She busied herself with tidying away her own work, while I chose a new hiding place for my secret account. Now that it ran to many sheets of parchment, I could not conceal it in the pouch at my belt as I had done with the notebook. Since the cottage where Cara and I were housed could not be securely locked up, it seemed to me that the safest place to hide this document was among other documents. The testament against Mathuin resided between the pages of a different book every night. I chose volumes I thought an unexpected visitor, even a scholarly one such as Oisin the druid, would not be inclined to examine. This time I slipped it into a weighty volume with a worn, cracked cover. The book was in a tongue so foreign that the letters themselves had unfamiliar shapes. There was no making sense of it. As I closed the pages over my work, I whispered words of protection.

Cara’s favourite tree was a magnificent old yew standing on a rise. The trunk was massive, the bark a furrowed landscape of nooks and crannies.

‘The best thinking place is up there,’ Cara said, pointing to some spot entirely concealed by heavy branches and foliage. ‘But you needn’t try to climb up. It might be too much for you. At your age, I mean.’

I swallowed an oath. ‘I might need some help for the first bit,’ I said, eyeing the distance.

Cara grinned. ‘I’ll get up first, then I can help you.’

Not long after, the two of us were sitting side by side, high above Prince Oran’s farmlands. I could see why Cara liked being up in trees so much. This was a whole world, away from annoying handmaids and their snappy dogs, away from mysterious tattooed men, away from thoughts of old enemies and how they might strike again when least expected. The actual climbing I hadn’t enjoyed quite so much, though I’d been impressed by Cara’s strength as she’d helped me up. Her air of fragility was deceptive.

From up here I could see our cottage, stone grey against the many greens of Dreamer’s Wood. Further away lay the great dark mass of the Wolf Glen forest. No wonder Cara loved this perch. She could see nearly all the way home.

‘I promised your father some time ago that I’d do something for you,’ I said. ‘And I haven’t done it yet.’

‘What?’