Rosa stared up at the carousel glittering before her in the lamplight. It was just as she had imagined it. The white horses were life-sized. Hundreds of icicles hung down from the cream-and-gold striped roof. As it rotated, Rosa saw that these horses all wore silver ribbons in their manes and tails. And there were two stationary sleighs, adorned with silver bells and pulled by white polar bears. It all sparkled in a coat of tiny diamonds. The music spilling from it was sad and sweet and exactly the tune her music box played. Yet how could that be, when it was an entirely original song that Rosa had composed herself especially for her young daughters?

The Carousel of Icicles. The world has never seen its like before …

‘No.’ Rosa shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t make you.’

She felt a horrible rush of guilt, as if the twins might be able to sense that the carousel was, impossibly, suddenly here. She walked slowly forward, past her small clockwork ponies, who were frolicking in the big carousel’s shadow. She touched the side of the carousel, half-expecting it to turn to smoke and disappear, but it was cold and real enough beneath her hand. How could this be? She had dismantled her horses and put away her plans. Yet here the carousel was, completed and beautiful and terrible.

‘You mustn’t be here,’ Rosa whispered. ‘You’re not needed. I don’t want to go back and change what happened with Eustace. I don’t regret that decision any more.’

There was nobody in sight – either on the carousel or operating it. It stood quite alone amongst the snow-dusted trees; impossibly lovely, impossibly strange, like something from a cherished childhood dream.

Rosa gripped one of the icicle poles, wincing at its coldness, and pulled herself up onto the revolving platform. Mirrors surrounding the fairground organ reflected her image back at her, a lone winter princess amongst her herd of white snow horses. She walked among them, examining their faces, and saw that they were all unique. Each had a slightly different stance, or expression, or style of livery. And Rosa knew them all well, for each and every horse was perfectly replicated within the pages of her workbook. Now here they all were, brought to life before her.

She reached up a hand to place on the nearest horse’s muzzle and, although it did not move, Rosa felt as if it recognised her. The animals were all made of white clockwork. The detail was exquisite, but they were completely artificial, and so she was at a loss to explain why she suddenly thought she heard a sudden snort behind her, as if from a real horse. She turned round, but only clockwork steeds pranced in her wake.