I grimaced. “And there was I thinking maybe you’d had something to do with that.” It was pleasing to know that my use of natural magic had been effective; that the success of that night had owed nothing to fey intervention.

“I?” Conmael’s elegant brows shot up. “I trust you. Possibly more than you trust yourself. Why do you imagine I offered you the lifeline I did? It was not out of a wish to play some kind of game, I assure you. I did so because I knew you could make something better of your life.”

“Then why the conditions? Why not just free me and let me go my own way?”

“Hatred was devouring you. The only thing left in your heart was the will for vengeance. You wouldn’t have survived a single day. Even now, the desire to go back to Laois, to see your enemy face justice, tugs at you constantly. That is your great weakness. Give in to it, and you will disappoint me.”

“I cannot think why your disappointment should matter to me in the slightest, Conmael.”

“You will also disappoint yourself. And that, I think, would matter.”

“Rubbish. If there’s one thing I want to achieve before I die, it’s to see Mathuin brought to account for his crimes. Nothing else matters. Nothing.”

“Your expectations of what you can achieve are unrealistic. Hence my conditions and their term. Seven years: long enough to reclaim the woman you once were. Long enough to complete a journey.”

“What journey?”

“To wisdom.”

“Morrigan’s curse, what are you, some hoary old mentor teaching a half-grown girl? First you say you trust me; then you tell me I’m still bound to your rules. What sort of trust is that?”

“Did I not say you could travel to court?”

“But not be my own woman.”

He sighed, moving his graceful pale hands in a gesture suggesting helplessness. Which was ridiculous; whatever game we were playing, Conmael held all the pieces. “You will always be that,” he said.

“Bollocks, Conmael. You saw me in Mathuin’s lockup. I’d lost any vestige of the woman I was before. That place hammered me flat. It wrung out every drop of kindness. It turned me into a . . .” Why was I telling him this? “Never mind. I will go to court, I will keep to your wretched rules. I wish you’d explain what it’s all about. I wish you’d explain why my small human life is of sufficient interest to you that you believe you should take control of it.”

“The reason is of no importance.” Conmael was not smiling now. “If it were, you would remember.”

“Remember what?”

He rose to his feet, elegant as always, and reached out a hand to help me up. I did not take it.

“Remember what, Conmael?”

“As I said, it is of no importance. And now you must be getting on. Did you not say you had folk to visit, places to go? Make sure you are back in Winterfalls by the fourth full moon. And be mindful of your promise.” He did not wait for me to say good-bye, but in characteristic fashion faded and vanished before my eyes. Wretched fey! There was no making sense of them. The only thing certain about this day was that I’d best hurry if I wanted to partake of Grim’s brew before I headed off to the settlement. As for the looming stay at court, Grim and I would have to grit our teeth, breathe deeply and somehow get through it.