I’m thinking the silence will keep me awake. Make more room in my head for the bad things. Need to work on that. Need to stay strong. ‘Anything’s better than Slammer,’ I say. Then I recall that Slammer’s dead, crushed under a broken wall with only his hand sticking out, and I wonder if he had a wife, children, a life outside that place, or if screaming at us was his whole life. I wonder what happened to make him so crazy.

We walk halfway around the wood and there’s the cottage, half-under a stand of willows.

‘Morrigan’s britches,’ mutters Blackthorn, stopping in her tracks. ‘What a wreck.’

But I’m not seeing a wreck, I’m seeing what the place could be with a bit of love and care and hard work. Patch the roof, mend the shutters, see to the drains, everything on my list and more.

‘Nothing that can’t be fixed,’ I say.

‘Of course,’ puts in Blackthorn, ‘Conmael’s folk would do it, if I asked them. It would probably only take a click of the fingers to set the whole place to rights.’

When I don’t answer, she takes a long look at me.

‘What do you think?’ she says, as if it matters.

‘Not up to me, is it? You’re the one Conmael wants to live here.’

‘All the same,’ says Blackthorn, ‘what do you think? What would you do if you were me?’ And when I still can’t find anything to say, she adds, ‘Come on, Grim.’

Trying to put myself in her head is enough to turn me dizzy. ‘You want to be on your own,’ I say, hoping I won’t disgrace myself by shedding tears. Big man like me, ridiculous. ‘After that place, that’s what you want most.’

‘Go on.’ Her face gives nothing away.

‘So the easiest thing would be to call Conmael and his folk, and ask to have the cottage fixed up and all the supplies you need laid on,’ I say. ‘You could lock the door behind you and keep out anyone you didn’t want.’