It is hard to say what he is thinking about, but he looks stricken, more so than when Thomas explained to him that Smoke is a lie; that it came to them a quarter of a millennium ago; that the powers that be rewrote the past. Charlie does not want to live in a world where sin is a sport dabbled in by the rich.

“I am not sure you could, Charlie,” he says gently. “Even the executioner in London first worked up a Smoke. What do you think, Miss Naylor?”

But the girl does not seem interested in the question; turns away from them both, walks over to the lectern, and bends over her book. She reminds Thomas of her mother then: dismissing him at the end of one of their talks. If it was only Charlie there, perhaps she’d let him stay. But Charlie accepts her decision, walks over to the door. Thomas follows more slowly. He isn’t quite done yet.

“I’ve been calling you a nun,” he says, still looking at Livia. “But there is more to you than that. The nun has a brain. And teeth.”

His voice is respectful. He thinks of his words as a compliment.

Livia does not stir.

“Do you know where your mother’s laboratory is?” Thomas asks.

“Yes.” She speaks without looking up.

“Will you show it to me?”

“No.”

Thomas nods, studies her, hunched over a lectern, the ruler marking her place.

“Thank you for your help.”

Thomas closes the door behind them with more force than he had planned. He hopes it does not undo his words of thanks.

ф

One floor down, they walk into Julius’s valet. Mr. Price. The man enters the far end of the hallway just as they step off the stairs. Thirty steps separate them, muffled by carpet. They walk towards each other like two armies in the field.

Price is an imposing man, tall, broad-shouldered, not fat but massive, each limb a tree trunk, heavy with muscle and bone. A line running parallel with his hair marks the place where he habitually wears a cap: below, his face is wind- and sunburnt, brown like a root. On top, it is pale, the skin strangely tender, like a mollusc’s, living in its shell.

There is such purpose to Price’s movement that Thomas begins to wonder whether Julius has found the broken cigarette yet. He is walking without haste but with a mechanical precision that eats up the yards. It takes Thomas an effort of will not to slow his own step, defer their meeting. Instead he mirrors the man’s movement, walks chest out, at the centre of the corridor. Charlie notices his change of gait and keeps step at his side.