This is the test, Cara thought. This is the choice, one road or the other. But before she could take the step, forward or backward, her father was storming out of the house with a pair of brawny serving men behind him. ‘I said get out!’ The look on his face paralysed her. The fury in his voice stole away her words in an instant. She stood, mute, as the servants grabbed Bardán’s arms and hauled him away.

No! Cara formed the word with her lips, but no sound came out. No! Don’t hurt him! I know the old story, I know what happened when I was born! Her words fell away like spilled water. Where were they taking him?

Halfway across the yard, Bardán wrenched free of one keeper for long enough to turn and glower at Tóla. His laugh was as strange as his sob, a high, mocking sound more like the call of a creature than human laughter. ‘So much for your heartwood house, rich man!’ he shouted. ‘So much for your dreams! It’ll never be finished, not in a hundred years! Don’t know your tales very well, do you? Ask a druid. Ask that friend of Grim’s, the one who worked out the truth about your trickery!’

‘Stop.’ Tóla walked past Cara as if she were not there. He halted two paces from Bardán, lifted his hand and delivered a blow that made the other man’s head snap to the side. And another blow, to the other cheek. ‘Not one more word.’ And to the serving men, ‘Take him away. Lock him up. And Grim with him. This is unconscionable.’

The crow flew to Cara’s shoulder. The wren and siskin followed.

‘The thatch,’ said the wild man, his voice unsteady now. Red marks flowered on his cheeks and jaw. ‘One feather from every kind of bird in the forest. Given willingly. Without that, the house brings no luck at all. You’ll never do it. Nobody could. How would you find them all?’ He was not looking at Tóla now, but straight at Cara. ‘Weave a charm for luck and good, every birdling in the wood . . .’

‘Oh, gods,’ Cara said. Now she was the one with tears spilling. Her chest ached. Maybe her heart was breaking. Or maybe it was mending. ‘You really are my father.’

‘I said, take him away!’ Tóla roared to his men. ‘And send Gormán here at once! No, I will find him myself.’

‘Don’t,’ whispered Cara as they dragged Bardán out of the courtyard. ‘Don’t hurt him.’

But Tóla did not hear, or did not choose to hear. ‘Cara!’ He was trembling with fury. His hands were tight fists. His face was livid with rage. ‘Get inside! Now!’

‘You lied to me,’ she breathed, backing away. ‘All my life, you lied to me.’