Two weeks later...

Spring came to Oxford just the same. It didn't know that people had died, and an apocalypse had been narrowly avoided. Or, if it did, it was carrying on as normal. Ellini wished she knew how to do the same.

She and Jack stood side by side in Christchurch meadow, looking down at Danvers's grave. Since his body had disappeared into the demon realms with Elsie, the coffin didn't actually contain anything except a bowler hat and all twelve volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

They'd had to get special permission for that. Digging a hole in Christchurch meadow was scandalous enough, but burying a full, up-to-date set of Encyclopaedias was the sort of thing likely to cause a riot in Oxford. Still, Jack had spoken to the Dean of Christchurch, and somehow managed to convince him. Ellini wondered if he still had access to the incriminating documents he had used to bribe the city councillors.

The day was inappropriately lovely. In front of her, a broad avenue lined with poplar trees stretched down to the river. In the past week, all the sallow buds on those trees had fused together to make a wave of brilliant green. It even rustled and swooshed like a wave. Whenever Ellini closed her eyes to shut out the loveliness, she heard it – a fizz of green that made her tingle. She wanted to dive into it. She wanted to run down that tunnel of sun-speckled shade, shouting or laughing or crying her eyes out. She wasn't sure which.

It was all too beautiful. It was an insult to the departed. And yet it didn't make her feel insulted. It made her feel wonderful – which made her feel terrible. There was so much life and beauty here – prickling, stirring, rustling, heaving, brushing her face like cotton wool – and Elsie and Danvers weren't around to feel it.

It wasn't all loveliness, of course. Her eyes and her throat were sore from trying not to cry. Her chest felt as though it was packed full of pointy objects, and the slightest motion would jar them against her internal organs. All day, she had been walking and breathing very carefully, so as not to provoke them.

She sniffed and fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief. She wasn't crying – her heart was too treacherously light for crying – but the bowler hat had been the worst detail of the ceremony, harder to look at maybe than Danvers's body would have been.

The thought that, wherever he was now, he didn't even have his hat – the idea that he couldn't remove it when he met a new acquaintance, or fiddle with it when he was feeling nervous – made her throat raw and her eyes blur with tears. Although perhaps it was only hay fever. Stupid spring.

Jack's hand was on her shoulder, and she reached up to keep it there, in case he was thinking of withdrawing it.

He was upset too, she knew. It was in the way he was standing, the way he was breathing very carefully through his nose, as if everything would come spilling out if he happened to open his mouth. Neither of them had realised how much they loved Danvers and Elsie until it had been too late.

"Did you ever find the cricket vest you made for him?" Jack mumbled. Ellini got the feeling that he wanted to talk, but didn't want her to look at him, so she kept her eyes trained on the freshly dug grave, the coffin with a few handfuls of earth dusted over its lid. Danvers's cricket team would be back soon to fill in the hole, but they had given Jack and Ellini a moment to pay their respects. She wondered if Jack had incriminating documents on them too.

"No," she said. Her voice came out too wobbly and shrill, so she cleared her throat and tried again. "No. I think he must have been wearing it when he died. But I-" She hastened on, waving a hand. "I don't think I can have made that one bullet-proof. And even if I did, it wouldn't have made a difference..."

She trailed off. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jack shifting, poking at the ground with the toe of his boot. "Any idea what kind of spells you did weave into it?"

Ellini shrugged, jarring the pointy objects in her chest. She wanted to say, 'None that would guard against a broken neck', but it sounded too harsh, even in her head.

"I don't know," she admitted. "When I made it, I was thinking about how kind he was. How he always knew the right thing to do. Perhaps it-" She cleared her throat again. "Perhaps it prompted him to sacrifice himself. Although I suspect he would have done that anyway."

"Oh, you can bet he would," said Jack fervently.

Always, now, he had the axe strapped to his back, its blade winking over his shoulder in the sunlight. He was wearing the harness over his coat for ease of access. And Ellini didn't need to look to know that there would be guards on the roof of the Meadow Building, and across the road in St. Aldates. He wasn't taking any chances.

The situation was very volatile now. Nobody knew what was going to happen. Jack had been away for two weeks, talking to newspapermen in London and community leaders in Northaven, trying to sell an anti-inflammatory version of the Little Mother's death.

It wasn't that he particularly wanted to shield Mrs Darwin – though he had stationed guards around her without saying a word about it – but, if she were assassinated, it could start a war. If she were given a medal, it could start a war. If the government decided it wasn't going to risk another demon invasion, and came down to Oxford to destroy all traces of the Little Mother and her followers, it could start a war.

There were lots of things that could start a war. They had to tread carefully. It was just hard to tread carefully when your whole body was stiff and aching from grief.

Danvers's funeral had been held at Christchurch Cathedral, with a rather disparate group of mourners. His cricket team had been there, and all the girls from the Academy, forming a solid wall of blondes in the first five rows. Even the servants from the Faculty had come – Sarah and the cook flanking Dr Petrescu, and almost drowning out the sermon with their sobs. The band had played 'Rule Britannia'. It had made Ellini screw up her whole body against the tears trying to escape her.

Danvers had left a will – he'd been too conscientious not to – though he hadn't had a lot to give away. He'd left twenty pounds to a man named Yelavitch – well, in fact, he had left it to Elsie, but 'in the event that she should predecease me, which God forbid, to Vassily Yelavitch and his family'.

They had been at the funeral – although Yelavitch had had to bundle his three exuberant boys out of the church halfway through, for throwing paper darts at the choir. Ellini had been happy to see that. It had made her feel better about her own pent-up energy.

Danvers had left his clothes to the Philanthropic Society for the Betterment of the Poor on Queen's Street, and his pocket watch to Jack Cade, 'in recognition of all the times he restrained himself from stealing it, even though he was perfectly capable of doing so'.

There hadn't been anything else to give. Twenty pounds, a cupboard full of respectable, much-mended clothes, and a pocket watch.

Ellini could see Jack fiddling with it now – opening and closing the case with a snap, winding the chain around his finger. He fidgeted more when he was sad, she thought. Sadness was a state of helplessness so foreign to his nature that he had to be constantly moving just to convince himself he wasn't drowning.

She wished she could throw her arms around him, let him lift her up and twirl her round, just to give him something to do with his restless energy. She had the feeling that, if she made the slightest move towards him, he would respond, snatching her up and throwing the proprieties out of the window. They had been apart for almost two weeks, and sadness wouldn't have made Jack any less Jack. But he was holding himself in check.

For her part, Ellini didn't dare touch him in case it made her break down – or worse, start laughing and whooping and giving vent to all the pent-up joy under her skin. It seemed to her that grief entailed an understandable appreciation for your own life and health, followed by a cartload of guilt that your loved ones weren't enjoying the same good fortune.

Her head felt as light as her heart, because of the short hair. It still barely came past her ears, though she had pinned it back tidily for the funeral. The girls had suggested she get one of those chignons – fake buns or braids that could be woven into her hair to give the illusion of depth and fullness – but Ellini didn't like the idea. Apart from anything else, it would be hard to find a shade that matched her hair, because the glow of the 'Ring. Sister. Piano' spell hadn't left her. She would need to find a perfect midnight black with a sheen that hinted at unimaginable depths, and that kind of thing was in short supply.

Jack turned away from Danvers's grave, to face the reconstructed glass case of the Little Mother. He had commissioned the statue two weeks ago, while the dust was still settling in Broad Street. It had been the first thing he'd done, after explaining her death to the sombre, wide-eyed crowds in Northaven.

There was no body to put back, no corpse to embalm, but there had to be something – something to show the new-breeds that the Little Mother had come back, however briefly, and had loved them.

It was a marble statue of a girl with a blindfold, seated at a table piled high with books. Ellini had been at the unveiling yesterday, but this was the first time she had seen it up close. It was miraculous. The sculptor had even captured the frown-lines above Elsie's blindfold. And the marble glittered with spots of quartz, just like the stars on her skin.

"Where did you find the sculptor who made this?"

Jack gave her a one-shouldered shrug. "Northaven. I wanted someone whose heart would be in it – although he was a bit too reverent about the commission, to tell you the truth. I had to force him to accept money for it."

"But how did he manage to make her look so... so much like Elsie?"

"There were photographs. Remember Jane Saunders? Pious daughter of the Reverend William Buckleby Saunders?" He blinked and waved a hand. "Sorry, that's not relevant, it's just how I remember her name. Anyway, she took up photography, in the days when we all thought you were dead, and went around the Academy, making us all pose for photographic portraits. There's even one of me, although, for obvious reasons, I couldn't muster a smile back then." He reached into the pocket of his coat and brought out a tintype photograph. It was sepia-toned and crinkled with folds. Ellini got the feeling that he'd had been toying with it a lot over the past few weeks.

She looked at the picture. It was the same Elsie, her forehead furrowed, her hands slightly blurred, as if she hadn't been able to keep them still. In the corner, not quite out of shot, was the bottom of Danvers's leg, with its smart shoe and pressed trousers. He had never been far away. He had probably been fidgeting impatiently at the edge of the frame, waiting to take up one of the books and start reading to Elsie.

Ellini wished there was a way to recreate that in marble.

"The man was adamant that he wasn't going to try to make her look pretty," Jack went on, taking back the picture and rotating it in his restless hands. "Or noble, or gentle, or goddess-like. He was just going to take the photograph and recreate it as honestly as he could. He said too many people had tried to turn her into what they wanted her to be."

Ellini thought of the pose Elsie had been embalmed in, with her fingers splayed and her mouth stretched wide in a snarl. It had been cruel – unbelievably cruel – to make that brightly curious girl look like a monster ready to eat you, but she didn't think it had ever fooled anyone. This artist was conscientious, but he probably hadn't needed to rein himself in so tightly. Elsie's image was gentle to its boots, and no representation of her could hide that. Perhaps even that splintered icon from Byzantium had given off a feeling of acceptance.

"Of course, he said his reverence would probably bleed into the work," Jack continued. "He said, when you create any piece of art, you can't entirely hide your feelings about the subject. But I think he did pretty well. She looks like Elsie posing for a picture, smiling fixedly and wondering why it's taking so long. Itching to get back to that pile of books."

He turned away, his voice raw. Ellini was feeling too raw herself to risk throwing her arms around him. She interlaced her fingers with his instead, and they stood side-by-side, blinking and clearing their throats like a pair of Danverses.

Really, there was no end to the Danversness of the world, if you knew where to look for it.

After a while, Jack said, "We would have got through to her eventually. Wouldn't we? Alice didn't have to – to do what she did?" He looked up and sought out her eyes, as if silently pleading for her agreement. But Ellini didn't know what to say.

In the first, numb moments after 'the incident in Broad Street', as the papers rather endearingly called it, Inspector Hastings had dragged Alice to the police station and thrown her into a cell, glaring at anyone who dared to suggest the situation might be more complicated than a simple murder.

"I saw her ram a sword through a young woman's heart," he had retorted. "How complicated is that?"

But then the mayor had come, and the Master of Trinity College – he'd been watching from the window of his lodgings, and as far as he was concerned, Mrs Darwin had slain the demon-woman who'd been tearing up their streets.

Inspector Hastings had refused to let her go, of course. He would only say that he had witnessed a murder, and it was his duty to detain the suspect until legal proceedings could be arranged.

But more delegates from the University had come. And lawyers. They pointed out that murder was defined as the killing of a human or new-breed, and, as Elsie hadn't been either, Mrs Darwin couldn't be held under that charge.

They had also suggested that the Inspector might need medical attention. It wasn't just a broken wrist by then, but a gash on his forehead where a pub-sign had caught him on its way down into the abyss. He had been thundering at them while the blood soaked into his collar, and his red face turned progressively whiter. When Manda had turned up and insisted on towing him to Dr Petrescu's lodgings, he knew the battle was lost.

Mrs Darwin was released, but cautioned not to leave the city. Jack had posted guards around her, though he could barely look at her by then. He had been swaying on the spot as much as Sam.

Ellini had taken him to the Academy – as far from Alice as possible – and forced him to eat biscuits and sweet tea, before pressing him down onto the bed and letting him wind his arms around her. They were both shaking – his breath was still steaming, as if he had brought the cold of that ice-world with him – but they held onto each other, wordlessly, until the shivers died down.

And, though she had cried a bit, she had been so grateful, even then, that they had a warm place to curl up, a sky that wasn't falling down on them. Grateful that they still had arms to wind around each other.

When he'd woken, he had been Jack again – full of damage-limitation schemes, and quite interested in having sex with her. But he hadn't argued when she had gently unclasped his hands from around her waist and told him it was too soon.

Mrs Darwin, of course, was adamant that she hadn't done anything wrong – in fact, she thought everyone else had been wrong for not doing it. 'Moral cowardice' was the term she'd used.

"You knew perfectly well what needed to be done, but because it involved killing a blind girl, you were too squeamish to do it. Never mind that this one act could avert the deaths of thousands and preserve the continuance of our civilization. It was too unpleasant for you to contemplate, so it was left to me."

Jack prodded Ellini out of her reverie, looking expectant. He wanted her to tell him that there could have been another way, that Alice hadn't really saved the world, as she seemed to think.

She took a deep breath, making the pointy objects rattle all over again. "I don't know," she admitted. "Part of me thinks Mrs Darwin saved all our lives. Elsie was panicking – she didn't know friend from foe. And those ice warriors with the dragons would have tried to protect her. They wouldn't have understood that we weren't the ones hurting her. They would have killed us, and everything would have escalated. And yet, she knew me in that last moment – right before..." Ellini sniffed and hastened on, trying to keep her voice steady. "If she could recognise me and speak to me like that, when she was in so much pain, who knows what else could have happened?"

"That's exactly what I think," said Jack – and his voice, too, sounded muzzy and raw, as if he had a sudden head-cold. "I don't want to owe Alice anything. I'll protect her, because – well, because it's the right thing to do. But I don't want her to think it's because we agree with her."

Ellini tilted her head. It was probably just what Alice would think, now she came to consider it. They're indebted to me, but they're too cowardly to admit it. So they post guards around me, without endorsing or condemning me, just to save face.

It was a horrible thought. She could see why Jack would find it aggravating. But she still wasn't entirely sure why he was protecting her. It was in everyone's interests to ensure she wasn't assassinated, but Ellini had a feeling he had other reasons.

He could probably tell, from her silence, what she was trying not to ask, so he went on doggedly, grinding his heel into the grass. "Because not protecting someone when you could... that doesn't seem too different from killing them, and I don't do that anymore. But it's not just that."

He hesitated – maybe hoping that she would change the subject, and he wouldn't have to elucidate. But Ellini stayed silent.

"It's the fact that I also stabbed a helpless, kneeling woman through the chest."

Ellini didn't look up at him. She could hear the misery in his voice – she didn't want to see it in his face. She didn't want to give him the trouble of having to blink back tears and compose himself.

"I wasn't myself," he added, "but I like to think that neither was she. And if there was hope for me when I did the worst thing I could possibly think of, I like to think there could be hope for her too. I got dragons and miracles to bring me back. The least I could do for Alice is spare her a few guards."

He sniffed and raised his head, trying to martial his voice into some semblance of steadiness. "Anyway, Sergei would be upset if she died. He's already disappointed in her – I don't want him to have to mourn her too."

Ellini smiled down at the ground. "I'm proud of you."

He slipped his fingers under her chin and tilted her head up. "Can you look me in the eyes when you say that? I really think it would help."

He was smiling, but she could see how shiny and red his eyes were. Ellini felt the fragments in her chest stir again – but in a good way this time. He usually tried to hide his vulnerability from her at all costs, but here he was requesting eye-contact when he was in no condition to look casual. She could see the bruised little boy from St. Michael's looking out at her, and thought they had never overlapped so perfectly before.

"I'm proud of you," she said again, trying to look him squarely in the eye, even though her own eyes had gone blurry. "And I love you."

He took a sharp breath and started forwards, teetering on the edge of throwing his arms around her. Perhaps he thought it would be insensitive to do it while she was crying. Ellini wished he wouldn't be so scrupulous, but her throat was too raw to tell him so.

She took a shaky breath and repeated, "I love you," until she felt his lips on hers, his hands rubbing away her tears, his deep, broken voice whispering "Mouse" against her skin.

For a moment, they dissolved in tears and kisses, until she couldn't tell where she ended and he began. It smoothed the edges of the glass-shards in her chest. They were still there when she managed to wipe her eyes and pull herself away from him, but they were softer, less heavy. She could bear them. 

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