Her pulse fluttered rapidly in her neck and her skin was hot to the touch but she was as tough as the other Moncrieffes I knew. Her eyes met mine and she managed a weak whisper. ‘He went for help.’

Shite. We’d not passed any tracks other than those belonging to the strange, unidentified animal. He must have wandered off in the wrong direction. It didn’t matter how often we instructed hikers and climbers to stay together when there was a problem; someone always thought they knew better.

‘What’s his Gift?’ I asked. If he were Sidhe he might be able to call up magic which would help him survive, otherwise he might well be lost for good. Unfortunately Maggie had given us all she could; she’d already closed her eyes.

I stood up. ‘You need to get her to a hospital now. She’s probably bleeding internally from the fall.’ I looked up at the sheer ice wall of Aladdin’s Mirror. If I squinted, I could make out an ice pick buried about twenty feet up. There weren’t any ropes, though. No wonder she’d landed so badly. Daft bint.

Travis nodded. While Tim and Tam carefully laid her onto the stretcher, he pressed a button on his walkie-talkie and called the helicopter to arrange the rendezvous.

‘There,’ Isla said, pointing to our right. ‘There are footsteps.’

The continuing snow flurries were already starting to cover them. ‘I’ll go after him,’ I said.

‘You can’t go on your own, it’s too dangerous.’

Travis looked at the pair of us. ‘You’ve got fifteen minutes. It’ll take us longer to get back down to the landing point anyway.’

I licked my lips; they were already dry and cracked. ‘And if we don’t find him?’

‘Then we’ll take Maggie to the town and come back later.’

I nodded, although that didn’t sound like a brilliant plan. Judging by the state of the weather, things weren’t going to improve any time soon. I was no snow expert but I could tell that the wind was getting stronger. Dangerously so. If this got much worse, the helicopter wouldn’t be able to fly, let alone drop us back here. I caught a look in Travis’s eye before he turned away; he knew it too. If we didn’t find Maggie’s husband and get him to the helicopter soon, we’d be forced to abandon him for the night. And he probably wouldn’t make it if that happened.

‘We’d better get a move on,’ Isla murmured.

‘Fifteen minutes,’ Travis repeated. ‘I mean it. This isn’t the night for silly heroics.’ He looked at me as he said those last words. That wasn’t entirely fair; I’d followed his instructions and commands to the letter over the last four months. Still, I nodded in acknowledgment and Isla and I took off.