When Beatrice looked down at the tree her heart sank at the dreadful damage the flames had done. The bark had been stripped away entirely in places and its branches were stumps. It might already be that there was nothing she could do, but if it was at all possible to nurture it back to life, then Beatrice promised herself fiercely that she would.

She knelt by the side of the tree and rested her arm upon its side. ‘I need to bandage my hands before I can help you, old friend,’ she whispered. ‘But I promise I won’t be gone long.’

The tree twitched at her voice and feebly reached one of its charred branches towards her, rubbing it gently up and down her arm. She thought of the clockwork dragon and how she had first seen it in Rosa’s garden, blowing a flame so hot that it even set ice on fire. She looked back at the dead trees and thought it was no wonder she had not been able to save them. They had never stood a chance.

Beatrice informed the police later that day, who visited her property and agreed to send someone to interview Rosa, but Beatrice had little confidence in them. Rosa would deny it, of course, and then it would be Rosa’s word against Beatrice’s. The last surviving apple tree required all her attention and so the rest of the day passed in a blur. She applied cooling poultices and remained by its side to whisper encouragement through the long hours.

Her rage was impotent and toothless, but all-consuming. It felt as if there was nothing else left inside her at all. Even the agony of her burnt hands made little impact. And she could not forget her own culpability in allowing the house to become so overrun that the live-in servants had left. Had they still been here, there would have been more people to help once the alarm was raised, and perhaps some of the other trees could have been saved.

She longed to go to Raven Hall and to … to … well, she hardly knew what. To hurt Rosa somehow, yes, and to take from her once-friend something she held dear so that she might know how it felt. Yet Beatrice knew well enough that this was a feeling Rosa was already familiar with. She felt the wounded-animal instinct to lash out, but she was at a disadvantage. There were no weapons to be found in her beautiful winter garden, nothing that could stand up against Rosa’s ferocious clockwork beasts.