After washing up he hangs around for a bit then leaves the apartment and I only see him the next morning at breakfast. I don’t think he’s slept in the bedroom since I’ve been here, but I can’t be sure. He never makes the bed; sometimes he lies on it reading.

Gabriel starts after breakfast on the first day with his questions, but I just concentrate on drying the crockery. When it dawns on him that I’m not going to tell him my life story, he tries different subjects: first off it’s books. He’s reading a really good book, Kerouac, whatever that is.

“Do you have a favorite?”

I’m busy drying a plate, slowly, round and round, getting it really dry, and I don’t reply. So Gabriel lists his top books. He can’t pin down one favorite. He lists a few French ones I’ve never heard of, and then some English ones I’ve never heard of—though I have heard of Wuthering Heights—and then he’s on to American authors. I’m not sure if he’s showing off or if he’s always like this.

When he finally shuts up I put the very dry plate on to the top of the pile of very dry plates and say, “I’ve never read a book.”

His left hand is in the washing-up bowl, suds around his wrist. It has stopped washing.

“I do have a favorite though. Solzhenitsyn. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. You read that one?”

He shakes his head.

I shrug.

“How can it be your favorite . . . if you’ve never read it?”

And I want to yell at him, “’Cause the woman who kept me chained up in a cage was a Russian-loving lunatic, you stupid, spoiled Swiss idiot.” I want to scream and shout. And next thing the plates are all smashed on the floor and I don’t know how I got so angry so quickly. I’m breathing hard and Gabriel’s standing there, with suds dripping off his fingers.

Next day at breakfast, on new plates, Gabriel isn’t talking; he’s reading Solzhenitsyn.

I eat the bread, drink the coffee, look out of the window.

I say, “Can you read all right with your sunglasses on?”

He just gives me the finger.

When we’re washing up, and he’s put the book down, he has another go at me, about art this time. He goes on and on about Monet and Manet and stuff like that. I don’t know what he’s talking about. All Black Witches can’t be like this, can they?

I tell him, “I don’t need a lecture about art. I need to get out of this stupid apartment and see Mercury. There’s a deadline.” I throw a few swear words in there too.

When he’s gone I remember a book Arran gave me once. It had sketches in it by da Vinci. I’d almost forgotten about that book. They were good sketches. I find a pencil in a drawer but there’s no paper, so I rip a blank page out of Gabriel’s book.

After I’ve finished the drawing I burn it. But the fire smokes badly.

At breakfast on day three he says he’s finished One Day in the Life of . . . and he likes it. Then he asks me why I like it.

And of course there are a million reasons. Does he expect some fancy reply or something?

“So,” he asks, “why do you like it?”

I say, “Because he survives.”

Gabriel nods. “Yes, I’m glad about that too.”

While we wash up he talks about climbing. He really likes climbing. He stops washing and starts to climb up the kitchen cupboards. He’s good . . . precise and fast. He says his favorite place for climbing is Gorges du Verdon, which is in France.

He asks me where my favorite place is.

I say, “Wales.”

When he goes I rip another blank page out of his book and draw him climbing up the kitchen cupboards.

Day four and Gabriel’s on to poetry. I’ve got to give him ten out of ten for trying, but if he’s attempting to piece together the story of my life, poetry isn’t going to add much. I mean—poetry! Then I start laughing. Really laughing. We’re Black Witches, hiding out from Hunters, White Witches fear us . . . and we’re washing up and talking about poetry. I bend over at the waist I’m laughing so much. My stomach aches.

Gabriel watches. He doesn’t laugh with me. I don’t think he knows what I find so funny, but he smiles. I manage to calm down, but I keep sniggering like a kid every now and then while Gabriel is talking about some great poet. He even recites a poem. It’s in French, so it’s rather lost on me, but I don’t laugh at that.

I ask about his accent. His mother was English and his father is Swiss. Gabriel was born in France and lived in America with his father and younger sister for a year. His English is excellent, but his American is better, and he speaks English with a weird French-American accent. He says that he came back to Switzerland after he got his Gift. He hasn’t said what his Gift is, and I don’t ask.

That afternoon I’ve had enough. I sneak out, go down to the lake, and then head out of town toward the hills. When I get back I can’t find the right road and have to go down to the lake to get my bearings. People are hurrying home or into bars and cafes. They each have a phone hiss to them and the city is a low engine rumble in my head. I walk along the road that skirts the lake. The mountains are now hidden in low cloud, and although I know they are there I can’t see them; even the huge lake is diminished to a pond edge by a bank of mist over it. The boats on the quayside are vague shapes in the fog. I can hear two voices, men speaking French. They go quiet.

I turn and see a figure in black watching me, and as slow as I can make myself do it, while a gallon of adrenaline is urging me to flee, I saunter away. A whistle sounds: a Hunter’s call to her partner. Now I run.

I keep to the backstreets and find an entrance to a bar and hang around in the corner where I can see into the street through the window. The street is busy with fains. Eventually I step out and make my way cautiously back to the apartment, but I don’t see the Hunter again.

I’m back just before dark and go straight on to the terrace.

I know they saw me. I’m sure I lost them, but they know I’m here now. Somehow they knew it was me.

I dream. I’m still running in that blasted alley, but now it’s different; for the first time in the dream I remember to look at the end of the road. I look and look and there are the ordinary buildings and ordinary fains and a bus and some cars, but I still can’t reach them. I hear Hunters behind me, shouting, “Get him! Rip his arms out!” And I panic and run faster and they’re shouting so close behind me and I can’t run any faster . . . and then I wake up.

Gabriel is on his haunches watching me.

I tell him, not in a nice way, to leave me alone and then lie back down and close my eyes. I’m not sure I should tell him what happened today. I’m not supposed to leave the apartment, but maybe if I tell him about the Hunters he’ll take me to Mercury. I decide to tell him. But when I open my eyes Gabriel has gone.

Day five. I’m building up to tell Gabriel about the Hunters while we’re washing up. He passes me a cup to dry and as I take it he holds onto it for a moment before releasing, so I have to pull it a little from him, and he says, “Switzerland is a great country. There are few White Witches, none in Geneva, and the Black Witches here can be trusted. But there are Half Bloods who will sell you out if they see you. Hunters use them.”

That’s Gabriel’s way of saying that he knows I left the apartment.

I dry the cup.

He says, “Geneva is a wonderful city. Don’t you think?”

That’s another way of him saying he knows I left the apartment.

I swear at him.

“You’re not supposed to leave the apartment.” And that’s the final way he has of saying he knows I left the apartment.

“Then take me to Mercury.”

“How do I know you’re not a spy? How do I know you didn’t go to meet some Hunter?”