Jasmine paused, trying to keep her voice steady, trying to hold her nerve.

‘Morningstar is an anagram of Tron Ingrams,’ she stated, as blankly as she could manage.

Fallan said nothing. He folded his arms as though he was suddenly feeling the cold, that rarely glimpsed expression of vulnerability about his face and his posture.

‘I know you went to see her, not long before she died,’ Jasmine continued. ‘That first time I came here, to the refuge: you knew who I was all along, didn’t you?’

Fallan nodded solemnly.

‘I knew the second I saw you sitting there with Rita in the kitchen,’ he admitted.

Jasmine looked beyond the house, away to the north, away from Fallan. She had to take her eyes off him in order to ready herself, but she could smell that scent of him again, of the outdoors and of fresh sweat and recent ablutions.

She took a breath, then despite the breeze threatening to swallow her faltering voice, from somewhere found the strength to say the most difficult four words of her life.