Alpha's Favourite Girl

with the engine running until Eliana reached the bakery door. It was the sort o

ell of rye dough, proofing for four a.m., reached her before the door did. She let herself

d shaking in the car

re ea

a small woman with strong forearms, her dark hair tied up in a faded scarf, and she had the particular

t Eliana's face and

happ

They laughed in the right places

it over, and there it was: a dark crust along the inside of

f on a glass. She had the debate voice for either of them. But her mother was the one pers

the kitchens. I helped. I got the caret

on

guess. There was

n the inside of her wrist.

car, in the dark, working out how. Now it was just a ques

Hale," s

d her mother went completely still. It was the stillness of someone who has heard

d it off at the wall, and wiped her h

heard him

ell you something." Eliana watched her. "He said, '

idn't crumple. It emptied, the way a room does when someone

" Nora said,

was in a bad way

ay anythi

I stood l

against her mouth. On the fridge, between a takeaway menu and a dentist's reminder, the photograph of Tom Rose loo

ora said. "

the way she picked up a heavy tray,

nstinct and tonight it isn't going to help either of us. You went outside for air. You

e like

yon

I told them,"

pped. "T

kitchen after the caretaker called it in. They asked if

ng enough for the doug

to them,"

es

hy

. Because the whole thing felt like standing on the wrong side of a one-way mirror. Eli

when I said his name," she sai

ng in them Eliana had never seen directed at her, something that t

," her mother said.

lived at the back of the cupboard and was never refilled from any shop Eliana had been able to find. She

e always did. "I'm legally enti

tled to an opinion a

the first time, how quickly the taste faded, like a sound tur

The

with a kind of horror, because the ring was in her pocket, and she had decided on the walk ho

head

t ri

I helped him. He was wearing a ring. A signet ring,

ring," Nor

es

d it loo

Gold. I didn'

and neither of them said what they were both thinking. Then her mother

n. Not to Jules, not to a

who

romise he shouldn't h

father's tackle box, under a tangle of lures he'd never got to use. She put the box back unde

e buzzed

ed. The headmaster asked me where h

Foundation asked for your student file last Thursday?? And your home addre

e second messa

headache. tel

E?? you were a

a: to

y, a week before tonight. They had wanted her address. And the Foundation did not n

and went to

was an ordinary lane, with no black cars on it. Which should have been a comfort, and wasn't. It occurred to her t

ad Jules'

herself, explained the app to Nora four times, and then, when Nora refused to look at it, put it on Eliana'

12:53 a.m. There were

le she'd been standing at a lecter

tapp

lane. A man got out, fair-haired, in a black coat, and she knew him before the image resolved, becau

ane and stood at

d there with his head tilted a few degrees to the left, listening,

the glass, just visible i

tterly still, with a rolling pin in her right hand and her eyes on the shape of the man outside. They l

car, and Nora stayed where she was for ano

wn on the edg

2 a.m. on Tuesday, and again on Friday, and again on Sunday. The same coat. The same angle of the head. A man in a

arance was six

her mind, the part of her that spent weekends in other

l email and searched

his year will be Dr. Imogen Hartley, Aldermere class of 2004, now at the Hague. W

that the Thorne Scholar speak in her place. They were quite specific. I'm

ays ago.

ne at 6:12 that same morning. Two hours b

put the phone down on the duvet, very

t she had stepped out for air at the wrong moment and stumbled into someone else's emergency. I

hat night, under those lights, in front of those men with their heads tilted. Someone had watched her window at dawn. Someone had asked for

adn't found h

e had been told where to find her, and he

first dough of the day. Eliana heard the bed creak, the bare feet on t

from beneath it. She didn't open it. She only laid her

tal wa