The injustice of that was sharper than any uncivilised spear or sword. “I am sorry, my lord, that I could not marry fast enough to suit you. But I have some good news. That incant I have been working on? I succeeded. Look.”

Releasing his father, he summoned to hand a potted lace-fern from the foyer. Considered its blueish-green foliage, imagined it different, and then told it to change. The chamber’s warm air quivered. The lace-fern trembled and blurred. A silent explosion of raw power… and then he was holding a fern coloured violet and gold.

“You see, my lord? I have elevated transmutation to an art! And with this new incant I shall protect Dorana from all—”

But his father wasn’t listening. Beneath his blankets he was shuddering, convulsions wracking him head to toe. Eyes straining wide, his face drained of colour, a strangled moan escaped his peeled-back lips. Black blood gushed from nose and mouth. Another shuddering convulsion, bowing him in two.

And then nothing… save silence.

Morgan stared. “My lord? My lord? Father!”

The fern slipped through his fingers. He scarcely felt his knees crush it as he slid from his chair. Heedless of the blood, the pus, the stench, he gathered his father close and held him as he’d never once in his life held the living, breathing man.

Time passed. The world blurred. When he was again aware of himself, he realised he was standing in the corridor outside the attic. Though its door was warded, he could feel Barl within.

A muffled stirring. The ward collapsed, the door opened, and there she stood, his unranked mage, his miracle.

My Barl.

Her eyes filled with tears. “Lord Danfey?”

Pushing past her, he almost stumbled into the attic. The airy space beneath the mansion’s roof was bright as day with glimfire. And on the workbench… on the workbench…

“It’s a funeral clock,” Barl said softly. “I didn’t know your father. But I know you, Morgan. I see him in you.”

Her creation was a fluid, frozen explosion of night-black crystal, dazzled through with tiny brilliant crystals, like stars. Its centre was hollow, and suspended in it the clock’s workings, wrought in pure gleaming gold. Swirling around them a rich constellation of jewels: ruby, sapphire, ambrix.

Slowly, he shook his head. “I don’t understand. How did you—when did you—”

“Rumm helped me with what I needed,” she said, her gaze not leaving his face. “And every day, while you sat with your father, I worked on it. Warded it in my chamber so you’d not realise what I was doing.”

He had to clear his throat. “So you knew… you never believed…”

“I wanted to, Morgan. But no-one lives forever. And he was very ill.”

The clock was magnificent. Somehow she’d managed to capture his father’s spirit, his austere, severe and elegant essence. His brilliance. In a clock she’d somehow captured him.