I didn’t understand to begin with. I frowned, and then it hit me. She wasn’t offering me forgiveness, a second chance or rescue-I was far too bitter and twisted for that. No, she was offering me the one thing that I would never, could never have. She was offering me redemption. After all I’d done to her, all the things I’d planned to do, she was willing to risk her life to give me one small chance to atone. And what’s more, she knew I would take it. She was right. We were more alike than I thought.

The roof fell away in patches as the erasure started to pull the containment room apart.

“What do I do?”

She indicated the twin latching mechanisms that were positioned eight feet apart. I held the handle and pulled it down on the count of three. The hatch sprung open, revealing an empty, black void.

“Thank you,” she said as the erasure crept inexorably across the room. The sum total of the book was now a disk less than eight feet across, and we were in the middle of what looked like a swirling cloud of dirt and detritus, while all about us the wind nibbled away at the remaining fabric of the book, reducing it to undescriptive textdust.

“What will it be like?” I asked as Thursday peered out into the inky blackness.

“I can’t tell you,” she replied. “No one knows what happens after erasure.”

I offered her my hand to shake. “If you ever turn this into one of your adventures,” I asked, “will you make me at least vaguely sympathetic? I’d like to think there was a small amount of your humanity in me.”

She took my hand and shook it. It was warmer than I’d imagined.

“I’m sorry about sleeping with your husband,” I added as I felt the floor grow soft beneath my feet. “And I think this is yours.”

And I gave her the locket that had come off when we fought.

As soon as Thursday1-4 returned my locket, I knew that she had finally learned something about me and, by reflection, her. She was lost and she knew it, so helping me open the hatch and handing over the locket could only be altruism-the first time she had acted thus and the last time she acted at all. I climbed partially out of the hatch into the Nothing. There was barely anything left of the book at all, just the vaguest crackle of its spark growing weaker and weaker. I was still holding Thursday1-4’s hand as I saw her body start to break up, like sandstone eroded by wind. Her hair was being whipped by the currents of air, but she looked peaceful.

She smiled and said, “I just got it.”

“Got what?”

“Something Thursday5 said about hot baths and a martini.”

Her face started to break down, and I felt her hand crumble within mine like crusty, sun-baked sand. There was almost nothing left of Fiasco at all, and it was time to go.

She smiled again, and her face fell away into dust, her hand turned to sand in mine, and the spark crackled and went out. I let go and was-

The textual world that I had become so accustomed to returned with a strange wobbling sensation. I found myself in another core-containment room pretty much identical to the first-aside from the spark, which crackled twenty times more brightly as readers made their way through the book. I picked myself up, shut and secured the hatch and made my way up the steps and toward the exit, fastening the locket around my neck as I did so.

I couldn’t really say I was saddened by Thursday1-4’s loss, as she would almost certainly have killed me and done untold damage if she’d lived. But I couldn’t help feeling a sense of guilt that I might have done more for her. After all, it wasn’t strictly her fault-she’d been written that way. I sighed. She had found a little bit of me in her, but I knew there was some of her in me, too.

I cautiously opened the containment room door and peered out. I was in a collection of farm buildings constructed of red brick and in such a dilapidated state of disrepair it looked as if they were held together only by the moss in the brickwork and the lichen on the roof. I spotted Adam Lambsbreath through the kitchen window, where he was scraping ineffectually at the washing-up with a twig. I made the sign for a telephone through the window at him, and he pointed toward the woodshed across the yard. I ran across and pushed open the door.

There was something nasty sitting in the corner making odd slavering noises to itself, but I paid it no heed other than to reflect that Ada Doom had been right after all, and found the public footnoterphone that I needed. I dialed Bradshaw’s number and waited impatiently for him to answer.

“It’s me,” I said. “Your plan worked: She’s dust. I’m in Cold Comfort Farm, page sixty-eight. Can you bring a cab to pick me up? This is going to be one serious mother of a debrief.”

38. The End of Time

By the time I arrived back home, it was dark. Landen heard my key in the latch and met me in the hallway to give me a long hug, which I gratefully received-and returned.

“What’s the news on the reality book show?”

“Canceled. Van de Poste has been on the TV and radio explaining that due to a technical error, the project has been shelved-and that the stupidity surplus would be discharged instead by reinvigorating the astronomically expensive and questionably useful Anti-Smite shield.”

“And Pride and Prejudice?”

“Running exactly as it ever did. But here’s the good bit: All the readers who bought copies of the book to see the Bennets dress up as bees continued reading to see if Lizzie and Jane would get their men and if Lydia would come to a sticky end. Naturally, all the new readers were delighted at what happened-so much so that people with the name of Wickham have had to go into hiding.”

“Just like the old days,” I said with a smile.

The passion for books was returning. I thought for a moment and walked over to the bookcase, pulled out my copy of The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco and riffled through the pages. They were blank, every single one.

“How are Friday and the girls?” I asked, dropping the book into the wastepaper basket.

“Friday is out. The girls are in bed.”

“And Pickwick?”

“Still bald and a bit dopey. So…you managed to do what you set out to do?”

“Yes,” I said quietly, “and Land, I can’t lie to you anymore. The Acme Carpets stuff is just a front.”

“I know,” he said softly. “You still do all that SpecOps work, don’t you?”

“Yes. But, Land, that’s a front, too.”

He placed a hand on my cheek and stared into my eyes. “I know about Jurisfiction as well, Thurs.”

I frowned. I hadn’t expected this. “You knew? Since when?”

“Since about three days after you’d said you’d given it up.”

I stared at him. “You knew I was lying to you all those years?”

“Pumpkin,” he said as he gently ushered me into the house and closed the door behind us, “you do love me, don’t you?”

“Yes, but-”

He put his finger to my lips. “Hang on a minute. I know you do, and I love it that you do. But if you care too much about upsetting me, then you won’t do the things you have to do, and those things are important-not just to me but to everyone.”