Chapter 17
A riot of screeching seagulls swarmed in on the last few bites of the sausage roll, ripping and tearing and squabbling, as Emma jerked her hand away and stared at Wendy in alarm. The birds had come swooping in off the Thames, apparently by laser-calibrated radar, the instant she tossed out the scraps; they'd just finished their exploration of the Tower of London, viewed the Crown Jewels and the head-chopping accessories and the ravens on the lawn, heard about Anne Boleyn's ghost, seen the original White Tower that William the Conqueror had built, and otherwise indulged Emma's jonesing for medieval history. Wendy said it was all a bit touristy and apologized repeatedly, but her words fell on deaf ears. Emma was happy for the first time in what felt like years, and her evident delight had not gone unnoticed. Wendy had said she'd gladly pay the exorbitant admission fee again if it put that kind of a smile on her face.
They had arrived in London yesterday morning, and while the first day had been mostly spent recovering from the jetlag, they'd managed to get out for dinner and a show, then bounced up again bright and early to hit up Westminster. Emma had wandered around the ancient abbey with her jaw in a permanent state of suspension, walking on the graves of some of the most famous authors, soldiers, royalty, and general luminaries ever, and had to be extracted by Wendy so they could make it to the Tower in time. After lunch, they were going to take the coach service up to Oxford, where they'd spend a few days at least in the general vicinity of Wendy's friends. Michaelmas Term ended in the first week of December, so they'd all be scrambling to finish up tutorials and exams, but they all wanted to see her and were willing to make the sacrifice.
"Sorry to make you leave so early, but you'll have to come back at Christmas," Wendy said now, shooing off the seagulls and heading for the riverside walk that led to the Tower Hill Tube station. Her grandmother might have private drivers, a Kensington Gardens mansion, and a multimillion-pound fortune, but both of the young women were far more comfortable beetling around inconspicuously on public transport. Emma had felt horrendously out of place at said mansion last night, with its Victorian décor, crystal chandeliers, and white-gloved butlers, and was far more comfortable at the idea of sleeping in some student flat in Oxford. She was of course grateful to the family for hosting her in such style, but Grandma Wendy unnerved her. A lot.
"Christmas?" That seemed like an eternity to Emma. She couldn't even wrap her head around it. "Are you sure?"
"Of course. If for whatever reason, Jack can't find your parents by then, you'll need a place to go, won't you? Nobody should have to spend the holidays alone."
Emma was quiet, her blonde ponytail streaming in the cold November wind. At last, as they were trotting into the station, she said, "Wendy. . . you really think that after twenty years, even Jack can just snap her fingers and find these deadbeats who left me on the side of a road and booked it? I just don't see how that's – "
Wendy looked at her strangely. "Emma, I know things have been rough for you since the coma, and I understand. But your parents aren't deadbeats, and they definitely exist. I've met them."
Emma stopped short at the turnstile, her Oyster card frozen in her fingers. "Get out."
"No, seriously. I know you can't remember them, and I'm sorry. But your dad helped you move in to start the term. His name is David Nolan, he's tall and quite fit for a dad – I mean that in a non-perverted way, I promise – he's got blue eyes and he works at an animal shelter. Your mum is named Mary Margaret, she's a primary-school teacher, she's short and has black hair in a bob-cut." Wendy looked at her encouragingly, clearly hoping that this had sparked a rush of memories. "Any of that sound familiar?"
"No," Emma said through frozen lips, tapping her card and pushing through the turnstile. "Are you even serious right now?"
"Why would I lie about this?"
"They already ran the address through, when I was leaving the hospital and there was that big clusterfuck with the health insurance. Storybrooke, Maine, is not a real place, but it's even worse if these people are. Then they left me behind, again."
"Sweetheart, no," Wendy said, seeing her face. "I didn't mean that, I don't think that's what happened, I swear. But I was just saying that if for some reason Jack can't find them, you're always welcome to come to our house."
"Why?" Emma pulled her scarf tighter as they stepped onto the platform. She hadn't meant to be so blunt, but she couldn't help herself. "I just. . . why are you spending so much money on me and being so nice and. . . taking care of me? I don't understand. What do you want?"
"As you can likely tell, we've got plenty of money for spending," Wendy said wryly. "But. . . Emma, I'm your friend, I don't want anything from you. And taking in lost boys, or lost girls, is a bit of a Darling family tradition. Granny always says that we don't have this much just to sit on it and hoard it, and I grew up seeing her take care of people. It's just what we do."
Emma mulled this over, not sure what to make of it. In her experience, if something looked too good to be true, it always was. But as the subway rattled into the station, and the voice droned at them to mind the gap, something else occurred to her. "I'm sorry, did you say Darling?"
"Yes, of course." Wendy was plainly more puzzled than ever. "What?"
"Seriously, so your grandmother is named Wendy Darling? I thought it was Henley."
"That's her married name. Edward Henley, my grandfather, he's been dead for quite a while now. But. . .yes."
"Get out," Emma said again. "So I guess your grandma is like the little girl that Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland for, right? Except only with J.M. Barrie and Peter Pan?" Suddenly, the fact that Wendy knew everyone of consequence in London literary circles was making a great deal of sense. And she did have to admit that the house looked exactly the part. There was a nursery with a window that opened to the starry sky, a stained-glass window worked with a pirate ship, and the old lady had been insistent about making sure it was closed at night. And Emma had had that dream again about the boy-shadow coming to her, tapping softly on the pane. She'd woken and sat bolt upright, convinced that she had to go and let him in, but when she padded upstairs in her bare feet and crept into the nursery, there was nothing at all at the window and she felt stupid for having believed. Maybe the place was haunted. It would figure.
"Sort of," Wendy said, as the doors closed and the train rolled out. "It's complicated."
Emma shrugged, figuring that some sordid family history lay behind this, and that if she didn't want Wendy to pry into hers, it seemed rude to do so in return. But some unexpected memory was in fact nipping at her, flitting maddeningly just out of reach. She had the weirdest feeling that sometime fairly recently, she'd met somebody else who thought they were associated with that whole story, but who it was and what they'd said were complete blanks. She was probably making it up anyway, one of the strange short-circuits of her post-coma brain, and didn't see the need to spend much time on it. She leaned back in her seat, clutching her bag.
It was only a few stops from Tower Hill to London Victoria station, where they could catch the bus to Oxford (somewhat confusingly also named the Tube) and they were soon aboard; since it was only early afternoon, city traffic was moving at a reasonable pace. Emma dozed, headphones in, as they left London behind. She was still jet-lagged, and between her late night at the show and then her odd dream about the shadow-boy, she hadn't gotten much sleep. At this rate, she'd need a vacation after her vacation, but she definitely hadn't come to sit and stare at the wall, which she'd done far too much of back in Boston. The fact that nobody knew her here, except of course for Wendy, meant that she didn't have to sneak around and worry about who might see her, which had largely kept her confined to the dorm for the past several weeks. It was invigorating to pretend to have a life again, but she didn't want to get too used to it. This was just make-believe, for a few more days. Then she'd have to go back to the status quo.
It was an hour and change to Oxford, and when she opened her eyes from what had deepened into a full-fledged catnap, they were rolling into the city center, past innumerable gothic spires and quaint stone buildings that had her head turning on a pivot as she tried to take them all in. They got off the bus at the end of High Street, at the intersection with St. Aldates' and Cornmarket, and Wendy checked her phone. As it was still only midafternoon, her friends were in tutorial or at the library, feverishly slaving to finish an essay, and thus they had some time to kill before meeting them that evening. "Come on. Let's go to the Covered Market."
Emma trailed obediently at her heels as they headed into the market, which was truly a world unto itself. It was crammed with stalls for butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, coffee shops, florists, fishmongers, cheesemongers, chocolatiers, jewelers, gifts and knickknacks, fabrics, clothes, furniture, and more, attractively roofed over with white wooden beams and humming with a throng of students, tourists, locals, and distracted eccentrics wandering along with their noses in books (this was a favorite pastime in Oxford at any time or place, up to and including while riding bicycles). Emma stared, but before she had time to recover, Wendy stuffed a £50 note into her hand and said, "Enjoy yourself. We'll meet back here at five, all right?"
Emma opened her mouth to protest, but Wendy had already vanished. So Emma shrugged again, supposed that if there was no more pressing use for fifty pounds then why not, and headed into the labyrinth.
She only window-shopped at first, driven by her old instinct that told her not to spend the money; she didn't know if there would be any tomorrow. She was tempted by a beautiful batik skirt, but reminded herself that she wasn't the kind of girl who wore skirts. A framed antique print of the city likewise failed to pass muster; too impractical. Almost everything she wanted, she immediately came up with a good reason not to buy, but it felt a bit crass to just hand the money back to Wendy at the end of the afternoon and tell her that she was too good for it. There had to be something; even it wasn't quite Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, there were still plenty of options.
Despite herself, however, Emma had almost given up when she spotted a little jewelry stand crammed in a dark corner, between a butcher's block featuring whole pigs hanging upside down from meat hooks and a woodworker's shop filled with hand-carved items suitable to display splendidly as a family keepsake, such as a faux Elizabethan globe, a Pinocchio puppet, and a bunch of model ships. Remembering the one in the Darling nursery window, she was oddly tempted, but shook her head and angled for the jewelry instead.
The pieces were sterling silver, not nickel-plated cheap stuff, and Emma browsed through a tray of rings, encouraged by the enthusiastic and incomprehensible Scottish proprietor, until she found one she liked. It was simple, set with a pretty green stone, and it fit perfectly on her little finger. According to the hand-calligraphed card that went with it, it was some kind of traditional talisman for true love, which was about what you'd expect for a kitschy overpriced jewelry shop. It was marked at £60, but he agreed to sell it to her for £45, with a comment about how the look in her eyes made him think she could use some love in her life. At least, she thought that was what he said; with the Glaswegian burr, it could have been something else entirely.
Emma paid him, took her £5 in change, and slipped the ring onto her finger. A glance at her watch revealed that she still had forty minutes to waste, so she decided to investigate the gourmet chocolate shop she'd seen somewhere along the way, wondering if she'd need a map to find it again. So she thanked the proprietor again, stepped out of the stand, and –
She hadn't even seen the man exiting the woodworker's shop across the way, and hence walked slap bang into him, knocking the tissue-wrapped parcel clean out of his hands. It hit the floor with a horrible crunch that definitely sounded like something fragile breaking, and she dove after it, mortified. "Oh – oh my God, I'm sorry, I am so sorry, I didn't even see you, I just – "
"Couldn't look where you were bloody going, could you?" he snapped. "Eh?"
"I – I just. . ." Emma, hideously humiliated, kept her head down, trying to gather both herself and the broken object; it appeared to be one of the model ships she'd just been looking at. "Sir. . . I'll pay to replace it, or – " With what money? She'd have to bum more off Wendy. Maybe she should just run back and return the ring, or else –
Just then, she caught a confused glimpse of him, and felt her heart vault into her throat. If her life was a romantic comedy, the fact that she'd literally crashed into a drop-dead gorgeous stranger mere moments after buying something cheesy supposed to help her find true love would end up being extremely significant, but as it wasn't, not so much. She had to give the universe credit for some slick timing, but the guy didn't look at all amused. Older than her, but not old; a doctoral student, maybe, or a junior tutor. As noted, a knockout. Navy sport coat and tie, pressed slacks, shined shoes, dark tousled hair and model-worthy stubble, burning blue eyes and –
His hand. His left hand. He was holding it out imperiously, clearly in anticipation of her handing back his damaged property, and there was a thick scar encircling the wrist, something that jarred some deep recess of her memory. As always, she couldn't place it, but it made her confusedly rock back on her heels and stare up into his face. "Excuse me. . . do I know you?"
He opened his mouth, about to fire off some sarcastic dismissal, then got a good look at her; the light in this corner of the market wasn't the best, and he hadn't before. Whatever he had been going to say made a faint whistling noise as it flew away. He looked completely stunned.
"I. . . I'm sorry." Emma gathered up the broken model ship and held it out like a peace offering. "I just. . . thought I knew you from somewhere. Here, let's go pay for this, or return it, or get it fixed or whatever."
He was still staring at her. "I. . . lass, I. . . you don't have to do that."
"Hey, no, I broke it, didn't I?" She frowned. "What? Is there something on my face?"
"No, I just. . ." He cleared his throat and turned away, surreptitiously putting a hand on the wall to steady himself. "I'll. . . take care of it. Aye. Why don't you. . . just forget you saw me."
"I don't understand." She stepped closer, wincing as her bad leg cramped; she wasn't going to be able to walk around on it much longer. As she did, she saw his eyes flash to it, and that piqued her already considerable curiosity still further. "Hey. Seriously. Do I know you?"
His blue eyes studied her face intently, unblinkingly, apparently in search of guile or deceit. Finding nothing of the sort, just honest confusion, he swore under his breath and clenched a fist, staring up at the raftered roof as if in expectation of some kind of divine intervention. Emma had learned a long time ago not to put her eggs in this basket, but her own paranoia was starting to flare up; she had, after all, been enjoying herself in England so much due to the belief that nobody knew her. This guy was acting shifty to say the least, and she was completely fed up with evasive answers or none at all. "What's your name?" she snapped. She would have tied him down and held a knife to his throat if it meant cooperation.
Once again, those blue eyes flickered. "Killian Jones," he said, "though around here most people have taken to calling me by my less colorful moniker of professor. History, at Wadham." His gaze held hers, clearly expecting reciprocation.
"Emma," she said reluctantly. "Swan."
"Swan?"
Emma frowned at him again. "Yes. Why?" A sudden thought occurred to her. "Did you know a girl named Emma Nolan?"
"I. . . yes." He dragged a hand through his hair, looking pale and sickened. "What. . . what's happened to her?"
"Honestly? I don't know." You have no need to go sharing intimate details with this creepy stranger. What was with these men who thought they could pop up in her world and be entitled to her life story? But somehow, even though this guy was fully as much bad news bears as August W.(hat a) Bastard, Emma found herself telling him. "I woke up in the hospital – long story there, never mind – and everybody thought I was her. It's kind of this Freaky Friday situation that will just not end, and I'm guessing that you – "
She stopped.
"You?" he prompted delicately.
"I do know you!" She swung around on him like a long nine. "Wendy was looking for you! You were that professor back at Boston who just disappeared into thin air!"
He looked confused. Not very well, in fact horribly, but at least he tried. "I. . . oh?"
"Yeah. Look, I was in a coma and it completely fucked me over and then there was other stuff and. . ." No, she was not telling this guy the trials and tribulations of Little Orphan Emma. "Long story short, some crazy asshole with a sword tried to kill me and sliced up my leg, and then I got kidnapped by another crazy asshole on a motorcycle, and then I just barely avoided getting convicted for felony drug trafficking, so there has been a lot of shit flying around and my memory's not what it should be, but I'm not mistaken about this. What are you doing here?"
He continued to look as if she'd just swung a brick into his face. Convulsively, he reached for her. "I – Emma. . . Miss. . . Swan, I should apologize, I – "
"Yeah, save it." Emma stepped away, not wanting to get any closer. There was already a strange electrical current in the air, probably just the natural result of standing in such proximity to an unfairly good-looking man, but he may or may not be some kind of fugitive from justice or something even worse. She kept her eyes on his. "We going to pay for your broken ship or not?"
"I'll. . ." He swallowed. "Handle it."
"Okay, if you're sure. It's your business if you're here, but I'm guessing there are a lot of folks back in Boston who are wondering where you went. You should – "
"No," he interrupted. Low, hard, dark and dangerous, cold and level as a ship captain barking orders in a storm. "As you said, it's my business. And as I said, forget you saw me."
"Why?"
"Just do." He glanced away. "Try it, darling. It's called trust."
"Trust you?" She almost laughed out loud. "Yeah, you're not suspicious at all, are you? Looks like you're right. I'm pretty sure we're better off without you. So you'll understand if I. . . take my leave. Head start. If you will."
With that, she spun on her boot heel, not daring to look back at him. He stood as motionless as if he was chained in place, but as she strode away, he shouted after her. "Swan? Swan! Swan!"
Putting her head down, she ran.
After that little encounter, Emma was as twitchy as a meth addict while waiting for Wendy at the High Street gate, shifting from foot to foot and anxiously scanning the crowd to make sure Professor Jones wasn't after her. But he was the one who'd said that she should forget him, so she devoutly trusted they wouldn't cross paths again. Whatever his deal was, it was a doozy. Despite herself, she found herself speculating. Mental problems? Imbalanced priorities? General psychosis? It was something to ask the matriarch of the Darling family about when they got back to London, assuming she could screw up the nerve for the conversation. Grandma Wendy was one of those old ladies who could reduce you to a puddle of goo with a look.
At last, the younger Wendy emerged, cheerily asked Emma if she'd had a good time, and seemed oblivious to her mumbled non sequiturs. It was dark by now, and they strolled down the High to Alfred Street; they were meeting Wendy's friends for dinner at the Bear, the oldest pub in Oxford. Supposedly of thirteenth-century vintage, it was tiny and dim, the ceiling crammed with crooked low beams and the walls covered with a vast collection of framed college ties, traded by patrons (some mildly famous) over the years in exchange for free beer. It was also, like any ancient edifice worth its salt, reportedly haunted, ghosts spotted knee-deep in the floors because they had walked the original ones in life. Wendy had never glimpsed any such specters herself, she assured Emma, though she could see how the legend had gotten going after a few pints.
They headed in, claimed a table, and made the round of introductions as Wendy's friends turned up. All of them effusively shook Emma's hand and pronounced themselves delighted to meet her, and baskets of fish and chips and foaming pint glasses soon stacked up. Emma felt as awkward as the one outsider always does in the group of people who know each other intimately, but to their credit, they all made efforts to include her in the conversation. That, however, was its own misery; they wanted to know what she was studying, where she was from, and all the other small talk she'd never gotten good at, and she couldn't decide whether to saddle them with the ugly truth or revert to the Emma Nolan cover-story version of things. Each one felt like a lie and a cop-out in its own way, so she finally supplied them with answers so minimal that they must surely have gotten the impression that she was the unfriendly American. Or it was all in her head. Or something. God, she hated trying to be a people person. More beer.
It was quite late indeed when they finally paid the bar tab and headed out, and Wendy and Emma attached themselves to the friend they were spending the night with, Felix Peters; from the way Wendy looked at him, in fact, Emma got the impression that he was somewhat more than a friend. But he gallantly offered the ladies an arm each, and they ambled through the deserted Radcliffe Square, past the Camera and the Bod, past the Bridge of Sighs and onto Parks Road. Turning into the college, she caught a glimpse of the sign, and –
"Hey," Emma blurted, pulse speeding up. "This is Wadham?"
Felix looked at her confusedly. "Yes. I'm in my second year here, reading PPE."
"Translation," Wendy supplied, "he's studying philosophy, politics, and economics. Felix, you have to at least try to speak American for her, you know."
"I do not! Churchill's my man. Two nations divided by a common language!"
The two of them ran through the dark gate, squealing and pretending to wrestle each other, and Emma, rolling her eyes and trying to pretend that her heart wasn't pounding, followed them in. Felix, recovering his composure with an embarrassed cough, led them up the creaking stairs to his room, a big old one with a clanking radiator, a window that overlooked the front quad, a bedroom and a sitting area, a desk, and things thrown everywhere; in that respect, it looked comfortingly like any dorm. He pulled out the couch bed. "All right if you kip here, Emma?"
"Sleep," Wendy whispered.
"Oh. Yeah, yeah, that's fine."
Felix rolled his eyes in martyred mock exasperation, then made up the bed for her; Wendy, plainly, was going to be joining him in his. Emma, who was used to her roommate's periodic sexiles, had come prepared; she pulled out her earplugs with a flourish, making them blush, and then went into the bathroom to change and get ready for sleep. They could entertain themselves all they wanted, but she could barely keep her eyes open.
As she undressed, she realized that she was trembling. Why? That was fucking ridiculous. It was just a nasty coincidence that Professor Jones happened to work at this college; there were thirty-nine of them in Oxford, making up the conglomeration of the university, so the odds were steep but not impossible. He certainly wasn't about to go on a nighttime prowl through the students' rooms, so she just needed to get a god damn grip.
Emma brushed her teeth, tied her hair into a braid, and padded out. She crawled into the couch bed; it was sagging, but comfortable, and she yawned widely enough to crack her jaw. Felix and Wendy went into the bedroom and shut the door behind them, and she felt a stinging, painful jealousy hard enough to make tears well up. It was so easy for Wendy, with guys. She was young, stupidly rich, and smart, not to mention pretty, down-to-earth, and kind-natured; it was no surprise that they flocked to her. Wendy was never alone, never had to worry that she'd completely fucked up her chance, that even if Neal was a loser he was the only one she had. . . oh God, where was he? It wasn't too late (was it?) to find out if August had been telling the truth. Go look for him. . . but shouldn't he come look for her? Or had she completely fucked that up too by telling the feds to bust him?
No. Forget that. She hated him. He was a dickhead, he'd broken her heart, and he'd set her up and run, for completely unfathomable reasons of his own. She owed him jack and shit. He could keep running forever, for all she cared. It was what he was good at, apparently.
For all she cared.
Sniffling, Emma rolled over and smudged the tears out of her eyes. As she did, a dim green sparkle caught the low light filtering in through the curtains, and she realized that she still had the ring on. Probably she should take it off, but she didn't want to.
She rolled over again, plumped up the pillow, and let her head drop into it heavily. Strange as it sounded, she wanted to dream about that shadow again, that boy. She knew him. He was hers. She wasn't afraid. She'd find him. Somehow. He'd come. He would.
Sleep was already approaching, stealing up like a soft black mantle. She closed her eyes and fell.
She was here.
She was here.
Bloody, bloody, fucking hellfire, she was here.
Killian had blundered through the rest of his evening in complete disarray, feeling damned lucky that he didn't have another tutorial until tomorrow morning; they would have surely thought him the dullest and/or densest professor in existence (which, considering some of the dolts he'd encountered, was setting a high bar). He'd been settling into Oxford rather well, all things considered. The academic format was similar to what it had been at Trinity: the tutor met one hour a week with each individual student. If this seemed to an outside observer like a soft option, it was rapidly disabused by the realization that the student was expected to read a stack of books and write an essay every single week, and then be prepared to talk intelligently about it and defend their thesis while one of the smartest people in the world peppered them with questions. This was a bit of a stretch on Killian's part; "smart" in no way encompassed any the decisions he'd been making recently, but at least he could hold his own in the field of early modern European history, and that was what Wadham was paying him for.
Aside from the four undergraduates he was tutoring, he was also giving two lectures a week at the Exam Schools, which all Oxford students could attend to supplement their coursework as they liked. He'd been focusing mostly on the colonial mercantile system and eighteenth-century economic and nation-state competition, which in turn entailed a discussion of pirates. Everybody had seemed quite favorably impressed at how much he knew. Ha. If they'd only bloody guess.
All of Killian's pride at his more-or-less-successful transition, however, was currently up in smoke. He was pacing back and forth in his new flat, which was above the Volkswagen dealership out on Iffley Road; not a luxury accommodation by any means, but just about what his pound could be pinched to cover. Hellfire, so it was true. Tamara might have been lying about absolutely everything else under the sun, but she hadn't lied about that. The curse had changed, somehow, erasing all of Emma's old memories, altering her into a different person altogether. He could still hear himself shouting after her. Swan? Swan! SWAN!
He clenched a fist, breath coming short and sharp through his nose. He couldn't run away, not again. He'd already done that once, was still shirking like a bloody coward from the task of calling BC and informing them that he was never coming back, and he certainly had no sort of leash to cut bait once more. But he had left to avoid her, to shield her from the shadow, and now she had the damned temerity to appear here in Oxford, the last place she was supposed to be. . .
Do I know you?
A growl burned up his throat, emerging as a roar, and he spun around and drove his fist into the wall, hard enough to leave a knuckle-shaped dent. It did somewhat more damage to the knuckles themselves, but he was beyond caring. He kept on battering it, not giving a steaming damn what the landlord was liable to say, wondering if the neighbors would phone the police and not caring about that either. It had to be, didn't it? Aye, it did. The only woman who had reached him in his barrow of grief and guilt and rage, the only woman who had made him wonder, after three hundred years, if there might be life after Milah was a stubborn blonde lass, a student for God's sake, completely off-limits even if he was no longer her professor or even teaching at her institution. Not only that, she now had no idea who she was, had been in a coma and then hurt further by his own fucking idiocy, and now was blithely turning up in the one place he'd thought to run to escape her and protect her, in no idea of the danger, of the shadow, if it. . .
As Killian had expected, the shadow hadn't yet found him here. It was most likely knocking about the Darling house, if anywhere, but as Wendy hadn't yet called him to come back and fight it again, it apparently was no longer going after Jack, as he'd predicted. This, however, was no cause for celebration. It would find him sooner or later, and he was still no closer to working out who was mastering it. How to kill it. He'd have to spend time working out that. And then how to kill the crocodile. And so on. It just went on and on, a cycle of murder and vengeance.
Suddenly exhausted, he desisted from his pacing and dropped into the ratty armchair. It had come with the flat; all of his own things were still back in Boston, and going back to fetch them was a bother and an expense he wasn't prepared to front at this time. He stared dully at the wall, blood banging behind his eyes. Fuck, he had a headache. It might have something to do with the half-empty bottle of rum on the kitchen counter, and he was tempted to go back and polish off the lot, but he knew he'd been drinking more than he ought, more than he had since the first miserable blackened nights immediately after losing Milah, and while he might be a gutless wretch in every other way, at least he should be strong enough to face up to his cumulative series of terrible mistakes without liquid medication. No. Pour it down the drain and go to bed.
Groaning, Killian hauled himself out of the chair and staggered to the counter. He carried the rum to the sink and held it there, poised to tip it out, but couldn't quite bring himself to it. She smashed my ship. Another surge of sick anger burned through him. He'd lost the real thing, and now even the model of it too. Couldn't Emma just have looked where she was going, damn it? Couldn't she just have bloody stayed where she was safe?
His fingers were shaking. Furious with himself, he tipped the bottle up and watched the golden liquid gurgle down the sink, held it there until it was gone. Then, briefly tempted to smash it against the wall, he chucked it into the recycling and stumbled upstairs to his bedroom.
Killian undressed and crawled between the cool sheets, then lay there with his head pounding like a Celtic drum. Ghosts flitted behind his closed eyelids, always out of reach, offering no relief. The night went on. The hours lurched and reeled and staggered away. Somehow, eventually, he must have slept, but his dreams were no comfort. Never forget what you are. Never forget who you are.
It pounded in his head, tormenting him.
Hook.
Hook.
Hook.
Sore, sticky-eyed, and feeling as if he'd been beaten head to toe with a truncheon, Killian dragged himself out of bed at dawn and dressed. It was a clear, cold November morning, and he decided to walk in. His first tute wasn't until 9 AM, but he could stop for a coffee and pastry at Queen's Lane, take a leisurely breakfast and hopefully look less like an escapee from the mental asylum, which was in fact exactly what he felt like. So he pulled on his jacket, scarf, and cap, and slung his leather satchel over his shoulder. Locking the door behind him, he stepped out.
It was a quiet walk up Iffley to the Magdalen Bridge, the bare trees sketching elegant black traceries against the low white winter sky. The sun wasn't warm enough to make much of a difference in the temperature, but it was nonetheless comforting, and Killian felt some of the madness of last night receding just the barest bit, out to sea. Not enough to make it stop hurting, but enough for him to keep on existing, and that was how he had made it so far.
He crossed the bridge and continued up the High to Queen's Lane, ducking under the low khaki awning into the warm, steamy coffee shop to select a cappuccino and croissant. But as much as he wanted to stay a while, finish marking the essays for his students tomorrow, something pulled at him, some prickling on the back of his neck, and it made him uneasy. He asked for the coffee to go and the croissant in a takeaway bag, then stepped back out and quickened his pace.
He was almost running by the time he reached Radcliffe Square, with no idea why. He veered across it and onto Parks Road, suddenly realizing that he was making for Wadham and in a tearing hurry; his coffee was in danger of splashing everywhere. But he ignored it, sprinting up the walk and past the startled porter with barely the courtesy of a good-morning. Then he raced down the quad, toward the fellows' garden. That was where he'd had the interview and gotten the job, but this was something different, something, he could sense it, a thousand ants crawling on his skin –
Killian flew past the chapel, burned around the corner, and saw.
The pale hair was Emma's beyond a doubt. Just as surely as he'd recognized it when her hood had tumbled down, on that fateful night back in Boston, he recognized it now, and it felt like even more of a blow to the chest. She was standing in the trees at the far end of the garden, her back turned to him, holding her hand out to –
Bloody hell. No. No. No.
It was almost like seeing Milah on the deck of the Roger again, Milah between him and the crocodile, her beating heart ripped from her chest while he stood there foolishly, frozen, unable to help her, to save her, to watch it crumbled to dust, only to catch her, hold her as she died –
Not this time.
Not this time.
Killian's own heart shriveled in his chest.
He lunged.