‘I’d like the chance to apologize, though. Even if you wouldn’t remember it afterwards. After all, if it weren’t for me taking you into the library, you’d never have got involved in this in the first place.’ His tail flicked, irritated. ‘That’s just talk, though. You and I both know it isn’t true. Between Geryon and Mother, they’d have got to you, one way or the other. But it didn’t have to be me doing it.’

He sounded so miserable that Alice wanted to reach out for him and tell him it was all right. She tried, but her hand found only the wallpaper beside the porthole, and her body on the bed remained stubbornly inert.

The door swung open, and Emma entered, carrying a tray with a steaming bowl on it. Ashes’ head snapped up, then sank down again when he saw who the intruder was. Emma set her tray down on the side-table, then stood waiting, her eyes vacant.

‘Go on,’ Ashes said. ‘Get out of here. Go back to your room.’

Emma nodded politely and left without a word. Ashes sighed.

‘You see?’ he said. ‘Not very bright.’

Alice stepped away from the porthole and straightened up. The lump was back in her throat.

‘Geryon wouldn’t really . . . destroy my memory, would he?’ she asked her father.

Is that what happened to Emma? The thought that a normal, living girl could be turned into something like that filled Alice with a sudden, crawling horror.

‘I know I didn’t kill that tree-sprite when he told me to, but it was just a helpless little thing.’ She reflected and added, ‘All right, maybe not helpless. And maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to do. But it felt right.’

‘It was the right thing to do,’ her father said. ‘Whether Geryon thinks so or not.’

Alice felt a warm rush of pleasure at his approval. ‘I thought so. But now he’s going to do something horrible to me.’

‘You’ll find a way through,’ he said. ‘You always do.’

Alice swallowed again. ‘Thanks.’

He smiled. ‘Come on. There’s one more to see.’

This time, the porthole looked out from just above the sleeping form on the bed. Alice could make out the door and the bookcases, along with a sofa and a couple of armchairs. Ashes was nowhere to be seen.

The gas lamps were out, and the only light came from the moon, which threw a pale square across the floor through a window. The rest of the room was in shadow. Alice watched her body breathing, slowly but deeply, and thought it looked a bit better than it had through the last porthole.