She so wanted to tell him. To warn him.

How many more trips, Liam? How many before I’m looking at you and seeing a dying old man?

But she couldn’t. Not yet. Foster had told her it would be unkind for him to know his fate too early.

‘ Let him enjoy the freedom of seeing history for a bit; seeing his future, his past… at least give him that for a while before you tell him he’s dying.’

Liam smiled his lopsided smile. On the face of a grown man, it might have been called rakish, charming even. On him it looked just a little mischievous. ‘You all right there, Maddy?’

‘Yeah.’ She nodded. ‘Yeah… I’m fine.’

He let go of her arm and checked his timepiece. ‘Return window any second now.’

Almost on cue, a gentle breeze whistled up the alley, sending the loose debris of rubbish skittering along the cobble-stones. A moment later, the air several yards from them shimmered like a heat haze: a ball of air twelve feet in diameter, hovering a foot off the ground. Through the portal she could just make out the twisting, undulating shapes of the archway beyond and Sal waiting impatiently for them.

You have to tell him, sometime, Maddy. Tell him time travel will slowly kill him.

She didn’t like the fact that Foster had left the decision to her. Having secrets like that, having something she couldn’t share with him or Sal.

And what about that note?

She could feel the lump of balled paper in her glove, something else she was being asked to keep from her friends. And why? And who was Pandora? She didn’t like that… it felt like she was being used.

What? Like you just used that young bank teller?

‘Come on, then,’ said Liam, stepping forward with the jewellery case in his hands.

‘Liam?’

He stopped. ‘What?’

She could tell him about the note. She could also tell him about the damage time travel was silently wreaking on him. That every time he went back in time subtle corruption was occurring to every cell in his body, ageing him long before his time. She decided she’d want to know, to know that every time she’d stepped through a portal she was knocking perhaps five or ten years off her natural life. She’d want to at least be able to choose for herself whether she was prepared to make that sacrifice for the rest of mankind.