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“We were meant to practise the harp last night,” she reminded him, as she struggled with her tangled hair. “It has been days now, and I’ve yet to even string it. The Daghda’s harp will be no use to us at all if I cannot play it, Mr Fox.”

“I am hardly avoiding the matter on purpose,” Lord Foxglove offered back. “It has simply not been top of my mind.” He hesitated audibly. “Oh… won’t you give me that comb, honestly. You are mauling your poor hair, Miss Betony. Whatever has it done to deserve that?”

Clarimonde stubbornly evaded his attempt to snatch the comb away from her. “Hush,” she snapped at him. “I’m nearly done, regardless.”

Foxglove relented reluctantly, though Clarimonde felt his agony while he watched her work. Eventually, when she had made herself more or less presentable—as much as she could manage without a mirror, of course—she set the comb down on the dressing table and turned around.

There was a tiny white hedgehog waiting for her on the golden bed.

Clarimonde scoffed at Foxglove. “Absolutely not!” she declared. “I am not putting you in my pocket like that.”

The hedgehog gave a small, long-suffering chuff. “You remain no fun at all, Miss Betony,” it informed her.

Nevertheless, the tiny white hedgehog soon returned to being a tiny white dormouse—whereupon it scampered its way up her shoulder once again.

Clarimonde was surely late to breakfast by the time she descended the stairs into the abbey—but given that Tertia’s seat was currently still empty, she supposed herself unlikely to give insult.

There was an odd silence at the long table this morning as she approached her seat, however… and the pressure of many eyes upon her form. The air was heavy with an expectation that she did not fully understand—until, that is, she saw the tall, dark figure standing at the end of the table.

In the close, winding streets of London, Mr Gabriel Brand had been a quiet, subtle menace. Here, within Whitby Abbey’s grand nave, his menace had unfolded to suffocate the greater space that surrounded him. Whitby’s morning light—already weakened by the fog outside—perished entirely before it could reach his battered black boots.

Most of the banquet table cowered before him. Miss Molinari, who was closest, had frozen in place, staring up at him like a cornered rabbit.

Mr Brand’s black eyes flickered towards Clarimonde as she descended the stairs. His pale, deathly countenance showed no sign whatsoever of the livid red burns that her perfume had once left upon him. In fact, his expression was perfectly flat and entirely devoid of emotion as he looked upon her.

“Miss Betony,” he greeted her, in a low, hollow voice. “I must apologise for my lateness. I was delayed, of course—as you are well aware.”

Clarimonde stopped at the foot of the stairs.

On some level, she meant to reply; her lips parted, as though to allow it. But her throat had closed, and her heart was hammering in her chest, and she was suddenly so dizzy that Mr Brand’s form had become nothing more than a black smudge against the sunlight streaming through the windows.

“Don’t,” Foxglove’s voice whispered urgently from her collar.

Don’t what? Clarimonde wondered distractedly.

She realised belatedly that she had already crossed much of the distance towards Mr Brand. Her hand had dipped into her pocket, searching for anything that she might use as a weapon. Instead, it caught upon the brass pocket watch, and Clarimonde knew then what it was that she was feeling.

She was… enraged.

Had she the means, she would have struck down that pale, unmoving figure in a heartbeat. She would have tormented him with every drop of magic at her disposal until he begged for mercy—and then she would have continued, all the same.

Her fingers clenched at the pocket watch—and finally, her voice slipped free, now shaking with incandescent rage.

“You should have stayed in London,” Clarimonde told him. “You should have counted yourself fortunate and escaped me while you could.”

For the first time, something like emotion flickered upon Mr Brand’s features—a hint of surprise, followed by dull amusement. “You cannot kill me, Miss Betony,” he informed her. “My kind heals every injury, save for those we visit upon ourselves.”

“I know that you cannot die,” Clarimonde said bluntly. “But I can make you beg for death, while knowing that it will never come.”

It was not an idle threat—but neither was it one that Clarimonde had ever intended to speak aloud. It had long ago occurred to her that she could use her oil of datura to drive someone intentionally mad.

The words dropped between them like lead weights. Miss Molinari glanced fearfully towards Clarimonde now, as though just realising that she had been caught between two equally terrible predators.

Mr Brand did not react to the statement. He remained instead an immovable shadow, backlit by the timid morning sun.

“What have you done with Bellamira?” Clarimonde demanded.

Mr Brand considered her gravely. “Are you here under hospitality, Miss Betony?” he asked.