You’re too late.

Her face was impassive. If there were any expression, it was slight disapproval.

“It’s time, Sorcha,” she said. “Time to move on.”

Move where? I thought dimly. It all seemed too hard, too much effort. Perhaps I would just crawl in under the rock face again and close my eyes.

I’m tired of being strong.

She laughed at me. Laughed, as if I were ridiculous.

“You are what you are,” she said in her low, musical voice. “Now come on, get up. You are not the first woman of your race to be abused thus by men, nor will you be the last. We saw with sorrow what was done to you; but vengeance was swift and just. Now you must go from here.”

There was a very small core of anger inside me, struggling to get out through the profound weariness that made my head fuzzy and all my limbs heavy and aching. I got up, and the trees seemed to shiver and move around me.

“Good,” she said quietly. “Now you will leave here. You may take just one pack with you. Choose its contents carefully. You will find a small boat moored under the willows not far from the northern end of the bay. It will carry you where you need to go.”

I blinked at her. The trees seemed to be wavering around me in all directions, the late afternoon light flickering between their leaves, gray, green, gold, russet, and brown. Her form was already starting to fade.

But what if—but I can’t—and where—

She was gone. I stood still, willing my vision to steady. Slowly the world came to rights, more or less. I thought vaguely that perhaps I hadn’t eaten since the day before. Maybe that was the problem. I did feel rather strange. But there was nothing much around. Besides, if I could take only one bag with me, it certainly wasn’t going to be filled with dried apples or bunches of watercress.

When the Fair Folk gave you an instruction, you followed it, whether it suited you or not. That was just the way it was. Anyway, when you looked at it, I didn’t have much choice. I was not prepared for winter, and my brothers had more on their minds than chopping wood or seeking out supplies for me, that last time. So I left my oaken staff, that had been Father Brien’s, and I left the winter boots and the warm cloaks, and the three sharp daggers with carven hilts. I left the pile of smooth stones where my good dog lay, and I left the last bunch of dried lavender, which held the summer’s warmth in its sweet, faint fragrance, and the dwindling stack of ash wood. I even left the spindle and the little loom my brother had crafted for me. But I took the two shirts of starwort and the third half sewn, along with the fibers I had not yet spun, and I took my needle and thread, and in the bottom of the bag was Simon’s carving. I wore my old dress, and around my neck Finbar’s amulet, which had been our mother’s. I walked away from the cave without a single backward glance. But I heard faint voices whispering, rustling, and the beat of delicate wings in and out of the tree canopy.