Page 57 of The Unknown Birds

“I’m sorry. It must have been hard feeling that way.”

But Ash didn’t want his sympathy or his regret. It was her place to be sorry for not trusting them with the truth, for trusting him with everything else but that—her fault and her sorrow alone to bear. “I can’t say I wouldn’t do things differently if I had the chance.”

“No use in that.”

“No.”

They walked along in silence then, stopping when they reached the park, where a group of fresh young army recruits had been assembled to practice their drills.

“Shall we sit and watch them?” Ashley asked, nodding to a nearby bench. “Pass judgment like a pair of crusty old crows?”

Rook laughed, but he seemed happy enough to rest in the sunshine, so they joined the pigeons to watch the young men march.

The whole unit’s timing was terribly out of sync. They tripped over each other, one in every three treading on the boots of the man in front.

“Halt!” their leader finally called out, but the boys were so green the parade rest was an even worse shambles than the marching.

Leaning in close enough for his breath to tickle Ashley’s skin, Rook whispered, “Abysmal.”

She snickered, trying to ignore the way the hairs on her neck pulled towards him as if in recognition.

“You call that bloody marching?” he went on, imitating Sergeant Major Chapman’s grumpy shout. “Just where did you train? The seaside?” he added in Lieutenant Napier’s earnest deadpan.

“Stand to, stand to, you soft, lazy sots. Christ, what a sorry lot,” Ash whispered back.

“Line up evenly, or I shall line you up,” Rook added, making Ashley chuckle despite herself. And even though the teasing invited more ghosts to join their rank, the millstone around her neck began to slacken.

A handful of the soldiers were sent off a ways to run a relay of a few hundred yards. They were awkward and a little slow, but there were one or two promising sprinters among the lot.

“D’you ever miss it? Running?” Rook asked.

“I do,” she said, frowning at the admission. “Sometimes I miss it very much. It just came naturally—I was always and forever shouted at for running as a girl.”

“When was the last time you did?”

She shook her head. She hadn’t run a day since her final race across No Man’s Land.

“You can tell me. Just because my running days are over doesn’t mean yours should be. I never much cared for it anyhow.”

“There’s nothing to tell. I…” She shrugged. “It’s not the done thing. Women don’t run.”

“Rubbish. Titled ladies, perhaps, but there are women’s running clubs. You should go for it if you want to.”

She huffed a laugh at the idea of her hoofing it down Whitechapel Road like she was a girl of fourteen.

“I mean it,” he said. “Let me live vicariously.”

“You just said you hated running,” she protested.

“It’s not about the run though is it? It’s about how it makes you feel.”

“Tired?” she teased.

“Have it your way,” he sighed, crossing his arms, pretending to be put out.

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“A pair of Plimsolls, I’d imagine. Aren’t they all the rage for running in?”