Jack was breathing heavily, but he pulled back – perhaps remembering where they were. They were both desperate for each other, but they couldn't take it any further at Danvers and Elsie's grave.

Ellini reached up to tuck her hair behind her ears, and then remembered it was too short to work its way loose like it used to. "Anyway," she said, trying to still the thumping of her heart. "Tell me about your travels. How was Fleet Street?"

Jack made a face. The conjunction of Fleet Street with what he'd just been thinking about was obviously jarring. "Awful. A bunch of fat, middle-aged men bickering about what other fat, middle-aged men would want to read. I felt like I needed to take a bath before I'd been there an hour."

"But will it make a difference?" she insisted. "Will they believe your story? Will Mrs Darwin be arrested? If she's not arrested, could she be assassinated? And what about the government? They must be worried about the demon army that started coming up through the pavement before Elsie was killed. Will they limit the freedoms of new-breeds as a kind of pre-emptive defence?"

She paused, a little out of breath, and watched with some annoyance as Jack smiled.

"Yes," he said, clasping his hands behind his back. "All those things could happen. Some of them will, probably. Different papers will take a different line – although I told the same story to all of them. Some of them will make Alice out to be a hero. Some of them will dwell on the tragedy of the Little Mother, and make her into the heroine of a melodrama. They liked the idea that she was in love with Danvers, because that sort of... domesticated her in their minds. The ability to summon up demon armies isn't so bad if they can put it down to female hysteria from a broken heart."

He chuckled, catching Ellini's narrowed eyes. "Don't knock it. The tamer they think she is, the less likely they are to come down here with sledgehammers and destroy her memorial. Or persecute her descendants."

"Hmm," said Ellini, glancing at the statue. She knew she had no right to object if it helped the cause of peace, but if someone used the phrase 'female hysteria' in front of her, she was going to shout at them, no matter who they were.

"And then there are some who won't believe me at all," Jack added. "They've never heard of Myrrha, and she was a pretty big part of my explanation. They'll probably put the broken pavement down to seismic disturbances, and the canopy of vines to freak weather conditions, or invasive plant species. Once they've made up their minds, things will settle down. It's fear and uncertainty that are the enemies at the moment. Frightened people lash out."

Ellini peered at him. "How worried are you really?"

He drew his hands out from behind his back and shifted his shoulders, as if he was trying to shrug, but he was too stiff for it. Ellini wondered how often he'd had to shrug and smile and act casual in the past few weeks – how often he'd had to sound reasonable when all he had wanted to do was sleep or shout.

"I'd be a fool not to be worried," he admitted. "I have a lot more to lose than I did before." He looked up at her, and underneath the redness and exhaustion, Ellini could see the energy of the old Jack. "But I'm not scared, for four reasons. Myrrha's dead, Robin's dead, you're glowing, and you love me. The last two are all I need. The first two are a considerable bonus."

Ellini laughed, a little nervously. It had startled her to hear the word 'glowing'. She had to remind herself that he meant the dark glow of her hair – the fact that she was happy and confident and no longer at the mercy of her memories. He didn't know about the nausea she'd been feeling for the past two weeks. The indefinable sense that something was different in her body. There was no point telling him until she was sure.

"The government will want to make sure it doesn't happen again, of course," he added.

"Yes. I've been thinking about that."

"About what?"

Ellini took a deep breath, summoning the courage to finally say it. "About whether I could bring her back – you know, if I reassembled an image of her and told it stories."

Jack didn't say anything. They both turned to look at the statue in the glass case. For a moment, before she could stop it, Ellini saw an image of herself taking a sledgehammer to that beautiful thing and sorting patiently through the rubble, unearthing an eye or a nose, a lock of hair or a piece of blindfold. It twisted her stomach into knots, but she didn't know if that was because it was the wrong thing to do, or because she still felt so guilty.

"Only," she went on, trying to shake the image out of her head. "Only, I don't think I could anymore. It was... well, I was in a very particular state when I did it before. A kind of loving misery. A desperation to escape my own skin that made me breathe life into inanimate objects. I don't think I could feel that again, with everything I've learned and everything I've been through."

A smile curled the corner of Jack's lips on one side, but he didn't look at her.

"That's not to say I couldn't be miserable again," she added, "but it couldn't take over my world like it did before. I don't think."

She cleared her throat, because Jack still wasn't speaking or looking at her – just smiling absently at the glass case and listening to her talk, as if it would distract him to turn his gaze on her. It probably would.

"Anyway, even if I could bring her back, I'm not sure it would be safe at the moment, with everyone so edgy. The government might try to lock her up, or experiment on her. They're terrified of demons coming up through the pavement again. I think even the new-breeds are terrified of that." She twisted her fingers, like Sita when she was working through a problem in her mind. "I just have to hope that the world's in a better state when she really does come back. And that there's another soul as gentle as Danvers to guide her."

Jack finally turned to face her, still wearing the same quizzical smile. "I don't think she is coming back. At least, not in the way she did before."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you said she keeps returning to earth to find out what she is, right? What happens if she gets an answer?"

Ellini blinked, unsure what he was driving at. "I suppose she wouldn't need to keep coming back, if she got an answer."

"What happens if she gets the answer that she exists to find out answers?"

Ellini shook her head, feeling the first, treacherous flutterings of panic. "That's not – that was just something I said to... Look, I was just telling her what she meant to us, it wasn't a definitive..."

"It was a good answer, mouse," he said, with an emphatic snap of his watchcase. "Not just a true answer or a kind answer, but an answer that felt like the beginning of a story. That's important in magic, isn't it? Someone like Elsie could do a lot with that. And it seems to me that, once you've found out what you are, that's when you can start being what you are. Without let or hindrance, as they say."

"What are you saying?" Ellini demanded, in a voice that sounded much too shrill, even in her head.

"That she's broken out of the cycle. And all bets are off."

He spread his hands, as if he could sense her agitation. "You'd obviously know more about it than I would. You've been studying her cyclical lives for years, and magic isn't exactly my area of expertise. But I thought this answer probably wouldn't have occurred to you, because it involves giving yourself some credit, and you haven't had much practice at that, for all your dark glow and your new-found confidence."

Ellini tried to think about it – tried to breathe through the panic and let this new idea spread its tendrils around her. She hadn't really allowed herself to think about the answer she had given Elsie. She'd been feeling too guilty, too grief-stricken – embarrassed, maybe, that the answer hadn't been more profound.

But of course, it was an answer that would have appealed to Elsie, to her joyful curiosity and love of stories. She had probably received any number of profound answers in her repeated lives on earth – any number of true answers, even. But things which were true weren't necessarily helpful.

And irresistibly, the thought occurred that she had brought Elsie to life by telling her stories, but at her death, she had given her the beginning of a story, and then handed her the reins – as if to say, 'Start with this and tell me what happens.' It was as if she had handed the power of life back to the girl – her own life, anyway. The only power she hadn't had.

Jack gathered up Ellini's hands in his and frowned at her. "Have you been thinking all this time that you failed her? You didn't fail her. Myrrha and Alice failed her. You fought to protect her like a born sorceress, comforted her when she was at her lowest ebb, and gave her a story she could weave a life out of. If you're feeling happy, chances are it's because, deep down, you know that."

Ellini took a shaking breath. Her instinct was to brush this aside – the way she did with most praise for herself – but it wasn't so easy to dislodge. It had taken root in her chest and was uncurling like a fern, making her breath slower and deeper.

The truth was, she would never know, but she could picture this. Even if it was a deluded comfort, it made more sense to her heart than the cold, bare facts. You couldn't argue with a feeling like that.

And there was something else too – a comfort she had been trying to give herself since Broad Street, only there had been too much horror, too much mess, too much loss for her to take it. Danvers had sacrificed himself on the spot where the martyrs had been burned, and he had been wearing her cricket vest. Perhaps he was unmagical himself, but those were magical circumstances, and there was no telling what they might do. Perhaps neither of her friends were as gone as she had thought.

Still, she looked at Jack tentatively, as if she was asking permission to feel proud of herself. "Do you really believe that?"

He sighed. "That you did brilliantly? Yes. Always. That Elsie's the mistress of her own fate now? It's something I could believe, given enough time."

He pulled her hands a little closer towards him. "What we need now is some quiet time together, with nobody trying to kill us or separate us. Just to reconcile me to being hopeful. I'm not worried I've forgotten how, I'd just like some practice. A fortnight ought to be enough. Just you and me and Sita – and perhaps a nanny for Sita, when we wanted to be alone."

Ellini giggled. "That might be hard to manage. Everything's on a knife edge here. The new-breeds are angry and bewildered at the loss of the little mother. The humans are frightened that she's going to come back with a demon army and start tearing up the streets again. I feel like we'll be needed every minute just to keep the peace."

"Well, a week, then. A quiet week." He saw her face and added, without much hope, "A quiet weekend? A quiet evening?"

"That might be manageable," she said, biting her lip. The truth was, she really wanted it to be manageable. Warmth was surging back into her, and it wasn't all due to the spring sunshine. Grief had narrowed down everything in her life to a dark tunnel, but she was learning to push back the walls and see horizons again. Especially now. Jack's words had made the pointy objects in her chest evaporate like the last frost.

"We might have to stay at the Academy, though," she added. "People keep coming to hear me talk, and I don't want to disappoint them."

Jack blinked. "What's this now? You've become a lecturer in my absence?"

"Well, not intentionally." She pulled her fingers out of his grip and started to twist them again. "It started off with the girls. They were heartbroken about Elsie – not just because she was the Little Mother, but because she was their friend. They wanted to understand what had happened, so I spoke to them – individually, or in groups." She hesitated, trying to stop her mind veering away from those first days, when the grief had been so raw.

"It was hard to talk about at first. It was just like answering Elsie's questions – especially that last, big question. It felt like too much responsibility. Too many awful things could happen if I got it wrong. I didn't want to defend Mrs Darwin's actions, but I didn't want to make people angry with her either. I didn't want her to persecuted."

Jack snorted. "It would take some imagination to persecute Alice. Hostility just makes her feel even more superior."

"Well, anyway, I didn't want anything bad to happen to her." Ellini twisted her fingers, as another pang of conscience pricked her. "At least, I don't think I did. But I found that, if I turned it all into a story – if I got lost in the details, the striking images, the way it all felt – I could muster up enough emotional distance to finish my sentences."

She took a deep breath. "Anyway, it helped to talk about it. And I was surprised to discover how much I had to tell – not just because I was there, but because I'd been studying Eve and her cyclical lives for so long. And the word got around." She smiled fondly. "I suppose, if my girls have a flaw, it's a tendency to gossip. New-breeds from all over Oxford started coming to the Academy to hear what I had to say."

Jack opened his mouth to protest, but Ellini forestalled him. "No one could get past the gargoyles with hostile intent, remember? I was quite safe. People were angry and bewildered – the loss of your goddess will do that to you – but their anger wasn't directed at me. And I think I managed to ensure it wasn't directed at Alice either. I did just what you did in the papers – I gave her reasons, without saying they were right or wrong. That was easy because, heartbroken as I was, I didn't know whether they were right or wrong. But there was such a feeling of... of release at those meetings. I took questions, and heard other people's opinions. And I didn't always agree with them, but I felt better for every word that was spoken out loud, because that meant it wasn't festering inside."

She stopped and looked at Jack, who was watching her with an unplaceable expression. Maybe it was worry mixed with admiration. Maybe it was something else entirely. She didn't know how he would feel about what she was going to say next, but she knew she had to say it anyway.

"I think... that's what I'd like to do next. To go around the country, telling people about it. We've been in such a privileged position. We've watched history unfolding right in front of us. We've helped to shape it, even. But there are other people who haven't had that opportunity, and I think – I hope – that, the more they know, the less angry they'll be. If people understood more about the Little Mother – if they knew that she only wants to find things out, that she uses the richness of our world to inspire her own – they might not be so frightened of her, when and if she comes back again."

Jack was quiet for a long time. Ellini counted twelve snaps of the watchcase. He had his lips pressed together, his eyes directed at the trampled-down grass.

Finally, he said, "This is something you want? Not something you feel you have to do?"

Ellini straightened. "It's both."

He smiled at that, though he still didn't look up. "Then I'm with you. But it's not going to be easy. If you want to take this thing on the road, there's not going to be a ring of gargoyle-statues holding back the troublemakers. You forget how demented people can be."

"I'll never forget that," said Ellini, with feeling. "But I'll have the best organiser in the world to help me." She bent her head, trying to catch his eye. "A military genius who'd have no trouble turning his skills to the management of security at a lecture-tour."

Jack shook his head, half-smiling. "It's not as simple as that. When you get that many people together, there's always an element of chance. The best strategist in the world couldn't cover all the angles."

"You'd be bored if you could."

He smiled all the way then – the old, disarming Jack grin. He pretended to sigh mournfully and shake his head, but she could tell he was pleased. He didn't often get called a military genius and the best strategist in the world.

"Well, I would have liked to try the boring life," he said. "Even if I'm not cut out for it."

"We can still have that boring evening," she promised.

He raised his eyes from the grass and gave her a look that almost knocked her backwards. "I said a 'quiet' evening, not a 'boring' evening. My time with you is never boring." He tilted his head, as if another thought had just occurred. "Also, we probably won't be that quiet."

Ellini spluttered with laughter. It really was incredible, the way he could make her blush and giggle like a schoolgirl, after everything she'd lived through. It was embarrassing, but also sort of... wonderful.

"You know, you might find you'd like to give lectures too," she said, doing her best to straighten her face. "After all, you're the famous one, and you've seen much more of the demon realms than I have."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "I see. You want us to be some kind of husband-and-wife double-act?"

"Well, we'd have to get married for that."

"What are you doing this afternoon?"

Ellini burst out laughing again. "Not even you could-"

But she stopped, because there was something about his expression. He was smiling, but not as much as if it had been entirely a joke.

"No, you could, couldn't you?" she went on, half to herself. "It would involve all your favourite things – organising people, calling in favours. You've been busy since Broad Street, but I've often noticed with you that, the busier you are, the more you can actually achieve."

"I wish people would stop noticing that..."

She narrowed her eyes. "You've had people standing by, haven't you? Just in case?"

He spread his hands, as if he could sense an argument coming. "I'm not expecting anything, you understand. I'm just... ready if you are."

Ellini frowned. How could he spring this on her and then have the effrontery to be so reasonable about it? He had no right to plan her wedding, even if it was half-his wedding! And what was the rush? Did he think she had to be hustled through the ceremony the instant she agreed, in case she changed her mind about it?

Admittedly, they lived in such an uncertain world that impromptu weddings were starting to seem like the sensible option. Sam and Manda had got married while the dust was still settling in Broad Street and Sam's head was still bandaged from that wayward pub-sign. They had done it in the half-hour before Jack – who, to everyone's surprise, had been appointed best man – was due to take his train for London to try and avert a war.

And it hadn't been any less lovely for all that. The fact that there was still a world left to get married in had struck them all as miraculous. The sun had been streaming into the University Church, dyeing Manda's gown a golden yellow. She looked like the woman clothed with the sun from the Book of Revelations – or a fairytale princess wrapped in the purest cloth of gold. She had been carrying a bouquet of sunflowers, their stems bound together with that sun-embroidered handkerchief – freshly laundered but still stained from Ellini's blood.

Sita had been given a new gown and a basket of rose petals to strew in the path of the new bride. Admittedly, she didn't much care for gowns or rose-petals, but she had been glowing at the importance of her role, still wide-eyed from the events in Broad Street, and bemused that none of the adults seemed to want to talk about it.

The mourners – Manda's former colleagues – had put on a special service, where they wept with joy instead of sorrow. It was news to Ellini that they could do this, but it seemed right somehow, especially as Manda was dry-eyed and beaming herself. In fact, none of the other guests had cried. There had been too much to be thankful for.

Ellini supposed she couldn't blame Jack for planning their wedding. This was what he did. He worried, so he planned. It was his way of trying to exert control over the world. It struck her that he must have been very worried if he'd taken to planning weddings, because they were not normally his cup of tea.

Still, she protested – out of surprise as much as anything else. "But you haven't proposed to me!"

He seemed genuinely puzzled by this. "Yes, I did. I went to hell to get you a ring – and, when I gave it to you, I said you didn't have to marry me. Much more romantic than a conventional proposal, I thought. A girl could feel pressured, being outright asked."

"Yes," said Ellini, starting to smile, "but if she wasn't outright asked, she could quite understandably feel that she wasn't being proposed to."

"Well, I did think of that," said Jack, taking out his pocket watch, as if he was all business. Or as if he wanted to use it as a shield. "But I concluded that, firstly, you're clever enough to read between the lines – especially these lines. And secondly, you'd hate a traditional proposal. Some man kneeling at your feet, begging you to love him, is not your style, mouse. Savours too much of what you've been through – what we all hope you're leaving behind."

Ellini shook her head, more amused than infuriated. He was doing just what he had done the last time he'd proposed – being utterly unromantic and yet somehow managing to convince her that this was even more romantic than romance.

But she couldn't deny that he knew her. The thought of how she would feel if he knelt down now – in public, in front of the snipers on the roof, in front of Elsie's statue – made her palms sweat. It was true, what she had thought, the day Elliott had proposed to her – she couldn't abide directness. Misdirection worked every time, and nobody was better at it than Jack.

"Are you saying we could get married this afternoon?"

He shrugged. "If you're prepared to wing it on a few details."

Ellini started to laugh, as the bewitching simplicity of it unrolled in front of her. No guests, no appointments, no reading of banns, or talking to priests, or agonising over décor.

"But I don't have a dress," she protested, realising with a pang that this was one formality she did care about.

"Actually, you have three to choose from."

"But you don't know my measurements!"

"Not in inches, no. I know them in handbreadths, but I thought that would be a bit embarrassing to explain to the tailor, so I just gave him one of your old dresses and told him to work it out for himself."

Ellini smiled at him. She couldn't help it. He was moving closer now, looking edgy, in spite of the pocket watch. "Am I doing better than the last proposal?"

"Sorry, is this the proposal? I thought you said you proposed when you gave me the ring?"

He gave a self-conscious laugh. "Well, it's a work in progress," he said, scratching his head.

He was very close now. Once again, he looked as though he was teetering on the verge of kissing her, but some consideration, thinner than a hair's breadth, was keeping him back. Perhaps there was a grain of disbelief in it too – as if he couldn't believe, after all this time, that it could be so easy.

"So... this is a yes?"

She understood now why he had wanted to spring it on her. She had been wrenched away from him too many times. He didn't trust the world to keep still long enough for him to keep her. It would take months, maybe even years, of good, solid being there – of waking up next to him, teasing him, arguing with him, doing mundane things like going shopping together – to convince him she was here to stay. A big task, maybe, but a wonderful one. She wouldn't have exchanged it for anything in the world.

She shifted onto her tiptoes, so that, when his resolve snapped and he finally kissed her, he wouldn't have far to go. "Yes, it's a yes. Something small, please. Just Manda and Sita as my flower-girls."

He made an exasperated sound in the back of his throat, as if he couldn't believe she was bothering him with flower-girls when she had just agreed to marry him. Then he swooped down on her, lifted her up and twirled her round, covering her face with kisses. "Mrs Mouse," he murmured, his lips close to her ear. He laughed and repeated it, as if he couldn't get enough of the sound. "Mrs Mouse. I love you. I'll kneel down if you want me to."

"You know I don't," she replied, laughing. "But I'll take the pretty dress and some flowers, gladly." She placed a hand against his chest, pressing him back, in case he forgot where they were again. Though, she had to admit, there was a part of her that wanted him to.

He took a deep breath and stepped back, drawing out the pocket watch again. "Give me, say... two hours. I'll meet you at the Academy. Don't schedule any lectures until I'm back."

"All right," she said, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ears and then remembering, just in time, then she didn't need to. "Oh," she said, as an idea struck. "Can we ride the dragon afterwards?"

Snowball had been stabled in the cricket pavilion at the University Parks, though he didn't seem to need shelter from the elements. Ellini had seen him rolling luxuriantly in the frost in the mornings, as if he wanted to take up its coolness and wear it throughout the day.

She had been feeding him while Jack was away – with the help of Sita, who was much more enthusiastic about big, scary animals.

Ellini liked him, in a cautious way. He was nice enough to look at, but she shrank back whenever he nuzzled his head closer, and yelped whenever Sita put her hand out to stroke him.

But today, with Jack beside her, she thought he might be just what she needed. All day, she had been wanting to ride the breeze and skim the tops of trees. All day, she had been wanting to rise above the solemnity and holler with joy. And who could do that better than a dragon? Jack was right, she reflected. They really were good teachers.

Jack was still smiling in a faint, concussed kind of way. "Yeah. Of course." He blinked and added, "Wait, is riding the dragon some kind of euphemism?"

"No!" she protested, slapping her hand against his chest.

"I kind of wish it was..."

"You will just have to wait for this evening," she said primly. Her expression softened then, and she bit her lip. "Though it's a poor reward for everything you've been through."

Jack shook his head. "There's nothing about this that I would classify as a 'poor reward'."

"Two hours, then," she said, stepping back as he made to kiss her again. "I need a few more minutes here."

He snatched up both her hands and kissed them, pinning her with a meaningful gaze the whole time, as if this was a foretaste of things to come. Then he left, walking slightly faster than usual. He probably had a lot of organisation to cram into those two hours.

Ellini turned back to Elsie's glass case. In the old days, pilgrims had often kissed it, leaving lip-shaped smears on the glass. She was pleased to see that hadn't happened yet. But the dead trees flanking the coffin were full of light and motion again, because there was a new crop of leaf-shaped messages, quivering whenever the breeze hit them.

She glanced at a few on her way to the table that held the leaf-shaped pieces of card. Some of the messages were ominous – and had distinctly irreverent things to say about Mrs Darwin – but most were loving, as Elsie herself had been.

Little Mother, thank you for returning.

Little Mother, please come back to us, whenever convenient.

Little Mother, don't forget about us.

And Ellini's personal favourite:

Little Mother, forgive your murderess.

She picked out several cards for her own message. She had a lot to say. None of it was new, but she stood by it wholeheartedly.

On an outsized, lime-green fig leaf, she wrote: Elsie 'Little Cricket' Danvers.

On a cherry leaf with tattered edges and a crisp fold down the middle, she wrote: Intrepid seeker of truth.

On a gingko leaf that looked like a golden fan, she wrote: Solver of mysteries.

On a brown, wavy oak leaf, she wrote: Devourer of encyclopaedias.

And on a long strip of willow like a quill pen, she wrote: Never give up, my darling. Never give up. 

***

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