‘Well,’ Rosa said. ‘We should leave. Thank you again. I hope you fill the garden with magic once more.’

‘I w-will,’ Beatrice said. She looked thoughtful as she drew a silver flask from her pocket and walked forward to throw it into the well. They heard the splash as it hit the water below, and then Beatrice turned back to Rosa.

‘Would you. Help me?’

Rosa looked startled. ‘Me?’

‘You s-said you would s-start again. And I know you will n-not be here l-long. Your p-place is the r-real w-world – to find that h-happiness you spoke of. But p-perhaps the g-garden might sh-shelter you both f-for a while? Perhaps we m-might be f-friends. As we w-were. Before.’

Rosa smiled slowly. ‘Oh, Beatrice. I should like that more than anything.’

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Six months later

James Sheppard sat on the veranda of his home in India and scanned eagerly through the newspaper. It was the first thing he did every time a new English one was delivered, in the hope that it might contain some news about Rosa or Beatrice. Britain had been agog with the scandal of their disappearance for weeks, but the information had since dwindled away to nothing.

All that was known was that both women had vanished on New Year’s Eve, as had Rosa’s young daughter, Ada, despite the fact that she’d been in an entirely different country, staying with her grandmother in France. Many of the plants and animals of Half Moon House had also gone, along with Raven Hall’s famous carousel.

It was common knowledge that the duke had consumed a fortune plum in Beatrice’s garden a couple of weeks before and everyone knew the shocking thing it had revealed. Speculation was rife as a result, with many people believing that he had killed Rosa and hidden her body somewhere.

The duke had denied it and, given the lack of evidence, no arrest had been made, but it appeared that Eustace was not at all stable these days. He lived in such dread of the clockwork ravens his wife had left behind that he finally admitted himself to an asylum. Rumour had it that he insisted he could still hear the metallic whir of wings and scrabbling of claws even from the isolation of his padded cell.

That morning, as usual, there had been no fresh news in the paper.

‘We might never find out what happened,’ Jani said gently, and James knew she was right.

Yet still … The not knowing was a torment to him and he often woke from nightmares in which Rosa called to him from beyond the grave.

But that evening Jani came in from the orange groves and said she had something to show him.