Yet it no longer felt that way at all. Ada was gone. Beatrice’s garden was providing too much competition. The wish seemed further away than it ever had before, and that feeling wasn’t helped when she saw the boy with the withered arm peeping out from behind Beatrice’s skirts, his eyes too big and sorrowful for a child. He was there and gone in a moment, and Rosa was the only one who seemed to have noticed him.

‘One of those infernal trees attacked me,’ Eustace said, breaking the taut silence at last.

‘Are y-you all r-right?’ Beatrice asked. Her grey eyes took in the clockwork raven in pieces in the snow.

‘No, I am not all right!’ Eustace snapped. ‘This is what comes from keeping devilish trees in the garden.’ He took a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his bleeding cheek. ‘I have half a mind to bring a lawsuit against you. The garden ought not to be open to the public if there are deranged and aggressive things lurking in it.’

The only deranged and aggressive thing here is you, Rosa longed to say.

‘I w-was not t-talking to you,’ Beatrice said. She barely glanced at Eustace before fixing her eyes on Rosa.

‘The trees were … were startled by the raven.’ She gestured at the sad pile of clockwork. ‘That’s all.’

Beatrice said nothing for a moment, but Rosa felt strongly that her friend did not believe her. Then her gaze dropped to Rosa’s gloves and she said, ‘Your h-hand. It’s b-bleeding.’

Rosa looked down and realised she had broken her teacup. Eustace had dropped his and it had landed unharmed in the snow, but Rosa had tightened her grip on hers without realising it. Several shards of china lay by her feet, but the largest piece remained clenched in her hand, piercing her glove. A scarlet trail of blood ran over her palm and dripped dark, blooming spots upon the snow.

‘Oh.’ Rosa stared. ‘Oh no, I’m so sorry! Have I … have I killed the rabbit?’

To her dismay, she could feel tears prickling the backs of her eyes, and the effort of keeping them in made it feel like there was a hand wrapped around her throat, squeezing tighter and tighter. Eustace tried to arrange his face into an expression of concern, but it only made him look as if he were chewing glass.

‘It is n-not really a r-rabbit,’ Beatrice said gently. ‘Only a t-teacup that’s b-been enchanted. G-Give me that p-piece. Take my h-handkerchief.’

Rosa tried to let go but her fingers were so tightly curled around the shard of porcelain that it was as if they’d become frozen there.

‘I can’t,’ she said.

At that moment the chimes rang through the garden to signify closing time.

‘For heaven’s sake, Rosa, don’t be obstinate,’ Eustace exclaimed. ‘I cannot miss the supper booths for this.’