Once she was safely in the shelter of the Wolf Glen forest, she tried to work out what she would say to her father. That was if she didn’t decide to see Gormán then leave. Father would be upset with her. She knew the look he’d have on his face, sad, reproachful, most likely angry as well. Holding it all in check, the way he did. But wouldn’t he be glad to see her, too? He loved her. Even when he was at his sternest he loved her. Even when he sent her away with no proper explanation. She knew it as she knew the sun followed the moon across the sky.

She mustn’t weep or shout or lose her temper. That would only make things worse. He would tell her, yet again, that she was a child and needed to be taught how to conduct herself. So, no tears, no babbling out her woes, no rushing to throw her arms around him, even if that was what she most wanted to do.

‘I must make a case,’ she said to the crow, which had alighted on the pale bough of a young birch and was holding a large moth in its beak. ‘Set things out calmly, point by point. Explain that I’m perfectly capable, or I wouldn’t have been able to walk all the way home through the forest on my own. Tell him it’s not Lady Flidais’s fault I left Winterfalls without anyone noticing – she could hardly be expected to watch over me when they’d all been called to court. And it’s not Blackthorn’s fault, since I wasn’t at her house today. Or Mhairi’s, because I made sure she wouldn’t find me.’

The crow gulped down the moth. Its bright eye seemed to say, So far, so good, my friend. And then what?

‘Then I’ll tell him that if he wants me to act like a grown woman, he should start treating me as one. And that means explaining properly. Trusting me with the truth, whatever it is.’

Since the bird had finished its meal, she walked on. After a moment she felt a sudden jolt as the crow landed on her shoulder. Just as well she had on her thick shawl as well as the cloak. She could hear the bird thinking. Or maybe that was the trees. All very well. All very measured. But you know what will happen, Cara. You’ll step up before your father and open your mouth, and the words won’t come.

‘I can talk to Blackthorn,’ Cara muttered, swishing at some long grass with a stick and thinking how hateful the truth could be. ‘I can talk to Emer. I can talk to lots of people now.’