She hugged herself. It was an old hoody, but she liked well-worn clothes. Her jeans were a state, and she’d forgotten what colour her trainers had once been, but they were comfortable, and more importantly they were her. Lately she’d needed reminding of just who that was.

She looked at the trees. Looked at the sky. Got her mind away from her thoughts. Her thoughts weren’t kind to her. They hadn’t been for quite some time now. She looked at the twigs on the ground. They were dry. It hadn’t rained in two weeks. A rarity for an Ireland still locked in winter’s jaws. She watched a beetle scurry beneath a leaf, caught up in its own little life. To the beetle, she must be a vast, unknowable thing, a hazard to be avoided but not overly concerned about. If a god is going to step on you, it’s going to step on you. You’re not going to waste your little beetle-life worrying about something you have no control over.

She looked up, half expecting to see a giant foot descending, but the sky was blue and clear and free of gods. She waited, nonetheless.

Then she stood, and took the trail back through the trees. She used to walk this path as a child, side by side with her uncle. They talked about nature and history and family and he told her stories and she did likewise. They competed as to who had the goriest imagination, but even when he conceded defeat, with a look of mock-horror on his face, she knew he was holding back. Of course he was. Gordon was the writer of the family.

She remembered walking through this woodland with him. She could recall, quite distinctly, as if looking at a photograph, the angle at which she’d seen him. She was small and he was a grown-up, and his hair was brown and thinning where hers was long and black, but they had the same eyes, the same brown eyes, and when he laughed he had a single dimple, just like she did. It had been twelve years since Gordon had been murdered, twelve years since she’d tumbled into this twilight world of sorcerers and monsters and magic. She’d been twelve when it happened, not even a teenager when she’d started her training. The years, they had thundered by, heavy and unstoppable, a boulder rolling downhill. Bruises and broken bones and bloody knuckles and screams and laughs and tears. A lot of tears. Too many tears.