“I know you might wish to go see her,” said Cordelia. “But I must warn you that Tatiana is in a very bad mood.”

James continued to look silently stunned. There was a rustle of noise and Lucie burst out of the overgrowth.

“Cordelia!” she gasped, her face lighting with relief. “And Jamie!” Her face wrinkled up; she came to a dead stop. “Oh, dear. Jamie. What are you doing here?”

“As if you have a perfectly reasonable excuse for lurching about someone else’s property in the dead of night?” James said, transforming from a worried young man into a towering older brother in a matter of seconds. “Papa and Mam are going to murder you.”

“Only if you tell them.” Lucie’s eyes flashed. “How else are they going to find out?”

“Of course they will,” said James darkly. “The existence of a Cerberus demon in the greenhouse could hardly—”

Lucie’s eyes rounded. “A what in the where?”

“Cerberus demon in the greenhouse,” James repeated, “where, incidentally, you sent your future parabatai completely alone—”

“Oh, no, it’s all right, I went in on my own,” Cordelia said, and started. “I was going to move the carriage from the gates. If Tatiana looks out a window and sees it, she’ll be furious.”

“We’d better go,” Lucie said. “James, will you be coming with us or going back the way you came?” She squinted. “What is the way you came?”

“Never you mind,” said James, with his crooked smile. “Go take the carriage. I’ll follow along shortly and see you both at home.”

“I imagine James is staying because he wants to see Grace,” Lucie said in a low voice as she and Cordelia hurried back along the overgrown pathways of the Chiswick House gardens. They ducked through the gates and found the carriage exactly where it had been before, Xanthos seeming to stand guard. “Moon around under her window or whatever. I hope Tatiana doesn’t bite off his head.”

“She certainly doesn’t seem to want visitors,” said Cordelia as they clambered into the carriage. “I felt rather bad for Grace.”

“James used to feel pity for her,” said Lucie as the carriage started to move. “Then it seems that somehow he fell in love with her. Which is very odd, really. I’ve always thought of pity as the opposite of love—”

She broke off, her face going white. Light was visible through the tangled branches of trees. Figures were hurrying across the road, toward the manor house.

“It’s Papa,” Lucie said, in a grim tone, as if she’d just seen another Cerberus demon. “In fact, it’s everyone.”