The longest, most entrancing story in this collection is an adult fairy tale. Byatt's imagery creates a tale of unique and magical fantasy. Princess Fiammarosa is designed for cold, not a woman of a cold nature but one who can live only in the deep frost. Prince Sasan is from a land of arid heat, and the unfolding of true love in this case is as unexpected as it is wonderful. In this sensual story, the painter Bernard struggles to capture the faces of light with pigment.
Temptation arrives in the form of a lamia, a mythical serpent-witch.
Bernard must choose between beauty and logic - the path to logic is a safer choice but one that leads away from the sense of mystery from which he draws inspiration. Some of Byatt's most powerful tellings are those in which people struggle with familiar, though extreme, human failings. She has done a terrible wrong, and now she must decide whether the harm she has inflicted is irreparable. Feelings of loss and betrayal do battle with a need to make things right. She needs to come to a kind of peace with the death of her husband while acknowledging that, at least for the foreseeable future, she will most likely continue to dwell in the land of the living.