God, how long had it been since she'd last seen him? There had definitely been more than three winters, and surely over a hundred books. She hadn't even read the Cardinal's essay, had she, when she'd seen him last? What had she been reading? Hadn't there been some helpful book in Myrrha's library about the avatars of the Goddess?

Her thoughts struck the same brick wall, and she felt the cold strike deeper into the folds of her dress. She couldn't remember. There were no intellectual worlds to flee into.

And suddenly the aches and pains of an uncounted number of years came back to her. Suddenly she could feel the tension in her shoulders from hunching over that book all evening. And the nausea which accompanied locked rooms and dead bodies.

He made her feel like flesh and blood again. He cut off all her mental escapes. It was terrifying. He could do anything he wanted to her, and she wouldn't be able to protect herself. But even as she thought that, she saw him smile; a smile that was just so Jack—restless and eager and sarcastic at the same time—that she knew she had nothing to be afraid of. It made her laugh out loud.

"How do you do?" she said, with the slightest dip of a curtsy. "How was Gargotha?"

"Oh." Jack gave a kind of wincing shrug. "Not too bad. He had four arms, and he told me he could teach me to fight as though I had four arms, but to be honest with you, I don't think he ever really understood what it's like not to have four arms."

Ellini giggled, half-nervous and half-delighted. "He's supposed to be the best teacher in the world."

"Oh, no," Jack protested. "Don't get me wrong—it works. He attacks with four arms and expects you to defend yourself as though you've got four arms, and, out of sheer self-preservation, you find ingenious ways not to disappoint him."

"He actually would have killed you—?"

"Oh, I don't know. Probably not. But it really felt like death was imminent—and you'd be amazed how many ways a teenager can find not to die." He paused for a moment, and then went on, "You'd also be amazed how many times the same man in his early twenties wishes all those things really had killed him."

Ellini went on laughing, but now it was bittersweet. Pleasure and pain were curdling together in her stomach, making her feel nauseous. "You're in your early-twenties now?" she managed to say. "How many years has it—have we—?"

"Four years," said Jack. "Four years, two weeks, and one day." He gave her another of those wincing shrugs, and went on, "Six or seven hours, depending on whether you want to go by Greenwich Mean Time."

Ellini smiled. "With any other man, I'd say it was sweet of them to count the days, but I remember you too well, Jack Cade. You count everything. Your brain has to be doing twelve different things at once just to stave off boredom."

"True," said Jack, taking a cigarette out of his pocket, and lighting it with slightly unsteady hands. "But I think you'll find that, in this case, I just came up with twelve different ways to count the days."

He did look older, she thought. His face was suntanned, which had the effect of making his pale blonde hair seem even paler, his eyes even more of an oasis in the desert. There was nothing old about his smile, though. She didn't think there ever could be.

"How did Robin manage to keep you away so long?"

She hadn't meant it to sound accusing, but he poked at the ground with the toe of his boot and said, with some bitterness, "Yeah. Good fucking question."

"He told you I was with someone else?"

"Simon Ambrose," said Jack, still staring fixedly at his boots.

"Ah," said Ellini. "Clever."

Simon Ambrose had been at Pandemonium, a great-great-great-great grandnephew of Prince Sitri—who, according to the Ars Goetia, could make men fall in love with women and vice versa, and could cause people to bare themselves naked if desired. It had been an ironic ancestor for poor Simon because he had been injured and made impotent in the Crimea. She didn't exactly know how. She hadn't asked. She just remembered the half-fearful pity with which he was treated by the other men, as if his affliction might be catching.

But it was genius of Robin to pick him out as a prospective rival. Persuading Jack that she had run off with him would be at once a way of soothing his jealousy and playing to his guilt.

"He convinced me that you wanted peace now," said Jack, without opening his mouth very much. "That you didn't want somebody who would be bothering you in the middle of the night when you were trying to sleep—that you were done with all that business. But you were a kind soul, he said, so if you were with someone else, you'd have to force yourself, and I didn't want—"

"Ah," she said again, very softly. "That's how he gets you. He convinces you that what you want is exactly what you don't want."

"Oh no, he couldn't do that. I knew what I wanted, and I went on wanting it. But I also wanted you to be happy—or anyway, not miserable, if 'happy' was too much to ask."

"And when did you find out he'd been lying?"

"When I met Simon Ambrose at the souk in Cairo."

Ellini bit her lip. "So, I take it you're not on friendly terms with Robin anymore?"

Jack gave a hollow laugh and looked up at her, trying to keep his smile in check. "We've had a bit of a falling out."

"Does he know you're here?"

"He will by now."

That should have filled her with dread, but she was too eager for information. She wanted to hear about the souk in Cairo, and every other place he'd been. Most of all, she wanted to ask him about her dragons.

She had never mentioned the dragons to anyone, not even in her letters—well, especially not in her letters, since Robin was undoubtedly poring over them. She was so afraid of betraying them. They were still her little silver darlings, even though they had probably grown as long as a locomotive by now. Besides, something made her think that if dragons had led Jack to her, he would have mentioned it at once. You didn't just gloss over dragons.

There was something unhappy about his body language, she realized. And not just when he was talking about Robin. Before he'd lit that cigarette, he had been holding his hands determinedly by his side. And now his movements were very deliberate, as though he was having to think hard about every one of them—or think hard about whatever it was he was trying not to do. He looked a little like Val in her armour-melting moments. And, with a lurch of realization that almost made her laugh out loud again, she understood that he was trying to maintain a minimum distance from her—backing away ever so slightly as she advanced. He was afraid he wouldn't be able to control himself if he got too close.

It made her want to shake him by the shoulders and shout, 'You think you could do what Robin did to me? You really think so? You may be a Gargotha-trained killer now, but you know nothing—nothing—about cruelty. Even if you tried it, you'd end up being tender.'

But she didn't say any of this—dearly as she would have liked to—because she wasn't sure he'd take it as a compliment.

"You're not going to fight Robin and Val at the same time, are you?" she asked, watching him drag hard on his cigarette in spite of that careless smile.

"Oh, no. Separately."

"And—and you're going to have some kind of a rest in between?"

"Not as long as I'd like, no."

"Do you have a plan?"

"You know, it's funny. I knew I was going to need one, but all the way here, I couldn't make myself think about anything useful. I've only been able to think of useful things for about two minutes now, and that's not quite enough time to come up with a plan."

"Almost, I bet," said Ellini, with a fond, exasperated smile. "You won't kill Val, will you?"

"Kill her?" Jack repeated incredulously. "Kill her? Did you see her in there? I'd rather destroy a stained-glass window!"

Ellini gave him a disconsolate shrug. "I would ask her to just let me go, but to be honest—and in spite of all the strange magic and the watching me getting undressed—I don't think she really likes me as much as I like her."

She could see those bright, optimistic eyes skipping over the details he didn't want to think about. He always changed the subject, without ever realizing he was doing it, whenever she hinted at the moments of sexual abuse.

"It's going to be all right, little cricket," he said. "I'm going to beat them both, without killing anyone. Everything's changed now. It's not that I think I've got nothing to worry about, or that I think I'm invincible—I just... know I'm going to try my best. Does that make sense?"

Ellini opened her mouth to say that she had trouble understanding the logical justification for any kind of optimism, but he cut her off, with that same sarcastic smile.

"I'd forgotten what it was like," he said.

"What what was like?"

"Talking to you. I remembered the way you look, and the things you do, but that's not the same thing. I'd forgotten how... possible you make everything seem."

Ellini stared at him. "I can't imagine I'm doing that on purpose."

"I'm sure you're not. That's what makes it so funny."