She moved, stretching out her arms. Voices came suddenly, closer than before; there was a note of greedy anticipation in them that terrified her. She took four paces away from where they seemed to be and her hands encountered a rough stone wall. She edged along it sideways. Opened her mind to the deep, slow voice of a tree. Where are you?

‘Cara! Oh, Cara! This way, pretty one!’ One of them was calling, the others giggling, whispering, moving about as if ready to reach out and grab her the moment she came close enough.

Where are you? One cautious step, two, three, and it was under her hand, tough, fibrous, as old as time – the root of an oak. Cara closed her fingers around it; rested her brow against it. Heard, sure and steady, the ancient voice within. Be safe, Daughter. You are one of ours.

And not long after there came another voice, not a tree voice sounding only in her mind, but a human voice, a man’s, calling her name. ‘Cara! Cara, where are you?’ Up the top. Up in her own world. A stranger’s voice.

She shaped the words she wanted. Here! I’m down here! But when she tried to call, they would not come out. All she could manage was a whisper. ‘Help! I’m here! Help!’

‘Cara! Are you down there somewhere?’

This voice she knew. Tears flooded her eyes. Here! I’m down here! Why wouldn’t her voice work, even for Gormán? Had those fey folk put a fell charm on her even while she held the roots of the oak?

You are safe. Hold on. Wait, Daughter, only wait.

She waited, gripping the oak root, willing Gormán to know, somehow, that she was here.

‘Cara!’ That was the other man. And now there was a dog barking. Perhaps she had not fallen so very far after all.

‘Here,’ she whispered. ‘I’m here.’ Oh, gods, what if they gave up and went away, all because she couldn’t call like any normal person would be able to? What if they never came back?

A sudden clamour from up there. Birds, cawing, screaming, flapping about. With it, a startled shout. ‘Morrigan’s britches!’ After that she could hear them talking, Gormán and the other man, though she could not make out what they were saying.

‘Cara!’ Gormán called from the top. ‘Don’t be afraid. One of us will climb down to you.’

Relief flooded through her. They knew. They knew she was here. But shouldn’t there be light from up there, if they were close enough to call and be heard? Could it already be night? She heard the whisper of a rope snaking down until its end touched the earthen floor of the cavern. Her lifeline. One of the men would come down, and somehow they’d get her back up, maybe with the rope tied around her waist, and then –