The trees of Winterspell grieve to see him, and the fae of the forest fight. They fight with all that they are, and they hope for the Lost Prince, whose arrival will change everything.

The grass gets deeper as we go, and the sound of the place fills my mind. It’s a whispering song, of autumn leaves drifting, of streams rushing over rocks, of starlight through a canopy of winter branches. Yanny’s feet are silent over a carpet of leaves and soft bracken, and I try to tread as carefully as he does as we enter the dark heart of the forest, but every move I make feels clumsy and distorted, as if I’m walking for the first time. The shadows flutter at the edge of my vision, and there’s a strange vibration through the air that doesn’t seem to bother Yanny.

‘Steady!’ he says, as I trip over the outstretched root of a towering oak with a glittering golden trunk. He catches my arm and stops me from falling.

‘Sorry!’

He shrugs. ‘I’ve spent all my life here; you haven’t. Keep to the path – look.’

And there it is: a narrow spiral of harder ground leading further into the shadows, bordered by tiny ghost-pale flowers that swing their heads in my direction. Their voices are like chiming bells, but there are shadows that call louder. Between the trees and shuffling in the wind, they flit, in dark spaces, and the further in we go, the faster they get through the trees, just out of reach and almost out of sight, filling the air with darkness.

‘OK?’ Yanny asks, looking back.

‘Don’t worry about me,’ I say, training my eyes on the path.

‘That might be easier if you could stay on your feet!’ he says with a surprised curse as I slip on some black ice and career into him, sending us crashing into the low-hanging, spiky branches of a nearby bush.

‘So . . . sorry!’ I manage, trying to repress sudden giggles that are mostly jangling nerves.

He grins, his teeth sharp, even as his eyes flick to the patches of darkness between the trees. And then there’s a shuddering bellow from somewhere in the deep.

‘No,’ breathes Yanny. ‘That’s the Stag. We need to run.’

But the roots writhe beneath our feet, and the ivy that clings to the trees is a wild, snaring thing, and even Yanny is less sure-footed now. Ice gathers in sharp splinters on the path, and we slip and slide as we head further into the darkness. He grabs my hand as the ground around us begins to rumble, as the shadows clamour closer to the path. They are alive, gathered into the shapes of wild creatures, and they open their yawning mouths wide.

I should have stayed away.

‘Here!’ Yanny shouts, diving down beneath the reaching branches of a willow, fumbling with the latch of a trapdoor.

Golden light spills out. Voices – and the smell of food.