Chapter 28
Cliff
Happiness and misery weren’t mutually exclusive. For a long time I’d assumed you could only feel one or the other, but now I knew that wasn’t true.
Since telling Mabel the truth, I’d felt better than I ever had.
The moment she realised what – and who – I was, but had still decided to stand by me, something that had long been rattling loose inside me had fallen into place.
I felt like myself again. Like the self I had believed for many years was dying, as time wore away more and more of its layers.
Maybe it was as simple as that: we had lost Heaven, I had lost myself.
I had found Mabel, I had found myself. What I felt with her was more than happiness.
It was like coming back to life after an eternity in which I’d felt half dead.
Yet I knew what it would cost me to hold on to this feeling. Who it would cost me.
This would be the hardest thing I’d ever done. Probably the worst, too, although I’d done so many unforgiveable things in my life – in my many lives. I knew I shouldn’t feel this way, but hurting strangers was different from hurting the people you loved the most. Nothing was crueller than betrayal.
Still. It was the only right thing to do.
I just had to forget everything I had internalised over the past one hundred and sixty years.
I had to throw out every rule, every code of behaviour, every pattern of thought that had been indoctrinated into me.
For the first time in forever, I had to listen to my own instincts.
To what I wanted, even if it destroyed everything my community had built.
If it destroyed us. The fact was: I was about to change the course of one hundred and seventy-five lives, permanently – including the lives of the two people who were the closest thing I had to a family.
The guilt had been heavy on my shoulders ever since last night, when Mabel and I came up with our plan, and with every step I took towards the building, it weighed me down further still.
Even so, I never doubted I’d go through with it.
I had to do this. I had rediscovered, finally, how it felt to believe that doing the right thing was worth enduring anything.
Or no, I hadn’t rediscovered it: Mabel had brought it back to me.
Just the thought of her made me breathe easier.
This is worth it, I thought, opening the door.
She’s worth it. I’m worth it – the me I want to be.
Norah had texted to say where they were. I’d asked her to keep an eye on Ashton last night, after Mabel had dozed off on my sofa. She hadn’t asked why, but I assumed Ashton had told her. When it came to words, he wasn’t good at self-restraint – especially not when he was angry.
Reaching the door of the room where we sometimes held our parties, I paused. One last deep breath, and then I opened it and stepped inside. My eyes dwelt briefly on Norah, sitting at the piano by the window, before they found Ashton on the sofa.
‘You shouldn’t be smoking in here,’ I said, gesturing at the cigarette between his fingers as I shut the door behind me.
He growled, but otherwise did not respond. Instead, he took a pointedly long drag.
‘Come on, people. We know each other too well for all this passive-aggressive bullshit. Talk it out.’ Norah’s gaze lingered on me.
Evidently, she’d heard enough to know I’d have to apologise before Ashton would even talk to me.
In all these years, I’d never dared to oppose him like that.
Mabel was a first for me, in more ways than one. And in one specific way, a last.
I forced myself to nod, coming further into the room. ‘Norah’s right. I’m sorry, Ash. I lost control and took it too far.’
‘That’s one way of putting it.’ Ashton stubbed out his cigarette on the armrest of the sofa. It took all my self-control not to step back as he got up and came towards me. ‘What the hell is going on?’ he asked sharply. ‘Do you have feelings for her or what?’
It was obvious from his tone how ludicrous he found the very idea of it.
Of course: in all the years of the League’s existence, nothing like this had ever happened.
Relationships between members and outsiders were either inherited from the original owner of the body or served a clearly defined purpose: the spouses of the bodies we inhabited, relationships that benefitted us or helped us network.
I had never heard of a soul-jumper falling in love with someone outside of that.
Perhaps no one had let it get that far, because we knew nothing could ever come of it.
And yet here I was, unable to deny it. ‘She was the first … moth I’d had in decades,’ I replied evasively. ‘I’m not used to how intense the bond can get when you keep one for that long. I got mixed up.’
Ashton’s brows knitted warily. ‘But you’re not anymore?’
‘No.’ That, at least, I didn’t have to lie about. My mind had never felt clearer than it did in this moment. ‘You’re right. Mabel won’t stop until she’s dragged the truth into the light. She can’t stay.’
Ashton crossed his arms and took another step towards me.
A pulse was beating from the core of his chest: too weak to be fresh, but strong enough that I knew how much he must have absorbed recently.
As it dawned on me that this was Mabel’s energy, I clenched my fists.
When I’d found him with her last night, I was so worried about her it overshadowed everything else.
Now a different emotion flooded through me, all the more powerful: rage.
‘And this revelation just came to you, did it?’ he asked, before I could do anything stupid that might give me away.
‘After you rode in to rescue her like a knight in some stupid fucking TV drama?’ His breath was on my face.
Smoke and gin, as well as a hint of Mabel’s own unique scent, which had never felt so unfamiliar to me.
I felt sick to my stomach, but I didn’t blink. ‘I wanted to keep her, but I see now it’ll never work.’
He inclined his head and dropped back onto the sofa. ‘So where is she, then? Why didn’t you bring her?’
‘Because I thought we might make it work a different way.’ I sat down in the armchair next to him. I had to wet my lips before I could bring myself to say the next words. The ones that would make or break everything. ‘I want her face. Not for myself, though. I mean … near me.’
Norah let out a gasp of astonishment, but I didn’t dare look in her direction.
My whole focus was on Ashton. He stared at me incredulously for about fifteen seconds before he burst out laughing.
‘She’s a bursary kid. Her family’s dead, and they were a bunch of nobodies to begin with. She’s nothing.’
Everything, I thought. She is everything.
I gave a deliberately casual shrug. ‘I know, but we’ve always made exceptions.
When it’s important. And this is important.
To me.’ I rested my elbows on my knees and leant in towards Ashton.
‘She reminded me why I love this life. Why I … love my life with all of you. Give me a little time with the part of her I can have.’ I put a hand on his shoulder, hating myself for it. ‘Please, Ash. Talk to Henry.’
He pulled a face, but I saw the way his eyes softened.
Even if Ashton liked to pretend he didn’t care about anything, nobody knew better than me that it wasn’t true.
He had come to bring me back after I’d made the decision to leave.
He had given me as much leeway as he could, covering for me with the council and his father so that I could take my time finding my way back to them.
He had waited for me because he loved me.
That’s why I knew the plan would work. And why it was the worst thing I had ever done – or would ever do.
‘Even if I could get Henry to agree,’ he replied sceptically, after a pause. ‘Who’d take on that body willingly?’
That was the one problem I didn’t have a good solution for. Before I could come up with something, Norah cleared her throat.
‘I’ll do it.’
Everything inside me froze. It was an effort of will to lift my hand from Ashton’s shoulder so that we could both turn to look at her. She was standing, arms crossed. Her mint-green dress fluttered in the draught from the window, but her eyes were firm and resolute.
‘What?’ Ashton asked slowly.
She shrugged. ‘I’ll take her face. It’s pretty, and I don’t mind wearing plainer clothes for a while. Besides, I don’t mind Cliff staring at me.’ She smiled gently. ‘The three of us are best friends, aren’t we? This is the kind of thing we do for each other.’
‘Norah…’ My voice broke, and so did a part of me. I’d known this would be painful, but this … this was more than I could bear. More than I could inflict on them.
‘What, Blake? I’ll do it.’ Seeing the fierceness in her eyes, I swallowed all my arguments.
Ashton was looking from one of us to the other, bemused. ‘Are you sure? She’s not a redhead. Definitely not your type.’
She snorted and pushed the hair back from her forehead. ‘If you want to talk tradition, you broke your own a long time ago, Arthur.’
She was right, although I knew he wouldn’t like to be reminded of it.
We had all found ways of making the bodies our own.
I gave each of them the same scar, the one I’d got falling out of a tree in my first lifetime.
Norah sought out women with the same fox-red hair as her own.
And Ashton had always chosen someone with the same or a very similar name to the one he was born with.
At least, until the day Heaven left. Something in his eyes told me he was thinking of her too. That he couldn’t lose another of us.
He threw back his head with a groan. ‘Okay, fine,’ he said resignedly, getting to his feet. ‘I’ll talk to Henry. If that’s what it takes to get you back, then I’ll do what I can.’
I pushed out a smile, although guilt tugged heavily at the corners of my mouth. ‘Thanks.’
Ashton waved a hand and stalked out before either of us could say a word.
These days he never lingered in a situation once it started to feel too intimate, but I had never been more grateful for it than in that moment.
One more question and I would have cracked and told him everything.
It was true: being good at lying didn’t mean I liked it.
And with them – the people I was supposed to be completely open with – it was even harder.
I felt wretched and relieved at the same time.
The minute the door swung shut behind him, I exhaled.
‘Norah,’ I began again, but I couldn’t find the words.
Although perhaps I didn’t need to, because no one knew me better than she did.
Norah knew my ugliest secrets and my loftiest thoughts, and she always understood me – maybe even the things I couldn’t explain.
‘It’s okay.’ She came towards me, resting a hand on my cheek. ‘We love you, Cliff. And you love us.’
I grasped her fingers tightly. ‘You’re not going to ask, are you?’
‘Like I said: we know each other too well for that.’
Instead of answering, I stood up and pulled her into a hug. I shut my eyes and rested my head against hers. Funny: she’d been using the same perfume for decades, but it smelt different on every body.
‘I’m tired too. It’s all right,’ she whispered, pressing a kiss to my collarbone. The tattoo pulsed, but at that moment I felt more powerfully than ever before that this fleck of ink wasn’t what connected me to Norah. It was so much more. It ran so much deeper.
Maybe Norah sensed what I was planning, or she was taking a chance because she trusted me. Either way, it didn’t change the fact that I was going to betray her.
We had lived our lives together from the beginning.
Here in Cambridge, nearly forty years ago, Heaven’s death had changed things in a way that could never be undone.
It had taught us that even eternity was not untouchable.
And here it would come to an end, once and for all: our lives, our friendship, our us.
I couldn’t help thinking of the words Heaven always used to say: eternity is poised upon this moment. And I knew: this is the one that’s going to bring it down.