When Carmen got home from school she went upstairs to check on Grandmere. She found the old woman asleep in her wheeled chair. In the past few months Grandmere had been sleeping a lot. She had become paler, wispier – like the colour was leaching out of her. Her paintings had deteriorated. Now they looked like those of small children. Aunt Sara had been the only one enthusiastic about grandmere's new artistic direction; she stood before the paintings clucking and sighing with appreciation, cupping her chin in her hand, and tilting her head, as if their mysteries might be revealed if only one looked at them sideways. You could always count on the Sloopers to cheer you up.

She had cautiously asked her pere about it.

"She's dying, Carmen," he said, without turning away from the toy he was shaving with a chisel. He had said nothing else.

Carmen closed the door on the sleeping woman and went up to her room. She froze in the doorway when she saw what was on her bed.

"Fidelma?"

"Carmen?" That was her father, calling from downstairs. He must have been back from Parliament.

"Down in a minute!" Carmen said, and shut her bedroom door behind her. She went over and picked the dore up off her bed. Fidelma shivered in her hand.

Did this mean Ward was back? She couldn't suppress a flutter in her chest at the thought. Ward's departure had hurt. He had been acting strange for months, true, but his sudden decision to go with Nick had made no sense at all. It was as if he didn't care about them. Didn't care about her.

An ugly thought surfaced in her mind.

What if he never took the dore? What if he didn't care for your present at all?

No, surely he wouldn't have done that. Not Ward. Would he?

Yet here she was. Fidelma.

"Carmen!"

"Coming!" Carmen scooped up the dore and put it in her pocket.

She found her father in the kitchen, Grim at his feet. "Can you sort dinner please?" he said. He looked flustered.

"Everything okay?"

"Oh, just boring adult stuff," he said. "Come here honey." She went over and gave him a hug, taking care not to squish Fidelma. Grim observed her closely.

(What's in your pocket?)

(I'll tell you later)

He gave her a withering look and stalked away.

When she had first brought Fidelma back from Sam Sung's Grim had been suspicious. She had no doubt that, had she kept the dore, Grim would have eaten it. She loved him, but he was still a fel, and capable of great cruelty. Now she would have to explain why Fidelma was back. Then she would have to keep the dore alive.

Carmen's pere had left for Parliament that morning while it was still dark. Now he would go up to the attic and continue working until late. It had been like this for months now. He no longer had time to make the toys that supplemented their income. On Sindays they used to have meat for dinner; it had been quietly replaced with cabbage soup. And Carmen had begun bringing her school lunches home to her family. He mere never scolded her about it. She would say nothing. There was nothing to be said. The State provided Carmen with school uniforms, but her other clothes were falling apart, and she didn't have the heart to ask for new ones. She would once have received hand-me-downs from the Blanket twins (Mrs Blanket delighted in performing these acts of charity), but the families had grown estranged – perhaps, Carmen thought, it had something to do with the Blankets' getting her parents arrested last year. And she could hardly wear Slops's old clothes, which were in even worse condition than her own anyway. There was no hiding it anymore. They were poor. Poor as snokeys.

Carmen's parents were just thankful they had kept their jobs. After their escape they had expected to be demoted: to operating the night carts that collected the contents of people's chamberpots, or worse. But this hadn't happened. Carmen had no idea why, except for a vague sense that something had changed in Bareheep. Carmen didn't understand it, and to a degree didn't care. The changes going on in her own life were of more immediate concern; adults and their problems were still only peripheral to her. Nevertheless, that world sometimes penetrated hers. Like it had with the letter.

I love you all, but if you don't vote on this chapter I'll feed you to my cat.