I tried to hold Tern’s hand but my palms were sweating and my hands had no strength to grip. Uncertain whether I could feel her or not, I pressed too powerfully and she winced.

‘I just feel numb,’ I said. ‘I can’t allow myself to think about it…’

‘You’ll have plenty of time for that, immortal,’ said Eleonora. Cyan crept into the gold pavilion to escape the crowd’s disdain. Nobody congratulated her and nobody applauded. All eyes were watching Lightning and Rayne climb the monumental staircase onto the terrace and go through the tall open doors. They disappeared from view under the great elliptical ceiling of the dining hall.

The feast, that evening, was a solemn affair. We were back to normal food and clothes; Lightning had moved on from needing his seventh-century nostalgia as well as from needing the Circle, but his guests were embarrassed and confused. They didn’t know what to say nor how to phrase it. They didn’t know how to react, so they made their excuses and drifted away.

Lightning, at the head of the table, tried to make us feel we should celebrate, although none of us could see any cause. We were all wondering at him and frightened on his behalf. So we gave up on the feast and retired to the library.

Lightning sat at his grand piano and played so calmly that Eleonora, Tern and I thought he must be planning to get back into the Circle.

The library’s coffered ceiling had panels painted with pastoral and historic scenes. It was so lofty that a man on horseback could wield a lance in the room. The walls were covered completely with three tiers of bookshelves. Baroque wrought-iron steps could be pushed on rails along each level, leading to three rectangular balconies that stepped out, rising to the ceiling.

Eleonora was up on the first of these. She was examining the nearest shelves filled floor-to-ceiling with Lightning’s diaries-maroon leather with the dates embossed in gold. A few were of paler hue when he couldn’t find a colour to match exactly. She was flicking through one randomly; it would take years to read them all.

Tern was perched on the window seat, idly watching the stream of departing guests’ coaches fall to a trickle then sputter to a stop as the great and good of the Fourlands hurried away. Rayne had already left, with Cyan in her care, both of them crying. In two days they would reach the Castle, where the Emperor would make Cyan immortal.

I studied the panels in the stucco ceiling, Mica valley landscapes rendered in oils, more mannered and pastel-toned than the dramatic colours of real life. The same iconic images over and over, and yet again in the ceramic and champlevé enamel vases on the delicate side tables-maybe that’s the brake of Lightning’s patronage. I picked at my chair’s lavish cushioned seat, slowly creating and unravelling a loose thread. I marked imaginary lines in the rock crystal carafe of vintage port before me as I worked my way down it.

Over each lintel around the room were lunette paintings of Lightning’s other properties. I could see through the nearest door, down a short corridor lined with small bronzes, toxophilous or booted and spurred for the charge, a sinuous ormolu clock, a walnut escritoire, and through to the Great Dining Hall.

Its doorway was crowned with his coat of arms in marble marquetry, plain, veined or flecked, each from a different part of the manor, surrounded by cipolin stone wreaths symbolising the Donaise Hills. Servants were clearing away the untouched feast from the huge table and, high above them at the end of the hall, portiére curtains concealed a musicians’ gallery.

I lost track of time; it certainly felt like we had been here for hours, exchanging only pleasantries, all tacitly waiting for some kind of explanation from Lightning while he pretended not to notice. I shifted position and flapped my wings open. I scuffed the carpet with my feet; I wanted to run and shout to break the tension. I considered going for a flight to blow away the fevered stuffiness of the room.

Lightning suddenly changed the music to an expansive waltz and looked at me steadily. ‘No, I’m not disappointed with the world. I’m not tired, just bemused. I want to find out more and I need time to think.’

Finally! ‘Is it to do with what the Emperor told you, when you had dinner with him?’

‘Yes, tell us what he said. We all want to know,’ said Eleonora, leaning forward on the balcony railing.

Lightning paused, then smiled. ‘He said that you would certainly ask about it, and he would prefer it if I didn’t tell you.’

‘I’ll ask him myself.’

‘Comet, you know very well San keeps his past a secret.’

‘He told you his past?’

‘Yes. The Emperor explained it to me. He told me about the Shift as well. The things he said are just so incredible…I need time to come to terms with them. He only told me because he realised, at that point on the battlefield, that I didn’t need immortality any more. He realised I had grown out of it.’

Tern spoke up from the window seat, unable to keep the sour note from her voice: ‘Did he know you would throw the competition?’

‘I expect he considered it. He knew I was leaving.’

‘Didn’t he ask you not to?’ she urged.

He laughed. ‘San has known Rayne and I a long time, longer than anyone else in his life. He might only speak to us once a decade, but I suppose that’s as close as he gets, to friends. He knows Ella and I well, and he didn’t find this too hard to predict. San relies on people wanting to be immortal more than anything else in the world, but if one of us Eszai finds something he wants more than immortality, San can do nothing to keep him. Ten years ago, when Cyan was kidnapped by Shearwater and I set off to rescue her, I must have valued her more than immortality, subconsciously I suppose. I mean, I wasn’t aware of it at the time. So, no…I am free to change, now. I am free to understand your other worlds, feel the passing of time again.’

‘Well, aren’t you afraid of dying?’ Tern demanded.

Lightning lapsed into silence again. He played a little more loudly for a while, until a crunch on the gravel drive outside interrupted him.

‘A little coach is coming in!’ Tern cried.

‘Is it? What are its colours?’

‘Green and grey.’

Lightning stopped playing. ‘Green and grey is Awndyn.’

The coach slewed to a halt. In the light from the palace lamps we saw the two horses were frothing. A plump woman in a shapeless silk dress and long ginger hair, leaning on a stick and moving slowly, swayed out of the carriage, ascended the steps and disappeared into the portico.

We heard her footsteps resound loud on the Reception Hall’s terrazzo floor, then soundless as she passed into the carpeted winter south wing, through the salon and study. The door flew open and Swallow Awndyn barged in. A servant was following worriedly, close behind her. She slammed the door on him and glared at us all.

Lightning stood up. ‘Welcome!’

His fiancée took a fistful of her hair and pulled at it in fury. ‘What happened-Lightning? Have I heard right? You lost a Challenge? To your vile squab?’

‘So it seems.’ He relaxed back onto the piano stool. ‘I’m sorry you missed it, my love. I sent you an invitation.’

‘You stupid moron!’

Lightning quoted mildly: ‘I love my love with an S, because she suddenly shows a slanderous side. Her name is Swallow and she comes from the strand.’

‘I came straight here when I heard!’ She ground her walking stick into the carpet. ‘I can’t believe it! You never lose! I never thought I’d live to see it! I can’t even imagine it!’

Lightning offered her a glass but she didn’t register it. She was incredulous. ‘I expected to see you dejected, and here you are slamming at the piano like ten madmen. Are you insane?’