Someone was walking up the long estate driveway. For one heart-stopping moment she thought it was Morgan, thrown from his horse or in some other way hurt. But when she looked again she realised she was wrong. But even so… the walk was familiar. And then she recognised who had turned up, unannounced.

“Remmie?” she said, staring. Incredulous. “Oh, for pity’s sake. Will you never even once do what I ask?”

As soon as he set foot on the Danfey estate’s driveway, Remmie could feel that something had changed. There was magework here, clean and powerful, as he’d not felt it for so long. He could feel Barl in it. Feel someone else too, Lord Danfey most like. Their combined talent was… formidable.

I don’t understand this. How can they magework, and nobody else?

Tired, hungry and unkempt after six days cooped up in various wagons, he tramped the long stretch of gravel. Not as well-kept as he’d expected. There were weeds, and bare patches. There was a beautiful silence, though. A sense of sweetness and harmony. No sense of the wrongness he could feel everywhere else. The woodland ringing the Danfey estate seemed to keep out the world.

No wonder Barl likes living here. I think I’d like it myself.

And speaking of Barl…

There she was. Standing up ahead of him, in the middle of the driveway, sunlight sheening her head-to-toe blue silk. Golden head tilted, hands fisted on her hips, and he didn’t have to be any closer than this to know that her eyes were narrowed with annoyance.

“Remmie!” she said, when he was a stone’s throw away. “What are you doing here? Have you gone quite mad?”

Relief had him stumbling. He slowed and slowed and halted and drank the sight of her, whole.

“You’re all right,” he said, hearing his voice crack round the edges. “I was so worried. The whole journey here, the things I’ve seen. The things I was imagining… Barl, it’s good to see you.”

She was staring at him as though he’d grown another head. “Remmie, weren’t you listening? Why are you here?”

“They closed the schoolhouse,” he said, and had to fight a fresh surge of grief. “I had nothing else to do, so I came to see if you were all right.”

“Closed the schoolhouse? Why?” And then she was shaking her head, not giving him a chance to answer. “Oh, look at you. When was the last time you saw soap and water? And a razor?”

“Last night,” he said vaguely. “I’ve taken a room at the Shooting Star. But it’s a long walk from Elvado. Lord Danfey likes his solitude, doesn’t he?”