Selena and Julia watch them. In the darkness they’re just a trail of rustle and laughter, sweeping a circle round the edge of the clearing. ‘Is this still bothering you?’ Selena asks.

‘Nah,’ Julia says, and blows a line of smoke rings; they wander through stripes of light and shadow, vanishing and reappearing like odd little night creatures. She can’t remember exactly why it bothered her to begin with. ‘I was just being a wimp. It’s all good.’

‘It is,’ Selena says. ‘Honest to God, it is. You’re not a wimp, though.’

Julia turns her head towards her, the slice she can see, a soft eyebrow and a soft hank of hair and the dreamy sheen of one eye. ‘I thought you thought I was. Like, Here’s this supercool thing happening, why’s she going off on some big emo-fest and fucking it all up?’

‘No,’ Selena says. ‘I got why: it could feel dangerous. I mean, it doesn’t to me. But I get how it could.’

‘I wasn’t scared.’

‘I know that.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘I know,’ Selena says. ‘I’m just glad you decided to try it. I don’t know what we’d’ve done if you hadn’t.’

‘Gone for it anyway.’

‘We wouldn’t, not without you. There’d be no point.’

Becca has managed to wrestle her boot back and is hopping about, trying to get it on before Holly can shove her off balance. Both of them are panting and laughing. Julia leans her shoulder up against Selena’s – Julia doesn’t do touchy-feely crap, but just every now and then she props her elbow on Selena’s shoulder while they’re looking at something, or leans back-to-back with her on the fountain edge in the Court. ‘You sap,’ she says, ‘you total sappy sap, get a grip,’ and feels Selena meet the weight of her so they balance each other, solid and warm.

They’re moving down the corridor towards their room, boots in their hands, when:

‘Uh-oh,’ someone singsongs in the shadows. ‘You’re going to get in trouble.’

They leap and whirl, hearts pummelling their chests, Selena clenching the key deep in her fist, but the shadows are deep and they don’t see her till she steps out into the corridor. Joanne Heffernan, monochrome in the low lights left on in case someone needs to go to the toilet, just folded arms and a smirk and a babydoll nightie with big lips all over it.

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ Julia hisses – Joanne swaps her smirk for her pious face, to show she disapproves of Language. ‘What are you doing, trying to give us heart attacks?’

Joanne dials up the holiness. ‘I was worried about you. Orla was going to the ladies’ and she saw you heading downstairs, and she thought you might be going to do something dangerous. Like, involving drugs or drink or something.’