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“You must leave this place, for your own health,” a woman murmured. The voice trickled through the darkness. As Clarimonde neared her room, she realised that the door next to hers was slightly cracked. “You are dying, Mr Bligh.”

Clarimonde halted in front of the door and peered inside. Someone had brought a normal candle into the room; it burned yellow upon the bedside table, barely pushing back the gloom.

A middle-aged Black woman in a dark, high-collared gown had seated herself beside the bed. The artist, Mr Bligh, looked up at her where he languished against his pillow. His features were pale and drawn, and pinched with abject exhaustion.

“If I leave, Mother Barclay,” Mr Bligh rasped faintly, “I know that I will never paint anything so beautiful ever again.”

“If you do not leave,” Mother Barclay told him frankly, “you will never paint again at all. Every artist I have seen here undergoes the same progression. You will not be unique.”

Mr Bligh closed his eyes. “Does she love the painting?” he murmured distractedly. “Is it good enough? I will paint her another. It will be even better than the first.”

Mother Barclay rose from her chair with a heavy sigh and began to collect her things. “I will ask the priest to see you,” she said quietly. “Though he may arrive too late.”

Before Clarimonde could react, the woman had taken several brisk, focussed strides towards the door. As she opened it, she came face-to-face with Clarimonde, who blinked back at her in surprise.

“Are you here to pay your last respects?” Mother Barclay asked gently.

Clarimonde grimaced. “I fear that I do not know Mr Bligh very well,” she admitted. “Is he doing that poorly?”

“I do not know why anyone bothers to be surprised anymore,” said Mother Barclay. “He is far from the first person to perish here. There is a consumption among the artists. I do my best to help them—but I cannot save someone who keeps drinking the same poison.”

It was very obvious to Clarimonde that the ‘poison’ in question was Tertia herself. What shocked her, though, was the realisation that Mother Barclay clearly thought the same. Other than Lord Foxglove, everyone that Clarimonde had met here was far too enamoured with Tertia to speak badly of her.

“I am Mrs Fiona Barclay,” the woman introduced herself. “And you?”

“Miss Clarimonde Betony. But… I heard Mr Bligh call you Mother Barclay?”

The woman inclined her head. “I came upon the name during the war,” she said. “I was a nurse on the peninsula. People started using the name here as well, when I returned. I do not mind it, truth be told.”

Clarimonde frowned at her. “You came to see Mr Bligh on a Sunday?” she asked.

Mother Barclay offered her a rueful smile. “I call it Sunday service,” she said. “Church is wherever it is we bring our faith.” She paused, then added: “Thank goodness for that, or else I would not have a church anymore.”

Clarimonde winced as she remembered Reverend Shaw’s overly solicitous sermon.

Mother Barclay noted the reaction. “You should leave now,” the nurse advised. “You still seem reasonably clearheaded. I promise, there is nothing here worth dying for.”

Clarimonde hesitated. Her first instinct was to reassure Mother Barclay that she knew very well what she was dealing with, and that she had no intention of letting Tertia consume her. But Clarimonde had taken up a role here—however poor she was at playing it—and she knew that she could not risk the truth.

Instead, she kept her silence.

Mother Barclay shook her head with pity. “I hope that you will mull it over,” she said. “Whatever you are seeking here, I would be happy to help you find it somewhere else.”

If you know where else I can find a magical harp, I would be very obliged, Clarimonde thought. But she was not foolish enough to speak the words aloud.

Mother Barclay offered her one last nod. “Do go and keep the poor man company,” she said softly. “He hasn’t long, and very few others have bothered. I don’t know how long it will take me to bring back the reverend.”

Clarimonde found herself nodding back, despite herself. As Mother Barclay strode for the stairs, she took a careful step into Mr Bligh’s bedroom.

The man had fallen into a fitful half-slumber—though as Clarimonde approached, his eyelids fluttered once again. As she stared down at him, a thought struck her, and she found herself reaching into her pocket to retrieve a tiny bottle of perfume.

As she pulled out the stopper of the perfume bottle, the dormouse climbed its way back to her shoulder, sniffing at the air with interest. “Is that honey?” it asked her. “And… something herbal. I cannot quite identify it.”

Clarimonde jerked the perfume bottle away from the mouse. “Stay back from this,” she warned him. “It is not honey—it is oil of datura. A small amount will show things as they truly are. Too much will drive you mad.”

The mouse eased back from the perfume, twitching its nose. Clarimonde pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed it against the mouth of the bottle, carefully avoiding her skin.

The sweet scent wafted up from her handkerchief, overwriting the bergamot and citrus of her other perfume. As it wound into her senses, the dark room came into focus. The yellow candlelight flared, becoming so uncomfortably bright that Clarimonde could no longer look at it directly. The shadows too grew deeper, seething into ugly pools upon the hard stone floor.