I catch a glimpse, then, of Connor Drew, Oscar’s father, in a nearby cell. I haven’t seen him since that day – a day that feels as though it was years ago even though it was only last autumn. That day he was publicly marked with a crow – and watching him be branded so cruelly brought back old and buried memories of my dad and his matching mark of the forgotten. Our eyes meet, and he nods. I remember Oscar saying that his father had told him about me. He was the one who tried to help my dad by hiding the illicit mark.

The sound of footsteps breaks our connection and a man wearing all black approaches.

“Jack Minnow looks at me. “I didn’t just bring you down here for an emotional reunion. There is work to be done.”

Jack Minnow seems to fill up with life on seeing how empty Obel is. He positively glows down here in the dark. A parasite who feeds on misery.

Obel stares, barely blinking at the ground. His every breath seems to squeeze his body of energy. Even in the half-light I see Minnow’s eyes gleam with pleasure, seeing what he has done to diminish this man.

“I need you to make him presentable.” Minnow turns to me and smiles snakily. “Clean him up and get those marks painted on him again. I don’t care how you do it, just get it done. You have three days.” I stare at Obel, confused, then turn back to Minnow. He smiles. “Come on, inker. Show us how good you really are.”

And with that, he is gone. Mel is bewildered too, I can tell – she stares after him, confusion written on her face. Minutes later a prison guard comes with food – good food, not prison slop.

“I will return at the end of the day,” Mel tells me. She seems as though she wants to say more – to stay, even – but then she shakes her head and leaves. The guard opens the cell door and I go into the den, hoping that I can make Obel ready in time.

In time for what, I have no idea.

I call for hot water, for clean linen, for oils.

I bathe Obel’s skin.

Skin. It’s become a theme to my life.

Rubbing oil into Dad’s weak arms when he was dying – letting the ink that covered his wasted wrinkles gleam.

The feeling of Oscar’s hand that first day we met – his fingers on mine, gripping me tight, taking me with him, away from the questions at the museum. Drinking coffee together in the little coffee house, windows fogged up, trying to dance round each other’s words to know how much of our true selves we could show.

Stop it. Don’t think of him.

I remember the first mark I made, under Obel’s watchful eye. I loved the click and buzz of the machine in my hand as I held that pale woman’s skin taut with my left hand and inked into it with my right. A leaf for a baby. A forbidden mark for a lost life. Obel condoning it. Drawing me in. Into his web of rebellion, hoping I would help him weave it into something wonderful.