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Sonder licked his lips. “I don’t want anyone but you in there.” He said the words gently, but she knew his stance was firm. Sonder Murdoch was not a man who wavered.

She reached up and pushed the hair from his face, relishing the feel of it between her fingers. “That’s why I came to ask. I’ll pot a sample and bring it here.” She wiggled free of his arm but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back, kissing her hard. She could taste the spice and smoke on his tongue, feel his grip on her waist and the softness of his knit jumper beneath her palms, but resisted the urge to melt into him. “We have work to do, Professor.”

“Ní mhaireann solas na maidine don lá.”?*

Atta swallowed hard. She loved way too much when he spoke Irish to her in that tone. “Yes, and that is exactly why we need to get moving,” she said, putting space between them. “There are lives at stake.”

Sonder’s brow quirked up. “You’re quite right.” He put his cigarillo in an ashtray to burn out. “You are also quite distracting. I’ll be better behaved, on my honour.”

“Thank you. Now, you occupy Gibbs while I pot a specimen.”

(Nee war-in sul-is nah mawd-in-ye gun law)No morning’s sun lasts all day; an Irish Gaelic saying meaning: life is finite, enjoy it while you can

Atta

Gibbs blinked at her where she stood with a dripping bottle still poised to spray a fern. “Atta. Please don’t take offence to this, but are you seriously going to walk into a patient’s room and squirt him?”

“We’re not trying to look grand,” she spat. “We want effective.” She gestured roughly to the plant that had gone from wilted to steaming to a dried-up husk.

“I’ll grant you it appears effective.” He stood, shoving his hands into the kangaroo pouch on his Trinity hoodie. “Nothing left to do but drive you lot there, then.”

The three of them must have looked completely mental in their plague doctor masks, pulling up to a fancy house in a Volvo. Their appearance didn’t seem to deter the woman who came rushing out as soon as Gibbs’s tyres hit her drive.

She was an average middle-class wife in Chinos and a knit blouse, but she was clearly beside herself. Mrs Byrne rushed for Atta the moment she exited the car, her lip wobbling and eyes watery.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here. You must hurry.” The woman pulled Atta along so quickly she almost tripped, Sonder on their heels.

Before they even made it through the lavish entryway with its polished floors, it wasn’t difficult to understand why she was in such a rush. The Inhabited, Mr Byrne, bellowed from wherever he’d been stored to await his final moments.

Atta exchanged a look with Sonder, cursing that she couldn’t make out his face, and they all picked up their pace, climbing the stairs two at a time.

“Oh my. Oh Jesus,” Mrs Byrne cried. “What’s happened? He hasn’t made a sound in days. I–”

Outside the door of the sick room, Sonder gripped Mrs Byrne’s shoulders firmly. “This is where you trust us to do what you called us here to do. Go outside. Get some air. Do not come in, no matter what you hear.” Tears streamed down her face. “Do you understand?”

The poor woman was shaking, looking from Sonder to the closed door and back, but she nodded.

“There you are.” He gently squeezed her shoulders and turned her around, back toward the stairs.

Whether it was the screaming or curiosity that drew him, Atta didn’t know, but Gibbs had ventured inside the house and was standing at the foot of the steps.

“Go with my friend, there. He’ll keep you right as rain, yeah?”

“Okay.” The word was barely a whisper, but she made it down the stairs, only looking back twice.

Gibbs, bless him, wrapped his thin arm around Mrs Byrne and ushered her back out into the drizzly afternoon.

Sonder ripped off his mask and Atta did the same. There was something bordering on fear in his eyes, and she had little doubt the same was reflected in hers. “He’s screaming,” she said stupidly, but it made Sonder’s face change.

It was Professor Murdoch who looked back at her. “The plan has not changed. You are well equipped for this. Trust your gut.”

Her gut was afraid. Roiling. “First things first,” she said to Sonder, forcing her back ramrod straight. “I need to see what I can sense.”

“I’m at your command, darling.”

She nodded once and took hold of the knob, inhaling deeply before she twisted it and opened the door.

Nothing in all the world could have prepared her.