A frown creased his brow. ‘New York will be a fresh start,’ he said, squeezing her hand. ‘A wholly fresh start. Ava – you could even come with me.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Comewithyou?’
‘Yes. To New York.’
She opened her mouth, and then closed it again, her eyes sliding towards the doorway. ‘Damien, that isn’t …thisisn’t …’ She swallowed, for she was doing a shoddy job of putting this into words. ‘You don’t have to run anymore.’
‘But don’t you see?’ said Damien, gripping her hand all the tighter. ‘I wouldn’t be running. I’d be starting over. Starting something new.’
‘No,’ she said, trying to keep the urgency from her voice and finding it had threaded its way in, anyhow. ‘Listen—’
A knock came upon the door behind them.
‘Ava?’ Jem’s voice was strained, and muffled through the wood. ‘There is a man here. He looks rather official. Said he was from London.’
Now the light drained from Damien’s face, and his expression – which had been filling with hope and possibility – snapped shut. ‘I know who that is,’ he said, standing, pacing. ‘How did hefind me?’
‘I told him,’ she said, lifting her chin, and trying to pull some of the righteous feeling she’d had upon her own doorstep back into the pit of her stomach, trying to hold it there. ‘He wants to help you, Damien. He wants to bring you home.’
He paused, and turned his head just slightly, just enough that she could see the whites of his eyes. ‘What?’
‘You’re not a monster. I’ve known it from the very start, and now you know it, too. Don’t you think it’s time you set aside your rules, and—’
‘My rules have kept me safe,’ Damien spat, his eyes searching the room – his Adam’s apple bobbing rapidly in his throat. ‘It’s breaking the rules that ruins me. Like you.Youwere a broken rule.’
‘I am trying tohelp you,’ said Ava, taking a step towards him. ‘All he wants to do is talk—’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Damien, pacing frantically now, pulling linen from crates as though secret doorways might have been hidden beneath them. ‘I’m sure that’s all he wants to do. Ava, even ifIdon’t blame myself, it hasn’t stopped my father from blaming me, all these years—’
He cast another linen sheet into the air, and Ava watched it float down, like a sliding cloud. ‘Ava, the man believes I killed my mother. He’s doesn’t just want totalk; he wants to punish me for it. And bringing Mr Briggs to my door—’
‘Hepromised,’ she said, a thudding fear thrumming through her now. ‘He promised all he wanted to do was talk. To reunite you with your father.’
‘He promised?’ Damien’s chuckle teetered dangerously, as though it could slip any moment into something with teeth. ‘Oh, wonderful. Well so long as hepromised, I am sure he will be a man of his word.’
Jem’s voice came through the door again, louder this time. ‘Ava? He is being rather insistent. Can you unlock this door please?’
Damien’s gaze snapped to hers. ‘Donotunlock that door.’
‘Damien,please. You cannot spend your entire liferunning. I’m trying to show you that you’re not a monster,’ Ava said forcefully.
‘But I am a monster!’ His voice was no longer a whisper, but a roar, and it froze her in place. ‘Why do you think I came back to your doorway, Ava? Why do you think I sat in front of you that day? Because Lillian paid me to.’
It felt as though something ice cold had made its nest behind her breastbone, and it was all Ava could do to shiver out the word: ‘What?’
‘Lillianpaid me,’ he repeated. ‘She and I have been working together this whole time. Did you think I just turned up upon your doorstep at the perfect moment? No. Lillian wanted you to return to your trade, and that was my job. To see that you did it. To see that you poured your whole heart into it, as you once had.’
Ava blinked, and felt something warm slip down her cheek. ‘So this … this was all a lie?’
He was plucking up one of the sheets from the floor now, and wrapping it around his arm as the door shook once more, and Jem said:
‘That’s it. I’m fetching the key!’
‘Damien!’
He hesitated by the window, and then turned back to her, and she saw that some of the anger had dissipated, replaced with something else. Something slanting, and sad.
‘Tell me the truth,’ she said – her voice shaking. ‘Was this all a lie? All … all of this?’
