Eustace breathed hard through his nose. He looked as if he’d never even heard of a raven. ‘What in God’s name are you talking about?’

Rosa called them. She called the ravens waiting up on the chimney pots, and the ones clustered around the crib in the night-nursery, and in the aviary. She called the birds in the Long Gallery and the White Drawing Room, and perched on the gables of the follies out in the grounds. From all over the house they appeared, pouring in through the door and the windows, coming down the chimney in a cloud of dark wings and greedy eyes. Only these birds weren’t made from feather and bone, but from clockwork and cogs.

So many weeks of work, but it had been worth it to create not only the boar, but fifty ravens as well. There was barely space for them all in the room. Their eyes glowed a deep, gleaming red, their beaks were razor-sharp, their claws were talons. They looked as if they could tear a man’s throat out with one swipe.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ Eustace asked in a voice of ice.

‘It is quite simple,’ Rosa said. ‘You are a worthless sort of a man and I knew you would not listen to anything I had to say unless I forced you to—’

She did not manage to finish before he lunged at her, but he had no chance to lay a finger on her before several of the ravens descended on him in a flurry of metal wings and iron claws. His face was hidden from her view in the dark storm, but she could hear his shrieks, and saw blood splatter on the floor and clumps of hair fly out in all directions.

‘Enough!’ She snapped her fingers and the birds immediately swooped back to their perches.

Eustace was on his knees on the rug, breathing hard. The birds had ripped into the flesh of his hands and face with their beaks and pulled out entire chunks of hair. For the first time since she’d known him, he looked not just angry, but afraid as well. When she stepped closer, he shrank back from her, and she felt a sick pleasure at the sight.

‘I will carry this wretched child of yours,’ she said. ‘But when it is born I will have nothing to do with it. It must be part monster, if it came from you. We will employ nannies and wet nurses, but the raising of this creature will not involve me. And there will be no further children.’

Eustace made to protest, but Rosa cut him off immediately.

‘Will you be silent; I am not finished!’ she thundered. ‘From this night on, you will never enter my bedroom again. You will not touch me. You will speak to me only when necessary.’

‘You are insane,’ he whispered, glaring up at her with bloodshot eyes. ‘My conjugal rights are—’