What followed was more battle than meal. Becan was desperately thirsty, but I struggled to get even a small amount of water into him. After what seemed an age, he fell into a restless sleep. I set him down with the cloak around him and rose to my feet, scrubbing the tears from my face. My head was throbbing. A moment later, Cathal put his arm around me, as a brother might, and said, “It’s all right, you know. You don’t have to be brave every single moment.” I let myself lean on him, my forehead against his chest, but not for long. Something had changed between us when we came down the cliff. The touch of his hands, the warmth of his body against mine, awakened feelings in me that were not at all those of a sister. I had embraced him before, by the river, and even in that extreme had felt it—a glow, a warmth, an awareness in certain parts of my body that was quite new to me, and made sense of certain remarks of Deirdre’s about Illann and her wedding night. Tired and despondent as I was, my body was not letting me ignore those feelings. I should have realized, when Cathal kissed me in the hallway, that my response was the first raindrop heralding a storm. This was perilous. I stepped back out of his embrace.

“Clodagh,” my companion said quietly, “we must drink before we move on. Shall we try this water together?”

“If we turn into toads, at least we’ll be good company for each other.” I forced a smile. “All right, let’s do it.”

Side by side we knelt on the mossy bank of the little stream and scooped up handfuls of the brownish water. Side by side we drank. It tasted fresh, sweet, a little peaty. I noticed a clump of crimson toadstools further upstream, and a patch of cress. It would be possible to eat here, if a person didn’t mind risk.

“You look . . . tired,” I said as I sat back on the bank. It was an understatement.

“Ah, well,” said Cathal, lips twisting in a familiar way, “it’s not been the easiest of days. Did you know your hair goes even wilder when it gets wet?”

I put a hand up involuntarily, as if it mattered in the least whether my hair resembled a rat’s nest right now. “Cathal?”

“Mm?”

“We can’t go on very far like this, can we? I made a stupid mistake when I refused that offer of help.” I bowed my head against my drawn-up knees.

After a moment he said, “Most folk would agree with you, I’m sure. Perhaps I should, too. If you’d accepted, I’d have been left behind. I could have been back at Sevenwaters by now, enjoying a hot bath and a solid meal.”