‘Our house would be one of the first places the folk from Winterfalls looked. Seeing as Cara goes over to visit Blackthorn most days. Place will be empty. Blackthorn’s staying the night in Longwater, and I’m here.’ What do I know about Cara? She’s different. Doesn’t talk much. Likes birds. Knows trees. Clever with her hands. I’ve seen the little creatures she’s been making. She keeps them on a shelf in our cottage, alongside the ones I’ve made. Chooses one to take back to the prince’s house every night, like it’s to keep her company. Brings it back next morning and puts it on the shelf with the others. Still a bit of a child, even if she is a young lady of fifteen.

We head on along the track, such as it is. It’s slow. Ground’s boggy, lantern light stops us from breaking our legs but not much more. All feeling like a waste of time and effort. Me, I’m trying not to think of Cara lying out there cold and dead under the trees, or drowned in a flooded stream, or worse. We walk on and on, slogging through the mud, hauling ourselves up a few steep rises, losing the path and finding it again. I’m thinking how long it is since Ripple was fed.

‘Go carefully around here,’ Gormán says. ‘Hidden dips, hollows, some of them deep. Easy to fall.’

Straight away I’m remembering the wild man, lost in his nightmare. Running, running. Falling. Down, down . . . Gone . . .

‘Got something to ask you.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘Bardán. Saw him at his old house today. Weeping over his family, over their graves. Seems like he had a good life once. An ordinary life. But he’s broken now. Not right in the head. I know he went away. When he was building the house the first time. I know he was away years.’

‘Master Tóla doesn’t make rules for no reason,’ Gormán says. ‘Careful there, the bank’s crumbling. Step a bit to the right, use the rocks.’

I don’t like the idea that’s come into my head, don’t like it at all. ‘Bardán talked a bit about that time, when he ran away. That time when he disappeared with the house half-built. Don’t think he meant to tell. It just came spilling out. Said he was running. Then falling.’ I make myself take a slow breath, not easy when I’m stumbling over rocks and slipping in the mud, trying to keep up with Ripple, who’s pulling on the rope now.

‘Mm-hm,’ says Gormán.

‘You know how folk don’t like the track up here, the one from Winterfalls. You’ll have heard the tales they tell about the place. Wondering if . . . wondering if there might be a . . . portal. An entry. Could be in the ground, down deep.’