I considered Grim’s theory about the curse turning my thoughts upside down. I hoped it was true; I thought it might be. Right now, tired as I was, I felt more clear-headed than I had been for a long time. I still felt bitter, but only toward Flannan, and through him Mathuin. Not toward the whole world. Not toward myself.

Enough thinking about that; I’d soon be tying my own head in knots with no need for the curse’s help. I thought instead how soothing the smell of peppermint was, and how comforting the feeling of a warm cup between chilled hands. How pleasing the dance of the flames on the hearth. Peace, I thought. For now, peace.

I had not expected to sleep again so soon, but I did, to be woken much later by Grim saying there was warm water ready for bathing and all monks were forbidden entry until I was finished. He had put up the screen and readied soft soap, a brush, a cloth for drying and a change of clothing for me.

“Be careful,” I said. “You’ll be turning into Senach soon.” But neither of us laughed. What an existence for those men, condemned to live on with Geiléis until the spell was broken, steadfast in their loyalty to the very end. I wondered if they had feared that end at first, and then, as chance after chance passed them by, had begun to long for it? Some, maybe. But I thought Donncha, at least, had caught sight of the life he might have had. I could not imagine him going willingly into death.

The bath was bliss. I soaked and scrubbed, trying to erase the sensation of being scaly and scabby and wretched all over.

“Saved those battle garments for you,” said Grim from the other side of the screen. “The ax too. Might come in useful sometime.”

“For what?”

“You never know.”

“If nothing else, they’d remind me of the peril of trying to be something I’m clearly not cut out to be,” I said. “When I got up there, he just knelt down and let me do it. Pushed his hair out of the way and offered his neck. He was desperate for it to be over, poor man.”

“Blackthorn?”

“Mm?” He’d put a scattering of dried lavender in the water; the smell was sweet.

“What did you see, after that? Before I got there?”

I swallowed, remembering. “When I’d done it, he was himself again straightaway, head and all. A man of around Geiléis’s age with long dark hair, wearing a white shirt. He looked at me and said, I’m sorry, and, more fool me, I had no idea what he was talking about. Then Geiléis was there—the thorns must have opened up again as soon as I’d struck off his head—and she ran into his arms and they clung to each other. They didn’t speak much, only I love you, and Oh gods, at last, and each other’s names: Lily, Ash. He stroked her hair. She laid her head against his chest. Smiling and weeping, the two of them. It was like the happy ending of a tale, only . . . only then I started to change, and so did they.”