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“Brian Three made a lentil curry for the evening meal. A full pot. It has vanished entirely.”

I consider this properly, mostly to buy myself a moment before I have to formulate a response involving the phrase end times in relation to missing dinner. “Could the goats have got into it?”

“The goats do not eat lentil curry, Brian.”

“Goats will eat anything, in my experience.”

She waves this away entirely, already moving on. “Brian, listen to me…”

I interrupt her, mostly in a scramble to buy even more time. “It’s Bunny now, actually. I don’t think I’ve ever actually told you that.”

I feel a small flutter of nerves saying it, which is ridiculous, given everything else currently happening in this conversation, but there’s something about telling her directly, for the first time, rather than having it simply arrive through Felix or a customer, that makes it feel like it matters more than it probably should.

Her eyes go wide, delighted, something clicking into place behind them with visible force. “Of course. Of course it is written.”

“Sorry, what’s written?”

“That the Light shall be given a new name, bestowed by the unsmiling, diminutive defeater of kings.” She says this with total, reverent confidence, as if she’s quoting scripture.

It’s an uncanny resemblance to my extremely short, extremely sarcastic boss. Never mind the fact I haven’t told her it was Felix who gave me my name. But I’m still not going to believe it. Bunny is my name. Something in my life that’s free from prophecy.

“Felix isn’t a defeater of kings, Magdalene, he’s a barista.”

“Is he unsmiling?”

“Mostly, yes.”

“Diminutive?”

“He’s five foot four and would fight you over that description.”

“Then it fits,” she says, entirely satisfied.

I open my mouth to argue further, and then stop, because it occurs to me, with the particular slow horror of a joke landing several seconds late, that it does actually fit, rather perfectly. Given that Felix quite literally trapped an actual shadow king in a summoning circle in his own living room and has been living with him ever since, the king in question having fallen hopelessly, helplessly in love with his captor somewhere along the way. Defeater of kings might be the single most accurate thing Magdalene has said all day.

I decide not to share this realisation with her. Some things are better left unconfirmed.

Nevertheless, I feel something in my chest sink slowly downward. Not just because I’ve lost something I thought was mine, but because I really, genuinely don’t want it to be end times. I don’t mind the idea of saving the world eventually, in theory, someone has to, and apparently that someone is me, but given the choice I’d honestly rather just make lattes, pass my law degree, and kiss my shadow occasionally on quiet evenings that don’t involve anyone shouting my old name across a university quad.

“Has the mark appeared,” Magdalene asks, suddenly urgent, reaching for my arm.

“What mark?”

“In the crook of your elbow shall appear a star, for he is the star amongst the dark.” She’s already turning my arm over before I’ve properly agreed to let her, pushing my sleeve up.

We both go quiet.

There, in the soft skin at the inside of my elbow, is a small, perfect star, dark against my skin, the sort of mark that has absolutely no business being there and yet very much is.

That’s new, I think, faintly. And then, with the particular desperate optimism of someone grasping for any explanation less enormous than the obvious one, I wonder if maybe I got drunk, got a tattoo and forgot? It’s a reasonable explanation. Except I don’t drink, except at game night and I don’t think my friends would let me get a tattoo, or if they did, they’d definitely mention it the next day. And every day after that. And besides, Dark would never allow me to do anything so permanent while not being in my right mind. He’s good like that.

Magdalene makes a sound somewhere between a sob and a triumphant cheer. “It is confirmed. Oh, Brian. Bunny. I must go. There is so much to prepare. The bunker needs stocking properly this time, not like the scare in ninety-eight.” She’s already hurrying off across the quad, kaftan streaming behind her, muttering about tinned goods and water purification tablets.

“BRIAN.” Sebastian yells, leaning out of the lecture hall window. “It’s presentation time.”

I look down at the star on my arm for one more long moment, then pull my sleeve back down and run for the door.

The presentation goes fine. Better than fine, actually, I’m rather proud of my section on implied terms. Though I couldn’t tell you afterwards a single detail of what Sebastian said during his, my mind entirely elsewhere, cataloguing the fact that I haven’t felt so much as a flicker of cold down my spine all afternoon. Even Sebastian notices, at one point, asking if I’m all right in a tone that manages to sound almost genuinely concerned rather than mocking, which is new for him and which I don’t have the spare attention to properly appreciate right now.