‘The race against what’s coming for all of us. You and I have cause to know how fleeting life is. I still feel my mother’s absence every day, as I’m sure you feel yours. Losing someone important when you’re still very young … well, I think it puts a restlessness in you. Sometimes it feels like England suffocates me, but when I’m travelling abroad I have the small consolation of knowing that I’m wringing every last drop from my life, whilst I still can. Before the inevitable day when everything I hold dear is ripped away.’ He glanced at her. ‘Isn’t that partly why you wish to find the garden? It’s not only the wish – you were searching long before news of the competition. I imagine that experiencing something so wondrous makes you feel truly alive in a way that few other things can.’

Beatrice nodded slowly. Perhaps he did understand a little better than she’d thought, after all.

‘What was it like?’ James asked then. ‘In the garden? Did you really see the Spider Queen? The Frost Orchid? The Book of Lost Souls?’

‘I s-saw it all,’ Beatrice replied. For a moment she was back there, in the icy swirl of stars and snow. ‘And it was p-pure magic.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

For the first week after the carousel appeared, Rosa had looked out the frosted windows of Raven Hall, half-hoping to see the Carousel of Icicles on the lawn, or the glow of lantern light from between the branches of the Scots pines, but the carousel did not return, and her small clockwork horses made no further attempt to leave their music box. She knew that Beatrice was back in the country to spend Christmas at Half Moon House and very much wanted to see her to discuss the carousel, but then Esme became unwell. What Rosa had originally thought was a mere chill worsened into something more serious. Her breathing became rattling and laboured and, finally, Rosa sent for Dr Livingstone.

She had crossed paths with him several times, and did not care for the man at all. Whenever he had attended her in the past, it had been quite clear that he was not on her side and Rosa hated being examined by him, despising the press of his cold fingers on her skin. The last time she’d seen him had been shortly after the twins’ birth, when he’d come to discuss the delicate subject of marital relations with her and the fact that enough time had passed for it to be perfectly safe to resume her duties as a wife. Rosa knew full well that the visit had been instigated by Eustace, and the doctor made it clear that he believed she would be putting her own health at risk if she did not allow their relationship to return to ‘normal’.