Page 63

The kitchen fell quiet except for Tala, who had discovered that if she kicked both feet against the bouncer’s footplate, it made a satisfying thud that she was prepared to repeat indefinitely.

“We need to hire someone,” Colin said. “A proper tutor. Someone who can answer you without their face doing what my face has been doing for the last half hour.”

“What about Diwa?” Cassian asked.

Colin laughed until he had to wipe his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Cass, you’d be doing photosynthesis one lesson, and the next morning MI6 would be kicking our door in because he’d tried to source plutonium for a practical demonstration of nuclear fission. No. We’re hiring a normal person. Someone whose first instinct when a student asks a question isn’t to build a reactor in the garden.”

Cassian was about to ask what nuclear fission was when his mobile buzzed and lit up with the name he’d been waiting on.

He grabbed it before the second ring. “Hello?”

Alison Ward’s voice came through the speaker. Cassian pressed the mobile hard against his ear, his free hand closing on the edge of the workbook as Colin went still across the table.

“Congratulations, Cassian. The petition has been granted. The marriage to Charles Townsend is declared void.”

“Void,” Cassian repeated. He knew what the word meant, but couldn’t account for how it was making him feel right then.

“As though it never existed,” Ms Ward confirmed, and moved briskly into the procedural aftermath, talking him through court orders, financial separation timelines, what they’d need to go over together during their follow-up appointment next week, while Cassian held his mobile to his ear and took in almost none of it.

He thanked her. Cassian guessed that he’d reacted somewhat appropriately since she congratulated him again before hanging up.

“It’s done.” Cassian set his mobile down on the table. “The marriage is void. She said it’s as though it never existed.”

His fingers wrapped around his left wrist. The skin was smooth now, the scars faded to pale ridges you’d only find if you went looking. But his thumb traced the groove where the silk cord had dug into his skin as he returned to that Bayswater bedroom.

“It happened, though,” he said. “They can write whatever they want on the paperwork, Colin. They can say it never existed. But it did.”

Colin’s hand hadn’t moved from the workbook.

“It wakes me up,” Cassian said. “Still. Not every night. But enough. And when it wakes me up, my wrists hurt, even though there’s nothing on them any more.”

Colin closed the workbook. He got up, crossed the kitchen, and pulled Cassian into his chest. Then he made tea, put the hot mug in Cassian’s hands, and left him alone.

Cassian sat with it until the warmth leached out of the ceramic and the kitchen settled around him, Tala’s bouncer ticking on the floor tiles as she dozed off.

Colin returned eventually and got to work, strapping Tala into her carrier.

“Up,” Colin said. “We’re going out.”

Cassian didn’t ask where they were heading. He set the cold tea on the counter and let Colin steer him down the hallway by the elbow, out the front door, and into the bright shock of a Wednesday afternoon.

Colin walked him straight to Proving Ground.

Ruari was behind the counter, forearms braced against the glass of the display case while he talked to Raf. When the door opened his head came up.

“Hey!” Ruari’s attention dropped straight to Tala. “There she is. There’s my girl.”

He came around the counter, wiping his hands, and crouched in front of Colin until he was level with the carrier. He wiggled his fingers at her. Her eyes widened. Both her fists shot up and grabbed for him, locking around his index finger.

“Strong grip,” Ruari told her. “You’d have been good in goal.”

Colin bent close to Ruari’s ear. Cassian couldn’t hear what he said, the words pitched below the café noise, but he watched the grin drop off Ruari’s face.

Ruari straightened up. His thumb found Tala’s cheek first, rubbing a slow circle against the fat curve of it while she gnawed on his knuckle. Then the same thumb crossed to Cassian’s face, and Cassian closed his eyes and tipped into the touch.

“Right then, gorgeous,” Ruari murmured. “We’re flat out today, and you need to pull your weight considering all the freebies you’ve had off me. Apron’s on the hook. You’re scoring loaves, since Raf’s cuts are a disgrace and I need someone fussy like you.”

“Oi,” Raf said from behind the till.