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‘The masquerade to celebrate the conquest,’ I said. ‘I went to see Ménard. To discuss a truce.’

Arcturus stopped for a moment. He must have wondered if I would remember that night in my bedroom. No doubt he had been worried he might have to remind me.

‘Your last clear memory.’ He poured from the kettle. ‘Had you left the masquerade?’

‘No. I’m with Ménard,’ I said. ‘Cade is outside the door.’

‘Is there a pallor in your dreamscape?’

‘Yes. It’s … taken a new form, but I don’t know if that’s related to the amnesia.’

‘Likely not.’ He brought the steaming cup, placing it on the table beside me. ‘Let it steep.’

He sat in the armchair beside me. I couldn’t stand to be this close to him and feel so distant. It reminded me of our time in Oxford, every moment thick with caution and uncertainty.

‘You never really explained how oneiromancy works,’ I said, to lift some of the tension. ‘You’re not walking in my dreamscape, so how do you experience the memories with me?’

‘While I am using my gift, my dreamscape reflects yours. Think of it as a mirror, and your memories as light. Salvia is like a polish on the mirror. It clarifies the memories for me.’

‘You can ... see dreamscapes?’

‘Not quite. Only a facet of what they protect,’ Arcturus said. ‘Perhaps a different metaphor is in order.’

‘Go on.’

‘Let us say that time is one great composition. I know the notes of each moment, the chords of the hours. When I play them, your spirit answers the vibrations by seeking the corresponding memories, which are conveyed, in turn, to me.’

‘Like an echo,’ I said. ‘The note you play, bounced off me. The moment through my eyes.’

‘Yes. It is a complex gift, like yours. A sort of puppetry.’

In all our months of talking, I couldn’t believe I had never asked him to describe his gift in detail. Jaxon could have written a whole pamphlet, but for all his eloquence, I doubted he would have explained it so beautifully.

‘No wonder you love music.’ I shifted in my seat. ‘Cordier was dosing me for a while. How do you even start combing through it all?’

‘I will start with the first memory that remains untouched by the aster, and move towards the present day.’

‘I assume we won’t live the memories in real time, or we’ll be here for six months.’

‘I will have control over how quickly they unfold. I can slow them if you wish to linger, but otherwise, I will hasten their passage.’ He held out the cup. ‘The salvia is ready, if you are.’

I took it from him, knowing it might show me something I didn’t want to see. After a moment, I drained the cup, grimacing at the bitter taste.

Arcturus waited for me to get comfortable. As the drink warmed my chest, I closed my eyes, feeling his influence steal over me.

‘If you wish for me to slow a memory, pull on the cord,’ he said. ‘Other than that, you know how it goes. All you need do is dream.’

Before, I had dreamed my way through the past without any awareness of him. Now I knew how his gift worked, I did feel his presence.

I sensed the music of the spheres, calling out to me.

Before, I had echoed him unconsciously. Now I moved with purpose. I found a white poppy, with a single red petal, and took hold of its root.

And then I was a passenger in my own past, carried along a river of memory, to the night the Devil had been hunting on the streets of Paris.

The shared dream began exactly where I had pointed him. The Grande Salle took shape around me, candlelight and stone and shadow. I was leaving the masquerade, filching a coat.Don’t go, youidiot, I willed myself, filled with sick foreboding.Don’t go without Léandre and Ignace.That version of me was crossing the threshold.Don’t leave alone …

Snow underfoot. I was walking with Cade on the riverbank, and I was seeing his dark lips, his fatigue. Terrible instinct reared in me – instinct that was finally rising in the memory, too. Just as I understood what he was, something hit me hard, and I fell into darkness.