‘The Commanderie torched the Opera House,’ Cramoisy said. ‘His scores were inside. He insisted on going back in to try to rescue them. We tried to hold him back –’

‘A fire,’ she repeated softly, hardly hearing what Cramoisy was saying. She looked from her own hands to the clumsy bandages.

White fire flickers from her clawing fingers, the bones broken sticks of charcoal against the flamedazzle…

Coincidence… or premonition?

Cramoisy reached out and clutched hold of her; Orial felt the jewels in his rings bruising her arms.

‘Do you think your father can help him? I’ll pay anything he asks. Anything. It’s just – if he loses his hands – he’s a musician, Orial. A composer.’

A composer. A real composer.

‘My father hates music. Even the mention of it,’ she said.

‘But if he’s a physician, he’ll have taken an oath – an oath to treat the sick, the wounded. No matter who they are, what they have done.’

Orial considered. Her father’s voice, coldly accusing, resonated in her mind.

‘Musicians. How could you disobey me, your own father. Orial? After all my warnings?’

‘Orial, I beg you…’ Cramoisy’s eyes had filled with tears.

Orial looked again at the man with the burned hands. The pale face drifting between unconsciousness and waking was young, she saw now, he could not be so many years older than she. And for a moment she felt the anguish of his situation as acutely as if it were her own. Young, gifted, with all the promise of his life to come, blighted by an act of crazy, selfless bravery.

‘Wait here,’ she said, starting to her feet. ‘I’ll go and fetch help.’

‘Well, where is this new patient?’ Dr Magelonne demanded, coming out of his office. ‘I hope our visitors from Bel’Esstar realise that I do not normally treat outside Sanatorium hours.’

‘They’ve taken him to your consulting room, Doctor,’ said Sister Crespine crisply.

Orial hovered apprehensively in the shadows as her father strode down the corridor. Spring was late this year in Sulien and the staff were still obliged to light the lamps by five in the afternoon. As Dr Magelonne reached the doors to the consulting room, Orial saw Cramoisy rise from the chair where he had been waiting.

Dr Magelonne stopped abruptly.

‘What are you doing here?’ he said in a low, tight voice. ‘You know you are not welcome, Cramoisy Jordelayne.’

‘I come not for myself,’ the man said, drawing himself up to his full height, ‘but for my friend Amaru Khassian. Please help him, Jerame.’

‘I won’t have you near my daughter. I won’t have you corrupting her. God knows what malign trick of fate has brought you two together –’

‘I came here because I could think of no one else who could help. No one else with the expertise.’

‘I don’t want to hear your blandishments.’