Ysbel ducked through the hut’s round, doorless entrance while the others were still debating about whether or not to go inside. The interior, lit by a shaft of light slanting through a smoke hole, was stripped bare. Empty shelf beds, human- or bear-sized, cut into the rammed-earth wall. Soot-stained niches where candles or rush lights had once stood. Cold ashes on a hearthstone. She tried to imagine a family of articulate bears living here. Growing crops. Hunting in the woods and fishing in the river. Singing songs learned from their feral cousins while fat little cubs tussled at their feet. But who had brought them here, and for what purpose?

‘It smells like Seven,’ Goodwill said. He was silhouetted in the entrance, snuffling the air.

‘We keep finding places where the articulate bears and their carers have been,’ Ysbel said. ‘But where are they now?’

‘Do you still think that this may be a trap?’

‘I’m thinking of Trina Mersdaughter’s single-handed voyage to Australia,’ Ysbel said. ‘The Dreaming. Perhaps it’s only a coincidence – it was a couple of years before Raia met Seven and found out about the articulate bears. But what if Trina has been working for our Mother all along? Perhaps she discovered this place by accident, or had been sent here to look for it.’

‘If that is true, neither your Mother nor your friend Iryn Moonsdaughter would need your help, because they would know about the camp and the bears.’

‘Our Mother told me that some of us have been making secret pacts with your people. It seems to me that she may have been keeping things from us, too. And that I may not be the first person she’s recruited.’

Goodwill thought about that. ‘You rely on your Mother for stories about your past. Who you are, how you came to be here and so forth. And now we have discovered that some of those stories may be wrong, so it isn’t surprising that you mistrust her.’

‘Everything I thought I knew has been upended,’ Ysbel confessed. ‘I’m still trying to make sense of it. But I’m certain about one thing: your cousin should have brought more people, and more weapons.’

‘I argued for it. But Juniper is eager to make a name for herself and more people would have meant less control. She brought only those she trusts, and agreed to arm two of her aides only when I pointed out that we might need protection from dangerous animals.’

‘There are things more dangerous than animals.’

Goodwill squatted by the hearthstone and sifted wood ash through his fingers. ‘If you are worried about the bears who lived here, they moved out many days ago.’

‘You can tell from the ash?’