“I only took my eyes off him for a moment, Father, only a moment. I never went further than the doorway. But when I next looked at him, he was gone and the changeling was there in his place. I don’t know how it could have happened.”

“How long ago?” Father had clamped a mask of control over his features, but his voice was only marginally steadier than mine. His hands bit into my shoulders.

“Just now, Father, only a few moments ago. I looked everywhere in this chamber and then I came straight to fetch you.”

“Start a search,” Father said, letting me go abruptly and turning to Johnny. “One group inside, upstairs first, then through the whole house. A second group outside, fanning out toward the forest in all directions. Gods, why didn’t I consider the possibility of abduction?”

Johnny and Aidan were gone almost before he finished speaking. I heard my cousin issuing crisp orders as he descended the stairs. There was a sound of people running.

“Are you telling me someone removed the baby while you were here?” Father asked. “How could that be?”

“Father, I don’t think this is an abduction—I mean, not a political one. No ordinary person could have got in without my seeing them. I was only outside the door for a moment. It must be the work of uncanny folk. I mean, what about the—the little creature, the changeling—” The willow basket was creaking as its occupant thrashed about, screaming for attention. I could hardly hear my own voice above the din. My father stepped over to the cradle again, looking down at the thing that had taken his son’s place.

“A cruel travesty,” he said. “A superficial likeness of a child, but it’s no more than a bundle of sticks and stones, Clodagh.”

“But . . .” I stared at him, not understanding. The changeling was shrieking. It was waving its arms frantically, desperate for a response to its cries of woe. Surely I wasn’t the only one who could hear it?

“You stepped outside the door,” Father said flatly. “You left Finbar alone. Why?”

I wanted to curl up small and hide. I wanted to shrink down into a little ball and roll away into a corner where nobody could find me. My insides had turned into a quivering jelly. “I was just there, in the doorway,” I croaked. “Right there. Talking to Cathal. I came straight back in. Father, nobody could have walked past me. They’d have had to be invisible. Father, can’t you hear the child crying?”

“You can hear him? Finbar?” A sudden hope dawned on his face.

“No,” I said, confused and wretched, “the changeling, the sticks-and-stones baby—Father, I can see it moving, I can hear it screaming. Father, this must be the work of the Fair Folk, you remember what Willow said about them becoming different—”