Lily couldn’t shake the earth-rattling guilt that seeped into her bones. She had been tasked to care for this poor creature; Morrigan was her responsibility alone, and now … she was dead. It was her fault.

She heard moaning and screaming in the distance, only to realise that it was her own voice. The grief was an echo chamber. Dazed, she floated above the crowd, above the pain, and watched as Lorenna placed a motherly arm around her shoulder and attempted to lead her away from the scene.

Lorenna shook Lily gently and she jolted back to her body, looking up at the woman’s face through tear-streaked eyes. ‘Come on, love,’ Lorenna pleaded. ‘Come inside and have a warm drink. It’ll be all right. Come on.’

Lily clung to Morrigan’s lifeless frame, sobs still bursting from her throat. Her white nightgown was painted scarlet and blood was caked into her unruly curls. She was a girl possessed, eyes streaming.

‘Whoever did this wanted to stop me,’ she spat, venom flying from her mouth. ‘But they’re fools. Now I know they’re scared. Now I am alone and I am fearless.’ She paused to gasp a raspy breath. ‘I’m fearless and I have nothing left to lose.’ She turned to Lorenna, flinching away as the older woman tried to take her hand. ‘It was him, wasn’t it? The man, from last night.’

‘No, love. I doubt that very much.’

Lily was too terrified, too angry to listen.

She stormed inside the inn, tears flowing freely from her eyes, and collapsed onto the floor of her room. How could this happen?

She rubbed her eyes, sending stars flickering behind her eyelids. Life was so easy, she thought, before all of this. Alice needs help, but at what cost?

Is she even worth all of this pain and misery?

Lily stopped herself. Thoughts like that wouldn’t get her very far. Thoughts like that let them win. If they can put so much effort into scaring me away, she realised, how much effort are they putting into keeping Alice captive?

Alice was everything to her. She was strong, resilient, unflappable. Lily tried to embody the strength of spirit that Alice had to personify every single day, living out in the woods, alone and exiled. Lily imagined what Alice would have done if the roles had been reversed, if it had been Lily taken and Alice were the rescuer.

It didn’t take much imagination. Alice was far better suited to heroics than Lily was.

But something has awoken inside me. Lily clenched her fists and screwed up her eyes. Something terrifying, something wild.

The weight of the grief crushed her body into the ground. But underneath it all, there was a burning fury coursing through her. She couldn’t let this destroy her: they wanted her unbalanced, stranded, weak.

Their confidence that murdering her horse would stop her was horrifying, but it had unhinged something within Lily that terrified her. She wanted to track down Alice’s kidnappers – Morrigan’s murderers – and she wanted to make them pay. Never in her life had she had violent or angry thoughts. She was a peaceful person, quiet, thoughtful. But now something else, deep within, was emerging.