Sitting beside her, Liska could see Lug squirming, as if he was itching to ask something. ‘I know it might be hard to talk about,’ he began. ‘And I really don’t mean to be nosey . . . but what was the accident? How did you go from being a normal family to . . . you know . . .’

‘Dead?’ Elowen finished his sentence and Liska glared at him, amazed that he could ask a question like that at this precise moment (even though she was curious herself). She thought Elowen might burst into tears or become cross, but instead she gave another sad sigh.

‘Nothing went wrong,’ she said. ‘It was an energy spill. They happen every hundred years or so. Sometimes the magic builds up inside the tree and, instead of channelling it out to be used, there is a blast. Like a bolt of lightning from the sky. Usually it just shoots off into the air harmlessly. But on that day, for whatever reason, it arced down towards the ground. Into our house. We were just having an ordinary morning and then . . . zap! The next thing I knew, we all woke up together in the family tomb underneath the temple.’

‘Did it happen here as well, do you think?’ Lug asked. ‘Are there people in Almberg like . . . like you?’

‘I expect so,’ said Elowen. ‘I was really too young to remember. If there are, they are probably asleep. When you can’t die, when you live forever . . . the days just don’t seem important any more. You start to sleep through a week or two, then a month, then more. Before you know it, a decade or a century has gone. Then you wake up and find out everything is still just the same as when you left. There doesn’t seem to be any point in staying around to see it.’

It seemed so strange to Liska. Living forever was what most people wished for. She’d never considered what it would actually feel like. To know that there was no rush to do anything, see anything, because time was all you had.

‘Is that why your family sleep all the time?’ she asked.

Elowen nodded, throwing another stick on the fire. ‘One or two of us used to be awake at the same time so we had some company at least. But they’ve started to sleep for longer and longer. I suppose, at some point, they just won’t bother waking up at all. As if they were really dead.’

Liska, used to a fort filled with noise and bustle, found it hard to imagine. ‘It must be very lonely for you.’

Elowen shrugged. ‘I don’t like to sleep as much as the others. I just snooze for the odd month here and there. Mother and I woke up a short while ago – that must be when Lug heard us talking – but she drifted off soon after. You get used to being alone after a decade or two . . .’