Manda didn't want to criticize the demon mother of the new-breed race, but she couldn't help thinking that Elsie was going about this the wrong way. Sam liked to be told bad news outright. He liked to glare and shout and reel back as if he'd been struck. He did not like to be offered a chair or a cup of tea. The longer they delayed, the more his shoulder-muscles tightened under Manda's hand.

She had stationed herself behind him, with one restraining hand on his shoulder, the moment he sat down in the Academy's wood-pannelled office. The teacup was before him on the desk, practically quaking with his rage.

And Elsie just stood there in her nightgown, smiling vaguely, letting her long, lacy sleeve trail in her teacup. She looked thoughtful, but not strained. She didn't look as though she was working out a tactful explanation of the night's events.

Finally, she dragged her sleeve out of her cup, squeezed it dry, and said, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Inspector, but you're a little bit demon."

Manda winced. She noticed that John Danvers – who had taken up exactly the same position with regard to Elsie as she had with regard to Sam – was also wincing.

Sam said nothing. He glared uselessly at the blind girl, until the silence sucked more words out of her.

"I always knew I knew you," said Elsie. "Those scars on your neck..." She stopped smiling, and seemed to be gathering her thoughts, as if she could sense Sam's impatience. "You see, a demon bit you."

"He was a new-breed," said Sam.

"He was a carrier. The demon needs a host body – human or new-breed, it's not particular."

Sam stood up very suddenly, jerking Manda's hand upwards. "I've had enough of this."

"Please listen, Inspector," said Mr Danvers.

"Why? So she can stand there and tell me what I am? I've had these scars for years, they haven't changed me."

"I think they haven't," said Elsie. Her smile had crept back. "I think the demon must have been very proud when it found you as a host. You have the perfect temperament to hide it."

Manda cleared her throat, half-impatient and half-awed by the girl's daring. "Could you start from the beginning? And stay factual? I really think it would help."

Danvers squeezed Elsie's shoulder, and it seemed to have an effect. The girl made an effort to straighten her face.

"Not all demons have bodies, I expect you know? This kind, the Anhartha, are a little like the elementals – formless but conscious. But where the elementals love to ride on the wind, all formless and free, the Anhartha seek out host bodies to inhabit. They're not too forceful. By and large, they don't interfere with the day-to-day business of their hosts. They generate a kind of aggression in you. I expect you find you're always having to stifle the urge to strangle people?"

Sam stuffed his clenched fists into his pockets. "That proves nothing."

"It really doesn't," said Manda. "He's always been like that."

"That's just what I mean," said Elsie excitedly. "When it inhabited you, the Anhartha had found the perfect host – someone whose increased aggression would go unnoticed."

"I do not have increased aggression!" Sam shouted.

"And someone who already had the urge to protect Oxford," she went on. "You see, this Anhartha had a mission. I gave it to him the last time I was in Oxford, only I'd forgotten until that funny old man – that Faustus – reminded me."

Danvers dropped his hand from her shoulder. He looked stunned.

"What are you talking about?" Sam rumbled.

"I was to appoint a guardian of Oxford. To fight my sister. Faustus nominated his progeny. All his descendants from that time to this have been lured to the city and embroiled in its interests. I had to nominate a demon – a demon who could stay behind when I died, and who could live long enough to wait for my return. I chose the Anhartha, which could skip from host-body to host-body down the generations until it was needed."

"Needed for what?" said Sam.

"The two guardians of Oxford can kill my sister. Well, it's the city who can kill her really – that all his to do with the weapon Faustus chose – but you and Mrs Darwin-"

"Me and who?" Sam demanded.

"You don't know Mrs Darwin? The last descendant of Doctor Faustus?"

That quenched him. It all sounded like insanity until it chimed in with something he already knew. Manda felt sick.

"Can you get it out of him?" she said. "The Anhartha?"

Elsie chewed her lip, and then put out a hand to touch Sam. He backed away, but right into Manda, who pushed him forward. Sullenly, he let the girl reach up to brush the scars on his neck. She put two fingers against them, as if she was taking his pulse.

"It's very old," she said, after a moment. "Old and angry. It wants to die, but not until it's finished its mission. All that anger..." Elsie chewed her lip, as if she was trying to bite back her smile. "I can't tell whether you've influenced it or it has influenced you. It hates Oxford, but it won't leave. Not until its job is finished."

"Can-you-get-it-out?" said Sam, emphasizing every word.

"No."

"You're the mother of the demon race," he snarled. "I refuse to believe it wouldn't do what you said!"

The girl's excitable smile was back. No amount of biting could get rid of it. "You think this one – who's been influenced by your personality, who's been cut off from me for three centuries, and imprisoned in this city wanting to die all that time – will do what I say? No. Not yet. It won't budge an inch until it's killed my sister."

"That's very convenient for you," Sam snapped.

Elsie tilted her head on one side. "I suppose it is. But if you knew my sister, you'd understand. She's inconvenient for everybody."

***

Robin saw her from a long way off. From his perspective, she seemed to be blazing across the heather, like a dry-weather fire. No fairytale princess in a gown composed of pure sunlight could have been brighter.

He gaped at her. His mouth dropped open. And he couldn't wrench that mouth into a smile, no matter how he tried, no matter how he balled up his fists and dug the fingernails into his palms.

He had dreaded seeing her sparkle again, and now she was blazing.

It was only when a fox knocked over a dustbin opposite, flicking its flame-like tail, that he came to himself. Myrrha was watching. He did not want her to watch him going to pieces.

Ellini had been walking up the street towards him, and he turned as she drew level, falling into step beside her as if there had been no interval – as if they were back in Lambeth or Northaven, and they were all business. He did not mention her eye-lacerating glow.

"I'm very sorry I'm late," she said, removing her gloves and tucking them under her arm. This occasioned a double wince from Robin, because she never used to take her gloves off for anyone, and because she was wearing, on the fourth finger of her left hand, the ring she had thrown into the fires of hell two weeks ago.

Two weeks. It hadn't even taken the bastard a fortnight.

He drew a deep, shaky breath. "You're not late. I've only just finished my preparations."

"And what are they?"

They stopped beneath the inn sign. It creaked over their heads. The Hanged Man. And it always swung like that, even when there was no breeze. The buildings of Edinburgh had a taste for the dramatically appropriate.

She noticed his hesitation, and said, "She's listening?"

He motioned wordlessly to the overturned dustbin, where the fox was still nuzzling through potato peelings, apparently oblivious of their presence.

"I see," said Ellini. "Inside?"

He nodded.

They did not ask for one of the parlours set aside for private dining, but sat by the fire in the taproom, in the full bustle and noise of a Friday night. She seemed to understand without asking that they were safest in places with a lot of background noise.

They ordered two glasses of wine and drew their chairs close together, so they could talk with some semblance of privacy.

"Do you know about the foxes?" said Robin, unable to stop himself. "Do you know the tutor she assigned to break me in was called Father Volpone?"

Ellini flinched for a moment, but she recovered. "I did know. Sorceresses often have an affinity with a particular animal."

"What's yours?"

She gave a small, shaky smile. "Whatever type of bird is most common in the Edinburgh skies."

He frowned at her, but didn't ask for clarification. He was still drinking up her glow, and wondering why the other men in the bar didn't see it. They should have been flinching away from her, shading their eyes, wondering how a second sun could have risen in the taproom of the Hanged Man.

Suddenly, it tipped him forwards. He found himself leaning towards her and hissing, "What are you doing here? You have no reason to be here, now."

She looked puzzled. "I'm carrying out our plan."

"Plan? Did we plan for that ring?" He gestured at her gloveless hands. "Did we plan for Jack-?"

He couldn't go on. Ellini tilted her head, with a look that could almost be described as concern. "There's something different about you."

"There's something different about you!"

She reached a hand up to touch her hair, as if he'd made her self-conscious for a moment. "Do you like it? I suppose it's part of my new start. A few days ago, I would have called that woefully naïve, but it's a new world this evening."

"I know it's a new world!" he snapped. "I'm not blind. I should be blind, after looking directly at you for five minutes-"

"But why are you surprised to see me? You've been making preparations, haven't you? You were expecting me."

"That was before I saw you-" he spluttered, and then clamped his mouth shut. He flexed his fingers, very deliberately, on his knee. "So you're here. Does that mean you trust me?"

"No, I trust myself." She tilted her head, as if to make a small, unwilling concession. "Which I suppose implies trusting you. But it definitely isn't my primary motivation."

"And is it permanent? Your hair?"

"I suppose it's here to stay – as long as I stay, anyway."

"Good point," said Robin, lifting his wineglass gloomily.

Another tentative smile curled her lips. "What does it look like to you?" she asked. "Everyone I meet describes it differently."

Robin tried to shrug. He realized he'd been hunching his shoulders all this time. "It's like... black gold."

"Like oil?"

"No, like... Before it was as dark as night, and now it's as bright as night. I can't put it any clearer than that."

"I don't need you to. I love hearing how it seems to different people. I think maybe I'll ask about it whenever I meet someone new. And then perhaps I won't mind meeting new people so much."

"Depends on the person, I suppose."

Very suddenly, he snatched up her hand and twisted it round so she could see the ring. He couldn't bear how – how unaware of it she seemed. 

"Jack suffered, though, didn't he?" he hissed. "In hell? They had him on a rack somewhere, yes? And time works differently there, doesn't it? Maybe he was there for years. Maybe he's still there."

She shifted uncomfortably, but did not move away. Her eyes met his for just long enough to make clear – as if she needed to – that he had no power to discompose her.

"Yes, he suffered for it. More than someone like you could possibly imagine."

She didn't say it maliciously. She said it as though it made her very sad that he didn't have Jack's capabilities – not sad enough to pity him, perhaps, but still sad.

It was worse than a slap in the face. Worse than her pity. Worse than her blazing glitter. Robin leaned back in his chair and breathed out slowly. He kept his mind and his face carefully blank until the sharp-toothed smile turned up, as it always did, to carry him over the pain.

"Well, I take your point, Ellie. But when it comes to his suffering, someone like me can imagine quite a lot."

Ellini took her hand back and wiped it rather pointedly on her dress. "What's your plan, then?" she said, as if nothing had happened.

"To get very drunk." 

He saw her glance at the wineglass, and then refrain from commenting. It quite cheered him up.

"It's not as simple – or as stupid – as it looks," he explained. "The more drunk I am, the less Myrrha can get into my head. Not that she often deems it worth her while."

He saw those dark eyes dart to him again. For the first time that night, she looked doubtful. "She can control you, then?"

"You always knew she could."

"Why hasn't she done it before? There are hundreds of times in the past few months when I've been in your power-"

"I know," said Robin, smiling sadly.

"Why didn't she use you to kill me then?"

"Because she wanted you here. You're part of her plan. We all are."

Ellini looked down at the tabletop. He leaned forwards and nudged her companionably. "Don't feel bad about coming here. You had to. When Myrrha wants something from you, she doesn't leave you any choice."

"She is not going to get it," said Ellini, pulling away.

"That's my girl."

She glared at him – as if the last thing she wanted, in that moment of uncertainty, was to be told she was his girl.

Robin took a gulp of wine and smiled at her through slightly crimsoned lips. He was almost forgetting about the glow, and the fact that somebody else had called it forth.

"Are you wondering if you were right to trust me?"

"I haven't trusted you."

"Don't worry. You know me better than she does. You see what I am, and she sees what she'd like to make me. Of course, I am what she's made me, so I'm not sure who's got the advantage there."

Ellini stood up, looking stone-faced and imperious once more. "We're going tonight?"

He sat back and looked at her, trying not to smile. "In four or five hours. Give the streets time to empty."

"Do I have a room here?"

"Of course."

"A separate one from yours?"

He grinned at her and held up a key. "I'll be in the bar all night. My plan depends on it, remember."

***

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