Jack closed the door behind him and crept down the carpeted stairs, his spirits sinking as he descended. 

He would have to go through the morgue to get to Alice. He'd spent the morning studying a plan of the building, when his eyes weren't blurring out of focus with anger or hunger or fatigue – he couldn't tell them apart anymore. So he knew that the mortuary consisted of several descending levels, like the circles of hell. 

He had found Sergei in the coroner's office on the first floor. He now had to go down the central staircase into the entrance hall – which was technically the ground floor, even though you had to climb a set of steps to reach it from the street outside. Then he had to go down another staircase into the morgue, which was level with the street. And then, once he'd got past Ellini's dead body, there would be one more descent, into the basement proper, which was the lair of the she-devil-bitch.

But he would have to face Ellini's body if he wanted to get to her. He would have to see her lying cold and naked on a slab, and know – definitively – that there was no room for any hope. Sam was betting on him being more scared than angry, but Sam had miscalculated, as he so often did. Jack was angrier than he was anything. He was angrier than he was Jack.

Which was why, when he reached the bottom of the stairs, rounded the bannisters and walked, once again, into Danvers's fist, it took him a while to regain his composure.

Oh god, there was always something else, wasn't there? There was always one more layer to be shovelled onto this pile of shit. Now he had to think about Danvers, and all the things Danvers had done that he hadn't done. The man who had stood up for Ellini – albeit in a spluttering, red-faced, ineffectual way – when Alice had smashed her doll. The man who had cared so much about her honour that he'd tried to pick a fight with Jack when he'd seen him kissing Alice Darwin.

It didn't matter that all these honourable displays had been useless, pointless and English to a cringe-worthy degree. In fact, that made it worse. Everything Danvers had done, he could have done better. And everything Danvers had done, he hadn't even thought about.

Jack shut his eyes, trying to clear his head of the memories as much as the punch, and stepped backwards before he could be tempted to hit back.

"You know, you were the one person I was going to leave alone. The one person who was kind to her without also being horrible to me. But you just had to push your luck, didn't you? So honourable that you couldn't possibly mind your own business."

"I won't let you hurt Dr Petrescu," Danvers panted. He had taken off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves. He was also holding his fists shakily in front of his face, like a boxer who didn't know what he was doing.

Jack stifled the urge to shout with every muscle in his body. "First of all, I've just come from the doctor's room. If you wanted to be noble, you should have tried to stop me before I went in there."

"Is he – is he dead?" said Danvers, aghast.

"Secondly, the last time you hit me, I beat you into submission without even trying to, remember? What were you hoping to achieve? Then or now?"

"It wasn't his fault!" said Danvers, still looking infuriatingly horrified. "He wouldn't tell you, because he's trying to protect me, but he tried to reverse the effects of the serum. He tried to put it right again. He was afraid he wouldn't be able to...well, at any rate, he sent me to investigate."

He hesitated, as though he was trying to find a way to confess without incriminating anyone else. How very Danvers of him.

"And that's not all," he said at last, lowering his fists. "I found the source of your amnesia. It wasn't chemistry, it was magic, although Mrs Darwin didn't know. And I had the counter-spell in my hand."

He held out his hand, as though he could still see it, shining in his palm. "Right up until the very end, I could have saved you. It would have taken me half an hour. But then I saw you kissing Mrs Darwin – the day after you'd got engaged to Miss Syal! – and I was so angry with you that I threw it into the fire. Do you remember? Magic – enlightenment – redemption?"

Jack held onto the bannisters, as every horrible realization sank into place around him, and left him in a world that was – somehow – even worse.

Oh god, what couldn't he have done if the spell had been broken that night? Just an hour earlier? Even with Ellini determined to martyr herself, and three invincible gargoyles on her trail. He could have saved her. He could have talked her round. He was good at thinking on the spur of the moment. The idea that he had just missed salvation by a hair's breadth was like losing her all over again.

But this time, it didn't make him angry. It left him cold and hollow-chested, as though all his internal organs had been whisked away before the pain could erupt inside them. He wondered if the pain was still going on, wherever they were. He wondered what it would feel like when they came back.

"I will want to hear more about this," he said, clinging desolately to the bannisters. "Some other time."

He doubled up, as though his body was reacting to the pain without even being able to feel it. "In fact, I think I'll ask you to write it down," he went on, as he sank to the floor. "I'll still be able to see your stupid, honourable face in your handwriting, but at least I won't be able to punch it."

Danvers took a step forwards and then stopped, obviously torn between caution and concern. "I'm not leaving Dr Petrescu-"

"He's not dead, Danvers," said Jack in a sing-song voice, his cheek suddenly pressing against the floorboards. "Go home, Danvers. Go back to that nice redhead I saw you walking with the other day."

There was a pause. A horrified pause? That would be worth investigating, if he didn't wake up in a prison cell, or spend the rest of his life on this floor. Both of them seemed quite appealing at the moment. And then Danvers, still with that wretched struggle in his voice, said: "I say, Jack...are you all right?"

Jack waved a hand, even though that was pressing against the floorboards now too. "Yeah, sorry. It alternates between psychotic violence, hysterical laughter, and-" he waved his hand again, "whatever this is."

His wrist fell back to the floor with a clunk, that damned shackle knocking against the floorboards. And he supposed the noise must have drawn Danvers's attention to it, because he heard, high above him, a hissing intake of breath.

"Where did you get that bracelet?"

Jack made a grudging effort to stay conscious. "What?"

"Did Miss – did Miss Syal give it to you?"

Jack rolled onto his back, staring up at him with the beginnings of hate. It had been so nice and peaceful on the floor, and now he could feel it all surging back – all the anger and curiosity and, oh god, those missing internal organs.

"You've seen this before," he said, nodding towards his shackled wrist. "Where? What is it?"

Danvers hesitated again. Jack lurched upwards, finding his feet – and Danvers's throat – in a blur of instinct. The anger was burning and bitter in his mouth, so hot that he was amazed he didn't spew out ashes when he parted his lips to speak.

"It can't be worse than what you just told me, Danvers," he said, forcing him back against the nearest wall.

"It's worse than anything!" Danvers wailed. "It means nobody can stop you!"

"It prevents me from dying, yes? It's more magic? How do I get it off?"

Danvers looked at him, as though wondering if he really didn't know. "It's an Achilles cuff," he said eventually. "It makes you invulnerable to harm from everyone in the world except one specific person."

"Who?"

"It can be anyone! The sorcerer who enchants the bracelet nominates someone – as far as I know, it can be anyone in the world – to be the only person who can kill you. I gave one to Miss Syal to try and keep her safe, but she didn't put it on, and I wondered at the time if she knew what it was. She must have re-enchanted it and given it to you."

"I can't get it off," said Jack stupidly.

"Only the nominated killer can take it off. Or they can kill you. I understand that's the most likely option."

"So she would have chosen someone? And it can be anyone in the world? Do I have to go up to every Tom, Dick and Harry, asking them to shoot me?"

"It would have been someone she trusted," said Danvers. "And, knowing Miss Syal, it would have been someone she trusted to be non-violent, so that they'd simply remove the bracelet instead of killing you."

They shared a look, and then Danvers added hastily, "I don't think it would have been a man. I don't think she'd trust a man, do you?"

His voice softened slightly, although Jack felt it as sharp as any razor-blade. "She wanted to keep you safe."

"No. She wanted to keep me suffering."

"I heard-" Danvers stopped, and then went on morosely. "I heard that the nominated killer always finds you in the end. It's something to do with the workings of narrative necessity."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "You mean 'Once upon a time' and 'Happily ever after'?"

"Yes." Danvers swallowed. "If by happily ever after, you mean dead."

"They're not as far apart as you might think."