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opened her mouth to say something to her son, to soften her words, when she saw his hands.
    Night after night, Pillar would rub remnants of the day's fat into his knotted fingers in an effort to ease his pain. Tonight, they needed no such treatment. Straight and fine, his fingers rested on the table, a pointed reminder of what Tallow and his candles had done.
    Quinn felt fury and foreboding rise in equal measures. The wretched child was not normal. No, he was clever and canny and, above all, dangerous. He had to be controlled! And Pillar should be doing it. The boy was his responsibility. He'd brought the brat into their home, he'd claimed him. If only he'd be firmer, harder, then none of this would be happening.
    Trying not to slur her words, she slowly leant across the table towards her son. The spluttering light cast shadows across her face, elongating her nose and defining her cheekbones. 'You're a fool if you think you can get away with this, Pillar. Don't forget, there's a reason his kind were wiped out.' She spat on her fingers and reached over to the candle that spluttered in the middle of the table. She squeezed the end of the wick, dousing the flame. 'Snuffed out, they were. And that's what will happen to him, to you and to me if they ever find out.'
    'They won't find out,' he said quickly. 'There's no real proof anyway. Just suspicions. And they'll never amount to anything, not if we continue to be careful.' Pillar's voice was weary. They'd been over it a thousand times.
    Quinn threw back her head and laughed hysterically. Pillar winced. 'If we're careful!' screeched Quinn. 'We're so bloody careful, I've forgotten how to live! I barely leave this house any more except to go to the shops. It's been so long since anyone came here – and because I stopped issuing invitations, I stopped receiving them. Because of your bloody, precious apprentice, I have no friends, no acquaintances, no lovers, no-one in my life.'
    Pillar paused. 'You have me, Mamma.'
    Quinn stifled the bitter words that threatened to spill from her lips. He was serious. Sitting there, a hulking great shadow against the glowing embers of the fire, her son really meant what he said. She clumsily reached for his hand and gripped his mended fingers tightly. The weight that had sat beneath her breast for years momentarily lightened. She remembered how he'd done everything in his power to brighten her loneliness in those first few years. He'd worked so hard, tried to bring a smile to her face, despite his own sadness and grief.
    Then she recalled that cold, grey morning, over fourteen years ago, when Pillar had returned from Jinoa with a baby. Ignoring her entreaties, threats and tears, he'd stood up to his mother and told her that they were keeping the child, even though, back then, they guessed what he was and how perilous sheltering – let alone raising – one of his kind would be. But that day her son had shown a strength of character she hadn't known he possessed, and while she had been furious with him, she'd also been proud.
    'Yes, I do,' she said tightly. 'I do.' She patted Pillar's hand gently. 'And while you may not believe me, I thank God every day that I have you.'
    Univited, an image of huge silver eyes filled her mind, smothering all other memories. 'I have you and ... him.' Her eyes grew hard as flint. 'You have me and I have you; and I have him. Don't you ever forget it, Pillar. I have him right here,' she snatched her hand from his and jabbed her palm, her fingers curled into a cage. 'Right here. Right ... here. Right ...' Her voice slurred and drawled to a stop. Her eyelids became heavy. 'I'm so bloody careful. But he's not careful. He doesn't give a damn. That's why he's ruining the tallow. That's why every time he opens those bloody eyes of his, something happens inside of me. He twists me around; he scrapes away at me bit by bit. At who I am ... and I don't like it.' She punctuated each word with a thump on her chest, at a point over