I passed the cup back to Grim. I tried moving my head from side to side as an experiment. I flexed my fingers and found myself staring with new fascination at the way they worked.

The others seemed to be waiting. “Oh,” I said. “Thank you.” It was good that this monk was here, even though I could tend to myself perfectly well. Good that someone had been here with Grim; that he hadn’t been alone in the middle of all this. “I have a bit of a headache, yes. But as it turns out, I have all the ingredients for a draft to cure it.” Even the true love’s tears, which Grim never used because I couldn’t get the wretched words out. And yet the curse had still been broken.

I’d frozen up again in the middle of saying something.

“I can make the brew,” Grim said. “Just tell me what to put in it.”

“Let me,” said Brother Marcán quietly. The way he spoke to Grim surprised me. It was like brother to brother. Full of respect and understanding.

“All right. Thanks,” said Grim. “Think you could eat something?” He was talking to me now. “Brother Fergal—he was here before—sent a lad down with some food for us. Not that there’s a lack of it here. Couple of the lay brothers are coming down to sleep in the house with us tonight. Just in case.”

“Just in case what?” Grim wasn’t making sense. And there was a piece of this puzzle missing. Why wasn’t he here? He should have been here. He’d been supposed to wait for me. “Where’s Flannan?” I asked.

A terrible look came over Grim’s face. A truly frightening look. It was just as well Brother Marcán was putting the kettle on the fire and had his back to us.

“Grim. What? Tell me!” Flannan couldn’t be dead too. That wouldn’t make sense.

Grim glanced over at Marcán. Looked back at me and shook his head a bit.

I wasn’t waiting for this, whatever it was. “I need the privy,” I announced, attempting to get up. It was the same as before, in the tower; I couldn’t stand upright. Not even after all that sleep. Spots were dancing before my eyes. “Grim, you’ll have to take me.”

“Tell me the ingredients,” said Brother Marcán, not sounding shocked at all, “and I’ll get on with making your remedy.”

“A good pinch of woodruff. A generous pinch of lavender. Some peppermint. That’s only to make it taste better. Druid’s balm. And an herb called true love’s tears—there’s some in a cloth in that pouch over there. Just a sprinkling of that. Pour over hot water, not boiling, enough to fill one cup, and let it steep a good while. And I’d better be the one to test it out.”

“Impressive, Mistress Blackthorn,” the monk said. “You look ready to swoon, but you can still give me precise instructions in a flash.”

“You’d be the same, I expect.”