“You can do it,” Flannan said. “Trust yourself, and it will work out for the best, I’m sure. Of course I don’t like to see you walking into danger; it’s a daunting task. But you’ll succeed. I’m absolutely sure of that, and I know Cass would be too.”

A pox on the man; now he was making me cry. I needed to stay strong, whatever happened. Strong enough to face what waited for me in Laois; strong enough to stand up in front of Mathuin and speak coherently even if anger and terror were ripping me apart. Maybe the monster in the tower would be good practice.

I scrubbed a hand over my cheeks. “Cass would think I was crazy even to consider tackling Geiléis’s monster,” I said.

“But that was one of the things he loved about you. The way you never trod the common path. And that’s been in you since the first; since long before you ever met Cass. Remember that strange little boy back in Brocc’s Wood, the one everyone called the changeling? What was his name—Cully? That day when you stood up for him, I remember wishing I could be brave like you. You didn’t care a bit what anyone thought. You weren’t afraid of anything; you just went ahead and said what needed to be said. You’re still that same person, Saorla.”

A strange bell sounded in my mind. Cully. How odd that Flannan had mentioned that outcast boy from our childhood, when I had been thinking of him not long ago, for the first time in many years. An odd coincidence. “Don’t call me Saorla,” I muttered.

“Blackthorn, then. You can do this. I’m sure of it. If you break this curse you won’t just be doing Geiléis a favor, you’ll be changing many folk’s lives for the better. Isn’t that what we were trying to do in Laois?”

“Still are, from what you’ve told me.” I was only half listening now; in my mind I was sitting under the trees in a faraway forest, watching in silence as Cully coaxed a squirrel to take a nut from his hand. The scene was clear in every detail: an awkward, spindly boy with hair so dark it was more black than brown, eyes of midnight blue, skin unnaturally pale even in summer. Features that were somehow not quite right for a human child. Those who had called him changeling had not really believed he was one—what they’d meant by the word was different, outside, someone who did not fit. Like me. Only nobody had dared to call me names.

“Blackthorn?”

Flannan had been saying something and I’d missed it completely.

“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore, not tonight. If you’re not prepared to leave before Midsummer Eve, then I suppose we won’t. You’re the one who knows the way. You’re the one who knows the people involved.”

“So you’ll go through with it?”

“It seems so, though I can’t quite believe I’m saying that. Flannan, I really don’t want to talk about it. I’m going inside now.”