He turned, intending to cut back past the stable block and in by the side door, slip away to his room before anyone could draw him back into the throng. But then he heard a sound coming from the stable block. It sounded like a sob.

For a moment he hesitated. It was none of his business. Whoever was there had chosen to be alone. But then came a low whinny and it sounded like Brimstone. He turned back. He’d just check that whoever was there wasn’t harming the horses, just peer through the door, and then he’d leave them alone.

The door was ajar and he stood outside for a moment, holding his breath and letting his eyes adjust to the darkness within. At first he could see nothing and then he caught sight of a white shape, like a ghost, huddled on the floor of Cherry’s stall. It was a girl. Her hands were over her face, but he would have known her anywhere, by the wild red hair that tangled down her throat and the glowing flame of her magic, hot with agony.

He must have made a sound – perhaps the door creaked – because all of a sudden she leapt up, her face wild and white with fear, and then she saw him and it changed to something like fury.

‘What are you doing here? Were you spying?’

‘Spying?’ He was taken aback by her anger, but he took a step forwards into the darkness of the stall. ‘No, I was coming to check on the horses. What are you doing here? Why are you crying?’

‘Leave me alone.’ She went to push past him towards the door, her ungloved hand against his chest, and suddenly he saw it, a flash of fire in the darkness. Before he could think, he’d caught her wrist.

‘What’s this?’ He turned her knuckles to the light. The ring glowed like an ember on the third finger of her left hand and a great wash of coldness came over him. She’d done it, she’d accepted him, she was lost. ‘Rosa . . .’ It was like a pain in his chest, as if something were twisting, bending, breaking. ‘Rosa, no.’

‘What business is it of yours?’ She wrenched back her hand, her face pale with anger. ‘How dare you!’

‘You’re marrying a man you hate and fear.’

‘It’s nothing to do with you.’

‘I saved your life!’ There was a catch in his voice and he hated himself for it. ‘Doesn’t that mean anything?’

‘Of course it does.’ Her voice was low and he heard the shake in it. ‘But it doesn’t give you the right to dictate what I do.’

‘No. You’re giving that right to Knyvet instead. For God’s sake, Rosa, don’t do it. He’ll break you.’

Take the other path – that one will break you. He heard it again in the witch-woman’s mad shrieking voice.

‘Do you understand?’ He touched her hand, where the ruby burnt. ‘He will beat you and break you like he beats his dogs and his horses.’

‘You don’t know anything about it.’ She looked up at him and her eyes were full of a weary self-hatred that made him flinch. ‘There’s no other way. If I don’t accept him, my life won’t be worth living anyway. Mama and Alexis will make sure of that. I was sent here to snare him – he can save Matchenham and get Alexis a place at the Ealdwitan—’

‘Why should you care about Alexis?’ Luke cried. ‘He’s a man! He can make his own way in the world – what kind of man sells his own sister to buy himself a short-cut?’

She didn’t answer that, but set her jaw.

‘I will not see Matchenham sold. I can’t. It would break my heart.’

‘It’s just a house, Rosa. As long as you’ve a roof over your head and food on the table, what does it matter where it is?’

‘It matters to me!’ she cried. ‘Everything I ever loved, anyone who ever loved me – Cherry, Papa – they were all there. And they’ve gone, and all I have left is Papa’s house, the bricks and stones and timbers. What kind of daughter would I be if I let it all go when I could save it?’

‘But if Knyvet buys it back for you, it won’t be yours, it will be his. And so will you.’

‘I know,’ she said, her voice suddenly quiet. ‘I know. And I know that when I marry him, there will be no way out, only death. Mine or his.’

The words sent a shiver through Luke. They were so close to his own thoughts just a moment ago.

‘Rosa,’ he said desperately. There were tears in his eyes, and in his voice. ‘There are other people who love you. There must be.’

‘Really? Who? Don’t say Mama, for you know it’s not true. Nor Alexis. My nanny who brought me up from a child went away when she got a better offer from another family. No one has ever loved me, no one has ever wanted to marry me, no one has ever even wanted to kiss me, before Sebastian. Forgive me if—’

Luke took hold of her shoulders, more roughly than he meant.

‘That’s not true.’

She turned her face up to his. Her eyes were wet. Her lips were parted in surprise, mid-sentence. Luke felt her magic around them, flooding him with its fire.

He knew what he was about to do was very, very stupid. But he had nothing left to lose. And he had never wanted anything more.

He bent and kissed her.

For a minute she did nothing, just stood, limp in his arms, her lips soft and unresisting beneath his. Luke knew, suddenly, that he had made a terrible mistake. He was no better than Knyvet, forcing himself on her – except that she could blast him through the stable wall behind him, if she chose.

He began to pull away.

‘I’m s-sorry . . .’ he stammered.

And then her arms went around his neck, in a grip so fierce he gasped and almost stumbled. Her lips against his were firm and hot, her fingers in his hair, gripping him so that he could not have pulled back, even if he wanted to.

‘Rosa . . .’ he tried, but his words were lost in her kiss – and then his mouth was on her jaw and her throat, kissing her as he had never kissed a girl before, as he had wanted to for so long. She was light and fierce in his arms, her magic a cloud of flame around them, consuming him, burning him up from the inside.

‘What. Is. This?’

The words came from behind them, hissed low, but shockingly loud in the silence of the stable.

They sprang apart, Luke’s heart beating hard in his chest. He reached for Rosa’s hand, but she was not there. She had taken a step forwards, towards the man. He was nothing but a black silhouette in the moonlight, but Luke knew who it was before Rosa said, ‘Sebastian, it’s not what it looks like—’

‘Be quiet.’

‘Seba—’

She never got to finish. Knyvet threw out a blast of magic that sent her flying backwards, sprawling across the stone floor to crash into the stable wall with a force that made Brimstone give a neigh of alarm. He reared up, his hooves beating against the partition between the stalls.

Luke felt the blow as if it was a punch to his own gut. For a minute he couldn’t speak, he was so choked with shock and fury that Knyvet would treat her like this.

Then somehow the words roared out of him, almost of their own volition.

‘Leave her alone!’

‘Be quiet,’ Knyvet snarled, and something whip-tight curled around Luke’s shoulders like a rope. He staggered and nearly fell.

‘Please, Sebastian,’ Rosa sobbed.

Another binding, a ring of steel tightening around his chest.

‘Knyvet . . .’ he gasped. He could hardly breathe.

‘God, you really won’t be told, will you?’ Sebastian sighed. He pointed and Luke felt his lips seal together as if they were one piece of flesh. He screamed, not silently, but through his nose, so that it came out more like a moan; a sound so muffled and pathetic it barely reached the door, let alone beyond. Why hadn’t he shouted when he had the chance?

‘Tówierpe!’ Knyvet spat, and Luke was flung backwards, to slam into one of the oak pillars holding up the stable roof. His head cracked against the wood so hard he would have gasped, if he could have. He drew painful shuddering breaths through his nose and heard his own breath whimper at the back of his throat.

Fight me like a man, you damned coward, he thought. But the words would not come.

Sebastian pulled a coil of cord behind the door and now he began to tie Luke to the post.

‘Just in case,’ he said pleasantly, as he pulled the knots tight, the ropes cutting into Luke’s skin. ‘I wouldn’t want the spell to slip while my attention was elsewhere.’

Kill him, Luke pleaded Rosa with his eyes. You’re a witch – do something. Split his skull. Save us both.

But she only stared at him with wide, horrified eyes as if she couldn’t believe what was happening.

When Sebastian was satisfied that the knots were tight enough to hold Luke, even if the spells failed, he turned his back and looked at Rosa.

‘At least you know how to hold your tongue.’ He walked across to her and touched her gently on the cheek that had smacked into the wall. ‘I like that in a woman. What I don’t like,’ he helped her to her feet, ‘is infidelity. Unless, of course, it was not your fault.’

Rosa said nothing, she only looked at him, her eyes huge and dark in her white face.

‘Tell me,’ Sebastian twisted her arm. ‘Tell me that he forced himself on you. That you couldn’t fight back. That his attentions were unwanted. Tell me, and I will kill him and spare you.’

Luke shut his eyes. Her death, or yours.

His heartbeat sounded in his ears, waiting for her response, and when she spoke it was almost too low for him to hear the words. Almost.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘But I can’t lie.’

The blow was so fast Luke missed it. At the vicious crack and Rosa’s cry, his eyes flew open, but she was already lying on the floor. There was blood coming from her nose. Sebastian shook his hand, as if he’d knocked it against a door handle in passing. His face was pained, but calm.