So he had reasoned, not that there’d been much reason about that brutal time, when Dáire’s burial rite had turned into a screaming argument and he’d been accused of all manner of crimes, lies every one of them. Brígh had screamed, too, in someone else’s arms, and he’d wrenched his daughter away and hurt her doing it, making her cry as if mortally wounded. He had ordered them all away. Then he’d put his child on his back, and taken his tools, and walked to Wolf Glen. Thrown himself on Master Tóla’s mercy, offering work in return for a place to stay and someone to look after his child. Shown Tóla what he could do, his skills, his special touches with wood. And Tóla had hired him to build the heartwood house.

They got a woman in to feed Brígh. He remembers that. No need for goat’s milk. He worked long days. Not that he didn’t want to do a good job. He was grateful. Brígh was safe, warm, secure. And not being turned against him. How could he not be glad of that? But he was sad to see his baby only for a little each day, in the evenings, when often as not she was already tucked up in her cradle fast asleep. He’d sit by her awhile, singing the song his mother had sung to him long ago. Feather bright and feather fine, none shall harm this child of mine. But they did. Someone did. Someone took her out into the forest and left her there, and she died. Not him. He wouldn’t have done that. He couldn’t have done it. Not to Brígh. Not to his precious baby girl. It was someone else, some evil-doer, the fey perhaps. But the fey wouldn’t have left her in the oak roots. They would have taken her for their own. Instead of taking him, they would have taken his daughter. The fey were like a hungry fire. They were like the drowning sea. You could feed them and feed them, but they were never satisfied.

‘You awake, brother?’ Grim has stopped doing his exercises; the voice in the darkness comes from his pallet.

‘Awake. Thinking. Remembering. Might be truth. Might only be hopes and wishes.’

‘Got a question for you.’

‘Mm?’

‘You know that rhyme you sing sometimes, the one about the birds? Feather bright and feather fine, that one?’