I remembered something then. “The old man in the village, Old Tom who used to be the thatcher, he said something—he said that Conor was one of the wise ones, like Father, or like Father should have been. I didn’t understand him.”

“The family of Sevenwaters is an ancient one, one of the oldest in this land,” said Father Brien. “This lake and this forest are places where strange things come to pass, where the unexpected is commonplace. The coming of such as I, and our faith, may have changed things on the surface. But underneath, here and there, the magic runs as deep and as strong as in the days when the Fair Folk came out of the west. The threads of many beliefs can run side by side; from time to time they tangle, and mesh into a stronger rope. You have seen this for yourself, Sorcha; and you, Finbar, feel its power compelling you to action.”

“And Conor?” asked Finbar.

“Your brother has inherited a weighty legacy,” said Brien. “It chooses whom it will; and so it did not fall to the eldest, or even to the second, but to the one best able to bear it. Your father had the strength, but he let the burden pass him by. Conor will be the leader of the old faith, for these people, and he will do it quietly and with discretion, so that the ancient ways can still prosper and give guidance, hidden deep in the forest.”

“You mean Conor is—you mean he is a druid? How could he learn this from books?” I asked, confused. Had I known my own brother so ill?

Father Brien laughed softly. “He could not,” he said wryly. “This lore is never committed to the page; the tree script that he showed you is its only form of writing. He has learned, and learns, from others of his kind. They do not show themselves, not yet, for it has been a struggle for them to hold on. Their numbers are dwindling. Your brother has a long path to travel yet; he has barely begun his journey. Nineteen years, that is the allotted span for the learning of this wisdom. And it goes without saying that talk of this is not to be spread abroad.”

“I wondered, sometimes,” said Finbar. “One cannot listen, and move through the villages, without learning whom the people trust and why. It explains why he leaves us to follow our own ways.”

“What did you mean,” I said, still thinking hard, “about our father being the one, and giving it up?” For I could not imagine Father, with his tight, closed expression and his obsession with war, as the conduit for any kind of spiritual message. Surely that was wrong.

“You need to understand,” said Father Brien gently, “that your father was not always as he is now. As a young man, he was a different creature entirely, handsome and merry, a man who would sing and dance and tell tales with the best of them, as well as beating them all hollow at riding and archery and combats with sword or bare fists. He was, you’d have said, one favored by heaven with the full range of blessings.”