‘I didn’t want to come here,’ she says. ‘I didn’t want a new start. I didn’t want to be away from him. I didn’t want to see my Mamani crying. And people said they were wrong to separate, because they’d made a promise . . . but they rowed so much. And even when they weren’t rowing, they were sad. And now they’re not. Or they are, but not so much. Dad laughed, when we went bowling, because we were so rubbish at it, and I realized I hadn’t seen him laugh for so long. And Mum . . . I mean, it’s not easy, but she doesn’t look so . . . pinched. She has new friends. That has to be a good thing. Doesn’t it?’

I keep going, towards her voice.

‘It sounds like a good thing,’ I manage through gritted teeth, using the lantern to batter at the flanks of the wolves; steeling my shoulders against the wings of the shadow owls. ‘New friends are a good thing.’

Finally I see her, head down, eyes closed, her back against a broad oak tree, and I reach out through the shadows to grab her arm. She turns to me, wild-eyed, and gives me a great big wobbly smile, as I pull her in and hold her close.

‘It’s OK,’ I say, and she laughs, because we’re about as far from OK as we could be, lost in this cursed forest. ‘We just need to keep going.’

‘You know you’re glowing,’ she says, pulling back after a moment.

‘Like moonshine?’

‘Yes!’

‘Good,’ I say. ‘That’s got to count for something.’

‘What are you doing?’ says a familiar voice, as a thin faelight cuts a new path through the shadows.

Yanny, his hair standing on end, smoke licking at the ground by his feet, eyes on fire. His fiery whip curls from his wrist and flickers with amber flames. Yanny in warrior mode. Utterly wild and looking very cross.

‘I’m going to the palace,’ I tell him.

‘Good . . .’ He hesitates. ‘Have you thought about what you’ll do? What he’ll be like?’

‘Not too much,’ I say. ‘I know what he’s like. I know what he was before my mother died. And I know what he is now.’ I don’t know how to explain what I’m going to do; I don’t even understand it myself. But I know there is power here, inside me, and in the acorn that pulls me onward. ‘You’ll just have to trust me.’

He looks so conflicted, but there’s no time for more talk – the shadows are coming thicker and faster, and it’s all we can do to keep parrying them with his whip and my lantern. If we don’t do something now, they’re going to consume us all.

‘Go, then,’ he says, his eyes flicking up at Teacake. ‘You’ve got your army with you – I’ll stay here and watch your back.’

I nod. ‘Where are all the others?’

‘They’re on their way,’ he says. ‘We’ve done this before. You go – break the curse, and all this will be over. Don’t worry about me.’ He gives a wicked, glittering smile, and my heart pounds as I return it.