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‘What is important?’

Finally, there comes a thought clear enough to grasp. ‘Ovid’s Heroides,’ Claire says, triumphant. ‘That is what we were reading.’

He shifts warily in his chair. ‘Oh?’

‘Hero to Leander,’ she says. ‘I remember now how it will end. Just before dawn, when the lantern is fading; a time when dreams are often truth.’

Her grandfather frowns, his hands fisted in his lap. ‘Enough, Genevieve,’ he says. Then his face softens. ‘Dear heart. You seem troubled. Did you have a nightmare last night?’

‘A nightmare,’ she echoes. ‘Yes. Perhaps that is what it was.’

He smiles and offers her his hand. She takes it, smiling hesitantly back—and then he begins to scream.

It is not a human scream: it is a thousand screams at once, a cacophony of them, an orchestral variation of notes and noises. Something suddenly burns, hot and bright, at Claire’s hip. She tries to wrench her hand out of her grandfather’s, but he won’t release her, even as he continues screaming. With her free fingers she scrabbles for her pouch and pulls out something glowing, molten hot, and yet it does not burn her skin as she grasps it: Madame Kramarov’s necklace. Chaim, for life. For growth. For something real.

Claire lifts up the pendant. The moment it is in her grandfather’s sight, his screaming stops, and his skin sloughs off like paper being peeled from a wall. Beneath it, he is not a man but a collection of metallic worms bound together in human shape, shining in shades of copper and gold and silver; the poor creatures appear to be glued together, and they writhe as if they wish to break their bonds and fall back to the earth. They cover Claire’s hand, wet and wriggling, and she moans in horror as she flinches away. On the table, their scones are slices of brown geode scattered with faceted ruby maggots, the juice in its glass sparkling yellow sand.

Once Claire sees the truth of it, the vision of the English gardens falls apart in this manner, going from plants to insects, insects to stone. The scents become sickly sweet, as false as perfume, the sounds fading to an inaudible hum. Genevieve blinks, and she is standing before the lion fountain, a pile of worms squirming before her. The lion is not here. There is only Claire, and the sun suspended upon the horizon. She feels as if she has just awakened from a very long sleep. She looks at her watch, and fifteen minutes have passed. The vision had felt only momentary. Lady Reverie is toying with her.

Claire must proceed. She has no choice. ‘Leander,’ she whispers to herself as she advances into the gardens, tucking the necklace back into her pouch. ‘Find Leander.’ To this instruction the Château offers no reply.

The servants remain absent; there is no birdsong, no breeze. The grounds have ceased to bother with the affectations of nature. When Claire reaches the lilac trees where she and Leander kissed, the trees no longer look much like trees at all: each purple blossom is a sort of half-shattered amethyst, the leaves a series of emerald-coloured moths whose tear-shaped wings bear blinking yellow eyes. The pendant is no longer warm in her pouch, so Claire raises her fan to her eye instead, peering through the gap. It reveals no additional doors, but it does reveal an elm in the distance to be a series of copper statues stacked upon each other, screaming acrobats caught mid-tower, leaves of peridot bursting from their skulls.

Claire tamps down her revulsion and walks past the elm, towards the labyrinth—except this was not the way to the labyrinth, was it? There is a gate before her, a gate she feels she recognises. When she turns around, there is nothing behind her but trees.

There is nowhere to go but forward. The bridge, she thinks, perhaps he is there, but she does not find the bridge. She takes a wrong turn, the mountain path twists and meanders down the slope, disorienting and cruel, and then it opens up—not to show her a river but a lake instead. A tarn, inset upon the side of the mountain.

Claire supposes this place was once beautiful, but now it looms over her like a pair of jaws preparing to bite. The lake itself has a thick layer of green algae upon its surface; lotus flowers are caught in the scum, unable to spin or properly float. Some appear to be withering, petals curling within themselves, a gradient from pale pink to brown.

Claire looks down over this film of green and realises she cannot recall why she is here. Leander—she was looking for him, was she not? Where is he? She has the sudden, awful idea that he may be drowning at the bottom of the tarn. Would that not be poetic, considering his namesake? Something the Lady would do?

What if he is already dead? Surely she came here for this reason—to rescue him. Why else would she have come? Swallowing a sob, Claire leans over the water and reaches out a hand to test the surface, preparing to dive.

Quite suddenly, a pale hand bursts from the pond and takes Claire’s, winding its fingers around hers. It is wet and freezing, almost smaller than Claire’s own, although its fingers are long and slender. Gasping in fear, Claire rears back, pulling the hand with her, and tugs a body out of the water.

The person steps elegantly onto the grass, her wet gown clinging to her body, rivulets of water running down her cheeks. She is taller than Claire, fairer, more beautiful, her smile practised and lovely, her honey-blond hair sticking in wavelike curls to her temples and neck. Despite the greenness of the pond, she is as clean as if she has risen from a Versailles fountain. She is still holding Claire’s hand.

How often I have dreamed of this, Claire thinks, entranced. How often I have imagined her hand in my own.

‘Dear Claire,’ Genevieve says. ‘I have missed you so.’

Claire cannot speak, cannot breathe—it is her, perfect and whole, so exactly resembling the Genevieve she once knew that it seems impossible she is not real. The baby hairs at the base of her neck; the mole at her right temple; the wide angle of her ankles, feet drifting apart from each other where she stands, which her dance teacher always said was the source of her clumsiness. How is it, Mademoiselle de Vienne, he had always admonished her, that your maidservant moves like a lady, whereas you move like a duck? And in the evenings, Genevieve would sweep Claire into her arms, laughing. Show me how to dance, Claire, since you are so much better at it than I. Show me how to dance.

‘Genevieve,’ Claire whispers, feeling the chill of her skin beneath her hand. ‘It-it cannot be.’

‘Whyever not? All things are possible in this place.’ Genevieve shifts away a little, heels skimming the edge of the pond. She arches her spine, exposing her neck, and she gives Claire an inviting look through her lashes. ‘Finery suits you,’ she says. ‘I always thought you looked beautiful in pearls. And my name suits you, also; you have been making good use of it.’

Claire swallows. ‘You were dead,’ she says—then corrects herself: ‘You are dead.’

‘And that permits you to wear my face?’ Genevieve asks, with an incongruously earnest smile. ‘To take my place at my grandfather’s side? You are a pretty actress, my love, but an actress you remain. You are fortunate that those here were too self-involved to see the truth. One day at a real court, and you would be discovered.’

‘I did not want—’

‘Hush,’ Genevieve says, and she leans forward to press a finger over Claire’s lips. ‘I tease you, because I have missed you so. Forget these affectations and I will forgive you all you have done—is that not what you have been seeking, my darling? Absolution?’

‘You forgive me,’ Claire echoes.

‘Yes.’ Genevieve’s hand slips lower, so her palm is cupping the back of Claire’s neck. Her dress is so sheer with water it is as if she wears nothing at all, a Venus rising from the sea. Claire looks at the soft slope of her shoulders, the darkness beneath the fabric at her nipples and between her thighs, and she feels a shameful moment of desire.