The fire was out; the lamps were dark. There was a clammy chill about the place. Something was terribly wrong here. The only light came through the silk of the walls from the lanterns outside. It showed Mac Dara’s lean face as pallid and lined, the dark eyes sunk deep in their sockets. He motioned to one of the cushioned seats and sat down on the other, long legs stretched out before him. “I should offer you a drink,” he said vaguely, glancing toward the small table.

The same hearth, the same jug, the same goblets . . . I saw it again, Becan falling, the flames taking him; I heard my own shriek of anguish. “There’s no need,” I said. I could not look at Mac Dara without seeing Cathal. They were so alike, the two of them. There was a terrible sorrow on Mac Dara’s face, and in it I saw Cathal broken, defeated, despairing, somewhere out there all alone. “My lord, is something wrong?”

He gazed at me in the dimness. “Why are you here?” he asked.

I must stick to the plan; I must not allow myself to feel sorry for this man who had done the unthinkable. “I don’t know if you remember me,” I said. “I came here with your son, and you made him stay. It’s time for him to come back now. I’m here to fetch him home.”

Mac Dara got up to walk restlessly around the pavilion, his dark cloak moving about him like smoke. “You’ve left it a long time,” he said. “Why bother now? You should have wed a nice lad of your own kind and settled down to produce a brood of children.”

“My lord, I went out from here one day and came back the next, by human counting. You say, a long time. How many moons have passed here in your realm since I went away?” Don’t say it’s years, I willed him.

“Remind me,” said the Lord of the Oak, “what season was it when you last favored us with your presence?”

As if he would forget the momentous day when he had finally lured his son across the threshold. “Spring,” I said.

“And it is autumn here, as you will have observed. You are not so lacking in your wits that you cannot make a count of seven turnings of the moon, daughter of Sevenwaters. Or did you imagine it to be far longer, long enough for his little friend to have faded entirely from my son’s memory? Was that what you feared?”

My mouth was dry. “I knew that was possible,” I said. “That’s why I turned around and came straight back. My lord, I hope Cathal is well.” I fought to keep my voice steady. “Well in body and mind. I did not see him ride by with your court tonight.”