‘He could help,’ Grim said. ‘Couldn’t he? Remember how those fey folk at Bann mended me? Had to be magic, it was so quick. And they were only little folk.’

‘He could, I expect. But I don’t plan to ask him for any more favours right now. I feel as if I’ve been very lucky. Later, maybe. Depending on how this goes.’

‘It’ll go fine,’ Grim said, putting his hand over mine on the table. ‘Breathe deep, stand tall, speak the truth. You’re good at that.’

Even for me, a wise woman, the journey was confronting. We rode out, the five of us and Ripple, along the path through Dreamer’s Wood, as if we were heading to Winterfalls settlement, barely a mile away and surely in the wrong direction. Conmael was in the lead, astride a long-legged black horse that had mysteriously added itself to our number while we were indoors eating. I came next, with Cúan beside me. Then Grim with Ripple. Cionnaola rode at the end. Day had given way to the long twilight that marks the approach of summer; the time when nothing is quite what it seems. We came to the spot where Dreamer’s Wood opened to farmland. But now there were no fields, only a pair of strange trees clad in leaves of blue and silver, leaning toward each other to form an archway over the path – a path that had turned unfamiliar. A new way, shadowy and strange, leading forward through a long tunnel formed by many such trees, so dense in foliage that there was no seeing what lay behind them. A secret way.

Conmael drew his horse to a halt. ‘It will not take long,’ he said. ‘Stay calm. Best if you do not speak until I tell you it is safe to do so. If you hear voices, disregard them. Keep the rider in front of you always in sight. Come, then.’

We moved forward through the portal – I had no doubt this was such an entry place – and along the tree tunnel, which did not follow a straight line but curved one way and the other so we could never see far ahead. The trees were of a kind I did not know. In form they were something like willows, but no willow ever had such leaves. One side of each was as bright as moonlight on water. The other was like the sky on a warm summer day. Beautiful indeed; they invited the eye. I fixed my gaze on Conmael and rode forward.