The stagecoaches for the north departed from Holloway, a grimy, overcrowded area of London that Ellini would normally have loved to visit, because its soot and shadows represented perfect anonymity, and she could sink into them like a hot – albeit very dirty – bath.

But she was feeling jumpy tonight. She seemed to see white-blonde heads and gloved hands around every corner.

She dragged Robin into a saloon while they waited for the stagecoach, to try and soothe her spirits with music. She wanted the sound of Chopin's Nocturnes to put her conscience to sleep, but it only put her wits to sleep, because it had dragged her in and seated her at a table before she realized who was playing the music, or how well.

Oh god, he had found her again. Did she have a flashing sign over her head? First St. John's Wood and now Holloway – and always when she was passing through the neighbourhood, as though he knew...

But he couldn't – he couldn't know she was here. If he did, he would have been trying to catch her eye, surely, instead of staring resolutely at the keys, as though they were the only tolerable things in the universe. He was lost in the music, just like everyone else. But what was he doing here? He should have been playing the Albert Hall, or the Royal Opera House. He had no business playing that beautifully in a saloon in Holloway!

Ellini sat still for a moment, paralysed with uncertainty. In her peripheral vision, she could already see Robin raising his eyebrows. Any moment now, there would be remarks – probably followed by questions, because he had no idea about tact or mercy, for all that he claimed to have rediscovered his conscience since being dead.

Eventually, he turned to her, his mouth open to speak, but she cut him off with a request for money. She had just spotted the performer's tip box. It seemed like the only way to disappear – which she badly wanted to do – without feeling guilty.

Robin sighed, and handed over a shilling. "Are we paying the pianist to go away? Because I don't think it's working."

"Look, he couldn't possibly be following me," Ellini whispered. "If he was, we'd have seen him closer to home. And we didn't even know we were going to be here until two hours ago, did we? That's not enough time to get on the play-bill, even in a place like this."

Robin listened for a while, but without taking his eyes off her. And she couldn't pretend when she was listening to this music. It stripped her bare. He must have seen the way every note was striking her with a combination of pleasure and pain, bringing back Oxford with all its horrors and delights.

"He's good," Robin conceded, after a while. "As good as golden boy, in his day?"

"It's difficult to compare," she said evasively.

"Golden boy's replacement, perhaps..."

Ellini ignored this flagrant attempt to provoke her. "He can't be following me," she repeated. "It's a coincidence."

"Or it's fate."

"That's what a coincidence is."

"Not at all. Coincidences are random, but fate implies some kind of higher purpose."

"Oh yes? Whose higher purpose?"

"There doesn't have to be a 'who'," said Robin. "You've read the books in Myrrha's library, haven't you? Magic is what makes a good story. And good stories enact themselves, just by virtue of the fact that everyone knows them." 

He was quiet for a while, letting the notes drip down her back and make her shudder. He wouldn't have been Robin if he didn't enjoy other people's discomfort.

"He's a good story, Ellie, you've got to admit it. A second golden boy – but this time, one who gets it right. Like an Orpheus who doesn't get impatient and turn round at the last minute. That's how he keeps finding you. He's at the centre of a narrative even he doesn't know about."

"And my consent has no part in this, does it?" she demanded. "Just like a proper fairytale heroine. It doesn't matter what he's like, only what he is. Because he's a prince – or, in this case, a pianist – I've got to have him and live happily ever after."

Robin chuckled. "Oh, I don't think you could manage that, even with the strongest narrative principles behind you." He lowered his voice, and muttered, to the saloon's grimy carpet, "It's the one thing that gives me hope."

***

They had the coach all to themselves – partly due to Robin's inimitable personality, and partly because the coach roads were not so popular these days, now the trains were fast and frequent.

Ellini stared out of the window and tried not to think about Bianca and Carrie and mysterious pianists whose footsteps were guided by fate. Robin, having teased her as much as she would tolerate, fell asleep on the seat opposite her. Within a few minutes, his snores were filling the carriage. And, within a few minutes more came the soft, half-stifled screams which suggested he was dreaming about his past victims. 

Ellini hesitated, wondering if she ought to leave them to it. But, in the end, pity – or cowardice – overcame her, and she shook him awake.

"Don't sleep," she said, taking the seat beside him, and looking away as his wild, red-rimmed eyes tried to focus. "We'll talk – just not about pianists, agreed?"

It took him a while to respond, because he didn't understand pity. But eventually he leaned back in his seat, with his hands behind his head, for all the world as though he was doing her a favour.

"Why don't you tell me a story?" he suggested. "That's what you did for golden boy, isn't it?"

"What?" said Ellini sharply.

"When you were putting that doll back together?"

"Oh," she said, relaxing slightly. "No, the stories weren't for him, they were... But certainly, I can tell you a story, if that's what you want. Perhaps you'd like to hear a folktale about the original Wylies? The creatures from Slavic legend that inspired the ballet Giselle?"

He shrugged and leaned back in his seat, which she decided was encouragement enough.

"This one's from Bulgaria," she went on, "which means the Wylie is question is actually a Samovila. They have different names according to the region. In Russia, they're known as 'Rusalki'; in Romania, they're called 'iele', which just means 'them' – that's how unlucky it can be to offend them. But they're all ghost-maidens who don't need men – or who actively hate men – and can be capricious with their favours."

She looked at Robin, to see how patiently he was taking this lecture, but he had his eyes closed, so there was no way to tell.

"Anyway, the story's about a young shepherd named Stoyan, who's walking home from the fields late one night when he hears the sound of splashing and laughing coming from a lake on one side of the path. He's immediately seized with fear, because he's heard stories about the Samovila – the beautiful but deadly spirit-maidens who haunt the lakes and waterways near his village. But he's also a young shepherd, remember – full of confidence and curiosity – and he's always wanted to see the famous dance of the Vila."

"So he stumbles through the bushes to the lake on the other side, and for a while he sees nothing. Just moonlight and black water. But then, through the dimness, he begins to discern three glimmering heaps of clothes on the bank, lying where their owners have discarded them. Each one consists of a white chemise, a leafy-green sash, and a pair of delicate wings, thin and iridescent as a dragon-fly's."

"When the sound of laughter comes back, he snatches up the clothes on a sudden impulse, and hurries to hide behind a tree. Then he looks out to see the most beautiful women he could ever have imagined, all three of them quite naked and dripping wet, although their strange, moon-lightened skin shows no sign that they're affected by the cold. One of them, to Stoyan, seems even more beautiful than the others, and he keeps his eyes fixed on her as the three women approach the bank, looking for their clothes."

"When they find them gone, the Vila begin to wail and cry, knowing that they won't be able to fly away and dance on the mountaintops like the other Vila without their magic clothes and iridescent wings. Stoyan takes pity on two of them and tosses their clothes back to them, but the third – the most beautiful – he beckons to his house, and locks her clothes away where she'll never find them. He makes her his wife, and names her 'Radka', which means joy."

"Nine months after the wedding – though some local cynics say eight – she gives birth to a boy: a strange, beautiful child, with eyes as green as her leafy sash. Stoyan joyfully invites his village to the baptism and, as the wine flows and his neighbours become more inebriated, they start clamouring to see the famous dance of the Vila themselves. They ask Stoyan to make his wife dance for them, but she refuses, saying she can't dance in that way without her wings, chemise and sash."

"Stoyan hesitates, fearing that she'll fly away and leave him as soon as her magical clothes are returned, but his neighbours assure him there is nothing to fear. She is not only a wedded wife but a mother now, they say, and no mother can bear to leave her child. So Stoyan unlocks the drawer in which he has kept her clothes hidden all these months, and tosses them to her – though he stands by the door to bar her escape just in case the thought of leaving should cross her mind."

"Radka puts on her clothes and dances for the villagers, twirling with such dexterity and grace that they too begin to lose their smiles and realize that they are watching something otherworldly. When she has made them dizzy and amazed with her beautiful motion, Radka gives one last leap and flies away up the chimney, with the sound of carefree laughter in her wake."

"Stoyan throws open the door and runs out after her, horrified, begging her not to leave their child. But she just laughs again and tells him that a Vila cannot keep house or nurse children like a human woman. She tells him to seek her on the mountaintop where the spirit maidens dance under the moon, and in a flickering of wings, she is gone."

Ellini stopped, slightly off balance. At some point during the story – and she couldn't have said when, because she'd been too caught up in it – Robin had opened his eyes. He was watching her carefully.

"Do you wish you could do what Radka did?"

Ellini frowned at him. She wanted to say that Radka did no more and no less than what was in her nature, and if fairytale heroes would insist on kidnapping their brides, what did they expect? But she found, to her surprise, that she didn't feel like defending Radka tonight.

"Do you mean fly away and abandon a helpless child? That's appalling."

"Yeah," said Robin, with a nostalgic smile, as though he missed 'appalling'. "Do you wish you could do it?"

She leaned forward, feeling as though she was on the edge of a rant, even though she had absolutely no idea what she was going to say. And then, all at once, she knew why she hadn't been able to defend Radka.

"I did do what Radka did," she breathed. "I left my girls when they were at their most vulnerable. I left them to the care of a man I hate and a woman I barely know-"

And you're annoyed, aren't you, said a nasty little voice in her head, that he's doing such a good job? A better job than you would have done? But you must know why he's trying so hard. Do you think the blissfully indifferent man you knew in Oxford could have done all this? What do you really think is going on between those nice little interludes with the jigsaw puzzle?

Mercifully, Robin interrupted her inner monologue at this point. The nostalgic smile had turned into a hearty chuckle.

"No, Ellie. You didn't do what Radka did. You couldn't. It's not in your nature. Radka was joy. She ran away to be free. You ran away to spite everybody, including yourself. You can leave the baby, but if you never stop thinking about the baby, you haven't really left the baby, if you see what I mean. Some people just weren't built to be free."

"Are you going to try and tell me it's because I'm a woman?" said Ellini, her voice hardening.

Robin shrugged. "It might be harder for a woman, certainly. You were literally built to nurture people. But don't think there aren't exceptions. Look at Myrrha – you think she was designed for love?"

And then, as if the mere mention of Myrrha's name was enough to call down disaster, the carriage gave a lurch underneath them – the lamps seemed to pop with the force of it – and Ellini hit her head against something.

Robin never cried out, of course. He had been raised on unexpected disasters. But he reached out to her, before everything went black. She felt the pressure of his fingers digging into her elbow, and then she knew no more.