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her that she had no right – they had no right – to keep me here, but I knew it would do no good. So instead I said, ‘At least . . . What I told Mama about – about being paid; my family . . . things have been tough, and –’
    ‘Of course. It shall be arranged,’ said Luel calmly. ‘Your family will be well provided for, I promise that. And in return, I ask only this: that you promise not to try to escape.’
    I looked at her. ‘I promise,’ I lied. It was the duty of a prisoner to escape, I thought; and a gilded cage was still a cage, no matter how anyone might dress it up.
    Luel shrouded the mirror again, and we went out of the room and back up the stairs. She locked the door firmly behind us, pocketed the key, then led me into the hall andup the great staircase to a room on the first floor that she said was to be mine. Looking out over a long sweep of snow-covered lawn that stretched right to the other side of the hedge at the back of the house, it was light and airy but just as warm as the other rooms in the house. Pale gold velvet curtains framed the windows, and the floor was of gleaming parquet, covered with a large, soft rug. There was a four-poster bed made up with fine linen, big pillows and a satin-edged coverlet of cream brocade, a wardrobe and chest of drawers, a dressing table, desk and chair, a small bookshelf lined with fat volumes bound in plain dark leather, and a comfortable armchair upholstered in the same gold velvet as the curtains. Best of all, though, there were no empty picture-frames.
    Luel said, ‘Well?’
    She was actually asking my opinion! Well, I must be making progress. I said, ‘It’s a nice room.’
    The old woman nodded. ‘You will be happy here.’
    I did not know what to say to this patent absurdity, for how could she possibly imagine such a thing? Instead, I said, ‘I have no change of clothes with me.’
    ‘That is no problem.’ She opened the wardrobe door. Despite myself, I could not help but gasp in wonder at the sight of the rows of dresses upon their hangers, a flurry of lace and tulle and velvet and silk and fine wool, in a variety of colours which would flatter my colouring exactly. We were a long way here from my old velvet, or even the pretty sprigged print frock I’d worn for Captain Peskov’s visit. These were dresses fit for a fine lady. ‘And you will find they fit perfectly,’ Luel said quietly.
    Now why wasn’t I surprised about that?
    There were shoes, too, of all sorts; evening shoes in satin and silver, day shoes in fine kid, slippers in leather so soft they felt like gloves, and sturdy walking boots. Then Luel opened the drawers to reveal fine underwear and stockings and handkerchiefs and nightgowns and shawls and more – the kinds of things Anya and Liza would have given their little fingers to own again. Meanwhile, in the desk were writing paper and envelopes and elegant pens, as well as stamps and a small pot of glue. Best of all, there was a beautiful notebook bound in pale leather, with heavy cream paper of a quality that made me long to write on it.
    All these things must have been tailor-made for me. Or someone very like me. Someone knew I would come stumbling out of that storm. Not the
abartyen
, I thought, but Luel. Though the
abartyen
was frightening – a brute force – it was clearly Luel who held power in this place, despite her calling him ‘my lord’. But what did she want from me? I couldn’t help a little shiver at the thought.
    ‘You will no doubt want to refresh yourself,’ she said, as if she were an ordinary host addressing an ordinary guest. ‘There is a bathroom just for you behind that door,’ and she pointed to a door in the corner of the room, ‘with everything you may need. Then you will please come down to join us for dinner. I believe you already know where.’
    She had been the one watching me, I thought, when I’d been sitting in the dining-room earlier. I wanted to say I wasn’t hungry and would skip