“The time came. Cathal was seven years old and, right on time, Mac Dara came a-tapping on Firinne’s door again. It wasn’t fun and games he wanted this time, but his own child to carry off to the Otherworld. And when Firinne told him Cathal had fallen sick and died two years earlier, the Lord of the Oak didn’t believe her. He pressed her; she held fast to her lie. He used a charm to try to force the truth out of her. She fled out the back way, down to the riverbank. Exactly what occurred there I cannot tell you, for not a living soul was witness to it. I do not believe Firinne killed herself. Her ancestors were the Sea People. She would not have chosen a death by drowning. Nor do I think Mac Dara murdered her, for with her would die a vital clue to his son’s whereabouts. In any event, she carried the truth to her watery grave. I believe they struggled, and that somehow in that struggle she was killed. It was a few days before the boys found her body in the water; time enough for any telltale marks to be gone.”

It was almost too much to take in. “This changes everything,” I said, wishing with all my heart that I could tell Cathal this news right now, for if this was a true story, it gave him back the most precious gift of all: his mother’s love. “If only I had known this before we crossed over into the Otherworld. If only someone could tell him. He’ll be so lonely and lost, without any love at all. What if he sinks into despair?”

Willow raised her brows. “You think him so weak?” she asked with a half-smile.

“Weak?” I was outraged. “Of course not! I just wish someone could tell him the truth about what happened to his mother. And about the powers he might have inherited from her. If she stood up to Mac Dara, if she kept her secret until death, she must have been a brave woman.”

“She was,” said Willow. “Cathal is her son; he, too, will be brave. But he does need you, Clodagh, so you’d best listen while I tell the rest of the story quickly. It took another five years for Mac Dara to work out where his son was. That was highly unusual. Anyone would have expected a powerful prince of the Tuatha De to discover the truth within one season at the most. Why so long? Well, it wasn’t the green glass ring. That was a charm to ensure the boy’s physical safety, not to keep him hidden. No, the reason Mac Dara found it hard to track him down was the boy’s heritage: Tuatha De on the father’s side, both human and Sea People on the mother’s. Young Cathal was an explosive bundle of eldritch power wrapped up in the body of a sad, confused, clever little boy. Not long after his mother’s death, he began to sense that someone was making attempts to draw him away from safety. He took his own steps to deal with it, hardly understanding what he did. He made up the sort of luck charms all children invent. Because Cathal was who he was, his wards worked. Sometimes he looked into the water and saw things that couldn’t really be there. He told nobody, though from time to time he made use of what the visions revealed. He hated being different. But you know that part.”