"Thus far," said Faustus, "have I related events only as they concern myself and my demonic familiar, as I may call her. My Mephistopheles. Yet can I also tell the tale through the eyes of another – a perspective to which even she can have no recourse. The man she has these three centuries been destined to love." 

Alice sat up straighter, but she tried not to betray any other sign of excitement. The peppery roots probably contained some stimulating chemical – like the caffeine molecules Dr Runge identified in coffee beans – because she was fidgeting in her seat, tapping her toes, longing to get up and reorganize Faustus's cramped little cavern. 

It was not because she believed his story. Certainly not. It was not because it seemed like something she had already heard – perhaps in a dream or a bedtime story. Something she half-remembered in her skin, rather than her head. 

"Are you talking about Myrrha's husband?" she asked, folding her hands decorously in her lap. "Has he also been dropping notes through the ceiling of your cell?" 

"Nay, lady. His account did I hear from the stones in my sanctuary, which have lightened the burden of my solitude by speaking a-nights." 

Alice sighed. "Well, it's no madder than anything else you've said."

She looked at Val, who had devoured three roasted bats with every sign of enjoyment. Alice supposed it took a lot of nourishment to maintain that bulky frame. "Do you want to hear any more of this lunacy?" 

"It's not lunacy," said Val, tugging off her enormous boots. Alice wrinkled her nose. "I met Myrrha at Pandemonium. It's true she can predict the future. And I wouldn't bet against her being a thirty-thousand-year-old demoness either – she's demonically clever." 

Alice frowned. She didn't like the kind of attitude which associated cleverness with demonism. But most of all, she didn't like to hear a woman other than herself described as clever. 

"Art thou acquainted also with her Lord?" the old man asked. 

"You mean her husband?" Val nodded. "I've known him since we were fourteen. We trained together at Gargotha's Halfway House. And I'm telling you for nothing, he wouldn't have told you his story on purpose. Robin would never betray Myrrha. She sculpted him." 

"As he were rock," said Faustus, nodding triumphantly. "'Tis truer than you know." 

***

Naples, 1852:

Miller was an Englishwoman. Robin hadn't known her at the orphan asylum, but he assumed she was attached in some way to the philanthropic society that ran it. The first thing he'd noticed about her was that her head was all one colour. Her lips were the same pale, indeterminate shade as the rest of her face, and this face ran seamlessly into her dishrag-grey hair. 

He had no idea what her job was, or even her title. She had just introduced herself as Miller. Well, in fact, she had introduced herself as: "Miller. Neither Miss nor Mrs. Neither Anne nor Mary nor Agnes nor Jane. Just Miller. And you will respect me."

These words would later become familiar to Ellini as the magic formula by which he started reciting the names of his past victims. She was the first – or, anyway, the first he could remember – so he would position his finger over the cut he had made to commemorate her, and solemnly intone:

"Miller-neither-Miss-nor-Mrs-neither-Anne-nor-Mary-nor-Agnes-nor-Jane-just-Miller-and-you-will-respect-me."

He liked to think that, somewhere and somehow, she was pleased to be given her full title. Somewhere, they were all alive, waiting for him. 

But that was years later. Right now, he was at the seminary outside Naples, and had been for nearly two weeks. He attended mass, but not classes. And, always, when he was allowed out of his cell, Miller was beside him – a sour-faced chaperone who the other boys didn't dare approach.

He wasn't sure what her function was. Miller came when he was hungry and did not bring him food. She came when he was lonely, and made him feel more alone than ever. And when she left, she always glanced over her shoulder and told him to remember how lucky he was. But, try as he might, he could never remember that. He could only remember that she'd said it.

Today, she was exhorting him to be grateful while he stared idly out of the window of his cell. It overlooked a courtyard of shrubs and walkways and statues, and it was bathed in sunshine. Bumble-bees were droning in the lavender. A woman in a purple dress was walking among the silvery, sunbaked herbs.

"Who's that lady?" said Robin, when Miller's lecture had subsided into silence. "I've seen her before, haven't I? At the orphanage? Does she work for the charitable foundation that took me in?"

Miller gave him one of her grim, amused smiles, as if he was the punchline to a joke he couldn't possibly follow. "No, they work for her. That lady is your patroness."

"What's a patroness?"

"Someone who looks after you, pays for your education, sees that you get everything you need." 

Robin brightened. This sounded good. "Can you tell her I need more food? And some other children to play with?"

"That's what you want, not what you need," said Miller. "Food and company will make you soft and flabby. Your patroness intends you to be self-reliant."

Robin didn't think much of this. He had always been self-reliant. Who else was there to rely on? And he knew he was strong, because he had been at the orphanage. He knew how much weaker it was possible to be. He wasn't one of those children who turned soupy and moped. He didn't withdraw into himself and snarl whenever someone ventured near him. 

And, during his two weeks of solitude at the seminary, he had been careful to keep busy. He talked, threw a ball against the wall and caught it, found games and challenges to occupy his mind. There were books in his cell, but he left them untouched on the shelves. 

It wasn't that he didn't have a good imagination – it was just the opposite, in fact. He knew he had a good imagination, because of the nightmares, and he didn't want to encourage them.

Nobody who spoke to Robin in the daytime would ever have guessed about the nightmares. He seemed to be two boys: the handsome, talkative one who charmed everybody he met, and the boy from the nightmares: twitchy and desperate and scared of everything, who couldn't even hold a weapon to defend himself because his hands were slippery with sweat.

He couldn't remember anything before coming to the orphanage, at the age of six. He couldn't remember Mr and Mrs Crake, if indeed he had ever known them. Perhaps there had been a workhouse, or another orphanage before the one he remembered. Perhaps he had been raised in the wilderness by wolves. That would certainly fit, because the nightmares were full of howling and teeth.

"At any rate," said Miller, smoothing out some non-existent creases in her skirt, "your Patroness is in charge of your education. After this, she means to send you to Sicily, to learn sword-play from a master who lives under a mountain. Would you like that?"

"Yes," said Robin, who was startled to be asked whether he'd like something. Usually he got things, or didn't, whether he wanted them or not. And then people told him to be grateful.

Still, sword-play under a mountain sounded exciting – the very opposite of his life here. "She means me for a soldier, then? My patroness?"

"She means you for a commander," Miller amended.

"But what am I supposed to be learning here?"

"Well, use you intelligence, boy. What is it that Father Volpone does better than anything else?"

Robin squinted. "Talk to God?"

That smile again. She picked up a shirt from the floor and folded it meticulously. "Well, you'll find out tonight. Your patroness has arranged for you to have a private tutorial with him."

Robin knew better than to protest. But still, he paled.

Father Volpone was a priest with a shadowy, stubbly face. There were traces of silver in his beard, but not in his hair. He smelled of tobacco. Sometimes there were even little, acrid clouds of smoke around him, weaving between his fingers, curling above his shoulder, whispering in his ear.

What he did best was standing still. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, Robin would wake from a nightmare, grope his way to the window, and see him standing in the courtyard below – just a head and shoulders outlined against the lamps from the refectory. He wasn't walking, or pacing, or having a quiet smoke, away from the disapproving eyes of the Mother Superior. He was just standing there, looking up at Robin's window, no different from a tree or a bush, or the statue of Cupid on the ornamental fountain. Except that he looked.

Robin would close his eyes tight, or force them open, and say to himself, "You're going to wake up. You're going to wake up." But he knew it was real, because he never thought he was going to wake up in the thick of the nightmares. No opportunities for escape ever presented themselves there.

"Couldn't you come with me?" he said to Miller, when the horror of the idea had revolved in his head several times, allowing him to see it from every angle.

"Certainly not." She put the shirt on top of his bed-clothes and pressed it down, as if it was being unruly. "There's no cause for alarm. Your patroness only wants what's best for you."

"I know what's best for me!" he protested.

"You're ten years old," said Miller. "You know nothing."

***

He saw her again the next morning. He had been pacing up and down his cell, carefully holding himself back, and when she entered, he pointed a shaking finger at her and launched into the shouts he should have shouted last night – only he'd been too afraid.

"She watched! She watched!"

Miller straightened herself haughtily. "What are you talking about, boy?"

"That woman – that patroness!" he spat. "I thought she was going to help me, but she just watched!"

"Watched what?"

Robin hesitated. He didn't want to describe it in case it felt like being back there. "He... he beat me," he stammered, knowing as he said it that it sounded stupid. All children got beaten. He'd been beaten himself, dozens of times. But this had been different. It had been like the nightmares. Rows of teeth and hot, panting breath. 

"But she watched," he croaked, going back to the part that had, somehow, been worse than any of it. "She just watched."

"Well?" said Miller. "Why shouldn't she watch? She owns you. She's paid for every crumb you've ever eaten, every bed you've ever slept in. You think people are queuing up to provide for young orphans? You should be grateful you're alive to be watched at all."

"I'd rather be dead!" Robin shouted.

"I tell you, your wants are no concern of mine. One day, you'll be grateful to your patroness for everything she's done for you. When you're a grown man and not a whining boy-"

"Is she watching now?" Robin cut in.

Miller flinched a little, but kept her gaze steady. She said, "You're a silly boy", or something of that sort – Robin wasn't really listening. Bright tendrils of panic were curling round his chest, squeezing the air out of him. He couldn't take another breath. The fear of the night before came back to him.

She was watching him again. They were all in on it. They were all watching him.

Later, he could only think that he must have fallen asleep. His insides lurched, as though he'd tumbled through the floor-boards, and suddenly he was in the sweaty, stifling world of the nightmares, flailing at shadows, screaming without sound.

When he came to himself, he was shivering. There was sweat on the back of his neck, and a slight breeze brushing it, like an icy hand. He looked for Miller, but didn't see her until his eyes dropped to the floor. She was juddering and gasping on her back. It looked as though she had the hiccoughs. But red hiccoughs. Bubbling, sticky red hiccoughs. And his hand hurt.

He looked down at it, dreading what he would see. Something bright and jagged was clutched in his fist. He must have broken the window. He had heard the glass breaking, hadn't he? That was why the breeze was so cold on the back of his neck. 

And he had picked up one of the broken fragments. It was long and pointed as an icicle, and just as red as Miller's hiccoughs. He was trembling so much that it was weaving about.

The lady in the purple dress was beside him. He didn't know how she'd got in. She must have crept up on soundless feet. It had been the same with Father Volpone, he was always just there – never arriving, never leaving, never exerting any effort to get to a place. He was just there. And watching.

The lady was kneeling beside him, her skirts carefully drawn up out of the way of the red.

Robin cringed back as if she had raised a hand to strike him. "I didn't – I didn't mean to! I'm sorry-"

"Of course, of course you didn't," she said soothingly. "She pushed you, I could see that. I was watching. But sorry?" She shook her head. "Sorry is a word cowards use. I never want to hear that word from you again, Robin, have I made myself clear?"

"I didn't mean to," he moaned. "I don't know what-"

"You did well, my darling," she said, pouting a little at his distress. Close to, she looked not much older than him – sixteen or seventeen, perhaps. She had a round, angelic face, and dimples in her cheeks.

"We'll have to finish her off now," she said, gently taking hold of Robin's hand, which was still clutching the jagged bit of glass. "Shall I show you where to cut?"

Robin shook his head. He didn't understand. Miller was still juddering, but her eyes had swung to the lady. She was awake. She could hear them.

"One little cut, Robin," said the lady. "Right here, where the jaw reaches the ear. And then you shall have a present."

Robin cringed back again, but the lady was guiding his hand. For some reason, he couldn't let go of the glass. He thought stupidly that, if he wasn't looking, the guilt couldn't really be his. If he wasn't looking, it was just a swipe – could have cut air, could have cut bread, wasn't his fault if there was a woman in front of it.

So he closed his eyes tightly and, a moment later, felt hot wetness spilling over his hand. He stifled a sob. He didn't want to open his mouth, in case blood got into it.

"There," said the lady brightly. "All done. Never happened. Tomorrow we embark for Sicily, Robin. Would you like that?"

Robin nodded wretchedly. She put both her hands on his shoulders, and something warned him to open his eyes. If she thought 'sorry' was a word for cowards, she wouldn't take kindly to him shutting his eyes at the sight of blood. 

He had no thoughts of escape, any more than he'd had with Father Volpone. He was too frightened for escape. This woman's sweet little smile seemed to fill the world from horizon to horizon, and there was no living in the world without living under it. He just wanted to appease her.

"Have you solved the riddle yet, my dear? Why you're here? What Father Volpone does better than anything else?"

"He scares me," Robin breathed.

"Good boy. And do you think you could scare other people the way Father Volpone scares you?"

"Yes – yes, m'm," he said breathlessly. "I don't need any more lessons."

"Not in that, perhaps," said the lady, with her dimply smile. "There will be more advanced lessons, but I think you've got the basics, so there's no need for Father Volpone anymore."

Robin was so relieved to hear the last part that he didn't puzzle over what had gone before it. It would be another ten years before he understood.

He learned terror from Father Volpone – the basic rudiments of terror. The stillness, the way to insinuate yourself into a room until the very walls seemed to be spying for you. But he learned nightmares from Myrrha. There were simple ways to scare people – mechanical, animal ways – and then there were personal ways. Myrrha taught him how to play on individual fears, how to create scenarios that were tailor-made to break a person's will, because they were translated right out of their heads. 

He would later discover that this programme of education was not quite as experimental as he'd thought. She had tried it on other boys before he'd come along. He even met them once, the ones who'd survived – a reunion of Robins, past and present, each of them wily, cagey, and battle-hardened. Mistrust was a natural consequence of the curriculum of terror, so they spoke warily, keeping their hands poised by their knife-hilts.

It had turned into a fight within half an hour. Roger the fifth Robin had killed Henry the second Robin, which only proved to Myrrha that she had refined the system quite intelligently as she'd gone on.

"Now for your present," said the lady. She held out a stubby knife, not much bigger than a potato-peeler. It had a handle of speckled, dimply stone.

"Is this another lesson?" said Robin.

"Clever boy. Call it a lesson, if you like. It's actually more of a pet. I know you've been feeling lonely since we came to Italy."

She turned the knife around, presenting its handle to Robin. The blade was now pointing at her chest, and, for a fraction of a second, he wondered if he could push it into her.

"He's called Gram," she said. "He's made from the rock of the demon realms, in the caves where I was born. Thoughts feed him – thoughts and experience. Every time he sheds blood, he'll grow, just like you. You can learn together. Gram will mould himself to your hand – to your thoughts and inclinations. He'll never leave you."

Robin half-expected the knife to start talking. There was a crack in the stone near the hilt, and he wondered if it would open up like a mouth, and the fire of the demon realms would pour out of it. Did she say she had been born there? But nobody had been there for three hundred years!

In fact, Gram never spoke to him. But he was alive. As time went on, Robin grew quite adept at recognizing his moods – approval, disapproval, glee, hunger, belligerence. They all had to do with the way he whispered through the air, the way the light glinted off his blade, the way he felt in Robin's palm.

None of the practice-Robins had been given Gram. There was only one Gram, and Myrrha was not going to waste him on a prototype.

He had started carving notches into the hilt – one for every life Gram ended – out of curiosity more than anything else. It felt like marking a child's height on the wall as he grew. Look how far we've come – look how much we've changed. 

When he later transferred the notches to his own flesh, it was for quite another reason.