Fury

brightly, ‘Now let me take those from you, you must be exhausted.’

Ryan and I exchange glances. I hoist the hangers in my left hand a little higher.

‘I’m sorry …’ I begin, and pause. ‘Clara,’ the woman says. ‘How rude of me. Clara O’Manley.’

‘Clara,’ I continue smoothly, ‘but I have strict instructions to deliver these personally to Bianca St Alban. Mrs AgnelliRe was quite adamant. As you will be aware, a value cannot be placed on them now. They are museum pieces, you understand.’

Clara’s expressive face cycles through surprise, sorrow, comprehension, then a studied neutrality. ‘Tomaso,’ she says to the silent hulk standing to one side of us, ‘have Gregory call down to the dependance to see if Signorina Bianca is available to receive …’ Now it’s her turn to pause.

‘Ryan Daley,’ Ryan says immediately, his manners impeccable, holding out his right hand. ‘And Mercy.’

‘I have one of those impossible names,’ I add quickly, shaking her hand, too, which feels calloused, cool and dry. ‘Just Mercy will do.’

Tomaso moves around us silently, entering the villa through its open front door. Neither name will ring any bells with Bianca St Alban. She’s never met Ryan, and when she met me I was the notorious Irina Zhivanevskaya. But she’s staying in the guesthouse at the foot of the estate, near the lake, and that’s where I want to be. All I have to go on is that terrible dream in which I somehow saw inside Luc’s mind, was him as he pursued Nuriel across the dark waters of Lake Como. I need to look at the shoreline from the perspective of the lake itself and maybe then it will become clear what happened to her.

My voice is deliberately casual as I say, ‘We’d be happy to walk the dresses down to Bianca ourselves. We spoke only a few days ago, in fact, at Atelier Re, just before the couture show. That’s the guesthouse, the dependance, down there, I take it?’

Clara nods. ‘You’re friends of hers? She’s been something of a recluse lately …’

I nod. ‘When Juliana told me she needed to get the gowns to Bianca, and we were already headed this way, well, it made sense to stop by. All that business with Felix de Haviland …’ I frown. ‘So shocking, and so, so sad.’

Ryan blinks for a moment, struggling to recall where he’s heard the name before.

‘You know, darling,’ I purr, turning to him and putting a hand lightly on his arm. ‘You and Justine were talking about it only the other day, remember?’

Ryan’s face clears. ‘Felix always was an idiot,’ he says disapprovingly.

‘Felix broke her heart,’ Clara murmurs, gazing down at the guesthouse. Light spills from its floor-to-ceiling windows onto the lawns, casting shadows in pretty patterns. ‘She’ll be so happy to see some familiar, friendly faces. Her parents are travelling between board meetings, like they always do this time of year. She was already feeling under siege, so alone, you know? And then all this happened …’

She touches the back of my hand and, for a moment, I get a clear sensation of her terror when she’d woken that night to see strange lights in the sky. The estate had become a kind of island, marooned by a fire that had seemed somehow to be alive. She’d watched from her upper-storey bedroom, scarcely able to breathe, as trees and buildings had burst into flame all around the shoreline. Lines of fire had appeared across the surface of the lake, like holy writing, though she hadn’t been able to make out any source. She’d seen the main street of the town burning in the distance and had recited the words of every prayer she’d ever been taught as a child, because she hadn’t known what else to do.

I shake off her touch lightly, knowing it’s imperative I get down to the lake.

‘We’re visiting other friends in the area,’ I say, ‘just to see how they’re getting on. We’ll duck in and have a quick chat with Bianca, drop the dresses, and be on our way.’

‘We’ll be gone before you know it,’ Ryan adds warmly, and he’s so solid and reassuring and boy-next-door handsome in his kooky get-up that Clara can’t help twinkling up at him.

‘Oh, go on,’ she says with a shooing motion. ‘I expect she’ll be glad of the distraction. Head past the little folly to my left there, and you’ll find the start of the driveway that will take you down.’

She waves at us before re-entering the house. As she shuts the door behind her, I hear her call out, ‘Tomaso? Tell Gregory —’

‘For an honest guy, you make a convincing liar,’ I tease Ryan in a low voice as we walk towards the marble and wrought-iron folly — like a miniature rotunda — set on the far edge of the property.

Ryan takes the heavy spectacles off his face, slipping them into his pocket with relief as he rubs at the bridge of his nose.

For a moment, we linger beneath the delicate ironwork canopy of the folly, looking up at the first stars of evening appearing in the sky. Then, by some unspoken consent, we lay our separate burdens down upon a curved marble bench seat within the folly, and Ryan hooks his arms around me from behind, pulling me close into his body. We gaze together across the darkening lake as the wind rises around us, ghosting through the folly, through the pines that tower overhead. The view is astounding. Twinkling lights ring the foothills, mirroring the lights in the sky, as if strings of stars have somehow fallen out of the firmament and come to rest beside the water, just for us. And I’m suddenly filled with an intense gladness, for each light represents at least one living soul, someone who survived Luc’s malevolence, the way I did.

‘I’m glad it’s you,’ Ryan murmurs, ‘that I’m seeing this with.’

‘Don’t ever forget this,’ I reply softly. ‘Don’t ever forget me.’

When he starts to protest, I say fiercely, ‘It happens. Memories die, they can be twisted, shattered, stolen forever. I’m proof of that. Remember this, Ryan. That we managed to find each other. That we were together, here, just for a little while.’

That I love you. I’m too much of a coward to say the words.

I turn in his arms and look up into his eyes, place one hand against his warm human skin, letting the energy of him wash over me for a moment, the song of him play through me, before I turn back to face the lake, leaning back into the hard line of his shoulder. It’s dark beneath the folly’s fretwork canopy. The moon is almost overwhelmed, only a thin sliver. Dominated by its paramour, the sun, the same way Luc once had me in thrall.

‘Do you know what I’m thinking right now?’ Ryan’s voice is very quiet as he tightens his arms around me.

‘Yes,’ I whisper without hesitation, because lying to him would be like lying to myself. I turn my head so that his heartbeat is just beneath my cheek. ‘I do. And I’m humbled by you.’

‘It’s the first and last prayer I think I’ll ever make,’ his laughter is ragged, ‘that God might let me “keep” you; that we can be together for always. You’ve paid and paid. Why must you keep risking everything when there are others who can take the fight up to Luc?

‘We were both like dead people,’ he murmurs. ‘Why show us what’s possible only to take it away? Why doesn’t He ever help us, anyway? Why does He allow all this bad stuff to happen?’

He flings an arm out at the lake, at the world, and in that gesture I understand the frustrations of an entire, uncomprehending species. I think of Lauren and what was done to her, how any sense could be made of a thing so unspeakable. I’ve asked myself the same kinds of questions, and yet I am one of His weapons, His anointed. It’s an irony to me, that I should keep finding mysteries within mysteries; that life is a puzzle box without end; that if you peel back every layer, there are more beneath.

‘He knows,’ I reply, more hope in my words than certainty. ‘He knows and sees, I really believe that, but I think He’s gone beyond the point of intercession. I think we were all set in motion a long time ago; we exist now inside this bell jar, as do the parameters, the rules, the cycles, and it’s up to us — all of us, even the elohim — to weather the conditions. We are pieces of Him, all of us, from lowest to highest. Whatever we do, we do to Him also; whatever happens to us happens to Him. We are His great experiment, and if we suffer, He suffers with us. We have to believe that, for the alternative would be unbearable.’

‘Have you ever seen Him?’ Ryan asks, turning me to face him, and I feel his terrible need: for reassurance, for answers.

I shake my head. ‘I have felt His presence, like a breath of holy fire, of life. Maybe only the Eight ever have. They hold us together at the centre, when many may have drifted.’