She would tell him she loved him. It was true. She would promise to be on her very best behaviour, every moment of every day. If he let her come home, she would not go into the forest without Gormán, she would not even go out of the house without a maidservant, she would . . . Only she couldn’t. When she was a child, not so very long ago, she’d been able to talk to Father, talk to him properly as she still could to Gormán. But as she grew older, that changed. It became harder to please him; harder to be the daughter he seemed to think she should be. And every time he got angry, even a little bit angry, it got harder to speak. The words just went away. Catching even one or two, saying Yes, Father or No, Father was like climbing a mountain. Nobody understood that. Everyone thought she was just stubborn. Except for Gormán, and Gormán hadn’t done a thing to stop Father from sending her away. And Alba – she’d been able to talk to Alba. But Alba hadn’t come here with her, and in her heart she knew Father had dismissed her maidservant for what had happened that day. What had happened, exactly? How could it be such a terrible thing to climb a tree and be up there when a stranger passed beneath? But it must have been terrible, somehow. She didn’t believe all that talk about court manners and meeting a wider circle. Those couldn’t be the only reasons he had sent her away.

Even if she could make the words come out, Father would think her arguments childish. And those promises, the ones about being obedient, would be lies. The forest drew her; it was her true home. The trees and the birds and the great stillness calmed her spirit. Did that mean there was something wrong with her? A girl in a tale might sicken and fade away if she was taken from the forest. A girl in real life, a landholder’s only daughter, did not give in to such fancies. At least, not according to Father and Aunt Della. And, kind though Lady Flidais was, it was clear that she and her attendants found Cara odd. Perhaps she really was sick. Perhaps she had some disease of the mind. Or maybe she was under a spell. A charm spoken over her cradle, binding her to Wolf Glen. Maybe an evil spirit had attended her birth, causing her mother to die and Cara to be forever different, a stranger in her own world. Perhaps she really did need to talk to a wise woman. If she could get the words out.