All the humor had washed out of the latter young man’s face, leaving a ruthless and calculating bedrock his own mother might not have recognized... or might not have wanted to.

“Pink,” Cuthbert said. “Isn’t that interesting—the same word your father happened to mention just before we left, Roland, wasn’t it? He warned us about the pink one. We thought it was a joke. Almost.”

“Oh!” Alain’s eyes flew wide open. “Oh, fuck!” he blurted. He realized what he had said while sitting leg-to-leg with his best friend’s lover and clapped his hands over his mouth. His cheeks flamed red.

Susan barely noticed. She was staring at Roland in growing fear and confusion. “What?” she asked. “What is it ye know? Tell me! Tell me!”

“I’d like to hypnotize you again, as I did that day in the willow grove,” Roland said. “I want to do it right now, before we talk of this more and drag mud across what you remember.”

Roland had reached into his pocket while she was speaking. Now he took out a shell, and it began to dance across the back of his hand once more. Her eyes went to it at once, like steel drawn to a magnet.

“May I?” he asked. “By your leave, dear.”

“Aye, as ye will.” Her eyes were widening and growing glassy. “I don’t know why ye think this time should be any different, but...” She stopped talking, her eyes continuing to follow the dance of the shell across Roland’s hand. When he stopped moving it and clasped it in his fist, her eyes closed. Her breath was soft and regular.

“Gods, she went like a stone,” Cuthbert whispered, amazed.

“She’s been hypnotized before. By Rhea, I think.” Roland paused. Then: “Susan, do you hear me?”

“Aye, Roland, I hear ye very well.”

“I want you to hear another voice, too.”

“Whose?”

Roland beckoned to Alain. If anyone could break through the block in Susan’s mind (or find a way around it), it would be him.

“Mine, Susan,” Alain said, coming to Roland’s side. “Do you know it?”

She smiled with her eyes closed. “Aye, you’re Alain. Richard Stockworth that was.”

“That’s right.” He looked at Roland with nervous, questioning eyes—What shall I ask her?—but for a moment Roland didn’t reply. He was in two other places, both at the same time, and hearing two different voices.

Susan, by the stream in the willow grove: She says, “Aye, lovely, just so, it’s a good girl y’are,” then everything’s pink.

His father, in the yard behind the Great Hall: It’s the grapefruit. By which I mean it’s the pink one.

The pink one.

7