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For a while, I left them to each other. I’d asked him here to see his daughter. My questions could wait.

He held her close the way I’d shown him on Wednesday. When she got the hiccups, I told him she liked being upright. He shifted her to his shoulder without fumbling. She gripped his shirt and stared over it at me.

At their first visit he’d cried when he held her. Today he was trying to make a noise like the gulls outside the window. He was terrible at it. Sparrow squealed and he did it again, louder.

“She likes gulls,” he said.

“She likes you making a fool of yourself.”

“I can live with that.” He gave her another dreadful gull cry. She laughed, and so did I.

I’d imagined what it would be like to see Seb with our child before any of this happened. I’d never imagined I’d be watching, wondering if he’d be back next week.

“You’ve been reading,” I said.

“Some.”

“How much is some?”

He looked slightly caught. “Everything I could find about four-month-olds. Again.”

“Seb.”

“It doesn’t tell me what Sparrow likes,” he said. “You do.”

He was right. No book could tell him she wanted to be held upright when she had the hiccups, or that she’d laugh herself breathless if he made that awful gull noise again. I wanted to tell him those things. I wanted him to know our daughter. But watching them together had made the question I’d been carrying since Wednesday harder to put off.

“I want to ask you something,” I said.

“Okay.”

“How did you find us?”

He looked at me over Sparrow’s shoulder. “Handful heard two men at Virtues talking about a masked dancer who’d started working at The Hot House. He knew you’d danced in a mask, so he came to me.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him you’d retired. That nobody had seen you dance in years.” He looked straight at me. “I told him he was wrong twice.”

I smirked. “You got that wrong.”

“Yeah. One of several things I got wrong.”

Sparrow wriggled against his shoulder. Seb rubbed her back until she settled, and I waited for him to go on.

“Handful waited until I’d said my piece, then told me The Hot House was in Kettlewell. I’d ruled Robin out months ago. When I called him, he said he hadn’t heard from you and offered to let me search his house. I believed him.”

“He’s very good at that.”

“He’s exceptional at that.”

“So Handful heard about Blondie at Virtues,” I said. “That’s what brought you to Kettlewell.”

“That’s right.”

I’d gone back onstage because I wanted to, and I’d do it again. Seb was here now, holding Sparrow. I didn’t know what would happen between us, but I was glad he’d found us.

“Wren—”