I took off my hat and ran my fingers through my hair, getting rid of any tangles. I’d swapped my trainers for a pair of high stiletto boots. I’d paid a cobbler to paint over the soles for me in lacquered hot pink. They weren’t Christian Louboutin - they were better. Dressing to kill always made me more confident and I was going to need all the confidence I could muster. I’d even managed to paint my nails on the way here in the taxi and it took a steady hand to achieve that sort of art. The colour matched the shoes. Naturally. I was going to show all those Sidhe wankers ‒ Byron included ‒ that I wasn’t afraid of them.

Just in case someone was watching, I tossed my hair disdainfully. The wind caught it and a halo of white flew up around my head. Even I had to admit it was impressive. Still looking like an avenging angel, with Mother Nature herself at my beck and call, I stepped through.

If I’d been here when I was a kid, I didn’t remember it. Cruaich in Gaelic translates as ‘hill’. What wasn’t apparent from the other side of the barrier was the vast castle on top of that hill. The length of the driveway wasn’t obvious either. I glanced down at my shoes. Maybe I should have worn my trainers after all. I shrugged. Well, I was here now. It wasn’t the time to start rummaging through my bag.

I started walking. The trees here were different to the ones on the other side; their leaves were greener and their branches spread further. They were also considerably more gnarled, attesting to their age. A faint memory tugged at me as I strode upwards, one involving my far younger self clambering up a similar specimen to retrieve a particularly delicious-looking apple. As I recall, I fell long before I reached my goal and received a sharp scolding as a result. Not that getting a scolding was anything out of the ordinary for me. Not back then.

I allowed the memories to flood over me. Almost every single one was unhappy and they bolstered my feelings of antipathy. The Sidhe weren’t likely to convince me with their tales of ‘oh, but we’re saving the world’ as long as I could remember how they’d treated one solitary orphan.

I was halfway up the drive, my expression grim and my heart hard, when I spotted someone. Unmistakably Sidhe.  He came right out of the main gate, standing to one side as I approached. Whoever he was, he didn’t appear to be doing anything other than watching me. Not long after, he was joined by another one. Then another and another and another.