“And was it?” A glimmer of understanding came to me. This was what he had meant when he spoke of his presence at Sevenwaters bringing danger down on the rest of us.

“So it seemed. They never troubled me there. Folk say there is a kind of protection over the island. Johnny told me that one of your father’s uncles used to live there, a man of great spiritual strength, and that the cave where he dwelt is under the watch of benign forces. It seems this influence spreads out over the whole of Inis Eala.”

“So you were safe while you stayed on the island, but since you came to Sevenwaters these forces have started pursuing you again.” It did not seem likely. Could he be imagining the whole thing? Had these mysterious pursuers arisen from his childhood unhappiness and made themselves real in his mind? For folk to delude themselves thus was not unknown. But not Cathal, surely. He was too rational, too capable.

“I had heard that Sevenwaters was an uncanny place,” Cathal said. “Just the kind of place, I thought, where these powers would gather around me once more. And they did. That day when we rode out with the children, they drew me off the path. It wasn’t my own double that lured me. It was you.”

I stared at him. “Me?” I said. “But I was with the others all the time, Sibeal and Doran and . . . Aidan.” Oh, it hurt to speak his name. I could see him before me, his brown eyes gentle, his smile sweet. I could hear the ringing notes of a harp.

“The girl I saw was as close to you in appearance as that assassin was to me. Good enough to deceive at a distance, though I doubt I would be taken in now. I followed, surprised to see you on your own and thinking you might be in trouble. At some point within the forest, you—or at least the girl who resembled you—vanished. It was an experiment; a test. They chose right. They learned, that day, that if you were in danger I would break any rule to rescue you.”

A curious feeling was coming over me. This was like the opening of a box of surprises, with each layer that unfolded exposing another, trickier one beneath. Cathal a seer; the Fair Folk pursuing him, leading him astray, perhaps endangering all those close to him; Cathal caring enough about me to put my safety before his own future. It explained many things, but not the crucial question of why. Why would the Fair Folk be so interested in Cathal? What could that possibly have to do with the snatching of Finbar and my mission to bring him home?