"Uh, only if you do, uh, I'm not bothered, uh--uh--uh, up to you."

"Piss off. I will fight you, y'know? I don't care that you're my sister," I snap at Annabel. "Or dead. I'll re-kill you, I swear to God."

Annabel just bursts out laughing as my cheeks burn more and more. I didn't think she was around when I asked Carmen out in what has to be the worst ever attempt at asking a girl out made by anyone ever, but turns out she was. She heard every single word, and she's not let me forget about it since I woke up this morning.

"You're literal comedy gold sometimes," Annabel says through even more laughter.

Hilarious. I leave Annabel to be an arsehole alone, and head into the bathroom to get ready to meet with Connor. When I return to the bedroom, I see three missed calls from him. I try calling back, but the phone just rings out. Shit.

"Hey, Connor's been trying to call," I announce the second I spot Ava in the breakfast room downstairs. "I've tried calling back, but--"

"Yeah, he called me. Don't panic," Ava reassures me as I stop above the table she's sitting at alone, and immediately, I panic. "But something might've paid him an angry visit last night."

"What?" I practically shout, which gets me some raised eyebrows from other hotel guests.

"Whoa, it's groovy, he's okay, don't worry. He said to meet at his place."

We meet Connor at his flat barely thirty minutes later. It's just Ava and me. I'd rather not dangle the others in front of danger again after yesterday. I had to be convinced by Ava to even let her join. Hell, I was tempted to tell Annabel to stay behind. Connor's building sits in a suburban looking street that resembles most other side streets I've seen around Central London. It's a white terraced house, but much larger in size than the Gruffudds' tiny thing up in Scotland. 

Ava and I jog up a few steps to reach the front door, buzz Connor's flat, and wait until we hear a click. Once inside, we head straight for his place on the ground floor. Despite my fear, as we wait outside Connor's door for him to open it, I'm bouncing from one foot to the other. I really want to get in there. I took my medication this morning, right? Yeah, I definitely did. I've been trying to get better at it since Ava told me off about not taking it. Ugh, where is he? I want to get inside.

"Relax, I'm sure he's fine," Annabel whispers in my ear, and I don't bother telling her I'm excited, not afraid.

The door swings open. Bingo! Connor is standing there with a dark bruise on his left cheek, but instead of anger, a burst of intense joy escapes me. It's fine. He's good. We're good. Connor is saying something, but I'm too busy fighting a grin off my face, and when we step into the place, holy shit. It's great! It's huge. This guy must be loaded. Do university researchers earn this much? He has to be a drug dealer or something. Holy crap, he has a lamp shaped like a dog.

"Felix?" Connor's voice briefly snaps me out of my amusement. I turn to see him and Ava standing in the living room doorway, while Annabel stands further into the room, and she stares at me with an expression that makes her look like she's given up all hope. "We're going this way," Connor continues.

He nods his head towards the hallway we were just in. Wait, did I walk in here by myself? What?

"Huh?" I question, barely keeping my attention focused on Connor. That lamp! Ha! "This place is amazing. Can I live here? It's so bright and nice and warm! I like dogs!"

"Whoa, yeah, of course. Sorry." Ava ignores me and turns to Connor. "He's sensitive to blessings."

"Clearly," Connor says through a laugh. He steps forward and waves his hand in front of my face. "Hey, buddy, come back to earth."

I blink. What?

"It's like the caves back home," Ava explains. "The flat is blessed. It's making you delusionally happy."

Oh. Shit. What, really? It's not just the caves? This place though! The lamp! Is no one else seeing this? Annabel mutters something under her breath, but I don't hear what. I'm about to turn back to the dog lamp, but stop myself. It's in your head. Why can't Ava or Connor feel this? It's amazing! Stop being an idiot. It's not amazing, it's annoying. Wise up. Is it really just me who feels this?

"Sorry, my bad," I say as I fight the temptation to grin. "Don't you guys get it?"

"To an extent," Connor says as he leads me out of the room. "I'm largely used to it by now, and most spirit talkers find it easy to ignore."

Ava agrees with him, and I frown. Alright, show offs. They're lucky I'm in a good mood right now. Well, lucky I'm deluded into one. Oh, shit, Connor's face.

"What happened to your cheek?" I question before my happy daze can distract me again.

We're walking through his white kitchen when I ask, but Connor doesn't answer me. Instead, he leads us to a side door, and opens it into what I guess must be his garden. The second I step outside and get a glimpse of it, my heart drops, and I don't think it's just from leaving the blessed area. The entirety of Connor's garden has been wrecked.

It's only a small space, but the grass is pulled up from its roots, pots of plants are smashed all over the wooden decking that stretches out from the edge of the house, and the chairs I assume used to be there are now scattered in pieces across the garden.

"I'm not exactly a light sleeper, and my bedroom's at the front of the flat," Connor says as he steps onto the decking, and we follow. "I didn't even hear it at first. Wasn't until the place was already torn to shreds that I finally woke up, and got this lovely smacker." He motions to his face. "My own fault for stepping outside."

"Didn't they get in? Why didn't--" I stop myself. "They couldn't because it's blessed."

Connor nods. I take what I said back. Three cheers for non-cave cave daze. I need to come up with a new name for it now it's no longer exclusive to caves, don't I? Damn.

"Oh my God, what the heck happened here?"

Lucy's voice gives me a near heart attack. When the hell did she turn up? The more the merrier, I guess. Given the revelation of what happened here last night, I would say it's her funeral, but, well.

"A lot of angry spirits who couldn't get what they wanted," Connor answers Lucy before I do.

Lucy stammers. "You know I'm here?"

"The Brennans are non-connection talkers," Ava butts in. "Remember, like I explained to Felix after we spoke to the Gruffudds?"

Lucy opens her mouth as if to say something, but stops herself before anything comes out. She just nods. Huh. Cool. I don't know why I'm surprised to see Connor using abilities because, well, yeah, duh, but it's jarring. He's real. Flesh, bones, abilities and all. He's real.

We decide to head back indoors and make base in Connor's living room. We all agree that whatever's trying to track me down isn't far behind us now. After the dark spirit we met on the drive down here, and now this, we'd be kidding ourselves to think otherwise.

Connor and Ava are leading the conversation, partly because they're way more clued up on this whole spirit thing than I am, and partly because a good fifty percent of my attention is focused on staying sane among the delusional blessing haze. It's much easier now than it was when I first stepped into this flat, but it's hardly ideal. It doesn't help that we're in the same room as the dog lamp.

"They're too organised, too... too uniform for there to be no living spirit talker involved," I catch Ava say, to which Connor nods.

He sighs as he runs his hand through his hair. "I know. Yeah, I know."

"Do you have any idea who it could be?"

"Sorry, blessing delusion," I apologise. "What are we talking about?"

Annabel sighs from the floor, and I swear the girl's going to run out of oxygen from sighing if she's not too careful. Can ghosts run out of oxygen? Wait, ghosts don't breathe. What am I even talking about? This blessing daze is messing with my head.

"Whatever's after you, there has to be a human spirit talker involved. There's no way dark spirits could orchestrate something like this without a way to communicate with each other, without an in-between man," Connor explains. "Or woman."

"Someone from the family?" I question.

Connor clicks his tongue. "I doubt it. It's likely just a spirit talker some of your dark spirits from years ago found. The only..."

Connor's voice drifts off, and we wait for him to explain. I'm not sure he wants to, but it's too late. We've heard him. If this was me, I'd go into a panic and probably start stammering or repeatedly demanding it's nothing. Connor being the much, much higher functioning brother, however, goes on to calmly explain.

"I'm not one-hundred percent sure what happened to Gran," he says quietly.

"Roisin?" Annabel asks, and I repeat it to Connor.

He nods. "She'd be... I don't even know. She'd be in her seventies now. Would she be doing this at her age?" Connor shakes his head. "What am I saying? That's really naive of me. It could be her. It could well not be, but like I said, I don't know for sure what happened to her."

Oh, nice. So my granny is trying to kill me. Cute. Okay, fine, not kill me. She is trying to force me to obey the evil dead in order to mobilise the uprising of dark spirits, though. The more we talk, the more it dawns on me that we're not coming up with any solutions to anything. Connor must read my mind because finally, he offers up a suggestion.

"We'll find out," he announces. "About Gran. She won't have changed her surname. No way. She has way too much pride in our name for that. If we find her, great. If we find out she did actually die, or we find nothing, then that's fine. We can go from there. We will figure this out. Okay?"

Connor glances between Ava and me. His sing-song accent combined with the depth in his tone is hypnotising, and we both nod silently.

He turns back to me, then says, "I'm not going to let anything hurt you, Felix," and I've never believed anything more in my life.

Ava makes her way back to the B&B while I stay with Connor, as we've had no time alone since we met. The plan is for us to begin the search for my grandmother here while Ava and co. do it back at the hotel, but fighting against the blessing daze has given me a cracking headache, and my thoughts are so scrambled after the past twenty-four hours that I can't even think straight.

"You need a break," Connor states before he's even pulled out his laptop. He taps my knee, then stands up. "C'mon."

Moments later, we're ambling through the streets of central London. The street we're walking along isn't wide enough for the three of us, so Annabel is walking on the road next to me. I wish she wasn't.

"It's fine, evil grandmother can find herself, right? Not like we're low on time here. I'm sure the dead guys will see us and think, 'oh, wait, don't attack. Look, Felix needs a break. Better not attack him until he's ready'."

"Annabel!" I hiss a whisper in the hope that Connor doesn't hear.

"Huh?"

"Nothing, sorry, just Annabel being annoying," I apologise.

"Whatever, just don't come crying to me when some evil dead guy has you by the ba--"

"Is this safe?" I question Connor, mainly just to shut Annabel up.

Connor responds by lifting his hand to his neck, and pulling a chain out from underneath his shirt. I gaze at it, failing to catch on to his point. There's a pendant at the end of it, some kind of clear stone, but I don't know what the hell it means.

"It's blessed," he explains as he pops it back under his shirt. "I thought it best not to give you one after your performance back at my flat. It would be way too powerful. So long as you stick by my side, it'll keep us both safe, don't worry."

"You're really clued up on all this stuff, aren't you?"

Connor shrugs with a casual laugh. "I do have PHD on the topic." Touché. "Plus Dad was obsessed with teaching us all the theory. Seriously, it was endless. Learn about all this cool stuff you could do with your abilities , but don't actually do any of it." Connor rolls his eyes. "You're not missing out there, trust me."

"You grossly underestimate how clueless I am."

"I can teach you, if you want?"

It's impossible not to notice his eyes light up as he makes the suggestion. See, we're safe. Screw you, Annabel, I think as I lift my middle finger to her, but I'm careful to stay out of Connor's eyeline. He'd probably think it was childish, which, I mean, it is. Annabel responds with a whatever, then disappears.

We end up in a pastry café on a street bursting with people. At one point, the pavement was so narrow that we had to walk single file, and trying not to barge into any strangers was a logistical nightmare. The street is full of niche cafés and bars, office buildings containing purely startup companies, and a charity shop which looks more like an expensive boutique. Of course Connor would live somewhere as cool as this.

He must be best mates with the server behind the counter of the café because the second she spots him, she pulls him into a hug, and they do some complex handshake, which he makes look completely effortless. He leans against the counter as he places our order, all the while running his hand through his dark hair. I'm literally a damp towel someone forgot to hang back up next to this guy.

"Stop ogling, it's embarrassing."

"Will you shut up?" I snap at Annabel.

The man on the table next to me gives me a concerned look, but I ignore it. I'm quickly getting fed up of Annabel. Has she said anything even remotely positive since we found Connor?

"Sorry I'm not as indifferent towards having an older brother as you are. Believe it or not, Annabel, growing up thinking your entire family is dead, only to find out that actually, not only do you have a brother, but the guy is alive, is kind of a big deal."

Annabel sniggers. "Whoa, don't bite my head off. Calm down. I just think it's funny how you're practically pining after the guy, you'd swear he was Jesus Christ himself."

"No, Annabel, I've let it slide up until now, but it's really starting to piss me off. Stop being a jealous bitch. I literally had no one. For as long as I can remember, it's just been me, and now it's not. Can't you understand why that's such a big deal? I finally have someone."

Annabel's smirk vanishes, and the joking tone in her voice drifts away as she says, "I'm glad for you."

With that, she disappears. What the hell? What did I say? She can't just act like a bitch, then get offended when--Oh, shit. I didn't mean it like that. I call her name, but get nothing back. Shit. I didn't mean it like that. She must know I didn't.

"You didn't want anything on it, right?" Connor's voice brings me back to the present.

I look up as he sits down, and hands me a plate with a croissant and some butter on it. He puts his own plate down in front of him, which has an enormous bacon sandwich on it. I shake my head, not really paying attention, and mumble something about being vegetarian.

"What's up?" he questions, immediately catching on to my sourness.

"Nothing," I say, a little to quickly. Connor raises his eyebrows. "It's just Annabel."

"What has she said?" 

"Nothing, she's just... I don't know, she's just been a bit of a dickhead since we found you. She's jealous, I think, but I said something I shouldn't have to her." I shake my head. "It's fine, it's not a big deal. She just needs to strop for a bit."

Connor laughs. "She's not changed much then." He takes a bite out of his sandwich, and he suddenly starts laughing again. "When you were a baby, she used to dress you in her old clothes. Not even from when she was a baby, but she'd get a skirt from when she was a toddler, and make you wear it as a dress. You hated it. It was hilarious, no offence."

Is he serious? She's getting her arse kicked when she's finished stropping. I must not be hiding my horror as well as I think because Connor starts laughing all over again.

"In fairness, it was cute. Didn't stop you thinking she was the best thing since sliced bread as you got older, either. When she turned," Connor starts, and the smile falls from his face. He doesn't take the thought further, but says, "She was only sixteen. They used everyone, everyone to get to you." He shakes his head, and apologises. "It doesn't matter now. Sorry, this is meant to be a break from everything." He sighs, and forces a smile. "Don't let Annabel get you down. This is probably a big thing for her too, and winding you up is her way of dealing with it. Just give her some time to digest."

I know Connor's right, but it doesn't make me feel any better about saying what I said to her. It was bad, wasn't it? It was really bad.