Chapter 1:

Four years earlier.

I had turned the paper cup in my hands long enough to crush its rim. The water inside was untouched. Whenever footsteps passed the door, I set it down in case the woman was coming back, and whenever they carried on, I picked it up again and squeezed until the cardboard creaked.

The room held two chairs, a desk and a window that looked out over the roof of a parked ambulance. Beyond the door, people were still being called in for their tests. I kept trying to pick my friends' names out of the voices, and I kept failing. My stomach had been unsettled since morning. When the others noticed how quiet I was, I told them I hadn't eaten enough, not wanting to admit how frightened I was of what the tests might find.

We all hade come together that day. Lena had checked three times that we all had our identification, even after Elise pointed out that she was the one who always forgot hers. Theo complained about the queue until Noah offered to find us coffee, and then the line began to move and the offer died. For an hour, having them around me had made it easy to believe we would be home before lunch.

Then our names were called, one at a time. When it was my turn, Lena squeezed my hand before letting go, and I told her I would be back in a minute. As I followed the technician through the doors, I glanced back at the others and thought how quickly one corridor could pull five people apart.

Now I went back over my assessment, looking for anything they might have noticed. There had been a warmth in my palms. But I had been pressing them together while a technician talked me through the equipment, and I had decided that was all it was. I held on to that explanation because it was the only one I could stand. If they found nothing, I could walk out into the daylight, wait for the others in the sun and argue about where to eat.

Before the gates, we had only just begun to feel comfortable making those plans again.

When COVID restrictions began easing, the five of us started meeting for dinner again, and we stretched those evenings past all sense because nobody wanted to be the first to leave. We had birthdays to make up for and holidays we had been too afraid to book. One night, someone wanted a beach and someone else wanted a city, and every suggestion turned into an argument that ended with all of us gasping with laughter. My food went cold while I talked. Whenever someone reached for a coat, someone else offered another drink or began a story that made them sit down again. We were careless with those hours, the way you can only be when you believe there will be more of them. I can still feel the warmth of that room better than I can remember what was so funny.

Then the videos began.

They were blurry enough to dismiss: ripples in the air above a field, a dark shape hanging between two buildings. The comments explained the shadows and the awkward cuts, and I believed them. I sent one to a friend as a joke and forgot about it by the next message.

The one I couldn't dismiss was filmed from inside a car stopped in traffic. Further up the road, people had left their doors open and stepped out to stare at something above them. A dark opening hung in the air, its edges shifting around a shape I couldn't make out. The person filming kept asking what was happening. Someone told the driver to reverse, but for a few seconds the camera stayed fixed on the road.

Whatever came through dragged itself out on limbs that bent in the wrong places. When it moved off, I saw a man lying beside one of the cars, trying to push himself onto an elbow, one hand stretched towards the open door. The person filming screamed at him to get up. I found myself waiting for him to manage it.

The creature stepped on him. His body jerked beneath its weight, and the hand reaching for the car dropped to the tarmac. Someone screamed. The phone fell and showed the dashboard while the driver finally began to reverse. I waited for the camera to turn back. I needed to see him move, or someone reach him, anything that would tell me I had misunderstood.

The recording ended first. I sat with the phone in my hand until the screen dimmed, then sent it to our group chat with a single line. Has anyone seen the news?

By morning, there were videos from other cities. Within a week, whole neighbourhoods had been evacuated. Families posted photographs of the missing and asked anyone who had seen them to get in touch. Some posts were updated with relief. Others stayed exactly as they were while newer ones pushed them down the screen. People began calling the openings gates, though nobody knew why they were appearing. Some opened deep in forests and went unnoticed until the creatures reached a city. Others opened over busy streets and gave people seconds to run. Cameras sent through showed strange skies, or died the moment they crossed. Soldiers followed the cameras. Many never came home.

At the flat, we kept bags by the door and checked road closures before going out. Elise packed spare chargers in with the bottled water. Lena kept adding food, then taking it out again when she couldn't lift the bag. We promised to text on getting home, and if one of us took too long, someone called and tried to sound casual when it was answered.

Then people began to change. A woman lifted part of a collapsed building to free her neighbours. A man in hospital shattered every window in his room without leaving his bed. Others produced fire in their hands or moved objects without touching them. We called them espers, and when they were asked to fight, most of them did. For a while, it felt like an answer. We watched people walk home who should have been lost.

But it didn't last. The gates kept opening, and they were sent out again before they had recovered from the last one. They came back shaking and feverish, unable to sleep despite having no visible injuries. At first, we thought they needed rest, but some continued to worsen even after they were kept away from combat. Eventually, doctors learned that using their abilities left their energy unstable, with the strain building each time they fought. We called it overload. If it rose too far, an esper could enter a stage called rampage and lose full control of their power and mind.

In the worst cases, their bodies began to change as well. Bones shifted beneath the skin, and limbs bent until they could no longer carry their weight. Some of the creatures we were fighting still wore the rags of uniforms. We called it corruption, and there were reports that hatred and resentment could make the transformations worse, leaving some creatures drawn to people or places they had known before. But even espers who had used the last of their strength to save strangers could change, and nobody could tell us why some recovered while others didn't.

The discovery of guides finally gave doctors a way to help those who were still getting worse. They could sense unstable energy inside an esper and use their own to bring it back into balance through touch. Espers who had been getting worse began to recover. Guiding took strength from the guides too, and they needed time to rest between sessions. How much they could help depended on their abilities and their compatibility with the esper, and there was still plenty nobody understood. But people who had been beyond the reach of other treatment were getting better. Bases opened, teams were ranked, and monitoring bands let espers read their own numbers before they got sick. On the news, espers were shown in uniform, walking out of gates. Guides were hardly shown at all. When they were, someone was carrying them.

I told myself we were finding a way to live with it.

When testing came to our area, the five of us agreed to go together. We all understood why they needed guides and espers. None of us had asked the others what we would do if it was one of us.

The door opened. I straightened and put the cup down before I could spill it, and only then noticed what I had done to it. It was crushed past saving. The woman who had run my assessment sat opposite me and opened a folder. I watched her eyes travel down the page, then up to my face, and I knew before she spoke.

"Your results show that you're a guide."

I looked at her for a moment, hoping I had misheard, but she waited with the folder open in front of her. There was nothing uncertain in her expression.

"A guide."

"Yes." She let a moment pass. "I know this is a lot to take in."

My mouth had gone dry. I thought of the footage, of the guides who were carried, and looked down at my hands. They had felt warmer than usual during the assessment, but that was all. I tried to remember anything else I might have overlooked, something that would make her answer less of a surprise, but until that morning I hadn't felt any different.

I wanted to know my rank, though I was afraid of the answer. Higher ranks meant being able to help stronger espers, and I couldn't imagine they would keep someone like that far from the dangerous missions. A few minutes earlier, I had been hoping to leave with nothing to worry about. Now I was hoping there would be a limit to what they could ask of me.

"What's my rank?"

"We'll need further testing for that."

She slid a form across the desk. My name and address were printed at the top, and below them someone had already filled in the name of an institute. She told me I would be placed there while they completed my assessment and that they would teach me to use my abilities safely.

"Placed." I looked up. "Do I have to stay there?"

"There's accommodation on site."

That wasn't an answer, and we both knew it. "For how long?"

"That depends on your progress."

Intake was arranged for Monday. I tried to count the days between now and then and lost my place halfway through. The form had sections on training, accommodation and duties, then a line for my signature. I read slowly, searching for one sentence that said I could say no. When I asked to take it home and read it first, she told me I would have a copy, but they needed to confirm my placement today.

Her voice was gentle. She left the pen on the desk between us and waited while I went back over the form. I asked her to go through it with me, and she did: which documents to bring, where to report, how to reach reception. When I asked whether I could come home between assessments, she said the institute would explain its leave arrangements.

I signed, took my copies and thought only of how badly I wanted to see the others.

Lena saw me first. She stood so fast that her bag slid off her knees, and Elise caught it. Noah shifted along the row to make room.

"Well?" Lena said.

I sat down. "Guide."

Her breath left her, and she took the seat beside me. "Me too."

Her shoulder pressed against mine. I should have been relieved that we had got the same result. But neither of us was.

"Esper," Elise said, before I could ask. She glanced at Noah. "Both of us."

He nodded, his papers resting between his knees. I thought of the man on the road, one hand reaching for a car door. Then I thought of Noah, who couldn't walk past a stray cat without stopping, and I put the picture away before it could finish. I looked towards the corridor, and Lena followed my gaze.

"Theo went in just after you. He shouldn't be much longer."

I kept watching the door. Beside me, Lena fought a packet of sweets, lost twice, and Noah held out his hand until she surrendered it. He tore it open and passed it back, and she offered it to me first.

"Take one before I finish them."

"Give us a chance. Noah's only just opened them."

She smiled and held the packet closer until I took one. It took Elise three attempts to be talked into hers, and Noah pointed out she hadn't eaten since breakfast. She took one and let her head fall back against the wall, laughing a little too loudly.

Theo came out a few minutes later. He stopped when he saw us, then crossed the room and took the sweet Lena held out. Esper, he said, no rank yet, the same as the rest of us. We laid our papers out and leaned in close enough that nobody had to speak above a murmur. The same institute was printed on every form, with the same arrival time and the same number to call with questions. Lena asked whether that meant we would stay together, her knee bouncing as she looked between us. I wanted to believe it did, but the matching forms were all we had to go on.

I turned my last page over, though I had already read it. Across from me, Theo was doing the same. After a while, Noah gathered his papers and said his mum was home, and she might understand some of this. I nodded before anyone else could answer. Usually the boys came to the flat I shared with Lena and Elise, but today I was glad someone else might help us work out what to do. I didn't want to spend the afternoon reading those pages with only our own guesses to go on.

Outside, we slowed to let an ambulance pull past the entrance, and nobody spoke until it turned the corner. On the walk, we compared what we had each been told. Every version was slightly different, and none of them explained anything. By the time we reached Noah's house, I was too tired to keep trying.

His mother met us in the hallway. Her smile went out when she saw the papers. Noah asked if we could sit down first, and she told us to come in.

She put the kettle on while we crowded around the kitchen table. I pulled out the chair with the loose leg and sat down carefully, catching Theo's smile as he took the one beside me. Lena settled on my other side and slipped her hand into mine. I held it while Noah's mother brought the mugs over, then let go to help make room.

Noah's mother listened while we told her the results, her hands wrapped around a mug she never drank from. She offered to read the forms, fetched her glasses and sat down with us. She read the page on duties twice, and her mouth went thin.

"Does it say whether they have to consult you before moving you?" she asked.

Nobody answered. She set the page down and smoothed it flat with her palm, as if that might make it say something else. Then she found the sections on visits and leave and wrote out the questions we still needed to ask, her handwriting steadier than her voice had been.

"Have any of you eaten properly?"

Our faces must have answered. She warmed up food while we kept reading, and when she set a plate in front of me, I realised I was starving. Lena reached past the papers for a fork. Noah cleared a space for the dishes. For a few minutes, everyone was busy with something we understood.

We stayed long after the plates were empty. Monday kept coming up, along with packing, calling our families and what would happen to the flat. Noah's mother helped us make a list, then told us we didn't have to solve everything tonight. Elise laughed at something Theo said, and Noah argued with him about it. Theo's knee knocked against mine beneath the table as he turned to answer, and I found myself smiling as I listened to them.

Lena's hand found mine beneath it. I held on while the conversation continued around us.