The funeral went ahead on a grey, dull day. Esme’s coffin was placed on a miniature white hearse, surrounded by sprays of ostrich feathers and the most exotic orchids James Sheppard could lay his hands on. There was an abundance of mourners, a mixture of family, friends and the mutes Eustace had paid for, to make the mourning even more of a spectacle. Rosa found their presence particularly objectionable, since they’d never set eyes on Esme, let alone cared about her. Their tragic expressions were put on in exchange for coin, which they would surely spend in the nearest tavern as soon as the service was finished. But she lacked the energy to argue with Eustace about them. In fact she seemed to lack the energy to do anything at all.

Getting out of bed was so sickeningly difficult that the effort made Rosa sweat. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t sit still. She couldn’t think. She could only hurt and hurt. With every mile that they had travelled closer to home from Switzerland, her determination about the competition seemed to have slipped through her fingers, despite how hard she tried to hold on to it. By the time they arrived at Raven Hall, there was nothing left of it at all. Her workbooks and carousel plans lay untouched. The pop-up book remained unopened in the drawer of her dressing table.

She felt so exhausted that it sometimes seemed perfectly plausible that she might simply die quietly in her sleep. Magic gardens and wishes seemed an absolute fantasy. Real life surely did not contain such things. It was preposterous. The slimmest of slim chances. Even if there was such a place, and even if the competition was real, and even if she entered it, who was to say she would win? Who was to say the wish would work? The dead did not come back to life. That was the one constant truth, the resounding peal from a bell that would not stop ringing inside her head. Esme was gone, and she was gone forever.

It took all Rosa’s remaining strength to persuade Eustace that she would be attending the funeral. Under usual circumstances, women were not permitted to do so. Funerals were thought too much of a strain for them and it was unseemly for an upper-class woman to show her grief openly, but Rosa didn’t care what anyone else thought, or if her tears offended them – she was going to say goodbye to her daughter.