Rushton did not answer and when I looked at him, I realised he was not listening. He was staring down at the pile of clothes with a strange look on his face. He reached out and drew a crumpled shift of thin yellow cloth towards him. ‘This was Selmar’s,’ he said, looking shaken to the core.

I had once seen him cradling the half-demented Misfit girl in his arms. He had shouted at me, believing I had done something to bring on Selmar’s fit, but it had been Alexi’s experiments that had destroyed her mind. Louis Larkin told me once that she had been the hope of Obernewtyn. But that was before my time. In the end she had escaped with two Norselanders only to be caught and killed by Ariel’s maddened trained wolves.

‘You loved her,’ I said softly.

Rushton lifted his eyes from the grubby yellow dress, his face full of grief. ‘I loved the brightness of her spirit and her dream of a place where Misfits need not live in fear. I did not know then that I was a Misfit, even if only a poor sort of one, but I was a loner and an outsider and had lived in fear because my mother worked forbidden herb lore and I had no idea who my father was, so it seemed to me there was little difference between us. Selmar was the first to reveal her Talents to me, and others did so because of her. Eventually I pledged myself to their cause even as they pledged to mine. Between us, we thought to make Obernewtyn a place where outsiders and Misfits could dwell in peace with no need to hide what they were.’

‘And so you did,’ I said, looking sideways at him, but he was lost in his memories.

‘I think all of us were half in love with her,’ he said. ‘She had a quicksilver tongue that could make you believe black was white if she wanted to argue it that way and she was always laughing.’ He laughed, but sadly. ‘Roland, Domick, even Gevan adored her, and to old Louis, she was the daughter he had never had.’ He heaved a sigh and the grief and regret began to fade from his face. Then he looked at me. ‘It was only after I met you that I understood what I had felt for Selmar was many things, but not love.’ He laid the yellow dress gently aside and put his hands on my shoulders. This time the kiss he gave me was not rough and ravenous as it had been in the maze, but slow and tender. It made me dizzy and set me to burning. Then he began to unplait my wet hair and comb it out with his fingers.

‘Grufyyd will wonder where you are …’ I stammered.