‘No matter, Hywel,’ the prince replies with a practiced casualness that belies the turmoil I know him to be suppressing. ‘I had a wish to take in some of this rare sunshine. My route crossed that of our Seer.’ He gestures toward me and his captain nods curtly, grunting a greeting that might have earned him a cuff around the ear had we been in more formal circumstances.

‘I bid you both good day,’ I say, and, without allowing either the time to respond, I march past the prince’s patient horse and walk as quickly as I can away from that scene of such tightly bottled tempers as might cause the lake itself to seethe. It takes me all my wits not to run. Back to my home. Back to my seclusion. Back to the place I belong. Alone.

Chapter 6

6

TILDA

Tilda lies awake in her bed, listening to the moaning of the wind that has been gathering strength all night. The temperature in the cottage is noticeably colder now, and she has already been driven to finding extra blankets. There is something snug about being in a warm bed, heavy with covers, in a cool room. Daylight hours have shortened unhelpfully, so that she has been working in the studio more and more by the uneven light of candles or storm lanterns. She has not attempted to fix the electrics in the house again, nor to call back Bob the electrician. In her heart of hearts, she knows there would be no point. She knows that she is the reason behind it. She is somehow triggering surges or splutterings in power that cause the system to overload and fail. The same way she caused the professor’s clock to stop. The same way she disabled the diver’s boat.

Except that I meant to do that one. Pity I can’t decide to fix things. Just break ’em.

From the corner of the room come sounds of Thistle digging at her bedding in an attempt to get comfortable. Tilda had done her best to dissuade the dog from coming upstairs, reasoning that she would be warmer in the kitchen by the Rayburn, but Thistle became distressed at being separated from her mistress, so that in the end she had sacrificed a spare duvet to provide her with somewhere to sleep at the foot of her bed. Outside the last of the clouds have been blown far away, so that the light of the full moon falls through the window. Tilda has long since given up closing the curtains, growing ever more accustomed to making use of what natural light there may be, and increasingly following the rhythm of the short winter days. In the silvery illumination she is shocked to see her own breath forming thin puffs.

If it gets any colder, we shall both be sleeping downstairs.

She peers over at the dog. Even in the half-light she can see the poor hound is shivering.