She sensed a presence and looked around, saw a tall figure half-hidden behind a bush. She blinked, realizing it was a giant. Not quite big enough for a fully grown giant. A giantling. She stared, and hesitantly the giantling stepped out from behind the bush and took a step towards her. ‘You do that well,’ the giantling said, her speech faltering, almost clumsy.

‘It’s just practice,’ Cywen shrugged, then put another knife in the trunk beside the other two. ‘I’m Cywen,’ she said.

‘I know. The Bright Star’s sister.’

Something about that made Cywen scowl internally.

‘I am Laith,’ the giantling said. She took a few steps closer, reaching inside a leather vest and pulling out a knife. Cywen’s knife.

‘I thought it was you,’ Cywen said.

‘Aye. Balur told me to return it and to ask your forgiveness.’ She stopped beside Cywen, holding the knife out to her. It looked very small in her flat palm.

‘Why did you take it?’

‘You threw it at me,’ Laith said defensively. Then she smiled. ‘I like things that have been made – it is a good knife. A bit small –’ she shrugged – ‘but unusual. The balance is different.’

‘My da made it for throwing,’ Cywen said. ‘The weight is concentrated in the tip.’

‘Ahh, made for throwing. That explains it.’ She held the knife close to her eyes, examining it with fresh interest. ‘I thought that. Your da is a smith?’ she asked Cywen.

‘Aye.’ Was. She threw another knife, imagining the trunk was Nathair.

‘I am a smith,’ Laith said with pride, standing straighter and puffing her chest out. She took up a lot of room. She turned Cywen’s knife between thick fingers. ‘Your da is good. Is he here?’

‘He’s dead,’ Cywen said and drew and threw another knife.

‘Oh.’ Laith hung her head. ‘My da is dead, too.’

Cywen paused and looked at Laith. In the twilight of dusk she looked more like something carved from stone, her limbs long, muscles striated like rope, though not slab-thick like Balur and the other adult Benothi.

‘Keep the knife,’ Cywen said with a smile. ‘Though it looks a little small for you.’

‘I cannot. Balur would . . .’ She looked wistfully at the blade in her palm.

She looks like a bairn with a present on her nameday.

‘You are a smith – keep it to use as a pattern – make another; bigger. More suited to you.’

‘You would have to teach me to throw,’ Laith said. ‘I cannot do that.’ She nodded at the tree trunk, now studded with half a dozen throwing knives.

‘I’ll teach you. It’s not as hard as it looks, especially when the knife is made right.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Farrell said from behind them.

‘That’s because you’re impatient. And you’ve got sausage fingers,’ Cywen said.

‘Oh, and the giant hasn’t,’ Farrell muttered.