‘Bell’s going to hate me, that’s for sure.’ They’d reached the collapsed gatehouse, and together they slowly, carefully, climbed up the broken blocks to the top. He noticed the way she unselfconsciously waited for him to raise his foot to the next step before helping him up.

The tower was burning itself out. The roof had collapsed into the room below – whatever had been there, be it treasure or merely mundane, was lost for certain.

‘Do you think they made it out?’

‘Mama’s a tough old girl,’ said Mary. ‘She doesn’t take any messing, and it’s not like we don’t know how to run from fire.’

Flames were flickering behind the slits in the next storey down. It would all burn by morning, leaving nothing but a fragile, baked shell. The guardhouse? No. Not there. The only other substantial building still standing was the prison and the adjacent pit. As long as a stray spark didn’t carry, it was as safe as anywhere.

It had looked so substantial as to be timelessly permanent. Yet it had grown from the ground, and to the ground it would return. Down was capriciously generous, its gifts more often than not coming with a double edge.

Mary squinted against the brightness of the fire, peering into the shadows. ‘I can’t see them.’

The tower rumbled, and a fresh halo of smoke puffed out. The flames shifted and rose higher.

‘Try there.’ He indicated the door he’d once run out of, in the hope of escape. ‘We barred it before we got into the tower, but if they’re there, they can unblock it.’

‘The guards broke it down,’ she said. ‘Getting in shouldn’t be too hard.’

‘If not—’ He stopped himself. If the others were dead, and it was just him and Mary, then he was never going to be able to climb up to the bridge. He’d have to – again – leave it to Mary: she could fly up to the parapet, fearlessly navigate the unfamiliar dark, drag the furniture away from the door and finally appear smiling at the opening.

They started the slow descent from the gatehouse to the courtyard below. The wind was blowing north, chasing the storm away, and the pit lay to the south and west of the tower, so that even though the fire was intense, its worst effects were kept away from the squat building’s roof: scorched, yes, but not quite hot enough to cause ignition.

Dalip could feel the heat on his skin, though, as hot as it had been on the Underground. He knew that she felt it too, in her slowly increasing unwillingness to get closer. The guard-house door had been splintered and the pieces pushed back together again hard against the frame. There was hope.

He raised his fist and banged it ineffectually against the wood.