Nancy shook her head vigorously and shrank back from them. ‘Are you mad? It’s too late for me. There’s nothing for me out there, everyone I’ve ever known, my family, they’re probably all dead and gone by now.’

‘There’s Granny,’ said Cat. ‘She’s alive and she’s never forgotten you.’

‘No. But she’s lived her life, and I’m …’ Nancy looked down at her childlike form. Though her body looked like she was still twelve years old, her mind was much older. ‘I don’t know what I am. I don’t think I could leave even if I wanted to.’

Cat tried to imagine what it was like being a prisoner for so very long and knowing you’d never be free. It made her heart ache. It also hardened her resolve to save Mikey. It might be too late for Nancy, but she wouldn’t let her brother meet the same fate.

‘All right,’ said Shane. ‘Let’s go.’

‘The offer still stands if you change your mind,’ Cat said.

Nancy nodded and watched until Cat and Shane rounded the corner and were out of sight. Then she hid her face in her hands and began to cry. She cried so hard she failed to notice the creature who watched their whole exchange from the shadows with a too-wide grin on his face and she certainly didn’t notice when he leaned forward and, in a quiet voice, whispered a suggestion in her ear.

Chapter Nineteen

The Point of It All

The Pooka waited until the girl wiped her eyes, dusted herself down and slipped back into the Great Hall. Then he whistled and the magpie roused himself from his perch above the doorframe and settled on the Pooka’s shoulder.

‘What did you tell her?’ asked the magpie.

‘I told her she did the right thing refusing to help those two to free their siblings.’

‘Then why did she run off like that?’

The creature grinned. ‘Because I told her what they would have to give up to do it.’

‘Humans,’ sniffed the magpie. ‘So predictable.’

‘That they are.’

‘So, what happens next?’ asked the magpie, shifting from foot to foot. He was getting restless; he wasn’t meant to be indoors like this.

The Pooka smiled. ‘Patience, my friend. You’ll see.’

The bird ruffled his feathers. ‘It’s about time something good happened. I don’t know why you had me round up the Dullahan and the Merrow – fat lot of good those two did, letting the children get away without a scratch.’

The Pooka drew his hands to his chest in mock surprise. ‘I never said I wanted the children to be hurt!’ he said. ‘Besides, not all wounds are so easily seen.’

‘But what was the point of it all?’ muttered the bird.

The Pooka stroked his chin thoughtfully. Payback was certainly a part of it – the child’s grandmother evading his clutches all those years ago was a bruise to his pride he had never quite gotten over. But at the end of the day, there was only one real answer he could give.