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The wind rayed her hair around her head.

The inside of his chest felt molten.

She was the storm. For two weeks, she’d been sweeping through him, frenzying his blood, flooding him with desire, leaving great swaths of happiness and whirlpools in his thoughts that went round and round a question he couldn’t ask, or even finish.

What if, what if, what if.

But he’d brood about that later.

“Take care when you brake,” he advised her. “The road is treacherous.” He turned his eyes on it. If they slid over the verge, they’d plunge into the pathless waste where gorse would claw them to a standstill.

The rumble of thunder was constant now. There was more debris in the wind than rain.

“It’s like being shaken in a box of rocks!” Muriel’s shout sounded muffled.

“What’s not to love?” he shouted back. If she laughed in response, the thunder drowned it out. Something pricked his jaw, and something else pricked the corner of his eye.

He didn’t think she was laughing, not anymore.

They battled forward.

In the distance, tiny twin flames appeared, burning through the murk. They seemed to hover, and then to lower down from the air.

A trumpet blasted, and blasted again.

His first thought was of the end. The end of the world. A great red dragon whipping his tail, casting the stars to earth, as in William Blake’s illustrations for the Book of Revelation. And then he blinked and understood.

Bicycle lamps. The Mutton Wheelers were coasting down a hill, coming toward them.

A dumbfounded laugh escaped his lips.

The storm was apocalyptic indeed if it had prompted Deighton to double back to ensure their safe passage.

He raised his arm. After a long moment, Deighton saw him and did the same. Egg blew the halt, and the wheelmen stopped, dismounted, and turned their machines. No one said a word as Kit and Muriel joined the column. Egg blew another call, and they were off.

The pace was slow uphill. Kit had rain in his eyes, in his mouth, in his ears. When the ground leveled, he tried to call for a halt, but it was like shouting underwater. No one heard. As they began to descend, into a wooded valley, the mud beneath their wheels moved with them. They weren’t riding anymore but sliding. The wind kept slapping them with stinging debris. And then a drenching gust hit like a fist. Kemble went over, knocked flat into Butterfield, and Prescott and Egg crashed into them from behind. It was no good braking. Kit swung wide and shot off a ledge, or that was how it felt. All he knew was that his wheels left the ground. His stomach rose up, and then the bicycle came down, hard, and he bounced off the seat into a heap of muddy leaves.

He lay on his stomach, dazed, feeling not pain but a kind of heaviness, only dimly aware of the rain pattering on his back, as though he’d become one with the mud. He was some time tottering to his feet. He dragged the Rover from a bush and staggered with it toward the scene of the crash, the wind shoving at his back. He let the Rover go, let it tip, when he saw the other machines scattered over the earth, Muriel’s among them.

Penny! This time it was like shouting in a dream. He was screaming soundless screams. Because he saw her now too, or at least he saw a lock of hair bright against the hard, wet ground and the curled fingers of a gloved hand. The rest of her was obscured by the circle of crouching wheelmen, all staring down with expressions of horror.

His approach had a nightmarish slowness.

Prescott turned a pale face to him. “We’ve killed her!”

“It’s your fault.” Kemble met his gaze, eyes wild. “Bringing a lady on a run. You killed her!”

“I’m not killed.” It was Muriel’s voice, faint but more than faintly annoyed. “Give me some air.”

The wheelmen opened the circle, Egg releasing a tiny, relieved sob. Kit realized he was on his knees, and that the rain was sluicing straight down from the sky with the gushing velocity of a cataract. He helped Muriel stand, and they splashed after the wheelmen to the relative shelter of a tree.

Deighton punched the trunk. “This was a bad idea.”

“Evidently.” Kit raised his brows as Deighton shook out his hand, teeth bared in a grimace. “Also, we should have walked downhill.” He turned his gaze to Muriel, watching as she shifted gingerly, testing each bone and joint. She was white to the lips, excepting the streaks of mud on her cheek, but her eyes were clear and focused, and nothing seemed broken.

“No, I mean she was a bad idea.” Deighton moved his jaw from side to side. “This farce has gone far enough. She can’t continue.”

Muriel’s brows met. “I’m not staying here.”