“He still lives,” said Conor softly. “Stricken sorely by the loss of his children, and bound fast by his wife’s spell, but not wholly under her domination. He survives, thus far.”

How do you know? His words had shocked us both; we asked the same question together, I inwardly, Finbar aloud. Our eyes were fixed on Conor intently. Our expression, I think, was the same.

Conor looked down at our linked hands, smiling a little ruefully. “You are right, of course,” he said. “One cannot be man, and bird, at the same time. Entering that new state of consciousness, you lose the memory of the old. You are not a man in swan’s feathers; it is not so simple. You change entirely; and your vision of the world is a wild creature’s: flight, safety, danger, survival. The lake; the sky. There is little more. During that time, you may fly over the lord Colum’s stronghold, or swim by the shore where Eilis and her ladies play at ball, but you do not see them, not as a man would. You cannot; but I can.”

Finbar drew his breath in sharply. “I should have known,” he said slowly. “You are further down the path than I guessed. I am sorry, as well as glad; your burden may be worse than mine, in its way.”

The lady Oonagh. What of her?

“She still rules there, Sorcha. And will bear a child by harvesttime. Her influence is strong. She still seeks you, but without success, for the dwellers in the forest protect you.”

“Father. You said he was not entirely under her spell. What did you mean?” asked Finbar tightly. I looked at him in surprise. Perhaps I did not know him as well as I thought. He caught my expression.

“The power of enchantment is great, Sorcha,” he said more calmly. “The power of loss is strong too. I begin to understand, now, why he has acted as he has. So, it does matter to me that he survives. It matters that she is stopped. But there is a limit to the price I would pay for this. There is a limit to the price any of us should pay.”

“I could tell you about Father,” said Conor. The ring of axe on wood had ceased; now my two eldest brothers came down the hill, breathing heavily, and squatted down next to us. “I could tell you much; but sometimes it is better not to know.”

“Not to know what?” asked Liam, settling between me and Conor and putting an arm around my shoulders.

“What passes, what changes in the world, while we are in that other state,” said Conor. Liam glanced at him sharply. “So you do know,” he said, not altogether approving.

“Some things yes, others no. I am not able to be in all places at all times; my bodily shape is the same as yours. I see differently, that’s all. Rest assured that our father still lives, and is not altogether lost, though his grief is terrible. He longs most to see his daughter, in whose face is his last memory of her whom he loved and lost. The lady Oonagh hates that,” Conor said.