“I want to hear your voice,” he said. “I want—but what does that matter?” It was as if he took a grip on his words, and channeled them back where he thought they should be. Back onto safe ground. Control. Say not what you feel, but only what must be said. I imagined he would regret, later, speaking so freely tonight. “Your safety, that’s of concern,” he said. It was Lord Hugh of Harrowfield talking now. “I can do more. I think. First, I’ll speak to my mother. She would frown on such tricks, and can seek out the culprit and ensure there is no repetition. In the longer turn—there may be a solution. One course of action is obvious to me, but it would not be to your taste.”

What? What solution? Now he was worrying me. He would not send me to Northwoods? Would he?

“It may not be necessary,” said Red, getting up. “Let us simply be on our guard. If there’s a need to do more, we will. But my uncle is away, and I know of no other who might be a serious threat to you.” He looked at me questioningly. I shrugged. It was too frightening to think the lady Oonagh might search me out, even at Harrowfield. I refused to believe it. “For now, you should be safe in my house. If I cannot promise this, I am not much of a protector.”

My hands moved quickly. Don’t. Don’t swear what you cannot be sure of. Don’t make a promise you cannot keep. I don’t know if he understood.

“It’s getting cold,” he said. “You’d better go in. Bolt your door, get some sleep. I’ll keep watch tonight.”

It seemed I was dismissed. I got up, went in, reached back to pull the door to.

“Jenny,” he said. He stood at the foot of the steps, and such was the difference in our heights that he looked me straight in the eye. I raised my brows in question.

“Talk to me next time. Tell me right away. Don’t keep it to yourself. However small, however trivial, you must tell me.” He might have appeared to dismiss the threat to my safety, but underneath he was worried. Deeply worried.

I gave a nod, and closed the door. But, as it happened, there was no need to tell him, next time. For next time, it was no child’s trick, no mischievous prank that my unknown enemy played on me. It was something far worse, and it led to a tragic turn of events that woke a deep terror of the spirit, that brought the force of evil down on the tranquil valley and scarred the household of Harrowfield. And it was I who caused it.

It happened in two stages. The first was hard to bear, for me at least; but it paled in comparison with the second. The first was trickery, cruel trickery. The second was murder.

Spring was advancing, and suddenly May Day was close, and the wedding a reality. Activity hummed around me in the long room, women sewing fine fabrics and chattering of dancing and feasting and of certain other aspects of the impending marriage that I would sooner not have heard discussed. I tried to block out their talk. I wove and sewed my starwort, and fashioned Finbar’s shirt. As I worked I imagined my brother perched on the roof slates at Sevenwaters, with the west wind tangling his dark locks, and his clear eyes full of dreams. I pictured the two of us running through the forest on a bright spring day, and Finbar waiting for me to catch up. Then, sitting by him in the fork of an oak, listening in silence as the forest breathed around us. I thought of Finbar as I had last seen him, after he had given me so much of his strength that there was none left over for himself. I sewed my love for my brother into his shirt with every painful stitch. I worked hard, and the shirt grew quickly.