And once or twice, once or twice he hears a thin, high voice crying out, crying out his name. ‘A… mar…’

When he tries to go to her, they won’t let him in. They hold him back. Their strained faces, their dark, sunken eyes, terrify him.

‘You can’t go in. You mustn’t go in.’

‘She’s calling for me!’

‘She’s feverish, she no longer knows what she’s saying –

He stares at the gilded icon of the Prophet Mhir, the painted wreath of jagged rose-thorns framing the Prophet’s face, gold leaf and dark jewelled colours. Only the thorns, long and jagged, look real. The boy can feel them tearing at his heart –

‘Don’t let her die. Please don’t let her die.’

Unanswered prayers…

The ethereal angel’s voice that had made Prince Ilsevir and the court weep no longer called his name. It was silenced for all eternity.

‘Fania,’ he whispered to the sparrows.

Maybe since that day he had been courting death, seeking expiation for the quirk of fate that had allowed him to live – and Fania to die. Maybe that was what had sent him back into the burning Opera House…

Orial took a taper, held it to the lantern flame and then lit, one by one, the lotos candles she had brought to perfume her mother’s shrine.

White for purification. Hyacinth-blue for mourning. And willow-green for hope, life beyond death…

The blue scent of hyacinths drifted through the painted room, imbuing it with the wistful memory of past springs.

Orial breathed in the scent as she tuned her cithara. She had come to work on her new composition, a prelude dedicated to the memory of Iridial.

But after playing a few bars, she stopped. Khassian’s music still resonated in her mind, its tortured complexities making mock of her own simple, brightly coloured harmonies.

Her music darted with the jewelled brightness of a dragonfly skimming the surface of the waters. His music rose from the depths, it spoke of despair and madness, it aspired vainly towards stars too far to reach.

He had told her she had much to learn. Now she sat in silence, listening to the dark echoes in her head.

‘What should I do?’ she whispered to the silence. ‘Iridial. Mother. I wish you could tell me what to do. I wish you were –’

I wish you were still alive.

She began the prelude again. Soon her fingers strayed, plucking other notes, unfamiliar notes.

Not her music, but his.

He was slowly infecting her mind.

Her fingers crept from the cithara strings to press against her temples, as if they could force the alien shadow-sounds from her mind.

What’s happening to me?

Shadow-sounds ravelled themselves around her prelude, distorting, mocking. She shut her eyes – but still her melody continued to disintegrate in her head.