The redhead is in full flow again. As far as John can follow, he is comparing, in grand detail, the different quality of drinks you got in different places at different times of the year; the Dutch beer is apparently the best - if you are friendly with them, which his companion is, of course.

John imagines copying the boy’s voice, regaling him back with tales of the one alewife in the village with her one ale which always tastes the same like warm puddle water. The thought makes him smile.

But he mustn’t be distracted by idle thoughts: the other boy walks faster when he’s talking about something he enjoys, and he enjoys talking about beer. John needs all his concentration and energy just to keep up. John has to take three quick steps to match one of the boy’s long strides.

He tugs on the redhead’s arm. ‘Black Jack?’

‘Ay?’ the boy slows.

‘Can I call you that? That’s your name?’

‘Did I not introduce myself to you properly, Fair One? In all the excitement, I’ve lost my manners. Though some will tell you otherwise, I’m always polite - whatever else I’m doing.’ He winks. ‘Forgive me now, and let me correct my rudeness. Black Jack is what many know me as in these parts. Though going far back, I was originally a…’

John takes a deep breath. He can’t wait for a pause in Black Jack’s talk before speaking; by the time it comes he might have lost his courage again. ‘My name is…’

‘John,’ they say together.

Black Jack throws his head back and gives a deep laugh. ‘How did you guess? Right easy, with Jack being the friendly version of John!’

John tries to explain that no, they have the same name, but his voice is fading already.

How do you make yourself heard in this great, clanging city? Surely it should have been oh so simple to tell this merry near-stranger: I’m not a Fair Maiden, but a badly made boy called John with no friends in the world apart from a faerie only I can see. But they’d no doubt part ways soon, so what does it matter, really? John makes a sound between a sigh and a whimper.

The boy doesn’t notice – there’s not a breath’s break in the whirr of his voice. But the hobgoblin freezes mid somersault and gazes at John with round brown eyes. It pulls at John’s ear and points at Black Jack before continuing its flips.

John looks up at the taller boy and listens more carefully to what he’s saying.

‘There was blood splattered everywhere. You would not believe it, nay, you could not believe it!’

John’s mouth falls agape.

‘How could something so small have that much blood in it? The mess I was in, it truly looked like I’d slain a giant. If my friends had not been there to bear witness, and be sure they told everyone I’d lost a fight with an old rat, then I’m certain I’d have been arrested for murder.’ As he speaks he constantly moves his free arm, the one that isn’t linked through John’s, and his mouth is a wide grin which looks as if it is always on the verge of bursting into laughter. ‘And that’s why I was known as Red Jack, though newcomers just assumed it was due to the shade of my hair, which is fine too, but as you and I are such fast friends you should know all.’

The more he learns, the more he sees that he understands nothing. But is he getting so confused that he can’t keep track of someone’s name? Is his companion Red Jack or Black Jack?

‘Here’s a confession just for you, Fair One: that story is also the reason why, no matter how empty my belly gets, I never try my luck with the rats. I play it that I am too good to be chasing about after the beady-eyed things.’ Black or Red Jack laughs. ‘And that works well enough, even though my friends are roasting meat and I’m sneaking off to scavenge for rotten vegetables, or sucking old fish bones.’

John seizes the gap in Jack’s chatter. ‘If you’re hungry now… on the way here, before I reached London, I mean, I found a good supply of leaves and berries. I only ate a few, so there’s plenty left… I could maybe find my way back, and… and…’ John sucks his lips. Sometimes he truly feels, with a stinging like nettles over his whole body, exactly why the sound of his voice sent Da into such rages.

The taller boy gazes down at him for a moment, his eyebrows turn up in the middle and a crooked smile dances over his lips. ‘Leaves and berries does sound like a fine feast, but today let me treat you to city dining.’

John nods.

‘What were we talking of? How I became Black Jack? Ay, that is a tale.’ Jack laughs. ‘The like of which you’ve no doubt heard many times before, and will hear many times again, because it all revolves around a tavern brawl.’

John keeps his head down, only glancing up occasionally at Black Jack or the hobgoblin, which floats in front of the redhead’s face, nodding along with his words.

‘So there I was, away from my usual haunts, over at The Devil’s Tavern doing a bit of this and that, outside my usual trade, when who should walk in?’ He pauses and gazes at John with wide surprised eyes. ‘Black Jack! And what should he be clinging onto, as if were passed down from heaven, but his blackjack, the drinking jug that he took everywhere with him and insisted all his ale was served in. And he immediately says …’ Black Jack unlinks his arm and mimes clutching a tankard against his chest, bunches his other hand into a fist, and screws his face up into a livid scowl. He continues in a growl, ‘Red Jack, you’ve no right to be here. You’re out of place. And more than that, you have no right to your name, you’re going to be Black Jack now, I have a mind to be Red Jack.’

The boy returns to his normal voice. ‘Yes, you might well look confused, Fair One, because it was just like that, out of nowhere. Well, what’s a body to do when someone tries to steal their name?’ Keeping a hold of Jetta’s clothes, Jack spreads his arms out to their full span, and then leaps to the other side of John. In an exaggerated version of his own accent he says, ‘I have a right to be wherever I want to be, Black Jack, and to be called whatever I please. It is of no concern of yours.’ 

He jumps back, again creasing up his face, growling out his words, and shakes a fist at John. ‘If you’ll be a fool and not do what I tell you, then there’s only one solution.’

John’s mouth hangs open as he gazes at Jack, now walking backwards with an easy swagger. Even when Jack’s pretending to be the man with the creased up face, there’s somehow a joy to his movements, as if there’s nothing merrier than beating each other up.

‘In truth, there was more talk back and forth. But I won’t bore you with all that; you know well how these things play out.’

 John knows what it feels like to have someone punch you in the gut and leave so little air in your body that for a moment you understand what it’s like to be dead. He knows how it feels to lie on the floor with your eyes shut tight, trying to picture the delicate colours of faerie wings to distract from the spitting, yowling children surrounding you…

‘A whole roast chicken splattered into her face!’

‘Have you ever seen a barrel thrown so hard that it splinters into nothing! It was a sight for sure!’

‘Not just one spoon, but five in each hand, and she did not stop hitting him, even when he was on the floor!’

Jack spends longer acting the attacking parts and gives them much more energy than the cowering defences. But of course - there isn’t anything entertaining about being curled up in pain, or pleading for mercy.

Jack falls into step again beside John and swings an arm around his shoulder. ‘Oh, I wish you could’ve been there, you would have laughed and laughed. We all did. Me and Black Jack looked at each other, and all the lower half of his face was bloodied where I’d got good hits on his nose and split his lip open, and my face was all covered in bruises. But there it was, the fight had shown us that it was a bene idea to swap names after all. And I’ve been Black Jack since that day.’

John licks his lips. Now, he commands himself – tell him your name.

But Black Jack has more to say. ‘Though the original Black Jack disappeared soon after.’ He stares up at some birds, wheeling against the darkening sky. ‘There was a rumour for a while that he got caught and hung for something that they wanted a Red Jack for. But I don’t think that can be true.’ He flashes John a wide smile. ‘I suppose I could go back to Red Jack again, but I’m accustomed to the sound of Black Jack now. What think you, Fair One? Do you have a preference?’

If any answer is expected, it’s beyond John’s wit to give it. As he speaks the last sentence, Black Jack spins them round, through a doorway and into a whole new world.