As he never left the shop himself, Carmen had drawn the conclusion that he couldn’t imagine a reason anybody would ever want to.

That sealed it. She stepped forward and looked up at Blair.

“Seriously?” he said, not looking at all like the confident salesman of earlier.

“Hurry up,” she said.

And at that, he grabbed her arm and ran through the shop just as Emily, still not looking up from her phone, dinged the bell behind them.

“This place is insane,” said Blair, tugging her along in the dark. Carmen couldn’t help it, she felt laughter bubbling up inside her, as well as something in the sheer daftness of running away from somebody. They charged up the twisting staircase, Blair pausing—he had hardly noticed it on the way down—to be impressed by Mr. McCredie’s sitting room: “He has, like, a bat cave,” he gasped. “But the bat cave is just, like, moldy old books. That is excellent!”—and they charged through the little alleyway door at the end. Blair found himself looking up again.

“This town is nuts,” he said, staring at the towering buildings above and below him. “Did someone build it? Or did it just grow?”

Carmen didn’t know any restaurants properly around the place, so they went to the one in Blair’s hotel. It was a seafood restaurant, extremely smart, in a glass box overlooking the street, with an ice bar full of lobsters and oysters. Carmen looked at them anxiously.

“Shellfish?” he said.

“I’m not sure,” said Carmen. “Normally my fish turns up in a tin with a key. Or golden and very hot. That doesn’t look remotely hot.”

Blair smiled his Proper Famous Person smile at the waiter. “Can we have a table by the window, a bottle of Louis Roederer, and a dozen oysters? To start with.”

Chapter Seventeen

Lunch with Blair was dizzying. Things just fell into place. Champagne appeared out of nowhere and napkins were unfurled. Carmen watched Blair scoff oysters with undisguised glee, but couldn’t quite bring herself to do the same.

“You’re mad,” he said. “You have to at least try one.”

“They look like dragon snot,” said Carmen.

Blair looked down at them. “Huh,” he said. Then he knocked one back regardless.

“Thanks,” he said finally. He’d ordered lobster and Carmen had asked for fish and chips, if that was okay, and the lovely waiter had acted as if she’d just made the best decision of all time. “It just all . . . It gets a little much.”

“What’s the worst thing?” said Carmen, sipping the Champagne, which was cold and sparkling and felt full of stars, and had now ruined her for £6 prosecco forever, which was actually intensely annoying. “The money or the fame or the way everyone is so pleased to see you all the time or the way everyone is super-nice to you?”