‘I can pay,’ Cramoisy said with chilly hauteur, ‘if that is what is concerning you.’

Dr Magelonne looked at him without speaking.

He’s going to refuse, Orial thought, anguished. He’s going to send them away.

‘You’d better wait here,’ Dr Magelonne said. He opened the door to his consulting room and shut it smartly behind him before Cramoisy could follow.

Orial saw him surreptitiously dab at his eyes with his kerchief. She ventured out of the shadows and approached.

‘You are shivering, sieur. You must be cold and hungry after so difficult a journey. Can I offer you a dish of tea?’

Cramoisy nodded.

‘That’s most kind of you. But – are you not afraid that I might corrupt you, child?’

‘Please take no notice of my father. He doesn’t mean to be so abrupt.’

The patients’ parlour was deserted but coals still glowed in the grate. Orial hurried down to the kitchens and ordered a tray of tea with sponge fingers and seed cake.

By the firelight, she poured the tea into the delicate porcelain bowls.

‘Sugar? Lemon? Do try Cook’s sponge fingers… they are excellent dipped into the tea.’

Cramoisy cupped the bowl in his fingers and raised it shakily to his lips, sipping at the hot liquid.

‘Have you lodgings for tonight?’

‘I must wait to hear how Amar is first.’

Amar. Orial could still hardly believe it.

‘Is he really Amaru Khassian? The composer of the opera Firildys? The Cassalian Canticles?’

‘The very same,’ Cramoisy reached for a sponge finger.

‘And you are –’ The light, musical voice, the smooth, hairless cheeks… Orial was sure now that she was in the presence of one of the fabled castrato opera singers of Allegonde.

‘His Firildys.’ Dark eyes met hers conspiratorially over the painted rim of the tea-bowl.

‘The Jordelayne!’ Orial clutched her hands together in excitement. ‘The Diva! The toast of Bel’Esstar!’

‘So my fame travels even over the mountains?’ A slight smile flickered for a moment on the singer’s lips.

‘That was how you knew my mother.’

‘Your mother, Orial, taught me everything I know. Without her I’d still be singing in the back row of the chorus. Your mother was – an inspiration.’ Cramoisy reached for another sponge finger. ‘You were only five when I last saw you. You don’t remember me, do you?’

‘I had no idea. I – I –’ Orial tried to scry into the shadows of the past. Five years old. Just before everything had begun to fall apart – and her life was changed irrevocably.

‘I was nineteen. At the start of my career. And I came all the way across the mountains to study with the greatest singer of the age: Iridial Magelonne. Do you know what they used to call her? The Sulien Nightingale. Her sudden fatal illness… so tragic. She had so much to live for.’

Cramoisy’s eyes, warmed by the coals’ glow, gazed into Orial’s. ‘So much to give.’