He does not answer straight away but frowns, hands Pearl the drops and takes his patient’s wrist to feel the pulse.

Mr Meers’s eyes close and he seems to drift out of consciousness.

‘Is it like a trance?’ asks Pearl. ‘Do you do it while he’s sleeping?’

‘Leave him to rest a while,’ Simon sighs. ‘We will discuss the matter outside.’ He gestures to the bottle in her hands. ‘Retain those for his pain, Miss Meers. I have given him five drops. I should keep it to … Forgive me, but can you count?’

Pearl nods proudly.

‘Let us say a limit of twenty drops a day.’

After a moment of consideration, Pearl hides the bottle beneath the mattress. Her father moves in his sleep.

Simon nods and wearily trudges outside.

Agnes follows him. In the hallway, she touches his arm.

‘What can be done?’

He only shakes his head.

Together, they pass into the parlour. A single black candle burns on the circular table, making a moon out of the crystal ball. Dark shapes flicker again; black claws running along the red plush tablecloth and swarming up the curtains.

Agnes wets her fingertips and pinches the wick out. She is sick of shadows.

‘It has gone too long untreated,’ Simon admits dejectedly, leaning against the sofa. ‘I fear that the poison has entered his bloodstream.’

‘Do not say so,’ she begs.

‘I am afraid it is true. He is beyond help, Miss Darken.’

She sits down heavily at the séance table. It feels like she has suffered a physical blow.

Pearl’s father was meant to be her atonement. If one person could emerge from this turmoil happier than they began, Agnes would be – well, not content, but easier within herself.

Now Pearl will become fatherless.

The pain of Agnes’s own bereavement comes roaring back. Not just the grief for Montague, but for dear Papa. She misses him so much. She was not there at his final breath and she will never conquer her remorse for that.

She pictures him on his deathbed, and a morbid instinct forces her to try and imagine her own. Who will be there to hold her hand at the end? Cedric? What if he is never found? She once worried about being a burden to her nephew in her old age, but she would rather that than face death alone.

From what she has seen of the Other Side, it does not seem to be a better place. How, then, can she offer comfort to little Pearl in this dire situation?

‘I fear it is doubtful he would survive the ordeal, Miss Meers.’

She jerks out of her abstraction to see Pearl has entered the room and is talking to Simon. The girl looks very slight, very vulnerable.

‘I don’t understand, sir,’ she stammers.