised his eyebrows.

"I didn't touch him," I said. It was the truth, in a way. "He was already dead. The body's cold. Come and feel if you don't believe me."

"No, thank you. Get on your knees."

That was too far. I didn't kneel for just anyone. I shook my head slowly and watched as his finger twitched on the trigger.

"Just let me go," I said. "Please. He's going to kill my children."

"Yeah, well, you killed my little brother," he snapped without missing a beat.

I sighed at him. "Why?"

His brow furrowed. "What?"

"Why did I kill him?" I asked patiently. "What was my motive?"

"I don't know. You did it because you're evil."

I regarded him with a look of utter disdain. "Scott is lying to you."

"You're the only one who's lying to me," he spat.

For Goddess' sake. I didn't have time to argue with him. It might have worked, but not before Scott reached the kids. It was time to try something else. Something more ... radical.

"Close in," I told my raiders through the link. "No one leaves the building."

And then I left my body. I left it to collapse to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. I left it to the mercy of that poor, conflicted man. If he killed me, so be it. Better to die trying than stand there and argue with him while Scott slaughtered every last one of the kids.

I let my mind roam the hallways, hunting for the weak link among the hunters. One of them was distracted. He was talking to someone, and his walls had slipped down. I pushed into his mind easily enough. And then it was just a matter of seizing the controls before we fell over. He was shorter than I was, and I swayed while I got the hang of his muscles.

I was outside a room. The walls were plastered with foil, and the door was dead-bolted, and I didn't dare to hope, but this seemed like somewhere they might be keeping the kids. There was another man beside me, a rifle slung over his shoulder.

"You alright, mate?" he asked, eyeing me.

The swaying must have worried him. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Clumsily, I reached up to touch my shoulder, and my fingertips brushed against leather. I couldn't believe my luck. I was in the right place, and I had a weapon.

I slid the deadbolt back, fumbling with arms and fingers that were too short, and then I pulled the door open and went inside. I had to know now, before I wasted any more time. Scott would be making a beeline for the kids.

"Whoa, what are you—"

The room was painfully bright after the gloom of the corridor. Someone had put a floodlight in one of the corners, probably for lack of a better option, and the shadows it cast were long and otherworldly.

I didn't wait for my eyes to adjust. There were two figures in the room. One the size of a man, and one much, much smaller. Bran. It had to be. The link confirmed what my eyes couldn't, so the relief hit me before I'd even stopped blinking.

His t-shirt was covered in blood, but he was standing up, so his injuries couldn't have been life-threatening. He cowered away as we came into the room. There was a cardboard box behind him which they must have been using as a makeshift crib.

The other man was stood by the cardboard box, and he had one of the babies in his arms. He clearly had no children of his own — he was holding the poor thing upright and letting its head loll. It was wrapped in what looked like a dirty t-shirt, and the hoarse squalling sound which came from within that bundle was heart-wrenching.

"There's definitely something wrong with it," he muttered. "All this crying ... maybe it's ill."

"Who cares? We're not babysitters. Put it down, man," my partner snapped.

I stepped forwards clumsily. "No, give it here."

Once I had the baby, I could kill them both and get the kids out of here.

He scoffed. "What, so you can shake it again?"

"No. Of course not. Just—"

My insistence was getting the better of him. He was extending his arms, and I reached out to take the baby, hardly daring to hope this might work—

Footsteps outside the door. I cursed under my breath as he pulled the baby back, clearly waiting to see who would come through the door. I'd been so close.

It was Scott, and he had five men behind him. How I just stood there, I have no idea. All I wanted to do was grab him by the throat and choke the life of him, so he could feel how Jess had felt and then face her in the afterlife.

But there were too many people here. I couldn't kill all of them with my bare hands. But if I opened fire, they were going to return it, and it would only take one bullet... Bran, the twin girls and the newborn baby were all in harm's way.

"We're leaving," Scott said. "Right now. We'll take them with us, in case we need to—"

"They'll only slow us down," I cut across. I lifted one hand to scratch at my forehead so Scott wouldn't notice those damning hazel eyes.

"Did I ask for your opinion, Piers?" he snapped. "Bring them. Those mongrels are inside the walls, so I don't have time to argue with you."

Dammit. He took the baby from the other man, and he was out of the door before I could do much else. Three of the guys followed him. That left four in the room with me, and those were odds I liked more.

I wanted to wait a little longer — to be sure Scott and the others were out of earshot when the fight started. The Goddess had other plans. One of the new arrivals made a grab for the cardboard box on the table, and that was when things began to go wrong.

Bran jumped in the way. It was a brave thing to do, and I knew he only wanted to protect the little ones, but I wished he hadn't. If the men got rough with him, it would force my hand.

"Move," the man snapped.

Bran just stared at him.

"Are you deaf, boy? Move."

Still nothing. Instead of pushing him aside, the man stepped left, probably intending to reach over his head. Except Bran went for him, clawing and kicking for all he was worth. It was a terrific effort, but he was only five. Another of the men dragged him out of the way and held him still.

I was still trying to decide. Break my cover now and risk it, or wait for a better opportunity. It would be safest to make my move outside, where I could make use of the raiders, but I wasn't sure I could keep control of this body for long enough to get there.

And while I wrestled with that decision, Bran was still fighting to free himself. I knew something was wrong when his eyes went pitch black. There was no warning, no slow transition. One second they were hazel, and the next ... they weren't.

I watched helplessly as he shifted. His bones clicked and ground together, and then rust-coloured fur replaced his golden-brown skin. He sank his teeth into the man's hand before he had even finished transforming, and then he wrenched backwards. Two fingers came away in his jaws.

All was chaos in that tiny room. The man he'd bitten went reeling backwards, and a blonde man came to take his place. He dealt Bran a punishing kick which knocked him halfway across the room. The heart-rending yelp was cut short as he crashed into a wall.

And all I could do was stare at my son in horror. He was five years old — he shouldn't have been able to shift. The full moon was days away. It took me a moment to snap out of it, somehow, but then I threw myself into the blonde man. Anything to get him away from Bran.

I caught a fistful of his hair and slammed his head into the wall. Once, twice, and then again just for luck. He was utterly limp by the time I dropped him onto the floor. When I turned around, I expected to be met with fists and rifles. Not slack-jawed, wide-eyed bewilderment from all three of them.

"What the hell, Piers?" one of them demanded. "What's wrong with you?"

I shot him. And then his friend, and then the man who was stood over the babies. It was easy, really. Their guns had been slung over their shoulders, so they hadn't stood a chance in hell of fighting back. When all three of them were dead, I went back and put a bullet in the first man, just to be sure.

Bran had retreated into a corner. He watched me with wide, wary eyes, because he didn't know it was me. He was holding one of his paws awkwardly. He would have to wait, for the time being, because it was only a matter of time before the men who had left realised their friends weren't following them.

So I went out into the corridor and took pot-shots at the rest of the humans while their backs were turned. They all fell, one by one, save for their leader. I didn't dare point the gun at him. Not while he was holding the baby.

The gunshots hadn't taken Scott by surprise. He came to a gradual halt, turning around like he had all the time in the world. He surveyed his dead underlings with an expression of wry amusement. When he was finished, he smiled at me, and then he walked away.

I could have given chase, of course. But this wasn't my body, and I could barely stand upright, let alone run. And if I went after Scott, I would be leaving the other three kids vulnerable to the first human who stumbled across them. I cared more about protecting them than I did about some petty vengeance mission.

So as horrible as it was, I let him go. I let him take that baby to keep the others safe. I didn't even know if it was my kid or one of the twins. It wasn't like he could go far, anyway. The entire place was surrounded ... and speaking of which...

"There's a man coming out," I said down the link. "Stop him."

He wouldn't get away. Gun or not, he was alone and vastly outnumbered. I had to believe that my raiders could stop him, and so I turned back to the room. It was easy enough to slide the deadbolt across, and then I left the hunter's mind. As I went, I turned off the nice, bright place at the base of his skull. The place which told his heart to beat.

I wasn't taking any chances. Not anymore.

I woke up in my own body. I was lying on the ground, my legs tangled with the dead man's. There was blood in my mouth and the unmistakable taste of vomit. By some miracle, I hadn't choked on it. Maybe the human had rolled me onto my side. Maybe I'd just fallen like this. It didn't matter much either way.

He'd come to stand right beside me, and the rifle was pointing down at my head. Before he could realise I was awake, I twisted and threw my shoulder into his legs. It was a messy excuse for a chop tackle, but it worked. He came crashing down on top of me. We fought over the gun.

In the confusion, I caught hold of something metal and wrenched it towards me, assuming it was the handle. I couldn't see jack shit in that gloomy, cramped hallway. The human realised what I hadn't. I'd grabbed the muzzle, and I'd turned it towards myself. And unfortunately for me, his finger was still clutching the trigger.

The gun went off. It was right beside my ear, and it was deafening, but the pain which followed the noise soon drowned that out. It was coming from my stomach — a heavy throbbing which I recognised well enough.

The hunter had gone still. The bullet had gone straight through me and into his foot. And unlike me, he hadn't been shot before. He started screaming for all he was worth. I wrenched the gun away from him, then, and he didn't lift a finger to stop me.

I picked myself up. It was slow, and it was painstaking, but I managed it. There was a lot of blood pouring down my side. I knew I didn't have long. With the rifle in one hand and my pocketknife in the other, I stumbled down the corridor. The hunter lay where I'd left him — in a growing pool of his own blood.

Now that I knew which direction to go, it was much easier. I was cautious now, taking time to check around every bend. It didn't take long to find those foil-covered walls.

The body I'd borrowed was lying across the doorway, and I had to drag it away before I could open the door. The exertion made my head swim, but I blinked through it. The deadbolt slid backwards. With a nudge of my foot, I pushed the door open.

Bran was ready to kill the intruder, by the looks of it. His hackles rose, and he growled with the high-pitched trembling voice of a cub. The growl died in his throat when he realised it was me. A tiny, tiny whimper filled the silence it had left, and I crouched down to meet him.

"It's okay, kiddo," I murmured. "You did so well. Come here, now."

He did. In wolf-form, he was the size of a spaniel, and it was easy enough to lift him up. My fingers scratched at the back of his neck and smoothed the fur on his back, calming him as best I could. Once he'd stopped shaking, I set him down on the table and peered into the cardboard box.

Two babies lay side-by-side. One had stormy grey eyes, and I knew she was one of the twins. The other was bigger, but he was red-faced and crying and bloodied. The newborn. Those were horrible circumstances to meet my child.

And yet the world seemed to stop for a moment. The events of the afternoon were gone, all of a sudden. Forgotten. Jess, Eira, everyone. I reached down, and I picked him up — because it was a him. Another little boy. Jess had died without even knowing that much. Without getting to hold him.

"Hi," I said softly. "You've had one hell of a first day, haven't you?"

He stared up at me, utterly oblivious. He had my eyes, of course. But there was a lot of his mother in him, too. His skin was a shade darker than his brother's — a new combination of Welsh, Bengali and whichever Middle Eastern country the Shadowcats hailed from, because they'd certainly never bothered to tell me.

"Your name is Rhys, by the way," I went on, smiling at him. "Your mother said so, and we're not stupid enough to mess her around, are we?"

It hit me then. All at once, and without warning. Jess was dead. In fact, almost everyone I cared about was dead. I set the baby down again and closed my eyes. Shock was one hell of a painkiller, both physically and emotionally. I could see it all on the horizon, looming like a tidal wave, but I couldn't really feel it. Not yet.

There was a drip-drip sound which served as a constant reminder that I was running out of time. Literally. The blood was coming thick and fast, and I'd lost so much already today. It snapped me back to awareness now. Beside me, Bran was nosing at the babies. Once he was satisfied they were okay, he lay down in front of the box protectively and put his head on his paws. I was willing to bet that he was exhausted.

"You need to shift back, buddy," I told him. "I can help you, but you've got to do the hard part, okay?"

Bran let out another whimper. I nudged his mind, helping him find the right place and then steadying him as he fought to trigger the shift. His wolf was strong. Stronger than he had any right to be, and he wasn't keen to relinquish control. By the time Bran was back in his skin, he was breathless and shaking.

"Good boy," I said. "You're being so brave."

I pulled my own t-shirt over his head, and then I scooped him up with one arm. He was getting too big to carry, really, but I'd make an exception for today.

"There's blood," he mumbled as I got him settled against my shoulder. "You're hurt."

"This? This is nothing. A little pinprick, that's all," I laughed, glancing at the bullet wound.

It wasn't the best lie I'd ever told, but my son was only five. He couldn't tell the difference yet. He gave me a business-like nod. "Okay. We need to go and save Mammy. The bad men took her."

That should have hurt. I felt the force of those words, but I didn't feel the pain. It would just add itself to the growing storm, I reckoned. It occurred to me that I wouldn't have to feel any of it if I bled out before it could break.

"Yes," I agreed quietly. "Once you're safe, I'll go find your mother."

"Promise?"

I nodded. Carrying him like this meant that his legs were pressing on the bullet wound. It was throbbing so badly that I had to fight for every breath. I needed to get him outside and hand him over to someone before I passed out.

"Can you close your eyes for me?" I asked him. It was too late to care about that, really, because there were four corpses in this room alone. He squeezed them shut anyway. "Yeah, that's perfect. We're going to walk all the way outside, and I need you to keep them closed until we get there."

He was crying now. I could feel his tears falling on my neck, and I could hear his muffled sobs. I didn't have to worry that he'd see something he shouldn't, because he buried his face in my jacket. With some effort, I picked up the two babies. The box made it easier to some extent, but it was still weight I could have done without. I was getting so dizzy.

It was easy retracing my steps. All I had to do was follow the trickles of blood. When I reached the place I'd left the human, I froze in place. He was now surrounded by nearly a dozen of my rogues. They were brandishing branches and knives, and they looked ready to take some heads. Mort was in the middle of the pack. It might have been my imagination, but I did think something had changed. The way they were looking at me ... it was almost ... fearful.

"Take him to a hospital," I told them.

"To a hospital?" Mort spluttered. "He's one of the—"

I levelled him with a flat stare. "I think enough people have died today, don't you?"

And then I carried on walking. When I emerged onto the grass, Tom was there to greet me. He was standing in a semi-circle with Jaz and Makayla and the other raiding leaders. Their little war council seemed to fracture when they noticed me. And once again, I couldn't help but noticing those wary eyes.

I made a beeline straight for Tom and caught his eye despite his best attempts to avoid looking at me. "Tell me you caught Scott."

He swallowed and said nothing.

No. I took a step towards him, ready to shake an answer out of him, but even that was enough to loosen his tongue.

"There wasn't much we could do," Tom blurted out. "He had a car, Rhodric, and he reached the reinforcements on the road. After that ... well, it was a bloodbath. We've got two dead and nearly a dozen injured."

I needed a moment to absorb that. I'd been so sure. So certain that one man carrying a baby would be no match for hundreds of rogues, and in that certainty, I'd missed my chance to save the kid.

"So he got away, and he took the baby with him?" I asked him a voice that was much, much too quiet.

Tom's eyes were fixed firmly on the ground now. I knew my wolf was leaning on him — taking out all that misdirected anger. The other raiders seemed to be holding their breaths. I wasn't sure what they were expecting, because they couldn't seriously think I'd hurt him, could they?

"Yes," Tom breathed.

"Is anyone following?"

"Honestly, I don't know. Probably not. There was a lot of confusion after the—"

I swore filthily. Goddess only knew what Scott would do to that baby. It had been nearly ten minutes, so he could be anywhere by now. Tom flinched away from me, and all of the anger seemed to drain away. It wasn't his fault. It was mine. Yet another mistake that I would now have to live with.

"Take them to the cars, would you?" I asked wearily.

Tom didn't have to ask what I meant. I gave him the box, and then I handed over Brandon. It took no small amount of coaxing on our parts, because he didn't want to let go of me. It was breaking my heart a little — leaving him so soon, but I didn't have much choice.

"You're going back in?" Tom demanded, eyeing the sheer volume of blood staining my clothes. For once, most of it was mine. I'd accumulated three bullet wounds and a knife wound in the last few hours, and none of them had properly healed yet.

"I need to find Jess," I said.

He scratched his head. "That can wait, surely."

The look I shot his way was nothing short of hateful. I was spared having to answer by my son, who blurted, "No, it can't. Me and Daddy are going to save her."

"You're not coming, Bran," I said firmly. "I need you to stay here and look after your little brother."

He chewed on his lip, torn between heroics and the fundamental instinct to protect his packmates. "And Lauren?"

"Yes, and Lauren. Do you think you can do that?"

Bran nodded solemnly.

That brought a smile to my lips. It was a poor excuse for one, in all honesty, but it was progress. I reached over to tousle his hair and whisper one last reassurance before I headed back towards the warehouse. I didn't get very far. Something big and heavy smashed into my back, knocking me sprawling onto the grass.

The air whooshed from my lungs. And while I was still trying to force it back inside, my attacker threw a series of punches at the back of my head and my ribs. One of them must have found a kidney, because the stab of pain which erupted was strong enough to make me bite my tongue. It also made me angry.

I slammed an elbow into something soft, and then I used the brief reprieve to flip myself over. It was Vik, of course. And the punch I landed on his jaw did absolutely nothing to dissuade him. We were both on the ground, grappling with each other and trading punches that were hard enough to split skin.

I was going to lose. Even if I hadn't been missing half of my blood, I would have been struggling to recover from such a ruthless ambush. We were evenly-matched at the best of times. And now, with him well-rested and pushing at my weakened, fragile mind, it was only a matter of time before something caved. It was just a question of whether it would be my walls or my bones.

So I didn't protest too loudly when Makayla and Jaz and a handful of their raiders hauled him away from me. They twisted his arms behind him and forced him onto his knees. There were four of them, and still they were struggling to keep him under control. Eventually, Jaz flicked out her switchblade and held it beneath his chin.

It took me a moment to pick myself up. If I'd thought my stomach had been hurting before, I'd been sorely wrong. It felt like someone was twisting a knife in there, and the blood dribbling from the wound turned into a steady trickle.

"Vik," I sighed. "Still alive, huh?"

"No thanks to you, prick," he snapped. "What the hell did you do to me?"

I spat out a mouthful of blood and shrugged. "Wasn't me."

"Bullshit," Vik growled, wrenching against Makayla's hold until blood trickled down the side of his neck. "It came from you. We all saw it, idiot."

I just stared at him. He smelt like fear and fresh urine. It must have been pain beyond imagining to make an Alpha wet himself. No wonder he was so damn pissed off. I'd left him writhing on the ground, but I hadn't thought... I hadn't meant to... No. I'd only wanted him out of the way — that was all.

"What kind of black magic was it?" Vik went on, the hatred dripping from his voice.

Oh, I had an inkling. I had watched that surge of power rip its way through the sunlight and tear it into little pieces. I had watched the wisps of shadow falling like raindrops, and I had guessed what might have been responsible.

But I wouldn't explain that to Vik. I couldn't. Not until I knew for sure, and perhaps not even then. It was the sort of secret you kept.

"Your guess is as good as mine," I drawled. "The link can do strange things sometimes, Lloyd. You know that."

He laughed aloud. "The link, my ass. It was you. It came from you."

I rolled my eyes, trying to cover up my own uncertainty with a thick coating of disdain. "If that's true, it wasn't intentional."

"Oh, yeah, I'm sure it was a coincidence that it got me but all your bloody rogues are fine. I was helping you, Llewellyn."

"Everyone else who was affected is lying dead in that warehouse. I'd say 'fine' is relative, isn't it? And if you seriously think I'm capable of 'dark magic,' Lloyd," I said in a voice that was too hoarse, too quiet, "then maybe you should tread more carefully."

That shut him up. He was still furious, of course, but he wasn't in a hurry to repeat that experience. It must have scared him quite badly to make him forget that famous temper of his. He stared at me and said absolutely nothing.

"What do you want us to do with him?" Jaz asked me.

I shrugged because, surprisingly enough, I didn't give a single shit about Vik Lloyd at that moment. "Just cuff him and sit him somewhere quiet until he calms down."

Vik spat at me. It landed on the grass at my feet, and I pretended not to notice. He'd get over it. He always did. Right now, I just wanted to get Jess and then get the hell away from this place.

***

It didn't take me long to find her. The room was nestled in the far corner of the warehouse, and its walls were plastered with tinfoil to stop us mind-linking, exactly like the other one. Inside were three bodies. Alex and Evie were closest to the door, tangled together even in death. They each had a bullet wound in the middle of their foreheads and a puddle of brains on the floor beneath them.

Jess was lying in the far corner. My breath caught in my throat when I saw her, because she looked so ... peaceful. She had no injuries except for the faint ring of bruises around her neck, and she could almost have been asleep. The more I thought about that, the more my mind started playing tricks on me. It looked for a moment like her chest was actually rising and falling.

No. It was rising and falling. She was still breathing, somehow. And when I went to crouch beside her, I could hear her heart beating. It was faint, and it didn't sound right, but it was there.

Scott must have stopped as soon as he felt the bond break. He'd stopped too soon, clearly, and then he'd left her body to catch up with her mind. It wouldn't take much longer, I didn't think. Her lips and fingertips were turning blue.

Her mind was gone. I could tell that with a single brush of the link. It was all black and dead in there, save for the tiny spark at the base of her skull. She wasn't going to wake up. Not ever. If she was human, we could have put her on life support for a few years and kept her heart beating, but there'd be no happy ending.

I sat beside her and brushed a few stray hairs from her forehead. She was as beautiful as the day I'd met her. We'd had six years and two children together, but it didn't feel like enough. I didn't think a lifetime with her would have been enough. There were tears running down my cheeks now, and I didn't have the willpower to stop them.

I reached down and held her hand. It was still warm, of course, and that made it so much easier to pretend. She was starting to twitch. It began slowly, with tiny jerking movements of her fingers against my palm, but it spread quickly enough. Soon, her entire body was convulsing. She wasn't getting enough oxygen.

And suddenly I knew that I couldn't sit there and watch her die all over again. Gently, I eased her head into my lap. I took a series of deep, steadying breaths to get myself under control. It needed doing. That was all. And the longer I waited, the worse it would be.

I brushed the mark on her neck with my fingertips. She had always squirmed when I'd touched her mark, swatting at my hand like it was ticklish. But now she just lay there, a body without a person inside, and I closed my eyes. I moved my hand upwards, to the soft place under her chin. My other hand came to rest on the back of her head.

And then I twisted. It was fast, and it was rough, but it worked. I heard that awful crack. It sounded like a wet branch snapping, and it meant that I'd done it right. She convulsed once more, and then she went still at long last.

I opened my eyes again. There were three corpses in that room now, and it was soon to be four. The world was darker than it should have been, spinning around me and peppered with little black dots. Only this wasn't some strange shadow magic at work. It was blood loss. Hypovolaemic shock, as the doctor had called it.

Okay. There were worse ways to die.

And I was. Dying, I mean. I wasn't sure I minded anymore. I was so horribly tired by then, and I thought if I just closed my eyes and took a little nap, that would be the end of it. No more pain or fighting or mourning. Just peace and quiet. Surely, I'd earnt that much.

The blood was still pooling beneath me. I dragged a finger through the puddle, watching it smear on the tiles, and then I smiled to myself without really knowing why. My mind was beginning to slip now. I wasn't trying all that hard to stop it.

I was casting. Sort of. The warehouse was insulated against that, but the doors were open, and I could slip through the cracks. I flitted through the minds of a hundred thousand little creatures so I wouldn't have to feel the pain consuming my own.

I was everything and nothing all at once. Beetles rooting in the ground. The birds wheeling high above. The ivy which crept slowly but surely up the tree trunks. A rabbit hibernating in its burrow, far below where my useless body lay. I was the forest and everything in it, and it was a feeling of freedom like no other.

Was this what dying felt like? I wondered blearily. Did we simply cease to exist? Or did our souls shatter into a million pieces and join other lives? The pain felt so far away, and I went further still, until I forgot that there had ever been pain at all.

Then, poised on the brink between this existence and the next, something caught my attention. A scrawny dormouse had heard something loud and piercing and anguished. Hungry, the noise said, and it's bright and noisy and cold and where am I?

The cry of a new-born baby.

My new-born baby.

And once I'd remembered that, there was no going back to the state of nonexistence. Tempting as it was, I felt it slipping away. And I felt searing pain in my chest and I had just enough time to reach the horrifying realisation that I was back in my body before I slipped into true unconsciousness.