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The door to the bathroom opens, and a blue-scaled hand curls around the wood, thick claws tapping.

“Go away,” I say, extreme tiredness flooding through me and knowing it won’t make a shit of difference to Fenrother.

The hand stills, then it is withdrawn.

He actually did go away? Fenrother did as I asked? I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. And weirdly, yet again, I feel bad for him.

How is he supposed to know what to do if he has zero reference for his behaviour?

I get to my feet, cursing under my breath as I stumble over my skirts and go into the bedroom.

There is no Fenrother.

I go down the stairs, into the great hall. The fire is burning, and there are chickens on the spits, but no Fenrother.

Taking a deep breath, I go into the library, which is, surprisingly, unlocked. He’s not there either. There is, however, a piece of parchment with fresh ink in the spidery handwriting I know belongs to him.

It appears he has been copying something out from one of his texts.

The Wyrm protects, the Wyrm provides, the Wyrm does as he does until his mate ripens and flowers. She is his to claim, his to hold, his to pleasure.

And underneath this passage, Fenrother has written:

What if the Wyrm knows not of these things? What if what the Wyrm knows is nothing at all?’

My heart flips over in my chest.

He is not a monster. Not at all.

And I told him to go away.

ALICE

Ihave checked everywhere in the castle. Behind every door, every wall hanging. I’ve been up on the battlements looking out every side. The only thing I haven’t been able to do is leave the place. It seems you need wings to be able to do that.

There is no Fenrother.

There has been no Fenrother for the past twenty-four hours. Day merged into evening, into night and then day again.

The solitude is absolutely getting to me. As is the magic of the place. Food appears. I hear pattering feet but never see anyone, and the figures in the tapestries still move.

All except the one in the great hall. Those figures remain resolutely still, frozen in a time when a Lambton Wyrm came calling and no one escaped his wrath.

I don’t eat in the great hall.

By the evening following my exhortation for Fenrother to leave me alone, I have retreated entirely to the bedroom, the fire flickering in the darkness. I’ve found other bedrooms, but I’m drawn to the one Fenrother uses. The bedclothes smell of him, and occasionally I find a shed scale. It’s utterly idiotic, andprobably the start of Stockholm Syndrome, but I…well, I miss him.

How can I possibly miss the big monster with the fixation on my lady parts and yet who had absolutely no idea what they were for? Maybe because I am genuinely going mad from the silence and boredom. To endure this for decades…longer…I can’t imagine what I’d be like.

Although perhaps I don’t have to look far.

There’s a swish, like silk over stone, only it’s a sound I recognise without needing to see anything. I’m off the bed and have yanked the door open to see the tip of a blue-scaled tail slide past in the passage outside.

“Fenrother?” My voice cracks with lack of use and I sound like an old lady.

The tail has already disappeared down the stairs, but my ears thump with an external pressure, and Fenrother in his humanoid form comes back up the last few stairs to peer at me.

As if he’s never seen me in his life.