Outside the warehouse, it was still snowing. The wind caught the snowflakes in mid-fall and whipped them about Ellini's neck and shoulders until she felt she was being mobbed by little white moths. 

She couldn't get a clear look at Robin's face, and it would have been unwise to speak. The entire population of the town was spread out before them, carrying paraffin lamps and torches: just watching, for now, until Mr Simonelli came back with orders from the General. The stillness was bizarre compared to the manic dancing of the snowflakes. It seemed as though the animate and inanimate worlds had switched places for a moment.

But her head was in a whirl. She was elated and ashamed. She hadn't cried – that was good. She hadn't fallen into his arms. She had let him see her anger – which, admittedly, hadn't been part of the plan, but could be reconciled with the plan if the plan was simply not to turn into a weak-kneed, snivelling wretch.

She was amazed at how angry she had been. But she hadn't burned the warehouse down – that was good again. No, all in all, there was nothing really wrong with the way she had behaved, except... except that she'd enjoyed herself. Was that an act of treachery? And if so, against who? Against Robin? Against herself? But how could she betray herself by enjoying herself? Even if it wasn't treachery, it was teasing, surely? It was giving Jack false hope. And it had better bloody well be false hope, after what he'd done to her.

She was desperately confused. Her heart was beating so fast. She could still feel the elation of those cartwheels, the prickling sensation of his gaze, the satisfaction of hitting him.

After a few minutes, Mr Simonelli's head appeared above the throng, and things started to move. The crowd did not offer them any violence – nobody took their arms or prodded them in the back – but they were nevertheless very firmly escorted back to their rooms at the Birdcage. A guard of females appeared around Ellini, matching her footsteps, determinedly not catching her eye. They shepherded her up the staircase of the Inn. She turned to look at Robin just once before she climbed the stairs, wondering if he was angry with her, wondering if he was being led off to a public execution somewhere. But he was unreadable, and so were his guards.

Her own escort left her on the threshold of her attic bedroom. One of the women – Ellini thought it was the Innkeeper's wife – said, "If you hurt the General, we'll kill you."

Ellini didn't know what to say to this. Her head was spinning, and she didn't want to open her mouth in case she was sick. She smiled weakly at the woman who was possibly the Innkeeper's wife, and opened her bedroom door.

There was no light in here, and she didn't have a candle, but a soft, silvery glow seeped in through the open curtains. It had gone some way towards loosening the knots in her shoulders when she noticed a figure standing silently by the window: a solid presence in a shapeless coat.

It moved a finger to its lips, warning her not to cry out until the footsteps on the staircase had died away. It was as quiet and comforting as an angel standing over her, and Ellini watched it impassively, awaiting further instructions, or further evidence that it was real.

At this point, while she was ashamed of having enjoyed herself and afraid of her own desires, there was only one person who could have been a comfort to her, and it was certainly not a man. Even a family member – impossible as that would have been, since they were all dead – would have made her heart-strings twang with guilt and agony. But a friend – a female friend, a friend she hadn't dared think about for the past seven months, because she'd been fooling herself, and there was no fooling her – that was so perfect it might almost be called a miracle. Ellini was understandably dubious.

"Matthi?"

In answer, the woman by the window lit a match and held her hand over the flame. She didn't gasp or swear or draw it back. There was no smell of burnt flesh. She turned her dark, unflinching eyes back to Ellini, as if to say, 'Good enough for you?'

Ellini raised a hand to her mouth and made a noise that was half-gasp, half-sob. "Thank God!"

Then she dropped, insensible, to the floor.

***

She wasn't sure that she actually lost consciousness, but she certainly lost control. She had been reining herself in so tightly for the past few hours, telling herself she mustn't cry, she mustn't set fire to the warehouse, she mustn't give in to Jack's insane optimism.

No, it had been longer than a few hours. You couldn't betray a flicker of vulnerability with Robin. And at Oxford, it had been all pretending. Good Lord, when had she last spoken her mind? Did she still have a mind left to speak?

In any case, she let the tears out. She let her head droop. She sniffled onto Matthi's shoulder as they knelt together on the floor. The only thing she was in a fit state to notice was that Matthi had dyed her hair. It was a kind of washed-out black, like faded mourning clothes.

She had no memory of the next few minutes. Matthi must have got her off the floor, because, when she was next sensible of her surroundings, they were on the bed, holding each other exactly as they had in the fire-mines, as though they were each the only thing keeping the other from falling off a cliff. 

But Ellini was conscious of some resistance on her part. She was clinging and twisting away at the same time. Whatever it was that had made them lovers was gone. There was no awkwardness – how could there be? – but she still felt... what? Guilty? Afraid of teasing her friend?

Still, she couldn't have pulled away. Matthi was the only thing anchoring her to consciousness at the moment. If she let go, she'd be drowned in the dark, angry sea welling up around her: all those emotions that had finally been set loose and were furious at having been ignored for so long.

"How did you find me?" she asked, when her voice was steady enough for speech.

"Followed the fella, dint I? 'E seemed suspiciously full of purpose for a man 'oo'd been carved up just the night before."

"He said it was Anna," Ellini whispered.

"Yeah. It's a long story. I've only just pieced it all together. 'E's been busy, that fella of yours."

Ellini didn't feel equal to talking about it. Her throat was water-logged, her eyelashes were clumped together with dried tears. The only thing she could say – because it seemed indisputable at the moment – was, "He's not mine."

Matthi was silent – but it was the silence of pointedly not saying things, rather than the silence of having nothing to say. After a while, she asked what had been going on, but she seemed to know most of it already. She knew about Jack stabbing her, and Ellini found there was very little else to tell. She hoped it would stand as an explanation for her own conduct afterwards – why she had faked her own death, abandoned her girls, and taken up residence with the man who'd killed her family – but perhaps not. Matthi questioned her very gently, but the mere fact that she needed to question implied that it wasn't obvious.

Worse still, Ellini found she couldn't explain it herself – although the explanation which always occurred to her at moments like these: 'I was weak, I'm a bad person', was on the tip of her tongue the whole time.

"I had to get away," she said instead. "Not from the girls, of course, and not from you. I don't know why – I don't know why I didn't come to look for you. I just wanted oblivion. But I couldn't die. Even when it was a case of just lying back and waiting, I couldn't do it."

Matthi shrugged. "I was the same. Your Inspector 'astings found me in an opium den."

"What?"

"You shoulda tried it if you wanted oblivion. Works wonders."

"But it's..." Ellini hesitated. "It's... very difficult to give up," she finished lamely.

"It is that. But if your fella can manage it, I bloody well can."

"Jack's given up opium?"

"Danvers says 'e gave up everything. 'E was in a terrible mood."

"But why?"

Matthi gave her a cautious – almost dubious – look. "I think 'e might've been a bit more upset by your death than you give 'im credit for."

"But opium could've made it easier."

Matthi made an impatient sound, somewhere between a laugh and a groan. "You don't think much of 'im, do you? I don't either, if it comes to that, but I know that if I'd 'ad my memories and feelings stolen, so that I treated you like you was of no account when you needed me most, I'd be bloody careful about the chemicals I imbibed in future. And I wouldn't be too keen on anything that would make it 'easier' neither."

Ellini was silent – but thoughtlessly silent. She wasn't considering the justice of Matthi's claims, or wondering what it must have been like for Jack to give up opium in the same week as murdering a loved one. Her thoughts refused to go in that direction. They just shut down and enjoyed the silence.

"'E really hurt you, didn't 'e?" said Matthi, after a while.

"I suppose so."

"And not just 'cause 'e stabbed you through the chest. 'Cause 'e forgot about you. 'Cause 'e kissed that Darwin woman. 'Cause 'e wasn't following you around like a love-sick puppy."

Ellini recoiled at this, but Matthi's gaze was very gentle.

"Do we have to-?" she started.

"Yes."

Ellini groaned and buried her face in the pillow, like a little girl trying to shut out the world. "All right," she said, in a muffled voice. "I'm ready."

"'E 'urt you worse than anyone's ever 'urt you."

Ellini sprang up at this, shaking her head wildly. "No," she said. "No. That's not possible. You know what – you know where I started from."

"Would it be the worst thing in the world if you were more upset by this than-?"

"–than by losing my family?" said Ellini, raising her voice for the first time since the warehouse. "My little sister? My mother? My fa-"

She couldn't even finish the word. She just shook her head and pursed her lips, shrinking back into the pillow. "No," she said again. "What would that make me?"

"A person?" Matthi suggested. "Not a perfect one?"

"I never said I was-"

"But you try to be. You 'old yourself up to impossible standards. And when you fail to meet 'em, you go, 'Yeah – see? I always knew it', as though you've proved a point rather'n springing a trap for yourself."

She curled her hand around Ellini's wrist, trying to pull her out of the pillows.

"You'd never expect this of anyone else. Look at me, Leeny. I hid my 'ead in an opium den when my girls were scattered to the winds, just 'cause I was afraid of 'earing you was dead. And yet I'm the bravest person you've ever met. Aint I?"

"Yes," said Ellini, in a voice half-stifled by pillows.

"We aint perfect," said Matthi. "We get scared, we get upset, we run and hide. But we come back. We face our fears. What'd that be worth if we was perfect?"

Very slowly, Ellini prised her face away from the pillow. It was quite dry, but the pillow wasn't. "You really are the bravest person I've ever met," she croaked.

"We aint talkin' about me."

"I feel as though we never are!"

"Well, I aint got as many problems as you."

"I have to go back, don't I?" said Ellini. "Say I'm sorry? To poor Mr Danvers, and Dr Petrescu, and – and especially to the girls."

"They don't want apologies. They just want you there."

"Anyway, I have been thinking about them," said Ellini, getting up off the bed and opening her sewing-case, which she had pushed under her dressing-table to make space in the tiny attic-bedroom.

She took out a pair of gloves, an embroidered waistcoat, and an opera cloak made of a shimmering silk brocade that she hadn't been able to walk past without ordering an armful, even though it cost what her mother would have termed an 'indecent' amount of money.

"Whenever I thought about them – obviously, not the girls, because there are too many, but Manda and Dr Petrescu and the others – I made clothes. Look, these are for you."

She held out a pair of opera gloves – the white, satin kind you wore at balls and dances – but stitched over the satin was a length of black ribbon, winding over the whiteness in a helter-skelter pattern.

"For when you need to be Charlotte Grey in a hurry," she explained.

Matthi was smiling her lop-sided smile again. "Sweet."

"I was making a gown to go with it, but I ran out of satin." She faltered a moment, then blurted out, "And I discovered Belinda and Carrie were living at the linen-draper's, and I was too scared to go back."

Matthi stood up and kissed her on the lips. It was quite a chaste kiss – more than a peck, but certainly not lingering. It was an expression of love, and Ellini should have drunk it up – she would have, only she was so afraid of doing the wrong thing.

"Well, no fear now, love," said Matthi. "We're together again. There aint a linen-draper in the country 'oo could match us."

"Leaving might be a problem, you know," said Ellini, trying to talk over the awkwardness of the kiss. "Everyone in the town seems to be under Jack's control."

"I think if 'e sees you're leaving town with me instead of Robin Crake, 'e'll be pacified. 'Specially if you say we're going to Oxford."

"But-" Ellini almost laughed at the suggestion. "But we can't leave without Robin."

There was another pointed silence from Matthi.

"Honestly, Matthi, he's been training me, and keeping me, and-"

"And dressing you?" she said, nodding at the open closet, from which the sleeve of her plum-coloured bustle dress was visible.

"Not personally," said Ellini, in a sulky undertone. "I know what you're going to say, but he's different now. He has a conscience-"

"I don't care if 'e 'as a freaking halo! He killed your family."

Ellini was stung by the bluntness of this, especially because it recalled the suggestion that Jack's betrayal had hurt her more than the loss of her family. 

She didn't know why she couldn't hate Robin. Perhaps it was the same reason he couldn't hate her: because they were family. Victim and persecutor could be closer than mother and child – sometimes so close that you couldn't tell which one was which.

"It was a long time ago," she muttered. "Anyway, even if it would pacify Jack to leave him behind, I don't want to talk to Jack ever again."

"What did you say to 'im tonight?" asked Matthi.

"Never," said Ellini sheepishly. "I said 'never' quite a lot."

"'E didn't get the message?"

"Well, I'm probably being unfair," she said, toying with the ribbons wrapped around her fingers. "He did have a concussion..."

Matthi laughed. "I'll talk to 'im, then. In the morning, when he's good and lucid. 'E won't want a fight with me. I control access to 'is girls now."

"His girls?"

"There's a lot you don't know," said Matthi. "Some of it's even to 'is credit."