As evening bruises the sky, she receives a hasty scribble from Simon, telling her there is a complication with Mrs Oswald and he will certainly not be home tonight. That decides her: she will retire to bed early. Morpheus can sleep by her feet if he likes; she is still not quite comfortable with the prospect of facing shadows alone.

She bars the street door, extinguishes the gas lamps and tamps down the fire. Deliberately not lighting a taper, she feels her way upstairs and climbs under the covers fully dressed. It is childish, she knows, but she does not want to give her fancy – or her power, whatever it is – a chance to stretch its legs. Imagine how pleased Simon will be if he comes home tomorrow to find she has managed to pass twenty-four hours with no illusions and no upsets.

Although she drank plenty of the cider-rich wassail, sleep evades her. She is not frightened, exactly; there is simply too much to occupy her mind. She tosses and turns, uncomfortable in her clothing. Morpheus does not share her problem. The dog snores, louder than Mamma ever did.

Somewhere down the street, perhaps in the Assembly Rooms, music is being played. There will be fun and games all over the city tonight, except for at the Oswalds’ house, where all is fraught with tension, and at the gaol, where Miss West draws near to her sentence hearing and almost certain death.

She flips over the pillow. It does not feel like a night for ghosts. There is no sense of menace or oppression, nor can she hear Cedric’s hoop, clacking over the cobbles.

So why can she not rest?

It is only when a firework explodes, waking Morpheus and prompting him to issue a single bark, that she remembers: Simon left in too much of a hurry to prepare her nightly opiate.

She sits up against the bolster. Morpheus pads around the chamber and she can sense people outside, celebrating. Nothing is eerie or strange. She is quite equal to venturing downstairs and finding a bottle of laudanum.

‘Come along, then,’ she sighs, throwing the covers back. ‘I will not get a wink of sleep without it.’

Morpheus stands behind her legs as she fumbles the door open. There is a pier table on the landing – one that Simon’s mother used to decorate with floral arrangements – but tonight it holds a lit beeswax candle, set into a silver holder.

Agnes frowns.

‘Simon?’ she calls.

Her voice echoes through the empty house.

She certainly did not bring that candle upstairs. Could it be a delusion? It burns like a genuine flame. She picks up the holder, tests its weight in her hands. It feels real. The silver is slightly tarnished, engraved with a floral motif that matches the hairbrush on Constance’s dressing table.

Morpheus sniffs.

‘It comes in handy, anyhow,’ she tells him and they set off together down the stairs.