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“Just when I thought you two could not be more mysterious,” George says lightly. Neither he nor his spouses will look at the sisters. Boleyn knows he is hurt that she is keeping something from him, but he is careless and free with his words, and she worries that he would let something slip.

“Whatever you’re hiding, would it not be better to concentrate on Elizabeth?” Rochford says. Boleyn sneers at her. Part of her wonders whether Rochford already knows the truth.

I am concentrating on Elizabeth , Boleyn wants to shout. What she has discovered affects Elizabeth the most. If there was never any need of a male heir, if the six queens once ruled Elben equally, then to maintain Henry’s lie deprives Elizabeth of her birthright.

Mary sighs. “Fine. You’re set on this. I understand. Just… don’t lose your mind in there. Whatever she tells you.”

“Are you accusing me of being rash, sister?”

“Well, you did decide to seduce a king after five minutes of knowing him. And given what’s happened since, some might call that ill-advised, yes.”

“We must trust Boleyn,” George says. “And for Cernunnos’s sake can we please not argue.”

He strides off into the trees, Mark following.

The rest of them lapse into silence, so the only sound is of Urial launching himself into the air and spinning furiously to make Elizabeth giggle.

Rochford holds herself apart from the sisters.

Boleyn wonders: could Rochford have followed them to the mines on horseback that morning, and caused the explosion?

The silver doors slide open and Wolsey appears, more animated than Boleyn has ever seen him. He springs down the steps to her.

“I am for ever indebted to Your Majesty,” he says.

“You are most welcome, my lord,” she says, taking Elizabeth from Mary and climbing the steps for her own turn. Wolsey follows her like a lapdog. She turns on him just before the doors, pressing a hand to his chest.

“No, no, Master Wolsey. I allowed you your prophecy in private. Now you will allow me mine. Our secret, remember?”

She almost laughs at his shock. He was so preoccupied with his own desires that he did not see the pact he was making.

Perhaps he could not conceive of a woman outmanoeuvring him.

Still, he can do nothing now, or Boleyn will simply inform Henry that a commoner had taken it upon themselves to consult with the Oracle of Evenesis. She has him caught.

Inside the dome, incense holders swing in pendulums from the ceiling.

There is no altar at the far end, as Boleyn had imagined.

Instead, in the middle of the room is a hexagonal font.

The place appears to be empty, but there is no door other than the one Boleyn entered through.

If the oracle was in here, she could not have left without being seen.

“The Queen of Brynd seeks an audience with the oracle,” Boleyn calls.

When the reply comes, it has no origin. It comes from the walls, from the pendulums, from the incense they waft.

“On whose behalf do you seek my counsel? For yourself, or for your daughter? You cannot do both.”

“Why can I not do both?” Boleyn says. She fingers the purse at her belt. She brought enough gold to bribe an army.

The voice laughs. “You could offer me the coronet on your head and I could not give you both prophecies, Queen.”

Boleyn whirls around, pulling Elizabeth to her chest, cradling her head, as though it were Elizabeth whose treacherous thoughts the oracle was reading.

“Show yourself,” Boleyn says.

“Or what?” the voice replies. Boleyn thinks it is curious, not cruel. It is not a voice to be threatened or bargained with.

“Please,” Boleyn says.

There’s a pause, and then a woman steps out of the misted air, directly in front of Boleyn.

Her skin is faintly green, like the kelpies who aided Boleyn’s labour, her hair a scalp of close-cropped spikes.

She wears a loose, thin gown of taffeta that is fastened at the belly.

Boleyn’s gaze, though, is drawn to her eyes, which are wholly white, and drift like the incense from whence she stepped.

The women regard each other in silence. The oracle’s power is the stoic sovereignty of a withered tree. Boleyn has never felt girlish before, but she does now.

“Have you decided which prophecy you wish to hear?” the oracle says eventually. “Have you decided that you trust me enough to ask for yourself?”

“Why can’t I hear both prophecies?” Boleyn asks.

The oracle holds her arms out for Elizabeth. Boleyn gives the baby to her. Whatever else she may be or do, it is not in the oracle’s interest to hurt the child.

“A prophecy is not a fixed point,” the oracle explains.

“It is a deed. In every future I foretell, I set in motion a series of events that change all prophecies that come thereafter. That is why I give all who visit me the choice to hear what I have to say, for in choosing not to hear, the very future I had foreseen for them may cease to exist.”

Boleyn considers this. “So you are saying that telling me one prophecy might change the other?”

“Can there be any future more intertwined than that of a parent and their child? Your actions, your choices, will determine Elizabeth’s actions and choices in the years to come. She will learn who she is from you.”

Elizabeth gurgles in the oracle’s arms. Even though Boleyn never breastfed her, and her milk has long dried, the sound echoes in her breasts.

She is so little, so full of promise. Boleyn remembers Seymour’s description of the Princess Tudor as she recited the oracle’s prophecy about her.

Boleyn thinks of how such a prophecy might bind Elizabeth rather than free her – bind her in webs of bitterness or anxiety, or ambition too powerful to allow joy.

She sees how that prophecy set in motion everything that has happened since: Seymour’s coming to Brynd; their friendship; and how without Seymour’s friendship, Boleyn is not certain that she would have chosen to move against Henry when she learned the truth about the queens and the ancient magic that binds them to Elben’s bordweal.

“Tell me what I have really come here for,” she says.

The oracle returns Elizabeth to her and goes to a pile of provisions at one side of the space – blocks of incense, wood for fire, and several large buckets of smoking liquid. She hefts a wooden pail onto one shoulder and brings it to the font.

“Wine from the trees of this island,” she explains as she pours. “They have grown here for many thousands of years, and will continue to grow for many thousands more. They know the past and can see the future.”

She takes a knife and shaves a single spike from her hair, dropping it into the liquid.

“The practice of true magic is a delicate balance. We must give as well as take, or the earth and sea take matters into their own hands. The creation of many magical elements and creatures is due to the improper equilibrium of magic. With each of these elements, I adjust the scales of my spell.”

A series of herbs follow, and a glutinous substance from a small glass bottle. Finally, she turns to Boleyn. “Last, a drop of your blood, Queen.”

Boleyn holds out one hand. The oracle cuts deep into a finger and pushes the blood into the font. The pleasing pink of the liquid grows murky. The ingredients swirl. The blood sits in oily spheres on the surface.

The oracle dips a finger into the mess and flicks Boleyn’s face with it, then her own. Then she dips a wooden goblet in, filling it to the brim, and drinks the potion as though she has not seen water for weeks.

“I see,” the oracle says. It’s an incantation rather than a statement. “I see. I see.”

She swipes a hand through the font’s contents, and it rises into the air between them, the incense holders swinging through it, trailing molten smiles.

The oracle waves her hand, and the liquid arranges itself into shapes: the silhouette of Brynd, a thunderstorm raging above it.

The faces of the six queens who once were interred in the cave beneath the castle.

“You herald a storm, Queen Boleyn. A storm that seeks to lay waste to everything.”

Boleyn’s breath catches in her throat. She had been holding on to some notion of redressing the injustice to herself, Elizabeth and Seymour alone – a quiet gift of power that would allow every other part of her life to continue as normal.

Of course, though, she had always known that it could not be.

Is she truly ready to overturn Elben’s entire religion?

“Yes,” she says, holding Elizabeth closer.

“You cannot wield the storm alone,” the oracle says.

“I have allies.”

“Not enough.”

“How many do I need to turn the tide against the king? To set us free and reclaim the goddess’s power? How many allies?”

The oracle stares at Boleyn, her white eyes seeing beyond her.

The lamps around the room flicker and dim.

Another power is present. An ancient power, older even than that of the goddess that Boleyn felt in the cave of queens.

A power that roves across Boleyn’s skin, neither malicious nor kind.

The oracle’s outline glows in the darkness, crackling with ethereal energy.

The incense pots sweep faster and faster, spreading the potion across the room in wild arcs.

When the oracle speaks again, her voice seems to come from another era, echoing through centuries.

One rebel storm

Two perfidious diamonds

Three little deaths

Four queens everlasting

Five united in victory of

Six wild crowns.

The prophecy is repeated. The words rove around the space, but instead of dying out they grow louder with each repetition.

Elizabeth wakes in Boleyn’s arms and begins to wail.

The oracle’s skin grows brighter, like the sun, but Boleyn does not look away even as her eyes burn.

It feels to her as though if she were to do so, the power of the prophecy would disintegrate.

Five united. Something glittering beyond the oracle’s words tells her that the woman means not simply five allies but five queens .

Elizabeth’s screams rise and rise, matching the echoes, until the sound disappears entirely, the oracle collapses to the floor, and with her Boleyn’s strength leaves her and she, too, crumples to her knees. The candles flicker to life again.

Boleyn is left on the flagstones, near blind from staring at the light, with only Elizabeth’s cries to tell her that she is still here, still alive, that this really happened. She latches onto four words. A lifeline. Five united in victory.