That’s the end of my questioning. Electra doesn’t say as much, but after what she just did I’m no longer so convinced I even want to know everything about her. Instead we sit in silence for a while, watching each other.

Quite a while, actually. Long enough I start to wonder where Edward has got to. His father and I talked for maybe five minutes, add another couple for getting to the meeting room and back and another few because he probably has more to say to Edward than to me… that’s still at most fifteen minutes.

I glance at Electra’s clock. It’s made of a bright white material that’s probably ivory rather than bone, though you can never be quite sure with Electra, and carved with an elegance that doesn’t seem her usual style. Not that that’s what I’m paying attention to right now. “What was the time when they left?” I ask.

“You didn’t note it?”

“No. I didn’t think they’d take this long.”

Electra shrugs. “Two evident explanations occur.”

I wait for her to go on, and realise after a second that she’s going to make me ask. “What are they?”

“One, Lord Blackthorn and his son have some more involved business than a simple conversation. Perhaps he is teaching Edward advanced magic, or they have travelled to a more secure location. And we were not informed because Edward did not know, and why would Lord Blackthorn think to tell us anything?”

That sounds depressingly plausible. I nod.

“Two, the business was no more than a simple conversation. But Edward chose not to return once it was concluded.”

But why wouldn’t he –

“I’m not certain of why this would be the case. One possibility is that Lord Blackthorn became aware of what I did yesterday and no longer wants Edward to be taught by me. But I don’t find that likely. Do you?”

She’s fishing for information. What Lord Blackthorn knows, what we’ve told him, whether I think it’s likely he’d be able to figure it out. “No,” I say, cautiously but truthfully.

“Or… it occurs to me,” she says slowly, “that were I Lord Blackthorn, and if I wanted information on a matter you refused to discuss with me… the most natural thing to do would be to ask Edward to find out for me.”

Stars. She’s right.

And now he knows I’ve been keeping secrets from him. And I have to tell him to his face that I’m not going to tell him. Charles First-King. Edwin the Just. I close my eyes, slow my breathing.

“I thought so,” Electra says. “The way you reacted to my warning… that wasn’t a girl who would never contemplate it or thought of it as a distant hypothetical. That was a girl who knew that it could become very real very soon.”

Simon the Drunkard. Thomas the Defender. So she didn’t know when she gave the warning. I just didn’t hide my reaction well enough. Never mind that, though, what am I going to do? “I have to find him – “

“I would advise you not to do so immediately. It depends on details of the situation which I don’t know - unless you choose to tell me?”

I shake my head.

“Worth a try. But… it’s likely that his initial reaction will be strong. If you find him now, while he’s still in the grip of that, I doubt that he would listen to reason. You do have reason?”

I nod.

“Good. If you kept secrets from Edward without a very good reason, that would likely be irreparable. As it is, if you wait for a few hours I think he’ll at least listen to you.”

She says it as if it’s just another lesson. As if she’s not talking about my entire world at stake if I get this wrong. Because that’s what this is. A lesson is less scary to think about, though. This is just a test. Maybe not one I’ve prepared for, but that doesn't mean I'm going to fail it. I just need to stay calm and think through logically.

Edward knows that Elsie and I share a secret, one that I’ve kept from him and refused to tell his father. He knows that his father wants to know that secret and isn’t above using him to get it. He likely also knows that Elsie will be meeting Mildred Cavendish in a few weeks.

I know Edward maybe better than anyone. I understand how he thinks. If I’m Edward, given that information, how do I react?

Mildred is the enemy. If Elsie is willingly choosing to talk to her, apparently to try to be friends, that makes Elsie the enemy too. Tallulah is keeping the enemy’s secrets from me. (Because telling Edward is still out of the question. Much as I long to, when his father has explicitly asked…) Does that make Tallulah the enemy too?

No; Tallulah can’t be the enemy. Tallulah is my friend. So why isn’t she telling me this? Does she not trust me? Stars, can I trust her? It’s far too late to ask that question. If Tallulah is the enemy, I’m as good as dead. Even a fraction of what she knows in the wrong hands would be enough to destroy me.

I can’t let that happen. I have to make sure she doesn’t give away any of my secrets. I have to make her tell me everything. I have to make sure she stays loyal to me, whatever it takes.

I blink a few times and come back to myself, disturbed by the conclusions I’ve reached. That voice of Edward in my mind isn’t the boy I became friends with or the one I desperately want to stay friends with.

It’s a voice that reduces the world to black and white. With him or against him. No room for shades of grey: if you show anything less than total loyalty, you have to be counted as a piece on the opposing side of the board. It’s a voice of a scared boy in a world where no-one can be trusted, doing whatever he has to just to survive.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

And more than anything else, it’s a voice that reminds me powerfully of Edward’s father.

Stars. Is that the core of Lord Blackthorn, then? I feel like a fool: see, at heart the monster is just a scared little kid who wants someone he can trust and rely on, not a monster at all.

But the revelation feels instinctively right, and besides: hasn’t Electra just shown me that people can be two things that seem to contradict each other?

I find myself laughing bitterly. So that’s Lord Blackthorn, then, but it doesn’t help me here. Understanding Edward like this might have made the problem clear. But I’m not sure it’s got me any closer to a solution.

I have to persuade him that it’s not a betrayal, what I’m doing. That I’m keeping Elsie’s secrets, just as I’d keep his from anyone. That I can’t tell him – but I still trust him, it’s just that –

Oh. “Oh.”

“Oh?” I’d nearly forgotten where I was. I’d definitely forgotten that Electra was sitting there watching me.

“I just realised something,” I say. And I am not telling Electra what it is. It wouldn’t surprise me if she knew Edward well enough to figure it out herself, but if that’s not the case then I don’t want to help her.

“Something helpful, I hope?”

“I think so.” I still want to run to Edward right now and try to explain, but Electra is right. If I find him when he’s in the state I imagine, he won’t be able to listen to me. There’s also the question of what if he doesn’t want to be found? I have no doubt he has multiple places he could hide in the Academy where I couldn’t get to him.

It feels so wrong to not go after him, to sit and do something else while he’s suffering alone. I hate myself a little. But he needs that space more than he needs me, right now. It’s what’s best for us both.

And yet I can’t just go and sit in the dormitory and read or go looking for Elizabeth or Robin with that knowledge in the back of my mind. “I shouldn’t look for Edward for another few hours, then?”

“That is what I would advise.”

“Then… can I stay here? Can you keep teaching me? It’s just – “ an attack of nerves makes me keep talking – “it would be hard for me to distract myself, and – “

That was a mistake. Electra gives me another of her evil smiles. “Oh, yes. I think I could distract you very thoroughly.”

“Preferably without torture being involved,” I add hastily.

“Fine…” She sounds more like a petulant toddler than I thought she was capable of sounding. “I’m a little unsure what to teach you, though.”

I can’t even summon up the energy to care that she doesn’t think I’m good enough without the flow-state anomaly.

“You know enough combat magic by now to be able to defend yourself against any non-magical attackers without need of… whatever you and Edward did. Teaching you more will have to wait until I have found alternate teaching methods which will not involve that occurring again. And it is highly, highly illegal to teach teleportation to unqualified magicians, and with good reason.”

I narrow my eyes. “That’s still ruling out vast areas of magic.”

“Because I don’t think it would be productive to teach you.”

I do have the energy to care about that, at least, and it shows on my face.

“You could be a great magician, Tallulah. I didn’t grow up with magic either – I was nearly eighteen when I became a magician – and still, here I am. Just because you’re not Edward doesn’t make you not significantly better than average for your age and experience. And it definitely doesn’t mean you don’t have potential.”

Part of me thrills at the validation of those words, but I’m mostly just confused. “Then why…”

“Because I don’t think becoming a great magician is what you need. Or what you want.”

She knows far too much about me, understands me far too well. Tells me so many things I already know but just don’t quite want to admit. “But Edward – “

“Edward wants you to be a great magician, because it’s what he wants for himself. But he doesn’t need a great magician for his closest companion. Even if you want to shape yourself into what he needs – which I would be very careful about, incidentally – magic is not the way to go.”

I’m not sure what I want to shape myself into. I haven’t thought much about the future since Falling – it took me so long to realise I even had one, and then the present has had more than enough to keep me occupied since. “What does he need, then?” I ask. Out of curiosity, nothing more.

“Lord Blackthorn,” Electra says instead of giving me a direct answer, “is a politician. He has an extremely unusual style of politics, yes, but he makes it work. For all he claims to disdain tradition and convention, he understands it well enough to use it for his own ends. He knows how to earn people’s loyalty, how to make what he needs happen.”

I think I see where she’s going with this, and I’m not sure I like it. “Edward doesn’t,” I say. “He just wants to be a magician. But being a Blackthorn, being a Royal Magician… that’s inevitably going to need some amount of politics.”

Electra nods.

“Which you think he wouldn’t be good at.” I can see why she’d get to that conclusion, to be fair. “And… you think I would.” That part I’m more sceptical about.

“Precisely. And I am not the best choice of teacher when it comes to politics. If you wanted one, I’d advise going through Lord Blackthorn’s contacts – “ her lips twitch in amusement at my disgusted look. “But that doesn’t mean I have nothing to offer here.”

The idea of becoming a politician, becoming the person Edward needs by his side, doesn’t horrify me as much as it once would have. I want to change things, don’t I? Isn’t that the way to make it happen?

“What,” I say carefully, “exactly, are you offering?”

“You’ve probably realised by now that I understand people. In general, and individuals in particular. Knowing how someone thinks, knowing what they want means that you can predict how they will act, and how you can influence their actions.”

Manipulating people. Finding ways to make sure they do what you want. Part of me is instinctively repelled by it, and yet… isn’t that what I’ve been doing already? Isn’t that where my success has come from?

With Lord Blackthorn, both in the riot and then just now, I found the lines he wasn’t prepared to cross and used them to my advantage. I worked with the headmaster to tell my story to the world, convinced him that I was a reasonable person and that my way of doing things could work.

And it’s been the way I think about problems for a lot longer than that. “The best way to understand someone’s actions,” I murmur, “is first to understand their motivations.”

Electra studies me curiously for a moment. “Where did you get that line from?”

“I – my history teacher. At Genford. It was one of the phrases she liked to use.”

“Miss Jenkins?”

“You know about her?”

“Let’s consider that Lesson One,” Electra replies. “Always do your research on a person before walking into the same room as them.”

She’d researched me before sitting down in that hospital chair that day? I knew she understood at least the basics of my situation, but that sounds as if she did a much more thorough job than just glancing over a file or two.

And then she put that knowledge to use in our conversations. How many of the decisions I’ve made since then have been influenced by her? My mind flicks back through all our early interactions, everything she said and did, with this new context. And then it hits me.

The knives, that first day. And something Elizabeth said once, when we were talking about her: it reminded her of Army officers, making themselves into the enemy. Giving the soldiers under their command a common enemy to unite against. And she must have known Edward well enough even then to know how difficult it would be for him to break through his natural distrust to form a connection with me – without something placing us on the same side.

Stars. “You manipulated me and Edward into becoming friends.”