bath, and a line of soap and razors on the windowsill, which was right down near the floor.
Kite was sitting straight in the bath, facing away. The marks Lawrence had left were vivid stripes. Under those, he was burned. The scars down his face were only part of it. They reached across to his spine in liquid patterns. It was an old wound, but it looked painful. He must have been able to feel it pull whenever he moved. His undamaged skin was translucent. He looked like glass someone careless had left too near a blast furnace.
Joe stretched, sore. He put his head back against the archway. He could have slept like that. From downstairs came a gust of laughter.
‘Thanks,’ Joe said. ‘For not leaving me at the prison. I know you could have done without bringing me home with you.’
Kite laughed. He was pulling his hair out of its plait. That gave Joe a strange stir, because it was something he’d only ever seen women do before. ‘You brought me.’
‘Well. We must have got on really well at the lighthouse, mustn’t we,’ Joe said. ‘I don’t remember, but I’m feeling protective.’
Kite was quiet for a second. Joe saw the bones in his back flicker. ‘Could you go away now, please?’
Joe hissed his breath through his teeth. ‘I’m not going to make any stupid allegations—’
‘Yes; no, but I’m in the bath.’ He sounded strained.
‘My master talks to me in the bath. Not normal?’
Kite inclined his head without looking back and pressed his hands over his face. His breathing was irregular. Joe realised, feeling slow, that for the entire conversation Kite had been crying. ‘Not a paragon of normal.’
‘Peril of having only a two-year memory,’ Joe said, trying to sound as though he’d not noticed. ‘People can convince me of anything. I shall sod off.’ He wanted to say something else, but he couldn’t think what would help. Stuck in his throat like a shard of glass was the knowledge that Agatha had been killed on her way to murder her brother.
That, the practical voice in his head said, would be something to break Kite with later, if he needed to.
When it was his turn, Joe sank into the hot water – it was reddish from the blood Kite had washed off, but still steaming and wonderful – and went right under it for as long as he could hold his breath. A week was more than enough time to miss being clean. Some of the unpleasantness of everything faded away in the steam. He had meant to ask if he could borrow some clothes, but when he looked back at the door, Kite was already there, kneeling to leave some on the threshold.
When Joe put it on, the shirt was so well-laundered that it felt stiff. Once he was dressed he stood in the window to see out over the castle and the city, and folded his arms to feel it tighten across his back. The jacket that went over it was better sewn than anything he had had before, plain though it was. He straightened out its hem to see just how much fabric the tailor had used. It fell in heavy pleats when he let it go. Even M. Saint-Marie’s things weren’t so fine.
Kite looked different clean and ironed. Out of context, Joe wouldn’t have recognised him. He must have been sitting with his back to the fire, because his hair was dry already, and he’d tied it into an untidy knot rather than the uniform queue. It had a curl to it that made him look softer than normal. ‘I’ll buy you a drink downstairs,’ he said. He was gazing at Joe’s jacket, then seemed to notice what he was doing and looked away.
‘Thanks,’ Joe said, and then had a bolt of horror when he understood that he must have been wearing Jem Castlereagh’s clothes.
31
London, 1797
The Admiralty’s New Year party had taken over the whole of the main hall at the Naval College in Greenwich. Carriages glided down the long drive, between the lawns and the trees full of coloured lamps, and boys waited out on the steps for people’s invitations, hats, and coats.
The cold was intense here, because the Thames was only forty yards away and a sea wind was coming in off the water, but inside was brilliant and hot. Free-standing candelabra marked the way into the main hall, which made a corridor of warmth. The gilt at the tops of the columns glinted, and