‘It was Bergold’s sister’s doin’,’ Fian said. ‘That Analivia who was spying on us afore ye went away. She turned up at our camp one day in summer an’ she has been visitin’ regularly ever since. She asks questions of Garth about Newrome an’ the Beforetimers an’ the things we find there. She has even dived down into th’ lake to see th’ drowned Beforetime towers. Then one day, she brought some of her brother’s workers down to th’ White Valley an’ said they were to finish th’ guildhouse.’

I could feel myself gaping. ‘Garth permitted that?’

Fian laughed. ‘Better to say that tryin’ to tell Ana what to do is like tryin’ to order th’ wind around! Seeing her an’ Garth arguin’ is like watchin’ a storm bluster at a great heavy stone! Ye think th’ stone is stronger yet ye ken that in time, th’ wind could wear away a mountain. Garth says “No” an’ “Absolutely not” an’ “Over my dead body”, an’ Ana just gans on an’ does what she wants. The guildmaster groans every time she comes.’

I laughed, picturing the massive Garth being faced down by the feisty yellow-haired woman who had once saved me from a whipping at the hands of one of her father’s sadistic followers. ‘These workers of Bergold’s, did they know before they arrived that they were going to be working for Misfits?’

Fian shrugged, pushing his empty plate aside, and eyed the platter of bread and butter I had brought to the table. I motioned for him to have some, and taking a slice, he bit into it and said with a full mouth, ‘Ana told them, an’ truly I think they were none too keen on comin’ to th’ White Valley, but since we dinna read their minds or talk to one another without speaking or do anything they’d call uncanny, th’ workers have got over their worritin’ about us teknoguilders. They think our interest in th’ past is ghoulish, of course, but they dinna say so openly because Ana is interested, too. She is so fierce they are all scared of her. I was scared of her too, to begin with, but not now. She says she an’ her brother will come up to Obernewtyn fer the moon fair an’ they might even move here once it is a proper settlement.’

‘Garth never sent a word of this,’ I said, feeling a bit dazed.

‘Well he wouldn’t, would he?’ said Fian, grinning mischievously.