‘That’s not going to get anyone’s attention,’ she said, and used her own hand to batter at it. ‘Hey! Hey, it’s Mary and Dalip. Open up. Mama? Elena? Luiza?’

She propped Dalip against the doorstep, and moved back to shout into the night.

‘Mama? Mama?’

Then he thought he heard something from inside, close by rather than the cracking and roaring of burning.

‘Dalip?’

‘We’re here,’ he called. ‘Let us in.’

After a while, when he felt as baked as a bread, the door edged back.

‘Are you sure it’s you?’ asked Mama’s voice.

‘As sure as I can be,’ said Dalip, and Mary scowled at the opening.

‘Just open the fucking door.’

‘You have a bad mouth on you, girl,’ said Mama. She reached out and caught Dalip as he started to slide around the opening, resting him against her for a moment and beckoning for a chair.

It was mercifully cool inside, protected from the heat by the thick stone walls. Though it was dark, reflected red light shifted through the narrow window openings.

‘What happened to Stanislav?’ Luiza waited for Mary, then pushed the door closed. She started to shift the furniture back across the gap.

‘It’s … We dealt with it.’ He was very tired, very bruised, and felt as if his skeleton had been liquidised.

‘Did you kill him?’ She was very direct, and he did her the courtesy of doing the same.

‘Yes. Or at least, if he’s not, then it’s beyond me and probably anyone else.’

‘And Bell? Did you see her?’

‘Yes, we saw her. She attacked us, tried to kill us.’

‘So she is dead too?’

He looked at Mary, who turned instead to stare intently around the room.

‘No. But she won’t trouble us again. She knows she can’t beat—’ Us, he was about to say, but it wasn’t him Bell was afraid of. ‘Not while we have Mary.’

Luiza glanced at her, started to form an objection, then shrugged. ‘Just as long as we are safe.’

It was a strange kind of safe: sheltering in his former prison, while the tower next door burnt to the ground, the dead lying both inside and out while the castle collapsed around them. But safe nevertheless: they weren’t going to come to any further harm, at least for that night.

‘Bell,’ said Mary. ‘We could have done without her. You were supposed to keep an eye on her.’

‘Oh hush, girl,’ said Mama. ‘She changed, right there in that room. How were we supposed to stop her from just flying away? One moment, she’s this tattered princess, the next she’s a dragon, all claws and teeth, knocking things over and sending us running. Dalip’s right: we can’t fight her – but you can.’

She thought about that for a while, finally concluding, ‘Whatever.’

‘So what do we do now?’ said Elena quietly. ‘We still cannot go back.’