The difference is plain to see. My ink is already growing fuzzy at the edges and the colour has faded to grey. The egg looks like it has been broken many times from all the walks through the woods, the barefoot adventures with Gull, the times I had to run or to wade through water – the times I had to scramble away from danger.

“I will never know all you have been through,” she says. “I am sorry, Leora. One day, I hope that you might be able to forgive me.”

I squeeze her hand. The thaw has begun.

Minnow is leading like he wanted to all along and there is something like peace, for now. I think about Longsight sometimes, and wonder whether he knows that it was his friend Jack who sent him mad. For I don’t believe a word of that letter. It was Minnow, all Minnow, I know it. Longsight was just his puppet, a vain man manipulated by a clever one.

I hear snippets of news.

Gull is staying with Verity’s family. Penance, I think, for Simon’s deceit; because he was the doctor – the one who operated on the mayor, the one who sedated him, the one who let him be marked with ink that vanished in a week. Some days I think he was just foolish, but on others I think of him like a conductor – the small movements of his hands creating whole swells and shrieks of discord. He stayed away from Mum not because he was fearful of her, but because he could not bear to face her.

There is no word of Mel. Karl is trying to solve that mystery, but he has to be careful. I hope that he is being careful.

I know everyone dreams. I like to believe our dreams unite us when nothing else will. It comforts me to think that we all know that feeling when you wake up, and the world feels as though it’s shifted or been painted a different shade.

Maybe the dreamer dreams of kissing someone they shouldn’t, and for days after, they watch that person when they talk and their heart races at the way their lips caress each word. They had never seen that before.

Or, the dreamer dreams their friend betrayed them, and even though the daylight tells them it was only in their head, they still find they need to forgive them for hurting them, and for ever after the dreamer knows that they could – the seed has been sown and the dreamer believes their friend has it in them to break their heart.