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Clarimonde offered Miss Molinari a sympathetic look. “I suspect that once you have reached Bath, you will remember that many things here are not normal,” she said.

“I will make sure there is a stiff cup of tea available when that happens,” Mother Barclay assured her.

Miss Molinari disappeared briefly into Mother Barclay’s bedroom in order to change herself. She returned Lord Foxglove’s clothing to Clarimonde, neatly folded, at which point the three of them walked through the fog to the black hearse at the foot of the stairs.

Clarimonde did not truly know how to speak to the hearse—certainly, she did not have the sort of rapport with it that Foxglove did. But she did her best to imitate his soothing manner as she laid her palm against its side.

“I hope you’ve had a proper rest,” she told it hesitantly. “I don’t mean to impose upon you… but we are in a bit of a bind, and I would be ever so grateful if you could see Mother Barclay and Miss Molinari off to Bath. You could return directly afterwards, of course.”

The hearse did not move—and obviously, it did not make a sound. But there was a solemn deepening of the existential silence that surrounded it, as it seemed to consider her request.

“I would give you something in return for the favour if I could,” Clarimonde added uncertainly. “I just… don’t know what it is that you might like.”

Miss Molinari watched this interaction from a cautious distance, with horrified fascination—but Mother Barclay made no secret of the fact that she was listening. She pursed her lips. “My daughter keeps a tiny garden of her own,” the nurse said. “She is particularly fond of lilies—always popular at funerals. I don’t suppose you would appreciate a small bouquet?” This, she addressed to the carriage itself, as though there was nothing strange whatsoever about speaking to a vehicle.

The dread silence lightened very slightly at this suggestion.

“We could put on a little procession, as though someone had died,” Mother Barclay added brightly. “What a bit of fun that would be.”

There was another long, poignant pause… but then, to Clarimonde’s surprise, the stairs at the back of the hearse unfolded themselves, and the door opened in clear invitation.

Clarimonde shook her head in disbelief. “You would be an excellent shop girl,” she told Mother Barclay. “Certainly better than I ever was.”

Mother Barclay patted the side of the hearse. “It’s an acquired skill, Miss Betony,” she said. “Given time, I believe that you could learn it, too. You must simply practise paying attention to people and learning what it is that makes them happy.”

Clarimonde thought back on all of the times that she had felt Lord Foxglove’s attention keenly picking her apart. In a way, she thought, Mother Barclay’s nosiness was not terribly dissimilar—there was just a far more charitable angle to it that made it bearable by comparison.

Mother Barclay had to soothe poor Miss Molinari into the hearse with her trunk; the poet was obviously less cavalier about otherworldly carriages than either of the other two women were. But somehow, Mother Barclay managed to settle the two of them inside before Miss Molinari’s reservations could return in force.

Mother Barclay poked her head out of the back of the hearse. “Miss Betony,” she said sternly, “we had better not be obliged to do a funeral procession for you. I expect you to be in good health when I return.”

Clarimonde offered her a wry smile. “That is certainly the plan,” she said. She instinctively patted her pocket, where the herbs from Mother Barclay’s garden were still neatly arranged.

Mother Barclay nodded at her smartly, with a final air of farewell.

The hearse closed its door and pulled up its steps. It started its way smoothly down the cobblestones—and then it retreated entirely into the mist, without so much as a whisper.

Clarimonde stood for a while in the half-darkness at the bottom of the stairs.

“One task complete,” she murmured, with a fresh sense of foreboding.

That was not necessarily a good thing, in the end. It meant that she had even less time left to find where Tertia had hidden the harp. And now, she knew that Lord Foxglove was unlikely to help her very much with that endeavour.

Since Lord Foxglove was still absent by the time Clarimonde returned, she decided it was best that she spend the evening searching for the harp herself.

Thankfully, all that Clarimonde required in order to walk the Hollow House unnoticed was a single bean from the heliotrope in Mother Barclay’s garden.

Clarimonde sighed to herself as she coaxed out the spark of magic that hid within the plant, still struggling to conjure up her oldest lessons as she worked with less refined materials. There was, at least, a touch of Mother Barclay’s magic already on the plant which made it respond more readily; it had clearly been planted with this specific purpose in mind.

Clarimonde swallowed down the bean with a faint grimace, trying to ignore the tingling in her throat as it went down. An odd protective warmth blossomed in her stomach, expanding slowly in order to settle against her skin. Where it pooled, she felt a secret, loving sense of safety.

The realisation that the magic had worked made Clarimonde relax with relief. Though she’d learned of this particular spell directly from Elias, she had never had occasion to practise it before. It involves burying a beloved animal near the plant, after they’ve passed, he’d told her. I don’t intend to hasten that process for the sake of an afternoon lesson.

Had Mother Barclay lost a loyal hound before she’d planted this heliotrope? Clarimonde wondered, as she slipped into the hallway. The idea that the nurse might have gifted Clarimonde a bit of the love that had been left behind for her eked out a tiny spot of warmth against the endless fey chill that surrounded her.

It was still midnight in Hollowvale, of course; that much had not changed since Clarimonde had first arrived. Why the grandfather clock in the hallway bothered to tick at all was beyond her, given how stubbornly its hands refused to move.

Clarimonde started by retracing her steps from the previous evening. She passed through the gallery (oh dear, she had nearly managed to forget that painting of Tertia comforting Prince Albert), then counted bedroom doors, peering inside to identify Tertia’s various guests. She even dared to slip into Tertia’s boudoir in order to count the instruments, still halfway convinced that she might have missed a harp of hair and bone, despite the odds. The only harp in evidence, however, was the golden harp, which was depressingly mundane; even a brief whiff of datura did not make it seem any more magical than before.