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She says it so readily. Even though it is impossible in truth—to be offered that chance at liberty, then refuse it? Leander wants to despise her for it, wants to tear out his own throat in frustration.

She looks beyond his shoulder. The path they have taken there has disappeared into the fog.

‘Why did you bring me here, Leander?’

‘I wanted to test a theory.’

‘What theory?’

He doesn’t reply. He can’t, not without making her leave.

‘You play-act honesty,’ she says, ‘but, as ever, you refuse to tell me the truth.’

‘You want me to be direct? Very well.’ The water’s movement softens, for only a moment—the river is listening, also. The land is listening, the trees and the skies and the Château behind them: this is the audience for his mother’s grand tragedy, so carefully constructed, so perfectly executed. ‘Even if you don’t resent me, I resent you, Genevieve de Vienne. I resent you because you have something I don’t, and you are willing to throw it away. I resent you because you have a past and an identity, a life and a family, and you don’t seem grateful for that at all. Meanwhile, here I am, a shadow without light to cast it, a man without a face. I shouldn’t just resent you for that; I should despise you. I should abhor you for your very existence. But when I think about you, it isn’t with hatred. I think about the way you feel in my arms, I think about your prim little laugh, I think about my name in the soft sigh of your voice. I think about unwrapping you from all your lace and ribbons and laying you bare and seeing you in truth, all of you, without artifice. Part of me is still convinced that perhaps you don’t exist at all: that perhaps you were invented alongside everything else in this awful place. I believe you were sent here to torment me. I want you so much—after one day of knowing you—that it feels like a curse.’

She is still, lips parted, fog falling over her shoulders. The air between them, taut as the skin of a drum; the water tumbling across its bed like laughter; the shadow of the Château making the sky dark.

Then Genevieve points at the bridge.

‘I will not leave,’ she says, ‘unless you do.’

‘Genevieve. . .’

‘I will not,’ she repeats. ‘Let us go together, Leander. I will give up my dream, if you will give up yours.’

Leander steps to her side, looks down at her. She meets his gaze without hesitation, holding her chin high, keeping her hands clenched at her sides.

Leander walks to the bridge. He pauses where the grass meets the stone, crushing mushrooms like snow beneath his feet. Then he grips the parapets on either side of him with both hands—the bridge is narrow enough to do so—and he undertakes the climb to the highest point of the arch.

He has done this before, he’s certain of that. Each step feels familiar, feels more and more futile. Exactly halfway, he stops and turns to Genevieve below, releasing the parapets.

‘I won’t go further unless you join me,’ he says.

Genevieve looks down at the rushing water, then up to where Leander stands. She is nervous of the climb, he can tell. He reaches out a hand. ‘If you fall, I will catch you.’

Genevieve clearly remains reluctant, but she still steps up to the bridge, dancing around the mushrooms to avoid crushing those that remain. Closing her hands on the parapets, she slowly, shakily, begins to climb. Once she is within reach of Leander, he takes her hand and pulls her towards him.

They are very close. Leander puts his hands at the sides of her waist. He can faintly sense her breathing beneath his hold, ribcage contracting and expanding. He wants to feel it more clearly, press his fingers under the fabric and feel the skin beneath.

‘You see?’ he asks her. ‘Was that so awful?’

The water rushes beneath them, hissing and hungry. ‘And now?’ Genevieve asks, eyes wide with fear and wonder.

She doesn’t know it’s impossible. She is imagining them leaving together. If Leander were to take another step, his mother would intervene, and he would find himself on the side of the bridge they entered by; but in Genevieve’s mind they are already crossing the water, hand in hand, finding freedom side by side. Leander wants to weep. He wants to scream. Instead, he takes hold of the knife in his chest and twists it for good measure.

‘If I turned around and left the Château,’ he asks, ‘would you really follow me? Leave your dream behind?’

‘I. . . I do not know,’ she whispers. ‘I wish I knew, but I do not.’

Leander bows forward so that their foreheads are touching. In this wild green place, with the mist dimming the morning sun, the darkness of her hair and the redness of her lips are so vibrant they seem almost unreal; her eyes are glassy, pupils blown, reflecting stripes of emerald and brown from the trees.

‘Who are you, Leander Sterne?’ Genevieve asks him, her voice near a whisper.

‘I don’t know,’ he replies. ‘I wish I did, but I do not.’

Genevieve takes hold of the lapels of his jacket and tips her head upwards, until the tips of their noses are touching; she tilts a little sideways, so that they might fit their mouths together; and she goes up on her tiptoes, pressing forward, forward, until their lips just barely brush.

He could allow himself this. He could allow himself her and do exactly what his Mother wants him to do—let her kiss him, kiss her back. Lead her to the Château and into his bed. Her secrets could remain her own, his secrets could remain his. He could release his hope of winning the auction, of winning his freedom, let it fly away with the birds, watch as Genevieve wins in his stead. She would be sent away with the joy of her victory and a faint, dreamlike memory of the pleasure he gave her. Leander’s comfort in eternity, his sole happiness, would be the knowledge that he had once offered Genevieve de Vienne salvation.