“Please, Master Renfrew! You mustn’t be shy. I am your husband, you are my bride. There can be no secrets between us tonight. Tell me about Charlie Cooper. Tell me what he told you. Tell me your dreams and fears. Please, Master Renfrew, tell me.

“Tell me, or I must set fire to our souls.”

Eleanor starts shaking. Charlie feels it between his fingers first, then sees the whole of her bulky shadow, quivering in the darkness above him. At the same time, there begin to issue from her little hiccups of Smoke, one by one, clouding her teeth at every breath. And each time a pellet of Smoke breaks free from her, he can hear rather than see her free hand reaching for her harness, turning the screw upon her chest. After five such turns she staggers. She might squeeze herself to death.

Charlie tugs at her hand.

“Don’t,” he attempts to say, “don’t,” through the gag of his mouth, his own smoke shooting through the little pipe in a narrow concentrated jet. A second later he can no longer see her.

It is then he realises he has begun to cry.

“You must free me,” he shouts into his gag, “we have to run away,” and all that comes out is the sound of a man chewing his own tongue.

The girl by his side gives her screw another turn.

ф

She undoes the manacles. He is not sure how she has come by the decision, or what it is he might have done to sway her, but all of a sudden, without any announcement or change in her aspect, she bends down to his wrists and works open the restraints, her little hands moving with the dexterity of one familiar with the interaction of buckle and strap. When he is free and has ripped out the feeding tube, the first thing he does is hug her, draw her little body tight into his own, so that the brass wheel of her harness digs itself into his chest and bruises him. She is still smoking and crying, is limp in his arms, soundless, her lips clamped shut against her sin, the Smoke seeping straight from her skin now, from her throat and cheeks and eyeballs, dying her black.

The second thing Charlie does (holding on to the girl, her stockinged legs dangling freely at his waist) is reach for the water glass and drink. His stomach heaves when the water hits it, but he keeps it down, and a voice drifts through the floor, manic and kneedling, “Tell me, God damn you, tell me!” answered by a silence more chilling than a scream.