Prologue
Then
There were many myths told about Cambridge. Stories woven from rumour and skewed half-truths, the thinfabric passed from hand to hand in the shadows.Students whispered them along the queues in the throne-room-like dining halls, lecturers recited them to the rows of awed and faintly anxious faces seated before them, anecdotes embroidered for each new class.
Most of these stories skimmed barely a hair’s breadth across the surface of the truth. The true secret-keeper was Cambridge itself. The city and its winding lanes, and above all, the university. The buildings that gleamed gold, the lawns braided through the stone fabric of the colleges, the smooth-flowing Cam.
The lifeless heart of the city was the most vital part of it, because for centuries it had outlasted generation after generation of students. It had watched as countless, different yet similar faces passed it by, while its own face altered little. No wrinkles, only a weary blink of the eyes as the years went by and wafer-thin layers of its façade were worn away.
The university kept the true, unfiltered secrets of this place. Only a select few were capable of understanding what it had to tell. People like us. We understood, because we were part of it. Because we were the biggest secret of all.
* * *
‘Are you hiding from us?’
I held back a sigh. It had only been a matter of time before one of them found me here. We knew each other too well: our minds were maps we had studied closely over the years, and by now none of us needed signposts to know what the other person was thinking or feeling. Or where they were.
I turned to face the young woman striding purposefully towards me down the aisle. ‘Like that’s even possible. Sometimes I just need a break. Crazy, huh?’
She stopped in front of me, grinning broadly. The light falling through the stained-glass window cast blue shadows on her symmetrical face, the gap between her teeth a dark chink in a row of luminous white. ‘You can take a break when you’re dead.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Considering what you guys have planned, that’s sounding less far-fetched by the minute, don’t you think?’
‘Well, now you’re just being insulting.’ She gave me a teasing look, her fingers toying with the thin chain around her neck. The plain ring that hung from it glinted every time the vivid moonlight struck the gold. She must be thinking of the person who wore an exact duplicate of it. ‘And don’t be a wet blanket, okay? Not today.’
‘What’s so special about today?’ Our days were beads on a never-ending necklace. All of them were beautiful, precious, unique, yet at the same time somehow… alike. Sometimes I wondered to myself if one could tire of beauty. Or of happiness. It wasn’t always at the foreground of my mind, more an underlying anxiety. A muted fear of the future, which I was always quick to fill up with as much of the now as possible.
‘Nothing. I just want… I need this. All of you.’ Coming closer, she put her hands to the collar of my shirt and smoothed the fabric. An oddly tender smile played across her lips. ‘My best friends,’ she whispered, the pads of her fingers brushing over the scar on my temple. ‘The four-headed love of my life.’
I took her hand, which was burning hot, and squeezed it gently. ‘Your life isn’t over yet. Maybe you’ll find something better than us.’
‘No, never.’ Her smile widened, but something behind her eyes clouded over. If I hadn’t known her better, I’d have mistaken it for sadness.
I frowned. ‘Is everything okay?’
She was silent for a moment, then pulled away from me and took a step back. Red light instead of blue, an exaggeratedly cheerful grin instead of genuine happiness. ‘Sure. Always. I just want to make this a night to remember–if that’s all right with you?’
I was briefly tempted to ask more questions, but I knew her as well as she knew me. ‘Of course,’ I said, with a glance at my watch. ‘Let’s—’ I broke off, realising that the hands weren’t moving. I tapped the golden dial, but nothing happened. ‘My watch has stopped.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Holy shit.’
I looked up, narrowing my eyes. ‘Don’t.’
‘I can’t help it, that’s so obviously a sign.’ She tapped the glass with a fingertip, clutching her other hand theatrically to her chest. ‘Ex hoc momento pendet aeternitas.’
My mouth twitched at the corners: the meaning of that phrase was always on the tip of my tongue, nuzzling itself up against my lips in the same pleasingly warm way. It was just an empty phrase, an old Latin platitude–but to us, it was also a promise.
Eternity is poised upon this moment.
Nobody loved or lived those words quite like the woman in front of me. She spoke them often, mostly when they were demonstrably untrue. On nights like this, when we were planning to break God knows how many rules, climbing onto the roof of the university’s tallest building to see the meteor shower, it would have been more accurate to say:our lives are poised upon this moment. Still, I never contradicted her. None of us did. And sometimes, in the very best moments, it felt like the same thing anyway.
This time I simply shook my head and followed her out of the chapel. The evening outside smelt of rhododendrons, of the water in the Cam and the aromas wafting from the open windows of the student housing: incense sticks, paper and ink, washing powder and perfume. Fragments of innumerable lives, all of them throwing into greater relief how exceptional ours were.
I tilted back my head until my face was bathed in pure moonlight. And I smiled and breathed andlived, realising yet again: eternity might not depend upon this moment, but our whole lives did.
Later, much later, I came to wish I’d realised something else: if our whole lives rested on a moment, then a moment could bring them crashing down as well.
Chapter1
