This shocks me more than anything else she’s said. ‘Morrigan’s curse! You wouldn’t do it, would you? Jump in there and get turned into an ant or something?’

‘An ant,’ she says, giving me a funny look. ‘When you put it like that, it seems an even stupider idea than it was that night when you nearly jumped in.’

‘Mm.’ I think a bit about what she’s told me. ‘Those men, the Swan Island men. They could be telling the truth. About Prince Oran calling them in. From what I’ve heard, they’re choosy about who they work for. Can’t see them doing Mathuin’s business.’

‘So you know about them?’

‘Not much. Heard a mention here and there. They’re dangerous all right. But not known for hurting women. The fellow did bring Emer home.’

We’re both quiet for a bit. Listen to the rain pelting down out there. Wind howling.

‘Good night for a story,’ I say, to get her mind off other things. Then I wish I hadn’t. Don’t want her looking at the wax tablet. Not before I’ve rubbed out my little bit of foolishness. ‘That fellow I’m working with, Bardán, he’s got a story that would make the hairs on your neck prickle, or I think he has. Only he can’t come out with all of it, or won’t. Says his father taught him to build. But the way he talks, it’s like he was in some other world, and not just for a bit. For years and years. Makes me wonder about those doorways. Portals. Bardán talks about going down. Falling. I’ve wondered if that’s what he means. A cave that leads to the Otherworld.’

‘You think that’s where he got his remarkable gift for building, not from his father?’

‘Polished it, maybe. He told me part of a story about folk escaping from the fey world. Could have been his own story, that’s if he brought a wife back with him. Could have been his father’s story. The fellow was switched for a changeling, as a babe. Raised in that place. Met a girl who was half-fey, half-human. She found the way out. They got away together. The more I think about it, the more I think it was his dad’s story. If he grew up there, didn’t leave until he was a young man, he could have learned all sorts of fey building tricks and taught them to his son. No wonder Bardán knows how to make a heartwood house.’