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‘Not. Possible.’

‘So I’ll do a deal. If this doesn’t work, I’ll go. I’ll just leave you to it. You can fix this history, this culture, however you like.’

Enrique’s face shuddered, a new set of eyes swivelling in. He looked at the Doctor with scorn. ‘Piece of paper. Can’t go. Into. Pictures.’

The Doctor was within reach of the crouching figure now. The creature had edged closer too, the fields of the two System constructions starting to bleed into one another. Enrique’s face flickered again, pain and fear dominating. ‘Too close. Too much mass. Dangerous.’

The Doctor nodded. He’d wondered about that. Something about the matter the creature was made from was reacting to Enrique’s presence. Or vice versa. The Absolute was literally unable to connect to the confusion he had created. Force them to combine and the mass would be too great. The Doctor’s fingers found the pair of nail scissors he’d been surreptitiously hunting for in his pockets.

‘Watch,’ he said, holding the torn cover and the scissors in front of him like a sleight of hand magician. He resisted the urge to shoot his cuff as part of the act. Enrique’s eyes followed them, frowning. ‘A simple piece of paper. Barely big enough to cover my face.’

The Doctor folded the card in half, running his nail along the card to sharpen the fold. He made straight cuts. Alternating between cuts in from the fold almost to the edges and ones from the edge almost to the fold. Enrique sidled closer, glancing fearfully back at the creature. The creature pushed closer, its low chant becoming a growing growl of noise.

The Doctor smiled, slowly. He started cutting along the fold, leaving the two outer loops of card whole. He held the scissors up and made a show of putting them away. Then he carefully unfolded the cover, still holding its shape and held it up to show the Absolute.

‘Still think we can’t pass through the picture?’

He unfurled the card with a flick of his wrist. The cuts zigzagged out. The huge loop of card fell around all three of them.

Then it fell into the dust and ashes, coiling back on itself. The balcony was empty.

* * *

She had been dragged, almost doubled with pain, along corridors. Then thrust into a blank concrete room. The walls were unadorned grey, as were the floor and ceiling.

‘Sit in the chair,’ a voice commanded.

Looking about, Anji spotted a plain wooden chair bolted to the floor in the centre of the room. She straightened, her intercostal muscles still wrenching with pain as she moved. Walked over to the chair and sat. The wooden bar of the back pressed into her spine but she sat as straight as possible, determined not to show how nervous and in pain she was. They weren’t about to let her out, as she had briefly hoped back in the cell. There was no one in the room. She wasn’t even facing a mirror, as she had half expected to be. Yet a voice had told her what to do.

She glanced about. There must be a speaker somewhere. Nothing. Looking down, she noticed a small round drain beneath her chair. There was still water pooled around the rim of it. Her spine gave a jolt as she took in what it might mean. This is ridiculous, she thought, I’m from the twenty-first century. I’ve read reports on modern torture that have made me feel physically sick. They didn’t have nearly so many medically researched and specific cruelties back in the thirties. No, another part of her tremored, they were much cruder back in this time.

No one had come in yet. There had been no commands from the hidden speaker. This was going to be part of it, obviously. Make her sit and wait, building up her own fear as she wondered what they were going to do to her. She folded her arms. She was on to this trick, she could wait. She wondered how long she had been in the room already. How long had she been stuck in this hellish prison? She’d lost track of time. Surely the Doctor would be on his way by now? Maybe he didn’t know she had been arrested? Maybe something had happened to him? How many days had she been waiting,