She peered at the stains in the candlelight. Perhaps they looked a little better. Not perfect, but better. She climbed into bed and lay there, stiff and shivering beneath the starched sheets.

There was a gust of male laughter from some far distant corridor – Sebastian and his friends going to drink port or play billiards, no doubt.

Before she doused the candle she stared at the rosemary, lying soft and wine-draggled across her fingers. It was Luke’s memories she held in the palm of her hand. What had made him so terrified to lose these last few weeks? She heard his voice again, the naked desperation as unmistakeable as his accent: Don’t take away my memories – you don’t understand, you’ll be condemning me to death. He was telling the truth – she did not need a sooth-spell to be sure of that. But what could he possibly have done that would mean life or death?

The answer must be tangled up with the astonishing revelation he had made. A man who could see witchcraft, who could not just sense their power, but physically see it. She had never heard of anyone who could do this – let alone an outwith. Even the possibility was unthinkable – and she knew what Alexis would say if she told him. First he would not believe her, but if she eventually managed to convince him, Luke’s life would not be worth a farthing.

She thought of the day she had first seen him, in the stables, with the setting sun streaming through the door and turning the dust motes and scraps of straw to flecks of gold that landed on the tanned skin of his arms, and the freckles on his face, and his gold-dark hair, illuminating them with glory.

She thought of him sitting next to her in the dark shadow of the pigsty, his face white and drawn in the thin, pale gleam of witchlight, his clear hazel eyes grown dark and afraid.

She could not betray him – even though her conscience told her that her loyalty should be to Alexis, Sebastian and her own kind. Even though he was just an outwith. Even though he was perhaps more dangerous than anyone could possibly know. She could still not betray him.

Rosa awoke to the sound of the breakfast gong, but for a few moments she just lay with her eyes closed, listening to the sounds of the house while the memories came slowly back.

Cherry.

The river.

Cassandra’s mother.

Luke. Luke.

She opened her eyes. The rosemary twigs were still clutched in her hand, damp and limp with sweat. Carefully she uncurled her stiff fingers and laid the bundle on the polished wood of the bedside table. Then she swung her legs out of bed and found a handkerchief in the drawer of the dressing table by the window. She wrapped the twigs carefully in its linen folds and tucked it back in the drawer, between the layers of woollen stockings and petticoats. She would have to decide what to do with it.

Then the gong went again, the second bell, and she began pulling on her clothes. She was just doing up the last button on her boots when there was a tap on the door.

‘Come in,’ Rosa said.

It was a maid with a teapot on a tray.

‘Oh, Miss Greenwood!’ she cried as she saw Rosa bending to finish the last of her boot buttons. ‘You shouldn’t be up and about – I was to bring you up breakfast in bed.’

‘Breakfast in bed!’ Rosa nearly laughed. She had never had a breakfast tray in her life, except once when she was laid up with scarlet fever, and then it was only a bowl of gruel as befitted an invalid. Mama had breakfast in bed, of course, and had done for as long as Rosa could remember. But such luxuries were not for girls.

‘Of course, Miss Cassandra told us about the accident and said you’d likely not be fit to come down until lunchtime, perhaps not then.’

‘Well, I’m up now,’ Rosa said. ‘So never mind. I’ll go down to the morning room with the others.’

‘I only came up to see if you were awake yet and bring you your tea if you were. Oh, and to tell you there’s a parcel arrived for you.’

‘A parcel?’ Rosa frowned. Who would be sending her a parcel, here? ‘What kind of parcel?’

‘A big one, miss. With a London postmark.’

‘Do you think there’s time for you to bring it up before the last breakfast gong?’

‘Oh, bless you, miss, yes. The breakfast things will be out for an hour or more yet. Mr Sebastian never makes it down before ten, and we don’t expect the house guests to tumble out of bed like ninepins. I’ll bring it up in a trice and you can open it comfortably before you go down.’

Rosa had finished her tea by the time the girl came back with the parcel. It was, as she’d said, a big one. The box was too wide to go through the door sideways so the girl had to turn it on end. Then she laid it on the bed.

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to have a little something on a tray, Miss Greenwood? Some buttered toast, perhaps, or a soft-boiled egg.’

A soft-boiled egg? Rosa thought of the magnificent spread on the first morning – hot chafing dishes full of sausages, devilled kidneys and crisp bacon, scalding porridge with cream, piles of golden potato cakes and hot mushrooms swimming in butter and juice.

‘No thank you, honestly—’ She scrabbled for the girl’s name but it didn’t come. ‘I’d just as soon go down. I promise I’ll tell Miss Cassandra it was my own choice.’

‘Very well, miss.’ The girl bobbed a curtsey and left, and Rosa turned with greedy curiosity to the big box.

It was wrapped in brown paper and string, and sealed with red wax, but there was no sealing mark – just blobs on the knots – and the postmark was Piccadilly, which could have meant everything and nothing.

But as she tore back the paper a piece of card fell out. She picked it up, and letters began to appear, scrawling across the thick card in Clemency’s large, looping hand.

From your fairy godmother, darling. You SHALL go to the ball.

Rosa held her breath as she pulled back the lid of the box. Beneath the ivory cardboard was more ivory, masses of it, like a frothing snowy sea. As she pulled it out the folds fell away and in her arms was a dress – not just a dress, the most beautiful dress she could have imagined. It was made of ivory silk embroidered with hundreds of tiny green leaves, twining and wreathing up the bodice, looping around the narrow waist, trailing in garlands down the flowing train.

‘Oh, Clemmie!’ Rosa whispered. She held the dress to her bosom. It was too beautiful to be hers. Writing began scrawling across the piece of card.

My dressmaker had your measurements from the habit and I couldn’t resist – I knew when Philip mentioned a ball on the last night what your predicament would be. Please don’t be angry! You can pay me back after you’re married. Yours, with impudence and love, Clemmie.

P.S. Bonne chasse!

As she watched, the ink faded into the paper and the card was blank. Only the dress remained.

Rosa knew she should be angry with Clemency. And part of her was. But beneath that was a frothing, bubbling excitement. She could go to the ball. And with this dress, she need not spend all night trying to hold her gloves to cover the shabby, worn places, and stand to hide the spell-patched stains. In this dress she could dance, she could flirt. She could match any other woman in the room.

Bonne chasse, Clemency had written. Good hunting. Oh, Cherry . . .

‘I told ’em,’ the old man said sadly.

‘What?’ Luke raised his head and turned from scrubbing down Cherry’s empty stall. His head felt dull and thick, as if he’d drunk too much gin the night before and overslept. In fact he’d drunk nothing but the mouthful of spell-soaked wine, and hardly slept at all.

‘I told ’em about that bridge. And now a good ’orse is dead. How come ee didn’t warn the lassie, eh? I tried to tell ee.’

Luke rubbed his face, trying to clear his head. He’d been expecting the question. Thank God the old man had chosen to ask it when they were alone in the stables.

‘I did tell her,’ he said, the lie black and bitter on his tongue. ‘I called out. But she was ahead of me and I couldn’t make her hear.’

The old man sighed and shook his head.

‘Ah, that sounds right enough. These young ladies, ’eadstrong they is. Not like in my day. You wouldn’ta caught a young lady hunting back then. They’re not strong enough for it. Well, thank the blessed Lord twas only a horse died, and not the young lady. Back to Lunnon town tomorrer, eh? You’ll be glad to be back on your own turf again, I’ll be bound.’

Luke nodded, but his heart felt anything but glad. He had spent the night trying to think of a way out of this trap. He could not go back to Spitalfields – not without Rosa’s blood on his hands. Could he stay in Knightsbridge, with the family, somehow? But the Malleus would come looking for him; he would be found and killed.

Which left only one option: flight. He would have to run away, never to see Spitalfields again. Never to see William, or Minna, or any of his friends. Never to be a Brother in the Malleus. He would spend his life on the road looking behind him, over his shoulder, waiting for the knife, the rope, the hand in the dark.

And Rosa. She would stay. Would they come for her too? He didn’t know. Her name had been chosen, which meant that she had to die. The thought gave him a strange cold pang deep in his chest. She’s a witch, he told himself savagely. She can take care of herself.

But the picture that floated before his eyes in the dim warmth of the stable was just a girl, a girl with no inkling that she was doomed.

‘Best look sharp now,’ the old man was saying. ‘The first of the carridges’ll be arriving soon and they’ll be wanting that stall.’