‘But we haven’t–not yet.’
‘A girl who was at the same party as you is dead. How much worse does it need to be?’
‘We don’t know why she jumped. It might not have anything to do with the League. Victor and the others might not even be in it. We don’t know anything.’
‘We know they’re not hampered by any sense of responsibility. That they just do whatever the hell they want. We know they fit the profile of the group we’ve been researching all this time. And we know that somebody put a whole load of blood-drenched feathers into your bag. That’s enough for me, Mabel. And for you too–right?’
He tried to move away, but I clasped his hand. ‘Listen. If this is all true, then we need to find some evidence. You can’t write an article without any proof.’
‘Oh yeah, and what exactly did you have in mind?’ He was scoffing, but his expression softened as my hand lingered on his.
I wished I hadn’t noticed. And I wished I hadn’t used it to my advantage, squeezing his hand. ‘You talk to June’s friends. Find out if anything happened while she was with them.’
‘And you?’
I looked down at our hands and thought, as I so often did,ofBlake’s fingers. Of the way he’d touched me on Great Court–tentatively, almost guiltily. Of the expression on his face, a mix of sorrow, wistfulness and anger. Of his words, which said so much yet were still so enigmatic. Of how I’d felt: wanting to coax everything out of him, not just the truth about the League of Starlings but the truth about him. I had to admit it, if only to myself: even if I accepted that Blake was part of a dangerous secret society, that wasn’t the real reason why I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I was interested inhim. In what drove him, in what he was. Under normal circumstances I’d have made up my mind by now to stay away from him. But retreat was not an option. It wasn’t just about me–it was about Zoe, and everybody else in their orbit who didn’t know what they might be capable of.
I looked resolutely at Davie. ‘I’m going to finish what I’ve started.’
* * *
Blake Ames lived in a peaceful area not far from the town centre. Roughly twenty minutes’ walk from Trinity College, his flat was situated above a café in a red-brick building covered in wisteria. Davie had found me the address. He wasn’t happy about it, but he’d done it so quickly that I decided not to ask how. Part of me was pretty sure that Davie’s methods weren’t always a hundred per cent legal.
Along the way, I stopped at Clare College to see June’s memorial. The photo pinned up next to the door was a close-up of her face–pretty, smiling, full of life. The image persisted in my mind long after I’d left the college behind me, a faint outline at the edges of my field of vision that I couldn’t blink away. Especially not once I reached Blake’s flat. The front door was open, even though it couldn’t be more than about five degrees.
I’d been wondering as I walked where I’d be most likely to find Blake on a Saturday, but I’d got no further than the college or the vaulted nave of a church. Part of me couldn’t imagine him existing outside the places where we’d already met. As if I’d made him up. That would at least be an acceptable excuse for why I kept thinking about him: because he was at home in my head.
Forcing the thought aside, I went upstairs and rang the bell. A few seconds passed before I heard footsteps on the other side of the door. A moment later it opened, and there he stood.
Something was different. His dark hair was wet, combed back from his forehead as if he’d just showered. Yet it also seemed thicker than I’d ever seen it before. His cheeks were unusually rosy, the dark circles under his eyes less pronounced. And even in the rich brown of his irises, I thought I saw a subtle sheen, as if he’d slept properly for the first night in weeks. His eyes widened slightly when he saw me.
‘You look different. Sort of… healthier.’
At the sound of my voice, he blinked. Almost like it had suddenly dawned on him that I was really there. For a split second I wondered whether he, too, thought I might be a figment of the imagination.
‘How do you know where I live?’
I grinned. ‘You said it yourself. I have a knack for showing up where I’m not wanted.’
He frowned, opening the door a little wider as if to let me in. But when he realised what he was doing he pulled it back again, so that I couldn’t see anything of the flat behind him. ‘What do you want?’
‘To ask you if you have time for a walk with me. And these.’ Iheld up a cardboard tray with two cups and a bag.
Davie had tried persuading me to wait until the next time I was invited to one of their parties. But every minute I sat around doing nothing felt dangerously negligent. I had to speak to someonenow. And Blake seemed like the safest choice. It was just unfortunate that my heart kept beating faster and more wildly the longer he looked at me.
‘Come on.’ I tapped the brim of my black cap, which had belonged to my mother. ‘I’ll leave this on so that no one will recognise me. That way you don’t have to feel ashamed to be seen with me.’
The teasing tone couldn’t hide the crack in my voice. As comfortable as I felt at the university, I knew I didn’t really fit in. I studied too much and partied too little, I took things too seriously and didn’t bother pretending to find things funny when they weren’t. I wore my ladder-ridden tights like armour, yet I couldn’t lie to myself: there were times when people’s pointed words cut straight through them. I didn’t mind being an outsider, not with most people. But Blake… I hated to admit it, but with him, I evidently did mind.
He shook his head, drops of water pattering onto the collar of his russet jumper. ‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
I felt myself grow hot, and bit my cheek trying not to smile. ‘Tell that to your face. You don’t look too keen.’ My gaze slid to the neckline of his jumper, but he moved his hand to cover the bare skin below his collarbone. Yet trying to hide it only served to make the presence of the tattoo more obvious, bringing me back into the moment. To the reason why I was here.
Blake leant against the doorframe. ‘I thought we’d established that this wasn’t a good idea.’
‘Because you’re not a good person, yeah, I recall. So that’s a no?’
He hesitated, then his face sealed itself again into a smooth, cool mask. ‘It is.’
