Only it wasn’t so very secret, I thought, as I remembered myself slipping past the kitchen door earlier, using a glamour so that Cronan would not see me—Cronan who had been packing a willow basket just like the one the monster had hauled up into the tower. Exactly like, down to the pattern of ivy woven along the side.

It might have been coincidence. Baskets did have a certain similarity. This one had been big enough to hold a flask of mead and sufficient food for a long day and night. Big enough to take a warm blanket, folded tightly, or a change of clothing and a full water skin. Could Geiléis’s retainers be feeding the monster without her knowledge? Why in the name of all the gods would they do that? To keep the thing alive was to let the curse drag on and on. If there was one thing I knew about Senach and the rest of them, it was that they loved Geiléis and wanted to serve her well. But the alternative was even odder: that Geiléis knew what they were doing; that she had sanctioned it. If that was true, she had been lying to us from the start.

The wailing had started again. The fey folk’s gift had not kept the creature quiet for long. A pox on this! Wretched secrets! I needed to ask Geiléis straight-out about this. Tell her what I’d seen, what Grim had seen, demand a full explanation. But I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. At every point the small folk had asked us to keep our conversations secret. They had trusted us. Gods help me, what a tangle! I could only hope Flannan’s manuscript was exactly what he hoped it was: a clear and complete account of the whole story, monster, curse, tower, fey helpers and all. Then Geiléis would have no choice but to tell the truth.

As I walked into the courtyard I clothed myself in the glamour again. I’d planned to use the door that led from the yard to my quarters. But there in the yard was Caisín, filling a bucket at the well. Her hair was caught back in a scarf; her sleeves were rolled up. I froze. On the seamstress’s bare arms were scars twin to Onchú’s, raised, livid. This young woman, too, had been marked by the thorns.

I made the decision almost without thinking. I dropped the glamour, then cleared my throat. “Good morning, Caisín.”

She spun around, tugging down her sleeves. “Oh! Mistress Blackthorn, you startled me! Have you been out walking?” Her voice was shaking.

“Down to the river and back. Caisín, may I ask you a personal question?”

It felt cruel; the look in her eyes was that of a rabbit facing a hunting dog. She made a little sound, neither yes nor no.

“I couldn’t help noticing the marks on your arms,” I said. “Might I have a closer look? I can see they distress you, but I am a healer, and such things interest me.”