When Jack got back to the suite that evening, Ellini was dressed up to go out. Usually, she wore whatever the maids could wrestle or drape onto her, and then shrugged it off at the earliest opportunity. But today she had taken some care.

She was wearing a deep red travelling sari—very plain by sari-standards, without any patterns, or gorgeous, intricate embroidery in gold thread. Her hair had been tied into one long plait down her back, and her dupatta had been pulled up like a hood, covering her head.

She stood up, slipping a cloth bag onto her shoulder, and said, "You remember you said you'd let me go—when I wanted to?"

"Go where?"

She made a vague gesture with her hand. "Just—away. You said, when it was over, you'd let me leave."

"When what was over?" said Jack, still at sea.

"This," she said, with another vague, hopeless gesture around the room. "Us."

"What are you talking about?"

She looked at the floor, as though trying to summon the patience to continue. "There's someone else."

Jack, still half convinced that this was some elaborate game, started laughing. "No, there isn't. I know there isn't."

He paused, because she was still staring at the floor, and he was reasonably certain—little as he knew about this new game—that this was not how it was supposed to go. A wave of uncertainty hit him, and he blurted out, "Is it Joel?"

Ellini moved her sad, resigned gaze from the floor to his face, but said nothing.

"It's not Robin," said Jack, half-laughing again. And then, because she didn't respond to this either, he repeated, "It's not Robin."

"I have to go," she said, picking up her cloth bag and approaching the doorway.

But Jack didn't budge. He couldn't believe she had expected him to.

"You're not making any sense," he said, as reasonably as he could, in the circumstances.

"I've told you, there's someone—"

"Leeny, I don't believe you. What's going on? Why can't you tell me?"

She pushed past him—very gently but without any uncertainty. This was clearly not meant to start a fight, although he half-wished it was, and toyed with the idea of grabbing her shoulders and slamming her back against the wall. But that was—well, it was something he'd never really wanted to start—at any rate, not with Ellini.

Besides, this couldn't be real. He would have seen it coming. There would have been some charming new piano-player. She would have been cold to him for months before finally deciding it was over. He had mapped it all out in his head. On the bad nights, he even felt as though he'd lived it.

But it wasn't supposed to happen like this. Not like this. Not so sudden and soon and totally without explanation.

He followed her down the corridor, out of the palace and along the packed street which led to the city gates. From horizon to horizon, the sky was full of shredded pink clouds.

And the whole way, he continued to talk, in the tone of strained, exasperated logic he always used around her. It was as though they were just taking a walk—except that she was leading the way, and walking with some purpose, which never happened in the ordinary course of things.

She answered him quite politely, but always in the same vague way. She was so resolute and softly-spoken. Later, he would think of this as the biggest insult of all—as though he mattered so little to her that she didn't need to cry, or apologize, or defend herself. But at the moment, it just contributed to his feeling that it wasn't real—that any minute now she would turn and laugh and throw herself into his arms, saying she was only testing him.

"You're not making any sense," he kept saying. "It's dangerous out there. You're too good a hostage. If the Lieutenant-governor got hold of you—"

"Just tell him you don't want me back," said Ellini.

"But I do," said Jack, through gritted teeth. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. I don't understand why you can't give me a reason—"

But he stopped abruptly, because, in that moment, he saw the reason. It was a pale, familiar, feline-faced reason, and it had obviously been waiting for her beside the Turkish Gate.

Ellini stopped, but Jack didn't. He quickened his pace and made straight for Robin, using the momentum of his walk to fuel the punch he delivered when he got within arm's-reach.

Robin toppled backwards and smashed into a cart that had been drawn up by the side of the road. Jack didn't even give him time to fall to the ground. He kicked up, and hit him on the underside of the chin, sending him sprawling into the back of the cart.

Ellini was yelling something behind him, but he couldn't make out the words—and the general tone just bit deeper into his flesh and goaded him on. Oh, she wanted him to stop, did she? She didn't want Robin's pretty face to get too messed-up? Was that what she had been looking at when she'd closed her eyes with him this morning? Was she like that with Robin all the time?

There were a few guards by the gate. Alim's men? Jack could barely see their faces through the fog of rage. He snatched a sabre from one of them and swung it through the air, bringing it down hard where Robin had been—but the bastard moved too quickly, and it buried itself deep into the wood of the cart, leaving Jack exposed to Robin's next punch, which hit him on the side of the head and made bright lights explode in front of his eyes.

Still, he didn't lose consciousness, and he didn't drop the sword—he clung to them both, because they were currently the only things in the world that made sense.

Jack tugged the sabre free and ducked under another punch—a bloody insulting punch, as though the bastard wasn't even trying anymore. He whirled the blade through the air again, but this time, someone was moving—running—dodging in front of the blade in a blur of deep-red fabric. Jack had to wrench his muscles into reverse to prevent the sword from cleaving Ellini in half.

As it was, he had cut her shoulder. A deeper red was soaking into her red sari, but she didn't seem to have noticed it. She just stared at him resolutely, standing in front of Robin's panting figure.

"I won't let you hurt him," she said.

Jack felt as though he'd been kicked in the stomach. He couldn't seem to catch his breath. With a mad, blurry lurch of anger, he tried to persuade the sword to keep going—keep cutting through her. But it wouldn't budge. And he realized, with another stomach-slamming lurch, that it would be the same if he tried to force her to stay—if he hit her in the mouth, and wrestled her to the ground, and had her brought back, in chains, to his bedroom. He didn't have it in him yet.

But it wasn't far away. The mere fact that these ideas had passed through his mind proved that.

And part of him thought: well, why bother refraining? This was what she liked, apparently. It must have been what she liked, if she wanted Robin.

But it's not what I like, he thought, in some dim, barely conscious corner of his brain. It was something he could get to like, no doubt about it, but it wasn't—that thing, whatever it was—always out of reach and barely comprehensible to him—that thing which was symbolized by the dark, and the curtain of black hair, and the tender way she'd held him as an eight-year-old.

He could kill her so easily. He wanted to kill her, didn't he? But that mustn't happen. It mustn't happen. His muscles understood that better than his brain at the moment.

He wrenched his mouth into a horrible smile and said, "Get out. You poisonous bitch, get out."

She backed away a little. He felt a gentle tug as the sword-blade left her skin. She didn't turn her back on him for a long time. But the expression in her eyes wasn't—wasn't anything. She didn't look scared or angry or spiteful or tearful. She certainly didn't look as though she'd just had a lucky escape. She just kept those mild, steady eyes on him, until Robin got to his feet and pulled her away down the road that led out of the city.

***

They made for the forest to the east of Lucknow. It wasn't the direction she needed to go, but at least it was out of sight of the city gates.

They walked in silence through the trees until they came to a forest shrine—a stone arch nestling beneath the shisham leaves, with a statue of Ganesha nestling beneath that. His elephant-trunk was curling to the left, as though he'd been caught mid-dance and captured in stone. Little candles had been lit before the god, and a garland of marigolds hung over one side of the arch.

Ellini stood perfectly still, staring straight ahead of her. When she looked back on this moment, she would always remember the statue of Ganesha, but at the time, she didn't really see it. It was just something solid to fix her eyes on until the world stopped spinning.

She was aware of Robin beside her, prowling around in her peripheral vision. He was watching her—she could always tell when he was watching her. And he seemed to be enjoying himself.

"You have to leave now," she said mechanically. "Anyone who follows me is going to be killed."

"Interesting," said Robin, still pacing about. "You know, he's going to follow you. You think he's not like me, but he is. He'll hunt you down, kill all your new friends, and bend you to his will. Only, you've been good to him, so it's going to take some time."

He hesitated, and then came a little closer, lifting her chin so that he could see her face. "No tears? Are you sure? Nobody can see us now. He's not following yet."

Ellini focused on him and lifted her head up higher. The pain was animating her now, but it wasn't burning behind her eyes or in her throat, kindling tears. It was straightening her back and holding her head up. For a moment, she thought she was going to spit in his face—or at least lurch forward and headbutt him. But she didn't. She just looked at him, unblinking, until his grin broadened.

"That's my girl," he breathed. "That's my brave, proud girl. You were just like this in London, when I'd killed everyone you'd ever loved. So straight-backed and steady—never giving me the satisfaction of knowing that I'd hurt you. You want to know the terrible thing?" he said, leaning forwards and lowering his voice. "If you'd sobbed at the first murder, I probably would have given up on you and gone away without killing anyone else."

"Cheap trick," said Ellini, through clenched teeth. "It won't work."

Robin laughed. "Oh god, I've missed you!"

Ellini focused behind him, on the statue of Ganesha. "I don't have much hope that you'll do as I say, but please don't touch me."

Robin clenched his jaw and inhaled through his teeth, as though he was weighing up the chances, and they didn't look good. "Tough one, Ellie. Especially because I think you're in the mood to fight me, and you know I love it when you fight me." He sighed with gloomy resolution and said, "No, you know what? Because you said 'please' first, you get your wish."

"Thank you," she mumbled—and the hot little ball of pain allowed her to drop her shoulders and soften her voice ever so slightly. She suddenly remembered something, and fumbled in the cloth bag she'd brought with her. "Here," she said, drawing out the wooden icon that had belonged to Doctor Faustus. "Take this to Myrrha. It's Eve, I think. It's a powerful object. She might take you back."

Robin's smile faltered, but he hitched it back in place. "She won't. Besides, I don't like her so much now she's stopped casting spells on me. But you—" He gave her a look that was somehow vicious and rueful at the same time. "—you'll never stop casting spells on me, will you?"

Ellini's shoulders slumped still further. "I tried."

Robin was silent for some time, staring down at the cracked paint on the surface of the icon. "You really think he won't come after you?"

"I really think he won't come after me."

"You think he wouldn't... force you?"

"Never."

Robin raised his eyebrows. "He may not be a lunatic, Ellie, but he's still a killer. The distinction's not all that fine. He lives by violence in a violent world, and you can't really believe he just leaves it at the door when he comes home at night. Myrrha thinks he'd be the most dangerous man in the world if he'd never seen you. And now you're leaving. Aren't you worried about what he's going to do?" He spread his hands innocently and added, "I'm not preaching, you understand. Just curious."

Ellini lifted her head up. It was actually quite easy to talk to Robin. They had both seen each other at their worst—as family members do—and, after that, every argument seemed somehow... light-hearted. Academic.

"I never wanted anyone to die," she said honestly. "But, if they have to, to save him, I'll take it. I know that probably makes me a bad person, but you see, he's the only person in the world who ever expected me to be a good one, so he's the one I'd save, even if I had to be logical about it. Does that make sense?"

Robin never told her whether it made sense—but he did stop pestering her about it. He turned round without another word and headed off into the trees. And whether this swift exit expressed approval or disgust, Ellini thought it was the nicest thing he'd ever done.