My dad once told me something really cool about frogs:
‘If you drop a frog in a pan of boiling water, it hops out immediately, clutching his burnt froggy arse with his flippers. But you stick that same frog in a pan of cold water and slowly turn up the heat, the daft bugger just sits there. He sweats off his little froggy balls until, eventually, the water boils, and he croaks. Literally.’ (He’s funny, my dad. And he knows a lot of random shit. I guess that’s where Nate gets it from.)
Well, I feel like that first frog. Like I’ve been shoved into a pan of boiling water and my arse is on fire. But the other Imps, they’re like the second frog. They’ve sat in that pan so long, they’ve grown used to the heat. A boy nearly gets his hands chopped off and it’s business as normal. You get called an ape, carry on as always. You get sexually assaulted, maybe even shot by a guard – just another day in The Gallows Dance.
But unlike the first frog, I’ve got nowhere to jump to. I’m stuck in that bastard pan, just counting down the days until I hang.
As soon as we return to the manor, Nate crawls into his bunk. Even Saskia seems concerned, making sure he eats an extra hunk of bread and tucking the covers up around his chin. Dusk falls and I know I must head to the orchard to wait for Willow one last time, but before I go I kiss Nate on the head, inhaling his scent. He stirs in his sleep and I kiss him again, just for good measure.
As I leave, Saskia catches me by the arm. ‘Remember. You’re just pretending to fancy him.’
‘It’s OK, Saskia. You saw what happened at the market.’ And he keeps his truncated brother floating in a tank, I think to myself.
She smiles like she knows everything and I know nothing. ‘Imp or Gem, men are all bastards.’
I manage a weak laugh and shuffle to the orchard, still numbed by shock and immune to the chill, trying to rehearse my lines in my head. I know this is the most important scene yet – the midway twist, the scene which ultimately results in Willow following Rose to the city. But the lines stick together and I can’t quite separate them, because I don’t want to tell Willow I love him, I want to tell him he’s a massive twat.
As I walk beside the lake, I notice the moon, a perfect sphere in the water. I smile in spite of myself – funny how the reflection, the echo, can look as real as the thing it reflects. I reach down and fumble with a stone. Then I lob it so it smashes the sphere into a thousand silver pieces.
‘Violet.’
I turn and see Ash approaching. He tilts his head to the side and something reaches inside my gut and starts to pull.
‘What’s going on with you?’ he asks.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I recognized that Gem, the girl from the market.’
I must look confused because he sighs, a little irritated. ‘Let me give you a clue: massive man feet.’
I don’t know how to explain it, and I don’t really have time. I have to meet Willow in a few minutes. ‘Look, it’s really complicated.’
‘You told me she’s not a Gem.’ He sounds a little hurt, betrayed even.
‘She isn’t.’
‘So she really is a spy?’
My hand connects with his. ‘One day I’ll explain, I promise.’
‘You’re keeping secrets from me, after I showed you . . .’ He tails off. We both know what he means, and I’m not surprised he’s pissed.
‘I’ll tell you, I promise . . . just not now. I have to meet someone.’
He examines me with big, searching eyes. ‘You’re not seriously going to meet him?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You can’t really like him, not after you saw those Dupes, not after he was going to let those guards cut off Nate’s hands.’
‘I know.’
‘And you know he’s never going to be with you, not properly, the law forbids it. You’ll end up dancing on those gallows.’
‘Ash, I know.’
‘So why are you doing this?’
I want to tell him everything, starting at Comic-Con and ending right here at the lake, I want to tear down that wall of secrets and lies and I want him to see me for who I really am, but most of all, I want to throw my arms around him and lie my head on his shoulder, knowing that we will slot together perfectly. But I know I can do none of those things. There’s just too much at stake. My body feels like a selection of interlocking parts. I’ve lost all sense of wholeness, of completeness, as though I’m some strange, corrugated puppet held together by pegs.
He sighs – his breath hangs between us like mist. ‘Do you have real feelings for him?’
‘I – I don’t know.’
‘Because you shouldn’t want someone just because –’ his mouth twists a little – ‘because they have a perfect chest to waist ratio, or the perfect cheekbones, or the glossiest hair. You should want someone because they’re . . . I don’t know . . . real, true.’
I can’t help but glance at the water, tiny fragments of moon still dancing across its surface. I look back at Ash, his slightly proud nose, his unthinkably pale blue eyes, and the mouth which I know has the ability to completely overshadow the rest of his features when it cracks a smile. Then I think of Nate and Alice and Katie and home. I have to carry on with the canon. I have to make those two pieces of thread weave together again. I used to cling to the script, to predictability, but now it feels like someone’s ripping me down the middle. ‘I know, I know.’
‘I mean, he doesn’t even know your real name, and it’s such a pretty name, so much better—’
But he never gets to finish his sentence because I’ve already leant forward and started to kiss him. He returns my kiss, his lips warm and soft, his breath filling my nostrils, and I’m spinning and floating like a maple seed, filled with joy and launching into the sky. He weaves his fingers along my spine, an elaborate pattern, and I get this feeling like I can’t inhale any deeper, like my lungs will burst. I pull him closer so his body presses against mine – we really do fit together perfectly.
But my head fills with Alice and Katie and Nate, and that awful ripping feeling returns.
The damned canon.
That bastard butterfly.
I pull away. ‘I’m sorry.’
He studies my face. ‘You – you just want him?’
The lie sticks in my throat like something barbed and sharp. And for some reason, I think of the quote from Katie’s letter. All the world’s a stage. I swallow hard and push the words out one by one. ‘Yes. I just want Willow.’
And without saying anything, he turns and walks away.