‘It’s too chilly down here. Damp. Bad for the vocal chords,’ Cramoisy complained.

‘A lost race of musicians,’ Khassian murmured. ‘What better place to rehearse?’

‘But what am I to do?’ demanded Cramoisy. ‘You know how powerful my voice is, Amaru. Suppose I were to set off a rockfall? We could all be buried alive!’

Khassian had been walking around the hall, looking at the paintings. Now he stopped, smiling. Orial was astonished at the difference the smile made to his face; the hard eyes warmed, the stubborn set of the mouth creased into an endearingly boyish expression, sunshine on a barren landscape.

‘I like this place. I feel an affinity with these people. They were musicians too. They would understand.’

‘Shouldn’t we obtain permission from someone?’ Cramoisy was still determined to make objections.

‘From whom? The Lifhendil are long dead.’

‘How should I know! The Mayor?’ Cramoisy blustered.

‘Ah. Well, as you keep telling us that you are on such good terms with His Worship the Mayor, maybe you should speak with him? Does this chamber have a name, Orial?’

He had called her by her first name, not the usual formality of ‘demselle’. If it had not been so dark, he would have seen a sudden flush of colour warm her pale cheeks.

‘I call it the Hall of Whispering Reeds,’ she said softly.

‘The Hall of Whispering Reeds,’ he repeated her words. ‘I like that.’

Orial felt her face burning with pleasure.

What’s the matter with me? Blushing when he speaks to me. Wanting to be near him yet whenever he moves closer, wanting to move away…

She found herself wondering what links bound Khassian and Cramoisy together. She had assumed that they were lovers; there was a bantering quality to their exchanges that spoke of an easy intimacy established long ago. Yet they seemed oddly matched: Cramoisy, whose every gesture was exaggerated, whose every utterance was a little performance, and Khassian, whose whole bearing spoke of sensitivity and self-restraint.

Now she kept darting little glances at them whenever they spoke together, looking for clues – yet hoping against hope not to find them.

Acir Korentan was a haunted man.

As he walked the twilit streets of Sulien, he kept thinking he caught sight of Fiammis’s reflection in the bow windows of the boutiques. He glimpsed her in the swirl of taffeta petticoats, the provocative tilt of a ribboned straw hat, the frills on a pretty parasol.

Each time he felt his heart miss a beat – and then, as he realised it was not – could not be – her, a ridiculous sensation of disappointment dulled his spirit. Even the sweet scents of the warm evening air stirred his senses as he remembered the lingering fragrance of her milky skin.