‘Not if you do not wish to.’

‘B-But all your p-possessions and c-clockwork are there,’ Beatrice said. ‘Do you m-mean s-simply to l-leave it all?’

‘I have everything that I need right here,’ Rosa said, tightening her grip on Ada. ‘We will start again somewhere else. Somewhere Eustace won’t ever find us.’

‘What about y-your f-family?’ Beatrice asked. ‘In America?’

Rosa shook her head. ‘My mother would not accept me back,’ she said.

‘Then wh-where will you g-go?’

‘I don’t know.’ Rosa laughed, a strange mixture of relief and a sort of hopeless dread. How would they manage? She had no money and nowhere to live. Perhaps the sensible thing would be to return to Raven Hall after all, yet something told Rosa that if she returned to that house now, she would never come out of it again. She would not take Ada back there and risk Eustace snatching her away a second time. Nor would she risk being murdered at his hand.

She straightened her shoulders and turned to face Beatrice. ‘I did you a great wrong,’ she said. ‘I know that, and I hope you can forgive me. For what it’s worth, I did not mean for your apple trees to be hurt and I am truly sorry. I know I have destroyed our friendship and that you do not owe me anything.’

‘And yet you w-will ask for s-something anyway?’ Beatrice guessed.

Rosa’s eyes went to the nearby wishing well. ‘Might I make one final wish? I know the magic is gone, but I would dearly like to wish for one last thing, here in this special place.’

Beatrice hesitated, wondering if she ought to refuse out of spite. But the hatred had become too heavy a burden to bear and she found she was suddenly glad to put it down. She nodded and the Spider Queen took a coin from her pocket to hand to her.

Rosa carried Ada over to the well and handed the coin to her. ‘Would you like to throw it in, darling?’

With a solemn expression, the little girl did so, and Rosa whispered the wish aloud.

‘I wish to be a good mother.’

‘Then you will be,’ the Spider Queen said behind her. ‘Even without the wishing well.’

Rosa laughed, but it was an unhappy sound. She turned round. ‘It’s as easy as that?’

‘Easy? Why, whoever said anything about it being easy? I have no doubt there will be bleak moments when you give in to despair, and when you will feel out of your depth and just exhaustingly, achingly bone-tired. That is the way of motherhood.’

‘But then … how can wishing to be a good mother ever be enough?’