“She had you under a spell,” Lily breathed. This was like something from an ancient tale, not real life. Innocent though she was, she had no difficulty in imagining the missing part of the tale, from Brión’s first dazzled greeting to the woman to the moment she had found him next day, lying exhausted in the tower, his body all over bruises and scratches. She tried not to judge him; she tried hard. “Tell me the rest, Ash.”

He flushed scarlet. “I . . . She and I . . . It was as if I was in a different world, and the rules of this world were forgotten. I wish I had not done it. I could blame her. I could say she made me do the things I did, lured me, worked her magic on me. But the blame is mine. I should not have followed her. I should have said no to her. I should have been brave enough to refuse. And I should have been brave enough to tell you the truth from the start.” His voice was stronger now, and the blush had faded somewhat. He fixed his eyes on hers, and the look in them was clear and honest. “I’m sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me, Lily. What I have to offer you . . . as a husband, I mean . . . is spoiled. Tainted. I should not have let this happen.”

“She ensorcelled you,” Lily said. “That’s why you’re still afraid.”

“If we went away, we could be free of it. Far away, where she could not find us.”

The idea seemed to Lily no more reasonable than it had been before she knew the truth. “No,” she said firmly. “We should stand up to her. We should be brave. Running away never solved anything.” Oh, the naïveté! Oh, the youthful confidence! Oh, the stupidity!

“I can’t go on,” Geiléis whispered. “I can’t go past that moment, I can’t. Not again. Please don’t make me tell it again.” But there was nobody to hear. She clutched her shawl around her, staring out into the gathering dark. She’d been a fool to believe for a moment that he could hear the story as she told it, night after night. The curse was cruel in its every careful particular. There was nothing soft about it. There was nothing in it to her own advantage, no kindness, no concession, no provision to make the long penance easier to endure. Tell it. Tell it until you understand what you have done. Tell it over and over until this all comes to an end.

“All we wanted was to be happy,” she said to the empty air. “That, surely, did not merit such suffering.” The cruelest part was this: she who had worked the curse had not been seen from that day on, but still the spell endured. A powerful magic indeed. That boy who had followed a beautiful woman into the forest could have had no idea what he would unleash.