Kneeling down on the rim of the reservoir, he let the candle float free; the lapping black water was chillingly cold to the touch.

Nothing stirred. The solitary candle floated out into the darkness, a single crocus-flame on the black waters of oblivion.

Khassian’s fingers moved nimbly across the ebony and yellowed ivory keys as Cramoisy Jordelayne soared into the elaborate arpeggios of the cadenza…

Magelonne had worked his miracle and cured him. His hands were whole again. Healed!

And in that one moment of revelation, the illusion shattered.

He looked down at the keyboard.

The flesh had begun to peel from his fingers even as he played, the keys were stickily slippery with leaking blood, he could hear the hollow tap of the protruding bones on ivory –

His hands were disintegrating.

‘No!’ he whispered.

The discordant twang of snapped strings resonated about his head, the harmonic progression unresolved, Cramoisy’s scream left hanging in the air.

He started up, staring at the bloody rags still clothing the skeletal fingers.

And in the candlelit salon, he became aware of a flurry of movement about him, a murmur of revulsion as the audience began to back away.

All so slow, so distant, fading into a blurred jangle of snapped strings –

In the pale brumelight of the Sulien dawn, Khassian slowly, shakily, examined his hands. The scar tissue knitting the fingers together felt lumpily coarse against his cheek, seamed with knots of rough skin. There was no sensation in the finger-tips – only the strange jabs of dull fire that sometimes irradiated the whole hand, making him cringe with pain. ‘Damaged nerve-endings,’ Dr Magelonne had said impassively at the last consultation. ‘It may never improve. You will just have to learn to live with it, to ignore it.’

‘I find I must speak plainly, Sieur Jordelayne.’ Mistress Permay’s voice rang out from the hallway. ‘I don’t like to have to talk of money – but you are well behind with your rent. I run a respectable establishment here, and some of these disreputable-looking individuals who have been calling upon you, well – it’s giving my apartments a bad name in the city. People have been talking. Remarking upon it.’

Khassian held his breath. He could not be certain whether Cramoisy would react as Cramoisy Jordelayne, Prima Diva, or would use his charm to soothe the landlady. He prayed the Diva would choose charm.

‘My dear Mistress Permay.’ Cramoisy’s voice oozed honey. ‘How perfectly dreadful that our visitors should have occasioned ill comments – and comments that have been directed at you. May I share a confidence with you? A very important confidence? These individuals are musicians of the highest calibre –’

Khassian heard Mistress Permay give one of her disdainful sniffs.

‘Highest calibre at begging on street corners, more like. I want my money, Sieur Jordelayne. And if I don’t get it by midday tomorrow, I shall be obliged to evict you.’