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remained in the background, blurred and indistinct, full of nebulous anger.
    He was in the studio, facing his wife – oh, so much like Corrinda! – across a floor littered with slabs of crystal, frames and crystal-cutters. The Pterosaur, hunched and menacing, regarded him down the length of its scythe-like bill.
    Cassandra stood in shirt-sleeves next to her fused crystal, sunlight falling on her golden hair. "I don't understand your objection," she was saying. "The crystal will show my love for you. I want you to collaborate-"
    "I want no part of it. It's your crystal, not mine."
    "But you're part of me. How can the crystal be anything other than both of us?" She stared at him. "Are you frightened? Is that it, Nathaniel? You don't want the world to see you as you really are."
    Maltravers turned at a sound from the door, and the nurse hurried away to tend the crying baby before he could find the words to censure her.
    He slammed the door and turned to his wife.
    "How can you talk of love like that, after what you've been doing?"
    Cassandra stared at him, stricken. "What do you mean?" It was barely a whisper.
    Maltravers tried to laugh, but the sound he made was desperate. "How did you think you could keep it from me?"
    She was staring at him, shaking her head.
    "How long has it been going on? Before we came here?"
    Cassandra was silent for a second, then said, "Two days – no more. I met her here. But she means nothing to me."
    (Paralysed, on the edge of consciousness, I screamed.)
    "Then why have an affair with her?" Maltravers cried. "It isn't even as if... as if she's a good artist. Christ, the woman's third-rate. She isn't even as good as me!"
    (I wanted to hit the release stud, retreat into the safety of ignorance; but some other part of me, fascinated and appalled by this vision of the past, would not allow me so easy an exit.)
    "Oh, Eva's much better than you, Nathaniel. That's what attracted me – her talent. But, please believe me – I don't love her. It was only a physical thing, an infatuation."
    Maltravers' anger welled; I could feel it massing in my head like a thundercloud.
    "Then if you think she's so good, why don't you stay with her!"
    The Pterosaur hopped from foot to foot in agitation. At any second, I thought, it would swoop across the room and tear Quebec to shreds.
    "Because I love you!" Cassandra yelled through her tears.
    "I don't want your love – I want your respect for the artist I am."
    She broke; the walls of her reserve crumbled and she was no longer able to lie. She bent almost double and screamed at him.
    "But, Nathaniel – you are no artist! "
    His anger exploded, rocking me.
    I knew, then, what was about to happen. I suddenly understood the reason for Corrinda's terrible smile.
    The Pterosaur remained on its perch.
    Maltravers rushed at his wife.
    He lifted a crystal-cutter and in a blind rage attacked, slashed at her again and again as she stood before him and offered no resistance.
    (I tried to shut out the vision as Cassandra Quebec was transformed before my eyes into a lacerated carcass – but the image played on in my head.)
    Then Maltravers ceased his attack and Cassandra slipped to the floor, and realising what he'd done he fell to his knees, and his remorse swamped me. He saw the crystal, and something – perhaps some insane idea that this was the only way to immortalise his wife and her talent – moved him to lift her and lay her to rest on the slab of crystal. She died and gave her dying to the world, and Maltravers was overcome with a weight of guilt and regret that I was slowly coming to realise was my burden also.
    I hit the release, tore the crown from my head and sat staring through the dome, weeping at the new order of reality revealed to me. Then I realised what day it was – the twentieth anniversary of Cassandra Quebec's passing – and something, some vague and disturbing premonition, reminded me of Nathaniel Maltravers' obsession with the symmetry of art. I could