was no lock. Those piercing eyes stared
at her from the picture on the bedside cabinet. No, not quite the same as Terence's. Very similar, but this
man had something missing from his gaze that Terence, in those dark moments when his guard came down,
could not help displaying: hatred.
He hated the Blackwood Club.
"That makes him my ally, Mum," she said. She laughed again nervously, because talking to herself
was the first sign of madness. But she was not mad. Lost maybe, and confused, and floundering in a stormy
sea of secrets that seemed to get deeper and stormier the more she found out.
She lay on the bed and picked up the book. It was strange reading from where Terence had ended,
as though she had for a moment taken over his life. She read four sen-tences before sleep took her.
That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any
life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been.
Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or
flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memo-rable
day.
She dreamed of invisible stains of blood binding her mother to Josephine Blackwood, and daisy chains
in the park.
****
She woke several times and stared at the door, and every time it remained closed. She had left the
curtains half open so street light bathed the room yellow, a false dawn when-ever she opened her eyes.
When the true dawn came, ac-companied by the sounds of early-morning bustle from the street outside and
Terence moving around in the kitchen, Jazz pulled the duvet up to her chin and sighed. She felt warm and
cosseted, but she knew she had a decision to make.
Terence did not only want her help because he thought she was talented. That was part of it, she
was sure, and. she felt an unavoidable pride in thinking that. But he was also aware that she had secrets.
What better way to reveal them than to keep her close and work with her?
But there were Harry and the others: Stevie, Hattie, Gob... She owed them a lot. They had taken her
in when she most needed help, given her their food, let her stay with them in their secret underground lair,
taught her their ways, and they had lived through the grief of losing Cadge to-gether. They trusted her, and
now she had betrayed them by trying to change. Because that's what she had been doing, hadn't she?
Accepting those shoes from Terence, letting him pay for her haircut, accompanying him to Harrods? He
of-fered her protection and a new life, but in truth she sought far more than that from him. She had been
lured with things she had never seen while living with the United Kingdom. All the good things in life are
in your mind, her mother had once told her, sitting in their small backyard and staring at the fence that
badly needed painting. She had stared for a long time.
The United Kingdom seemed a million miles away from her right now. But there was someone much
closer who could help her avenge her mother's death, and Cadge's death too.
"Maybe we can work together," she whispered. Her voice was startlingly loud, and she glanced at
the old framed photo beside the bed, afraid that the dead magician would be staring at her. He was, but
with the same expression he had worn the night before. Daylight changed nothing.
She sat up in bed, stretching. Then she shook her head. The idea of Terence and Harry working
together seemed foolish —a waking thought that lost all clarity when the dregs of sleep melted away. We
worked together, Terence had said, but she could not imagine that now. The men were just too different,
and it had little to do with the places they chose to live.
There was a knock at the door. "Breakfast?" Terence asked.
"I'll be out in a minute." Jazz sat on the edge of the bed and listened, and for a moment she was
certain that he was still standing outside the door, listening, hand on the handle. She stared at it, waiting for
it to dip, as if she were a doomed twenty-something in some trashy horror movie. Then she heard a kettle
boiling and Terence whistling in the kitchen. She sighed.
After dressing quickly, she walked along to the kitchen and watched him preparing breakfast. He
must have known she was there, but he gave no sign, setting the table