Page 130 of Tendu: Dancing in the Castle

“Look at me, Will. I’m like a patchwork doll.” Sitting on the chair had given a prime view of the mirror. I could tell it wanted to flinch and look away.

“You could never be anything but beautiful, babe. He must tell you that.”

“Umm, well…” I hadn’t given him the chance to tell me much of anything. Heard him tell her that, though, every time I saw him.

“Yeah, him and the doc collared me before,” Will told me. “Want me to convince you to come down for lunch. But you do whatever you want. I’ll go get you something. Not sure why they sent me, to be honest. They should have known I wouldn’t hassle you.”

“The fact that you’ve never shagged Michelle was probably a point in your favour.”

“He must really regret that now. ‘I am very much wishing not to have been doing the shagging of Michelle,’” he said, in a horribly good impersonation of Aleks.

“Will, that’s not funny.”

But somehow it was. And I started to laugh. There was something of a hyena about the sound. And then it was difficult to stop, but various stitches being pulled in various ways soon forced me to calm.

“Okay, I’ll come down with you,” I said. “Help me with my trousers?”

The sound from the great hall was daunting. So many people. So much talking.

Simone came out into the foyer as we walked across it, and I realised I hadn’t seen her since, well, everything. She scowled as she caught sight of us.

“What’s that about?” Will demanded.

“Stay away from me, Will Hearst,” she said. “You too, Amalphia.”

I clung to Will’s arm, unable to cope with the confrontation. Simone ran away up the stairs, and we were joined by curious over-hearers, Aleks among them. The wonder of the fully integrated cinema in my brain demonstrated itself as Will said Simone was a bitch, and Aleks said he would talk to her.

“No,” I said. “I’d rather her unfriendliness than false simpering. Simone and I don’t get on. Leave it, or I’m going back upstairs.”

“Okay,” said Aleks. “Is so good to see you down here, Malphia.”

He smiled warmly, and we entered the hall. Every head turned. There was a collective cheer and clapping.

“Don’t leave me,” I whispered to Will, holding his arm tightly as well-wishers surrounded us.

“Let her get lunch without a parade,” ordered Will, and the crowd dispersed.

Holly brought tomato soup over to me as I sat at the table. Aleks stroked my back. I wanted to shake him off. It was a huge relief when people exited to their afternoon classes, and I stood by the fire alone. Completely alone. For a very short moment.

“Miss Treadwell, Miss Treadwell,” said Colin, joining me by the fire, Pasha at his side. “He hasn’t let us visit you. We have, in fact, been forbidden from doing so. We just wanted to say…” There was a pause.

“It’s hard to know what to say,” I acknowledged. “Tell me about your exploits. Bekah says you both go out every night and rarely make it back in time for class the next morning.”

“But this, it is not true,” said Pasha, taking my hand in a chivalrous manner and guiding me to the sofa. “It is not being every night.”

“And we’ve always made it back in time,” added Colin. “Zolotov just doesn’t see the funny side.”

He certainly didn’t. He came in to the room and sent them away. “I am sorry they are bother you,” he said, crouching down in front of me by the sofa.

“They were okay. It’s you that’s bothering me.” I glowered into the fireplace.

“This, I know. Can you tell me what to do, how to be better for you?”

“I just need to be alone,” I said, finally hearing the fullness of the words. Somewhere, a disconnected part of me grieved the ending. Aleks heard no deeper meaning in the sentence and told me he would be in his new office if I needed him.

I turned my head away from him and looked at the windows instead. He left. The film in my head faded away. The windows remained. Long, pointy and Gothic. Twelve on the wall in front of me, three just like them in the most hateful movie of all time.

It didn’t take long for me to locate the film set: Michelle’s bedroom. I knew most of the staff slept on the second floor, above the studios, and I found her room at the very end of the corridor. It was stripped bare. The, now infamous, to me anyway, bed had no sheets, though its position in the room was the same as it was in the film. Of the camera, there was no sign. The white walls offered no clue to surveillance activities other than a small triangular hole near the floor in the corner. The traditional ‘Laird’s Lug’ did, indeed, provide a view of the great hall, albeit a rather limited one. I could see one of the long tables and the fireplace through the crooked little tunnel in the wall, but nothing else. No plotting. No badness.

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