I heard them stop out the front, dismount, exchange a few words. I contemplated pretending I was not at home. If I stood where I was and kept completely quiet, maybe they would simply leave. Or maybe they wouldn’t, seeing as the fire was burning and the lamp was lit and there was a pungent smell of freshly chopped onions.

Someone knocked. In my mind, Mathuin himself stood on my doorstep with a long knife in his hand. Not ready to plunge it in my heart; such a man would not deliver the merciful gift of a quick death. No, he’d want to draw things out as long as possible. Not only to punish me, but to enjoy the process every step of the way. In the end, of course, he would finish me. I simply had too much to tell.

I picked up the iron poker. Gripped it, weighed it, considered how I would use it. I opened the door.

A man stood there, cloaked against the rain. ‘Are you Mistress Blackthorn the healer?’ he asked, not bothering with pleasantries.

The other two waited at a distance, with the three horses. It looked as if they weren’t planning to stop long.

‘Who’s asking?’

‘Master Tóla of Wolf Glen wants a word with you. If you’re Blackthorn.’

I swallowed what came first to my lips: Can’t Master Tóla speak for himself? ‘I am Blackthorn,’ I said. Not the Swan Island men. Not Prince Oran’s retainers. And not Mathuin’s henchmen. I saw, now, that this was a master and two servants. One servant had knocked on the door. The other was holding the horses’ reins. And the third man, the one whose clothing was of better cloth, whose boots were less worn, whose tight jaw and cold eyes were unpromising, must be Tóla himself. Cara’s father. I wouldn’t have guessed; he looked nothing like her. What could he want with me?

‘If you’re looking for Cara,’ I said, ‘she’s not here today.’

The well-dressed man stepped forward and indicated with a sharp gesture that the other two were to move back.

‘Mistress Blackthorn,’ he said, sounding incredulous, ‘am I to understand from those words that you have not yet heard that Cara was missing for most of yesterday, and was only found after an extensive search that went late into the night?’

My jaw dropped. ‘I was in Longwater,’ I said. ‘I had no idea – is Cara all right? Is she safe?’ It was making a horrible kind of sense to me now. A rainy day, most of Prince Oran’s household off at court, Grim and me both away. A perfect opportunity for Cara to bolt for home, or so she must have thought. ‘Where did she go?’ Cara always swore she could find her way home from anywhere in the forest, and I had no reason to disbelieve her. ‘Where was she found?’