‘Well, I saw one of them. With these very eyes. And no one ever believed me – they all laughed when I told them. I was nine years old at the time. We were up in the hills over Illyn way, collecting bilberries. At the rocks, near the waterfall. You know how the sun on the spray makes rainbows? That’s what they said I’d seen. But I know different.’

‘One of the Faer Folk?’ Jolaine said softly.

‘I heard something. It was like – a bird flying over my head. Wingbeats. But when I looked up, I saw. Behind the waterfall. A figure. It knew it had seen me, for it was gone in a flash. But I’ve never forgotten the way it looked on me. Never forgotten the eyes. Rainbow eyes, Dame. But not human. Wild. Wild like a wildcat’s eyes. Faïe.’

‘Faïe. Now that’s a word I haven’t heard in many a year.’

‘An old word and none the worse for being old!’ said Cook, noisily draining the last of her tea. ‘I dearly wanted them to grant me a wish.’ She gave a wry little sigh. ‘I’d go chasing them again if a wish would bring Orial back to us.’

‘Perhaps it might,’ Jolaine said pensively.

‘A wish? Now you’re supposed to be a learned woman.’

‘And if the old tales hold a grain of truth?’

Cook gathered the tea things on to the tray. ‘Well, I’d best away to my soup, I don’t want it boiling the pot dry.’

‘Amar…’ murmured Orial again.

‘Did you hear?’ Cook turned to Jolaine.

‘I heard. A name.’

‘Sister Crespine and I, we thought she had a sweetheart. A beau.’

‘Amaru,’ Jolaine said. ‘Of course. Amaru Khassian, the musician.’

‘Ohhh…’ Cramoisy raised his handkerchief to his mouth to stifle his sobs. ‘It’s all my fault. I should never have brought you together.’

Khassian paused in his pacing.

‘How was it I didn’t know? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I didn’t know. I never knew till now. I heard Iridial was dead – but they said it was from fever. Not this… Accidie.’

‘Then why didn’t she tell me? Why did she have to play the martyr? Why?’

But Khassian already knew the answer. And it only made him more disgusted with himself. She had given him her gifts because she wanted – more than anything – to become part of the musical world he inhabited. And he had used her, he had played on her sympathy, on the generosity of her character.

And now it was too late.

The score lay on the table, the last pages smudged with her tears.

Even to look on it made his stomach crawl. It recorded the disintegration of a mind. Her mind. It was evidence of the insidious progress of a mental disorder so devastating it could kill her.