Another cave, with glittering, red-brown stones embedded in the walls. Here, the rubies hadn't been mined. They had been left in the rockface as a source of light for the slave-girls.

The ceiling was low, and sharp enough to crack your head open, but Emma had experience of finding her way around these cells. Besides, their gem-tinted darkness was a relief when you were used to looking at the scorching, sulphurous fires that lit up the larger caverns.

She had been here many times before, nursing her own wounds, and those of the other girls. It was always possible for your fellow slaves to sneak into the cells—which perhaps defeated the purpose of there being cells, but it didn't make a difference. The entire place was a prison anyway.

She found Ellini without too much trouble, in the half-light given off by the rubies. She was sitting with her back against the cave wall, watching a spider crawl over the back of her hand. It was one of those pale, twiggy ones with long legs. It had a kind of laboured motion, as though it was wading through air the consistency of jam.

Ellini was eerily still. Emma didn't know—and didn't like to think—what had happened to her clothes, because she was now dressed only in her shift. But even this seemed too hot for her. Her skin was spangled with sweat, and yet she was breathing quite steadily, watching the spider's motion as though there was no pastime more absorbing in the world.

When she heard Emma shuffle over to her in the dark, she managed something like a smile. Her eyes were frighteningly bright, as though she had a fever.

"I've had an idea, Emma." She said it so gently, as though she thought she might frighten away Emma, the spider, and the idea if she let her voice creep above a whisper.

Emma didn't answer. After a certain point, saying 'How are you feeling?' became a bit ridiculous, so she stuck to the practical questions. "Are you still bleeding? Have they fed you? What do you need?"

She was afraid to let Ellini answer, because she seemed so feverish and strange, so she kept on speaking, to give her the illusion that everything was under control. "Matthi's gone up to the caves to get water and bandages. Katherine's very sorry. Try not to move around for a while, all right?"

"He'll send the gargoyles after me if I run," said Ellini, with the air of a little girl imparting a wonderful secret. "I think he'd empty this place completely to get me back. We could start getting people out."

"What are you talking about?" said Emma, lifting the girl's shift to check for broken bones or unstaunched bleeding. "And can you put that spider down, please? I don't like them."

Ellini lowered her hand to the floor and watched the spider crawl stickily on its way, while Emma inspected her injuries. There was a nasty purple bruise on her side that could have been internal bleeding. Emma's heart sank.

"Does this hurt?" she asked, staring at it with a kind of vague horror. "Or is that a silly question?"

"Listen, Emma," said Ellini, calm and breathless at the same time. "He's insane. He thinks Charlotte Grey is plotting a rebellion against him. He tortured me for information about the conspiracy—he's sure there's a conspiracy. And I..." She smiled again, as though she was amazed at herself. "Well, I got creative. And I can't believe how easy it was. I suppose it's because I spent all that time reading novels. You know, the more I think about my life before, the more I think that I was in training for this—without even knowing it—the entire time. I lied like a professional. I told him I'd been plotting against him for years. I said I'd sent assassins above ground to find out where he lives and throttle him in his sleep. I didn't say how. He didn't ask me how. All he wanted to hear was that I was the one to be afraid of—the girl he suddenly couldn't stop looking at. If his fears fitted in with his lust, he knew he'd be justified in keeping me."

"Leeny—"

"But there was no cunning to it either," she said, hardly pausing for breath. "I didn't even know what I was saying, most of the time. I just developed an instinct for the answers that were going to spare me the most pain. It was only afterwards that I realized I'd been clever. He'll follow me to the ends of the earth. He thinks I've got informants everywhere. He thinks he's only safe as long as he keeps me locked up. We can use it, Emma."

"Not tonight," Emma managed.

"It has to be! Who knows if he'll ever let me out of his sight again?" Ellini drew her knees up to her chest gingerly. Emma was sure she was aching everywhere. "How long would it take to sneak every girl out of here?"

Emma hesitated. Distressed as she was, she'd been raised to be helpful. "We can't move more than six a night. And the more of them get out, the more dangerous it will be for the ones who stay behind. Even if the gargoyles can't see us, they'll notice if our work slackens off."

"That won't matter. He'll send more and more of them after me the longer I stay away. Pretty soon, you'll have this place to yourselves."

"We still won't be able to move more than six girls a night," said Emma, trying to inject some common sense into the proceedings. "There are towns near all the cave entrances, and if the locals see us—"

"All right. So, I keep the gargoyles busy for—what—forty nights? That brings us up to—oh." Ellini stopped, her eyes sparkling with that strange, feverish calm. "The fourth of July."

"What's the fourth of July?"

Ellini gave her a sardonic smile. "Sunday school was the only kind of school you went to, wasn't it?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "I know it's American Independence Day! I mean, what else is special about the fourth of July? When you said it, you looked—funny..."

Ellini suddenly seemed quite interested in finding out where the spider had crawled off to. "It's the day the last Charlotte Grey is supposed to die," she said, her eyes fixed on the cave floor. "'Thirty-one days after the new moon of the sixth month, on the three hundredth anniversary of the demons' departure. That's the fourth of July this year."

"I'm sorry—what?" said Emma, mystified and horrified at the same time.

"It doesn't matter. It's not entirely unexpected, I just didn't... Anyway—" She shook herself. "I leave tonight and keep the gargoyles occupied for forty days. You move the girls out, six a night, starting with the weakest and the most injured. Matthi goes last, obviously."

"Hah," said Emma. It was all she trusted herself to say.

Matthi was Ellini's favourite. In fact, if Ellini hadn't always been talking about her old friend Jack—with an enthusiasm which suggested that 'friend' was the understatement of the century—Emma might have suspected that Matthi and Ellini were in love with each other.

Matthi was strong and muscular and garrulous and never at rest. She was obviously the strongest of the slave-girls—no question—and yet Emma couldn't help resenting the way Ellini chose her for all the most dangerous jobs. It wasn't that Emma wanted the most dangerous jobs. And it wasn't that she was in love with Ellini either. Of course, awe and love were hard to separate, but Emma was fairly sure her thoughts didn't incline that way. She just wanted Ellini to be impressed with her.

Ellini seemed to have guessed as much because she added, "You go on the second night. Don't think I haven't noticed the way you've been limping. If you weren't limping, you'd be staying with Matthi until the place was cleaned out."

Emma held up a hand in protest. "You're talking as though this is already decided! Nobody's agreed to anything! You can't make a decision like this when you're—" she waved a hand at Ellini's skinny, sweat-soaked form. "—when you've just been—well, I don't even like to think—"

"There's no choice anymore. He's seen me, Emma."

"Anyway, I thought you came down here because you were somebody's ransom? Didn't you say they would have killed someone you loved if you hadn't surrendered yourself into custody? What will happen to them if you escape now?"

"I've taken care of all that," said Ellini, with a convulsive wave of her hand. "He's safe. Has been since the day I came down here. Let's not talk about it."

Emma relented. She could see the subject was causing her pain. But she wasn't done with her objections.

"Also, there's no way out of this for you—have you thought of that? Even if you can avoid getting captured for forty days—and by the way, the Jesus-like connotations of that 'forty days' are not lost on me. Even if you can give them the run around for all that time, and even if we do get out, the gargoyles still can't be killed, and this man will still be obsessed with you. Worse still, he'll blame you for our escape. He'll go on chasing you forever. There's no way out of it."

"No," said Ellini. "There are two ways out. The first way is the most likely—because it was written down in a book of prophecies—and that's where I die as the last Charlotte Grey, with open sky over my head, in the knowledge that I've helped my friends—which," she added, raising a hand to ward off Emma's complaints, "believe me, is a fate I'd prefer to being his concubine for the rest of my life."

Emma folded her arms stubbornly. "And the second way? It's got my vote, whatever it is."

"The second way has to do with the only person who can kill the gargoyles," said Ellini. "You remember I told you that my book of prophecies—the same one that talks about the death of the last Charlotte Grey—says only Faustus's last descendant can destroy them? Well, I know where Faustus's last descendant is."

"And he'll help us, will he?"

"It's a 'she'. And probably not, to be honest with you, but it's a chance, isn't it?" Ellini spread her hands. "I wouldn't go unless there was a chance. I'm not completely suicidal."

"You are completely suicidal!" Emma snapped. "You tacked on that bit about a chance just so we'd let you go!"

Ellini smiled and leaned towards her. "Anything could happen in forty days, Emma. She and I might become the best of friends. You never know."