‘I saw him on th’ Black Ship with Salamander, speakin’ of the Red Land as his destination,’ she said, her mouth twisting. ‘His words revealed that he expects a warm welcome. He spoke of you, too. He longs to do ye harm, an’ it eats at him that he might have had his desire but dared not, because there is somethin’ he needs from ye. He speaks of your coming to th’ Red Land as a certainty.’

‘He must have foreseen it,’ I muttered, my heart sinking.

‘Maybe so, but even if he did, no futureteller can ever be completely sure that what they see will come to pass or that it will unfold exactly as they have imagined. Besides, Ariel may be a powerful Misfit, but any Talent he possesses will be distorted because he is defective. That is his greatest weakness. That an’ his inability to ken how other people will act. He kens only how he would act, so his decisions about others are always based on what he would do in their place.’

‘Did he speak of Dragon?’ I asked. ‘Does he know about her?’

‘I have seen the likeness of her mother carved on public walls in th’ Red Land, an’ it might be Dragon’s face, so much does the daughter resemble the mother. I think the likelihood is that Ariel will know who she is, if he dinna ken it already,’ Maryon said.

‘I suppose I am a keystone, too,’ I murmured.

Maryon shook her head slowly, her clear dark eyes holding my gaze. ‘I dinna ken what you are, Elspeth Gordie. Whenever I focus a vision on ye it is like lookin’ into th’ heart of a storm. A great knot of possibilities forms about yer every choice, great an’ small. Ye affect an’ alter the lives of all ye encounter. Yer more than a keystone, an’ ye draw them both to you.’

The door opened without warning and a slight young man with flyaway ginger hair and vague brown eyes entered. He set down two large cloth-wrapped packages on the table, bowed and left without saying a word.

Maryon raised her brows in a mixture of resignation and amusement. ‘That was Lief. His aunt brought him up from Darthnor two sevendays past. She said if rumour were true an’ Obernewtyn was to become a settlement for freaks an’ Misfits, her nephew belongs with us. As it transpires th’ lad has a formidable Talent for futuretelling but only in small matters. For example, I dinna ask him to bring these to me. I imagine he simply foresaw that I would summon him an’ ask him to bring them, so he brought them.’

‘What are they?’ I asked, not sorry our previous conversation had been interrupted.

‘Gifts. Open them,’ Maryon said.