Her sister stopped laughing and turned ferocious. ‘Many things I don’t know. I don’t know where the messages come from. I don’t know why I can channel them. I don’t know why people scorn one’s experience, when one has more experience than they have. But one thing I do know: Erik is non-negotiable.’

‘Only people you love are that important,’ Jelly said.

‘And supposing I do love him? Supposing he loves me? What does that mean?’

‘It means – ’ Jelly felt her face flaming.

‘The messengers have told us all we need to know about love. You know what they say? Love has nothing to do with sex. It’s beyond that.’

‘You ask them about this?’

‘Yes, we do, and about true love, and about soulmates.’

‘And Erik is your soulmate?’

‘I have no idea,’ Adila declared, her jaw set.

‘But what about Ebba?’

‘Ebba is going back to Sweden, alone.’

‘She’s leaving him?’

‘Don’t look so horrified. It’s the right choice for them both and will make Erik freer to follow his research. Our research.’

‘But Adi! What about Alec?’

‘Oh Sai, you should get this, but you don’t. You may be the world’s greatest violinist, but in your heart you’re a baby. What do you know of real love? Living as a couple for years, building a life together, raising a child? For you it’s all about men lusting after you while you fix on your unattainable ideal. You can’t get beyond that. There’s nothing real about it, there never was, and there never will be.’

Her allies had been dropping away one by one – Anna and Tom by health and fate, and in a special form of anguish Jelly could sense Myra’s spirit was now dividing from her own. But Adila?

‘Perhaps I should move out,’ said Jelly.

Adila’s eyebrows lifted. Then she shrugged and said, ‘Suit yourself.’

In the silence that followed, Jelly, as if deep underwater, swam to the stairs and found her way to her room.

She had depended on Adila and Alec for her very life. She had been living here as their guest – a family member and an essential part of the household, or so she’d hoped – for nearly a decade. Supposing, just supposing, the unthinkable were to happen? Supposing, no matter what high words Adila uttered, there really had been some kind of… well, what? A ménage-à-trois? Taking place under her nose, all this time, yet she had refused to see it? Now the entire precarious balance of it, assuming it existed, must change, with the Palmstiernas leaving London and Ebba going her own way. What could she do? Was it not better to control her own fate and act now?