He stood above her, looking down at what she had written.

‘You heard me think that?‘

She sensed his hand, hidden beneath the soft lace, give an unconscious twitch – as though desperate to seize the pencil from her and score through the scrawl.

‘I am unfamiliar with your style,’ she said. Afterwards she would wonder how she had summoned the courage to do it.

‘She’s your only hope,’ Cramoisy pleaded.

‘I’ll be difficult to work with. I’m impossible to please.’ The eyes that met Orial’s were suddenly the eyes of a mischievous boy, sulky yet seductive, used to getting his own way. The eyes of a spoiled child. ‘Cramoisy said you wanted to learn. Your first devoir is to improve your hand. If we are to work together, I need to be able to read what you write.’

‘I’m self-taught.’ Indignant at the criticism, Orial felt her face go red. ‘My mother had begun to teach me to read music when – when she died. I could just read the pitches. I worked the rest out for myself with a treatise.

You obviously need someone who has been properly trained She stood up and went towards the door, one hand blindly reaching for the handle.

‘Wait,’ There was a catch in his voice, the first genuine hint of emotion she had heard. She paused. ‘I’m sorry if I have been a little – abrupt.’

‘We can always employ a professional to make neat copies,’ Cramoisy said. Don’t go, his eyes implored Orial.

‘So my transcription was accurate?’

‘Yes. Untidy – but astonishingly accurate. An uncomfortable sensation… knowing that someone else is reading your mind.’ The lambent brown eyes rested on her. ‘Well, demselle. Are you prepared to try to work with this unreasonable, ill-tempered brute?’

‘Yes,’ said Orial. ‘I am.’

Outside in the sunshine, the Crescent suddenly spun dizzyingly about her. Orial put out a hand to grip the spiked ornamental railings, steadying herself. The effort of concentrating on the mindmusic and the tension of the encounter must have taken a greater toll on her energies than she had realised. Now she felt achingly tired. The ten minutes’ walk back to the Sanatorium seemed like ten miles.

Maybe I’m making a mistake. Maybe I’m not ready to take on such a responsibility…

She set out slowly, shading her eyes against the brilliant sunshine.

Crocuses, saffron-yellow, carpeted the grass, opening their gilded petals to the sun. She moved through a sea of sunlight, sniffing the saffron perfume of the ochre pollen dusting the heart of each waxen bloom.

Floating through golden waters…

She lifted her face to the sun and felt its light warming her, restoring her.

At the Sanatorium she hastily shrugged off her cape and, clutching her cap, went hurrying down to join Sister Crespine in the steam room.

The Sister looked up from her work and a slight frown passed across her face.

‘I’m not late, am I, Sister?’