They snuck through to the blue corridor, then took the tower staircase. Piri led her through the room with the many windows and the busy red carpets into the dim hallway.

Piri stopped at the door nearest to where the robot had been dusting, then grasped and turned the shiny brass knob, and pushed the door.

Doncia faced straight into the barrel of a cannon. She almost cried out, but stifled it into a little squeak.

She took a step back. Her heart slowed when she saw the cannon was fake. The bed was an intricately carved timber ship, with a row of pretend cannons down each side, and a spoked wooden wheel at the head. It navigated through reefs of other mismatched whimsical furniture. Ropes and rigging hung from the ceiling, in places strung with delicate white lace, and cut-glass jewels spun and twinkled in the chandelier. The gas was turned down low, so the light was dim and golden. One of the lamps was flickering.

‘I told you it was amazing,’ Piri said. ‘She was once a pirate captain but the graf captured her ship. He forced her to marry him.’

‘You already told me that,’ Doncia said.

‘Oh,’ said Piri. ‘That’s right.’

Doncia snuck her hand into her apron to hold her pocketwatch. The room seemed to buzz with strange echoes, like there was a large echoey hole or chamber she could not see. She turned slowly, taking in the clutter in all its detail. The dresser was covered in perfumes, hairbrushes, and jewellery boxes. A narrow window had been left open, letting in a puff of fishy lake air. The wide polished boards of the floor reflected the lantern flicker.

Piri wandered over to the dresser, and inspected an ebony jewel box. ‘This is what I wanted to show you. Isn’t it marvellous? Look at the carvings.’

Doncia bent close to the box. Little pirates with cutlasses and fairies with rapiers were locked in eternal battle. They were wonderful, almost seeming real even though they were so tiny, but there was something more.

In here, a silent voice spoke; a caressing idea in her thoughts.

‘It won’t hurt to look’, said Piri from far away.

Doncia slid a fingernail under a silver latch on the side of the box, and flicked it open. A spring mechanism pushed a drawer out. A brooch, clear crystal and gold lace, slid into view. The crystal was as large as the last joint of her thumb, and a thousand brilliant facets flashed. It seemed to call, with a ringing tone pulsing in time with her pocketwatch. Somehow this crystal was the large echoey chamber she had felt.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Piri said.

Doncia touched the crystal with the tip of her index finger. Something popped in her head, like a soap bubble bursting. She could not resist; she grabbed the brooch, her fingers encaged it. She cupped it in her hands like her pocketwatch. Images flooded into her mind. She felt dizzy, and looked down on herself from a great height. She was a little doll dressed in a cream silk gown just like Carmen’s. She danced, every step perfect, flung from man to man with a string of other girls, like creamy pearls on a silken thread.

A warning tinkled, but it was a tiny, tiny bell far away. There was only the dance, and the gentlemen in their long-tailed black velvet coats, with golden buttons and brocade, passing her along, eyes glinting like steel.

The next was Maynard. She looked into his eyes, and he looked back as an equal. The music slowed, the other dancers spiralled away into the dimness, and she pressed against Maynard, and whispered in his ear, smelling his soapy closeness. She brushed long hairs that weren’t hers from his lapel. They waltzed back and forth, the others standing and applauding.

It was enough, absolutely enough. She felt complete, at one with Maynard, her gallant man, feeling the warmth of his hand in hers, his breath on her face, the strength of his arm on her waist. He smiled proudly. She sighed.

The other couples returned to the floor, and waltzed, weaving natural and sensible patterns. They danced and they danced, and although it was always the same, with each circuit of the floor subtle variations enthralled and consumed her. She would never tire of the dance. She would never stop dancing.

She could never stop dancing.