She finished hers a few seconds before Eustace. Some of the nearby guests even applauded, whilst everyone craned forward to see her stone. Rosa thought it was perfectly ordinary at first – that she had just gone through that ordeal for nothing. But then words appeared upon it in golden, flowing script: You will regret leaving your ravens locked in the aviary.

Rosa frowned down at the fortune for a moment before raising her gaze to Eustace. He looked ill as he scowled at his plum and the one mouthful of fruit remaining on it. Rosa sensed that he too would have given up, if he hadn’t been trying to best her. Sweat had beaded at his hairline and trailed down his face. He fumbled for his handkerchief, wiped it over his brow and then glared at Rosa, as if holding her personally responsible for this ordeal. She thought for a moment that he was not going to manage that last mouthful. But then, still glaring at her, he raised the plum to his mouth.

There was a sucking noise as he ate the last of its flesh and dropped the stone onto the table. The next moment he lurched to his feet and was vomiting into the snow. The assembled guests cried out when they saw the words written on his stone, and those close to Eustace edged away from him until he was left quite alone. No one went to his aid or attempted to speak to him. Rosa saw the words and they echoed over and over again inside her head. She looked up at her husband and waited for the dark horror of it to sweep over her. Only it never came. She was not surprised, somehow, not really.

‘What is it, in God’s name?’ Eustace demanded, straightening up. ‘Why are you all staring at me like that?’

No one answered him. No one, it seemed, even wanted to look at him now.

Impatiently Eustace strode back to the table and snatched up the stone to read about the future mistake that everyone else had already seen: You will regret killing your wife.

Rosa expected Eustace to turn bright red, to roar and bluster. Instead the colour drained from his face so fast she thought he might actually faint. He stared down at the stone in silence for so long that the other guests around him started to fidget uncomfortably. No one knew what to say or do. Rosa felt everyone turning their gazes towards her, waiting for a hysterical outburst that never came. Finally Eustace put the stone down on the table, very carefully and precisely, as if it were made from glass.

When he spoke, it was in the same careful, precise way.

‘It is not true.’

Rosa thought he would address the guests – the only people there whose opinion he valued – but instead he looked right at her.

‘It is not true,’ he repeated.