Tom ran at her and tried to prise her fingers away. Kit was choking, the veins bulging underneath his skin, his eyelids fluttering, his eyeballs rolling back into his skull. He was dangling a foot off the ground, clutching at the Samdhya’s arms, his legs kicking in the air.

But it was already too late.

Kit was choking. The Samdhya was too strong and growing stronger. She now took up more space, looking more like Rohenga than she had done before, those eyes, dark and animal and yet so beguiling at the same time.

Tom wished once more for the flute. If only he could call Tanenwod to help them.

With a final effort, Kit wheezed, struggled and then went still.

‘He’s dead.’ Zita sobbed.

The Captive released him, letting him drop as if he were nothing, and sighed with satisfaction. ‘So easy to harm you mortals. We protect you, and yet really you are nothing.’

Tom watched Kit slump onto his front, lying askew. His hair hung limply over his face, hiding his eyes. He looked like a broken doll.

Tom felt so helpless. Zita let out a low moan. They clung to each other.

‘And now …’ The Captive, lordly and disdainful, her white robe rustling, her eyes glowing, turned towards where Tom and Zita huddled together.

She regarded them for a second or two, as if deciding what to do with them. Tom started forwards but Zita held him back.

At that moment, the walls of the room shook and shivered and burst open, and there, standing in a blaze of light, dressed in a long black tailcoat, was Tom’s enemy, his uncle, his ancestor, the slayer of his parents. Jack Swinton.

The landscape around them was illuminated, the mist blew away and they could see, in the near distance, a black building which must have been where they had been kept, the dark shadow of the farmhouse existing in a separate plane of reality.

Jack came striding along, coat tails billowing and swirling out behind him, a nightmare of anger, fists clenched and face grim.

He faced up to the Captive. The pair of them looked equal to each other, Jack tall and strong. They circled each other for a moment. Then Jack bowed. The Captive merely raised an eyebrow in return, and Jack, pausing for a second to acknowledge the gesture, went straight to Kit.

His demeanour changed, softened. He relaxed a little, bending down so that he could be near the boy, whose dull silver hair was spread out beneath him.

‘My boy, my sweet boy.’ He sank down, placed his hands on the boy’s heart, and Kit shuddered with life. ‘He lives yet.’

As if satisfied, he stood, turned, his gaze lingering on Zita for an uncomfortable second, and then addressed Tom. He curled his lip and almost spat out the words: ‘I thought you were a true Swinton. It seems I was wrong.’