When the coach was an hour away from Northaven, Robin took the driver aside, pulled him into the shadows of the inn's stable-yard, and spent a full five minutes pouring whispers into the poor man's ears. Ellini guessed they were threats, not because he had grabbed the man by the lapels – Robin had a tendency to do that anyway – but because he was smiling. His perfect, white, even teeth glinted in the light of the gas-lamps. She wondered how a man who had lived a life like Robin's had managed to keep all his teeth. 

Ellini sat at a table by the window, with a blanket round her shoulders and a cup of hot cocoa cradled in her hands. She had changed her clothes and dried her hair since Warwick, but she hadn't been able to shake off the cold. Perhaps it was because she had finally admitted to herself that she would be going back to Oxford. The idea of facing the music – that much music! – chilled her to the bone. 

Good god, what would she say? Yes, Manda – yes, Sergei – yes, Mr Danvers – yes, Matthi – I let you think I was dead. Oh no, it was nothing you'd done, I just... I needed to get away. Yes, like a holiday. Yes, I suppose you could say I broke your hearts in order to go on holiday. Where did I go, after all that? Oh, a slop-house in the East End of London. And then I started living with the man who killed my family.

But that wouldn't be the worst bit. Those were not the worst people. Even seeing Alice Darwin, whose chilly composure always left Ellini bereft of words, would be a picnic compared to seeing him.

She was afraid she would be angry, and she was afraid she wouldn't be angry. She was afraid she would fall into his arms, and she was afraid she would jab a fork in his eye.

Ellini unpinned her hair and ran her fingers through it, which was like trailing her hands in a warm bath. That part of her, at least, seldom got cold. It brought back memories of the fires her temper had kindled in the hawthorns outside Warwick, but it still revived her.

She looked back at Robin, who seemed to have finished haranguing the coachman. He was now patting him a little too hard on the back, a gesture which demonstrated that they were good chums, but nevertheless Robin was the stronger chum.

For this stretch of the journey, the coach was crowded. There was still no train to Northaven, although Gladstone made a speech in the House of Commons every month asking for one. All the railway companies had resisted the idea, perhaps because they thought there would be something irreversible about linking Northaven with the rest of England. The rail network stitched the country together, and nobody wanted to be stitched to Northaven.

Everyone in the crowded carriage seemed to be a new-breed, and some of them had obviously been in the prison colonies. The tan was curiously tenacious, as was the look of malnutrition, even when the new-breeds in question had put on weight. Bones jutted out through newly plumped-up flesh, as though they couldn't lie back and rest.

Curiously for Robin, he didn't seem inclined to talk. But Ellini would have done anything rather than listen to her inner monologue, so she struck up a conversation with the man seated opposite, a journeyman tailor with a hooked nose, who was bunched up in the corner with his luggage on his knees so as not to encroach on Robin's personal space.

She started with a very English complaint about the weather, which got a derisive smile.

"This is Northaven, madam – where you love the rain because it's not a monsoon, and you love the midges because they're not mosquitos. Fortunately for the new-breed race, there's no place like home."

That last sentence struck through Ellini's breast like an icicle. It was from one of Joel's speeches, given to the hungry crowds outside Lucknow, or Agra, or Hyderabad. He had met her eyes when he'd said it, all those years ago.

And for the first time, it dawned on her that she was heading into a town full of people who might have seen her in India. Would they recognize her? Would some innocent-looking stranger turn to her in the street and say, 'I know you. You're Jack Cade's Sahiba. Where's your Sahib? And who's this fella?'

She wondered if the people here idolized Jack enough to turn against a woman who had left him. And, even if they didn't – even if they were quite cordial – might they send Jack a quick telegram to let him know they'd bumped into his old flame? And his old flame's old flame? Who, incidentally, was supposed to be dead?

She made herself smile at the journeyman tailor. "I never saw the prison colonies, except in the papers." This was technically true – Jack had never let her near the compounds themselves, or even the colonists. He hadn't wanted her to get an inkling of the suffering that went on there.

The tailor shook his head darkly. "Those engravings didn't do it justice."

"I'm sure." She floundered for a second, and then said, "India is beautiful, though."

"Oh, yes. It just suffers from unfortunate associations." He sniffed, and then muttered, with a touch of pride, "Nothing could be less like India than Northaven."

The coach lurched into a side-road – obviously little more than a forest-track, because she could hear branches scraping against the paintwork – and the man glanced out of the window.

"That's odd. We don't usually approach the town from this direction. The main road must be flooded."

Ellini glanced at Robin, but he was sprawled in the corner, feigning sleep. She could tell he was feigning because he wasn't crying out, or muttering the names of his former victims. Had he persuaded the coachman to change course? And would he ever explain why if she asked him?

They clattered into the town a few minutes later, and Ellini got her first sight of Northaven – a pretty maze of grey-stone terraced streets that sloped up and down the many hills. When she climbed down from the coach – ignoring Robin's proffered hand – she caught a glimpse of starlight glinting off frost on the roof-slates. It reminded her of the bright stars in India, but she wouldn't have mentioned this to the journeyman tailor for the world.

She said goodbye to him, and set off with Robin down the sloping streets. He had picked up both their cases without a word and, for some reason, this made Ellini nervous. It wasn't that he normally would have insisted she carry her case herself – he wasn't ungallant, unless you thought gallantry should include complicated moral matters like not murdering a girl's parents. But it was unlike him to volunteer to carry something when a lackey could be found to do it for him. What with that and the uncharacteristic silence – and the very characteristic, but very mysterious, threatening of coachmen – Ellini resolved to stay on her toes tonight.

But he was quite cheerful as they walked. As soon as they had left their fellow passengers behind, he said, as if they were resuming an old, unfinished conversation, "A few things to ponder from last night, Ellie. Can you guess what they are?"

Ellini assumed he wasn't referring to the fact that she had leapt naked out of a lake to attack three women who'd been about to do to another man exactly what had been done to Jack. 

"They knew we were coming?" she ventured.

"They didn't just know we were coming. They knew which coach we'd taken and when it would be passing through the town. You'd have to be pretty smart to work out both. In fact, smartness wouldn't have been enough, because I was careful. You'd have to be magical."

"Myrrha?"

Robin nodded. "She's warning her allies, but not getting directly involved. As though she wants to see how they handle it."

"That sounds like her."

"Or as though she wants them to fail, but doesn't want us to suspect that she wants them to fail."

Ellini stared at him. "What in the world does that mean?"

He shrugged happily. "Do you think I ever understood her? Do you think anyone did? Whatever she's planning, her stock of allies seems to be running out."

Ellini felt – or probably imagined – a hint of reproach in that last sentence. She had never meant to kill the Wylies, although she hadn't given much thought to how she was going to stop them otherwise. But somehow it had turned violent. Isabella had been shot – not by her, it was true, and an innocent man would be dead if she hadn't intervened, but still...

And the three young women outside Warwick were now in the custody of the local magistrate.

"They might not hang," she said, because she was sure this was what Robin had been alluding to. "They might get confinement. Or transportation."

He raised his eyebrows. "How many dead men do you think were in that pool?"

"Whole dead men?"

Robin laughed. "Well, exactly. They'll hang. Don't think about it anymore."

This astonished her even more. Robin had never told her not to distress herself. He wanted her distressed, so that he could seem clever and composed by comparison. He hadn't been the same since she'd leapt out of that lake.

She noticed as they walked on that every house beside the road had darkened windows, although it was only nine o'clock. She'd heard that Gladstone's moralizing influence had turned Northaven into a town of sober, hard-working craftsmen, and somehow she was sorry for it. That was no kind of reward, after living through the prison colonies.

She remembered Joel's anxiety for the new-breeds, when they'd first been released from the colonies. He said they were sorry, shuffling, ghost-like things, constantly apologizing for being in the way. He hadn't wanted them to be angry and vengeful, but the opposite was somehow even worse. She hoped they weren't hiding in their darkened houses or behind their work, too afraid to start living again. And then she thought of herself sewing industriously in the slop-house and decided she was in no position to judge.

"Was there something else you wanted me to ponder?" she said at last.

"Just the next Wylie. Mari Lloyd."

He seemed to be pausing expectantly, so Ellini said, "Is the name supposed to mean something to me?"

"I'm surprised you haven't heard of her. Gladstone mentioned her quite glowingly in his speech in the House of Commons last week. It was in all the papers."

"Well, perhaps if you didn't hide them from me," she muttered.

Robin ignored this. "There's a copy of last week's Times in my jacket, if you'd like to reach in and get it?"

Ellini put her head on one side and regarded him in stony silence for a while. "I'll just hold the cases while you get it."

"There's no need to be frightened-"

"I'm not frightened," she said irritably. "Give me the cases, will you?"

"Just as you like," said Robin, handing her the luggage, and grinning as she tried to pretend it wasn't heavy.

He took his time, now that he knew she was suffering, unrolling the paper and shuffling through its pages for the right place. She wondered how she ever could have thought he wasn't himself tonight.

"Gladstone likes to talk about new-breeds who've survived the colonies and gone on to make something of themselves," he explained. "Mari Lloyd's one of quite a few, but I'll just read you what he says about her."

Ellini did not tell him to hurry up.

"'Jilted by an unscrupulous suitor, Miss Mari Lloyd used her dowry to open a school for similarly abandoned women. Her pupils have gone on to read at Oxford and Cambridge, and even to study medicine in the capital.'" He paused, his pointed teeth shining, and said: "Do you think she joined the Wylies to make sure she was always well-stocked with pupils?"

Ellini forgot her annoyance in the face of her shock. The other Wylies they'd encountered had been... well, ignorant was a nice way of putting it. The three in Warwick hadn't cared about men – hadn't cared about anything except games and music and dancing. And Isabella had been too deranged for you to suspect she was acting out of anything other than ghoulish curiosity. But this woman knew how it felt to be abandoned by a man. How could she inflict the same experience on others?

"It's even possible," said Robin, relieving her of the luggage and walking on, "that Mari Lloyd was one of the Wylies' – well, what shall we call them? Victims? Contestants?"

Ellini's mouth dropped open. "You mean the man who jilted her was under their spell to forget her? Then why would she join them? How could she forgive them?"

Robin gave an innocent shrug. "Maybe she came to realize that the man they'd deprived her of wasn't worth very much, in the end." He watched her for a moment, and then went on, "After all, if something can be taken away from you..."

"Don't talk as though it's fair," Ellini snapped. "They exploit the confidence of young lovers – make them feel as though they have something to gain from their deplorable experiment. But they never stood a chance. The game's rigged. The house always wins."

Robin gave her a look that was a lot less cheerful than the preceding ones. "Who won when you kissed Jack?"

"Nobody," said Ellini, realizing as she said it how brutally true this was. That was the thing about her. She could snatch victory from the jaws of her enemies, but she never got to keep it herself. Victory just evaporated, as though it had never existed at all.

Robin cleared his throat. "Still, it's something to think about. You proved that the house doesn't always win. Perhaps there are other lovers out there who broke the spell and beat the Wylies."

"If there are, they probably can't stand the sight of each other anymore. The house still wins."

Robin didn't reply, but there was a slight spring in his step as they walked onwards. 

After a while, Ellini decided she couldn't stand the smug silence anymore. "Did you arrange for the coach to take that little detour?" she demanded. 

"Of course."

"Why?"

"It was a more scenic route, believe me."

"But it was dark. We couldn't see anything."

"Preferable," said Robin, turning to wait for her as they neared a bend in the road. "Besides, I didn't want you to drive past this. I wanted you to see it properly, at ground level, without a pane of glass in between."

He pulled her round the bend and into what must have been the town square – a huge, bright, cobblestoned expanse of wonder. Tables from the inns and restaurants spilled out onto the stones, and people were seated at them, leaning on them, flitting from one to the other like butterflies. But the majority of the square was taken up with the dancing enclosure, which was encircled by a trellis spangled with lamps. Some kind of polka seemed to be going on within it. There were all kinds of different instruments, because the prison colonists had been taken from all over the world. Violins, tambourines and trumpets screeched and clashed and blared – and managed, against all the odds, to harmonize.

But the best part was the people – horns outlined against the lamps, and cloven hooves striking sparks from the cobbles as their owners stamped and twirled. Completely open, completely unashamed. This was why the windows of all the houses they'd passed had been dark – not because an industrious populace had gone early to bed, but because an industrious populace was out dancing!

"If only Joel could have lived to see this," she breathed.

"If he'd lived, nobody would have seen it," said Robin. "He understood better than anyone that it's a horrible death, not a virtuous life, that gets the public's attention."

Most of the inns in the town surrounded this bright, noisy square, but Ellini was too fond of music – and Robin too afraid of nightmares – to object to a sleepless night.

The one Robin had chosen was a lovely, beamed, creaky building run by a German family. Its landlord was a young man with splendid ginger sideburns tapering down to an underwhelming beard. He wrote their names down in the register – Dr and Mrs Strood – and then uttered the alarming phrase: "Let me show you to your room."

Ellini shot a glance at Robin, but of course he was inscrutable as ever. And the landlord's English was too impeccable for it to have been a mistake. Oh dear.

She forced a bright, fluttering smile and said, "Darling, you didn't forget to book another room, did you?"

Robin started to speak, but she cut him off, turning to the landlord with nervousness that she didn't have to feign, and a smile that she did. "I'm so sorry – my husband's too kind, but I'm afraid he can't get a wink of sleep unless I'm in a separate room. You see, I'm a new-breed, and my skin glows in the dark. The glare is quite off-putting, even through closed eyelids. And my husband is a doctor – he needs his sleep."

Robin didn't say anything – just watched her with silent amusement while the landlord bustled about, assuring her that it was no trouble at all and another room would be found without delay. The attic was always kept empty in case of emergencies, he said, and it had an unrivalled view of the town square. He would have a fire lit in the grate immediately.

"And, may I say, what a beautiful demonic symptom," he added, as he pressed the key into her hand.

Ellini smiled at him – a genuine smile this time. "Rather a difficult one to hide, I'm afraid."

"Well, there's no need for hiding here."

Again, she thought of Joel, and how happy he would be that a place like this existed. If the fire hadn't been enough, that thought would have kept her warm all night.

Robin was still radiating silent amusement as they climbed the staircase. "There was really no need for you to do that. I wouldn't have tried anything."

"Of course not," she said tartly. "Your intention was to make me uncomfortable."

"My intention was to make us inconspicuous. Husbands and wives share a bed when they travel together. If they don't, it attracts comment. And women with luminous skin will certainly attract comment."

"Well, as I don't really have luminous skin-"

He shook his head, still half-smiling. "You don't understand. He only has to point you out to one of his friends: You see that lady? Her skin glows in the dark – Which lady? The one who looks like Jack Cade's Indian girl? – Yes, that one. Actually, she really does look like Jack Cade's Indian girl, doesn't she?"

"Yes, all right," said Ellini, scowling at him. "You've made your point. Just book us separate rooms next time, and I won't have to make myself conspicuous." 

***

In her attic room – sitting on the hastily-made bed which the landlord's wife had been interrupted from her supper to prepare – Ellini tried to make out the roof of Mari Lloyd's school among the silhouettes visible through the window. If they hadn't gone to so much trouble to find her a bedroom, she might have contemplated some rooftop climbing tonight. Anything was better than lying awake, thinking about her imminent return to Oxford.

Mari Lloyd was a marginally better thing to think about. Why would you become a Wylie if you'd been one of their victims? Because you hated yourself, and wanted to take it out on other women like you? Was this what she herself was doing, in going after the Wylies?

She got into her nightgown, and was pottering about, searching her case for stockings and a hairbrush and a decent book to take her mind off things, when reading material was suddenly supplied for her in the shape of a letter pushed under the door.

Ellini knew better than to stick her head into the corridor, looking for the messenger. The messenger would have plenty of time to get away, and might just have slipped into some niche or doorway so as to observe her. She went on brushing her hair until the creaking on the stairs had died down, and then tiptoed over to the doorway to pick it up.

Dear 'Mrs Strood', she read.

I'd like to invite you to take tea with me at my school tomorrow. I believe you already know where it is. Come and see the work we're doing for yourself, and then decide whether the violent measures you used against my associates will be necessary. I am sure we'll get on, 'Mrs Strood', because we have so much in common.

I will expect you at three. Men aren't usually allowed on the premises, but I'll make an exception for your oafish sidekick.

Yours faithfully,

Mari Lloyd.

Ellini suppressed a smile and carefully folded the letter back in its envelope. How difficult it was to keep yourself from liking your enemies! And, as the experience of Jack had taught her, it was just as hard to keep yourself from hating your friends. That was why it was better to be alone – or with a friend you already hated, and therefore couldn't lose. Robin was an ideal companion in that respect, if in no other.