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He hadn’t hesitated: Yes.
‘Joan?’ Nick said. He took a step toward her, and Joan startled, jerking back from him. His eyes widened.
It took Joan a long moment to collect herself. ‘Just give me a second.’ She could feel everyone looking at her now. She ran a hand over her face. She just needed to think for a second. Why had Gran come here? Why here?
Joan and Nick had sat at the last booth on the left. Joan found herself taking a few steps toward it. As she did, something on the floor caught her eye—white scratches on the dark wood. Drag marks from chairs? No … the configuration was too regular … Joan peered down, and her heart skipped a beat. ‘Ruth!’ she called.
‘What?’ Ruth came over, followed by the others. ‘What am I looking at?’ she said. ‘These marks?’ Then she recognised them like Joan had. ‘Oh.’
‘What is it?’ Nick asked.
‘It’s a fox,’ Ruth said.
The Hunts had a way of rendering the family sigil, a fox drawn in three quick marks: a V for the head; then an upsidedown semicircle for the body and legs; then a horizontal line striking through the whole thing, extending beyond the semicircle to create a tail.
‘Gran was here,’ Joan said.
‘Is it a message?’ Tom asked.
‘I’ve never seen it by itself,’ Joan said. The Hunt signature was usually accompanied by the person’s initials and some instruction—a get out warning sign or a safe here sign.
‘Maybe she was just saying she was here,’ Ruth said, puzzled.
Joan straightened slowly. The mark was about a third of the way into the room; Gran had placed it on a bare patch of floor, where the line of booths started. Joan pictured Gran standing here. What had she been doing? What had she been thinking? Ruth had said she was worried in the week she’d come here.
Joan took another step. As she did, her arm struck something invisible. She gasped.
‘What is it?’ Ruth asked. She reached out herself, and her hand stopped abruptly in midair. ‘What the hell is that?’
The object seemed flat—or perhaps slightly curved—with no temperature. Joan pushed at it tentatively, and it pushed back, feeling more like magnetic repulsion than a physical object.
Nick ran his palm across the air like he was stroking the flank of a horse. ‘Feels like a wall of some kind. A barrier.’
‘A barrier?’ Jamie reached up and recoiled as he found the object too. He reached again, and this time there was a hint of awe in his expression. ‘I think … I think this is an Ali seal.’
‘An Ali seal?’ Ruth said wonderingly. She seemed as surprised as Jamie, and maybe a little scared.
‘Why would someone put a seal in here?’ Tom murmured. He stretched to his full height; the barrier continued as far as he could reach. Joan imagined it going all the way up to the ceiling.
‘What’s an Ali seal?’ Joan asked.
Frankie had discovered the barrier now too. She batted it with a paw, her squashed head tilted in doggy puzzlement. She barked at it warningly.
‘The Ali family has the ability to lock away places and times so that no one can access them,’ Tom explained.
‘These seals are rare,’ Jamie said.
The hairs rose on the back of Joan’s neck. She peered into the sealed-off area; it looked just like the rest of the café. Was it just a coincidence that she and Nick had been here? And why had Gran visited this place three times? Why had she left a mark where the seal started? ‘There has to be a way to get in there.’
‘You mean break that seal?’ Ruth said, as if Joan had suggested they fly to the moon.
‘Can’t an Ali do it?’ Nick said.
‘That’s not …’ Ruth shook her head. ‘It’s not just that seals are rare. The Ali power is rare—most Alis can’t even wield it.’ To the others, she said, ‘I think they get an exemption at the panels, right? They don’t have to demonstrate a power to be confirmed as an Ali?’
‘Not quite,’ Tom said. ‘My little sister manifested as an Ali. She does have some kind of power.’ He scrubbed a hand over his mouth, considering. ‘Best I can say is that Laila has an affinity with the timeline. It likes her.’
‘Likes her?’ Ruth said.
