Contrary to Ellini's expectations, the meeting of Robin and Elliott did not bring about the end of the universe. There wasn't even a thunderclap. Technically, they were strangers, but they seemed to recognize each other on some cosmic, storybook level, because their faces froze in instant dislike. She supposed Robin saw Prince Charming and Elliott saw the wolf. And how could she explain that she didn't want to end up in the belly of one or the palace of the other? 

Names were immaterial, but she introduced them anyway. They did not shake hands.

Robin gave him a wide, unfriendly smile. "Oh, the piano boy. Cushy job, is it, sitting down all day, playing concertos?"

Elliott, who probably hadn't understood the meaning of the word 'cushy', just said, "How do you do?"

"Well, we have to be going," said Ellini, bright and crackling with unease.

For a moment, neither man was sure which 'we' she meant. But then Robin turned to leave, in the expectation that she would follow, and Elliott's face fell. He drew her velvet choker out of his pocket, as if he was thinking of looping it round her like a lasso and dragging her back.

"I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again," said Ellini hastily. "I don't have any plans to leave Northaven in the next few days, and it – it would be lovely to hear you play again."

She didn't dare look at either of their faces. It was all she could do to leave the parlour without running. She hurried through the door and into the town square, where the new-breed dancers were just warming up for the night. Even with all the music, she could hear the sound of Robin's cool, unhurried footsteps at her heels. It was reassuring, but only because it meant he wasn't following Elliott.

Ellini hurried through the throng. Once or twice, she got caught up in the dance and whirled about, but it didn't matter. It complemented her dizziness and her churning stomach perfectly.

The new-breeds were in high spirits. One of them – a big bear of a man, with hair creping out from under his collar – tried to kiss her, but Robin pushed him back, with a flash of those dazzling, even teeth.

When they reached the quieter streets, he started talking. "Let me be the first to congratulate you, Ellie. A pianist's wife in a provincial town. What a homely, wholesome life you'll have to look forward to. You could bake pies and teach Sunday school."

Ellini kept walking, and he kept following her. He seemed determined to probe this image of wedded bliss to the very bottom, however much it angered him.

"You could be a pillar of the community," he said, running his tongue over his perfect teeth. "You could found a philanthropic society and pass round the collection plate every Sunday. You could auction off your needlework and host charity dinners at Christmas."

Ellini didn't respond. He was trying to be cruel, certainly, but she wasn't sure why it was cruel. Was he taunting her with a life of cosy domesticity that she could never have, or a life of cosy domesticity that she was supposed to consider beneath her? And how did she feel about cosy domesticity, in the end?

"You could join a mission to convert the Indians, and make them wear neckties and petticoats."

This, for some reason, was the last straw. She rounded on him. "What are you doing? Why are you saying this? I'm obviously not going to inflict my company on that poor man. Good God, can you imagine-?" She stopped, unwilling to show him too much of her worries, but her brain supplied the rest – it had been running along these lines all the time Elliott had been describing Franconia.

Can you imagine the kind of evils I'd bring to that peaceful town? The fights? The murders? The broken homes? The mountains wouldn't be green for long – they'd turn charcoal black. They would burn. And I couldn't be true to him – I couldn't even be true to him during that conversation. My mind kept straying towards Jack, wondering if he was dead, wondering if he was coming after us.

It was like a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach, that thought, dragging her insides down. The shame of caring whether he was alive or dead was almost worse than the thought itself.

For the first time since they left the inn, Robin looked at her face – took in her whiteness and her chattering teeth. She had come out without hat, coat, or shawl, but it couldn't all be explained by the cold – unless it was that persistent, under-the-skin cold that had been plaguing her ever since she'd leapt out of that pool in Warwick. The cold of the inevitable.

"There's something worse, isn't there?" he said. "Golden boy's coming."

Ellini sniffed and tried to raise her head. "Or he's dead. I'm not sure which."

"When will he get here?"

She frowned at him. "Didn't you hear me?"

"Yes, I heard you. He's obviously not dead. When did he find out you were alive?"

"Last night."

"Then he'll be here tomorrow."

Ellini folded her arms, annoyed to hear him dismissing the fears that had been plaguing her all day – and even more annoyed to discover there was a part of her which agreed with him. Had she never really believed it?

No, she had been afraid for him. She couldn't delude herself about that. But she knew him – better than ever now. She knew how hard he was to kill, even without the bracelet.

"How did he find out?" asked Robin, rubbing his hands together. It might have been a gesture to keep out the cold, but there was something about it that smacked of greedy anticipation. "I've had people watching him. He was in Oxford, as of yesterday."

"Who's watching him?"

"Oh, a few priests. Didn't I tell you I have intimate connections with the Catholic priesthood? Could've taken orders if I'd had a mind to."

"What an unsettling thought," she said, clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering.

"You're not going to tell me how he found out?"

"What do you think?"

"I think it would make my life easier if you were more open with me. But probably not as much fun."

Ellini gave him a wary look. He was in a much better mood now. All those visions of quiet respectability in New Hampshire were forgotten. Was it because he was looking forward to tormenting Jack? Was Jack likely to be easily tormented? She found she didn't want to think about it.

"I'm going this way," she said, pointing to the rock-cut steps that led up to Mari Lloyd's school and its many, wonderful gardens. "I need to speak to Miss Lloyd about the transformation combat."

She wasn't sure she was fit for it. Mari Lloyd had upset her enough when she hadn't had Jack and Elliott to worry about. But it would force her to think about magic and storytelling and all the things that made her feel powerful. And there might be black coffee and Battenberg again.

"Oh, that's still going ahead, is it?" said Robin. "Capital. Would you like me to come with you?"

She gave him another look. It repeated, without any words, the 'What do you think?' of a few moments ago.

Robin gave her a half-smile and put his head on one side. "I'm not perfectly convinced she won't be violent, that's all. She's afraid of us, I think, and desperate people do desperate things. A consideration which doesn't just apply to Mari Lloyd."

Ellini ignored this last remark. "She is not afraid of us. She thinks we're savages."

"And civilized people have no reason to fear savages?" he muttered, half to himself.  "You know, I still don't know what you're going to do."

"I told you. Transformation combat."

"All right, but I still don't know what that is. I've read about wizards doing battle by changing themselves into various different animals?"

"That's what men do," said Ellini, trying to keep a sneer out of her voice. "Women don't need to be anywhere near so obvious."

***

In truth, transformation combat was not something she knew very much about – though she supposed she knew as much as anyone could, who hadn't tried it.

She knew the theory – she had read about it in Myrrha's copy of the Clavis Daemonorum, back at Pandemonium. The transformation combat of folklore and legend had to do with two magicians transforming themselves into different creatures to do battle. Each transformation was supposed to outfox the opponent – sometimes literally. But the transformation combat she had read about in Myrrha's library was about transforming your opponent rather than yourself. You changed the way people saw your opponent – even sometimes the way your opponent saw herself. 

At its heart, it was a storytelling contest – although perhaps it would be more true to say a storytelling collaboration, because the contestants took it in turns to weave one story between them, each trying to make it into their story, to present themselves as the heroine and their opponent as the villain.

It was like a debate, really, but within the framework of a narrative – which struck Ellini as a very good idea, because there were plenty of people who would never be convinced by an argument, but who might have their sympathies awoken by a tale.

According to the Clavis Daemonorum, the loser of the transformation combat would lose her magical powers, but it didn't say how, or whether this was a grisly process. It would be different for everyone. Sorceresses lived with that uncertainty – or, more frequently, died with it.

She wasn't sure Mari Lloyd would accept. She wasn't even sure whether she had a chance of winning. But it felt cleaner than her encounters with the other Wylies. At least now she had a plan, even if it was one with an uncertain outcome.

She was shown in by one of the genteel school-mistresses, and Ellini scrutinized her all the way down the hall, trying to decide whether she was better off as a learned spinster who'd had her heart broken, or a bored housewife married to a worthless man.

But it didn't matter. The results didn't matter. You couldn't take it upon yourself to decide other people's futures like that.

Mari Lloyd was sitting at her desk, her rosy face and ray-like hair the brightest things in the room. It made Ellini think of the sun settling into a bank of clouds at the end of the day, when the light got red and languorous.

She was received quite courteously, but there was more eyebrow-raising than before, and Ellini wondered whether she'd disappointed Miss Lloyd by running out the previous day. She had probably seemed like a worthy opponent before that.

When Miss Lloyd had waved her into a seat, Ellini smoothed out her skirts and said, "I've come to challenge you."

Mari Lloyd looked at her. "Not set your 'husband' on me? Not murder me in my bed?"

Ellini had learned not to flinch at the inverted commas around the word 'husband' by now. "Did you think I was going to do that?" she asked mildly.

"I didn't know what to think. You don't strike me as a violent woman, and yet every one of my associates who's encountered you has ended up dead." She noticed Ellini's blank expression, and elaborated. "The three girls you met in Warwick – Alice, Artemis, and Ivy, did you know their names? They were hanged yesterday at the county assizes. Myrrha didn't save them."

Ellini was silent.

"I'm not disappointed in her," said Mari, as though she sensed a rebuke in that silence. "She was never my mistress. I used her for my own ends just as, I presume, she's using me for hers." She paused, drumming her fingers on the desktop for a moment. "Have you ever thought about that? Why she's allowing you to kill her associates?" 

Ellini blinked. The words 'She couldn't do a thing about it if she tried' trembled on her lips, but she didn't say them. No, she knew what Myrrha was capable of. But she also knew how highly Myrrha valued her own entertainment. And watching Ellini struggle through a clumsy revenge, feeling guilty about everyone she punished, sounded very much like one of Myrrha's games. She was probably enjoying it as much as Robin. 

"I suppose... she's watching to see what happens," Ellini ventured. 

"Or she's using us as a trail of breadcrumbs to lure you to her," said Miss Lloyd. "Haven't you noticed you've been moving steadily north? And who plans the route? Your oh-so-trustworthy 'husband'?"  

Ellini was silent. That was a new idea  – and not one she particularly liked. Of course, she had always known he was going to come up against Myrrha eventually. You couldn't get rid of the Wylies without fighting their leader. But the idea that Myrrha might have been counting on this...even using Robin to ensure it...

"What would she want with me?" said Ellini, shifting in her seat. 

Miss Lloyd stilled her drumming fingers and sat up, as if an idea had just occurred to her. "You don't know anything about Eve, do you?" 

"I'm sorry?" 

"Well, that's her real passion. I think it means even more to her than your psychotic, shared 'husband'. She wants to kill Eve permanently. End her cycle of recurring lives." 

Ellini sat bolt-upright in her chair. "What? But how could she do that? Eve's been gone for..." 

She knew she was revealing her ignorance even as she said it. Miss Lloyd's eyes lit up, and she pressed her lips together, as though to keep herself from smiling. 

"Good heavens, he really has been hiding the papers from you, hasn't he? You haven't heard about the empty coffin in Christchurch Meadow? The discovery of a woman who matches her description at Jack Cade's Academy on Headington Hill? I suppose that Academy is a sensitive subject for you, but perhaps you should consider why else your husband might be concealing this?" 

Ellini sat determinedly still in her chair. She was not going to run out again. Miss Lloyd had given her a lot to think about, that was all. And she was going back to Oxford anyway, as soon as the transformation combat was over, so she would be able to find out about it then. There was nothing here that couldn't wait  – except perhaps the insinuation that Robin couldn't be trusted. But she had always known that, hadn't she? 

"About this challenge I mentioned..." she mumbled, while her heart sang out, Eve! Eve! Eve! Eve is alive again!

"Quite right," said Mari Lloyd, sniffing. "Just because we have other enemies at large, that doesn't mean we can forget about this quarrel of ours." 

"If you would only promise not to use the amnesia spell on another young couple, I'd let the matter go," said Ellini. "You could keep your school and your teachers. It would be too messy to unpick the enchantments on them now."

"Yes," said Mari, with a satirical smile. "I'm not going to stop. And neither, I suspect, are you."

"No."

"Then why don't you set your boorish 'husband' on me?"

"I respect you," said Ellini. She had hoped this was obvious, but perhaps not.

Mari Lloyd raised a red-gold eyebrow, and then said reluctantly, "I respect you too. But the things you believe are dangerous. You're in love with being a martyr, and you think other women should feel the same."

"No. I just think women should have a choice."

"You know they could never have a choice!"

"That doesn't mean you can choose for them."

They looked at each other for a long time, and then Mari Lloyd folded her arms. "Which brings us to the challenge you mentioned, I suppose. What did you have in mind?"

"Transformation combat. It's a sort of story-telling contest."

"I've read about it," said Mari abruptly. "Myrrha lent me her copy of the Clavis Daemonorum."

Ellini stared at her. "I read about it in her copy too! Did it have a piece of mirror stuck on the inside cover? And, underneath it, she'd written 'Who's the fairest of them all'?"

There was an odd moment, where both of them were tempted to laugh, but neither wanted to let the other in. Ellini saw a flash of recognition in her eyes, and a smile which was quickly stifled.

"In any case," said Mari, "it seems a very civilized contest, but I know too much about magic to be convinced by how it seems. The loser is permanently disabled, isn't she?"

"Only magically disabled. I think."

"Which, in my case, would mean no more liberating women from the straitjacket of their own emotions, and in your case, no more murdering my associates." She gave Ellini a slight, reproachful look. "Not that there are many left to murder."

"I wouldn't put it quite like that."

"Of course you would not. That's the nature of the contest, isn't it? I hope you don't mind my saying so, Miss Syal, but the odds would appear to be very much in my favour. I have more education, more rhetorical training, less compunction about being impolite. The only time I ever saw you lose your temper, you ran out of the room. I seek out arguments, whereas you seem to constitutionally avoid them."

"It won't be an argument," said Ellini. "It will be a story."

She didn't say any more than that. Perhaps she was trying to lull Miss Lloyd into a false sense of security by seeming more stupid than she really was. Or perhaps she was just that stupid. She had believed Jack would marry her, after all. And she didn't know – not absolutely know – that she could win this contest. It seemed as though everything she did these days was just done because she would have been ashamed to do anything else. Everything was the least worst option.

"Do we need an audience?" asked Mari.

"Not unless you'd like one."

"Then who judges which of us has won?"

"We do, I believe. When one of us is convinced by the other, that person loses her magical ability. Somehow."

"Ay, there's the rub," said Mari. "How? A sudden thunderclap? A flash of lightning? A hand that comes down from the ceiling and draws the magic out of our heads?"

"I'm prepared to find out if you are," said Ellini. "If we won't compromise, and we won't kill each other, what else can be done?"