He didn't follow her after that. Ellini clamped down on every thought and every glance that strayed in his direction, as though she was stamping on the fingers of someone hanging off the edge of a cliff.

But she stamped down on that image too, and wandered on in silence.

Her meeting with Manda was also marked by silence – on Manda's part, at least. She was in the University Church, leaning on a broom, which was more for emphasis than for sweeping. She used it to prod and point at the workmen which were sawing and hammering under the church's charred roof. Dozens of them were on ladders and platforms up in the rafters, occasionally dropping pipe-ash or sawdust, which drifted down like the endless snow.

The entire visit was a trial to Ellini, but having to go through her apologies in this place was worst of all. It was hard to be back here, in the knowledge that she had started the fire which had reduced this place to ruins. It was harder still when she thought about how she had felt the last time she'd been under this roof – the pain, the betrayal, the sopping red dress.

She was remembering all this while she apologized – she had no idea what she was actually saying – so it wasn't a surprise when Manda, after hearing her repeat the word 'inconsiderate' for the fourth or fifth time, got impatient and cut straight to the heart of the matter.

"Did you ever think it might be especially difficult for me to think you were dead? When I'd already lost-?"

"Yes," said Ellini. "I mean, no. I didn't think at all, I'm afraid, but I can see that now."

"Oh," said Manda, laughing bitterly. "Well done – full marks – first prize! She can see it now!"

"I'm sorry."

"You didn't tell me you were alive because you thought I'd tell Jack, yes?"

"I suppose so."

"You were right," said Manda, with a haughty sniff. "I would have told him. But then I have a grain of compassion in my heart."

"More than a grain," said Ellini, half to herself.

This concession seemed to annoy Manda even more. "You have no idea the trouble you caused!"

"You can tell me, if you like."

"I wouldn't know where to begin!"

"Then perhaps we should just agree that I was very inconsiderate, and that I'm very sorry."

"I'll only agree to half of that," said Manda, turning back to her work.

For a moment, there was no sound but the busy swishing of her broom. The bristles screeched over the tiles, and for some reason, that screeching seemed like more of a reproach than Manda's actual words.

Ellini wondered why it had to be like this. She had been wondering all morning, while she shifted and shuffled and tapped her feet against the floor of the coach. Yes, she had hurt lots of people by letting them think she was dead. But worse things had been done to her, and she'd never received the slightest apology for them. 

She had pointed this out to Matthi, but Matthi had been inscrutable this morning. She had just tilted her head, making her lop-sided smile even more lop-sided. 

"Yeah, but you don't wanna be like the people 'oo 'urt you. You'd rather die than be like them." 

Ellini had glanced out of the window at the frozen rooftops – the inviting shadows of the chimney-stacks. "I'm not so sure of that right now..." 

"I'm sure of it," Matthi countered. "Like I say, none of us can 'elp the way we're made." 

She supposed Matthi was right. There would be less pain in her life if she was like the people who'd wronged her – if she just bustled through life taking what she wanted, never pausing to look back at the wreckage she'd left behind – but something would be missing too. 

So she was here, under the roof she had charred last summer, starting with the most blameless of the people she'd hurt – although, if she said that out loud, Manda would probably be even more offended. 

"Um," said Ellini, clearing her throat. "Matthi told me you gathered the girls together after I was gone, and recruited Jack to protect them." 

"I didn't do it for you," Manda snapped. "The girls had nobody, and Jack would have gone mad."

Ellini winced. She couldn't tell whether she was wincing at 'the girls had nobody' or 'Jack would have gone mad'. She hoped it was a bit of both, but she suspected it was all the latter.

"Do you know he started riots in the city?" Manda demanded. "Set fire to the Bodleian? Do you know that Mrs Darwin and Dr Petrescu had to be put in protective custody, because he was hunting them down?"

Ellini heard the words but kept them at a distance. They could come back to torment her later – she was sure they would – but she couldn't give in to them here, not under this roof, not on these tiles. If she despaired here, she would be back in that moment, and there would be no Alice Darwin to throw hymn-books at the demons in her head.

"He had no cause to do that, I'm sure," she mumbled.

"Are you sure?"

Ellini desperately turned her attention to the basket over her arm. "Here," she said, in a high, strained voice, lifting up the tartan blanket that had kept its contents from the snow. "This is for you. I was doing a lot of sewing in London-"

"Really? Jack said you were buying all your clothes from expensive boutiques."

"-and I ended up making clothes for everyone I missed," said Ellini, who had decided that the only way to get through this conversation was to plough straight down the middle.

She took out a pocket handkerchief. It was embroidered with a sun in one corner – a full, fiery sun in threads of buttercup-yellow, with rays around the central disc that looked like wavy petals.

"It's what they call in Heraldry a 'sun in splendour'," she explained. "Oh, except the sun in splendour usually has a face, and I thought that would be a bit unsettling."

"It's... an unusual motif for a handkerchief," said Manda, who was obviously too curious to go on shouting. "They usually just have flowers. Or initials."

"That's just what I thought when I made it," said Ellini. "I wondered why you never found bright, consoling images on handkerchiefs – because, when you're crying, that's the sort of thing you need to see, isn't it? To remind you there's still hope. And then I thought that was a bit like you..."

She trailed off, feeling hot and stupid. The truth was, she had been about to make a handkerchief bordered with black lace, or embroidered with lilies, but she had realized that these weren't the things she associated with Manda at all. And it wasn't that she was not a good mourner, or that her life hadn't been blighted by grief. It was to do with the effect she had on others, perhaps. Grief owned Manda, but it didn't own Manda's world.

This was hard enough to articulate in the privacy of her own head. Putting it into words before Manda's folded arms and stony stare was impossible. Besides, she was disconcerted to realize that she liked Manda a lot more now that Manda disliked her.

"I mean," she went on, when the silence got unnerving. "People come to you when they've just lost someone – when they're organizing funerals or remembrance sermons – and you're obviously very grave and sympathetic, but you also... remind people that there's still hope. I mean, you're bright and optimistic among all the funereal trappings, and I feel as though that's important."

Manda just frowned at her, as though she suspected there was an insult hidden somewhere in that speech, but she hadn't yet been able to unearth it. Perhaps she would replay Ellini's words later, and realize she was valued. Or perhaps not. Maybe that was the condition by which she shed her light on others. Nothing was ever allowed to shine back.