She sat down at her workbench and tried to push the events of the day, and her worries about Ada, out of her mind. They would not serve her now, and so she must tidy them away into a grim little box, lock it up tight and bury it down deep. There were plenty of other matters to concern herself with, not least how she might lure guests back to the gardens of Raven Hall. People knew that one of her clockwork animals had gone berserk last time, that people had been hurt and property destroyed. And then, to crown it all, the house had become overrun with clockwork ravens, and a baby had died, and people feared the mechanical bird that guarded her grave.

The unlucky duchess. Rosa knew that was what people called her, and she’d never cared before, but now she needed them to come to her pleasure garden. It didn’t matter how extraordinary and wonderful it was, the Spider Queen was hardly going to award the prize to gardens that no one attended. Rosa knew she had to find a way to entice people back.

She simply needed to focus, even if dragging her thoughts from Ada tore bleeding strips from the inside of her mind. There was clockwork to be prepared, inventions to be inspected and improved, and invitations to be designed and sent.

She picked up her tools and began.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

What a relief it had been upon that first morning for Beatrice to wake up and realise she still had her legs and her eyes after all. Swiftly followed by the agonising shame of realising that James had witnessed her at her lowest ebb, and not for the first time. It had been impossible to hide her opium use from him whilst they were abroad, and in the end Beatrice had given up trying.

‘You cannot go on like this. You’re aware of that, I suppose?’ he asked at breakfast after Jani had left the table.

Beatrice knew well enough that he was correct, but she had not the least comprehension as to how she might go about setting her life on a different course. That dark angel still dogged her steps, trying to curve its great wet wing about her shoulders, and the opium was the only thing that kept it at bay, if only for a short while. She so dreaded the angel that she would rather have the opium nightmares, even if it meant white ravens feasting upon her legs while she watched, powerless to stop them, or dead monkeys reaching for her with their rotting fingertips.

‘What would have happened if I hadn’t been there?’ James went on.

‘Why were you?’

‘I couldn’t sleep, so I thought to check on the orchids. How will you manage in this house by yourself?’

‘The laudanum helps me to unwind,’ she said.

‘It will help you straight into an early grave,’ James replied.