Jack sat at the top of the church-tower, his back ramrod-straight, his axe laid carefully across his lap.

From time to time, he glanced down at the faint glow of the blade, soft as starlight, winking like water. To the casual observer, it was just reflecting the streetlights, the lanterns, the uneasy blue glow of dawn. But it wasn't. It might have collected light from these sources, but it would still glimmer if they were gone. He thought of the rays that had scythed out from the axe's blade, splitting the darkness down in the demon realms, and he smiled.

He had mapped out the old town walls – there were plenty of local historians eager to help him with that – and he'd stationed lookouts all along them, but he knew Ellini would return by the north gate.

He hated that he knew this, because he didn't care for Faustus's prophetic way of speaking, and he despised Myrrha's magic. But both of them had branded him 'the Watchman at the North Gate'. It wouldn't be worth a title if it wasn't significant. Something was going to happen here.

Everything below him had been bled pale by the moon. He thought sometimes that the Oxford martyrs were behind him, breathing their cool, dead breath on his neck. But he had to fight the cold, and the bleakness, and the irresistible call of sleep. When Ellini came back, with Myrrha behind her – either in chains or in pursuit – he was going to be ready.

Time blurred in front of his eyes – but not too much, because the sun still hadn't risen. He listened for church bells, unwilling to take his eyes off the road, and then gave up and fumbled for his pocket-watch. If he held it up high, he could easily switch his focus from the clock-face to the road. It was just after five.

Someone behind him said, "Time for breakfast?"

Jack smiled to himself, but didn't look round. The voice went on.

"You know, it's far too soon for her to be coming back."

"Yes," he admitted. "I'm just... getting used to things."

A freckled hand appeared, and rested on his shoulder. Jack's smile broadened. "I knew it would be you. When I tried to kill my friends, and then tried to adopt three hundred homeless women, you were the only one who stood by me."

"No," said Manda sniffily. "Mr Danvers stood by you."

"But I had to ask him to. You just turned up and started giving orders."

"Hmm. Well, this time, I hope you'll listen to them. And I'm not the only one who's standing by you. Dr Petrescu sent me, and this one insisted on coming along."

This time, Jack did look round. Sita was standing beside Manda, balanced on a pair of crutches, her plastered leg wrapped up in sacking to keep it from the dirt of the street. She was mirroring Manda's body-language almost exactly, from the defiant scowl to the impatiently tapping toe.

He smiled again. He felt as though a thin layer of frost had settled over him in the night, making his skin tight and his muscles uncooperative, but he managed to hold out his arms to Sita. She half-hobbled and half-leapt into them, letting her crutches clatter to the floor, while Manda hissed at her not to go too near the edge.

Jack pulled her close and ruffled her hair. "We've seen worse than this, haven't we, Chatter-pie?"

Manda narrowed her eyes, but she must have decided to ignore the provocation, because she went on, in a businesslike voice, "The deacon and his wife probably deserve some credit too. They're the ones who are making porridge." She looked at the axe laid across Jack's lap, and wrinkled her nose. "Are you still carrying that horrible thing around with you?"

Jack sighed. "Sita, tell our friend about 'that horrible thing'."

"It's saved our lives half a dozen times," Sita said loyally. "And it was my crutch along the Orpheus Road and it never cut me even once."

"I don't like it," said Manda, folding her arms against this combined onslaught. "Swords have sheaths and guns have holsters, but what has an axe got?"

"Better than either of those things," said Jack. "It's got a wise handler."

She snorted. "A wise handler who doesn't sleep?"

Jack looked over the parapet. Drovers and barrow-boys were beginning to trickle into Cornmarket, setting up along the street, lighting their stoves and cooking-fires, hoping to catch people on their walk to work and tempt them with a baked potato.

"Yeah, I'm a bit worried about that," he conceded. "I reckon I can go two days without losing anything much, but..." He bit his lip. "How long do you think she'll be gone for?"

Manda shrugged. She had not unfolded her arms. Suddenly, Jack beamed at her. "I don't suppose you fancy taking a shift in the daytime? I'd sleep right here, you'd only have to prod me if you saw something wrong-"

"You're talking as though I'm anxious to keep her safe," Manda muttered.

Jack looked down at the soothing, hypnotic lights glinting on the axe's blade. He was not going to get angry. Sita was already folding her arms and sticking her snub-nose in the air, and between the two of them, there might be a total standoff of sulkiness.

"You're not really angry with Ellini, you know," he said gently. He stopped and wondered whether he should tell Manda that he'd seen Lily in the Black Lake. Should he tell her what it had been like down there? The pressure of all that negativity in your ears? Would it make Manda feel better to be told how strong an illness had taken her friend? How you could only get out of those tentacles with dragons and miracles? How he'd been given both, and poor Lily had had neither?

Probably not. A simplified version, then.

"You're angry with Lily and Sam and everyone else who abandons themselves to their own misery without thinking about the effect it might have on other people."

Manda lifted her chin. "Well then. You'll concede that there is plenty to be angry about, and you'll allow me my moments."

He realized for the first time that she was being very restrained. Her arms were folded, and her feet were tapping, but she hadn't told him he was an idiot yet, or that he was being melodramatic, or setting a bad example for Sita. She would have been within her rights to say any of these things. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her eyelids puffy.

"Where's Sam?" he said, with a lurch of panic that shook the last of the frost off him.

Manda rolled her eyes. She wouldn't be rolling her eyes, surely, if he was dead?

"Rediscovering his ancestry," she said.

"He's from Yorkshire, isn't he?"

"Breakfast first," she said firmly. "Then we'll talk."

***

Robin came in – without knocking, of course – when Ellini was sitting at the dressing-table, dabbing powder across her cheeks. She wondered how many times he had caught her doing this, and why she still felt embarrassed about it.

He was leaning against the doorframe – perhaps because he couldn't stand upright on his own, although it was never wise to write him off as drunk. One of his hands was being held ominously behind his back.

Her new powers of observation were useless with Robin. She had always been aware of his slightest twitch, but at the same time, it went against every instinct in her body to look directly at him. It was a strange paradox. She always knew where he was, but she didn't want to know anything else about him.

"You should leave your hair down," he said.

"Why?"

"It's the source of all your powers, isn't it?"

Ellini said nothing. She had meant to leave her hair down anyway, but now she was tempted to pin it back, just to spite him.

"And I've got something for you to wear," he said, bringing out the hand that he'd been holding behind his back. In it was a parcel wrapped in brown paper. It was tied artfully with a crimson ribbon, and she could tell from the packaging alone that it had come from somewhere expensive.

"You're not allowed to buy clothes for me anymore," she objected.

"When did we establish that?"

She glanced fleetingly at the ring on her finger, then raised her eyes. "It might have been implied in any one of our previous arguments."

"You need two people for an argument, Ellie. What we had were spiteful monologues. Open it up. You'll like it."

Ellini looked dubiously at the package. For some reason, she was reminded of that moment in the Jigsaw Room, when Sergei had bought her a dress, and she hadn't known which one, from which prophecy, to expect.

"Is it red or white?" she said, on a sudden impulse.

"Red, of course. Who do you think you're talking to?"

Ellini drummed her fingers on the dressing-table, all the time aware of his smile. They both knew she was going to open the package. And the longer she delayed, the broader his grin got.

She sighed and started undoing the ribbon, peeling back the crackly sheets of paper. When she had uncovered most of it, she hesitated for a moment, dazzled by the redness. "You weren't kidding."

Then she lifted it out and let it unroll to the floor, with a rustling richness that made her think of the word 'swathes'.

It was a bright red cloak with a hood. She looked up at him, to see if any explanation would be forthcoming, but he only said, "You can't help what you are. Own it."

Ellini's hands hovered over the gorgeous red fabric for a moment. Then she picked up her brush and went on dabbing her cheeks with powder. "Thank you. I think."

"Will you wear it?"

"I don't know. Tell me about your plan for getting me into the palace."

Robin hesitated, as if he wanted to go on arguing, but he dug his hands into the pockets of his trousers and smiled. "There'll be an unguarded entrance between twelve and – oh, say six o'clock in the morning. I've arranged for the guards to be elsewhere."

"How did you manage that?"

"I persuaded some young ladies to arrange liaisons with them. The young ladies will give them a sleeping draught at some point – either before or afterwards, according to their inclination."

"And the guards in the palace? The other inhabitants?"

"Presented me with a problem," said Robin, spreading his hands. "I can't go in, as you well know. The closer I get to Myrrha, the stronger her hold on me will be. And anyone in Pandemonium who is afraid of me will be more afraid of her, for precisely that reason. But Lord and Lady Vassago will be out tonight, with their retinue and about half the castle's guards. The rest you'll have to deal with on your own."

Ellini said nothing. She was impressed. Lord and Lady Vassago seldom left the palace, because the outside world was full of such ill-breeding. They had gone as far as St Giles's Cathedral for Robin and Myrrha's wedding, and had complained about it for ten years afterwards.

"You can't bribe them with anything except genealogy or connections," said Robin, as if guessing her thoughts. "I arranged for the little mother to open a doorway to the demon realms in one of the taverns on the Royal Mile. They'll have a chance to see how their ancestors lived. They may even survive it, who knows?"

Again, Ellini was silent. It was disturbing to learn that he had talked to Elsie. It was like hearing that he had spat in a baptismal font, or torn pages from a hymn book.

"Mr Danvers wouldn't have let you get within ten feet of her," she said doubtfully.

"Mr Danvers," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "What do you think Mr Danvers could have done to stop me? I got within five feet of her, which was the minimum distance prescribed by Jack when he was giving orders to the snipers he tasked to watch her. He didn't tell you that?"

Ellini shifted uncomfortably but didn't answer. She heard Robin's thin, mocking laugh, but she didn't look at him.

Could she protest about this? She had asked Robin to help her, and she knew what that entailed. She knew his skill set.

She would have liked to protest that Elsie wouldn't countenance anything dangerous, but she didn't quite believe this to be the case. Elsie would countenance something dramatically appropriate, like the gargoyles' transformation into stone sentinels, especially if she thought Lord and Lady Vassago were Ellini's enemies. She supposed they had been, once.

"Will you be there?" she said at last. "Will you be able to pull them out if they get into trouble?"

Robin shrugged, a little too casually. "I'd certainly like to be there, if only for entertainment's sake. But you should consider what you're asking. Is it better to survive something like that? Something that smashes all your ideals into pieces? They're very old – they don't have time to build up new ones."

"I've told you what I want you to do," said Ellini, standing up. "I'm not interested in discussing the moral implications."

"Your servant," said Robin, sinking into a mock bow. "Your servant and Myrrha's slave," he added. "I wonder how that will play out?"

"Stay away from the palace and, with any luck, we'll never know."

He smiled unblinkingly. "Yes ma'am."

***

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