The voice was not Mac Dara’s. It was Cathal’s, full of cold fury. He was here. He was here beside me, reaching to support me, his arms as gentle as his tone had been hard.

“Becan,” I gasped through my sobs. “Oh, Cathal, he . . . he . . .”

Cathal unfolded my tightly clenched fists, revealing the pebble and the scorched scrap of shawl. For a moment his whole body went still. Then he leapt to his feet, strode to the table, grabbed the jug and hurled its contents onto the flames. There was a sizzling. As the blaze died momentarily down, Cathal thrust his hands into the fire and snatched something out, cursing under his breath. He crouched beside me, holding what was left of the changeling. I made myself look, fighting down a new wave of nausea. Becan was scorched and broken, one arm quite gone, his face an ugly travesty of its sweet uncanny self, his body blackened and twisted. Smoke arose from the bark of his lips; inside, he was still burning. He was completely still, his remaining eye blank and lifeless. He looked exactly the manikin of forest matter that my family had believed him, a thing that was not alive and never had been. There were sounds coming out of me I had never heard anyone make in my life, racking, tearing sobs that made my whole body hurt. Cathal laid the baby down on the ground, then reached into my pack for the water-skin. Without a word, he put it in my hand.

My hands shaking violently, I took out the stopper and trickled the contents gently over the ruined body of my little one. Behind us, nobody was saying a thing.

“Clodagh,” Cathal said quietly. “You must take your brother and go. Go right now. I know it’s hard, but you must do as I say.”

Something in his tone brought me back to reality, and in a flash I understood what Mac Dara had done. Because of him I had delivered not one, but two of those I loved to the enemy. All calculated. All planned. I gathered the pitiful remnant of my child and got to my feet, and Cathal rose to stand behind me, his hands around my arms, holding me against him. I looked over at the Lord of the Oak. Triumph blazed on his face, the face that was almost the twin of his son’s, but not quite. He was the master trickster. In the end, he had outwitted us all.