It was a strange afternoon, especially after the fever started. 

The heat bubbled through Jack's veins, filled his nostrils, seared the back of his throat and blurred his vision. It was too hot to lie still, to take a deep breath, to think to the end of any sentences. He was soaked with sweat – so much so that he had to blink it out of his eyes every few minutes. Even in India, he'd never been hot enough for his eyelids to sweat.

But Sergei wouldn't untie him – wouldn't even loosen the straps at his wrists and ankles. So he just lay on the table and writhed. The outer edges of his vision darkened and filled up with shapes. He tried to ignore them – he knew perfectly well they were hallucinations – but for a while he could swear the stands of the operating theatre were full of figures, nudging each other, adjusting their spectacles, taking pinches of snuff – all staring down at him, as though he was a mildly nauseating exhibit they would be quizzed on later.

He even thought he could hear a lecturer, with a voice remarkably like Sergei's, saying:

"Here we have a defunct warlord. Note the contusions around the neck and chest – such injuries are typical of a violent and lawless lifestyle. The specimen in question used to be a lot of things. Used to command armies, but then sank into five years of idleness and dissipation. Used to be guardian of a group of young ladies, but now they no longer need him. Used to be loved by a brave and brilliant woman, but then he showed her the very worst of his character, tried her patience to the uttermost, and finished it all off by stabbing her through the chest. Defunct warlord, defunct guardian, and defunct lover, dead and buried for the better part of six years – in hell for the last seven months of them – now seeking to come alive again, in spite of ugly wounds, both mental and physical. He doesn't have a prayer, and nor does he particularly deserve a prayer, but he is nevertheless a fascinating study in audacity."

And underneath all this, like a needle threading in and out of the fabric of his madness, was the thought that she was alive. Not just his Vedic goddess, but his little mouse. Not just his little mouse, but the buxom girl from Camden who wanted to have an adventure. She was so many different things to him that, for a moment, he pictured each of these figures sitting among the medical students in the stands – one with a dark, merciful curtain of hair, one in a sequinned sari, one twiddling her thumbs with that nervous motion so peculiar to his Oxford mouse. But all intent on him, and all with expressions of expectation. 

He had a reason to live again, and he had to live up to it.

He had several visitors which were not hallucinations – or that he was reasonably sure were not. After Sergei, there was Sam, who was just as grave and reproachful. It was as though he really had died, and was now being visited by a procession of the people he had wronged, standing over him while he was strapped to a table and powerless to defend himself. And all the time, his skin was burning as if with shame.

Still, Jack babbled at him cheerfully – because he was cheerful. Or anyway, there was an excitement battling with his anxiety, even if it did very little to cool him down. She was alive, she was alive, she was alive – oh god, what was he going to do?

"What have you been doing with yourself for the past seven months, Sammie? Where did you find Mathilde? I was impressed with her. Really, really impressed. I expected to have a crush on her, but she was too impressive for that."

Sam said nothing. He was even quieter than the medical students, although he was far more like a hallucination, with his bulky shoulders, his dark jacket, and his irrepressible tendency to loom.

"Did you try opium?" Jack went on. "It's a really bad habit, Sammie. And it doesn't suit you. Far too calming. I'd recommend cocaine – a seven per cent solution. Make you even more furious and energetic."

Again, Sam didn't speak, though he was chewing his lip uneasily, which Jack decided to interpret as a good sign.

"It must be nice, after everything I've done, to have me at your mercy..."

"Jack, mercy doesn't enter into it," Sam snapped at last. "I'm an Officer of the law, and you broke the law. You killed two people-"

"A traitor and a slave-dealer," Jack broke in. "The law would have judged at least one of them to hang anyway."

"You started a riot and a prison-break."

"No-one died in those."

"You shot Constable Gleeson-"

"Non-fatally. Do you have any idea how hard it is to shoot someone non-fatally at that range?"

"Oh, I suppose we should be giving you a medal?"

"I did everything I could to spare you."

Sam stared at him in disbelief. "I think I'm going to have to skip the trial and strangle you right now."

"You won't do that, Sammie. You won't break the rules. If you're not a Police Officer, what are you?"

It seemed to be later – either that or Sam had calmed down very fast. He was standing further up the tiers of benches, staring out of the high, barred windows at the cobbles of Holywell Street.

"There's something different about you," said Jack, through lips that were dry, in spite of the sweating. Sam didn't turn to look at him, so he went on, "It's like the morning after Burgess bit you, only the other way. Less of the monster."

"Much good may it do you," said Sam, in a grumpy undertone.

What was different, Jack wondered? When Burgess had bitten him, the difference had been in his shadow. It had been darker than a mere absence of light could account for, larger than even Sam's bulky frame warranted. Now he was... diminished. But not in a bad way. It was like some unhealthy swelling that had finally gone down.

"You read her letter," said Jack, staring up at the amulets in astonishment. "And it was kind."

There was no answer. The heat rising off Jack's body in waves didn't stir the amulets an inch. Perfectly becalmed.

"I take my hat off to her," he said at last. "I wouldn't have had it in me to be kind at a time like that."

"I know," said Sam.

Jack wondered what this meant for the future of anger in Oxford. If Sam wasn't there to take it all on his shoulders, like Atlas with the sky, where was it going to go? Jack had filled in for him for a while – which he seemed to remember Hercules doing for Atlas – but now Ellini was alive. He wasn't angry anymore, was he? Or was he?

"What did she say?" Jack asked.

"What did who say?"

Sam was closer now. He was standing beside the operating table, leaning over him. His face was red, as if he'd just been shouting.

Jack blinked. "We were talking about Lily's letter, weren't we?"

"That was ten minutes ago!"

Jack jerked his head to the side, and a red lightning-flash of pain stabbed across his vision. The medical students in the stands leaned closer, whispering with ghoulish, academic curiosity.

"But since you brought it up," said Sam, "I have been meaning to ask what made you look inside the spine of a volume of poetry. I have a theory that you were just dismantling her books for fun, like a little boy pulling the wings off an insect."

"I was looking for her madness," Jack explained. "It's a mad thing to do, killing yourself – I mean, from a purely animal perspective. There are certain circumstances that render it quite logical, but it's always against your instincts. I didn't think an Oxford person would go mad in the usual way – not the raving and incoherent way. This city sets its own parameters of madness. So I tried to think what would be the maddest thing for an Oxford person to do, and then I did it."

"And when you set fire to the Bodleian, you did it again. On a much grander scale."

Jack smiled faintly. "You hate this city too. You try to hurt it too. You just don't go far enough."

"And you go too far." Sam passed a hand over his eyes, just as Sergei had done. Jack wondered whether they'd both had sleepless nights, or whether it was just unbelievably wearying to talk to him.

"What would you do if I didn't put you in prison?" Sam demanded. "Would there be more revenge-campaigns? Or have you finished hunting down slave-dealers?"

"I promise I'll behave," said Jack.

"And what do you think one of your promises is worth? Just tell me theoretically – what would you do?"

"Sammie, she's alive."

Sam closed his eyes, as if he had been afraid of this.

"You knew, didn't you?" said Jack. He tried to fit this idea into his head – tried to frame some kind of a rebuke – but it was both too enormous and too irrelevant. On the one hand, it was crueller than seven months on the rack. On the other hand, she was alive – what did anything else matter? "How long have you known?"

Sam just raised his eyebrows, so Jack babbled, only occasionally aware of what he was saying, like a stone skimming across the surface of the water.

"I don't care – I'm not judging you – although there's some who'd say that was worse than anything I did to you. But I need to know everything, so I can find her. I mean, I'll find her anyway – I can do anything as long as she's alive – but it's been a long time, and the trail's probably gone cold, and I'm not getting any younger." He stopped, realizing the truth of this for the first time. "I look bad, don't I? I mean, with the scars and-"

He blacked out again. He was sure of it this time, because the sun had gone down when he reopened his eyes, and Sam had turned into Shikari.

"Where is he?" said Jack, trying to sit up and stirring what felt like a thousand fragments of glass inside his head.

"The Inspector?" said Shikari. "He went back to the station. He says you can stay here until you're better. Fa – Dr Petrescu says it's a suspiciously good offer."

"It is," said Jack. "The letter must have been really kind."

They were quiet for a moment. It was easy to be quiet around Shikari, and Jack was being troubled by a new hallucination. It was audible rather than visual this time – a whisper in his own voice that was half-enticing and half-alarming. It said:

What are you doing here? She could be anywhere – she could be with anyone. You've wasted so much time already. You have to move.

"He knows such a lot," Shikari burst out, as if this was something that had been preying on his mind.

Jack blinked at him. "I take it you don't mean Sam?"

"Well, everyone knows more than me," said Shikari bitterly. "But I meant the doctor." He put his chin in his palm. "When we got to England in '76, the first thing I did was enroll in a school. I found a school before I even found lodgings. I'd learned to read and write in six months. They say that's very good, for an adult. And I took the train to Manchester every week to hear lectures at the Mechanics' Institute. To improve myself, you know? And be part of the world, just like Joel Parish said. But it doesn't make any difference. I started too late. I could study for the rest of my life and never know as much as Dr Petrescu. And it makes me angry."

"Yes," said Jack. "I can see why it would."

"And the worst part is, I don't know who I'm angry with. I thought I was angry with the Witch Finders, with the British Empire, with the Anglo-Indian Army, but whenever I actually meet the members of these horrible groups, they're so nice. The guilt goes away, but the anger doesn't go anywhere."

"There are plenty of people who'd refuse to see how nice they were."

"Well, where would that get me?" said Shikari. "I'm blind enough already without not seeing things."

Jack continued to stare up at the amulets. The world didn't seem to be going so fast now. He was seeing things in long, continuous streams rather than little snatches. Perhaps this meant he was through the worst of the fever. He was still drenched in sweat, but at least there was some measure of clarity. And if anyone deserved the benefit of his clarity, it was Shikari.

"Is there something you want to learn more than anything else?" he asked.

"I think..." The boy flushed, as though he was owning up to something shameful. "I think I'd like to be able to put people back together again. Like the doctor did last night. But that takes years."

"You're young and quick. I think you'll manage it."

"And what about the anger?"

Jack tried to shrug, but he was strapped down too tightly. "Well, maybe that never goes away. Or maybe you get so busy, you don't have time to notice it. Doctors are very busy, I understand."

Shikari smiled, a little unwillingly. "I feel as though, yesterday, you would have advised me to hunt down every Witch Finder and member of the British Empire and tear them limb from limb."

"Well, it's a very different world this evening."