Anastacia’s halo faded, the fury in her expression slipping away alongside. Weariness replaced it. Weariness, tinged with surprise.

“Josiri can leave whenever he likes. I thought you’d realised.” She pressed a hand to her lips to stopper a truth already poured away. “You must say nothing. Please.”

With those words, two pillars of Calenne’s existence fell away into wrathful flames. That Branghall wasn’t the cage she’d believed it was bad enough. But that Josiri had said nothing? Indeed, that he’d repeatedly lied to her on the topic when he knew she was so desperate to leave? So much for Trelans sticking together. So much for being able to trust the only family she had left.

“No! You’re lying! You have to be! If he can leave whenever he wishes, why would he stay?”

The demon hesitated. “Because his cage isn’t the same as yours. The walls and the enchantment are only part of what binds him.”

“And the rest?” Calenne waved her own question aside. Anger faded, replaced by a feeling of profound foolishness. “It’s me, isn’t it? He’s protecting me.”

“He knows that if he’s gone, you’ll have to take up his burdens.”

“Then he’s an idiot.”

“Or he knows what you refuse to admit. That you’re more your mother’s daughter than you realise.”

Calenne felt sick. It was too much to take in, especially on top of everything else. “So I’m both a selfish child and a noble soul all at once, is that it?”

“We’re all selfish, Calenne. It’s how we survive. Some of us have learned to live with the consequences.” Anastacia took a deep breath. “If you wish to escape Branghall, I can show you how.”

Could she really be free of it all? Calenne stared at the demon, searching for a chink in expression that would reveal the lie. But if Anastacia wove deception, she did so without loose threads to snag.

“Where would I go? What would I do?”

She hated that nagging sense of reluctance. It reaffirmed the image of a spoilt child, demanding what others had to earn.

“That’s up to you,” Anastacia replied. “It’s a big world. Lose yourself in it. I’ve learnt that it’s always better to do something than nothing.”

“Even if it means you’re following the wrong course?”

“How else will you find out where the proper course lies?”

Calenne turned her back on the demon and stared out across the eastern valley.

How else indeed?

The dappled sunlight of Maiden’s Hollow was aroar with drunken laughter, fuelled by ale-stocks broached to toast Ascension. Someone had even fashioned a crude lumendoll from fallen branches and set it in the centre of the dancers’ ring. A queen surveying her court. Let folk of quality toast the goddess with prayer. The old ways fired the blood better by far.