A moment’s elation; a moment’s recognition that this was an amazing gift. Then I looked around me and my heart sank. There was no way out. We were trapped. The roots of the tree had found a purchase on the cliff. For human feet there was no space at all. I could see no shelf or ledge to which I might scramble, even supposing I could traverse the horizontal trunk while holding the baby in my arms. Try that and I would fall, taking Becan with me. Peering downward through the foliage, I saw the canopy of the forest below us, and a silver ribbon that might be quite a large river. A cold hand of terror clawed at my belly. Birds circled down there, pale dots against the deep blue-green of the distant trees. We had fallen perhaps halfway down the cliff. Above us the rock face reared high, its surface steep, sheer and devoid of any chink wide enough to accommodate so much as a clurichaun.

I fought back panic, scrambling for solutions. Cathal, at the top . . . I had heard him shouting before. Perhaps he was lying crushed and broken up there, victim to those sinister rolling boulders. If even the stones had minds of their own in this place, what chance did we have? Stop it, Clodagh. Make a plan. I did not think this had been an accident. Someone had set things up so I would fall. Perhaps it was a test. If the Fair Folk intended me to undertake this journey and to rescue my brother, there must be some way I could get out of this situation. Cathal was a good climber; he’d been nimble as a squirrel the day he’d rescued Coll from that massive oak. I eyed the cliff face again, with its sheer surface and complete lack of useful ledges. The most agile climber in the world could not do it. Stop shivering, Clodagh. Show some backbone. It was hard with the baby’s frightened screams assaulting my ears and that endless drop below me, only one false move away.

“Make a list,” I muttered to myself. Back home that trick had helped me stay calm in a number of panicky situations. I made an inventory of what I had on my side. I was unhurt, apart from the scratches and bumps I had borne before this particular disaster. Becan was distressed but seemed unharmed. I had a small knife in my belt. The list of what I didn’t have was longer: no bag, no food, no water. No rope. No Cathal. Even if he was all right, he might not be able to see or hear me from up there. And what could he do anyway?