‘Come see,’ he says, leaning out, looking down. ‘It’s so beautiful. You’re never going to fall. Not when you’re with me.’
I shake my head, look back fearfully at the doorway we just came through. But Ryan takes me by the hands and draws me in front of him, crossing his arms around my waist, pulling me against him so firmly that I cannot move, cannot fall.
His cheek is against mine as he says, ‘Look. Just look. It won’t erase what he did to you — nothing could ever do that — but every time you face down your fear is an act of defiance.’
Just for a moment, against my better judgment, I let myself lean into Ryan. And though I must close my eyes briefly to overcome a chill horror at the distance we are from the ground, little by little I find myself gazing further outward, taking in the march of rainwashed streets and buildings that appear to crowd right up to the horizon in every direction. Milan seems to radiate outwards from the Duomo as if the cathedral is the city’s literal heart.
I turn in his arms and point shakily to the north, at the line of hills I see there, purple in the wintry light, the jagged line of mountains rising behind them. ‘That’s where we need to be.’
I peer down at the northern edge of the Piazza del Duomo so far below. Immediately to the Galleria’s right, opposite us, stands an undamaged stone building roughly the same height, with a series of imposing arches marking the ground-level entryway. Solid and austere, it has a modern rooftop terrace with a curve-fronted glass and steel structure rising behind it. Both are deserted at this hour. A barrier of live greenery about chest height runs along all three sides of the terrace, and there’s a head-high barrier of glass and steel that stands between the hedge and a collection of outdoor umbrellas and groups of matching tables and chairs, set out in neat rows.
‘Seems close enough to touch, doesn’t it?’ Ryan says, echoing my own thoughts. ‘It’s like we could just step down and take a seat. If you ignore the, uh, massive drop.’
Then time seems to slow, and speed up, at the same time.
For I see three men appear on the stairs at the far end of the walkway, all dressed in plain, black, heavy robes and shapeless black overcoats, a small stain of white at the base of each man’s throat. They are framed in a succession of flying buttresses with identical rectangular doorways set beneath them, each doorway cut to the exact same dimensions as the next; the whole vista so detailed, so dreamlike, it could have been lifted from a work by Escher. The old men stop dead at the sight of us, just standing there. The one in the lead gives a shout.
I feel Ryan’s arms go rigid around me as he sees them for the first time.
‘State lì! Stop! We would talk with you!’ the priest says, flinging one hand out towards us.
My head fills with the sound of their distinct energies, their peculiar human signatures, drawing closer and getting noisier as they move towards us along the walkway. I take in the terrifying drop before me — almost one hundred and fifty feet down — and feel the chill wind of vertigo sweep through me, that sensation of falling as if I will never, ever stop.
The elderly priest, arm still outstretched, shouts from the other end of the narrow corridor of stone, ‘Che vuole con noi?’ What do you want with us?
‘Pietro? Is that you?’ I hear from inside the stairwell.
I feel that sense of convergence strengthening, the cacophony of five separate living beings moving towards me, all set at different frequencies, concerned with vastly different issues, their thoughts a mixture of the alarmed and the mundane.
‘Mercy!’ Ryan gasps, turning his face in the direction of the new voice, then back towards me. ‘What do we do?’
I turn to face him, grip him fiercely by the arms. ‘Are you sure this is what you want?’ I say feverishly. ‘You and me?’
‘You know it is,’ he gasps, ‘but why do you ask?’
His last word turns into a yelp as I grasp him tightly beneath the arms and vault onto a carved stone finial that forms part of the first of the stone barriers. We teeter for an instant as I take in the way the tiled roof drops away from me into the second barrier and then into empty … space.
‘Mercy!’ Ryan yells, unable to process what he’s seeing: the ground so far below. I’m doing the impossible, balancing here, taking the whole of his weight easily when there’s no solid ground beneath his feet, or mine.
But Ryan’s with me, and if he’s with me, I won’t ever fall. That’s what he told me and it’s what I tell myself now.
I turn my head for an instant, the chill breeze lifting the curling ends of my dark hair, my eyes narrowing first on the astonished trio of men clustered at one end of the roof, then on the young man with dark eyes and close-cropped dark hair just emerging from the stairwell to my right.
Then I snap my eyes forward. Look at the place I need to get to, where I need to be. It’s funny how desperation feels a little like love. Makes you do things your conscious mind would never countenance.
But I am what I am, and that means I will always have a choice.
And then I throw myself into thin air, Ryan held fast in my arms.
‘Mercy!’ he yells again, feeling the magnetic pull of the world beneath us.
Though I am beset by fears that none of my kind has ever faced before, I soar — against gravity, against all reason.
Freedom is all that matters. Freedom, and Ryan.
As I cross the abyss that lies between one solid surface and another, I know that I am power, and that I’m back.
I land badly as usual, on the rooftop terrace beyond the double barrier of greenery, glass and steel I’d glimpsed from the roof of the Duomo, almost taking out a row of chairs and tables. One seat teeters for a moment, then makes an iron clanging sound as it falls over. It sounds like an explosion.
We were there, and now we’re here, and it’s only taken seconds. I’m exultant, half-disbelieving, yet also strangely clear-headed. Ryan was right. Every time I face down my fear is an act of defiance that can only make me stronger.
I release my death grip on Ryan, who sways a little on the spot, wordless at feeling a new surface beneath his feet. I look back at the Duomo and see five figures in black gathered beyond the barriers of stone that resemble shark’s teeth. They’re waving their hands, discussing us heatedly. I see the younger one, the one from the stairs, run back up the walkway and disappear. The old priest stares down at us across the chasm, awe and astonishment on his lined face.
‘Where … are we?’ Ryan slurs, feeling around for a chair and sitting heavily. ‘When my brain is … working again, you’ll have to tell me what the hell just happened. You have this way of making me … lose my grip on reality. Being with you is like being in a dream —’
‘You can’t wake from?’ I finish softly. ‘Welcome to my world.’
Ryan looks up at me for a moment, as if he’s imprinting my new face, my travelling face, upon his memory, or making his peace with it.
‘Ready?’ I say quietly. ‘We’ve got to keep moving.’
Ryan blinks, taking in the silent terrace around us, the overturned chair, his eyes widening as he spies the watching men gathered on the roofline opposite. ‘What are we still doing here!’ he exclaims. ‘Let’s go.’
There’s the sudden wail of an alarm being triggered, then the snick of a lock or bolt, a door opening.
I