She called Maya at eight in the morning, after a night of fitful sleep and the kind of thinking that goes in circles until you give up and make tea instead.
"Jane." Maya's voice, immediately awake, immediately alert. "Are you in London?"
"How did you know?"
"The number has a local code. Jane, tell me where you are. I'll come right now."
"I — not yet. I'm safe. I'm really, genuinely safe. But I need a day. Maybe two. And then I need you to meet me for the longest coffee in the history of beverages."
"A day." A pause. "Are you being coerced into saying you're safe?"
"No. If I were being coerced, I would use our code word."
"We don't have a code word."
"Exactly, which is an oversight we need to correct, but for now — I'm genuinely okay. I will explain everything. I promise. Maya, are you all right?"
"I've been completely out of my mind for six weeks, so physically yes, emotionally I'm a disaster, and I have also, in the absence of useful action, written twelve thousand words of my novel which I suppose is a silver lining." A pause. "Luke has a new girlfriend. It happened fast. I didn't want to be the one to tell you but now I have and I'm not sorry."
Jane absorbed this. "Good," she said, and meant it. "I hope he's kind to her."
"You are unaccountably mature about this."
"I've had time to think." Six weeks of chess and snowfields and Italian sunsets and a man who noticed when she thought in italics. "I'll call you tomorrow. I love you."
"I love you too. And Jane—" A pause. "Whoever he is — because it's obviously a he — I reserve the right to have opinions."
"Noted," Jane said, and hung up, and pressed her face briefly into her hands, and laughed.