I was under the trees, gasping for breath, knowing I must lose myself in the forest before dogs or men could find me. I snatched a glance over my shoulder and saw them standing over on the other side, at the point where I had started to run. A tall, brown-haired man: Aidan. With him were two others from our own household. The dogs were leashed. Nobody seemed to be coming after me. Instead the men stood conferring, and one of them pointed further uphill as if to say, That way. She’ll have gone that way. Perhaps, against the odds, they had not actually seen me. I made myself melt into shadow, treading warily. A sudden move might catch a man’s eye; a slow one might be taken as a mere shifting of light on leaves, a stirring of the late afternoon breeze. I threaded a way between the closely growing trees. The hollies left their marks on my skin. Thornbushes reached out to claw at my cloak and rip my stockings. I ducked beneath archways of tangled foliage and came up with my hair all cobwebs. It grew darker. I could hear the dogs somewhere higher up. It grew darker still. Becan started to cry.

“Hush, little one, hush now. Soon we’ll be somewhere safe.” Perhaps nowhere was safe. If they found me I would be taken home in shame. The changeling would be committed to the fire, and the last chance of getting Finbar back would be gone. Perhaps I had been utterly foolish ever to believe I could make things right again.

I heard them as I went: the barking, the rustling movement, sometimes the voices, though I could not catch their words. After a time the voices ceased, but I did not imagine the searchers had given up. The hounds were following a scent. They would keep going until they found the quarry.

I came to the bank of a coursing stream swollen by spring rains. There was no bridge; I would have to wade across. If I remembered correctly, the rock wall was not much further along this hillside, though the trees grew so densely here I could not see it. The light was fading; here in the depths of the wood it was like dusk already. It seemed men and dogs had anticipated where I would go and traversed the stony area further up the hill while I toiled through the forest. Might they now have circled around, ready to confront me when I reached the rock wall? What if I emerged from cover to be apprehended and conveyed home like a runaway child? Aidan . . . For Aidan to be faced with that task would be beyond mortification for the two of us.