Later, much later, they were all there, all but Diarmid. I was awake, and they had brought me barley bread with honey, but I could not eat and I fed it to the dog. Perhaps this was what the stories meant when they called somebody heartsick. Your heart and your stomach and your whole insides felt empty and hollow and aching.

“Think about the good times,” said Conor, but I couldn’t. Finbar, when he came in, placed a small, damp bundle beside me on the bed. Linn sniffed at it hopefully. I unrolled the strip of sacking. There lay my garden in embryo: slender cuttings of lavender, tansy, rue, and wormwood; a sliver of lilac wood that might be grafted; a round white stone from the shattered path; a solitary acorn. I wrapped them carefully up again. Maybe, just maybe I could start again. My brother stood with his back to me. I sensed the love in him, and the rage.

“Now,” said Conor, “I must ask you, Sorcha, if you will share a secret with your brothers. With all of us.”

“What secret?” I dreaded what he might be about to say. The lady Oonagh had all but stumbled on my most dangerous secret, one that would most surely divide brother from brother. For there were three of them who were warriors, committed to the cause, quick to pursue vengeance in blood; and there were three who would always seek first to arbitrate, to mend, to fight their battles with words, not with blows.

“He means the vision, or spirit, you saw in the forest, Sorcha,” said Finbar from his dark corner. “Conor believes this may help us. You can tell them.”

“She came to me,” I said. “The Lady of the Forest. Just like the stories. She—she spoke to me, words about what I must do. That it would be long and difficult, and that I must stay on the path. That was all.”

Not quite all. But I would not tell the rest.

“Would such a vision come to you again if you bid her?” asked Liam. The room was dark, with but a single candle lit, and my brothers seemed tall and grim in the shadows, three of them around the bed, Finbar in the far corner and Padriac taking his turn by the door.

“I cannot call her at will,” I said, remembering how badly I had wanted guidance in my desperate attempts to help Simon. “She comes only when she sees fit.”

“The lady Oonagh flexes her wings a little more each day,” said Conor. “Her power grows. I believe we must harness an even greater strength to combat her. You could try. At the right place, at the time of need, with us around you, you could try.”

“Will you do this for us, Sorcha?” Cormack had come late to the knowledge of what we were battling. Linn glanced up at the sound of his voice. Her wound was beginning to mend nicely.