‘It seems he came back. Bardán, I mean. Many years later. That day, when you saw him looking at the heartwood house and your father decided to send you away, was probably the first time Bardán had set eyes on the place in years. Where he’d been, why he went off and why he came back, I could only guess at. Grim knows more than I do, and he has a theory. But it’s only conjecture. What is fact, Cara, is that your father needs Bardán there to tell Grim how to build the heartwood house – Bardán can’t do the work himself as he has crippled hands now. But your father doesn’t trust him at all. I would say he fears Bardán, if I didn’t think it might spark an angry denial from you. I imagine it hurts to discover that your father is not the perfect man you have always believed him to be. The fact is, Tóla has been treating Bardán poorly. Unfairly. Sometimes cruelly.’

‘He wouldn’t –’

‘Grim has seen it. And Grim doesn’t lie.’

Tears stung Cara’s eyes. She brushed them away, furious with herself, with her father, with Blackthorn for saying this, with the way everything had gone awry since the day that man, Bardán, had appeared at Wolf Glen. Why did he have to come back and turn everything upside down? It wasn’t fair.

‘I’ve found,’ Blackthorn said quietly, ‘that when I’m really angry, a brew helps. I might ask Fíona to send us something. And food with it. It feels like a long time since breakfast.’

‘How can that do any good?’ The words came out in a ferocious undertone, and Cara felt ashamed. ‘I’m sorry, Mistress Blackthorn. It’s just – it’s just –’

Blackthorn went over to the door, stuck her head out, spoke to someone, came back in. ‘I’m not making light of your distress, Cara. The brew’s as much for me as for you. Your father’s just given me the news that Grim will be staying up there night and day until the building’s finished, and that upset me more than I’d have expected.’

‘Oh.’ How odd. Blackthorn was such a strong person, so confident and sure of herself. And old – more than thirty, Cara guessed. People of that age didn’t have tender feelings. Especially people like Blackthorn. Most folk were a bit scared of the wise woman. Everyone treated her with respect. It was hard to think of her being upset over a man. If that was what she meant. ‘I can come over to Dreamer’s Wood and keep you company,’ she said. ‘So you won’t be on your own. Maybe they’d let me stay over there.’ That would be so much better than being cooped up here. They weren’t letting her go anywhere outside on her own.