“I know, my dear. But I did it anyway.”

Livia nods, bends forward suddenly, as though afraid her courage will leave her, kisses her mother full on her mouth. Smoke comes pouring out of her, Smoke of grief, of love. And slowly, painfully, something in her mother answers, a Smoke strangely damaged and shy, like a widow long shut out from the ways of the living, daring a peek past her front door. It lasts a minute, maybe two. When it ends, Lady Naylor is in tears.

“Thank you, my dear.”

“I cannot forgive you, Mother.”

“I know. I read it in your Smoke.”

Livia lets go of her mother.

A moment later Grendel has carried her away.

ф

They watch him take the lead, Mowgli on his back, Lady Naylor cradled to his front, a three-headed beast, lumbering across the uneven floor. They should help him, perhaps, but for once Charlie fails to summon his good nature, is sunk in thought. All the same he starts to follow, Thomas by his side. It’s Livia who holds them back; places a hand on each of their shoulders and arrests them in their steps. They watch Grendel go, never once stumbling under the weight. At the hall’s far end, by the entrance to the sewers, Grendel turns and sees they are not coming. He does not call to them and they offer no explanation; and within a heartbeat he has turned again and continued on his way.

When Grendel is out of sight, Livia takes both boys’ hands and walks over to where Julius’s body hangs entangled within iron bars.

GRENDEL

I get her home, first carrying her by myself as far as I can manage, then hiring a man to help. I pay him with the money she thrust at me that very night, for services rendered. We are in luck: he is a kindly man, if drunk, and once he sees that she’s injured he carries her gently. Me the head, him the feet, trying not to dunk her bottom in the dirt. Throughout milady is faint, mutters to herself, not always in English. Mowgli watches her from over my shoulder; from the corner of my eye I can see his frown.

I dismiss my helper on a street corner not far from the house. The staircase is hard work, the door bolted. Berta opens only when I call her by name. I ask her where her bruises come from, and the blood that stains her sleeves, but when she sees my load, the surgeon’s daughter takes over and she becomes deaf to all questions.

“Put her in bed,” she commands. “Mowgli too, he has a fever.” Then: “Bring water.”