The baby had fallen asleep. It was as we sat quietly over our brew that Ana spoke again. “Fursa was a good man. Don’t think he let us down, me and the babe. He wanted to be a father. Wanted it with all his heart. He wanted to be a good provider. Only . . . only he was just sad. Too sad to go on. Nothing helped. Nothing made him better. I tried, I did try—” Her tears flowed freely now, wetting the baby’s face as she held him close. “I did my best. But he—he—”

I moved over to sit beside her; put my arm around her. I thought that if she knew what an angry, broken soul I was, she would not have chosen my shoulder to weep on. Anger boiled up in me, that she was reduced to this pitiful state through no fault of her own. I struggled not to blame her husband, who had killed himself when she was close to giving birth to their only child. It seemed the most selfish of acts; a denial of his love for her. But I had seen enough such deaths before to know that when the cloud of sorrow hangs too heavily over a person, nothing helps; no love, no hope, no faith is strong enough to draw them back from the brink. In my mind I saw Grim, standing dark and still on the high bank overlooking Dreamer’s Pool. I remembered the chill of utter terror I’d felt when I’d realized I had only a moment to find the words that would stop him from jumping to his death. Because I knew him inside out, I had found them. Because he had not reached the point of complete despair, he had heard them. Not so Fursa. And now here was his wife, with a grievously sick son and a demanding old man to look after, and not even the most basic supplies in the house. With Geiléis’s household only an hour’s ride away. Without Donncha, who knew what would have happened here?

“Don’t ask Lady Geiléis,” Ana said, wiping her eyes on a corner of the baby’s shawl. “She’d find out about Donncha coming. She might be angry.”

And she might stop him from visiting again, which would be a disaster. It was not only the supplies; it was the friendly face. It was knowing that someone cared. “What about your neighbors?” I asked again. “Can’t they help you?”

Ana grimaced. “It’s a long way to the next house. And they’re all struggling, Mistress Blackthorn. It doesn’t seem right to ask.”

I wanted to promise I would see them looked after. But I couldn’t promise. In a few days I’d be gone. I might ask Geiléis for this as a payment or reward, I supposed, after I had banished her monster from the tower. But since I planned to leave with Flannan as soon as I’d done whatever was required on Midsummer Eve, I would have no way of holding her to it. It came to me with uncomfortable clarity that heading south would be a selfish decision. That I would be leaving unfinished business behind me, sorrows I could have eased, good work I could have done. I could only hope that the removal of the creature would restore this entire district to what it had been before. If these people were free from the curse, they might find the will to take control of their lives again. Not overnight, maybe, but in time.