“She must have given up on her sweetheart,” he went on. “If she was her parents’ only child, and they had been struck dead, she would have been the last of her line and you would not exist.”

She never gave up. Never considered it, even for a moment. She kept faith for two hundred years; if she had to, she would keep faith for two hundred more. For Ash. She had promised. Geiléis bit her tongue. Her nails dug into her palms.

“But then,” said Flannan quietly, “the woman who cursed Lily told the girl she would live to see her sweetheart freed.”

Geiléis was suddenly alert to danger. She made herself unclench her fists, relax her jaw. Her guards were right outside the door. They would act in an instant if she summoned them.

“Perhaps she lives on, even now,” she said. “An ancient woman, old almost beyond endurance, clinging to life until the curse is broken at last. Not daring to make herself seen, lest she be cast out. Lest she be taken from him.”

“She’d be more than two hundred years old,” said Flannan. “It defies logic. Blackthorn might be prepared to believe it. I am more inclined to think that this monk, the man who recorded the tale, was an imaginative soul. But then, there is the tower, and the thorn hedge, and the wailing monster. There is the undeniable effect of the curse. A shadow that lies over you and your people even to this day.”

She gathered her wits; spoke calmly. “If your accounting is accurate, Master Flannan, this tale does indeed explain many of the troubles that plague the district. Small fey folk—how odd. I had no idea . . . And it tells us what Mistress Blackthorn must do in order to break the curse.” She hesitated. His tale, thus far, had contained nothing that could not be repeated in front of Blackthorn—with less than four days left, it was time the nature of the task was spelled out for her. Grim would raise objections, no doubt, but Geiléis judged it unlikely Blackthorn would change her mind about going through with it. This account might even strengthen her belief in the mission. But Flannan . . . why had he brought this to her first? Why was his manner so odd? What if the document did indeed contain the curse in full, and he was playing a trick? Was he planning to come out with that last part in front of Blackthorn, and doom the venture to failure? But if so, why not wait until she was here?

He had his chin on his steepled hands, and was regarding her gravely. She was going to have to ask him. She could not assume he had told all he knew. She could not afford to let him walk away, not knowing. But no direct question. Do that, and his suspicions would be quickly aroused.

“Give me your opinion, Master Flannan. The terms of the curse make it clear that once Blackthorn does this, the monster will be a monster no longer. If Lily still lived, the lovers would be reunited; all would be well. But . . . I cannot help feeling there might be some . . . aftermath. Some complication. She who pronounced the curse was evidently both cruel and thorough. I cannot imagine her granting a happy ending. What do you think?”