Giles took stock before he opened his eyes.

His body seemed to be in good shape. No wooziness from whatever drug they’d injected. Hungry: he’d been lying here since yesterday, empty, unmoving. And his mouth was sandy dry.

But really, if he didn’t have all these memories of Cloud Rock and that lab in New Mexico, this would be like waking up ready for a shower and mouthwash.

Memories of all the nonlinear time seemed to be intact but how could you ever be sure of that?

His eyes when he finally opened them were spiked with crystals of sleep. For a while he stared at the boring ceiling. It seemed silly to stretch but that was what his body wanted.

When he at last looked around, he half expected he’d be alone but Tiffany was there.

She put a hand on his, comforting, making friends. He felt the soft cloth of her gloves again. She gave him an ironic grin. He started to reassure her that he wasn’t upset – but what do you say to someone who tried to kill a fake you in order to have sex with your dead mother? Anyway, his mouth was too dry and he had to clear his throat.

He sat up, stomach hollow and took stock of who he was. He’d looked at all the physical stuff but how was he? While though his body had lain here for a day and a half, he’d been in another world. More than one.

He’d walked into darkness to find Jasmine. He’d held back two demons as a madman ripped open the sky.

He’d acted, instead of waiting to see what would happen. The grief at letting Melanie Greyfire walk away to her death because of a stupid video game still ached, but it didn’t tear.

How could he keep the new self? He was a teller of stories and at last he’d become an interesting character!

Tiffany had cracked the door and peered out. Now she closed and locked it and came over to him. “How are you feeling?” she asked with something approaching shyness.

“Hungry, thirsty, everything you’d expect from someone in a coma for a day and a half. But honestly, pretty good.”

“I shall attempt to ‘rustle you up some grub,’” Tiffany said solemnly. Since when had she become so playful? Little Doree peeped out. “Too bad we can’t get back to Cloud Rock. The conference center always had food.” Cloud Rock now sat upside down in the Kenmare Stone Circle and the people inside still lived the same chunk of time over and over. If Giles understood all the twisty ins and outs correctly.

Tiffany cracked the door again. “Wait quietly and rest. Let me provide for you,” and she slipped out. Giles, warmed by her friendliness but wary, sat up and stretched again. Maybe he could get to Cloud Rock? Determined not to slip back into passiveness, he closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself back there, never mind how or where. But nothing happened.

He jumped as the door opened but it was only Tiffany, carrying a few odd items. “Found the employee break room with a fridge.” She handed him a greasy box of cold Sweet and Sour Pork, three bags of Weight Watchers Cheesy Pizza Protein Puffs, an apple and a water bottle. “I trust you eat meat?”

“I eat everything.” Tiffany perched on the edge of the table while he ate the bland mess gratefully. She chattered and fussed and showed all kinds of ordinary human traits.

The fear he’d had back in the rental car couldn’t be ignored: she was no longer magical demon Tiffany. She was Doree, grown up with a veneer of Oxford la-di-da over her wildness. He almost asked her straight out if her powers were gone but at the last moment was afraid to know. He remembered what she’d said last time he’d asked her something directly: “It were best to retell that bit.”

Better to let the possibility of her magic powers hang like a small, silver flag at the edge of reality. It could sweep in and wave wildly when they were in desperate need. If he didn’t count on it.

He crunched down the last bit of apple and tossed the brown core into a wastebasket. “Any ideas what to do now? All our efforts have been to find me, and we’ve found me. What now?”

You’re the storyteller, tell the story! This time she didn’t blaze those words, just looked at him thoughtfully. He blushed and looked down. What now felt right in terms of story? What needed to happen?”

In that dreadful control room where the man so like Killington had opened a rift in reality, Giles had discovered what he still thought of as a key to this whole affair. He’d only realized what it meant later, in the car driving back to the festival. “We need to find Killington and Jerry,” he said, feeling the rightness of that next move.

“Agreed. Make it happen.” Tiffany lifted an eyebrow at him.

Giles quirked his lip. Make it happen.

Alright.

He’d found he could influence background details in this story he lived. He looked around now for some background detail he could use to help them find Killington.

What did Planners do during the day? He knew vaguely that the Planners were trying to find out about the demon world, but how did they run this festival? There’d still have to be meetings, wouldn’t there?

“There’ll be a notice board,” he said slowly, with growing delight. “A list of who has what room will be posted. That’ll tell us where he is.”

He looked around the room they were in, not expecting immediate results. The walls held only an IKEA print of the Eiffel Tower in black and white. Tiffany said, “Indeed there shall. Off we go then, and find it.”

They turned the cheap aluminum door handle and stepped into the empty hall. “Everyone is resting up for the final event tonight,” Giles narrated, determined to keep the halls deserted.

They found the bulletin board one hall down.

Giles felt his heart leap. This was wonderful: he had asked for a detail and there it was. Like writing a sentence on the next line of Euclid’s sheet.

Among the items were “Planning Meeting, Room 7B.” Tiffany’s eyes glowed with pride that felt as sweet as his mother’s.

As they looked for Room 7B, Giles wondered why he could influence things now that he was awake and back in real time.

But of course he wasn’t awake in real time. He stood on the stage at this moment. He’d almost forgotten: he was telling the audience this story.

With the ease of riding a tricycle they found room 5A and then 6A. But there were no “B” rooms. Giles said nervously, “The B rooms must be on the other side of the building.” Tiffany nodded tersely. The longer they walked dim halls in a seemingly empty building, the more wrong things felt. Walls flowed by like the corridors between the worlds.

Tiffany laid a gloved hand on his bare elbow. One of the recessed fluorescents in the ceiling panel had died and she stared intently into the shadows. Giles felt his heart hammer.

The entrance to Room 7B sat there as quiet and hidden as a lie which is truth told too cleverly.

He heard the voices now, just at the level of awareness. Furtive voices purring like tigers with trapped prey, right on the other side of this office door in a building that smelled of new carpets, coffee and cleaning chemicals.

Tiffany met his eyes at last. He hugged her, feeling doom treading softly towards them. In his arms she felt more than ever like an ordinary mortal: gone was the throbbing power of the time she lay with him under the Chaos sky.

She kissed him chastely on the lips, telling him he was someone she could have loved were she inclined that way, promising with a small shake of her head never to hurt him in order to reach Mary. Giles in kind showed with his small sad smile that he understood, that he treasured her. She felt like Doree at the bottom of the darkened stair with his arm around her.

Oh if only he could be the person he was now three years ago when Melanie Greyfire walked out of their home to her death and he let her go without looking up from his Zork game. How he would have called to her, held her close, told her what a treasure her love was!

They pressed their ears against the door, a vignette from a 19th century postcard: They Listen At Their Master’s Door.

They each saw the shadow that materialized behind the other just as twin blows exploded in their heads and they fell helpless and angry to the toxic-gas-emitting new carpets.