Lug buried his face in his hands. ‘Yes, but now my parents are going to ask me loads of questions. They’re going to discover what I did and then they’ll be furious.’

Liska stood and watched him for a few minutes. When it looked like he wasn’t ever going to take his hands off his face, she sighed and tapped him on the shoulder.

‘You did promise to tell me, you know, back at the swamp, before the battle. You said it was to do with the Cryptwood and then Noxis appeared . . .’

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Lug said from behind his fingers. ‘It’s vermispex business.’

‘Try me,’ said Liska. ‘It convinced you the legend was real, so it might convince me, too.’

The sound of a sigh came from behind Lug’s hands, and then he finally dropped them to his sides. ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘But this is just between you and me.’

‘Of course,’ said Liska, crossing her fingers behind her back.

‘Well,’ Lug began. ‘I told you vermispexes could summon worms. But that’s not all we can do. We can also use our magic to connect with them. We can’t see through their eyes because they’re blind, but we can feel what they feel and hear through their ears.’

‘Like tiny underground spies?’

‘Yes, I suppose. Except that using such power is forbidden. One of our ancestors got into trouble with the treekeepers about it, and since then it’s considered very wrong.’

A grin began to spread over Liska’s face. ‘But you used it, didn’t you? Who did you spy on?’

Lug blushed a deep shade of crimson. ‘I wasn’t spying! Not really . . . At least I didn’t mean to.’

‘Explain,’ said Liska, folding her arms.

Lug blushed even more. ‘It was a week or so ago now. I was playing in the swamp, training some worms, when I saw this girl in the Cryptwood. You remember how close it is to the swamp?’ Liska nodded.

‘Well, I saw her walking through the trees, and then she just disappeared. I thought she was a ghost but I saw her again the next day, and the next. Finally I asked my mother about it and she told me there were people living in the wood.’

‘Living there?’ Liska couldn’t believe it. ‘I thought the place was full of ghosts and tree spirits.’

‘So did I. But it turns out there was this family, years and years ago, who had a whole estate there. Then there was a terrible accident – some kind of surge of magical energy from the Undrentree – and they were all killed. Stone dead.