Finally she dried her eyes, bathed her face and went into her dressing room to apply new powder. As she did so, she noticed the Winter Garden pop-up book inside one of the drawers. She felt a sudden thirst for an escape into magical gardens, and pretty snow, and flickering lanterns, so she took it out and set it on the table before her, carefully moving the galaxy orchid to one side.

Rosa had always loved books – and old books most of all, delighting in the feel of the thick-cut paper beneath her fingers, the smell of binding glue, and ink, and memories. The pages were slightly worn and yellowed at the edges, as if many children’s hands had turned them over the years, marvelling at the wonders within.

It was not a long book and Rosa had been through it several times, after what Beatrice had said about it. She knew the story by heart now, and so she could not explain why, this time, a new part of the book sprang into life before her eyes: an entirely new page that had never been there before. A pale carousel rose up on its paper mechanisms, and for a long moment Rosa simply stared. This carousel was hers. It had the icicles, and the sleighs, and even the horse with the golden ribbon. She heard the twins’ voices once again.

A carousel upon a frozen lake …

The world has never seen its like before …

In every way the carousel looked identical to the one in Rosa’s workbook. Her eyes went to the text printed on the page:

But perhaps the most wondrous thing in the Winter Garden was the Carousel of Icicles. For the horse with the golden ribbon had a special gift – she could take a person back, to change just one decision they regretted …

Rosa’s hands clenched, her nails dug into her palms. She knew at once what decision she would change. She would go back to the day Eustace proposed. And instead of saying yes, she would turn her back on him, as Beatrice had done. She would run away as fast as she could. Some ember of hope sparked into life inside her.

She recalled a clockwork fortune-teller she had seen once at the Mechanical Museum. Locals knew her to be more than just cogs. Somehow she really could see into the future. Rosa thought of Cookie and her other clockwork animals. They had souls, just as flesh-and-blood animals did. Could such a carousel as the book described truly be created? She turned the page to the next one in the story, which was just as she remembered it. But when she turned back to the previous page, the Carousel of Icicles was gone – vanished, as if it had never existed at all. But the idea had been planted in Rosa’s mind.