Malakhai, what did you do with all the days?

Well, he had retained every detail of Louisa’s corpse, the blue dress, the blood behind her eyes and the pink froth at her lips. He must have replayed her death a thousand times inside his head.

Mallory ceased to pay any attention to the music. She concentrated on an image of Faustine’s Magic Theater – Malakhai’s version, not Oliver’s. She decorated it with cafe tables and wine bottles, peopled it with civilians and soldiers, then filled the air with smoke. The chandelier dimmed and the stage was lit with a row of candles. Standing on the stage beside her was a red-haired girl, who held a violin. Mallory stepped into the girl’s skin and turned Louisa’s head toward young Malakhai. The boy stood in the wings, hidden from the audience by the edge of the curtain and awaiting his musical cue.

Mallory’s hand was rising, lifting the violin to cradle it between her shoulder and her chin. Then Louisa stroked the strings with a bow that smelled of rosin. Hidden beneath the instrument was the arrow meant to replace the bow at the end of the act. Mallory turned her eyes back to Malakhai.

Do you see him yet, Louisa? Do you see the uniform?

No, not yet. And only Mallory could see the arrow loaded in his crossbow. Louisa’s eyes were closed. She was so involved in her music.

This illusion was Max Candle’s routine. But tonight, Malakhai holds the weapon on her – on them.

He’s so young. Eighteen years old, all new again. The pistol grip of the crossbow was in his right hand, and his eyes were shaded by the brim of an officer’s cap. The crossbow pistol was rising.

The uniform’s material was gray, the buttons were silver – and the collar was red. No detail should be lost. She looked at young Malakhai through Louisa’s eyes. The handsome boy wore fine black boots. His crossbow pistol was aiming at her now.

What was Louisa thinking? It was easier to creep inside the mind of a killer – so difficult to be a victim in the crosshairs of a weapon sight. First she saw the uniform, and then she saw the SS insignia. Malakhai?

Yes, she knows him now. She was moving past her fear of the uniform. Louisa looked at her old love. His ringer was on the trigger. Was she wondering why Malakhai was doing Max’s routine? Yes.

Why isn’t Max here?

Max can’t shoot you, Louisa. Only Malakhai could do that – because he had loved this girl since they were children.

Mallory waited for the boy to deliver the missile. Did Louisa still believe that a silk scarf would fly – harmless silk on a wire that she could wind round the hidden arrow? Franny Futura had spoken of her surprise. No, Louisa had no idea what was coming. She turned away from the audience, revolving as she played, to hide the switch of the violin bow for an arrow. She was going through with the act that had opened every show.

Why do you trust him, Louisa?

I’ve known Malakhai all my life.

Mallory, less trustful, looked at the boy. His dark blue eyes were on Louisa’s face, probing, touching – the last caress of a distance. His finger pulled the trigger.

Foolish, Louisa.

There was no time for her to cry out with surprise. The shaft from the crossbow was buried in her shoulder, so deep, such pain. The violin and its bow fell to the stage. The hidden arrow dropped from Mallory’s hand. How could this be happening? Louisa stared at him as he turned to run. Why? Why did you hurt me?

He was running away from her. Louisa was falling, and Mallory’s cheek was pressing to the cool wood of the stage. His boots made a pounding sensation that Louisa could feel through her skin as she lay on the floorboards.

Over the next hour, Mallory played the scene over and over again. In one scenario, she left Louisa falling to the stage and ran away with Malakhai, weaving across the room, upsetting tables and startling patrons. Then they were outside the theater and breathing deeply, Malakhai and Mallory. It had rained that night. The air was damp and cold. Malakhai looked up the street and down, but Mallory saw no one on the sidewalk. In the cover of rain, the cover of night, he tore off the outer layer of his uniform. Beneath it, he wore street clothes. He ran back into the theater. Only a few minutes had passed by, not the fifteen he had estimated, not even ten. He was so young, time would crawl and drag for him, but only a few minutes were passing by.

Louisa is dying. Is that what you wanted, Malakhai?

The next time Louisa was wounded, Mallory lay down upon the stage with her and bled from the same arrow, from many arrows, betrayed time after time, left ripped and bloody, listening to the sound of Malakhai’s pounding boots hitting the wood, running away, leaving her behind to bleed and die.

Now Louisa was deep in shock. Someone lifted her from the floor and carried her to a room backstage. Strong arms laid her body down. Mallory could hear the door closing on the noise of the crowd, the sliding chairs and tables, the clink of glasses and babbling voices.

A pillow was covering her mouth.

No air. Panic was rising. The primal instinct to breathe was overriding all her senses. Her hands pushed the pillow away. Mallory fought with more strength than she had, adrenaline gorging every muscle, lungs burning, bursting, dying for a sip of air. He pressed the pillow down harder. Louisa writhed and pushed. Her legs kicked out. Blood poured from the wound, greasing the floor, making it all slick and red.

Where is Malakbai?

He’s gone, Louisa. He ran away. You know that.

No help was coming, not ever. Her assassin was on top of her with his full weight, pressing down on the pillow. Mallory could hear voices on the other side of the door, speaking in foreign tongues.

Why don’t you scream, Louisa?

I can’t. There are German soldiers at the door.

So soon? Only minutes had passed by since the shot. Soldiers from the audience?

Her killer was so desperate now. She wasn’t dying fast enough. His knee pressed down hard on her chest with all the weight of his body. She could hear her breastbone breaking, snapping. Pain was layered over with shock. She could feel her heart being crushed under the weight of him, torn by shards of broken bone.

No, no!

And then her body ceased to thrash. Blood welled up behind her eyes. What Malakhai had begun was being finished now – nearly done. And then Louisa lay still, eyes wide and staring. A pink froth spilled past her lips, and tiny delicate bubbles burst, one by one.

Mallory curled into a ball within the dimensions of Malakhai’s prison cell. There were no sounds or images anymore, no life of the sleeping mind, for the dead do not dream.

When she opened her eyes again, morning light was splashed across the ceiling beyond the masking tape bars, and every muscle ached. She felt the stiffness in her neck and limbs. The concerto was still looping on the CD player, flooding her brain with music that meant nothing to her. So much for the myth that Louisa inhabited her composition.

She had never considered musical metaphors before. Her foster father’s swing music and his rock ‘n’ roll had moved her body without conscious effort or thought. Louisa’s music was too difficult.

Mallory forced a meaning on the composition. Between the strings of violins, the cornets were firing high notes. Perhaps they stood for guns. And now all the pieces of the orchestra loomed up in a great wall of sound. It exploded into shards of clarinets and flutes – bombs bursting in air, bright shrapnel falling like stars. And then music cascaded into liquid valleys of rich low octaves. When the lull came round again, that hollow place in the music, Mallory nodded unconsciously. She had a long-standing acquaintance with emptiness.