"Welcome," said Jack, after a very, very long time. He felt agitated – half-nervous and half-excited. He wanted to spread his arms and smile. He wanted to be a good host to his old friend and his lovely, French Grim Reaper. After all, he had been looking forward to this for months. But now that it was here, it was too big. There were too many tasks he'd left unfinished. There was too much uncertainty about where he was going and whether or not it would hurt.

He had lived on the fringes of death for a long time – as a soldier, you got used to it – but he had never really believed it would happen to him, perhaps not even when he'd walked into the Delhi Cantonment, or when he'd lashed himself to that pillar so he could die on his feet. Back then, the soldier Jack – the showman, the conductor – had been in control, and he could pull off anything. But this was quiet and personal and intimate. He had no confidence in himself when there was nobody watching.

"Would you like some tea?" he asked. "I prefer coffee, but they tell me it's a drug, and I'm not allowed to have any of those anymore. By the way, you both smell enticingly of opium. A few months ago, I'd be grabbing you by the lapels to sniff your clothes, but I think I've turned a corner."

"Won't 'ave tea," said the woman. "Danvers already gave us some, and I'm bursting for a piss as it is."

She met his eyes as she said this, as though she was daring him to be shocked, or as though she wanted to enjoy his surprise. Jack understood that look. It said, Did you have the effrontery to romanticize me? Were you thinking cosy thoughts about the two women lovers? Were you fantasizing about a French temptress and her mistress cuddling up to each other in the fire-mines? That place was not a dream, and our love was not for any man's fantasy.

He smiled and shook his head, trying to dislodge the images. "I'm sorry. No matter how many people told me you weren't French, I couldn't seem to accept it."

"Funny, that," said Mathilde, without a trace of a smile.

"We'll forget the tea, then," he said briskly. "Let's get straight down to business."

He put a hand on Danvers's shoulder, partly to get his attention and partly to steady himself. "You can go to bed now. I won't need you again tonight."

"But-"

"Do as I say," said Jack, although he didn't let go of his shoulder. "You've locked up, yes? Keep an eye on the papers tomorrow. If Lord Elsmere's death is in the morning edition – even if they only say 'mysterious circumstances' – send a telegram to Brandt. Don't let any of the girls out for a few days, whatever it says in the papers." 

He pulled Danvers back, even though the man had made very little effort to get away. "And someone will need to collect the girls who're living outside the Academy. And tell Manda I'm to be buried in this coat. And there's a letter for Sergei in the top left-hand drawer of my desk. And, if there's another queue of pilgrims to see Elsie tomorrow, you're to search them thoroughly and only let them in one at a time – but don't let anyone in if Lord Elsmere's death is in the morning edition, understand? Take all your orders from Brandt from now on, except where the girls' welfare is concerned. That's when you listen to Manda."

He looked back at Danvers, to find that he was not scribbling diligently but staring at him with wretched, red-rimmed eyes. "You're not writing any of this down," Jack snapped. "Does it sound as though it's not important?"

"Nobody's going to be following your orders from now on anyway," said Sam. "I've had policemen clearing out this building for the past two hours. All the documents you used to bribe the mayor and his councillors – all your little plans and maps and threatening letters – they've been impounded as evidence. The ex-soldiers you planted in the town, and all the police officers loyal to you, will by this time have been replaced by my men. If you survive this evening, you'll stand trial on three counts of murder, as well as charges of arson, bribery, corruption, and breach of the public peace. There's nobody sympathetic to you in the city outside of this building – and, as of tonight, the management and ownership of this building passes to Mathilde Marron. Oh, and I've written personally to the Queen asking her to revoke your knighthood," Sam added, with one of his grim, much-missed smiles. "I think that covers everything."

Jack gave him a faint smile of his own. All the panic and uncertainty of the past few minutes was giving way to pride. Sam had done magnificently. Sam was angry and effective again, and everything was as it should be.

"Tou-bloody-ché, mate," said Jack.

Sam ignored him. "We'll leave it to Miss Marron to decide whether you'll be delivered into police custody dead or alive. I've advised her to show you no mercy whatsoever."

Jack just smiled. There was nothing else to be said.

"I'd like to speak to 'im alone," said Mathilde.

Danvers and Shikari started to protest at this, but Sam placed a hand on each of their shoulders and led them out. They looked at Jack as they withdrew – Danvers with the same tearful uselessness, and Shikari with a calm, mute, questioning expression, as though he was asking whether or not Jack wanted him to fight back. He shook his head to both. No more tears and no more fighting. It was just going to be him and the cockney French girl now. Just him and the inevitable. Sam's behaviour had made him quite light-hearted about it.

Mathilde waited until the door had closed behind them – waited until the crunch of their footsteps on the gravel drive had almost receded into silence – before she turned to Jack with a businesslike expression that didn't quite conceal her distaste.

"I just said that to get rid of 'em. There's no need to talk. Danvers told me what you did. You've been good to my girls but very, very bad to my Leeny. She'd want me to count one but not the other, so I aint goin' to kill you. Unlike you, that's not something I do lightly. I 'ope we'll never meet again, but if we do, remember 'oo you're dealing with. Don't talk to me like I'm your friend."

She swept past him and headed for the door. Just like that. With that brief an explanation. With even less eye-contact than he got from Ellini in the Indian room.

Jack stood quite still as she passed, his face and his mind blank with shock. No, no, no – this was not happening. He'd waited too long. Yes, he'd made her into what he had wanted her to be. Fair enough if she wasn't French, wasn't a temptress, and wasn't inclined to tell him stories about her liaisons with Ellini. But she was still going to be his executioner. She had to be.

"Danvers didn't tell you everything," he said, lurching forwards and pushing the door closed in front of her. "Danvers doesn't know everything. Did he tell you how slow it was? Did he say I stabbed her close enough to the heart to ensure eventual death, but far away enough to make it long and lingering? It took her two or three hours to die and, all that time, she was in agony."

Mathilde didn't struggle, but she didn't turn to look at him either. She just stood there, facing the closed door. Apart from a slight reddening on the back of her neck, there was no indication at all that she was in the grip of strong emotions. But Jack would have expected this from a Charlotte Grey – practically the head Charlotte Grey. He just kept his eyes fixed on that red patch at the back of her neck and pressed his advantage.

"Did he say how much blood there was? She was wearing a white dress and, in twenty minutes, it was completely red, from collar to hem. Do you know how much blood it takes to dye your clothes completely red? You wouldn't believe one woman had that much blood in her. Did Danvers mention that, while she was bleeding to death, that orange-faced old man came in and ordered one of the gargoyles to rape her in front of me? He dragged her screaming across the floor, threw back her skirts and wrenched her legs apart-" 

He heard a swift, hissing intake of breath and guessed that he had touched a nerve. Well, no wonder. "And she had to save herself," he hurtled on. "She was on her own, just as she was on her own when she died. There was no comfort and no rescue."

Mathilde turned abruptly, trying to keep her face from him, and started walking the other way, but he pursued her.

"Do you know how much she loved me?" he demanded. "She came to Oxford resigned to a martyr's death, and I made her hopeful. When I asked her to marry me, I saw her trying on her wedding-dress and blushing like a school-girl. Fresh from the fire-mines, with the cuts and bruises still on her, and I made her blush like a school-girl. Could you have done that? How do you think it felt when I stabbed her through the chest? What kind of thoughts do you think went through her head in those two or three hours she was bleeding to death? She didn't just hate me, she hated herself for being so wrong about me. Do you think that's a nice way to die?"

Mathilde turned and slapped him. He was impressed that that had been the last straw – not the mention of rape, or the suggestion that Ellini had loved him more than she'd ever loved her. These were probably not new ideas for a woman as jaded and observant as Mathilde. But the suggestion that Ellini's mind would have turned all of this into more ammunition for her self-hatred – that would be both familiar and fresh if you knew her well. That would cut the deepest.

But she didn't follow up the slap with a good kicking. She didn't sneer or spit in his face. She took a slight, shuddering breath and drew backwards without moving an inch, just as he had seen Ellini do a thousand times. A real, living woman had been at the front of her eyes, peering out – real, raw words had been trembling on the edge of her lips – and now, just as suddenly, they were gone, and the artful construct that was Mathilde Marron was smiling.

"You know, one of the first things I told Ellini when she got to the fire-mines was that the gargoyles can't touch us in any meaningful way. They can break your skin, but they can't get under it. They're like vampires, see? All bastards are. They can't come in unless they're invited. It's when you start to behave like them, that's when they've touched you. Mind you, they touched plenty of us, I aint sayin' they didn't. They touched Violet and Anna and maybe even Ellini, but they never touched me, and neither will you. You can't make me change my mind or my beliefs. You're a killer but you can't make me a killer, 'ave you got that? So get out of my way. Be your own damn executioner."

She reached down, caught his wrist, and drew it, with its silver shackle, up to her eye. She handled him like a doctor would handle a very infectious patient – all calm, nauseated interest. Finally, she found the pin that was joining the two semi-circles of metal together and drew it out. The shackle snapped open and dropped to the floor like an anchor. The resultant thud was totally inappropriate for an object so small, but seemed right when Jack lifted his wrist and felt it flutter up like a tiny bird. He hadn't realized how much the bracelet had been weighing him down – or how thin he'd been getting while he was wearing it.

He looked up, but Mathilde was already gone. She had probably been gone before the bracelet hit the floor. The sudden loss of its weight overbalanced him, and he staggered forwards, with half a mind to go after her and demand she be a proper assassin like Ellini had meant her to. 

But then there was a new sensation above the sudden weightlessness – and, curiously for a new sensation, it felt like an old pain. Not the hot slicing of a fresh wound, but the dim throbbing of a cut that had been opened several hours ago, and bleeding ever since.

He looked down and saw little red cracks spreading over the skin of his hands and arms. They were thin as a hair, but welling upwards.

And then, like rivers bursting their banks, the blood rushed forth. He didn't fall to his knees, but knelt down very calmly. The dim ache was spreading across him like a shudder. Hadn't Ellini said something like this would happen? That his flesh would remember the wounds he'd sustained as soon as the bracelet was taken off? How far back would it go? Was it just tonight's injuries, or a whole seven months of carelessness?

Actually, it probably wouldn't matter. Tonight's injuries would be enough. Anna had been hacking at his chest and throat, hadn't she? And, sure enough, there was blood spattering the floor now, dropping like pearls from a broken necklace. How eerie to get the cuts without the knife! He felt as though he was outside his body, watching himself being dissected by an invisible scalpel.

He was probably dying. But it was happening in such a strange, quiet way that he didn't know how to panic. He thought about odd things, like the piano in the parlour at the orphan asylum where he'd grown up, and then he toppled forwards.