It wasn’t quite sunset when Val and Roland headed back from les hortillonages, and the world was just a little bit sadder for having to leave that green sanctuary. Not that Amiens was anything less than beautiful, but there was (Val cringed as he thought it) less magic in it, somehow. The water gardens made Roland’s possible future of becoming a hermit to escape the feelings of others a palatable, even a desirable, one.

“Do you want a cigarette?” Roland asked suddenly.

Val was startled out of his thoughts, thoughts he would rather have kept quiet from Roland. “What makes you ask?” He was relieved – smoking didn’t feature at all in his reverie.

“You have that feeling,” explained Roland. “Like a terrier that’s found something and won’t let go. Or a terrier that’s looking for something and won’t let go.”

“Is that what it feels like to you when I want a smoke?” Val asked.

“That’s the best way I can describe it,” said Roland. “It makes my whole body itch. So if it’s not a smoke, what is it you do want right now?”

The white, square tower of Amiens Cathedral reared over the low grey skyline, pale even in the dull sky before sunset. From here they couldn’t make out the infinitesimal classic Gothic designs in the stonework, but its majesty was undiminished. Because of this cathedral, Roland’s summer nights were filled with not only mosquitoes and breathless heat, but also tourist awe and wonder that never seemed to get old. The reason for this was an annual summer event in which coloured lights were projected on every inch of the white stone in a beautiful attempt to paint the cathedral once more in its old medieval colours, long since faded and bleached to the colour of old, polished bone.

Val lost himself in the sight of it, and though his embarrassed secrecy must have been tantalising in the extreme, Roland didn’t ask again.

“I’m… I’m sure she’ll come back,” he murmured clumsily instead.

That tore a little, because Val hadn’t heard from the Winged Victory of Samothrace since the dawn she had disappeared from his bed. It wasn’t as if she could just pick up a phone and call him, and he wasn’t in Paris anymore anyway, but… “Stop guessing, Roland,” he said gently.

Roland obliged.

It only made Val’s next question more awkward. “So, we should get another bottle in for Yves and them, assuming we’re going back?”

As casual as it was, Roland knew straight away then that it was Yves and the old courthouse that Val was obsessing over. Despite this, Val kept on trying to hide his intentions in language that Roland would see straight through. Maybe it was to save face.

Roland lit up like a firework. “Really?”

“He did ask-”

“You really want to go back?”

“Well… Yeah, why not?” Val could barely hide his discomfort at Roland’s open eagerness. “Saves you cooking, doesn’t it?”

Amiens Cathedral fell back into the city as they turned into the residential district. To show that he was willing, Val paid for two bottles of cheap red wine (always the second cheapest, because he had standards, damn it) and carried them stiffly like weapons or shields, something to put between them and him though he wasn’t sure whether he was on the offensive or defensive. Roland didn’t bother hiding the sniggers at Val, walking like a soldier as though he was ready to die in battle.
They were greeted at the courthouse just as warmly as before, though with mercifully less enthusiasm. Val kept an eye out for Inès and Jake, the only two besides Yves whose names he could remember, but Inès was busy poring over what was probably a cookbook with the dreadlocked man Jake had been talking to earlier, and Jake was nowhere to be seen. He caught snatches from the conversation in the kitchen, ‘rice milk’ and ‘skip ratting’. Not knowing what skip ratting was, but able to guess enough to make him uncomfortable, he stopped listening. Doubtless Roland would be able to empathise with this feeling.

It seemed a lot less like a cult now, Val had to admit, when he could watch them going about their business. There was a bookshelf filled with books in varying degrees of ruin – everything from Mein Kampf to Through The Looking Glass, Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles beside countless slim volumes of comic books. And posters covered the walls with band names Val had never heard of and dates that would never come again.

None of this answered his most burning question: who are these people?

He had tried to gather information the last time he had been here, talking to Inès and her long-legged friend, but all he had gleaned from that was that Inès was in her mid-twenties and had worked for just about every charity in France, in between her mysterious hobby of sabbing (he should have asked Roland what that meant when he had the chance to do so without looking like a fool), and her friend, whose name he had not caught the first time around, used to be an art student. And the terrifyingly-sized Jake was a Native American who had ended up in France for unknown reasons. Aside from that, Val realised that conversation had been mostly about him. Well, it had been hard to stop talking about himself when they were so interested.

There was a lot of laughter around, but it was normal – a little rude and slightly juvenile, from the dreadlocked man doing obscene things with cake cases to some joke about naked hang gliding that Val didn’t get at all, though Roland grinned along with it. Increasingly, Val realised how little he understood all of this, and yet increasingly it fascinated him.

Yves was dozing in the worn old sofa in the middle of a conversation about being arrested, but Val still felt something stir, deep inside him. Though he wasn’t contributing, it was hard to shake the impression that he was right in the middle of all the action.

With their arrival, and the arrival of the wine, things started to pick up a bit, and Roland disappeared to the kitchen to help there. When a space opened up on the couch beside Yves, Val’s curiosity finally overcame him and he took it, quietly and guiltily positioning himself in the leftover warmth. There was a faint haze of cigarette smoke hanging over here, and Val unconsciously reached for his own battered pack.

Yves shifted and wrinkled his nose, eyes still closed, when Val sat down.

Val wriggled in his seat a little and disturbed him some more. “Got a light?” he asked brightly.

Yves snorted as he startled, took one look at Val and settled back down. “There’ll be one floating around somewhere,” he said. “And the wine?”

“In the kitchen.” There was a warm undertone and a sense of teamwork there that Val didn’t recognise as his own.

The music shifted to a sharp, syncopated guitar, and a thin male voice began to weave around the base with the same easy, highway-dust-in-the-wind air, singing lines that bordered on nonsense. Yves was singing along, apparently unable to help himself.

“Le Vent Nous Portera?” Val asked, guessing at the song title.

Yves nodded in time with the music.

“You’re kidding, right?”

Reluctantly, Yves stopped singing. “What do you mean?” His confusion was so innocent.

“Well, Noir Désir,” said Val. “Why would someone like you listen to Noir Désir?”

Yves’ eyes shone as he turned to face Val. “Someone like me?” he repeated. “What do you mean by that?”

His sudden interest made Val certain that there was something to be discovered here. “Hold on,” he said. “I’m going to need a smoke if you want to get all deep on me.”

“Xav, pass us your lighter, would you?” Yves called, not moving his gaze from Val.
Val was contentedly puffing away at his cigarette when he took up Yves’ question again. “Bullshit aside,” he said, “you just seem like too nice a guy for that.”

Yves laughed his deep, filthy laugh, and luckily didn’t question Val’s assessment of him. If he had, Val wouldn’t have known how to reply. He hadn’t been here long enough to witness his pure-heartedness for himself; it was just incontrovertible fact that anyone who stepped through the front door needed to understand if they ever wanted a chance at fitting in here. “Too nice for Noir Désir?” scoffed Yves. “How’d you figure that?”

“That guy who’s singing right now is still in prison for murdering his wife, you know.”

“And you think that bothers the common people, the ones who aren’t as great as you think I am, do you?”

Val was still fairly serious in the midst of Yves’ scorn. This must be how Roland felt arguing with him. “I think it bothers some of them, yes,” he said. “I think there are people who can’t listen to his voice without remembering what he did, and most of them aren’t half as noble as you.”

Yves had stopped laughing and now examined Val with a curious smile. “But it’s a fucking good song, Valentin.”

“But it was written by a murderer.”

“That’s only important if you believe in judging art by the artist,” said Yves. “And then you wouldn’t be able to enjoy much.”

Val frowned. “It could be the best song ever written, but I don’t want to support people like that. Not with my hard-earned cash.” As soon as he said the words and saw Yves’ expression twitch, he thought a bit more about his surroundings. Hard-earned cash indeed.

“But that’s something completely different,” said Yves. “I’m not talking about buying art – I’m talking about enjoying it. Now are you honestly telling me that if you saw a picture you really liked, inquired about it and found out that it was by, say, Hitler, that this picture would suddenly become less aesthetically pleasing?”

“They say Hitler really wasn’t that good at painting, you know.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Valentin. Fine. You know Ride of the Valkyries?”

“Dun da da daaaaa da, dun da da daaaaa da….”

“Yeah, that’s the one,” said Yves encouragingly, as though guiding a bright child to the answer to a difficult problem. “Know who composed it?”

Val spoke carefully – it would be embarrassing if he got this wrong. “Wagner?”

“Good boy!” Yves patted him roughly on the shoulder. “He wrote essays on race that influenced Hitler’s politics. Now, go home and listen to him again, and I guarantee his music will be as epic as it always was.”

“Bertrand Cantat killed one person, but Wagner killed millions!” retorted Val. “You really think that my… my experience of the Ride of the Valkyries will ever be the same now?”

Yves kept smiling. The smoke from Val’s cigarette curled in strange shapes around him, oddly symmetrical curls and spirals.

“And that example you gave about Hitler – no, the picture wouldn’t be less aesthetically pleasing, but knowing who painted it would diminish my enjoyment.”

“Interesting point,” Yves conceded. “All right, then. A picture drawn by a really nice guy. The nicest guy in the world. Let’s say… me. Now, I’m shit at drawing, really. But would my supreme niceness make the picture better? Here, let me show you.” He grabbed a dog-eared piece of paper from a coffee table beside the sofa, and a biro with the top snapped off, and began to draw something in a space between phone numbers and games of hangman and transparent cubes.

Val leaned over to see what he was doing. It was a stick man. A very happy stick man, with a big, bright smile and little vertical lines for eyes.

Yves sat back and studied it. “Perfect.” And he signed it flamboyantly at the bottom, so elaborately that Val couldn’t read his name. “There you go, Valentin. For when I’m famous.”

Some part of Val wanted to protest that he wasn’t being taken seriously, but it was hard to hold any grudges after that display. “I just don’t think I could ever part with it,” he said, folding the paper and shoving it in his pocket. “It’s such a lovely piece, you know? Okay. Your point is made. Art isn’t affected by the personality of the artist, at least aesthetically. But meaningfully, you could argue that… let me think of a good way to put this… the artist becomes part of their art.”

Yves frowned, serious once more, rubbing his thumb over the broken edge of the biro in his hand. “I don’t follow,” he said.

“Okay. Right. Think of a piece of art. No, literature works better. There are two parts to it. The story is one part, and the second part is the bit that only scholars really see. The structure, and the metaphors, and the literary devices. Still with me?”

Yves nodded slowly. “Go on.”

“This second part is kind of optional. Someone can read the story and still enjoy it without even seeing the second part, but understanding the second part would change the reader’s perspective.”

“I get it,” grinned Yves. “The artist is in the second part.”

“Exactly.”

Yves’ gaze flickered to the kitchen, and Val realised that dinner would probably be ready soon. “I agree with you, to an extent,” said Yves. “The artist’s intentions will give meaning to whatever they’ve created. But when Bertrand Cantat wrote this song, he wasn’t a killer. And art might not change, but people do.”

Val’s cigarette was finished but he played idly with the stub, something tugging at his mind. Something about the way the smoke hung reminded him of something else, and he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. The scent of cooked food and the clatter of dishes distracted him both from the debate and his momentary sense of déjà vu. He was suddenly hungry.

Yves was still talking. “…another thing. I saw you talking to Lucie this afternoon.”

Val blinked in confusion before deciding that Lucie must have been the long-legged former art student. Art student! Even as Yves spoke he began to formulate the argument in his head, guessing where it was going to go.

“Did she tell you she studied art?”

“She did, actually.”

“And you’d hold her to higher standards than anyone else?”

“Whoa, hold on!” Val raised a hand, palm out, dog end still between two of his fingers. “I hold everyone to the standard that murder is bad.”

Yves’ laugh was a little sheepish. “I should have seen that coming,” he admitted. “All right, one more example. Orson Scott Card.”

“Who?” Val raised an eyebrow.

“Wrote one of the most powerful science fiction novels of our time. Unfortunately, he’s a complete dick. No criminal record, and as far as I know he hasn’t done anything heinously bad, per se. He’s just a prat.”

“Okay.” Val felt lost in Yves’ eloquence, and the sheer breadth of his knowledge, able to make relevant examples on the fly like this.

“So what’s it to you if he’s an arrogant little fuckwit, if he can write something as stunning as Ender’s Game? Look at it this way – someone built the house you’re living in. Are you concerned that they might be an arrogant little fuckwit?”

“I’ve never really wondered,” Val admitted.

“Exactly. Now I’m really, honestly curious, and this is the best debate I’ve had in ages, what makes art so different? Is it the fame? The purpose of art?”

“Yves, leave the boy alone!” said Inès, carrying two plates of something that smelled delicious. She handed one to each of them.

Yves pouted melodramatically at her. “Spoilsport.”

“Yep. Drinks are coming, so be patient.”

“Cutlery as well, I assume?”

Inès was about to retort, but she looked down and sighed in exasperation.

“Bugger. Yes.”

“You make a good serving wench!” Yves called cheerfully after her.

Without even turning around, Inès stuck a finger up at him. Yves chuckled affectionately. “What were we talking about, again? Ah, art and artists. Think about it a while, and then get back to me, all right?”

“Sure.” He had lost. Spectacularly. But he had to give Yves credit for not making it obvious or rubbing it in. He was pleasantly surprised by the meal that had been put together, especially after the references to skip ratting that made him more and more uncomfortable as it occurred to him that most of the furnishings in the old courthouse had probably been salvaged from skips. It was rice and a mild mishmash of curry, something that Val could have made himself had he the inclination, and it was delicious. Despite being on the look-out for the slightest whiff of staleness or the inside of a skip, there was nothing but good, wholesome food there. This, combined with his conversation with Yves had made him comfortable enough to join in the banter, and he was just beginning to recount his (heavily edited) stay in Paris when the door opened, almost unnoticed under the chatter and music.

Val only noticed at all because Yves looked up immediately, the shadow of a laugh still lingering on his face. Val and everyone else soon followed his gaze to the open doorway, which was too dark to see properly. Yves made a soft sound of recognition and got to his feet.

“Hey, come on in, lass, we don’t bite.”

Val had to squint to really see, but there was someone standing in the doorway, black against the faint aura of the coloured lights in the direction of the cathedral. Yves was already ushering her in. Someone silenced Noir Désir.

“I tried knocking,” the girl said apologetically. “But no one answered. I’m really sorry.”

Yves replied with a dismissive pfft. “You’re soaked through. Looks like it’s raining pretty hard out there.”

The bedraggled girl nodded with a quiet sniffle.

“We should be the ones apologising for leaving you out there. At least stay a while to dry off.”

“Is that…?”

“Of course. Inès, you’re about her size. Have you got a jumper or something she could borrow?”

Inès got up, nodding and flashing a kind smile at the newcomer. “I’ll be back in a sec.”

“You don’t have to! Really!” the girl blurted, alarmed. Val was almost certain she had been crying, though the mascara-coloured tracks down her cheeks could have been from the rain.

“I know we don’t,” said Yves. “But stay for a while. We probably still have some dinner left over, if you want. Curry and rice. Not fabulously exotic, but Inès is a good cook.”

Like a wary stray, she came further in, and like one who is used to dealing with them, Yves was exceedingly casual about the whole thing.

“Wine?”

She nodded.

Yves began to busy himself in the kitchen, leaving the door open, rifling through cupboards and drawers for a clean and relatively unbroken glass. When he found one, he poked his head around again. “God, I’m the most terrible host in the universe. I’m Yves, and that motley crew is Lucie, Pierrot, Xav, Valentin and Roland.” They each nodded or waved when their name was mentioned. “Inès is the one whose clothes you’ll be wearing, and we usually have Jake here, but he’s buggered off for the night.”

The expression on the girl’s face was probably reminiscent of Val himself earlier in the afternoon. She looked somewhere in between a deer in headlights and someone who had just stumbled upon a cult. But for her it lasted only for a moment; she took the glass from Yves, smiled (a somewhat watery smile), and said, “I’m Anaïs.”

“Nice to meet you. Sit anywhere you want. I’ll bring you out some curry.”

Anaïs settled next to Lucie, who made room, and Yves sat on her other side, and that was it. She was in, and being offered a place to sleep for the night if she needed it.

Suddenly, Val was glad Yves and his merry band of squatters were around.

The whole introduction had come as something of a surprise to him. He had been sure Yves knew Anaïs.  His curiosity about the unusual house and company Yves kept and his curiosity about the strange girl who had just been welcomed into it all without a second glance intersected. The same part of him that was always watching Roland’s manners warned him sternly not to be a dick about it. “Anaïs,” he said, feeling vulnerable without the cover of the music.

She looked up and saw him, and so did Yves and Lucie. At that moment he felt so transparent in his intentions that he expected them to look reproachful, but they didn’t.

“I was just wondering if this is the first time you’ve been here,” he said. “I don’t live round here, so this is all new to me.”

Attention returned to Anaïs, who coloured and replied, “Never.”

She still looked as though a single touch could send her over the edge into tears. Val cursed himself. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “It just seems like a weird place to come. I know when I first stepped through that door I thought the place’d be full of psychopaths.”

“You won’t be disappointed!” Yves interjected cheerfully.

Anaïs, seemingly oblivious to this little exchange, was lost in her own thoughts, her forehead creased in concentration. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I don’t know why.”

“Why what?” Val asked with the same care that walking on eggshells would warrant. Please don’t cry.

“I don’t know why I did come here.” Her eyes welled up, but she laughed shortly to cover it up. “Just a stroke of luck, I suppose. Thanks so much for the food and the jumper and the bed and everything.” A tear overflowed and she wiped it away fiercely, her face flushing even redder. “I’m sorry,” she half-sobbed. “You’ve all been so nice to me and I… I don’t deserve it. God, I’m so sorry!”

Yves handed her a toilet roll. Val did not want to know where he got it. “Everyone deserves it,” he said.

Completely overcome, Anaïs buried her face in Yves’ shoulder, and he put his arm around her.

Val felt terrible. It took him a while to realise that everyone else had begun to tidy away, and Roland looked like he was trying to flirt with Inès over the dishes. At least his empathy was tuned out here. The last thing anyone needed was for Roland to be in tears as well.

Yves was speaking quietly to Anaïs, and she nodded slightly against his shoulder.
Val got up and followed Inès and Roland into the kitchen. Some things are private. The kitchen, or what had obviously been converted into a kitchen, was the same friendly mess as everywhere else, old benches acting as counters strewn with food and dishes. It must have taken a lot of effort to get it this way. There were even a few salvaged kitchen units in there, cupboards and drawers, mismatched utensils and a bucket for a sink. He sought out Roland, the only one close enough to confess to. He was still with Inès, but she would have to do.

“I feel like a bastard!” he hissed.

“What for?” Even when his empathy was at its peak, Roland was still generally clueless as to the whys of other people’s feelings.

“I made her cry! What kind of… fuckwit makes a girl cry in that state?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Inès, “but she looked like she was going to cry sooner or later no matter what anyone said.”

“Why is no one bothered about this but me?”

“Look,” Tin-tin,” said Inès.

She had been spending far too much time with Roland.

“Sometimes people need to cry. It’s embarrassing when people make a big deal of it. And Yves will take care of her. This is the best thing we can do for her.”

Val sighed. None of this reassured him at all. He still felt like the bad guy, or at least the worst of any of these selfless people. “I guess you’re right,” he conceded. “I may as well do the washing up to make up for it.”

“Pierrot and Lucie have gone for the water,” said Inès. “It shouldn’t be long.

“That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask about, actually,” said Val, thinking that if he couldn’t erase his terrible deed, then he may as well distract himself from it. “How do you get water? Is there a well outside or what?”

Inès laughed. “Amiens is an old city, but it’s not that backwards! It sounds unbelievable, but the water’s still connected and running. It’s just a case of going to the bathroom to get it.”

“This place hasn’t been used in decades,” Val pointed out. “Maybe more.”

“I know! That’s what makes it so unbelievable, right? We’re so lucky here.”

“That’s more than lucky, it’s a miracle.”

Roland glanced at him anxiously, the same way he had when Val was being rude to the Winged Victory of Samothrace. He probably thought this was going to go the same way. It was the kind of look that begged him not to make a scene, but Val had never been the kind of person who could just pretend nothing was going on.

“I bet you eat loaves and fishes a lot, as well,” he said, half-joking.

“I’m vegetarian,” Inès reminded him.

“Just loaves, then?”

Roland was smiling now in relief, his eyes clearly saying, that’s more like it.

The door was kicked open then, and Lucie returned with Pierrot, the dreadlocked man, each carrying two buckets of hot water each. “Where’s Jake when you need him?” Pierrot grumbled. “He can carry three of these in one hand!”

“Good news for you then – Tin-tin offered to wash up.”

Pierrot broke into a grin. “Really? You’re a legend.”

The very word ‘legend’ made Val’s heart start pounding in fear, but he hid it well. “It’s no problem. You guys cooked, after all.”

“He feels guilty for making Anaïs cry,” said Inès.

Roland sniggered.

“You can dry!” Val snapped.

Roland stopped.

“You’ve never lived with women before, have you, mate?” remarked Pierrot.

“If this happens regularly, then I’d rather not.”

The bucket was awkward to wash in, not quite big enough to leave anything to soak, but Val got used to it, determined to heroically endure his self-prescribed punishment.

“I’m glad you like it here,” said Roland, drying a plate with the threadbare dishcloth and piling it with the others on a bench that looked as though it had been dragged in from a courtroom. “I thought you might not.”

“Well, I can see why you thought I might not,” Val admitted. He scrubbed out the inside of a mug violently before realising that most of the coffee stains were hopelessly burned into the ceramic. “But let’s be honest – who can resist Yves?”

“That’s true.”

“Although…”

Roland groaned. “I knew it!”

“It’s not a big thing!” said Val defensively. “Just something like déjà vu.”

“And?”

Val knew the answer would ruin Roland’s happiness here. “Yves,” he said at last.

“Why can’t you leave things alone, Tin-tin? He’s a nice guy. Like, really nice.” His fervour made Val wonder if Roland had discovered Yves’ house in the same way as Anaïs had.

“I know. I know. It’s probably nothing.”

“It’s never nothing with you,” Roland complained. “When you notice something it always turns out to be something freaky!”

“Don’t be melodramatic!” Val snapped. “It was nothing! Just something kind of blurry about the smoke when it was near him. It reminded me of something, and it freaked me out. That’s all.”

“Like the Winged Victory of Samothrace? I always had a bit of a headache looking at her.” He screwed his face up and tried to wring the pathetic dishcloth. “It’s so annoying sometimes, not knowing how you feel. Like being blind or deaf.”

“Yeah, it was kind of like the Winged Victory, actually. Except Yves is better at it.” He stopped dead, letting the plate in his hands slide down into the water. “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, Roland, what did you say that for? And after I made that bastard ‘loaves and fishes’ joke as well…!”

“What, you think Yves is Jesus?” spluttered Roland.

Val splashed him with soapy, tepid water. “You know, I should just drown you here and now. That’d put an end to your stupidity. No, Yves is not Jesus. God.” He glared at Roland just to make sure that he wouldn’t even think about the joke that he had stupidly left open for him.

Even though his empathy was switched off, Roland understood and held his tongue.

When Inès returned to see how they (or mostly Roland, anyway) were getting on, Val had made him swear that he wouldn’t even mention anything about Val’s suspicions to anyone, and he wouldn’t try guessing again.

“How do you get on when we’re not here, eh?” Val teased as though nothing had happened.

“Don’t listen to him, Inès!” called Roland. “He never washes up at home!”

“I wash up at your home!” Val objected.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” said Inès. “You’ve probably worked out how terrible we all are for it here. We kind of justify each other out of it until it desperately needs doing.”

“I was sure we hadn’t used so much stuff on one meal,” said Val, looking around the newly cleared benches with a raised eyebrow. “Seriously, is it always like this around here?” He gestured around at the general catastrophe of the kitchen.

“Well it’s never exactly tidy…”

Val had taken it upon himself to wash all of the dishes lying around, and not just those they had used for dinner. Even so, he had almost finished and soon he would have to go back to the living area and face Anaïs and Yves. “The mice must be as big as bloody cats.”

“What mice?” asked Inès in alarm. “Have you seen any?”

Val eyed her uncertainly, unsure as to how he should answer this ridiculous question. Though it wasn’t unhygienic as far as he could see, there was food left out everywhere. “I haven’t seen any, but come on…”

Inès looked immensely reassured. “I keep telling Yves we should put traps down, but he says it isn’t necessary. He has a point, really. We’ve never seen the slightest sign of mice anywhere.”

Another small miracle. Val’s theory was starting to look more plausible. Yves’ extraordinary kindness, the haze around his shoulders, the many little miracles that kept the courthouse habitable, the way Anaïs had been drawn here, and even the silence of Roland’s empathy – they all made perfect sense. He handed the last clean knife to Roland and shook his hands dry. “You really are incredibly lucky here,” he said. “All of you.” He meant it more than Inès would ever understand. “Roland, would you mind clearing this up? There’s something I have to ask.”

“No problem.”

“I’ll help,” said Inès.

Roland lit up.

Val winked discreetly at him. Don’t say I never do anything for you. The part of the courthouse that could be called the living room was quiet, only Yves dozing in his usual place on the couch. “Where’s Anaïs?” he asked.

Yves opened his eyes as though he had been waiting. “Upstairs, making up the spare room with Lucie. She decided to stay the night in the end.”

“Oh.” Val glanced at the other doorway. “I wanted to apologise to her.”

“What for?”

“I made her cry. Why does no one else seem to have noticed this?”

“You worry too much, Valentin,” said Yves, shuffling against the back of the seat. Val wondered if it was comfortable against his wings. “She’s got a lot on her mind, poor kid. She probably would have burst into tears if you’d offered her a cup of tea, to be honest. Don’t worry about her.”

“Yeah… Actually there’s something else.”

“You don’t have to stand on ceremony, Valentin.”

Knowing what he did now about Yves, Val felt that perhaps he should. He sat down anyway, in the same place as before, when they had argued about art. “First I want to thank you on Roland’s behalf,” he said. “I don’t know if you’re aware that he’s an empath, but he appreciates the peace and quiet he gets here.”

“I like my guests to be comfortable,” said Yves.

“He’d thank you himself, but he doesn’t know it’s your doing. I guess no one would think of it unless you flounced around with your wings and halo out for all to see, though.”

Yves had broken into a grin. “I knew you’d guess.”

“What?”

“It’s been fun to watch you work it out,” Yves admitted. “I probably shouldn’t have so much fun with this sort of thing.”

“So it’s true? You’re an angel?”

“I thought I hid it better.”

Val grinned. “I knew a girl with wings once, so I knew what to look for.” If Yves could tell that Roland was an empath, then he probably knew of Val’s own particular strangeness, and the reputation he had for doing favours. He let out a long sigh and settled back into the moth eaten couch. “Okay, enough small talk.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you want from me? I’ve never met an angel before, so I don’t know how it all… works. How do you get back? Do you have to earn your wings or perform ten thousand good deeds or what?” Helping an angel back into heaven. Now wouldn’t that look good on his CV?

“I know who you are, Valentin Guillaume,” said Yves, gently amused. “But you’ve got it wrong. I don’t need help. I’m here because I want to be.”