“What’s the time, please?”
“Getting on five o’clock,” said the Angel.
Camilla always came to pick her up before lunchtime; that meant it was over four hours that Cam was overdue. Camilla had never been overdue in Nona’s whole life. Something very obvious must have happened on her face, because the Angel said a bit hastily, “Nona, can you take Noodle out? He hasn’t been since before lunch, and it’s not fair on the poor creature. He’s got ageing kidneys.”
“I’ll go too,” said Hot Sauce.
“Me three,” said Honesty.
Hot Sauce said, “Stay put. Two’s enough.” Honesty didn’t even argue.
Nona was happy enough to take Noodle’s lead, and Noodle was even happier; he even whisked a bit. He was always good at sensing feelings. Nona thought she and Noodle were very alike in some ways, except she sadly did not have an arboreal anything. She and Hot Sauce shrugged on their dust jackets and buttoned up the sleeves in the cloakroom, and Nona clipped the leash to Noodle’s collar and led him down the flight of black and cool and quiet stairs, Hot Sauce following behind, and once they were one floor down she said—“Camilla hasn’t come for me.”
“Sleep at mine if she doesn’t,” said Hot Sauce.
This idea quite startled Nona, who had never slept apart from Camilla. She was homesick thinking about her. She had thought Hot Sauce would maybe say something sympathetic or understanding, like, “Don’t worry about it,” but the problem with Hot Sauce was that she was a little bit like Cam. When you came to her with a problem she gave you something to do about it. Nona didn’t know what to say, so she blurted: “You crossed your fingers when you said Yes to the Angel.”
“Didn’t want to lie,” said Hot Sauce. “Just in case. Of it becoming a lie.”
“You always do what the Angel says.”
“Wrong. I always keep my promises to the Angel. This time I didn’t promise.”
Nona thought of Palamedes, and said: “That’s not really the spirit of the law, even if it is the letter.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means that even if technically you’re not breaking the rule you sort of are anyway, in your heart.”
“So?”
Nona had no idea how to counter So? By then they were down at the bottom floor and Hot Sauce was carefully checking the dust-and-concrete yard where Nona had so often taken Noodle for his lunchtime bathroom trips, peering through the glass-panelled doors where such a short time ago Nona had burst through with Crown. The red light still flashed above the double doors, which meant they were locked. Nona searched for ways to dissuade Hot Sauce and said, “You said earlier the Angel came in a truck, with a grille.”
“Yes. Never seen her come in a car before,” said Hot Sauce. “Come outside, we’re clear.”
They opened the heavy doors and the heat hit them, as it always did, like putting on wet clothes. Even though it was later in the afternoon than Nona was used to, it was still hotter than hot—the kind of heat that prickled her all over, even underneath her hair, and made her shudder inside her dust jacket. Nona knelt down to unclip the lead and Noodle, aware of his dignity, trundled out of sight to do his business behind a broken slab of rock. They watched his exit in silence.
“But doesn’t that mean the Angel’s being looked after, and we don’t have to worry?” said Nona after a while.
Hot Sauce didn’t look so sure.
“Her driver stopped the car, and someone got out after the Angel had gone into school,” said Hot Sauce. “Checked the doorways. Of both the buildings opposite. And the alleys. Professional.”
Nona was enchanted.
“Maybe the Angel’s rich and important.”
“She’s vulnerable, with us. We have to keep her safe,” said Hot Sauce, “more than ever.”
“Because … of war?”
“Because of war.”
Noodle came back to them and self-importantly kicked dirt behind him with his backmost legs. The middle set, the arboreal set, stretched out all the way to the middle of his body as he elongated himself. Then he yawned in a nice way, to show that he was agreeable. Both Hot Sauce and Nona spent a little bit of time scratching him beneath his collar and on the bump where his tailbone started. Then once he had had enough scratches he sat on his haunches and they clipped the lead back on. When they went back into the foyer Nona noticed that Hot Sauce lingered there a little, staring out into the street through the smeared glass. As Nona moved to mount the stairs Hot Sauce said suddenly— “Wait.”