‘I’m not being facetious, Tommy dearest. Look, I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll come with you, and then if Jack returns, I’ll send myself to him. He won’t know the difference – at least, he won’t for as long as it will take for me to get back here.’

‘You’d do that for me?’

‘I’m not doing it for you, Tommy my darling. It’s for all of us. We should have done it before … but …’ She smoothed her hair back, and Tom saw the bracelet that Jack had placed on her wrist.

‘Does it hurt you all the time?’

She nodded. ‘I’m going to help you, Tommy. I’m going to help you, even though it hurts.’

‘I could kiss you!’

‘Well, if you must …’

She offered her cheek to him. For a moment Tom thought about grabbing her and kissing her on the mouth.

But he gave her a hug instead.

Tom’s eyelids were drooping, so he made himself a strong cup of tea and waited, munching on an apple and watching through the kitchen window across the moat. The tops of the trees waving in the wind. Three silly ducks, waddling to the edge and diving in. Leana also seemed to be waiting, keeping her head up, her ears pricked, her bright eyes alive.

Soon, Tom saw Kit and Jack walking across the lawn, as they must have walked almost every day for the last few hundred years. Jack’s white shirt was stark against the green; whilst Kit’s customary black made his silver hair shine even brighter.

They walked as they would have done before it was a lawn even, with Jack striding ahead, and Kit half-running to keep up just behind him, trundling the wheelbarrow.

They reached the bridge. Jack shoved the gate open. Kit, without looking back, placed the wheelbarrow carefully to the righthand side.

‘He’s left the keys behind.’

Tom waited until the pair had crossed the bridge into the field and closed the gate, and then he and Zita sprang into action.

They took the stairs three at a time and came hurtling into Jack’s rooms, Leana flowing behind them.

Zita paused for a second on the threshold and closed her eyes.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Sensing the glamours.’

The objects seemed more menacing than ever. The cold dead eyes of a stuffed crocodile. The glass contraption hanging from the ceiling. A dark mirror. A bowl with a pool of ink in it. Vials, some of which seemed to be full of blood, some of which contained bright liquids. Papers littered everything, many of which were covered with Jack’s spidery handwriting. A framed engraving of the full achievement of the Swinton arms, with its distinctive leopard’s head crest. A crystal ball with a velvet covering. Tarot cards, spread out in a pattern and in the centre of them, the Emperor card, seated on his mountain throne.