“Oh my god, Lexi – if you don’t stop it, I’m going to nail your feet to the floor. I’m not even kidding.”
“Sure you are, Sam. Except you don’t have a hammer, do you?”
“Don’t need a hammer. Pixie from the art show team has got a nail gun. She let me use it when we were building the main stage yesterday.”
“She does know that you’ve managed to superglue your hand to a costume before now, right? And she still put you in charge of a nail gun? Jesus.”
“Mock all you like. I was badass. Bad. Ass.”
“How long is it till eleven?”
“Still another fifteen minutes.”
“Maybe I should go now, just in case…”
“What is wrong with you?” Sam growls at me. “He’s just a guy who’s written a book, all right? It’s not like you’ve never met one of those before.” To illustrate her point, she waves an arm around the hotel lobby. Melinda Salisbury – who has just collected her author lanyard from a beaming Bede – ducks out of the way and raises an eyebrow at all of us. Sam looks mortified. I am mortified.
“Sorry,” I mumble, watching said author walk off into the convention swinging her lanyard. That went well.
Sam has retreated behind the registration desk. I perch on the side of it before I pace a hole in the hotel’s carpet.
“And he’s not just a guy, Sam. He’s Haydn Swift.”
“Sounds like a guy to me.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it. That book. That book. I can’t…I just can’t.”
Bede rolls his eyes, ticking off another name on the membership list. “Are you still on about that bloody book?”
“Yes. Yes, I am. Because it’s amazing. I want to live in it.”
“This is the one with the magic, right?” Sam squints at the ceiling, and I can’t tell whether she really can’t remember or whether she’s trying to wind me up. I decide not to rise to it either way.
“Piecekeepers. That one. The one where the paintings are full of magic and now it’s all trying to get out and there’s a whole—”
“Oh, that one,” Sam and Bede chorus. The family collecting their membership badges laugh – we’re essentially part of the entertainment at this point. I don’t care – it’s eleven o’clock.
“It’s eleven!”
“Thank god for that,” mutters Sam through her teeth.
“How do I look?”
“Like a fangirl. Probably not quite the professional image your dad’s after.”
She’s right. I need to tone down the over-excited twitching and be calm personified. Calm. Professional. Like this is no big deal…even though it is a big deal; a huge deal. After all, I was the one who told my dad we needed Haydn Swift here: this could be our coup. The Brother could take that and suck on it, because he didn’t get there first. We did. “The book’s going to be huge,” I said, when Dad found me sitting in the kitchen that afternoon a couple of weeks ago, right where I’d been for the previous four hours – ever since I’d opened it to the first page. “You need to find a space for him. Now. Before that happens.”
“You’re sure?” And he flipped through the pages so carelessly that I wanted to scream, because as far as I was concerned that book was suddenly everything.
“I’m sure.”
“I’ll give his publicist a call.”
And he did.
I check my hair in the mirrors of the lift on my way up to the third floor.
Hi, I’m Lexi Angelo. I’m your guest liaison for the convention – and can I just say how much I loved your book?
Hello! I’m Lexi. I’ll be looking after you for the weekend. And your book is amazing!
I’m Lexi and I love you. I love you and I love your book and did I mention I love you?
Can I have your head in a jar? Because it’s clever. Your head. Because it makes words. I love words.
The lift pings as it reaches the third floor and the doors slide open.
I check the room number I’m looking for, then tuck my clipboard under my arm and walk down the corridor towards room 319, where I’m supposed to collect him.
“Just a guy, Lexi. Just a guy who wrote a book.”
Jenna, one of the publicists from Swift’s publisher is pacing up and down the corridor, talking rapidly and quietly into her phone. She freezes when she sees someone approach, then realizes it’s me and relaxes, tipping the phone away from her face to smile and whisper, “He’s all ready. Door’s open – just knock and go in.” And then she’s back to her call again.
“Just a guy who wrote a book. Professional. Lexi Angelo. Guest liaison. Loved your book. Lexi Angelo.”
I knock, and push the door open.
He’s standing at the window, his back to me. Haydn Swift.
I clear my throat. It feels like my heart has somehow wedged itself up there, which isn’t exactly helpful, but still.
“Hi. I’m Lexi Angelo…”
My voice evaporates as he turns to face me with a broad smile, all my carefully planned words dissolving into thin air.
“Still carrying that clipboard, Lexi?”
Haydn Swift…is Aidan arsing Green.
“You?!”
I want to be outraged and eloquent and angry and – above all – smart. I want to be so smart that not only is he obliterated but he remembers my cutting comment for the rest of his life. But instead: “You?!”
“How’s it going?” says Aidan-Haydn in the smuggest of all smug voices, with his smug mouth in his smug face. And I was right about his chin. It’s far too big.
And smug.
“You’re Haydn Swift? You wrote Piecekeepers? That was you?”
“Yes?” He glances down at his shoes. Even those are smug. Smug face, smug hair, smug shoes. There’s a silence, then in a lower voice he adds: “Please don’t tell me you thought it was shit.”
This is…not what I was expecting him to say. Not this guy, with his crashing the green room and his clipboard-mockery and all the rest of it…and suddenly, he doesn’t seem smug and annoying, he seems kind of, well…nervous. He’s nervous. Maybe he’s joking? I can’t tell.
He has to be joking, right?
Because otherwise, it would mean that he really is nervous; nervous I didn’t like his book. That book.
Of all the books in the world, Aidan Green wrote Piecekeepers, and now he’s asking me if I thought it was bad?
“I…didn’t. I thought it was kind of the opposite.”
“Kind of the opposite?”
“You know. Kind of not shit?”
He doesn’t move fast enough to hide the smile.
“‘Kind of not shit’? Can we put that on the cover?”
Eyes the same colour as clouds reflected in the sea, looking right at me.
“Depends.” I shrug, pulling out the clipboard and looking at the schedule list clipped to the top – anything, as long as I don’t have to meet those eyes, because they’re stopping me thinking straight. Or using words properly.
“On what?”
There’s a click behind me as Jenna comes in and closes the door behind her – and suddenly I don’t have an answer, because how can this guy be who I thought he was? How can this guy, annoying Aidan, be the same person who wrote that book? That book, which was everything I ever wanted, which I wished I could somehow climb into and live inside for ever.
That book.
This guy.
How?
Because with every page I’d turned I’d felt – no, more than that, I’d been sure – that I knew who that person was; the person who’d created that world. I could feel them inside my head.
And they didn’t feel like Aidan Green.
Jenna clears her throat. “Lexi?”
And I’m back in the room.
“Hi. Yes. Sorry. Aidan – sorry, Haydn – is down for a spot on the one o’clock New Voices panel, and we’ve scheduled him to do a reading from the book at half past three. Hopefully there’ll be a couple of people who come along to the reading off the back of the panel.”
“Remind me who else is on that?” Jenna peers over my shoulder at the schedule and I read off the names of the other panellists. Aidan fidgets, looking increasingly pale as I list them.
“Seriously?”
“Aidan, you’ll be fine, honestly.” Jenna smiles at him, then looks over at me. “He’s a bit nervous. Not done anything like this before – this is the start of our big publicity push for Piecekeepers, so we really appreciate you fitting us in at such short notice.”
“Of course! I…my dad loved the book.”
“He did?” Jenna brightens. “Fantastic! I’ll make sure I follow up with him.”
Aidan clears his throat, then clears it again. And again. It’s a dry, hacking cough that doesn’t sound entirely real. Peering round me, Jenna frowns at him. “Aidan? Are you all right?”
“Sorry, Jen. Can I maybe have some water or something? I feel a bit sick…”
“Oh, right. Yes. Of course. I’ll get you some. Anything else?”
“No, thanks. Just some water.”
While Jenna’s rummaging in the minibar for a bottle of water, Aidan’s eyes lock onto mine.
“You liked it? You promise?” he asks, and now I’m sure he’s not the same person he was back in April. He wasn’t joking. All the swagger’s gone and it’s like I’ve never met him before.
Now I think about it, I suppose it makes sense; last month, he was just here as a passenger. He could do and say whatever he wanted, keeping the knowledge of who he was and what he’d done close, like a secret. It meant he could be superior. This time, he has to stand up in front of people and say things; things about the book he wrote, about who he is and why he writes and what he thinks. He has to go and be an author. Judging by the shade of grey he’s gone, this is not a fact that is lost on him.
He gulps the water Jenna hands him gratefully, then blows out a long, slow breath.
“You okay?” I ask, wrapping my arms around my clipboard. He nods.
“Right, Aidan, I’ve got to run down to reception to meet another author. Will you be okay with Lexi? She’ll get you where you need to be – won’t you, Lexi?”
Before I can even answer, Jenna is gone – leaving me to babysit Aidan.
The silence in the room is so thick you could cut it with cheese wire. It’s chokingly awkward.
“So.”
“So.”
“What’s with the name, then?” I try to lean casually against the edge of the little desk – but somehow, I get it wrong and end up sitting on the tiny tea tray on the top and tipping the whole thing over. There’s a horrible clatter as very small mugs fall over and the kettle hits the carpet. “Shit. Shitshitshitshit. Sorry. I’ll tidy that up.”
“It’s okay,” he says – and there’s the slightest hint of that smile again. “This is Jenna’s room. I’m over the road in the other hotel. Last-minute thing.”
In the lift, I try again.
“So – the name?”
“Why’d I write under a fake name, you mean?”
Well, obviously, yes. Because that’s exactly what I just asked, isn’t it? I make a vague “Mmmm” noise. He checks his hair in the mirrored wall and pushes his glasses further up his nose.
“Art’s the family business. My dad’s a curator for a gallery, and Mum’s an Art History lecturer. I didn’t really think a book written by their son about how there’s magic that can kill people leaking out of some of the paintings would go down so well. Not with them, anyway. And I didn’t want to…you know, embarrass them. They have to deal with some pretty serious art people. Collectors. The types who don’t really like the idea of people having fun writing about paintings. Or having fun in general,” he adds.
“But they do know about it, right? Your parents. They must have read it?”
“Yes – and no.”
“They haven’t read it?”
“Not their kind of book. They aren’t really interested – they’re more into big literary novels, not so much what I want to write.” He checks himself; corrects himself. “What I do write.”
Oh. That got serious quickly, didn’t it?
“And Haydn? Where’d that come from?”
“Just sounded, you know, good?” He doesn’t sound sure about that.
It does sound good though. I was picturing what Haydn Swift would look like, sound like, from the second I put Piecekeepers down. Trying to imagine who could write a book like that.
Turns out it’s not quite who I was expecting.
The lift pings as we reach the ground floor, and even before the doors are all the way open I can see Sam looking fraught across the lobby. She spots me and starts waving at me to get my attention. Like she’d need to actually wave for me to know there’s a problem.
I roll my eyes. “Can you wait here a sec?”
“Sure.” He sticks his hands in his pockets and leans against one of the lobby pillars, and if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe the change in him that has taken place in the time it took to walk out of the lift. The swagger is back.
“I need you in ops for a sec. And what are you doing with him?” Sam asks when I reach her, having dodged round a group of seven Batmans (Batmen? What’s the plural of a Batman, anyway?) all having their photo taken together. “I thought you were going to fetch your author?”
“That’s him,” I hiss at her, grabbing her arm and towing her towards the ops office. “Haydn Swift is Aidan Green.”
“You. Are. Kidding. Me.” Sam emphasizes every single word. “It’s a pseudonym?”
“It is.”
“Oh my god! That explains last time – he must’ve come for—”
“Yes, yes, I know. And now I’m stuck with him for the weekend.”
“How come?”
“I asked to be his liaison, didn’t I? Before I knew who he bloody was!” I slam the ops room door open and haul her inside, throwing my clipboard on one of the tables. Across the room, Dad’s friend Paul looks up from monitoring the social media feeds on his laptop, but decides he’s best off pretending he can’t hear or see us.
Sam is enjoying this far, far too much. “So it’s really him. It’s not some kind of elaborate practical joke?”
“No, it’s really him.”
“And how many times have you read that book now?”
“Three times in a fortnight.”
“Wow.” She can barely speak, she’s laughing so hard.
All I can do is shake my head. And then pick up the clipboard again and bang it against the edge of the table twice. Paul blinks a couple of times, but he still says nothing.
I can’t hang around, so in one quick motion, I grab a bottle of water from the stack by the door and check the message board for any surprises from Dad. Nothing – which either means everything is running perfectly, or he’s so busy firefighting that he hasn’t had a chance to leave a message for me. I’d prefer the former, but I’ll take the latter.
“You didn’t actually…you know…do the whole, ‘I love you’ thing, did you?” Sam asks from behind her hands.
“No, thank god. I saw him before I said anything.”
“Because that would have been embarrassing. No – that would have been humiliating. Especially after last time…”
“Yes, thank you, Sam.”
“I mean, more than just normal-level humiliating. That would be ground-opening-up—”
“Yes, all right, thank you. This is my actual life we’re talking about.”
“Well, yeah. That’s what makes it so brilliant! I’ve had you going on about this guy on Skype for the last week. Haydn this, Haydn that…and now you want to deny me this teeny tiny joy?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Oh, bog off.” Sam shakes her head.
“Bog off? What are you – six?”
She’s too busy laughing to answer: whatever it is she wanted me for, it’s clearly not so urgent that it can’t wait until she’s done mocking me.
I suppose she’s got a point. I have been driving everybody crazy about this book. Because…magic. In paintings. And chases and secret societies and history and art and MAGIC. It’s like someone came along and poked through the inside of my head and found a list of all the things I love that aren’t conventions and made it into a story – for me. I felt like that book was mine, and that somehow, Haydn Swift could see inside me, see everything I was and everything I cared about – everything that makes me me – and he said “Okay”.
And then I was able to bring him to a convention.
And then…this.
If I were Sam, I’d probably be laughing too.
And just like that…I am.
“What were you flapping at me for, anyway?”
“Oh, sorry. The chairperson for the four o’clock comics panel, the one who was supposed to be asking all the questions – she’s bailed. We need a new one.”
“Does Dad know?”
“Who d’you think took the call?”
“Oh no. He didn’t start another ‘You’ll never appear at another convention again’ vendetta? Because last time he did that, I had to make a grovelling phone call three weeks later to persuade someone to be one of our next guests of honour. You can imagine how much fun that was, can’t you?”
“Your future stepmother had just walked through the door when the call came through.” The mention of Bea puts me on full alert. She’s not supposed to be here! What’s she doing? This is Angelo territory. This is fan conventions and cosplayers and…our stuff. Not her kind of event, all suits and sales and Powerpoint presentations. But then she’s becoming an Angelo soon, too, isn’t she? Too soon… Oblivious to my racing thoughts, Sam is still burbling away to herself. “I’ve never seen him smile like that. Is she drugging him? It was like watching a bulldog blowing bubbles.”
“Bea’s here? She’s in the building?”
“I don’t think she was staying – said something about just passing through?”
Thank god.
“Right. Okay. So we need a new moderator to run the comics panel.”
“Yes.”
“Aaaargh. I can’t do this now. I’ve got to get back to my guy. Who’s already here that might do it?” I spin towards the membership list, which is printed in tiny, tiny font and pinned across the entire wall, because of my father’s trust issues with technology, and scoop up the walkie-talkie from the table. “Bede! Bring your comics head to ops.”
“What do you need?” On the other end of the radio, Bede is ready instantly. It’s like he has some kind of magic password to activate him, and that password is comics. He’s through the door less than a minute later.
“Here.” I chuck a highlighter at him. “Find me anyone – anyone – who can moderate the four o’clock comics panel. Artist, writer, inker, colourist, letterer, editor…anyone. Anyone who’s here and not booked for that time slot.”
“I could do it?”
“Nice try, Bede. But remember what happened with the guys from 2000AD?” I shake my head in mock-disappointment.
“That was one time. One.” He points the highlighter at me.
“Hey, Bede!” Sam pipes up. “How do you spell ‘restraining order’?”
“Shut up,” he says – but he knows none of it means anything. And they were all okay about it in the end, once Dad had offered to pay the bar bill…
“Sam? Help him. Give me a shout when you’ve found someone so I can run it past Dad.” I snatch up the clipboard…then, on second thoughts, drop it again. “I’ve got to go and wrangle Aidan Two-Names.”
I’m sure, as the door closes behind me, I can hear Sam making kissing noises at my back. If I didn’t love my best friend as much as I do, she’d be long dead by now.