The yellow cab pulled up before iron gates with a crunch of gravel. Madeline paid the driver, a middle-aged, grizzled man smelling of cigarette ash and shoe polish, noticed him leer at her and slide his thumb across her wrist as he took the money. She felt a lash of lust whip her insides, felt the tips of her teeth touch her tongue.
No. Not now. Not here.
She snatched her hand back and turned away from him, crunched up the drive away from temptation. But towards what?
She found herself hesitating behind a box hedge, knowing that once she rounded it she would be confronted with the sweep of lawn sloping up toward the back of the great grey house, that she would be seen by the person who even now was leaning against the thick stone balustrade, that there would be no going back. She couldn't help remembering the first time she'd come here, sneaking along the lichened walls with her heart in her mouth, terrified of capture but desperate for protection, her fear warring with her hope as she peered in at a lit window and saw firelight, comfort, the back of a tall man's head and over his shoulder, a young man with an old-fashioned face, with eyes the were infinitely blue and infinitely kind.
A lot has changed since then, she told herself, shaking away the memory. You're no longer that helpless innocent. And Charles... She had thought that she knew what Charles had become. The televised footage from the incident in Paris had captured him as well, standing, horrified and helpless as he watched his former lover try to kill his estranged sister. But now...
Madeline had left Venice without a second thought. She hadn't given notice on her job, or to her landlady. She had just dried her tears, packed a bag, and headed for Paris. She wasn't sure why, even as she got on the train; she had just known the second she heard Erik's name on the radio, heard that Raven was hurt, that it was Erik who had hurt her - she didn't understand why, but she knew in her soul that she had to go to them, to be with them, to understand. Even if that did mean confronting Charles.
First, however, she had to have money. She didn't know how long she would be gone, or what might lie ahead. She could rely on very little; but access to funds at least she could ensure, with a slight detour. What remained of her modest pay packet from the library had gone on the train ticket to Zurich.
After she had left Charles's home - after everything that had happened after that - she hadn't felt right about using the money Charles and Erik had given her to start her new life, to give her a choice. Quite apart from the ethical and emotional dimensions, she was aware that Charles could track her location if she used the accounts he had set up. Of course, closing the account and moving the money to a secret Swiss bank was a futile gesture - if Charles ever really wanted to find her, he could do it any moment that he chose. But after what had happened, she had needed to make the gesture, needed the symbolic break with her past, all of her past. She had put all the money in a secure account under an assumed name, and not thought about it again for almost nine years. She had made her own way in the world - until now.
It was in Zurich that she had seen the news reports of the attack in Washington D.C., had seen Raven save the President from Erik, Charles save Raven from herself, Erik disappear to who knew where. Her plans had changed abruptly; the family she had thought to find in Paris was scattered to the four winds again, and there was only one place she could think of to start looking for them: the house at Westchester.
She squared her shoulders and rounded the hedge, prepared to confront the person on the patio, whose scent brought back so many memories.
The evening light had faded and there was no moon, but Raven was outlined in the warm glow from the long windows. Her sharp eyes instantly spotted the deeper shadow detach itself from the hedge, and she stiffened into a fighting posture.
"Who's there? Show yourself!"
Maddy stepped into an oblong of amber light, raised a hand in awkward greeting.
"Raven? It's me. I'm back."
A stunned silence, followed by an incredulous murmur.
"Madeline? Is that really you?"
She nodded, stepped forward.
"It's really me. It's good to see you, Raven."
The two girls - women now - approached each other cautiously. They had been so close once, almost sisters; but ten years, a war, a hundred secrets stood between them. Can we ever get back what we've lost? Maddy wondered, and was instantly answered when Raven reached out and pulled her into a bear hug.
Maddy felt the hard shell she'd been building round her heart crack and crumble as Raven's warmth surrounded her, squeezed her eyes tightly shut as she returned the embrace. They stood like that for a long time, until Raven stepped backwards to look her over, whistled between her teeth.
"Damn! What's it been, ten years? You haven't changed much, have you?"
Maddy smiled weakly, willed her face not to show what she was feeling.
"You should see me under striplight – I've got wrinkles in places I didn't know I had places. And anyhow, you're one to talk! It was so strange when I saw you on the news - you're just the same as you always were, like no time had passed at all."
Raven grimaced.
"If only. A lot has changed, Maddy. Everything, in fact. And all of us. Me. Charles. Hank..." She trailed off, giving Maddy a sideways look.
And Erik, Maddy supplied silently. Erik most of all. She glanced at Raven's calf, which was wrapped in a clean white bandage.
"How's your leg?" she asked. Raven scowled.
"Healing at last. It itches like hell. He's not here, by the way. No-one knows where he is." Madeline felt some part of her that had been holding its breath let it out. But was that disappointment, or relief?
Raven sat down on the stone step with a sigh, looked up at Maddy with a wry, tired smile. "What a frigging week, am I right?"
Maddy nodded, still slightly dazed. It was so bizarre to be here, where she had never thought to be again, talking so calmly with Raven after the madness of the last ten years, the cataclysm of the last few days. She sank down on the step beside the blue girl, put her hand on her arm.
"What happened, Raven? How on earth did it ever come to this?"
Raven puffed out her cheeks and blew air through her pursed lips, with a sound like a deflating balloon.
"That's a big question. I mean, how long have you got?" She slanted Maddy a suddenly reproachful look. "And anyhow, you'd know a damn sight more if you'd have stuck around…"
Maddy snatched back her hand as if she'd been burned, was on her feet at once, her cheeks flaming. Raven put out a conciliatory hand.
"OK, OK, I take it back – don't run off again, for Christ's sake. I think we've all been doing enough running away the last ten years. And I don't think I can wait another ten years to find out what happened with you and Fiskel."
Maddy flinched at the name.
"Hank gave you my letter?"
Raven nodded.
"Oh yeah, just the other day when I got here. Glue still stuck down, of course. You know Hank. What the hell happened? And I don't just mean with your sister. What happened after that? All this time, Charles and Hank have just assumed that you were killed. Why didn't you come home?"
Maddy sat back down, shaking her head.
"You first. What happened to you after Erik was taken? What happened to A-" Maddy noticed Raven's shoulders stiffen, and changed tack abruptly. "What happened to everyone?"
Raven sighed. "Still too big a question, Maddy. Let's start somewhere, at least, with the Brotherhood – or what was left of it after Erik was taken; after Sean found us…."