It would be all right when it happened. When it all went wrong. She was prepared for it.

She couldn't have said what it was she was prepared for exactly. For him to turn on her? No, she didn't think he would do that. Disappoint her? Maybe.

At any rate, she wouldn't blame herself. It had been madness – wonderful, irresistible madness. The fact that it had seemed, at the time, like the sanest thing in the world only proved that it had been madness. And madness couldn't be controlled or reproached. 

She had seen his pain and thought she could make it right. She had realized she loved him and thought she could give in to it for a while. She had thought she could be that woman – someone who could show her feelings without fear of disaster or reprisals or a coach-load of consequences. But oh, it had been wonderful, while it lasted!

When he disappointed her, or tried to control her, it would not lessen what had gone before. She would accept the consequences without complaint. She had been warned, and it had been worth it.

And this knowledge – the bright, bubbling idiocy of it – made her quite giggly as the day wore on. There was just one thought, going round and round her head:

I can't believe I did that. I can't believe I did that.

Although there were occasional variations:

I can't believe I did it with my gloves on! I can't believe I did it three times!

Matthi took her all over the building, and Ellini was shaky with the exertion. She had been dreading making speeches, or answering the same question very poorly a hundred times, but her girls were... well, they were her girls. They weren't really interested in her apologies. And they'd all heard about her rooftop scamperings and her near-death experience. They wanted to tell her things – about the men they were 'walking out' with, the positions Jack had found for them, the kind of England they had come back to.

"My George 'ad been carrying on with another woman, so I just left them to it."

"I've been having lessons, look-"

"His name's Joe Jacobs. He says he reminds me of his mother – is that wrong?"

"They all thought I was dead. Bessie named her youngest after me. I don't think they like me so much now they know I'm alive, but the poor girl's stuck with the name!"

"Jack says I can be on the London stage someday, I just have to practise."

And with every new conversation, her heart swelled for Jack and Manda, who had spoken to them, comforted them, reunited them with their families, and just generally salvaged something from the wreckage.

When they had visited every room, and spoken to every girl they could find, Matthi took her up to her own room. Nowhere was very grand in this place, because it had once been a school. But this room – or suite of rooms, rather – must have belonged to one of the school-mistresses, because the windows weren't quite so high and unreachable. The occupant of this room had been trusted with a velvet couch, a four-poster, and a door that didn't slam shut automatically, as if to cut off all escape. Ellini's cases were on top of the bed, and this fact seemed to raise the ceiling and push the walls back even more. Those cases always spoke to her of freedom.

"This is my room," said Matthi. "Yours is just through there." She pointed to a door in the far wall, through which another four-poster could be made out. "I've already 'ad your cases brought up from the coach-yard. There's no other door to that room, incidentally, so the only way to get to you is through me."

She raised her voice as she said this, and Ellini realized it was for Jack's benefit. He was coming up the stairs behind them, accompanied by Mr Danvers, and a girl with a blindfold over her eyes.

Ellini and Danvers collided in an avalanche of Englishness.

"Miss Syal," he said, coming forward with his hand outstretched and his face flushed with earnestness.

"Dear Mr Danvers," she said, "I'm so sorry if-"

"Please don't apologize, Miss Syal. I'm only – I'm glad to see you in such good health and spirits."

Ellini laughed, embarrassed about her good spirits. "I made you a cricket vest," she said, clumsy and abrupt. "I was making clothes for everyone. I was a seamstress in the East End, I don't know if Jack told you?" 

She retreated to the bed, found her sewing-case, and fumbled through it until she located a white, woollen vest. "I hope you still get a chance to play?"

"How very kind," said Danvers, taking it from her, and then fidgeting with it the way he usually fidgeted with his hat. "Yes, I still play every Sunday at the Headington Quarry. Elsie likes to watch – or rather, listen."

He motioned to the girl with the blindfold, who was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. "Please allow me to introduce you," he said. "Miss Ellini Syal, this is..."

But she knew, now, who it was. And what would he have said? He was too formal, surely, to call her Eve, and too respectful to use a diminutive like the 'little mother'. Would he have come up with some grand, gothic title? 'Mother of the demon race and Arch-Duchess of Hell, the honourable, venerable, demo-maniacal-'

Ellini would have been the first to admit that this thought was slightly hysterical. She abandoned it at 'demo-maniacal', because she was fairly sure that wasn't a word, and tried to focus on the girl herself.

She had marmalade hair, pinned untidily on top of her head, but it seemed to be dyed, because there was an inch or so of golden yellow at the roots, making her look like a lit match.

And it was so strange to see a smile on those features, because Ellini was used to seeing them stretched wide in a snarl. She had never been fooled by it. She had always seen the little mother as a gentle figure. But she could never have imagined such a picture of beaming, girlish excitement. 

Ellini sank to her knees and bowed her head, torn between awe and puzzlement. "Little mother..." 

The girl bounced again, laughed again, and then got down on her knees too.

Ellini shot Mr Danvers a look, and he muttered, "Elsie, Miss Syal will think you're making fun of her."

"Will she?" said the girl, still laughing. "I'm sorry – I'm just so pleased... Dear Miss Syal – Ellini – there's no reason to kneel. I've wanted to meet you for such a long time."

She let Danvers pull her to her feet, and Ellini got up too, more fascinated than self-conscious. She wanted to say that she could never have thought the girl was making fun of her. You couldn't mistake that artless smile for malice, even if you were the most paranoid person in the world.

"I'm sorry," said the girl. "It's just... You've never been a mother, have you? Nor do I think you ever expect to be. But you were a mother to me without knowing it, in the months you were reassembling that doll. All your patience, all your stories, all your advice and little confidences-"

Jack coughed meaningfully, and she stopped and smiled before hurtling on. "I don't know much about it, would you believe, but I think I'm resurrected when a sympathetic woman reassembles an old image of me. The doll was in Mrs Darwin's family for generations, and Mrs Darwin-"

"-is the last descendant of Doctor Faustus," said Ellini, in a strangled voice. There was a pause. She felt as though a pit had opened up before her, and she'd thrown a stone in to test how to deep it was, and was still waiting to hear it touch the bottom. "You... You heard every word?" she quavered.

"Every word," said the girl, puffing out her chest with pride. "It's been helping me make sense of the world ever since."

"But... but I didn't know anyone was listening," Ellini protested.

"Mr Danvers says I'm like the fairy Peri Banou in the Arabian Nights – or the other reformed Djinn who were converted by Solomon. Not human, but not inherently bad either. He says demons can choose good or evil, just like the Djinn or the fairies."

"I'm glad you've had Mr Danvers to clarify things."

Danvers disclaimed all responsibility. He bristled almost as much when he was being complimented as when he was being insulted. "I think I can say without fear of contradiction, Miss Syal, that your eloquence had a profound effect on all of us-"

Jack coughed again, and Danvers fell silent.

Ellini tried to smile. She tried to summon up her interest, her professional curiosity. She loved magic. She had been trying to discover how to resurrect Eve for as long as she could remember. And seven months ago, she would have exchanged a limb for the chance to speak with the little mother. 

But it was all so sudden. She was too... overwrought. She felt as though her heart-strings and her comprehension had been stretched to breaking-point already this morning. They didn't have much left to give. They would either break, or snap back and hurt somebody. And there were so many people she loved in this room...

"I want to know what I am, you see," the girl babbled on, oblivious to everyone's discomfort. "I expect you thought I'd have all the answers – lots of people did – but all I know how to do is ask questions. I can't even remember my previous incarnations. I don't remember ever meeting a man called Doctor Faustus, or being tried and condemned for heresy. But I want to learn – oh, Miss Syal, I so want to learn, and you know ever such a lot!"

Jack placed a restraining hand on the girl's shoulder. Without making a big thing of it, he managed to tow her back a few inches. Ellini smiled, but didn't feel strong enough to meet his eyes. He always knew what she needed.

She made a brave attempt at conversation. She might even have reached out a hand and touched the girl's elbow, she wasn't sure. "Do people call you Eve?"

"Elsie."

This was so homely an appellation for the mother of the demon race that Ellini couldn't help smiling. "Where does that come from?"

"You again," said the girl. "Don't you remember? At the end, or almost, you realized you'd never given me a name. You said I could have 'Little Cricket' because you wouldn't be needing that one anymore."

Ellini felt as though she'd fallen through the floor. She didn't look at Jack, but she thought she heard – or was she imagining it? – a slight intake of breath from him. He hadn't known. And it would hurt him so much! She knew she had said a lot of things today that had probably hurt him. And of course, he had already known how she'd been feeling that night – so blithely determined to die, so disappointed in him for kissing Alice. But to hear that she had renounced the name he'd given her...

"I didn't-" she said hastily, her throat raw. "I didn't give it away because it wasn't special-"

"I know," said Elsie, puzzled by her tone. "It's because it was so special to you that I appreciated it so much. Anyway, that's where Elsie comes from. L.C., you see? Little Cricket."

"My fault, Leeny," said Jack. He was smiling – a little wincingly perhaps, but also with a sort of fond incredulity, as if he couldn't believe she was putting herself out to make him feel better. "I always knew I'd ruined that name for us. If someone else can get good use out of it, I'm only too happy to let them have it."

"You collect names, don't you?" said Elsie, who didn't seem sure of what had happened, but was determined to have her share in the conversation. "Or rather, they cling to you, like iron filings to a magnet. It's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, but it's difficult to know where to begin. You see, Jack said, before he left for Northaven, that if I wanted to do something for you, I couldn't do better than removing your demonic symptom."

Ellini felt the blood drain from her cheeks. She wouldn't have been surprised if she'd looked down and seen it pooling around her boots. "I..."

"It was actually quite easy once I'd decided how I was going to go about it. You see, controlling the demons is like controlling my limbs, but controlling the new-breeds is like controlling my children. I know them, and I have a kind of authority over them – but beyond that, I just have to hope for the best. The magic you radiate is demon, but it's so hopelessly entangled with humanity that I could never hope to pull it out. It's in every cell of your body, so I couldn't remove it without killing you horribly a million times, once for every cell you possess, which I was understandably reluctant to do-"

Ellini laughed. Mr Danvers was looking woeful, Jack had closed his eyes, as though praying for patience, and Matthi – dear Matthi – was grinding her teeth. Even in her confusion, Ellini thought how lucky she was to have friends like these, who would feel pained on her behalf, but – most importantly – wouldn't fly off the handle and start a fight about it.

The girl called Elsie continued, quite unabashed. "I couldn't pull the magic out of you, but I realized I could sort of... deflect it. I think of it like light, you see. You radiate a propensity to make people love you, and I can't switch it off, but I can surround it with filters that will diminish its intensity and change its appearance. Once I'd decided to do that, I only needed to choose the appearance I wanted it to take."

"Only..." said Ellini faintly.

"I got the idea from Jack. He said that, for the whole two months he'd forgotten about you, he had the Star-Spangled Banner going round and round in his head. He said it had been playing in the background in the best memory of his life, and it was his body, or – or the part of his mind he couldn't reach anymore – trying to remind him."

Ellini raised her head to look at Jack, and the bolt of love that passed between them almost knocked her backwards onto the bed. They were both remembering, and both inconceivably happy to realize that the other remembered too. She felt as though they were teetering on the brink of rushing at each other, embracing, and tearing each other's clothes off, whether there were other people in the room or not. If either of them had made the slightest move forwards, the other would have responded. But he was taking his cues from her – still terrified of forcing himself on her – and she was holding herself in check.

"And I thought, what if, instead of reminding men of the first woman they'd ever loved, you reminded them of the first music they'd ever loved? What if, instead of making them want to possess you, you made them want to hoard sheet-music, or rush off and buy a piano? I thought you'd like that. Obviously, they'd still associate these memories and urges with you, but it wouldn't be easy to project them onto you because – well, because there's no direct correspondence. Before, they were remembering a woman, and you're a woman, but now they'll be remembering a tune, and-"

"And they can't get a tune out of me," said Ellini, slightly hysterical. "I don't even sing very well." She felt as though she was missing every other word. She felt as though consciousness kept cutting out and starting up again. 

"Dr Petrescu says the muse of song is called Euterpe," Elsie went on. "She's one of the lesser-known muses, he says, because Orpheus and Apollo get all the glory. I thought you'd like that too. I remembered that you already had three names – and there's something very pleasing about the number three – but you don't need Lucretia anymore, do you? It was such a gloomy name to begin with. So now you're Ellini Syal, and Charlotte Grey, and Euterpe."

This was where she fell down. She didn't lose consciousness – or, if she did, it wasn't for long enough to make it to the floor – but her knees buckled and, the next thing she knew, she was being held up between Matthi and a very red-faced Mr Danvers.

Jack had taken one step forwards, but no more. His jaw was set with the effort of self-control. She knew he wanted to wrench them off her and hold her up himself, but he was being true to his word and letting her manage without him.

Elsie was the slowest to react, because she could only hear what was happening. She lurched forwards, and placed both her palms on Ellini's ribcage.

"Are you all right?" she asked – much too loudly, but then perhaps she didn't know how close she was to Ellini's face.

"Is this real?" Ellini whispered. 

"Um. Yes?"

"Mr Danvers?"

"Rule Britannia," he said, smiling down at her with a kind of saddened pride. "They played it at my father's funeral when I was six."

"Well, that explains a lot," Jack muttered.

Ellini kept her eyes on Danvers. "It's really real?" she breathed.

"I've seen her do stranger things, believe me."

Ellini tried to get a hold of herself. She tried to pull away from her human crutches – at any rate, on the Danvers side. It didn't signify whether Matthi held her, because Matthi was always holding her, in one way or another.

"Of course, people can still fall in love with you in the ordinary way," said Elsie. "You're very pretty, I don't know if you knew that?"

Ellini blushed by instinct, but she knew the question was a real one, and that it ought to be carefully considered. "I was never sure," she said. "How would I tell? Who could I trust? And, after a while, I realized it didn't matter. People saw what they wanted to see. I didn't know if anyone was seeing my real face, not even other women."

"That's interesting," said Elsie, tilting her head. "Mr Danvers, does she look any different to you? Now that she's not affecting you romantically?"

Ellini dropped her gaze to the floor, but she could imagine the poor man's blushes. She could hear the extreme reluctance with which he spoke, as if each word was being dragged from him.

"No. Yes. I don't know. It's still very much the same face, but it's... rosier, perhaps. More mobile."

Ellini looked up at him. She couldn't have said whether this was heartening or excruciating.

"And can you see her flaws?" Elsie persisted.

"She has no flaws..."

"That's what I thought," said Elsie, bustling on. "They saw your real face at the same time as their fantasies – sort of laid on top of each other, like an image on tracing paper. But your real face is still very pretty. You mustn't expect to be suddenly immune to male attention, and jealousy and possessiveness and all that stuff."

Ellini thought about Robin – as she always did when the word 'possessiveness' came up. He would be free of her now. She wondered what kind of music would fill his head when he looked at her. And then she wondered something else.

"When, um... when did you alter the nature of my demonic symptom?"

"Six days ago," said Elsie.

"Six days? So, in the past six days, anyone who has seemed... and who hasn't been whistling...?"

Elsie tilted her head again. "Who are you thinking of? You know Jack was never affected by your magic in the first place."

But Jack answered her before Ellini could open her mouth. "Robin."

"Who's Robin?"

"Robin Crake?" he prompted "You'll have a star for him somewhere. Handsome fella, cat-like face, homicidal instincts?"

And then Elsie did the strangest thing. She started running her hands over her arms as if she was cold. Then she rubbed her neck, her chin, her cheek, all the time repeating, "Robin Crake, Robin Crake" with the rhythmic chugging of a steam train.

"Ha!" she said at last, holding up a triumphant finger. "I knew I had him. I was going to say he was on the tip of my tongue, but in fact he's on the tip of my finger!"

Mr Danvers leaned towards Ellini. "Elsie has a sort of star on her skin for every demon or new-breed in existence, Miss Syal. It's very difficult to see in the daylight-"

"Oh, I'll close the curtains," said Jack. He was watching Ellini with a tentative smile, as though torn between concern and amusement. He wanted to see her reaction, perhaps, but he didn't want any more black-outs.

He pulled the curtains closed. And Ellini could now see, twinkling on the tip of the girl's finger, a tiny point of light. 

She thought unaccountably of Sleeping Beauty, pricking her finger on the spinning-wheel, and then bleeding luminous blood. But her eyes moved upwards and made out the other lights – a sprinkling of stars on every visible inch of Elsie's skin. They even showed through her clothes, where the fabric was thin. Sometimes one of them would flare up like a supernova, and then disappear.

Elsie was still examining the tip of her finger. It seemed that, when she turned her attention on a particular star, it glowed brighter, as if with pride. "Ye-es, I can see him." She waved her hand vaguely, and added, "Well, not see him, obviously, but I'm aware of him. It seems like I've been aware of him before, but I can't think when."

"Is he close by?"

"I don't know," said Elsie, twisting her finger around. In the gloom, it left a faint trail of luminescence in the air. "He's somewhere very dark. He's cold and – and desolate."

Jack made a noise in the back of his throat, either of derision or satisfaction. Elsie ignored it.

"Yes," she said again. "I think he loves you. It's difficult to be sure because – yuk – I don't want to look at him too closely. He's done such horrible things."

Ellini turned to Jack. She wished they could be alone, although she doubted this would be any easier to say if they were. "He, um... he might try to kill you..."

"Oh, that was always a possibility."

"No, I-" Ellini hesitated and blushed. She hoped the darkness of the room would make it unnoticeable. "He told me once that, the happier you were, the more careless you grew. That was how he could get close enough to me in Lucknow..."

She trailed off wretchedly. Jack's expression was hard to place. "All right," he said at last. "I'll be careful."

"Complete yuk," said Elsie, still staring at her fingertip. "I advise you to stay away from him, whether he loves you or not."

Jack raised his eyebrows at Ellini. "Complete yuk. Remember that. The words of someone who can see his soul."

Ellini didn't answer. Elsie had dropped her finger to her side, apparently satisfied, but it was still worming about, independent of the other fingers, as though it was trying to catch her attention.

Elsie went on talking as though she was unconscious of it. Perhaps she was. She spoke about the intricacies of Ellini's demonic symptom, and the difficulties of converting it into something harmless – a topic which would normally have fascinated Ellini, only she couldn't take her eyes off that finger, and the pinprick of light glowing at its tip.

"And that's why you shouldn't expect to be suddenly immune from male attention," Elsie was saying. She leaned her hand palm-downwards on the window-sill, with no other aim in mind, it seemed, than shifting her weight. But the finger scrabbled around frantically and traced out letters in the dust – all joined up, barely legible, but looking an awful lot like 'Help Me'. And then a symbol – a circle with a cross inside. A compass? And an arrow pointing out from the left-hand shoulder of the cross.

Ellini blinked, realizing too late that Elsie had been speaking to her. "I'm sorry?" 

"Are you quite well, Miss Syal?" said Mr Danvers. "Elsie, I think we should let her rest before you go on. It's all been rather a shock."

Ellini straightened. "I'm all right, I just- " She sought for a tactful way to say that she was, just at this moment, fed up to the back-teeth with magic, and wanted to be somewhere dull and ordinary, like a counting house. She couldn't think of one, so she said, "Matthi, are there any girls left for me to see?"

"You've seen 'em all except for the one chained up in the cellar."

That remark splashed over her like cold water, and drove all thoughts of Robin and twinkling lights from her mind. "Anna? Is she all right? Have you-?"

"We 'aven't reached a consensus yet," said Matthi.

"I've reached a consensus," Elsie piped up.

"Yeah, well, you can't 'ave a consensus of one. Not even you."

"How about a consensus of two?" said Danvers, drawing himself up beside Elsie.

"Three," said Jack.

Ellini wanted to hush him – wanted to beg the two of them not to antagonize each other – but it was too late.

"I don't see why Anna is so different from Violet," said Matthi, with a toothy twist of her mouth. "You were quick enough to execute her."

Ellini saw the look on Jack's face before she unravelled the sense of Matthi's words. He looked frozen, like a wild animal in the path of an oncoming train. And then understanding – or rather, incomprehension – caught up with her. "What?"

Matthi turned to her. "You didn't know? 'e killed Violet. And she didn't get no trial-"

Ellini looked at Jack, but met the same blank, frozen expression. "You-?"

"Well, what do you want?" said Matthi, with a shrug. "She was an 'orrible girl. All I'm saying is, so's Anna."

"But he – he can't have killed Violet!"

"It was the night after you died," said Jack, in a strangled voice. "I was very upset."

Ellini felt as though he'd slapped her in the face. "Oh, so it's my fault?"

He paused. It was horrible, that pause. Probably, he was just confused – wrong-footed – trying to guess the answer that would make her least furious. But it seemed like a confirmation of all her worst fears.

"No," he said jerkily. "I-" He stopped and then frowned, as though he had reacted guiltily by instinct, and was now thinking better of it. "Hold on a minute – she betrayed you! She told the master you were conspiring against him."

"No, no, no, no, no," said Ellini, with a rising sense of desperation. "You don't understand – I meant her to! I set her up to betray me-"

"That doesn't make it a nice thing to do! She didn't know you meant her to."

"But it's like springing a trap for her, don't you see? She couldn't have avoided it-"

"She could have tried not to betray you!"

"But then none of us would have got out! Violet saved us with her thoughtless malice. We don't have to love her for it, but the least we could have done was let her live!"

"I thought you were dead!" Jack protested.

Ellini shut her eyes, fighting against all the panicky, reproachful thoughts rising to the surface. It was bad enough that she had almost driven him to madness – bad enough that he'd tried to shoot himself in the head – but that he'd killed people – a Charlotte Grey – a sister...

"What is wrong with you?" she burst out, screwing her eyes up tight. "Why do you have to solve every problem with your fists?"

"Actually, 'e stabbed 'er in the neck with some kind of pronged implement," said Matthi.

Ellini flinched, tried to wave Matthi away, tried to look at Jack calmly. "What else haven't you told me?" she demanded.

Jack was silent, but it was only a few seconds before Matthi chipped in. "'E organized a break-out of the castle prison, 'e bribed the mayor and 'is councillors and had Inspecto 'astings driven out of the city, 'e shot a policeman, only apparently not to kill-"

"Matthi, it was... rhetorical," said Ellini. It started out as a snap and finished up as a whine.

But Jack was still looking at her. He had shifted a little, nauseous and unbalanced, when Matthi spoke, but he hadn't taken his eyes from Ellini. Now he said, "I sent Alice into the fire-mines to look for-" He gestured at Matthi. He couldn't say her name, he hated her too much. "And she hasn't come back."

There was a horrible, sinking silence, and then he said, "Alice and Val. Neither of them have come back."

Ellini's face hardened. When she was pushed – when she was frightened – she always came up against this brick wall in herself. She put her palms flat up against it, felt its coldness seeping into her. Leave it to me, said the brick wall. I'll take over from here. It's what I'm for.

"I'm going to lie down," she said, moving towards the little, ivy-shuttered room that branched off from Matthi's.

Jack followed her, again with that suppressed enthusiasm, that clipped energy, except it was more of a struggle this time. His fists were clenched. "Please – remember our deal," he croaked.

Ellini didn't pause or turn. She put a hand to her forehead, with a kind of tense absent-mindedness, like a woman who has too many things to remember. "You want to do something for me? Stop killing people."

"I will – I have! I don't make a habit of it!" His voice was more urgent now. She half-expected to feel his hand on her shoulder, spinning her around, but she didn't. He wouldn't touch her, would he? He was still afraid of forcing her. He didn't realize how depressingly little he needed to.

"But... that's not it," he said, in a voice that was deep and edged with dread. "That can't be it-"

"I need to lie down," she said, reaching the door and curling her hand around it. She would have to shove it closed, and run the risk of hitting him with it, because she couldn't turn. She couldn't let him see her face, or watch what she was doing to him. "I'm sorry, I – I just need to be somewhere else. We'll talk later, OK?"