There’s two fains bent over the lad who’s sitting up now with a cut on his forehead. There are seven fains around me, ranging from a skinny teenage kid to two big, tattooed blokes. Another is coming up the road with two white bull terriers straining at their leads. The girl’s brother with his gun is probably not far away.

“That’s my stuff.” I nod at the plastic bag.

She hesitates but holds the bag out to me. “You’ve no reason to stay, no reason to come back.”

I take the bag, saying, “Not now.”

I wonder what will happen to the Hunters, but I’ll leave that up to the fains. I have to push past the gang that have gathered round. I head in the opposite direction to the lad with the dogs, walking fast and then breaking into a jog.

I don’t stop until I get back to the train station. That’s where I’d left Nikita.

Arran

Nikita had been watching Bob’s place when Clay was there. She saw me and followed me. I didn’t notice her until she was standing in front of me. I bought her a hot chocolate.

Nikita’s real name is Ellen. Her eyes are amazing, like a sea, a clear, turquoise sea, currents of blue and green moving through them. She’s a Half Blood. Her mother was a White Witch and her father is a fain. Since her mother died, Ellen has been outside the witch community and pretty much ostracized by them. Her nearest relative on the witch side is her grandmother, who pretends she doesn’t exist. She lives with her father in London and says she goes to school “half the time.” She also says she’s sixteen, but I’m not sure, she looks younger.

She told me that Jim went to France and that she wanted to go with him but he said no. I told her a bit about myself. And about Arran, Deborah, and Gran, and Annalise. She agreed to help me get a message to Arran.

Ellen is waiting for me as we agreed. While I was meeting Trev she has searched the internet for information about Arran. There isn’t much, but his old school website has a small article about him winning a prize and going on to study medicine at Cambridge. We get the first train out of Liverpool that’s heading in that direction. It’s late by the time we arrive in Cambridge, and I tell Ellen she has to stay in a B&B for the night. She doesn’t look too happy when she realizes I’ll be sleeping rough, but the good thing about Ellen is that she quickly gets that there are some arguments she’s not going to win.

The next morning we meet up at nine. The B&B landlady has given Ellen a leaflet about Cambridge and a small map. Ellen says she’s going to suss the college out and see how many Hunters are around. She’s convinced there will be some watching Arran. We agree to meet up again in the evening.

“I saw one Hunter. She swapped over with her partner at four o’clock, so it looks like they’re watching Arran twenty-four seven, doing a twelve-hour shift each. If they believed you’d try to see him they’d have many more than that.”

I nod. I’m not going to try. I don’t want to give him any more trouble than I already have.

Ellen thinks the best time for her to see Arran is in the college dining room at breakfast. She thinks she’ll be able to sneak in and sit with him as his guest. The Hunters hang around outside the building, and Arran isn’t in their sight most of the time.

I give her a small picture that I’ve drawn. “He’ll know it’s from me.”

“Okay. But I’m going to take a photo of you as well.”

Oh.

“I’ll just show it to him on my phone. So he can see you. What you look like now. We could do a video.”

I shake my head. “A photo.”

“You could speak to him on the phone.”

I shake my head. I couldn’t.

I wait in a park where we have arranged to meet. I feel sick.

Ellen’s bright. She won’t mess up.

But I still feel sick.

It’s midday when I see her walking toward me. She’s smiling. A big smile.

“It worked fine. He looked a bit confused at first, but then I showed him your drawing and he was so happy. He kept smoothing his hand over it. He wanted me to send the photo of you to his phone but I said that was too dangerous. So he looked at it while we talked.

“He’s enjoying studying. He’s found his Gift, which is healing, but it’s not very strong. He misses home and Deborah. Deborah is living in Gran’s house. She has a boyfriend called David. They want to get married.”

“Married!”

“She wants children. Arran says David is great. He’s nothing to do with the Council or Hunters. He’s a White Witch, from Wales. He works as a carpenter. Arran said that you’d like him. Deborah has an office job in town. Arran says she’s happy there. He says to tell you that she has an amazing Gift.”

“What is it?”

“Well, I don’t really get it but it’s something to do with being good at paperwork. I’m not sure if he was joking.”

I don’t think he’d joke, but paperwork doesn’t make any sense.

“He said that your gran died three months ago, when Arran was home for the holidays. He said she went to bed saying that she was tired. She died in the night.”

“You asked him, didn’t you? Was it suicide?”

“I asked him. And he said he didn’t know. He said Deborah thought she might have taken one of her own potions.”

I know Deborah is right.

“Arran said that after you were taken the Council often called your gran down to London for questioning. He said she refused to answer anything.”

“They never questioned Arran?”

“He said not, but he’s not very good at lying.”

“And Deborah?”

Ellen nods.

“He said Hunters searched the house a few months ago. Deborah overheard them saying something about the ‘incompetents at the Council.’ They had a feeling that you had escaped.

“He asked what they did to you and where you were kept. I told him that I didn’t know. I told him you were well.”

“Thank you. You didn’t tell him about the tattoos?”

“No. You said not to.” She takes a breath and tries to smile. “I asked about Annalise too.” Ellen’s tone isn’t promising. “He’s never spoken to her since you left. Even at parties and weddings, he and Deborah aren’t allowed near her. He heard that she had a small Giving ceremony.”

She was seventeen last September. “She still goes to school, doesn’t she?”

“I didn’t ask that. I got the feeling he didn’t like talking about her.”

“Yeah, well. He disapproves of me and her.”

“Why?”

“He thinks I’m asking for trouble. Her family are very White, brilliant White. Pure as they come. Involved with the Council . . . Hunters.”

“She doesn’t sound your type.”

“She’s not like them.”

And she is my type, very much my type.

“You’re not thinking of going back to see her?”

I think about it a lot, though I know it would be stupid.

Ellen says, “I told Arran where I live in London. He said we should meet up, maybe. I thought that I could get messages to him for you. I’d be like the go-between.”

I don’t know. It might be better if I never contact them again. But if anyone could do it Ellen could.

I say, “Ellen, I don’t want to get you into trouble with the Council.”

“Ha! Too late for that.”

She gets out her mobile phone. “I took a photo of Arran. And a short video.”

I tell myself I’m not going to cry, not in front of Ellen, and I’m okay at first. Arran looks a little older, but his hair is the same. He’s pale, but he looks good. He tries to smile and doesn’t quite manage it. He tells me a little about what he’s doing at university, and about Deborah and David, and then he tells me how he’s missed me and wants to see me but knows it’s impossible. He hopes I’m well, really well, not just physically but inside myself too, and says he’s always believed in me and knows I’m a good person, and he hopes I can get away, that I must be careful whom I trust and that I must leave them all behind, how he and Deborah will be fine and will be happy knowing I am free and that is how he’ll think of me, happy and free, always.