Joe watched Kite in the moonlight. He had his hands crossed palm up in his lap, his forearms facing upward, the lighthouse tattoo stark against his skin.
‘Are you cold?’ Kite asked.
‘I’m frozen to this rock,’ Joe admitted.
They set off again. At first, Kite walked a little way from him. Joe chased him and took his arm. Kite let him, and leaned against him a fraction, plainly glad for someone to walk with.
The mechanical voice in Joe’s head said, And now I can snap you in half whenever I like.
Lily. It was not a bad thing to want to get home to your little girl. It wasn’t.
When Joe woke, dawn had broken and seagulls were crying to each other from the roofs. Downstairs was already full of the sounds of people who had been up and about for a while. He lay still for a few minutes, soaking in the light. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up in daylight. He was too early for it even in the summer normally. Closing his hands through folds in the blanket, he turned onto his chest and breathed. The weak sun soaked through the back of his shirt.
Kite was asleep, though not easily. He was hot, his collarbones strained and shining, but sleep had paralysed him too well for him to have pushed off the covers.
Joe moved them, then opened the window an inch to let in the air. He couldn’t bring himself to throw water over the last glow of the coals. Heat was too valuable to just throw away. When he looked back, Kite had shifted onto his side. He still didn’t have any colour. The things he slept in were all thin cotton, and they made him look hopelessly fragile. They showed where his bones were.
The scrap of cannon fuse he tied his hair up with had dropped onto the floor. Joe picked it up and then swayed when he straightened.
At first he thought it was just wooziness after too long on the ship, but then the familiar epilepsy fog came down with its pure wonderful brilliant euphoria and he was right where he always wanted to be: on that pebble shore in grey weather, while the man who waited by the sea was just ahead of him.
The vision lasted longer than it ever had. The man was skimming pebbles on the flat surf, slowly; before he threw each stone, he waited for the ripples from the last one to fade altogether. It looked like one of those dull rules people made up to complicate dull games and pass the time. There was a sad patience to him. He was close enough to touch.
But he must have been a memory of someone Joe had known well, because the things he would have noticed about a new person – hair, height, build – were somehow not there at all, even though the man himself absolutely was. Wherever Joe knew him from, he had seen him so often before that day on the beach that he had stopped perceiving any of it.
And then the room was just itself again.
Joe blew his breath out in a rush. The vision was gone, but it left him full of happiness, like always, powerful as opium. This time, though, it came with a bitter edge. Something had been wrong that day, badly wrong. He could almost remember.
Seeing him again gave Joe a glimmer-hope that he had been wrong before; that it was all there in his mind – buried, but possible to excavate.
It had to be Jem. It couldn’t be coincidence that this had happened the morning after Kite had told him another story. But he hoped it wasn’t. Jem was dead, and Joe wanted desperately for the man who waited to be waiting still.
Joe eased out and lifted the door a bit as he pulled it, to keep it from scraping. There were two new marines on the landing. They didn’t say anything, but they followed him downstairs.
Breakfast was a lot better than he’d hoped. Eggs, toast, real butter; after six days of ship food and seasickness, it was the best meal he’d ever had. It was ten o’clock, and though the breakfast crowd were still there, some of the tables by the windows were free now. He sat with his hands around a cup of bitter coffee and watched the harbour. Not much was happening. No ships could get out, so no one was loading. Some had been there for so long that the frost on their hulls was as thick as snow, the rigging turned to monstrous spider webs. The sharp winter shadows showed all the hulls that hadn’t been repaired properly yet. Some had been torn open and just patched over for now with canvas. Some had new planks, at least, but they weren’t tarred.
Someone on the quay slung a hawk off her arm and it wheeled up to chase out the colonies of seagulls in the masts. They burst in all directions, wailing.
Across the room, the two marines were sitting side by side at another table, watching him, though they were talking to each other. He gave them a cheery smile and took out Madeline’s letter. There was only a little of it left. Maybe, maybe, the last of it would say what had happened to the Kingdoms, or even which of them he was. She had known, after all; she had sent him the postcard.
*
Two weeks went by and nothing happened, then three; nothing, not even our hateful little timeline seminar. I started to chatter to the guards in my appalling French through the door, just to talk. And then halfway through the fourth week, we were summoned to the observatory, and there was food: an amazing buffet of real meat, real vegetables, real everything. Wine, tea, coffee, even smart uniformed waiters who served things to us on silver plates. Herault, I was starting to suspect, was a thwarted thespian. I would have poked fun, but I was too astonished to say anything. Instead I just ran straight into William, who had held his arms out.
He felt too thin even through his warm clothes. I saw him think the same thing about me.
Charles, of course, had a healthy glow. He might even have put on weight. It was Herault’s doing, not his own, but I hated him anyway. But then he burst into such wretched tears that I don’t think any of us had the heart to be angry with him any more. Sean patted his arm and Frank told him to buck up, looking so pained I thought he was on the edge of weeping too. We all were.
‘This,’ Herault told us happily, ‘is a leaving party. One of you has been so helpful this week that I’ve decided to let that person go free.’
My guts clenched, because I had cracked four days ago. I’d written down everything I knew. It’s unforgivable; no one hurt me, the guard never did educate me, but I was just so hungry I couldn’t think any more. Maybe it was me; maybe it was Charles.
‘William,’ Herault said.
It was the last name I expected him to say.
‘Here’s a bag. There’s food in there. The soldiers will take you to Paris, whence you may go wheresoever you choose.’ He beamed. ‘Congratulations.’ He and the guards all applauded, and two soldiers led William away from us, to the front door. William looked back at us, wretched, and that was the last I saw of him.
There was silence after that. None of us moved. It was a kind of shell shock.
‘Well?’ Herault said. ‘Come on. Eat! That could be you one day soon.’
Frank, Sean, and I were all so hungry there was no sensible choice but to do as we were told. Charles poured out four glasses of champagne, his face set. He handed them round.
‘Maybe better to be drunk now,’ he whispered.
We all sat down together, just like we had before, when we came up with our first stupid plan. We drank the champagne in silence, listening to Herault and the soldiers talk and joke. They were genuinely happy, relaxed; I thought of what Herault had said, about just trying to do his duty, and how he was doing it in the lightest way he could. I think the most frustrating thing about it all is that he was right. He could have put all of us on a rack or started chopping off fingers, but he never did.