I rode on. The farm buildings were in sight now; this was a well-maintained holding. There were horses grazing in an enclosure, their coats glossy under a watery sunlight, their manes neatly plaited. The drystone walls dividing the fields were in perfect order. Smoke rose in a lazy plume from the chimney of the dwelling-house; somebody was at home.

Maybe I’d let my thoughts lead me too far down the path of the unlikeliest story, the most unpalatable truth. I knew very little about Suanach. I did not know if she’d been the kind of woman to cuckold her husband. Maybe she had lain with Bardán. Maybe his grief over the loss of his wife had addled his good judgement. But even if Tóla had forgiven Suanach, a man like him wouldn’t accept that child. He’d never go along with the pretence that she was his own flesh and blood. Bardán had been considered odd even then, with his half-fey mother and his Otherworld-raised father. Tóla recognising that man’s daughter as his sole heir? That really was impossible.

And yet, and yet . . . there was Cara. Cara shinning up trees to perch high above the ground, surrounded by birds; Cara as unhappy at Winterfalls as a wild creature caged; Cara telling stories to trees and hearing their answers; Cara standing barefoot in Dreamer’s Pool, so perfectly still she might have been part of the forest, part of the wild. Cara echoing the words of a lullaby that could only have been sung to her by Bardán. When I had first met her, I had not seen anything of the fey in her. Now, I wondered that I had missed it. Unlikely as it seemed, I’d wager half of Grim’s bag of silver that she was Bardán’s daughter.

Now here I was at the farmhouse, and here was a young man coming to greet me and take the horse. I explained that I had come to visit Mistress Luíseach and thanked him when he offered to tend to my mount. Being the only healer in the district did have its advantages. Few doors were closed to me, even when I arrived uninvited.

Luíseach was some years Ide’s junior, a broad-faced, no-nonsense person who welcomed me into her kitchen without hesitation and got on with her baking while we talked. I invented a story about wanting to visit every household in Longwater so I’d know who had chronic ailments or old injuries that were likely to keep needing my attention. Luíseach listened and kneaded her dough. Her young assistant made a brew, set the cups on the table, then at a nod from her mistress, left us.