The next day, Kartik is not there when I wake. He is expecting me to answer to his note, which, following the drama of the previous day, I have completely forgotten to read. Hoping I have not missed anything important, I open the note and my heart sinks.

Meet me tonight. 8 o'clock. Beside the lake.

I bite my lip, wondering when I will see him next. The answer is very soon.

"Why the hell did you not do as my note requested?" I turn, frightened, as he clambers through the window. I notice a rip in his shirt, and an angry red line through it.

"What happened to your chest?" I ignore his question, trying desperately to come up with a suitable reply. I was taken terribly ill. I was held captive in the school by pirates. I didn't know where the lake was.

Ah ha.

"What was the lake? Where was it?"

He looks disgustedly at me, his eyes scornful and furious. "I saw you, my dear Miss Doyle. Wandering with that Worthington girl as if your own desires were more important. You are to do as I say! I thought I made that clear."

I swallow, feeling stupidly like a chastised infant, caught playing with her mother's pearls and perfumes. I know that I am blushing, and I feel ridiculously like tears are forming in my eyes.

"Gemma, listen to me. You may not believe what I tell you, but I am sorry to say that it is all true. You are in danger, and unfortunately, I have the wonderful task of making sure you're not harmed. However much I may want to harm you myself." I glance up, hurt by his cold words, but I see a spark of laughter in his eyes and I relax a little.

"All I wanted to ask you was whether you knew what your mother meant by the message."

"Which message?" We both know perfectly well what he is referring to.

"The key is in the silver."

I am irritatingly silent until he grabs at my wrists, like I had Felicity's last night. I can feel my pulse under his thumbs, and a curious sensation begins in my chest. It is like I am falling.

"Gemma –"

"I know what she means."

He lets go, and I am almost disappointed. "What?"

Shakily, I pull a small silver locket out from under my dress. "My mother gave this to me when I was born. Unlike most lockets, it is not one you can just prise open. It has a lock." I showed him, and he peered intently. The fluttering in my chest started once more. "She had the key, and told me that I could only open it when she died. I used to ask her more often, but as I grew older I stopped. I accepted it. She said she had a message that I could not know until after her death. I had always assumed that it was something sentimental, like a message of her love, but ... that was what she used to say. The key is in the silver. When I asked her what on earth could be so important inside, she would smile slightly and say 'the key is in the silver'. When she died, I forgot about finding the key. Funny how your mother's suicide can change your priorities slightly." I let out a bitter laugh. "It was given to me, I suppose, amongst her possessions. When you gave me the message last night, it was the first time I had heard anyone say that for about 5 years."

He is silent. Unless he has more news, opening the mysterious locket around my neck was the next step: otherwise, I had no clue where to begin.

"Do you have the key?"

"I ... I haven't looked for it. I don't want to."

His rage explodes out of him then, so suddenly it alarms me. "I have had enough listening to you and what you want and what you don't want. This is not about you. You're just the vessel."

My breath catches in my throat as he says this. "What do you mean?"

"The magic is in you. You are not the magic. Where is the key?"

Shakily, I fumble through my mother's belongings. I come across her purse, the leather soft and worm beneath my fingertips. I close my eyes and inhale the scent of my mother. Light, like spring. I had always thought she smelled just like rose petals, unfurling at dawn to reveal perfect droplets of dew. But now, I realised, there was something else. An undertone of something darker, richer. Cinnamon, perhaps.

I opened the purse, and the tiny silver key fell into my open palm. I tried to fit the key in the lock, but I couldn't see what I was doing, and I missed several times He approach me, his irritation clear on his face, and took the key and locket from me. The sensation was almost overpowering now. I felt as if I was about to faint. He seemed to notice the fluttering of my eyelids, because he looked up from his work and his eyes immediately grew wide and worried.

"Gemma-"

But I was gone.

I am falling, falling through water, perhaps, because my movement seems silky and graceful. I try to stop, but I am powerless. I can feel arms around my body, laying me down gently, but I cannot respond. I don't want this, I've never wanted this, pull me back, please, oh god, pull me back. I close my eyes because the myriad of colours above me is so vivid and bright, but they are forced open once again because of the pressure pushing down on me. They grow stronger, more powerful, until they turn into colours that I do not recognise, colours that I cannot name. I try to scream, try to catch them, try to stop, but I am floating, suspended in magic and dewdrops and honey and daydreams. The colours twist and turn, take shape, and suddenly I see Felicity. She looked so out of place, so pale and yet so powerful, that I have to tell myself she is really here. She approaches me, that wicked, mocking smile on her face, and says something so quietly that I almost cannot here.

"Surrender to it. Let it take you."

And I stop resisting, and I can see a girl. With red hair and green eyes and pale skin, but it is not me, nor mother. She looks up, sees me, and smiles, although I can see the tearstains on her cheeks, making her waxy and ethereal.

"Gemma, oh Gemma, how grown up you are! You look so much like mother. Where is she? Has she sent you? Oh, Gemma, is it time? Is it really and truly time?"

Kartik is shaking me violently when I return. I have collapsed onto the bed, still as the dead, and I find that my limbs and sense are so much heavier than before. It takes me so much longer to think, to act.

"Kartik. Where are you?"

"I am here."

But then the scream fills my head, that long, empty scream, and I realise that the pressure growing in me is so great that I must scream too. I stiffen, arch my back, and close my eyes, but he is too quick. His hand is over my mouth, pressed so tightly that I cannot make a sound. The pressure is immense now, and I have to tell him, I have to get him off me, but I cannot. My eyes are wide and wild, and, as they meet his, they stick. For one long moment he delves deep into my thoughts again and finds the one that I wish him never to see.

I fell because of you.