‘It wasn’t just you they affected – it was the whole of Winterspell! You didn’t see how they struggled? How they fought?’

‘Fae always fight.’ He shrugs. ‘That is what they are. It is what they live for.’

‘Not for fighting with shadows,’ I say.

‘I did not see that. I have been locked in this palace, lost in the shadows. But who are you to say such things?’ he demands, and his eyes, when I find the courage to look into them again, barely see me at all. They are dull once more, as if they see nothing. Nothing but the shadows of his despair, of his own personal agony.

That which has caused the misery of so many.

One person’s fear. One person’s misery.

A whole world near-destroyed.

‘Who are you to come into my palace?’

The shadows swing, and another pane of the glass in my lantern cracks. The light gutters and snuffs out. We are plunged into darkness.

‘Well, child?’ whispers the Shadow King, leaning in, so close I can see his long grey teeth and smell his rotten breath. ‘Brave, or stupid? What do you think?’

‘Neither,’ I snap.

He draws closer still, and the acorn at my throat begins to burn.

‘Get away from me!’

He laughs, a horrible creaking, gasping sound, and rocks back on his heels, thrusting out a bony arm to gesture around the room. My eyes adjust to the gloom. In the corners, and crawling up the old glass window, are his infernal shadows. They twist through the doorway, hang from the picture rails, and their forms are not solid. In here, they are not animals or men, but things that undulate and morph, that speak in slithery, slippery tones of fear and malice.

‘Get away?’ snarls the Shadow King. ‘You are in my domain! You have entered this place of your own free will – for what? For battle?’ He grins. ‘You will not win, small thing. You cannot win, here, for my will is greater than yours, and I have nothing to lose. There is nothing you can do to me, nothing you can offer me. This palace is mine, and if Winterspell is lost, there is nothing I can do about it. Nature will take its course.’

‘Nature?’ I breathe through the creep, swallowing all my fear. ‘You cannot talk of nature when all you’ve done is destroy it. Winterspell is not yours – can’t you feel that? Can’t you sense the trees themselves are against you? The fae, who hide from you? What are you ruling, apart from your own shadows?’

He roars, and I thrust out my hands as if I can push him back. The acorn bursts with a golden light as the thundering feeling of magic explodes in my chest, and it becomes a tiny beacon that spears through the shadows and sends them reeling.

The Shadow King stumbles back.

‘Estelle,’ he whispers, raising one hand to shield his eyes.

‘Stop them!’ I shout.