Sickened, Khassian sank back, fighting a sudden surge of nausea. He had always been squeamish, disgusted at the mere sight of blood, and hated himself for his weakness. ‘What’s gone wrong?’

‘A little infection, that’s all,’ Dr Magelonne said briskly.

A little infection? The smell of the oozing flesh told Khassian that the physician was not being wholly honest with him.

‘I’m going to drain the pus, Illustre. This may prove a little uncomfortable. Steel yourself.’

The doctor’s probe sliced into his flesh. The pain of cold metal sang with a white and whining purity, honed steel drawn screeching across glass.

And then the cacophonous storm came whirling back and tipped Khassian into a howling vortex where all was chaos and darkness.

Orial sat gazing at her hands in the firelight. Slowly she raised them to the blaze until the flames lit the pale, flawless skin with fiery gold.

White fire flickers from her clawing fingers. The skin is blistering, flaking away in flecks of flame –

She shivered.

Not my hands, but his.

Amaru Khassian was a stranger from a foreign country. She had never seen him before in her life. And yet here in Sulien, at her mother’s shrine, she had experienced his agony as the conflagration in distant Bel’Esstar seared his hands – as if it were her own.

What drew him here?

She saw again the pale face, the blank look of loss dulling the dark eyes that stared into hers.

What links us?

She gathered the tea-bowls on to the tray and set out towards the kitchen.

‘The situation is grave, Diva.’

The door to her father’s office stood open.

‘Very grave. It is possible,’ and Orial heard her father lower his voice as she went past, ‘I may have to amputate.’

‘Amputate his hands!’ The Diva’s rich voice rang out, echoing the length of the corridor. ‘But you can’t! He’s a composer – a keyboard player.’

Orial stopped, shocked.

‘When did he sustain the injuries?’

‘Three nights ago.’

‘And how long have you been on the road?’

‘We’ve been travelling since the night of the fire. Friends smuggled us out of Bel’Esstar in disguise.’

‘If he’d seen a physician straightaway, then maybe there might have been some hope… But infection has set in. Wound fever. If it spreads, it will kill him.’

‘And if we’d stayed to find a physician, he’d have been lynched for certain. Or burned alive for heresy. I believe that was their intent. Burn the Opera House – and all the heretics inside. Are you going to condemn him too, Doctor?’