‘No.’ He hesitated and took half a step towards me, dropping his voice. It grew softer, more fragile, almost–like he was conceding something, lowering the mask he’d been clutching so fiercely, just a fraction. ‘But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t advise you to keep your distance from him.’
‘Why?’
Blake’s body radiated a palpable warmth, but as he stepped in, I felt a chill. ‘We’re not good people, Mabel. I thought that would be obvious. Or have you forgotten how they treated you at the party?’
I barely registered his last words. My attention had snaggedon a different one. One that–for the first time that night– brought a genuine smile to my lips. ‘Don’t tell me you remember my meaningless little name.’
It was a gentle jab, and it coaxed Blake’s mask even lower. Just enough to reveal a faint but very genuine grin underneath. ‘Hmm. And I was perfectly content to call you Pica.’
He put his head to one side, as if expecting me to pounce on the clue. But I had no intention of it: I liked puzzles, and I especially liked solving them without help.
Biting my lip, I swept past him. ‘You fit right in here. From a distance, the chapel looks almost perfect. But when you look more closely, you find all these tiny flaws. Shoddy workmanship and carvings, bits of the foundation missing.’
‘Then let this be a reminder that you should never judge a book by its cover.’
‘What do you mean?’ I turned back to face him.
Arms behind his back, he trod slowly towards me. His manner was still tense, but he no longer seemed as dismissive as he had in the organ loft. ‘You thought you saw me in that library, didn’t you? I mean really saw me. But that’s not possible. We only ever see what we’re allowed to see. That’s the thing–do you understand? We can choose how others see us. Everything we reveal about ourselves, in the end it’s no different from these windows.’ He jerked his chin towards the colourful stained glass above our heads. ‘Every phrase, every glance, it’s like a tiny window into our inner selves. But it’s up to you which curtain you draw back when you’re around other people. If you draw one back.’
Evidently he wasn’t lying about being a philosophy student. I frowned, trying to follow his logic. ‘Are all the glimpses through those windows real? Or are they deceiving, too?’
He traced the scar on his temple with his fingertips. ‘Most of them are deceiving. Who’d willingly reveal their true self when there are so many opportunities to be someone better?
‘So you’re deliberately fooling people?’
‘We all do it. To other people and ourselves. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. You wouldn’t be trying so hard to see something in me that isn’t there.’
Perhaps some part of what he said was true. Perhaps I’d come not merely seeking answers about his friends but to also answer some questions of my own, questions that had been nagging at me ever since the night we met.
I had been looking for something I thought I’d glimpsed in him. What he was trying to show me now was unequivocal:You were mistaken. And yet, doubt lingered in my mind, a trace ofMaybe not completely, maybe not about everything.
‘I think you’re forgetting one salient point,’ I said, padding closer to the vast sheet of windows.
For a moment there was silence, then I heard him follow. ‘Which is?’
Coming to a halt at the end of the row of pews, I couldn’t help but smile. I lifted my chin so that the moonlight cast its splintered colours across my face. ‘When we show people what we want them to see, we can’t help revealing something of ourselves as well. Even if it’s only for a moment. For a fraction ofan evening.’ I narrowed my eyes in the warm golden light. ‘Surrounded by old books, in the company of a stranger you think you’ll never see again.’
For a few seconds more we held each other’s gaze. Even in the mottled light it felt a little too intense. Again, it was Blake who broke it. This time, by looking up.
‘Which one is your favourite?’ I asked, following his gaze.
‘The Last Judgement.’
‘You believe in that stuff? That when we die we’ll have to answer for our sins?’
‘No.’ All at once he seemed exhausted. ‘Comforting as the thought would be.’
I stared incredulously at his profile. ‘You find it comforting, do you, the thought of being judged? You must be pretty confident you’re a good person.’
‘You need to learn how to hear the things you don’t want to hear. I already told you–I’m not a good person.’
Before I could reply, there was a clatter behind us. I jumped before I even heard the voice, so bright and powerful that it drowned out even the footsteps. ‘Typical.’ I hadn’t even turned around before the face of a red-headed elf popped into my head. ‘When I’m looking for Ashton, I head to the bar. When I’m looking for you, I head to the nearest empty church.’
Blake stiffened and flinched away from me. ‘Norah,’ he began, but she cut him off.
‘You’ve got to help me. Victor’s overdoing it again. If we don’t stop him we’ll have a—’ She broke off the moment she caught sight of me. ‘Oh.’ Within seconds, her delicate features had transformed. Cool indifference, mild condescension. She knitted her eyebrows, glancing irritably at Blake. ‘I didn’t know you were?—’
‘No,’ he interrupted tersely, moving towards her and putting himself between us. ‘She’s nobody.’
