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be fine.” He leaned over the back of the sofa and handed her a blanket and a slightly battered cushion. “Not much, but it’s the best I can do.”
    She took them, grateful that they smelled a little better than the rest of the room. “What about you?”
    He shook his head. “I don’t sleep much. Don’t need to. Besides, there’s always the floor. I’ve slept in worse places, believe you me.”
    Mallory’s voice was getting fuzzy, his words muffled and slow. Or maybe that was just her head...? There was something – something she needed to ask. Perhaps if she just rested her eyes for a minute, she could...
    Alice was asleep before her head touched the cushion.
     
     
    W HEN A LICE OPENED her eyes, she felt warm. Sunlight was streaming in through a small, dirty window, puddling on the floor beside her. And despite the sofa being one of the most uncomfortable things she had ever tried to sleep on, she felt like she had slept long and deeply. She couldn’t quite remember why she was there – not at first, not until the memory of yesterday hit her like a cold wave. Her throat knotted. Her father was dead, her home was gone and she was on the run. With two angels.
    Of course.
    Sitting up, she looked around for Mallory. There was no sign of him, and it wasn’t like there were many places he could be.
    In the daylight, the room didn’t seem quite so bleak. It was pretty untidy, and the smell was – unfortunately – still there, but it could have been worse. The room wasn’t exactly large, either. There was space enough for the sofa and a table in the middle, several ancient, lopsided cupboards and an even more ancient sink against the walls, and that was about it. Two windows, both small and high up – one glazed with small diamond-shaped panes, and one so encrusted with moss and leaves that no light at all made it through. Two doors: one, the door that they had come in through last night and the other, ajar and leading to what looked like a bathroom. Based on the state of the rest of the place, Alice didn’t even want to think about the bathroom. She decided she would cross that particular bridge only when strictly necessary.
    Books were piled everywhere, great teetering stacks of them. Some of the piles had given way, scattering pages and papers across the floor. Judging by the dirty bootprints across some of them, they’d been that way for a while. She leaned forward and picked up a handful of sheets from the rug, and was surprised to see they weren’t in English. Latin, mostly, and some Greek, and, covering pages and pages, a strange, looping handwritten script that she had never seen before.
    “See anything interesting?” Mallory’s voice came from somewhere behind her ear and, startled, Alice dropped the papers. Mallory hopped over the back of the sofa, landing on the seat beside her and setting more dust free. Alice coughed, and tried to wave it away. “Sorry about that,” he muttered and held out a large polystyrene cup. “Coffee?”
    “Thanks.” She took the cup, not about to tell him that, actually, she didn’t really drink coffee. “What’s that?” She pointed at the papers that had fallen at her feet. Mallory gave them a shove with his heel. “None of your business. Those are my notes.”
    “Notes? You mean that’s your handwriting? I’ve never seen anything like that before. It’s not shorthand; what kind of language is it?”
    “Mine,” he said, tersely. “Drink your coffee.” He balanced his own cup on his knee, lifting the plastic lid with one hand and unscrewing the cap of his little flask with the other, pouring a generous amount of its contents into the cup. He paused, then upended the flask over his coffee, emptying it altogether. “So.”
    “So.” Alice took a sip of her drink. It was hot and sour. She forced herself to swallow. “What time is it?”
    “About ten. You seemed pretty out of it, so I thought I’d get some supplies. I, uh, don’t keep much in.” He