If we hadn’t had that fight, if he hadn’t stormed off…
Would I have admitted how I felt – how I really felt – on my own? I don’t know. I was right though. I was right that it would hurt; I took a risk and it hurts more than I ever imagined. But then, I’ve never felt like this about someone, have I? I never thought I could.
Aidan knows me. He knows me, and I know him and I can read him like a book. Like his book – and I was right about that too, when I knew that it would change everything. Because reading that is like looking through a window and he is on the other side of it looking back. He is the reflection in the mirror. We match. We fit.
And somehow, we’ve managed to mess it all up.
Sam waited for me for as long as she could, but even her patience has limits – and besides, there are still jobs to do. She went downstairs while I was still in the shower, which does at least mean I can get ready without her popping in and out of my room every thirty seconds. The peace is what I need.
Time is what I need.
When we get home, I’ll help Dad go through the CVs for his new assistant – and then?
I don’t know.
College, definitely. Concentrating on that.
And then?
Whatever I want – because why not?
Because my world is bigger and has more in it than a convention hotel after all. It can be as big and as full as I want it to be.
For tonight, though, all I can think about is him.
I ache and shiver and burn. And all because, yet again, he isn’t here and he should be.
When I picked my dress for the ball, I thought the tiny silver stars scattered across the black fabric looked whimsical; it reminded me of the Piecekeepers’ banner, and I thought it would make him laugh. Now, I’ll just be going to the masquerade as a Black Hole of Misery. I slip it over my head and pull on my shoes, and tie the ribbons of my mask behind my head before checking the damage in the mirror. I’ll pass. Besides, Aidan or no Aidan, I’ve worked hard for tonight – and so have my friends. So my Blu-Tacked, messy, frightened heart and I are going downstairs and we are going dancing.
In the couple of hours since I left the ballroom, some kind of enchantment has overtaken it. The specially-laid floor, which was covered in dust sheets before, is now a chequerboard of black and white tiles that glitter in the light. Artificial candles in vast silver candelabra taller than I am line the room, their little bulbs flickering just like real ones in a breeze. Balloons bob along the ceiling and trail their ribbons just above our heads, while in the centre of it all is a tiny grove of real, living trees. Their slender stems and branches reach up above us, their pots are buried in a deep drift of soft green moss (which already has several people sitting on it and poking at it, laughing) while tiny fabric roses dangle from the branches on ribbons. The music seems to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once; it’s just drifting in the air, as much a part of it as oxygen.
It takes my breath away.
“It looks wonderful…” I begin, but Dad comes clacking up with his cane and a black mask that covers the top half of his face. Combined with the black velvet suit and the silver waistcoat he’s wearing, it’s quite a look. Bea picked it out, of course, saying that even though she wouldn’t be here, she wanted everyone to see that her husband was the most handsome man in the room. (I left at that point. Can you blame me?)
“It was Aidan’s idea. He wanted it to be a surprise. You can’t imagine what it took to get these trees in without you seeing.” He shakes his head as Sam appears in the doorway. Her dress is the colour of spring leaves and looks like something Marie Antoinette would have worn – all silk and ribbon and lace. Her hair is piled on top of her head and streaked with gold and she looks incredible.
“Samira, I believe the dress code was ‘black and white magic’. With the emphasis on black and white,” says Dad, raising an eyebrow.
She puts one hand on her hip and smiles. “Mr Angelo? I think you’ll find I am the damn magic.”
She smooths down the skirt of her dress and steps around me to take my dad’s arm. He’s trying not to laugh when he offers it to her, and the pair of them saunter off to the dance floor. Halfway there, she looks back at me. “You know, you really should check out those trees, Lex…”
There are people walking across the dance floor, people standing in groups and chatting, people carrying their drinks. Some are even dancing. All of them are masked. All of them have made an effort – some are cosplayers in black-and-white versions of their favourite costumes, some are dressed like Regency princes or like kings and queens…and I’m sure I saw a couple of Jane Austens having a fight over whose dress works better. There are feathers and corsets and sparkling jewels everywhere…and that’s just on the guys. I feel quite understated in my starry black dress…but I didn’t fancy being mistaken for Cinderella again.
Nadiya waves from behind the trees, her silver dress and matching hijab making her glow in the shadows. And Bede – homing in on her from the other side – is being Mad Jonathan Strange, dressed in a black frock coat and wearing a wild wig, carrying a toy mouse tucked under his arm. He spots me and brandishes it, swinging it round by its tail. Very funny.
And, as if by magic, the crowd on the dance floor separates, pulling apart as neatly as waves drawn by the tide – and there he is.
A man in black, sitting under the trees.
Black suit, black shirt, black tie, black shoes. A black mask just like mine covering his eyes.
He is a storm, a whirlwind, a hurricane.
And he came back.
I look at him and he looks at me – and he stands, and he bows.
He bows.
I could get used to this – not that I’m curtseying back or anything. That would be stupid.
“You’re here,” I say when we meet in the middle. It’s all I can say, and I hope he hears everything I’ve packed inside those words.
“Turns out I didn’t want to be anywhere else.” Behind his mask his eyes are deeper and darker than ever – and then he lifts my hand to his mouth and presses a kiss against my skin.
“Can you even see anything without your glasses? I mean, how did you even know it was me?”
“Sheer blind luck,” he says with a shrug. “But then you got close enough for me to see your feet clearly and I figured there would only be one person in this whole hotel who would wear black trainers to a masked ball.”
“Ah, but they’re glittery black trainers.” I hold up one foot to prove my point.
“And that’s how I knew it was you.”
“Until I started talking, because—”
“Lexi?”
“Mmm?”
“Stop.”
“Oh. Right.”
I step back and look at him, and he looks at me. “Earlier…” I say.
“I was a dick,” he says at the exact same time – and we both stop. He peers past me, and I turn to see who he’s watching; it’s Nadiya. She gives me a double thumbs up and nods at him.
“I apologized to Nadiya,” he says…and suddenly he’s closer to me than he was a moment ago. I don’t remember him stepping towards me, or me stepping towards him, but now I’m seeing him again I don’t think we can ever be close enough.
“Good.”
Bede has joined Nadiya, and behind Aidan’s back on the other side of the trees, they are acting out an elaborate skit which seems to involve a lot of swooning and bowing and kissing of hands.
Oh, I get it.
I give them my sternest glare. The pair of them dissolve into hopeless laughter.
“And I’m sorry. What I said…”
“No.” I make myself step back from him so I can look up at his face, show him I mean it. “I think the reason I got so angry with you was because I know you were right. You were right about the conventions, you were right about my dad. It’s just…if I’m not Lexi Angelo-as-in-Angelo-events, Lexi with the clipboard…who am I? If I stop being her, do I stop being me?�
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“Of course not! Are you crazy?”
“You’ve got, you know, stuff. You’ve got your books – you said it yourself, it’s your career – and two names. I don’t even have one of my own. Everything is this.” I wave a hand around at the ballroom. “My dad, my friends – even my name. They all belong here.”
“And you do too. That doesn’t change because you do other things as well. You don’t stop being you. It’s not…” He looks around – and I can see him trying not to smile. “It’s not that black and white.”
Well. Right.
Time to be brave.
“We never did get round to seeing each other outside of conventions…maybe I could come to Bath sometime. See you in the real world, you know?” I can’t look at him. I can’t. But I can’t stop either. “Maybe you could show me that museum?”
“The Holburne? I’d like that.”
When I risk a glance up at him, he’s smiling; he’s smiling like he means it.
“Only if you’re sure. Because otherwise—”
“No, I’m sure. I could show you where the magic happens…” Above his mask, I see one of his eyebrows arch.
“Or you could just show me the museum.”
His hair is even more ruffled than it was earlier, like he’s been running in the wind. I try to picture him with a haircut like his friend Nick’s, cropped close to his skull – and I can’t. Aidan’s storm cloud of hair is the only way I can imagine him.
“What happened to your friends? Dinner?” I ask, and already his hands are reaching for mine and mine for his; our fingers knitting together as though even they know what a good fit they are. What a good fit we are.
“I left.” He draws me closer, and I am leaning into him and, slowly, I feel my heart stitching itself back together as I breathe him in, rest my cheek against him.
“You left?”
“Yeah. We were in the pub and…I don’t know.”
“But I thought you hadn’t seen each other for ages and he’s your best friend and everything?”
“Two years ago, maybe. And I thought the thing with Ali might be a problem at first…”
Ali. Right.
“But it wasn’t even that in the end.”
Is that good? Bad? Middling to vaguely indifferent? I DON’T KNOW ANY MORE.
“So…?” I try prompting him. I need to know, before I start to feel; before I let myself feel. I need to know.
“We were in the pub and having a drink…and they started making jokes, you know? About the convention. About everybody here. About Sam. They were pretty rude to her this morning and, the way they were talking about it, you’d think it was the best joke anyone’s ever made.”
“Sam? They were rude to Sam? She didn’t say anything!” I’d thought I wasn’t keen on them before. But now? Wow.
“Maybe it didn’t even bother her, but it bothered me.” His fingers tighten, ever so slightly, around mine. “While I was talking to them in the lobby, she came running up to ask if I knew where you were, and they…”
I get it. “Captain America. They were dicks about the costume, weren’t they?”
“They were. And I got it. I got why you were so angry with me – and listening to the way they talked about it in the pub, I realized I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be here. And I wanted to be here with you.”
This, of course, would be the appropriate moment to melt into his arms; to let him sweep me off my feet and carry me up a vast curving staircase that will materialize out of nowhere. But unfortunately, I’m still me and it comes out before I can stop it: “I was worried you’d say I was nobody. When they asked who I was.”
“What?”
I can hear the shock woven through his voice – as though he can’t believe I’d even think something like that, let alone say it out loud.
This is…encouraging.
“That’s why I left you with them. Because I didn’t want to hear you say ‘Oh, this is Lexi – she’s nobody’. Because I’m not nobody. I’m me.”
He grabs my hand again and he pulls it up to his face; curling his fingers around mine, he runs my knuckles across his cheeks, the line of his jaw, his lips. His other hand slides around my waist and pulls me in to him until his face fills my vision and he really is all I see – and then he ducks his head to one side and his lips graze my ear and I can feel him whisper it…
“You’re you, Lexi Angelo. And that’s…that’s exactly why I’ve fallen for you.”
The room spins, and we are at the middle of it; the only fixed point. Everything else whirls around us like shooting stars and the storm breaks about me. He smells like the sea seen from a rooftop in Brighton, like laughter in hotel corridors. Like magic and stories and streetlights – and lightning far off in the night.
This time, I don’t – won’t – pull away, and I raise my face to his. Because he feels like a perfect fit…and he tastes like the courage it’s taken me my whole life to find.
And he is – we are – worth every second of it.
“Here. I wanted to give this to you earlier – I was going to, but it ended up not being the time.” From somewhere behind his back he produces a black rectangular wooden box, about the size of a book. “It’s for you.”
“What is it?”
“Well, generally the idea with presents is that you open them?”
So I do.
The lid of the box hinges up, and inside – resting on a black velvet lining painted with tiny silver stars, just like my dress – is a book. It’s a copy of Piecekeepers – but it’s different. Aidan takes the box while I take the book, and I really see what I’m looking at.
It’s a new edition. A limited edition. On the very first page, a small silver stamp says:
1 of 100
“When the book really took off, Eagle’s Head said it might be cool to do a special collectors’ edition. I wanted you to have the first one.”
I turn the page. The title is embossed in silver ink. It shines like it’s alive.
I turn the page again – and almost drop the book, because the epigraph, and below it the line about meeting in jail that I accidentally quoted at him that day, has disappeared…and in their place is a new dedication.
To Lexi, for the night we spent in jail.
“You did this for me?”
“Why not? You’re Lexi Angelo.”
“Shhh. It’s supposed to be a masked ball. What if you give away my secret identity?”
“Hard to say. The night’s still young.”
“Oh, you didn’t just say that!”
And I take his hand in mine and we walk together across the dance floor where my friends and my family – my complicated, untidy, messed-up, unconventional convention family – are dancing and talking and laughing all around us, and I could almost believe in magic.
I could even believe in Haydn Swift and his Piecekeepers tonight…but I don’t want to live in his world any more.
I don’t need to.
I have my own, and it’s bigger than I ever believed it could be. It’s here and it’s now and it’s everything that comes after – and I have no idea what that’s going to be. But I can’t wait to find out.
Sam’s whisper has always been louder than she thinks, and when she near-bellows, “What are we doing?” everybody shushes her as one. This makes Nadiya even more nervous than she was before – and she keeps looking over her shoulder in case someone’s following. “Are you sure we’re not going to get yelled at by the night manager?”
“SHHHHH!”
We tiptoe along the corridor, leaving our shoes by the stairs for a quick getaway. Each of us is carrying a large, round, steel room-service tray, while on the other three floors of the hotel, several doors have neatly stacked piles of dirty plates sitting beside them on the carpet.
Aidan stops, surveys the corridor ahead of us. “Show them how it’s done, Lexi.” As I step forward, he adds: “Want a push?”
“Nope. I’ve got a better idea.”
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And, holding my tray, I back up a few steps…and I run. I run like my life depends on it and I run like I’m chasing all the nows I ever cared about; everything that ever mattered.
Every time I was moving crates of books in hotel service corridors at midnight, every time I’ve hidden under a table, every single breakfast meeting with my dad…
Every phone call with Sam, every time I’ve groaned at Bede’s jokes, every time Nadiya’s told me exactly what I should be doing with just a twitch of her eyebrow.
Every time I’ve laughed.
Every time I’ve cried.
Every time I’ve sworn about not being able to get my homework done and plan an author reading schedule and somehow managed to do them both anyway.
Everything that makes me me; that makes me her – Lexi Angelo.
And I say “Okay” to all of them, because I know there’s more to me than just one thing.
And when I’m running fast enough, I drop the tray and jump on, gliding to a stop to a round of applause. I turn to bow and pick up my tray…and am almost knocked flying by Sam – because of course she couldn’t wait for me to get out of the way, but came barrelling down the corridor right behind me. Bede comes next, then Nadiya, clamping her hands over her eyes as soon as she’s on the tray. Aidan comes last. He slides down the corridor towards us like he’s carried on the wind.
And when he comes to the end and he jumps, I catch him.
THE END
The air in the upstairs gallery had a peculiar smell; something like hot dust. It caught in the back of Jamie’s throat and prickled. A PA system nearby crackled into life and a polite voice asked visitors to evacuate this section of the building – something about a fault with the air conditioning – but Jamie wasn’t listening, because there she was.
The girl from the steps, striding through the room full of Raphael’s paintings – impossibly confident; her coat flying behind her like a battle flag. She swept past him without a second glance and disappeared into room sixty-one.
Jamie watched the tourists shuffling past him in the opposite direction, heading back towards the stairs. And then he looked at the empty doorway she had walked through.
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