And Blackthorn, riding beside me now wrapped up in her own thoughts. Blackthorn choosing not to go to this hearing. Can’t get my head around that. Got the chance to face up to Mathuin in a proper council at last, and she said no to it. That’s the only thing she’s cared about since we got out of that place. Vengeance for her family. Justice for all the folk Mathuin’s hurt over the years. It’s been the only thing keeping her going. And this time it would’ve been easy. No need to ride all the way to Laois. Guards to go with her, everything arranged. But she said no. Because of me.

Don’t know what to think about that. Don’t know where to start. So I think about Conmael instead, what might bring him when we need him. What might’ve held him back from coming. I think about it all the way down to Dreamer’s Wood and home.

‘Got an idea,’ I say to Blackthorn. Cúan’s looking after the horses, Cionnaola’s drawing water from the well. They’ve said we can still go with them to this place, even though it’s too late for Blackthorn to speak. Place is so secret nobody’ll say where it is, only it’s a couple of days’ ride. I’m tired. Head hurts. Other bits of me not doing so well either, after being cramped up so long. Long soak in a hot bath, then rest, that’s what I want. Don’t say so, though.

‘What?’ says Blackthorn.

‘When you think of Conmael, what do you think of?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Pretend I’ve never seen him. Paint a picture for me.’

‘Tall, pale, dark-haired, noble-looking. Obviously fey. Usually wearing a sweeping cloak and a lot of silver rings. Looks forbidding. Arrogant. Most of the time.’

She’s said what I expected her to say. ‘I think that might be the trouble,’ I tell her. ‘I think you might have hurt his feelings.’

‘The fey don’t have feelings to hurt,’ Blackthorn says. ‘Especially not him.’

‘Brought up by a human mother, wasn’t he? Some of that might have rubbed off on him. Made him different. Different from what he was born as.’

‘Then he’d be an outsider in his own world as well as the human world. That’s terrible. But now you say it, of course he has feelings. Or had them. The other children used to taunt him because he was odd-looking. Calling him changeling. He hated it. He shrank from it. Wouldn’t fight back. They kept on and on at it until I made them stop.’

‘Explains why he’s helped you. You were his protector. His friend. His only friend.’

‘He’s repaid any debt a hundred times over by saving us from Mathuin’s lockup. He owes me absolutely nothing.’