‘She finds leaving you so easy,’ needles Plater, but his voice shakes. ‘You dog. You hure.’

‘Please, leave her alone!’

‘This is none of your business, Frau Wiler,’ spits Plater. ‘How does it feel, Ida? To see her abandon you once more to your fate?’

‘Release her!’ says Lisbet, trying to muster some of the naked rage she saw on Nethe’s face.

‘Bet,’ says Ida in a tiny voice. ‘The baby.’

‘Yes,’ says Plater. ‘We would not want another failure, would we?’

She hates him, with a heat so enormous and swallowing she could be tied to a stake and feeling flames lick her cheeks. Wildly, she thinks of snatching Daniel’s hook from his hand, plunging it deep into Plater’s gut and twisting and twisting.

There is murmuring from the surrounding trees, and Lisbet looks up. From the shadows step people: women and children, older men supported by found and fallen sticks. The families driven from the city. They are formless in the dark, their faces carved by the same hunger, eyes huge and unfamiliar. Except – there.

Eren. Lisbet could cry with relief, to see him. He moves as though to push through the crowd towards her, but she shakes her head ever so slightly. No.

Their presence has a new effect on Plater. He hauls Ida to standing, and transfers his grip to her upper arm.

‘Where are you taking her?’ says Lisbet, emboldened by the watchers.

‘That does not concern you,’ he says.

‘If you mean to murder her,’ she says, lifting her voice. ‘We are all witnesses.’

‘I am the council’s man. This is a matter for our court.’

‘What did she do?’ calls a watcher.

‘She was falsely dancing,’ says Plater. ‘She will be punished alongside the other blasphemers.’

‘He’s lying!’ shouts Lisbet. ‘She did nothing wrong.’

‘If you mean to perjure yourself,’ says Plater, but Lisbet doesn’t care. She would say anything, do anything to mend this.

‘I can swear it on my child’s life—’

‘And what does that count for?’ sneers Plater.

The breath leaves her.

‘Frau Wiler?’ Daniel’s voice is needle-thin. He holds out his hand beseechingly. ‘Shall I walk you home?’

‘Do not come near me,’ she spits. ‘I regret every moment of kindness I gave you. The Devil can take you.’

Plater is pulling Ida away, not in the direction of the mill, but to the city. Lisbet starts after them, but Ida looks back over her shoulder.

‘Home, Bet,’ she says. ‘Please.’

Inside, the baby is still. After a stretch of countless time, when the watchers have left and she feels alone, she hears Eren’s voice, feels his hesitant touch on her shoulder, the same pressure he used to push her away.

But now, she turns to him and collapses into his arms, and he lets her. She burrows deep inside his tunic, howling until her throat is sore. It is so dark, her eyes pressed tight shut, it’s like being beside the river again when she pulled Mutti from it, her pockets full of stones. Holding her mutti, beloved and mad and drowned in her arms. She feels the same disintegration, the same certainty of ruin.