My letters finished, I changed into my finest breeches, shirt, and coat. My shoes had been polished by one of the inn’s staff – whoever it was had done an exemplary job. I perfumed my hair with rose water and hoped Mayor Eder and his wife would make some allowances for my less than noble appearance, on account of my travelling and, most likely, my modest station.

The night had grown cold and as I rode through the streets I was glad of my cloak, though it did nothing to improve my appearance. I tried to recall Alexsander’s forays into the higher social echelons of the capital: what he wore, how he carried himself, and the graces and airs he managed so effortlessly. But I knew such recollections were worse than useless – they only put me in a dark mood as I thought of Alexsander in my stead. We could not have looked or behaved more differently. My only consolation was that I could rely on Mrs Eder to appreciate that.

I found the tree-lined track to the Eder’s house with relative ease and admired the gnarled and twisted intricacies of the trees that passed on either side of me. However, my interest in the strange, unknowable patterns made by their branches and scant remaining leaves was edged with a kind of horror. None held the symmetry of man’s symbolism but there was something, just a hint, of the pentagram in those branches. The trees pulled at me, tried to tempt me and the mare from the path. I had felt such a thing before. I’d discovered a cellar where a coven gathered, one wall of which was covered in unholy icons. These were mounted on their own bizarrely shaped canvasses – bizarre until I realised they were not canvas but skin, dried and pulled taut as a drum. Each one a complete piece, cut from a single back.

I found the cellar after one of my visions. I’d seen a pentagram blazing on the coat of a pallbearer as a funeral procession passed me in the street. I made to put out the imagined flames, much to the man’s consternation. The coven gathered beneath the morgue where the man worked. He was—

A bird took flight, its wings clattering among the branches. I flinched and, the trees’ spell broken, I urged Tabitha on up the track.

The Eder house was a welcome sight. Its warmly lit windows spoke of sanctuary, of family, and of an open hearth that night. Having tied my mount at the post, I employed the polished brass knocker firmly. It was an imposing piece: a stag sporting a great spread of antlers that veritably snarled around the ring in its mouth. As the door swung inwards I imagined for a moment the stag was readying to charge.

‘Good evening, sir,’ a man said. He bid me enter and took my cloak. I judged him to be no older than myself but he moved with a bone-grating stiffness.