I carry Cara back toward the house. Gormán brings the lantern. Ripple’s off the rope, padding along quietly beside us. When we get to the main track Gormán calls out, ‘She’s safe! We’ve got her!’ in case any of the other searchers are close. Cara comes out of her faint when he yells, asks to be put on her feet. Goes off to relieve herself behind a tree. When she gets back we give her some water.

‘They kept saying . . .’ She sounds like she’s only half with us, and half still down that hole. ‘They kept saying drink, eat, aren’t you thirsty . . . promising all sorts of things . . . and they said . . .’ Her voice fades away.

‘Never mind that.’ Gormán sounds as if he doesn’t want to know. If I was him I’d be asking who said, and what did they say. Fey folk of some kind, I bet. Who else is going to be in a place like that? And if it’s the same ones that made Bardán stay and work and ruin his hands, they’re not the nice kind. Not like the wee folk of Bann at all, and not like Conmael either. Funny, I could wish that fellow was here right now so I could ask him about this. He’d know who they are and what they’re up to. Not that he ever comes to talk to me. Or hardly ever. Blackthorn’s the one he’s interested in. I just happened to get saved when she did. In the right place at the right time, you might say. Though how Mathuin’s lockup could be the right place for anything is hard to believe. Senseless cruelty’s about it. Ruined men. Lost hope.

‘Grim?’

Gormán’s asked me something and I haven’t heard a word. ‘What was that?’

‘We should move on. Put Master Tóla out of his misery. Cara says she can walk.’

She tries for a while, holding on to Gormán’s arm, but she’s soon tired. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘My legs feel like jelly.’

I pick her up again. She’s a lightweight, like Blackthorn. Taller, though. Not so easy to carry.

‘Sorry,’ she says again.

‘No trouble.’

Pretty soon she falls asleep. Limp as a doll, head on my shoulder. Wonder when she fell down there, how long she was on her own in the dark. Or not on her own, but with something else there, whispering who knows what in her ear.

‘She sleeping?’ Gormán asks.

‘Like a babe. Lucky escape.’

‘Listen,’ says Gormán, quiet-like. ‘Don’t say anything about those birds. What they did. To Tóla, I mean. He’s touchy about these things.’

‘What things?’

‘Anything out of the common run. Anything folk might think was magical. Fey. Upsets him. Scares him.’

‘You’re asking me to tell a lie.’