Simon reaches out a hand.

‘Stay back,’ she snaps.

‘Miss Darken, let me take those scissors.’

‘I’m warning you, Simon!’ Her voice rises, beyond her control.

Simon puts a foot forward. ‘You cannot be trusted with them,’ he explains. His blue eyes flick between her and the open blades. ‘When it has possession of you—’

‘You are lying! I could not hurt a fly!’ She is screeching. It sounds like her vocal chords are being worked by someone else.

He wets his lips, inches closer. ‘You can. You do. You lose hours, and I—’

‘Stay back!’

Simon’s pupils lock on hers.

They both lunge for the scissors at the same time.

There is a sense of retraction, of snapping back into herself. Her eyes pop open and she is standing alone in Constance’s bedchamber, watching the sun set in a riot of pink and Etruscan red.

A pitiful whine comes from downstairs.

Perplexed, hollow, she wanders from the room. The carpet on the stairs is marked with paw prints; Agnes follows them to the kitchen where she finds Morpheus whimpering like a human child. At first, she thinks the dog is hurt, but when she picks up his little black feet to inspect them, they are uncut. His paws seem to be stained with a dark substance that is not his own blood.

‘Silly boy,’ she says.

He shies under the table.

The house has a comfortable hush. It is empty, yet occupied. She feels free, but not alone.

She finds a newspaper sitting on the doormat and has a quick leaf through the pages. The journalists speak of great wars abroad and plans for 1855; everywhere the old is being effaced and replaced with the new.

Leisurely, she strolls to the consulting room. Her feet kick against glass; more empty vials of oil of vitriol lie scattered across the carpet.

‘What has happened here?’

The lamp upon the desk is lit. By the light of its chimney, she sees that someone has left her a piece of paper. A painting, in fact – a shade.

The sitter is Simon: there can be no doubt of that. His likeness has been taken as skilfully as if she had done it herself. But this profile has not been brushed with her usual blend of ink and soot; the paint is thicker, rusty in hue. She runs her finger over the bridge of Simon’s nose. It feels like a crust.

Words are written beneath in the hand she recognises from the notes: Now he will never part us.

She turns her head. A shadow stretches up the wall, created by the failing sun: a slender woman wearing her hair in a chignon.

It is not Agnes, although it is similar.

She has no doubt now. She possesses the Gift.

The shadow holds out a hand.

‘Oh, Constance,’ she sighs, pressing her palm against the wallpaper. ‘Whatever have you done?’

Acknowledgements