When they finished the wards, ending as usual by the pond, and came tramping up the weed-strewn drive to the front door, Kit even gave Tom a little grudging nod as he went back in, as if to say, You did well. When Kit looked into his eyes Tom felt an unexpected rush of warmth.

Kit disappeared into the recesses of the house, and Tom, after he’d restored himself with some biscuits and tea, went to find Zita.

Her room was along the corridor from his, next to the library. It was much larger, taking up seemingly about half of the house, with one large window facing onto the lawn, and several small windows set high up into the ceiling; and bursting with clothes that hung or were draped everywhere over furniture, and books that had obviously come from the library.

‘I’ve read everything at least twice,’ she sighed. ‘You wouldn’t believe how fascinating these old accounts of cattle shows can become. Fortunately, there’s a relatively large collection of the playwrights. But I have read Hamlet about four hundred times now. Plenty of the classics, naturally, so my Latin’s a lot better than it used to be. Jack barely reads anything himself now, of course. Too busy… brooding. Cocktail?’ She offered him a tall glass, in which was a clear liquid, a large ice cube and some shining red berries. Tom demurred. ‘Don’t be shy, darling, it’s only vodka. And the berries won’t kill you, I promise.’

‘Kill me? Or send me insane …?’

‘Or do anything else. Honestly, look at you, you’re like a frightened rabbit. How one wants to pick you up and murmur sweet comforts into your ear.’ She smoothed down her skirt. ‘I had a rabbit when I was a girl.’

‘What happened to it?’

‘Monsieur Snuffles, I called him, because he looked French.’

‘Did he die happily, surrounded by all his grieving rabbit descendants?’

Zita wrinkled her nose. ‘Eaten by a fox, of course.’

She went to a pile of books and picked one that lay on the top. It was a journal, bound in red boards, with the initials M.H.R. on the front. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘is a good place to start. This is the diary of the daughter of a local rector in the late nineteenth century. She was rather a bright spark, don’t you know, and she met one of the Samdhya and kept detailed notes. Margaret Ravenswood her name was.’

Tom took the book. Will this help me understand? he thought. He flicked open the front cover and then looked up at Zita. ‘Your wrist …’ he said. ‘Kit’s eyes … his hair … the silver …’

‘Careful now, Tommy boy,’ whispered Zita.

‘It comes from Jack, doesn’t it? I know it. The wards around the house, it’s all him, it’s all connected. What is he? What is he doing?’