‘All Cadmus’s other children were perfectly normal. No, it’s much simpler than that. Cadmus took it.’
‘Took it?’ Euterpe sprang to her feet, brimming with indignation on behalf of her slandered ancestor. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. He loved that boy more than anything. You’ve read his words: he was haunted his whole life by his son’s lack of Skill. Besides, how can you “take” Skill? I can’t believe the hours you’ve spent reading, and a stupid notion like that is the best you can manage.’
‘You seem a little defensive,’ Silyen said, in that bloodless way he sometimes had. At such times the inquisitive black-eyed teenager almost disappeared, leaving only the mechanical operation of an analytical brain. ‘I wonder why. Your sister, Thalia: her Skill is rather paltry, isn’t it? She can hardly boil tea in a cup. Which makes me wonder about you.’
Euterpe couldn’t bear it. She was not having this conversation. She just wasn’t. She threw her sketchbook down on the floor and ran out of the library. When, some hours later, Silyen walked past her deckchair on his way to the garden gate, she pressed her lips together and did not bid him goodbye.
More time passed. Still Winterbourne did not visit. Still Thalia did not appear, a plate of scones in one hand and a jug of cool lemonade in the other. Still naughty Puck did not come bounding up, tail wagging, a scrappy bundle of feathers between his small, sharp teeth.
Euterpe’s headaches became worse. The pain was bad even when she sat quite still in her chair in the garden. The buzzing of the bees was so loud as to be unendurable. She felt dizzy when she stood. She stole a glance at her own reflection in the parlour mirror one day, just to see how bad she looked. But the face that stared back at her was still radiant, pink-cheeked, unshadowed and unlined. She was still twenty-four and beautiful.
Forever twenty-four.
Fear slid down her spine like a cold key, stopping her breath.
‘What has happened to me?’ she asked Silyen the next time he appeared, walking down the box-hedged path from a garden gate that was always just out of sight. ‘Why am I not getting older? Why do I never see anyone, apart from you? It feels like it is summer always. And my head is getting worse. I can barely think straight any more.’
She studied his face; emotions passed across it, as insubstantial as cloud over sky. Then finally, like the sun, that smile – the same she’d seen the very first day all those years ago. It was Thalia’s smile, no doubt about it. And it had indeed been years since Silyen had first walked into the garden. Euterpe realized that now.
Years in which he had changed from boy to man – and she had not changed at all.
Euterpe’s skull felt as though it was breaking in two like an egg being cracked from within. She was terrified of whatever strange new life might come crawling out, naked and misshapen.
‘This will hurt,’ Silyen said, holding out both hands to pull her to her feet. ‘But it’s about time. I’m quite curious, too. Mother’s told me about it, but not the whole story. And Zelston’s never uttered a word.’
He put his hands on Euterpe’s shoulders to steady her. Then he turned her slowly around to face the house.
Orpen Mote was a charred ruin.
Her childhood home. Everything she had ever known: burned to ashes. She remembered now. It had been an accident. An ember fallen from the hearth as the household slept.
She and Thalia had been away from home that night, at a ball at Lincoln’s Inn. Winterbourne had shaken her awake in the early hours, in a cold guest room. She remembered how she had felt in that instant: breathless with longing that he had finally come to her instead of waiting till their wedding night.
Until she saw from his terrible expression that that was not why he had come at all.
Her parents had died from the smoke without ever waking, their Skill useless to save them, their slaves, or their home.
Euterpe gasped at the onrush of memory. Only Silyen’s hands held her up as she swayed.
‘Look,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘There.’
She looked to where he pointed. Three people stood close together, a small white-and-tan dog running in circles around their feet, whining. She recognized Thalia’s graceful form, the strong, dark figure of Winterbourne – and there, supported between them, herself. Tears streamed down her other self’s face. Her hair was loose and unkempt, and she seemed unable to stand upright under the weight of her despair.
As Euterpe watched, the grief-stricken girl’s knees buckled. Winterbourne caught her in his arms and tenderly lowered her to the ground.
Euterpe saw herself huddle face down upon the scorched and ash-strewn earth. She heard herself let out an inconsolable cry and scrabble through the grey muck as if hoping by some miracle to unearth her parents, whole and unharmed.
Then the first bird dropped from the sky.