She knew. Did she then know where Ruth was hiding?

Yes.

Rachaela knew and perhaps all of them knew, this search being only some ritual they performed among the black windows Ruth had smeared with crosses, and under the carvings, the paintings and painted mirrors which had lipstick crosses like blood.

And now they were here, and Cheta took out the key, and put it away again, for the lock of the door had been broken.

Adamus flung the door wide.

And there again, in the prancing lamplight and candle flash was the mildewy paper of bats, and the countless red gowns upon their stands.

The Scarabae stood in the doorway, muted, and put their old dry hands up to their lips and throats and on each other’s shoulders.

It was as if they could not enter.

But Adamus went in.

As if he knew it all, had been told of the scene, as perhaps he had, the bird hiding in the skirt of the gown.

He strode forward, and as he passed the dresses he thrust at them and sent them spinning. He was the centre of a red whirlwind, and as they thudded down their gauzes shattered and crimson smoulders and sprays of beads burst up from them. He the wind and they the red sea, parting.

The Scarabae women gave tiny cries, as some of them had done on finding Anna and Alice, Peter and Dorian. It was another sort of death.

But Adamus came to the dress in the corner, a dress with a full skirt, a train.

He did not push the dress over.

He reached out and delicately pleated up the material, ounces of rose satin that crushed together in his hand.

And there at the heart of the dress, like a child in a flower in a fairy tale, was Ruth.

She was crouched very small in her garment of blood, darker and richer than her hiding place. Her black hair spilled round her. There was no blood on her that was visible and her hands were empty.

She turned her head like a snake, looked up and saw Adamus standing above her. And then she smiled, the sweetest smile Rachaela had ever seen upon her face. And the face, always that of a hobgoblin, broke into beauty like a star.

‘I hoped it would be you,’ Ruth said. ‘I thought it would be. Adam,’ she said, ‘they tried to keep us apart.’ Like a heroine in some third-rate book.

Very gently, almost daintily, he reached further into the dress, and with both hands he lifted her out.

And Ruth, seeing only him, put up the star of her face to be kissed.

Adamus transferred her to his left hand. He held her by a grip upon the waist of her dress, up in the air.

And then he struck her with his right hand, across the face and neck, a blow that should have smashed her in pieces.