‘What are you doing here?’ I snarled, scrambling to my feet. A pox on the man. It hadn’t been easy to summon the will to walk away: to set everything behind me, the cottage, my healing work, Emer with her thirst for knowledge. For a while, at Winterfalls, I had felt as if there might be a purpose beyond Mathuin of Laois. Doing good, as Conmael had wanted. Helping folk who needed me. Until Flidais had shared the wretched truth, I had been starting to feel almost comfortable. But she had told her story, and the old anger had stirred, and I had made my choice. South. Mathuin. Justice. Not the prince’s trumped-up mission, but my own, which mattered more than anything. More fool I, then, that so soon I’d let myself be drawn off the path, and I’d wasted too much time, and now here he was.

‘Might ask you the same,’ Grim said, putting the brew in my hands.

‘I don’t have time for this.’

‘We can walk while you drink it, if you like. Which way are you going?’

‘What do you think?’ I snapped.

‘I’d have said south. But Conmael said to look here, so here I am.’

Conmael? What in the name of the gods was going on?

‘Excuse me,’ I said to the two girls. ‘I need to talk to Grim in private.’ Without waiting for a response I strode off toward the shore, with Grim following behind. The hot brew slopped over onto my hand, making me curse.

‘Here,’ Grim said, fishing out a handkerchief and passing it over. ‘Want me to carry it for you?’

‘No, I do not! How in the name of the gods did you get here so fast?’

‘Borrowed a horse, in a manner of speaking. One of Scannal’s.’

I would not even ask about Conmael; that was one complication too many. ‘I’m going south, on my own. You know why. Nothing’s changed.’

We had reached the water’s edge. I stopped walking, wishing he had not come, wishing I did not have to listen to him, wishing I did not have to explain. Knowing that if anyone could make me weaken, it would be him.

‘Something must have changed,’ said Grim. ‘Had a mission, didn’t we? For Prince Oran?’

‘Hah! A pox on Prince Oran, the lying mongrel!’

He just looked at me.