20
Baroness Tremayne lived between the echoes, as she had once put it. Then again, did she in fact live? Her insubstantial shadow world bore little resemblance to the vivid reality I knew. She’d pulled me sideways, as she had done before, and landed me in the middle of it, with all its darkness and distracting, flickery lights. I was still in the vaulted hall, but in some blurred, altered version. Between the echoes. I still did not understand quite what that meant.
The baroness, unchanged, regarded me gravely. She wore the same wide-skirted silk gown, ruffled with lace; the same artfully piled and curled arrangement graced her white hair. ‘How curious a mind,’ she said. ‘Why do you return here? Did I not already satisfy your needs?’
‘Oh! Yes,’ I said, watching Jay out of the corner of
