‘There,’ she says.

‘It stings!’

‘Good medicine always stings,’ she says, tucking the jar back into her pocket. ‘Or tastes vile. At least I didn’t make you eat it!’

I turn back to the Stag, who is coming over the icy ground, taking his majestic time as the shadows grow longer with nightfall. ‘Is it helping, Yanny?’ I ask urgently.

‘Probably,’ he says, shifting his shoulder.

‘You can thank me later,’ Zara says. ‘Once we’ve sorted this guy out.’

She bares her teeth in a growl, standing up and glaring at the Stag.

‘Zara!’

‘He’s making me cross,’ she says. ‘Look at him, prancing along as if he owns the place, after everything he’s done.’ She turns to me. ‘Aren’t you angry, Stella?’

‘Sad.’

‘Be sad later,’ she says. ‘Angry now.’

Yanny and I stare at her, but all she does is shrug.

‘Isn’t it time?’ she says.

‘I’d say so,’ says Yanny, looking over at the place where his parents stand shoulder to shoulder, battling shadow men with bolts and chains of fire.

Rory turns from the melee and sees us. She charges over, the shadows thick in her wake. They cling tight to her night-dark flanks, and they spool from her hooves as she thunders towards us. And then Peg is here, rushing up to my shoulder, a tiny glowing lizard.

‘Oh, Peg,’ I whisper, as Rory halts, sending up a flurry of ice crystals.

‘You know how to do it! We practised in the garden,’ Peg says. ‘Don’t you remember?’

‘That was practice? I thought it was an emergency!’

‘It was both,’ he says, somehow managing to sound smug even in the midst of all this chaos. ‘And now that you are come into your power, you will be magnificent!’

‘She is a child, foolish imp,’ snaps Rory, leaning towards us. ‘What do you propose she do? I never bought into that ridiculous legend – it means nothing on the battlefield. She is a child, barely versed in our world.’

‘I have been to the palace,’ I say. ‘I fought through the shadows and the deepest part of the forest, and I faced my father, and he didn’t know me, or if he did, it was only for a moment. He is lost, but I am not.’ I remember Teacake’s words and let them ring true. ‘I’m right here. And I want to help.’

‘She can do it,’ says Yanny, and his voice sends a rush of hope through me as he stands by my side. And then Zara is here too. And if Yanny is tired and fading, then she has only just begun. Her eyes spark; she looks ready to take on the whole of Winterspell by herself.

Rory snorts. ‘Go on, then. Show me what magic you have.’

‘I don’t think this lantern is going to do much against him,’ I whisper to Yanny, as the Stag raises his head and bellows through the clearing.

‘It’s not the flipping lantern,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘It’s never the stuff that matters, Stella. It’s what you put into it! The lantern is just an extension of your hand – of your power. The lantern isn’t sending shadows away – you are! Just . . . do it bigger!’