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Clarimonde frowned. “You wanted Bellamira because she knows how to play the harp?” she guessed. “I am… passable at the harp, I suppose. I could learn it better. With effort.”

Winnie grimaced. “Oh, you would have to do that much,” she agreed. “But more importantly… we know now where the harp has gone. Mr Quincy’s sister Tertia has taken it into her possession. She cannot play it—but she hopes to find the one who can. Mr Quincy believes that she intends to wake more of the fomóraiġ with its power. If we can steal it from her, then we can turn it against her and Secundus instead.”

Clarimonde bit at her lip. “Oh,” she said simply.

The sound drew a ghost of a smile from Winnie. “Yes,” she said. “You have many impressive qualities, Clarimonde… but I have never particularly envisioned you as a thief.”

Clarimonde leaned against the bed post. “You could… go search for it yourself?” she suggested dubiously. “You are very good at getting into places where you should not be.”

Winnie’s expression fell. “I wish that I could,” she admitted. “But Tertia has already seen my face. She knows that I am sworn to Mr Quincy—and if I am caught trying to steal this harp, then everything will come apart at once. That is why it must be someone she has never seen before.” She studied Clarimonde intently—and suddenly, Clarimonde had the intuition that her sister was about to say something truly awful.

“You should say it,” Clarimonde murmured. “Whatever it is. I can feel you agonising, Winnie.”

A hard, bleak expression overcame Winnie’s lovely features. “You know that the old Lady Hollowvale is gone, if Tertia has now conquered Hollowvale,” she said.

Clarimonde nodded slowly, with a deep pang of sympathy. “I know that she was your mentor,” she murmured. “I am sorry, Winnie.”

“She was more than just my mentor,” Winnie told her, with a strange gentleness. “The Hollow Lady was a faerie reflection of Lady Theodora Wilder, who took us in. That is why she was willing to mentor me at all, Clarimonde.” Her eyes seemed a bit too bright in the darkness as she spoke. “When Theodora left us, she returned to Faerie and joined in some way with the Hollow Lady, to become a single person. That is who Secundus took. And I do not know what has become of her.”

A horrible pang hit Clarimonde’s gut as she made the connection. Lady Theodora Wilder had been dotty and eccentric, and sometimes far too distant… but Clarimonde had never once doubted that the lady loved all of the wayward children she had rescued from the workhouses.

It would have been too much to call the lady Clarimonde’s mother. But certainly, Lady Theodora Wilder was better than the mother that she should have had.

“You see now why I want this harp,” Winnie said quietly. “And why we will not hide forever behind Mr Quincy’s protection. Secundus has taken more from us than just Bellamira. I will not look away from that.”

Clarimonde swallowed a knot. “Do you think that Tertia knows where the Hollow Lady has gone?” she rasped.

“I think she does not care,” Winnie replied evenly. “But more importantly, Clarimonde… you do remember who else went off to Faerie with Theodora?”

The sickness in Clarimonde’s stomach twisted violently. No, no, absolutely not, she thought in a sudden panic.

Theodora’s husband, the previous Lord Sorcier, had been… something else entirely to Clarimonde. A teacher. Perhaps a kind of family, even if he could not be her father.

“Please,” she managed. “Please don’t say⁠—”

“You made me swear once never to lie to you, Clarimonde,” Winnie told her. There was iron in her voice—but it was born of a strange kindness between them, rather than from heartlessness. Clarimonde had told Winnie to be truthful with her, always, no matter how difficult it was. They both knew she had meant the words completely.

Clarimonde closed her eyes. “What has happened to Elias?” she asked softly. Her voice trembled on the words.

Winnie drew in a deep breath. “I do not know how it has come to pass,” she said, “but Tertia claimed that Elias was now asleep upon her bier, somewhere in Hollowvale. I do not believe that he is dead, Clarimonde—but he is certainly in need of our assistance.”

Clarimonde wavered in place as a wash of trembling relief overtook her. “That is something,” she said hoarsely. “Thank goodness, that is something.” She forced herself to look up at her sister. “He is asleep, you said. Then that is why we need the harp. Surely, it can wake him.”

“It can,” Winnie said firmly. “And lest you forget, Clarimonde… Elias has defeated at least one lord of Faerie already. He could surely bring down Tertia.”

Clarimonde steadied herself for several seconds, clinging to the small shreds of relief she had been granted. This can be fixed, she thought. I have the power to fix this much.

“I must steal that harp, then,” she said forcefully. “It cannot be you. It certainly cannot be your little apprentice. And Bellamira is… unavailable.” She swallowed. “Which means that I must leave in a hurry. The Hound may soon turn his attention back to my trail. I do not know if the spell obscuring my location will hold once Bellamira is… gone. And once the Hound realises that I am at Witchwood Manor, I will be connected to Mr Quincy as well.”

Winnie looked down at her hands, now clasped against her lap. “You have always been very clever, Clarimonde,” she said in a subdued tone. “I thought that I would need to explain much more to you.”

Clarimonde smiled tremulously. “I am clever in some ways, and very boneheaded in others,” she corrected her sister. “But we are all good at doing what is needful, when there is no other choice. I can find a harp; I can learn to play it; I can become a thief. I will simply find it all impossibly uncomfortable while I do it.”

Winnie continued studying her hands intently. Suddenly, she sighed. “You should take Lord Foxglove with you,” she advised.

Clarimonde’s nostrils flared; her hard determination abruptly faltered, defeated by sheer horror. “Absolutely not!” she declared. “My God, Winnie—what would make you suggest such a thing?”

Winnie pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Tertia has conquered the realm of Hollowvale,” she said flatly. “There are only so many people who know it well. I am one of them… but Lord Foxglove is another. He once ruled Hollowvale, before he lost his title. If the harp is hidden in Hollowvale somewhere, then he will know all of the secret places it might be.”