Rosa and Selina peered about as if the reason for the darkness should be obvious. Tiny coloured glows lingered - the router’s LED, the faint pinpricks of standby lights on dormant devices, scattered like distant stars.

  Selina said, “That's not a power cut.”

  “Not a normal one.” Rosa forced herself to blink, as if that would reset reality. The usual low hum of the climate control persisted, steady and undisturbed, yet the air itself felt different - charged, expectant, as if the house itself was bracing for something.

  A soft click reached her ears.

  She shot to her feet. The sound had been subtle, almost polite - a mechanical whisper rather than the sharp snap of a deadbolt engaging. Her stomach twisted.

  “Was that the door?” Selina muttered.

  Rosa went to check. From the hall doorway, she could just make out the keypad by the entrance - its tiny LED, once green, now a solid, unwavering red. Lock engaged.

  Selina had her phone, thumb fumbling over the screen. “Wait. Look.”

  Both their screens had lit up with new messages. Rosa’s pulse quickened as she read the latest entry:

  Hide. Now.

  The sender was unknown.

  They could hear Georgie, at home in the gloom, claws against tile. Then the sound of a soft, knowing huff. Rosa felt something pull at her hand. A firm but urgent grip.

  “Rowan,” she whispered. The black macaque was a barely perceptible silhouette against the deeper shadows. His eyes gleamed, locked onto hers, his fingers tightening around her wrist. He tugged her, insistent, pulling her back toward the main room.

  The macaque made a low, rolling vocalisation - a warning.

  Outside, a car door clicked shut. Then another. Quiet, calculated - no headlights, no engine rumble. Electric.

  Rosa tensed. A shadow stretched across the front drive, warping as it moved. Then another. Beams of pale light licked at the house’s edges, flashlights flicking on only after they had reached the door.

  A brief, hushed exchange.

  Then…

  A dull thump.

  Then a crash. Rosa flinched as the front door gave way.

  Rowan tightened his grip on her wrist and pulled her sharply in the direction of the sofa. Instinct kicked in, and she followed without question.

  Selina grabbed Rosa’s shoulder, her voice in her ear. “We should run.”

  But Rosa shook her head. They were past that. Behind the sofa.

  Heavy boots crossed the slate floor. Two sets of footsteps - slow, deliberate. The men moved with the confidence of professionals. No hesitation, no wasted movement.

  A sharp vibration in Rosa’s palm. Her phone screen flared briefly in the dark.

  Do not move.

  She barely resisted the urge to recoil. LumiGard. It was somehow watching, directing.

  In the hall, a flashlight beam knifed through the dark, slicing the stillness with surgical precision. It traced the polished slate, swept up the floating staircase, caught the edges of furniture in quick, clinical swipes.

  A moment of eerie quiet stretched as the intruders assessed the space. One of the men hesitated at the base of the stairs, head tilted slightly as if listening, scanning the upper level with cold deliberation. The other peeled away, stepping into the sitting room.

  His movements were slow, practiced. Not the hesitant shuffle of someone unfamiliar with the space, but the deliberate prowl of a man who had done this before. His boots moved without urgency, scuffing softly against the floor. The beam of his flashlight cut through the gloom, dissecting the shadows in harsh, methodical arcs.

  Rosa pressed herself flatter against the floor, her breath shallow. Rowan clung to her side, muscles taut beneath his fur. Selina, next to them, barely shifted, but Rosa could feel the suppressed tremor in her limbs. The light swept closer.

  What if this was all for nothing?

  The thought needled its way through her terror, whispering at the edges of her mind. They’d risked everything - broken into M.A.S.S., fled across the country, put themselves in the crosshairs of people who very clearly knew how to kill - all to save monkeys that might not even be real.

  Her heart pounded harder, not just with fear but with the sickening weight of uncertainty.

  She tried to push the thought away, but it slithered back, persistent. If the monkeys weren’t real - if they were nothing but patterns in the code, digital ghosts wrapped in illusion - then what had she actually done?

  Her pulse stuttered.

  The man loomed just beyond the curve of the sofa, his silhouette a shifting void against the faint spill of moonlight through the windows. His breath was steady but controlled, a measured inhale behind the fabric of his mask.

  Rosa barely dared to breathe, her body felt heavy. The flashlight beam swiped dangerously close, sweeping the space where the floor met the base of the sofa. Dust motes swirled in the artificial light, catching like static in the still air.

  Then - he stopped.

  A long, dreadful pause.

  And then…

  She wasn’t there anymore.

  The world lurched, dissolving into misty moorland, cold stone. A table covered with scribbled eyes - staring, unblinking. The weight of unseen worlds pressing in, watching.

  Somewhere, in the real world, thick-soled, reinforced boots pivoted slightly, and Rosa heard the whisper of fabric as the man adjusted his stance. The sound was terrifying in its mundanity.

  The flashlight beam lifted, angling toward the ceiling, then sliced sideways across the room in a slow, deliberate arc. Selina tracked its movement by the shifting glow on the underside of the sofa, waiting for the inevitable moment it would come sweeping back.

  The scent of the man hit her. Not sweat - something colder. Antiseptic. Gun oil. The faint tang of something synthetic. It made Selina’s stomach turn, her body scream to move. Rosa’s hand tightened around Selina’s wrist.

  Rowan, pressed low against Rosa’s side, his body trembling - not fear, but something close to it. He was listening. Watching. Calculating.

  Rosa had to focus, had to stay present - but at the edges of her mind, the mist thickened, clinging to her thoughts like a parasite. In the haze, she saw again - the cottage, the dim interior, the table covered in frantic, overlapping carvings. Wild and uneven - scrawled in a language of scratches and splinters

  Then a distinct clink.

  The man stiffened. His flashlight jerked toward the far side of the room. Something in the kitchen.

  The man muttered something under his breath. A beat of hesitation - then he moved, following the noise toward the rear of the house.

  As his shadow vanished from sight, Rosa’s phone vibrated in her hand, the light from the screen barely contained beneath her palm.

  Rear staircase. Now.

  Rosa gripped Selina’s sleeve and shifted, barely daring to breathe. The home invader had gone that way. Rowan was already ahead, pulling them with unshakable urgency. His muscles were tense beneath his dark fur, every motion precise, controlled.

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  The man stood right there, at the far end of the kitchen, blocking the way to the tower, his broad frame silhouetted against the dim glow of the emergency lights. His head was tilted, listening, peering through the glass of the back door. Rosa’s grip tightened on Selina’s sleeve.

  Then he moved. Something had shifted. He flicked the lock, pushed the door open, and peered out.

  Silence. Then a rustle. His torchlight caught a flash of red fur vanishing into the dark. He exhaled sharply. “Stupid fox.”

  The moment he stepped outside, Rowan moved. Quick and soundless, he slipped past the open door, pulling Rosa and Selina with him. They hurried for the tower stairs, vanishing into the gloom before the man even thought to turn back.

  Another vibration.

  Roof.

  The square tower aside the back door was where the house’s modern transformation was most striking. The old stone walls met sleek glass panels, the space clean-lined and minimal. A narrow staircase hugged the side, ascending in sharp, angular turns.

  The second man would surely have made his way up the front staircase. He would search from the front of the house first. That gave them a window - small, but maybe enough.

  The wooden stairs creaked once under their weight. Rowan pulled Rosa’s sleeve, his crest high in restless warning.

  Below, they heard the first man come back in from the garden, through the kitchen, prowling the lower floor.

  Rosa tried to control her thoughts as they ascended the last step to the landing that opened to the upper floor. They could hear muted sounds from the house invader searching the bedrooms.

  Rowan pulled. Up. Up the rest of the stairs to the tower roof.

  The night air struck them at once, crisp and edged with salt. Overhead, the night sky arched vast and electric with stars, their cold fire scattered like shards of crushed crystal. Wisps of cloud drifted in slow, spectral ribbons, their edges tinged with the faintest silver, as if the essence of the moon had rubbed onto them.

  The old silver mine chimney, repurposed into this lonely platform, stood sentinel against time, its stonework furrowed by wind and rain, each crack and crevice whispering of forgotten years.

  Beyond the house, the land unfurled in dark, gentle slopes, a patchwork of fields and hedgerows cast in the eerie glow of moonlight. Behind them, the garden lay in quiet contrast - its orderly beds fading into the wilder tangle beyond, where trees huddled at the rim of a wooded valley, their branches netted in shadow. And further still, the land fell away to the hidden cove, where the tide curled and uncurled against the shingle, a slow, endless murmur in the hush of the night.

  But below - movement.

  Through the high glass windows, the house’s interior flickered with shifting light, the invader’s flashlight slicing through the rooms as he made his way toward the rear.

  Then - he stepped back outside.

  Rosa gripped the edge of the parapet, pulse hammering. He wasn’t leaving. He was checking. Searching more carefully. The glow of his flashlight swept across the terrace, creeping toward the garden.

  Rowan pressed close to her side, silent, watchful. The macaque made a low, breathy sound - barely more than a sigh, but full of meaning. He was waiting. Watching.

  Selina barely breathed. “We can’t stay here,” she whispered.

  Another vibration. Rosa’s phone pulsed again.

  "Over the edge. Now."

  She read it twice, her mind rejecting it. Over the edge? That wasn’t a plan - just a sheer drop.

  She glanced at Selina, who shook her head sharply. “No way. Not happening.”

  Rowan made a low, warning cough. His dark eyes flicked to Rosa, then to the parapet.

  Rosa swallowed hard and crept to the edge. A narrow ledge ran along the outer wall - barely wider than a boot sole. The drop beneath it was sheer.

  Selina hissed under her breath. “That’s not a ledge. It's barely wide enough to get a foot on.”

  Footsteps on the stairs. Heavy. Measured. Climbing.

  No time.

  Rowan moved. He sprang lightly onto the parapet, hesitated for the briefest second, then dropped over the edge.

  Rosa’s heart lurched as she watched the macaque land with eerie precision, clinging to the brickwork. His long fingers gripped the cracks in the stone, his feet finding the tiny ledge with natural ease.

  He wasn’t real. The thought slammed through her, cold and certain. None of this should have been real. Rowan was a program, a construct, a simulation of something that had never lived outside a machine. She told herself that - but looking at him now, she couldn’t make herself believe it.

  He wasn’t moving like code.

  He was waiting.

  Rosa turned to Selina. “We have to.”

  Selina’s mouth was a tight line. “You first.”

  More footsteps. Close.

  Rosa swung her leg over. Gripped the parapet, hard. Her boot scraped the wall, searching - searching… Nothing.

  Her stomach lurched. Air beneath her, nothing but air… Then… Contact.

  The ledge caught her weight, barely more than a sliver of stone. She pressed herself flat. The wall scraped her cheek, rough and unyielding. Rowan, inches away, watching

  Selina was right behind her, hands clamped white-knuckled on the parapet. She sucked in a sharp breath and moved. She swung over, dropping heavily. Her boots scraped loud against the stone, sending a scatter of dust down into the night.

  A flashlight beam knifed through the dark below picking out Georgie’s enclosure and flaring over the surrounding trees.

  Rosa clenched her jaw, every muscle screaming as she fought to stay still. Selina pressed flat beside her, fingers clinging to the parapet. Rowan clung to the wall next to her, utterly motionless.

  The door to the roof whispered open, slow, deliberate. A pause. A sniff. Then a bootstep - directly toward them, slow, methodical. Dull, rubberized thuds against the worn surface, the hush of reinforced soles engineered for silence. The flashlight in his hand flared against the dark, a cold, synthetic glare sweeping the empty platform.

  Rosa felt the strain in her fingers, the rough stone biting through her jacket. Her breath felt too loud, her body too hot, as if every cell had become hyperaware of its own existence. Selina was rigid beside her, her fingers digging into the parapet, knuckles white against the dark.

  Rowan looked up at Rosa. His dark eyes reflected the night sky lights in fractured glints, as if his pupils contained tiny, shifting data streams.

  The man prowled forward, the soft creak of his tactical vest shifting as he moved.

  A gust of wind struck from the south, slamming into Selina and throwing her off balance. Her body wrenched sideways, too sudden - her grip faltered. Fingers scraped against stone, slipping. She teetered, gravity dragging her backward. A sharp, panicked sound caught in her throat as her foot skidded, desperate for purchase.

  Rosa’s hand shot out, catching Selina’s arm, just enough to steady her. Selina clung back on, her breath shuddering through clenched teeth.

  At the same moment, a rook exploded from the rooftop with a heavy thrash of wings, buffeted by the same gust that had nearly taken Selina. It clawed - a harsh, startled cry - and veered straight into the beam of the man’s torch.

  He jerked back, startled, raising an arm as the bird wheeled into the night. Rosa barely dared to breathe. If not for that, he would surely have seen them, raised the alarm, and dragged them from the wall like children.

  Then, below…

  The distinct crunch of gravel underfoot. The second man, out of sight.

  “You up there?” The voice crackled through an earpiece, tinny with compression.

  The man on the roof hesitated, the flashlight lowering by a fraction,

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “Nothing.”

  A static pop. A grunt of acknowledgment.

  Then - movement. The man on the roof took a slow step. Another. Then, without ceremony, he turned and retreated. The door clicked shut behind him.

  The silence that followed felt different. Denser. A void left behind by something dangerous.

  Rosa exhaled, and it felt like releasing a bomb.

  For a long moment, no one moved. The wind whispered along the stone, tugging at Rosa’s loose hair.

  Rowan moved first. With eerie ease, he climbed back over the parapet, his long fingers gripping the stonework, his body flowing like water over the edge. Rosa followed, her muscles burning as she hauled herself up, her boots slipping against the uneven surface before she threw herself over, rolling onto the rooftop’s surface with a sharp gasp.

  Selina came last. Her breath heavy as she fought for purchase, her legs trembling with exertion. Rosa reached out, grasping her wrist, and together they pulled until Selina tumbled onto the roof, cursing under her breath.

  They pressed themselves low against the stone, listening.

  Below, voices carried from the front of the house.

  “All the power’s off,” one of the men was saying. “Nobody’s been here for hours.”

  A second voice, rougher. “Not buying it. Cars in the drive. Computer was still warm. Someone’s been through here.”

  A long pause. The wind stirred the trees beyond the garden, a slow, restless whisper.

  Then the first man again, quieter this time. “So we wait?”

  A scrape of boots against gravel. “Yeah we wait!”

  A car door opened - but no engine followed.

  Rosa let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Beside her, Selina exhaled a quiet, shaky laugh. “Well,” she muttered. “That was deeply unpleasant.”

  Rowan simply watched, unblinking. Waiting.

  After a few moments, Rosa crept down the suspended staircase, pressing her back against the wall. Selina was just behind her, barely breathing. The house was dark, the only light coming from the cockpit of the car outside.

  Through the partly open front door, Rosa could see two figures, one standing, the other in the car. Their voices carried in the still night.

  “They’re still inside,” one said. “Phones haven’t moved.”

  Rosa’s grip tightened on her phone. They were tracking them.

  Something shifted outside near the gate - a quick, darting shape. Two sharp, greenish gleams glinted like polished marbles as torchlight caught them. In a flash, the shape bolted, a rust-red blur streaking across the driveway.

  “It’s that wretched fox again.”

  Rosa’s screen lit up. LumiGard:

  Bluetooth monitor - mislead them.

  She nudged Selina and tilted the screen toward her.

  Selina’s eyebrows twitched, but she gave a barely perceptible nod.

  “They're hiding somewhere. We just have to be thorough.” The voice was low, determined.

  Rowan sat at the top of the stairs, his golden eyes gleaming in the dark.

  Another silent message appeared on Rosa’s screen:

  Give to Rowan.

  Without hesitation, the macaque leapt from the stair, dragged Rosa’s smartwatch from her wrist and plunged his little hand into Selina’s pocket, pulling out her earbuds. He then disappeared through the living room as silent as shadow.

  Rosa and Selina stared at each other, about to retreat back up the stairs, when a voice from outside hissed, “Signals still in the house - hold on…”

  The man in the car angled his scanner.

  “Rats! Couple of things just moved - heading away out the back. They ditched their phones.”

  A security light flared in the rear garden.

  “That wasn’t the fox,” one of the men muttered. “It's still out here. They’re sneaking out the back.”

  LumiGard’s message flickered onto their screens:

  Wait.

  The men stilled, listening.

  Then - snap. A deliberate sound from the garden.

  The standing man, sure now: “…That’s them.”

  Another LumiGard message:

  They chase Rowan.

  “Come on,” the second man said. “Signal’s definitely moving.”

  Footsteps crunched as they moved toward the back.

  Another message appeared.

  Now.

  Selina didn’t hesitate. She cracked the front door open, silent as a breath, and they slipped outside.

  Another message.

  Wait.

  The garden light was still glowing.

  The intruders were nowhere in sight.

  Another:

  Go.