Jack went into the Academy, leaving Robin sitting thoughtfully on the lawn, leaning his back against nothing. He dreaded to think what was going on inside the bastard's head, but he had more pressing matters to attend to. 

He found Elsie and Danvers in Matthi's office, playing cards, and gave them as brief an account of his trip through the sewers as he could get away with. He described the Fleet River, deep under Camden High Street, and how it could have carried Sita for miles along its murky course. He described the fork in the river, with its rows of tooth-like stalactites and stalagmites, and how it seemed exactly like the entrance to the fire-mines: bare, strangely textured, and with a feeling of depth behind its solidity.

Then he unfolded a map of central London, and walked Elsie's fingers along the route from Camden Town to Farringdon Road, following the twists and turns of the sewers as best he could. He even gave her the co-ordinates of Farringdon Road, which delighted her no end, because she had reached the entries on 'Latitude' and 'Longitude' in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

After that, she raised his hand to her nose and spent a few, perplexing moments sniffing it. Jack just hoped that, if she could smell the sewers on him, it was because of her heightened demonic senses, and not because he hadn't washed enough.

"Confusing," she said at last. "Why did you have to use so much soap?"

"I didn't know you were going to smell your way to the answer!"

She dropped his hand and tilted her head in that irritating way of hers. Jack had started to picture a little, invisible figure there, whispering in her ear.

"Shall I show you the place?" he said, when he finally lost patience with her.

"You're not taking her down into any more sewers!" Danvers snapped. "This one sounds insalubrious even by sewer standards!"

"Won't be necessary," said Elsie, shaking her head. "I'll think my way down there." She hesitated, as though she knew that what she was going to say would not be well-received. "It could... take a while." 

"How long?"

"A few days? A week? She's been falling for twenty years, remember? There's quite a lot of ground to cover."

"I thought you said it hadn't been twenty years for her?"

"Sometimes less time means more space."

Jack groaned. He wished he hadn't asked. "Just keep me informed."

He left them to resume their card-game, and opened the door to the Entrance Hall. 

Ellini was coming down the staircase to his left. She had seen him before he'd seen her, and she was hurrying, eager – as if she was in danger of missing him. As if he wouldn't have waited a decade for a single word.

For a moment, he thought, they both teetered. For a moment, he saw her gloved hand squeezing the banister, and thought they were going to rush into each other's arms. He thought he could taste the softness of her lips against his. 

But then he blinked, and they were still standing so far apart, and she was smiling so cordially, even if her hand was tight against the banister.

"I'm sorry about earlier-" she blurted out. 

"No," he said. "Don't be."

"It was my fault-"

"It really wasn't."

"I'd like the two of us to be friends."

He glanced at her tensed hand on the banister. "I'll always be your friend."

She stopped, perhaps feeling that she had said too much too fast, and took a deep breath. "It just – struck me as very hypocritical that I was tolerating Robin's behaviour, but not..." She trailed off, and Jack wondered, with a sort of serene horror, how she was going to finish. 'Tolerating Robin's behaviour but not yours'? Was he on a par with Robin? Was she only tolerating him now?

"I'm..." He cleared his throat and hid his hands behind his back. He couldn't stop thinking that they looked guilty somehow. As if Violet's blood was still on them. "I'm sorry about Violet. It was wrong."

Ellini flinched and heaved her shoulders into a shrug. "I'm sure she antagonized you. She antagonized everybody."

Jack said nothing. He wanted to say, 'Actually, she was batting her eyelashes at me. But that – twelve hours after losing the woman I loved, and coupled with the knowledge that she'd betrayed the woman I loved – was just about as antagonizing as an antagonist ever got.'

But that would have been an excuse, and he didn't want to offer any more excuses. He shouldn't have killed Violet. He wasn't Robin. Just because people antagonized him, that didn't mean he had to stab them in the neck.

At any rate, Ellini was looking at him properly now, taking in his cut lip and the slashes in his trousers.

"Are you... all right?" she asked, with more suspicion than concern.

Jack hesitated, wondering if he was going to get into trouble again – wondering if this interval of cordiality was going to be even briefer than the last one. "It was Robin..."

He watched her face as this sank in. It was actually rather lovely: an expression he remembered from the time when she had been his little, inoffensive, Oxford mouse. She raised her eyebrows in a rueful, amused kind of way, as if to say, 'This too?'

Aloud, she said, "You told him?"

"Leeny, he only had to look at me."

"Yes," she muttered, raising a hand to her forehead. "Me too. Only he thought Matthi was responsible."

"Wishful thinking," said Jack.

Ellini laughed. "He's the most paranoid man in the world. Wishful thinking is one of the few things he's never been guilty of. But who could have predicted I'd-?" She broke off, as though mentally shaking herself. "I take it you would have said something before now if you'd killed him?"

"He nearly killed me!" Jack protested.

"Where is he now?"

"Out on the lawns, I think. He couldn't get past the gargoyles."

She came down a few steps, wincing as though she was about to tear a sticking-plaster off his arm. "I know you wouldn't, but please don't... taunt him. Please don't boast."

Jack laughed and shook his head. She still had no idea – and after all the speeches he'd made yesterday! "Didn't I say I'd do anything for you or your loved ones?" he reminded her. "Didn't I say I didn't even care if it was Robin?"

She went back up a step. He was being too direct – as if he was as young and simple as that pianist. He smiled, cleared his throat, and tried to lighten the tone. "You really ought to remember what I said to you yesterday. Nothing's changed. I still owe you a favour."

"I've called it in," said Ellini, looking him directly in the eyes. "I won't change my mind. It's important to me."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "I just... you shouldn't kill people. You're better than that."

There was silence. Jack didn't trust himself to fill it, because his throat was suddenly scratchy and raw.

"And it is because of me," she went on carefully. "I won't use words like 'fault' or 'blame' if you don't want me to, but Robin only trained you because I asked him to. You wouldn't have started out on this road if-"

Jack clasped his hands behind his back again. "I'd killed before that, don't you remember? Henry and Baby Jane?"

"That was an accident."

He put his head on one side. "The consequences were an accident, but I always intended to do them harm."

"That's not the same!"

"Isn't it?"

She came down a step, and he had that strange sensation of teetering again. He got the feeling she wanted to squeeze his hand or peer earnestly into his eyes, but she didn't trust herself.

Jack suddenly realized he didn't want her to argue with him. He didn't want to hear her say he was a good man. It was lovely, but it would make him feel wretched, because he knew the truth. She couldn't convince him. She would only make him feel guilty for deceiving her.

"Would you like to do something for me?" he said, before she could launch into any soothing speeches.

Ellini raised her eyebrows. "So you can owe me another favour?"

Jack smiled. Oh god, he liked her. She had not been as sympathetic as he'd thought. She had not been about to melt and seize his hand, and implore him to give himself more credit. Or even if she had, she was always willing to sidestep the sentiment and play with him instead.

"If I ended up owing you another favour, I wouldn't object," he said. "But this should be done for its own sake really. I can't bring Violet back, but it might not be too late for Alice and Val."

"I was thinking about that," said Ellini. She paused, as if she was trying to martial some kind of argument. "You want me to go after them? I know I should – I mean, you can't go, because you're not a woman, and I know the fire-mines, and I owe Alice so much. It's just – not easy to contemplate going back there."

"Understood."

"No, don't say 'understood' like that, as if the matter's settled!" she protested. "I'm going to go!"

"Yes," said Jack, with a slight, sorrowful smile. "That was what I understood."

She came down another step, puzzled and pleased, although the shadow of annoyance hadn't left her. "And I don't know what would happen to Robin if I left him alone for all that time..."

Jack snorted, but relented when he saw her face. "I'll look after Robin," he said. "I can keep him from killing people. Who else would stand a chance?"

Ellini gave him a dubious smile. "Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I don't want him to go on the rampage in Oxford, or anywhere else, but neither do I want him locked up and beaten into submission."

"And if you had to choose one?" said Jack, a little wistfully.

She didn't answer. She just glared. It made his skin tingle.

"I won't lock him up," said Jack. "And I've never beaten him into anything resembling submission. He can stay at the lodging-house on Headington Hill, waiting for you to come back and join him on that suicidal jaunt to Edinburgh. I'll keep an eye on him from a judicious distance, and only get involved if he looks likely to stab someone in the neck, how does that sound?"

Ellini was still dubious. He supposed he couldn't really blame her. But there was a kind of bright softness about her as well, as if she was proud and tender at the same time.

"You'd really trust me to go back to the fire-mines and help them?"

He shrugged, doing his best to seem casual. "As you say, you know the place best. And you're female, and you're not easy to kill."

She gave him that hard, cool look again, but he could tell she was flattered. "I'll think about it," she said. "But I don't agree to your supervising Robin, I'm telling you that right now."

"Perhaps I'll do that with or without your agreement."

"Hmm. Well, at least then I won't be responsible for the consequences."

"That's very important to you, isn't it?" said Jack. But she wasn't listening. A look of panic had crossed her face, and he turned to see Elliott Blake coming in through the front door. He was very gallantly holding Carrie by the arm, guiding her in at the steps, but Jack had seen his eyes flick towards himself and Ellini, and he could see the storm-clouds gathering on that young, un-lined, and otherwise untroubled forehead.

"Ah," said Ellini, in a voice of choked politeness. "Have the two of you met?"

"Briefly," said Elliott, and managed to convey by his tone that it hadn't been brief enough for his liking.

"Let me introduce you properly, then," said Ellini, as if their mutual dislike had been the fault of an insufficient introduction. "Jack, this is Mr Elliott Blake, whose lovely music we heard at the Turl Street Music Rooms. And Elliott, this is Jack Cade-"

There was a pause after she said his name – it couldn't have been more than a second, but it was long enough for several bright, horrific scenarios to play themselves out in Jack's mind. What would she say? This is Jack Cade, who stabbed me through the chest? Jack Cade, to whom I was briefly engaged, until I caught him kissing a buxom widow in the Faculty Lounge?

But she said, "Jack Cade, who looked after me in India."

It was so unexpected that he broke off his horrified contemplation of Elliott to glance at her. It was such a – a kind thing to say. As if she wanted Elliott to like him. It was a little, sharp sensation, like a thorn between his ribs, but whether it was pleasure or pain, he couldn't have said.

Even when she was introducing him to his replacement, she was so kind. What could you do in a situation like that? When you liked a woman so much that you even admired the way she discarded you?

Jack didn't know what he could do for himself, but he knew what he could do for Ellini, and he did it. He stretched out a hand to Elliott.

The boy hesitated, and glanced at Ellini. But her desperate smile must have had its effect on him too, because he clasped Jack's hand. It was as brief and uncivil as they could get away with, but they had shaken hands, and things were somehow different after that.

Carrie piped up then, making both men jump. "I hope you'll come and visit me in Earl's Court, Mr Blake. We have a piano in the parlour – actually, the piano practically is the parlour, it's so big. It was a present from Jack when I got into the Italia Conti."

This praise for Jack, on top of Ellini's insistence that he had looked after her in India, seemed too much for Elliott. He grimaced at Carrie – who, fortunately, couldn't see him – and said, "Jack is a connoisseur of music, is he?"

"Actually, I-" said Ellini, in a high, fraught voice, "I think your carriage is outside, Carrie."

"Oh, good. Will you help me change for the journey? I can't travel in first class looking like this." She plucked at the skirts of her plain, high-buttoned brown dress. 

"Yes, I – I'll be right up," said Ellini. Her smile was rigid. She didn't want to leave Jack and Elliott alone together.

Jack, who was slightly amused at her predicament, couldn't help saying, "She'll be needing your help on the stairs, mouse."

There was really no objection she could make to this. She looked desperately at Elliott, to see if he was going to offer some excuse and absent himself, but the boy said nothing. So she surrendered to the inevitable as gracefully as she could, took Carrie by the arm, and with one last parting glare at Jack, proceeded to lead her up the stairs.

They were slow in going, and the silence sucked uncomfortably at the two men who'd been left behind. But Elliott was clearly determined not to speak until she was out of earshot. And, even then – even when she'd disappeared through a doorway at the top of the stairs – he seemed unable to find the right words, or perhaps the right tone.

Jack said the first non-threatening thing that came into his head. "I met your sister. Really liked her."

"She has that effect on people," said Elliott stiffly.

Jack shoved his hands in the unfamiliar pockets of his new trousers. "I wouldn't – mention her in front of Robin, if I were you."

The boy frowned. "What are you suggesting?"

"I'm not suggesting anything, it's just... always good policy not to let him know what you care about."

"Well, of the two of you, you're the one who threatened and robbed my sister, so-"

"I didn't do either of those things," said Jack, his vague smile disappearing. "I'm sorry if it seemed that way."

The silence descended again – and, once again, Elliott Blake seemed to wrestle with the prospect of whatever he was there to say. Jack suddenly wanted to delay him. "You haven't met Robin, have you?"

"Why?" said Elliott, frowning again.

"Well, you'll find out soon enough. It would just be as well if you knew that there are worse things than me. I can understand how we might seem the same to you, but trust me, he's worse."

"You do seem the same to me," said Elliott coolly.

"And now are you going to tell me to keep away from your girl?" said Jack, resigned to the inevitable.

"She's different," said Elliott, gesturing up the staircase where she had disappeared. "What did you do to her?"

"I don't know," said Jack truthfully.

"I know," the boy snapped.

"Well, why did you ask, then?"

"You stay away from her, do you hear me? Haven't you done enough damage already?"

Jack suddenly felt very tired. God, it was exhausting, talking to the young! They were so intense, so literal-minded. He wanted to grab this one by the throat, shove him up against the wall, and order him to say something original.

And somehow, this was more tempting than any temptation he had been exposed to so far. He had to get out of here.

"There's worse than me, Elliott," he repeated, as he headed for the door. "That really is true. But don't push me."