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Chapter Twenty-Four
Thou was not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down.
JOHN KEATS, ‘Ode to a Nightingale’
Bumpy cobblestones, painful jostles. Get out, walk. He obeyed, unthinking.
They pulled him from the carriage, tossed him in a cell, and left him to his thoughts.
Hours or days might have passed. He couldn’t tell – he had no sense of time. He was not in his body, not in this cell; he curled miserably on the stone tiles and left the bruised and aching present behind. He was in the Old Library, helpless, watching over and over as Ramy jerked and lurched forward like someone had kicked him between the shoulder blades, as Ramy lay limp in his arms, as Ramy, despite everything he tried, did not stir again.
Ramy was dead.
Letty had betrayed them, Hermes had fallen, and Ramy was dead.
Ramy was dead.
Grief suffocated. Grief paralyzed. Grief was a cruel, heavy boot pressed so hard against his chest that he could not breathe. Grief took him out of his body, made his injuries theoretical. He was bleeding, but he didn’t know where from. He ached all over from the handcuffs digging into his wrists, from the hard stone floor against his limbs, from the way the police had flung him down as if trying to break all of his bones. He registered these hurts as factual, but he could not really feel them; he couldn’t feel anything other than the singular, blinding pain of Ramy’s loss. And he did not want to feel anything else, did not want to sink into his body and register its hurts, because that physical pain would mean he was alive, and because being
alive meant that he had to move forward. But he could not go on. Not from this.
He was stuck in the past. He revisited that memory a thousand times, the same way he had revisited his father’s death. Only this time instead of convincing himself he had not intended to kill, he tried to convince himself of the possibility Ramy was alive. Had he really watched Ramy die? Or had he only heard the gunshot, seen the burst of blood and the fall? Was there breath left in Ramy’s lungs, life left in his eyes? It seemed so unfair. No, it seemed impossible that Ramy could just leave this world so abruptly, that he could be so alive one moment and so still the next. It seemed to defy the laws of physics that Ramiz Rafi Mirza could be silenced by something so tiny as a bullet.
And, certainly, Letty could not have been aiming for his heart. That was also impossible. She loved him, she loved him almost like Robin loved him – she’d told him so, he remembered, and if that were true, then how could she look into Ramy’s eyes and shoot to kill?
Which meant Ramy might still be alive, might have survived against all odds, might have dragged himself from the carnage of the Old Library and found himself somewhere to hide, might yet recover if only someone found him in time, stanched the wound in time. Unlikely, but perhaps, perhaps, perhaps . . .
Perhaps when Robin escaped this place, when they were reunited, they’d laugh so hard over this whole thing that their ribs hurt.
He hoped. He hoped until hope became its own form of torture. The original meaning of hope was ‘to desire’, and Robin wanted with every ounce of his being a world that no longer was. He hoped until he thought he was going mad, until he started hearing fragments of his thoughts as if spoken outside of him, low, gruff words that echoed around the stone.
I wish— I regret— And then a flurry of confessions that weren’t his.
I wish I’d loved her better.
I wish I’d never touched that knife.
This wasn’t his imagination. He lifted his throbbing head, his cheek sticky with blood and tears. He glanced around, astonished. The stones were
talking, whispering a thousand different testimonies, each too drowned out by the next for him to make out anything but passing phrases.
If only, they said.
It isn’t fair, they said.
I deserve this, they said.
And yet, amidst of all that despair:
I hope—
I hope— I hope against hope— Wincing, he stood up, pressed his face against the stone, and inched down the wall until he found the telltale glint of silver. The bar was inscribed with a classic Greek to Latin to English daisy-chain. The Greek epitaphion meant ‘a funeral oration’ – something spoken, something meant to be heard; the Latin epitaphium, similarly, referred to a eulogy. It was only the modern English epitaph that referred to something written and silent. The distorted translation gave voices to the written. He was surrounded by the confessions of the dead.
He sank down and clutched his head in his hands.
What a uniquely terrible torture. What genius had thought this up? The point was, surely, to inundate him with the despair of every other poor soul who had been imprisoned here, to fill him with such unfathomable sadness that, when questioned, he would give up anyone and anything to make it stop.
But these whispers were redundant. They did not darken his thoughts; they merely echoed them. Ramy was dead; Hermes was lost. The world could not go on. The future was only a vast expanse of black, and the only thing that gave him a shred of hope was the promise that someday, all this would end.
The door opened. Robin jerked awake, startled by the creaking hinges. In walked a graceful young man, blond hair gathered into a knot just above his neck. ‘Hello, Robin Swift,’ he said. His voice was gentle, musical. ‘Do you remember me?’ Of course not, Robin almost said, but then the man walked closer, and the words died on his tongue. He wore the same features as the likeness in the frieze in the University College chapel: the same straight, aristocratic
nose and intelligent, deep-set eyes. Robin had seen this face just once, three years ago, in Professor Lovell’s dining room. He’d never forget it. ‘You’re Sterling.’ Brilliant, famed Sterling Jones, nephew of Sir William Jones, the greatest translator of the age. His appearance here was so unexpected that for a moment Robin could only blink at him. ‘Why—’ ‘Why am I here?’ Sterling laughed. Even his laughter was graceful. ‘I couldn’t miss it. Not after they told me they’d caught Griffin Lovell’s little brother.’ Sterling drew two chairs into the room and sat down opposite Robin, crossing his legs at the knees. He tugged his jacket down to straighten it, then cocked his head at Robin. ‘My word. You’ve really grown alike. You’re a bit easier on the eye, though. Griffin was all sneers and hackles. Like a wet dog.’ He placed his hands on his knees and leaned forward. ‘So you killed your father, did you? You don’t look like a killer.’ ‘And you don’t look like a county policeman,’ said Robin.
But even as he said this, the last false binary he’d constructed in his head – the one between scholars and the blades of empire – fell away. He recalled Griffin’s words. He recalled his father’s letters. Slave traders and soldiers.
Ready killers, all of them. ‘You are so like your brother.’ Sterling shook his head. ‘What’s the Chinese expression? Badgers of the same mound, or jackals of the same tribe? Cheeky, impudent, and so unbearably self-righteous.’ He folded his arms over his chest and leaned back, appraising him. ‘Help me understand. I could never figure this out with Griffin. Simply – why? You got everything you could possibly want. You’ll never have to work a day in your life – not real work, anyhow; it doesn’t count when it’s scholarship. You’re swimming
in riches.’ ‘My countrymen aren’t,’ said Robin. ‘But you aren’t your countrymen!’ exclaimed Sterling. ‘You are the exception. You are the lucky one, the elevated. Or do you really find more in common with those poor fools in Canton than your fellow Oxfordians?’ ‘I do,’ said Robin. ‘Your country reminds me every day that I do.’ ‘Is that the problem, then? Some white Brits weren’t very nice to you?’ Robin saw no point in arguing further. It had been foolish to play along at all. Sterling Jones was just the same as Letty, except without the shallow sympathy of purported friendship. They both thought this was a matter of
individual fortunes instead of systematic oppression, and neither could see outside the perspective of people who looked and spoke just like them. ‘Oh, don’t tell me.’ Sterling sighed. ‘You’ve formed the half-baked idea that empire is somehow a bad thing, haven’t you?’ ‘You know what they do is wrong,’ Robin said tiredly. Enough with the euphemisms; he simply could not, would not believe that intelligent men like Sterling Jones, Professor Lovell, and Mr Baylis really believed their flimsy excuses were anything but that. Only men like them could justify the exploitation of other peoples and countries with clever rhetoric, verbal ripostes, and convoluted philosophical reasoning. Only men like them thought this was still a matter of debate. ‘You know.’ ‘Suppose you have your way,’ said Sterling, conceding nothing. ‘Suppose we don’t go to war, and Canton keeps all of its silver. What do you think they’re doing with it?’ ‘Perhaps,’ said Robin, ‘they’ll spend it.’ Sterling scoffed. ‘This world belongs to those who grasp. You and I both know that, that’s how we got to Babel. Meanwhile your motherland is ruled by indolent, lazy aristocrats who are terrified by the very mention of a
railroad.’ ‘One thing we have in common.’ ‘Very funny, Robin Swift. Do you think England should be punished, then, for daring to use those natural gifts given to us by God? Shall we leave the East in the hands of corrupt denigrates who would squander their riches on silks and concubines?’ Sterling leaned forward. His blue eyes glittered. ‘Or shall we lead? Britain hurtles towards a vast, glowing future. You could be part of that future. Why throw it all away?’ Robin said nothing. There was no point; this was not a dialogue in good faith. Sterling wanted nothing but conversion.
Sterling threw his hands in the air. ‘What about this is so difficult to understand, Swift? Why fight the current? Why this absurd impulse to bite the
hand that feeds you?’ ‘The university doesn’t own me.’ ‘Bah. The university gave you everything.’ ‘The university ripped us from our homes and made us believe that our futures could only consist of serving the Crown,’ said Robin. ‘The university tells us we are special, chosen, selected, when really we are severed from
our motherlands and raised within spitting distance of a class we can never truly become a part of. The university turned us against our own and made us believe our only options were complicity or the streets. That was no favour, Sterling. It was cruelty. Don’t ask me to love my master.’ Sterling glared at him. He was breathing very hard. It was the strangest thing, Robin thought, how much he’d worked himself up. His cheeks were flushed, and his forehead was beginning to shine with sweat. Why, he wondered, did white people get so very upset when anyone disagreed with them? ‘Your friend Miss Price warned me you’d become a bit of a fanatic.’ This was quite nakedly bait. Robin held his tongue. ‘Go on,’ Sterling sneered. ‘Don’t you want to ask about her? Don’t you want to know why?’ ‘I know why. Your sort is predictable.’ Anger twisted over Sterling’s face. He stood up and dragged his chair closer until their knees nearly touched. ‘We have ways of extricating the truth. The word soothe derives from a Proto-Germanic root that means “truth”. We daisy-chain it with the Swedish sand. It lulls you, lets you put your guard down, comforts you until you’re singing.’ Sterling leaned forward. ‘But I’ve always found that one quite boring. ‘Do you know where the word agony comes from?’ He fished inside his coat pocket, then pulled out a pair of silver handcuffs, which he laid across his knees. ‘Greek, by way of Latin and later, Old French. The Greek agōnia means a contest – originally, a sports gathering between athletes. It gained the connotation of suffering much later. But I’m translating from English back into the Greek, so the bar knows to induce suffering, not remove it. Clever, no?’ He gave the cuffs a satisfied smile. There was no malice in that smile – only a gleeful triumph that ancient languages could be hacked apart and reworked for his intended purpose. ‘It took some experimenting before we got it right, but we’ve now perfected the effect. It’ll hurt, Robin Swift. It’ll hurt like hell. I’ve tried it before, just out of curiosity. It’s not a surface-level pain, see; it’s not like being stabbed with a blade, or even like being burned by flames. It’s inside you. Like your wrists are shattering, over and over again, only there’s no upper limit to the agony, because physically, you’re fine – it’s all in your head. It’s quite awful. You’ll strain against it, of course.
The body can’t help it, not against pain like that. But every time you struggle, the pain will double, and double again. Would you like to see for yourself?’ I’m tired, thought Robin; I’m so tired; I would rather you shoot me in the head. ‘Here, let me.’ Sterling rose, then knelt down behind him. ‘Try this.’ He snapped the cuffs shut. Robin screamed. He could not help it. He’d wanted to keep silent, to refuse Sterling the satisfaction, but the pain was so overwhelming he had no control, no sense of his body at all except for the pain, which was far worse than what Sterling had described. It did not feel like his wrists were breaking. It felt as if someone were hammering thick iron spikes into his bones, straight into the marrow, and every time he writhed, flailing to break free, the pain intensified.
Control, said a voice inside his head, a voice that sounded like Griffin.
Control yourself, stop, it’ll hurt less— But the pain only grew. Sterling hadn’t lied; there was no limit. Every time he thought that this was it, that if he suffered one more moment of this then he would die, it somehow amplified. He had not known human flesh
could feel such pain.
Control, said Griffin again.
Then another voice, horribly familiar: That’s one good thing about you.
When you’re beaten, you don’t cry.
Restraint. Repression. Had he not practised this his entire life? Let the pain slide off you like raindrops, without acknowledgment, without reaction, because to pretend it is not happening is the only way to survive.
Sweat dripped down his forehead. He fought to push past the blinding agony, to gain a sense of his arms and hold them still. It was the most difficult thing he’d ever done; it felt like he was forcing his own wrists under a hammer.
But the pain subsided. Robin slumped forward, gasping. ‘Impressive,’ said Sterling. ‘See how long you can keep that up.
Meanwhile, I’ve got something else to show you.’ He pulled another bar out from his pocket and held it down over Robin’s face. The left side read: φρήν. ‘I don’t suppose you did Ancient Greek? Griffin’s was very poor, but I’m told you’re the better student. You’ll know what phren refers to, then – the seat of intellect and emotion. Only the Greeks didn’t think it resided in the
mind. Homer, for instance, describes the phren as being located in the chest.’ He placed the bar into Robin’s front pocket. ‘Imagine what this does, then.’ He drew back his fist and slammed it against Robin’s sternum.
The physical torture was not so bad – more of a hard pressure than acute pain. But the moment Sterling’s knuckles touched his chest, Robin’s mind exploded: feelings and memories flooded to the fore, everything he’d hidden, everything he feared and dreaded, all the truths he dared not acknowledge.
He was a babbling idiot, he had no idea what he was saying; words in Chinese and English both spilled out of him without reason or order. Ramy, he said, or thought, he didn’t know; Ramy, Ramy, my fault, father, my father – my father, my mother, three people I have witnessed die and not once could I lift a finger to help— Vaguely he was aware of Sterling urging him along, trying to guide his fount of babble. ‘Hermes,’ Sterling kept saying. ‘Tell me about Hermes.’ ‘Kill me,’ he gasped. He meant it; he’d never wanted anything more in the world. A mind was not meant to feel this much. Only death would silence the chorus. ‘Holy God, kill me—’ ‘Oh, no, Robin Swift. You don’t get off that easily. We don’t want you dead; that defies the point.’ Sterling pulled a watch out of his pocket, examined it, and then cocked his ear towards the door as if listening for something. Seconds later, Robin heard Victoire scream. ‘Can’t say the same for her.’ Robin gathered his legs beneath him and launched himself at Sterling’s waist. Sterling stepped to the side. Robin crashed to the ground, his cheek slamming painfully against stone. His wrists pulled against the cuffs, and his arms once again exploded into pain that did not stop until he curled in on himself, gasping, pouring every ounce of his focus into keeping still. ‘Here’s how it works.’ Sterling dangled the watch chain over Robin’s eyes. ‘Tell me everything you know about the Hermes Society, and all of this stops. I’ll remove the cuffs, and I’ll set your friend free. Everything will be
all right.’ Robin glared at him, panting. ‘Tell me, and this stops,’ said Sterling once more.
The Old Library was gone. Ramy was dead. Anthony, Cathy, Vimal, and Ilse – all likely dead. They’ve killed the rest, Letty had said. What else was there to give up?
There’s Griffin, spoke a voice. There are those who were in the envelope, there are countless others you don’t know about. And that was the point – he didn’t know who was still out there or what they were doing, and he could not risk revealing anything that put them in danger. He’d made that mistake once before; he could not fail Hermes again. ‘Tell me or we’ll shoot the girl.’ Sterling dangled his pocket watch over Robin’s face. ‘In one minute, at half past the hour, they’re going to put a bullet in her skull. Unless I tell them to stop.’
‘You’re lying,’ Robin gasped.
‘I am not. Fifty seconds.’ ‘You wouldn’t.’ ‘We only need one of you alive, and she’s more stubborn to work with.’ Sterling shook the watch again. ‘Forty seconds.’ It was a bluff. It had to be a bluff; they couldn’t possibly have timed things so precisely. And they ought to want them both alive – two sources of information were better than one, weren’t they? ‘Twenty seconds.’ He thought frantically for a passable lie, anything to make the time stop. ‘There are other schools,’ he breathed, ‘there are contacts at other schools, stop—’ ‘Ah.’ Sterling put away the pocket watch. ‘Time’s up.’ Down the hall, Victoire screamed. Robin heard a gunshot. The scream broke off. ‘Thank heavens,’ said Sterling. ‘What a screech.’ Robin threw himself at Sterling’s legs. This time it worked; he’d caught Sterling by surprise. They crashed to the floor, Robin above Sterling, cuffed hands above his head. He brought his fists down onto Sterling’s forehead, his
shoulders, anywhere he could reach. ‘Agony,’ Sterling gasped. ‘Agōnia.’ The pain in Robin’s wrists redoubled. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t breathe. Sterling struggled out from beneath him. He toppled sideways, choking. Tears streamed down his cheeks. Sterling stood over him for a moment, breathing hard. Then he drew his boot back and aimed a vicious kick at Robin’s sternum.
Pain; white-hot, blinding pain. Robin could perceive nothing else. He didn’t have the breath to scream. He had no bodily control at all, no dignity;
his eyes were blank, his mouth slack, leaking drool onto the floor. ‘Good Lord.’ Sterling adjusted his necktie as he straightened up. ‘Richard was right. Animals, the lot of you.’
* * *
Then Robin was alone again. Sterling did not say when he would return, or what would happen to Robin next. There was only the vast expanse of time and the black grief that engulfed it. He wept until he was hollow. He screamed until it hurt to breathe.
Sometimes the waves of pain subsided ever so slightly and he thought he could organize his thoughts, take stock of his situation, ponder his next move.
What came next? Was victory on the table any longer, or was there only survival? But Ramy and Victoire permeated everything. Every time he saw the slightest glimpse of the future, he remembered they would not be in it, and then the tears flowed again, and the suffocating boot of grief came down again on his chest.
He considered dying. It would not be so hard; he needed only to strike his head against stone with enough effort or figure out some way to strangle himself with his cuffs. The pain of it did not frighten him. His whole body felt numb; it seemed impossible that he might feel anything ever again except the overwhelming sense of drowning – and perhaps, he thought, death was the only way to break the surface.
He might not have to do it himself. When they’d wrung everything they could from his mind, wouldn’t they try him in court and then hang him? In his youth he had once glimpsed a hanging at Newcastle; he’d seen the crowd gathered around the gallows during one of his jaunts around the city and, not knowing what he was seeing, drawn closer to the crush. There had been three men standing in a line on the platform. He remembered the whack of the panel giving way, the abrupt snap of their necks. He remembered hearing someone mutter their disappointment that the victims had not kicked.
Death by hanging might be quick – perhaps even easy, painless. He felt guilty for even considering it – that’s selfish, Ramy had said, you don’t get to take the easy way out.
But what in God’s name was he still alive for? Robin could not see how anything he did from now on mattered. His despair was total. They had lost,
they had lost with such crushing completeness, and there was nothing left. If he clung to life for the days or weeks he had left, it was solely for Ramy’s sake, because he did not deserve what was easy.
Time crept on. Robin drifted between waking and sleep. Pain and grief made it impossible to truly rest. But he was tired, so tired, and his thoughts spiralled, became vivid, nightmarish memories. He was on the Hellas again, speaking the words that set all this in motion; he was staring down his father, watching blood bubble over that ruin of a chest. And it was such a perfect tragedy, wasn’t it? An age-old story, parricide. The Greeks loved parricide, Mr Chester had been fond of saying; they loved it for its infinite narrative potential, its invocations of legacy, pride, honour, and dominance. They loved the way it struck every possible emotion because it so deviously inverted the most basic tenet of human existence. One being creates another, moulds and influences it in its own image. The son becomes, then replaces, the father; Kronos destroys Ouranos, Zeus destroys Kronos and, eventually, becomes him. But Robin had never envied his father, never wanted anything of his except his recognition, and he hated to see himself reflected in that cold, dead face. No, not dead – reanimated, haunting; Professor Lovell leered at him, and behind him, opium burned on Canton’s shores, hot and booming and sweet. ‘Get up,’ said Professor Lovell. ‘Get up.’ Robin jerked awake. His father’s face became his brother’s. Griffin loomed above him, covered in soot. Behind him, the cell door was in pieces.
Robin stared. ‘How—’ Griffin brandished a silver bar. ‘Same old trick. Wúxíng.’ ‘I thought it couldn’t work for you.’ ‘Funniest thing, isn’t it? Sit up.’ Griffin knelt down behind him and set to work on Robin’s cuffs. ‘Once you said it for the first time, I finally got it.
Like I’ve been waiting for someone to say those words my whole life. Christ,
kid, who did this to you?’ ‘Sterling Jones.’ ‘Of course. Bastard.’ He fiddled a moment with the lock. Metal dug into Robin’s wrists. Robin winced, trying his hardest not to move. ‘Ah, damn it.’ Griffin rummaged around in his bag and pulled out a large pair of shears. ‘I’m cutting through, hold still.’ Robin felt an agonizing,
intense pressure – and then nothing. His hands sprang free – still cuffed, but no longer bolted together.
The pain vanished. He sagged from the reprieve. ‘I thought you were in Glasgow.’ ‘I was fifty miles out when I got word. Then I jumped out, waited, and hopped onto the first train I could coming back.’ ‘Got word?’ ‘We have our ways.’ Robin noticed then that Griffin’s right hand shone mottled pale, red, and angry. It looked like a burn scar. ‘Anthony didn’t elaborate, he only sent an emergency signal, but I reckoned it was bad. Then all the rumours from the tower said they’d hauled you lot here, so I skipped the Old Library – would have been dangerous, regardless – and came here.
Good bet. Where is Anthony?’ ‘He’s dead,’ said Robin. ‘I see.’ Something rippled across Griffin’s face, but he blinked, and his features resumed their calm. ‘And the rest—?’ ‘I think they’re all dead.’ Robin felt wretched; he could not meet Griffin’s eyes. ‘Cathy, Vimal, Ilse – everyone in the house – I didn’t see them fall, but I heard the shooting, and then I didn’t see them again.’ ‘No other survivors?’ ‘There’s Victoire. I know they brought Victoire, but—’ ‘Where is she?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Robin said miserably. She could be lying dead in her cell.
They could have already dragged her body outside, dumped it in a shallow grave. He couldn’t speak the words to explain; that would shatter him. ‘Then let’s look.’ Griffin grabbed his shoulders and gave him a hard shake. ‘Your legs are fine, aren’t they? Come, get up.’ The hallway was miraculously empty. Robin glanced left and right, baffled. ‘Where are all the guards?’ ‘Got rid of them.’ Griffin tapped another bar in his belt. ‘A daisy-chain riff on the word explode. The Latin explōdere is a theatre term – it refers to driving an actor off the stage by clapping one’s hands. From there we get the Old English meaning “to reject or drive away with loud noise”. It’s not until the modern English that we get a detonation.’ He looked very pleased with himself. ‘My Latin’s better than my Chinese.’ ‘So that didn’t destroy the door?’
‘No, it only makes a sound so awful it drives all listeners away. I got them all running to the second floor, and then I crept up here and locked the
doors behind me.’ ‘Then what made that hole?’ ‘Just black powder.’ Griffin hauled Robin along. ‘Can’t rely on silver for everything. You scholars always forget that.’ They searched every cell in the hall for Victoire. Most were empty, and Robin felt a growing dread as they moved down the doors. He did not want to look; he did not want to see the blood-streaked floor – or worse, her limp body lying where they’d left it, a bullet wound through her head. ‘Here,’ Griffin called from the end of the hallway. He banged on the door. ‘Wake up, dear.’ Robin nearly collapsed with relief when he heard Victoire‘s muffled
response. ‘Who’s that?’ ‘Can you walk?’ Griffin asked.
This time Victoire’s voice was clearer; she must have approached the
door. ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you hurt?’ ‘No, I’m all right.’ Victoire sounded confused. ‘Robin, is that—?’ ‘It’s Griffin. Robin’s here too. Don’t fret, we’re going to get you out.’ Griffin reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like an improvised hand grenade – a ceramic sphere a quarter the size of a cricket ball with a fuse sticking out one end.
It seemed rather small to Robin. ‘Can that blow through iron?’ ‘Doesn’t have to. The door’s made of wood.’ Griffin raised his voice. ‘Victoire, get against the far corner and put your head between your arms and knees. Ready?’ Victoire yelled her assent. Griffin placed the grenade at the corner of the door, lit it with a match, and hastily dragged Robin several paces down the hall. The bang came seconds later.
Robin waved the smoke from his face, coughing. The door hadn’t blasted apart – any explosion that large would have surely killed Victoire. But it had made a hole at the bottom just large enough for a child to crawl through.
Griffin kicked at the charred wood until several large pieces fell away. ‘Victoire, can you—’
She crawled out, coughing. Griffin and Robin seized her by each arm and pulled her through the rest of the way. When at last she slid free, she clambered to her knees and threw her arms around Robin. ‘I thought—’ ‘Me too,’ he murmured, hugging her tight. She was, thank God, largely unharmed. Her wrists were somewhat chafed, but free of cuffs, and there was no blood on her, no gaping bullet wounds. Sterling had been bluffing. ‘They said they’d shot you.’ She pressed against his chest, shaking. ‘Oh, Robin, I heard a gunshot—’ ‘Did you—?’ He couldn’t finish the question. Immediately he regretted asking; he didn’t want to know. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry, I thought – since they had us anyhow, I thought . . . ’ Her voice broke; she looked away.
He knew what she meant. She had chosen to let him die. This did not hurt as much as it should have. Rather, it clarified things; the stakes before them, the insignificance of their lives against the cause they’d chosen. He saw her begin to apologize, and then catch herself – good, he thought; she had nothing to be sorry for, for between them only one had refused to break. ‘Which way is the door?’ Victoire asked. ‘Four floors down,’ said Griffin. ‘The guards are all trapped in the stairwell, but they’ll break through soon.’ Robin glanced out of the window at the end of the hall. They were quite far up, he realized. He’d thought they were in the city gaol on Gloucester Green, but that building was only two stories high. The ground looked so far away from where they stood. ‘Where are we?’ ‘Oxford Castle,’ said Griffin, pulling a rope out from his satchel. ‘North
tower.’ ‘There’s not another staircase?’ ‘None.’ Griffin nodded to the window. ‘Break the glass with your elbow.
We’re climbing.’
Griffin descended first, then Victoire, and then Robin. Climbing down was far harder than Griffin made it look; Robin slid too quickly down the last ten feet as his arms gave out, and the rope left searing burns on his palms.
Outside, it was apparent Griffin had caused much more than a simple diversion. The entire north front of Oxford Castle was ablaze, and flames and smoke were quickly spreading through the building.
Had Griffin done this all himself? Robin glanced sideways at his brother, and it was like seeing a stranger. Griffin became new in his imagination every time he encountered him, and this version was most frightening, this hard, sharp-edged man who shot and killed and burned without flinching. It was the first time he’d ever connected his brother’s abstract commitments to violence with its material effects. And they were awesome. Robin didn’t know if he feared him, or admired his sheer ability.
Griffin tossed them two plain black cloaks from his satchel – from a distance, they’d look vaguely like the constables’ cloaks – then shepherded them along the side of the castle towards the main street. ‘Move quickly and don’t look behind you,’ he muttered. ‘They’re all distracted – be calm, be fast, we’ll be out of here just fine.’ And for a moment, it did seem like escape really could be that easy. The whole of the castle square looked deserted; all sentries were preoccupied with the flames and the high stone walls cast plenty of shadows in which to hide.
Only one figure stood between them and the gate. ‘Explōdere.’ Sterling Jones lurched towards them. His hair was burned, his princely face scratched and bloody. ‘Clever. Didn’t think you had the Latin to pull it off.’ Griffin put a hand out before Robin and Victoire as if shielding them from a charging beast. ‘Hello, Sterling.’ ‘I see you’ve reached new heights of destruction.’ Sterling gestured vaguely at the castle. In the dim lamplight, with blood coating his pale hair and white-grey dust all over his coat, he looked quite deranged. ‘Wasn’t
enough for you to kill Evie?’
‘Evie chose her fate,’ Griffin snarled.
‘Bold words from a killer.’
‘I’m the killer? After Burma?’
‘She was unarmed—’ ‘She knew what she’d done. So do you.’ There was history here, Robin saw. Something beyond belonging to the same cohort. Griffin and Sterling spoke with the intimate hatred of old friends caught in some complicated tangle of love and hatred to which he was not privy, something that had brewed over many years. He didn’t know
their story, but it was obvious that Griffin and Sterling had been anticipating this confrontation for quite some time.
Sterling raised his gun. ‘I’d put your hands up now.’ ‘Three targets,’ said Griffin said. ‘One gun. Who are you aiming at, Sterling?’ Sterling had to realize he was outnumbered. He seemed not to care. ‘Oh, I think you know.’ It was over so quickly Robin hardly registered what was happening.
Griffin whipped out his revolver. Sterling pointed his gun at Griffin’s chest.
They must have pulled their triggers simultaneously, for the noise that split the night sounded like a single shot. They both collapsed at once.
Victoire screamed. Robin dropped to his knees, pulling at Griffin’s coat, patting frantically at his chest until he found the wet, growing patch of blood over his left shoulder. Shoulder wounds were not fatal, were they? Robin tried to remember what little he’d gleaned from adventure stories – one might bleed to death, but not if they got help in time, not if someone stanched the bleeding long enough to bind the wound, or stitch it, or whatever it was doctors did to fix a bullet through the shoulder—’ Pocket,’ Griffin gasped. ‘Front pocket—’ Robin rooted through his front pocket and pulled out a thin silver bar. ‘Try that – I wrote it, don’t know if it’ll—’ Robin read the bar, then pressed it against his brother’s shoulder. ‘Xiū,’ he whispered. ‘Heal.’ . To fix. Not merely to heal, but to repair, to patch over the damage; undo the wound with brute, mechanical reparation. The distortion was subtle, but it was there, it could work. And something was happening – he felt it under his hand, the knitting together of broken flesh, a crackling noise of bone regrowing. But the blood wouldn’t stop; it spilled over his hands, coating the bar, coating the silver. Something was wrong – the flesh was moving but it wouldn’t patch together; the bullet was in the way, and it was too deep for him to pry out. ‘No,’ Robin begged, ‘No, please—’ Not again; not thrice; how many times was he doomed to bend over a dying body, watching a life slip away, helpless to snatch it back?
Griffin writhed beneath him, face contorted with pain. ‘Stop,’ he begged.
‘Stop, just let it—’ ‘Someone’s coming,’ said Victoire.
Robin felt paralyzed. ‘Griffin—’ ‘Go.’ Griffin’s face had turned paper-white, almost green. χλωρός, Robin thought stupidly; it was the only thing his mind could process, a memory of a frivolous debate over the translation of colour. He found himself remembering in detail how Professor Craft had questioned why they kept translating χλωρός as ‘green’, when Homer had also applied it to fresh twigs, to honey, to faces pale with fright. Was the bard merely blind, then?
No. Perhaps, proposed Professor Craft, it was simply the colour of fresh nature, of verdant life – but that could not be right, for the sickly green of Griffin’s body was nothing but the onset of death. ‘I’m trying—’ ‘No, Robin, listen.’ Griffin spasmed in pain; Robin held him tight, unable to do anything more. ‘There’s more than you think. Hermes – the safe room, Victoire knows where, she knows what to do – and in my satchel, wúxíng, there’s—’ ‘They’re coming,’ Victoire urged. ‘Robin, the constables, they’ll see us
—’ Griffin pushed him away. ‘Go, run—’ ‘No.’ Robin slid his arms under Griffin’s torso. But Griffin was so heavy, and his own arms so weak. Blood spilled all over his hands. The smell of it, salty; his vision went fuzzy. He tried pulling his brother upright. They lurched
to the side.
Griffin moaned. ‘Stop . . .’ ‘Robin.’ Victoire grasped his arm. ‘Please, we have to hide—’ Robin reached into the satchel, dug around until he felt the cold burn of silver. ‘Wúxíng,’ he whispered. ‘Invisible.’ Robin and Victoire flickered, then disappeared just as three constables came running down the square. ‘Christ,’ someone said. ‘It’s Sterling Jones.’
‘Dead?’ ‘He’s not moving.’ ‘This one’s still alive.’ Someone bent over Griffin’s body. A rustle of fabric – a gun drawn. A sharp, surprised laugh; a half-hearted utterance,
‘Don’t – he’s—’ The click of a trigger. ‘No,’ Robin almost shouted, but Victoire clamped a hand over his mouth.
The shot boomed like a cannon. Griffin convulsed and lay still. Robin doubled over, screaming, but there was no sound to his anguish, no shape to his pain; he was incorporeal, voiceless, and though he suffered the kind of shattering grief that demanded shrieking, beating, a ripping of the world – and if not the world, then himself – he could not move; until the square was clear, all he could do was wait, and watch.
When at last the guards had gone, Griffin’s body had turned a ghastly white. His eyes were open, glassy. Robin pressed his fingers against his neck, looking for a pulse and knowing he’d find none; the blast had been so
direct, from such a short range.
Victoire stood over him. ‘Is he—’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then we have to go,’ she said, fingers closing around his wrist. ‘Robin, we don’t know when they’ll be back.’ He stood. What an awful tableau, he thought. Griffin’s and Sterling’s bodies lay adjacent on the ground, blood pooling beneath each one, running together under the rain. Some kind of love story had concluded on this square – some vicious triangle of desire, resentment, jealousy, and hatred had opened with Evie’s death and closed with Griffin’s. Its details were murky, * would never be known to Robin in full;all he knew, with certainty, was that this was not the first time Griffin and Sterling had tried to kill each other, only the first time one of them had succeeded. But all the principal characters were dead now, and the circle was closed. ‘Let’s go,’ Victoire urged again. ‘Robin, there’s not much time.’ It felt so wrong to leave them like this. Robin wanted at least to pull his brother’s body away, to lay it somewhere quiet and private, to close his eyes and place his hands over his chest. But there was only time now to run, to put the scene of the massacre behind.
