He nods. Still looks weighed down.

“You’ve brought back the past,” I say. “That’s good for her. And it’s bad. Talking about Cass and her little boy . . . It hurts her. You’d want to tread softly.”

“I shouldn’t have come,” he mutters. “I’m doing no good here.”

Know that feeling all too well. “If you can put that smile on her face again, you’ll have done more good than you know,” I say. “She’ll be working now. I’ll take you to meet some of the fellows, show you around the place if you want. Big maze here, easy to get lost. Start with the garden, mm?”

Turns out this is a good idea. Walking around gets him out of his gloom. He asks questions, not about the past, just about my garden and the work I do at Winterfalls, thatching and carting and so on. Then I take him and Ripple to meet some of the prince’s guards, the ones I’m friendly with. We share some ale and tell a few stories. And later on, by the time he goes to see Blackthorn again, he’s in a better mood and so is she. If she’s happier, I’m happier. Job well-done.

The two of them have got things to talk about, private things. That’s plain enough. So I keep out of their way and let them talk. That stuff, it’s none of my business. One thing worries me, though. Flannan’s come from the south. He’s from Blackthorn’s past, and the past’s dangerous. Hope he understands why we don’t want anyone knowing where we are.

I ask her about this, one night when we’re in bed but still awake. She snaps at me across the chamber.

“Of course he understands! He’s in the same position as I am. Flannan was part of the whole thing, the letter denouncing Mathuin, the plan to confront him. But he was away a lot; his work often took him across the border. He was in Mide at the time; that’s why he wasn’t taken in when the rest of them were. That’s how he escaped torture and execution. And afterward he just never went back.”

“Not as brave as the others, then.”

“What was he supposed to do, walk straight into Mathuin’s clutches saying, Oh, you forgot me? Not a sensible idea unless you believe in heroic sacrifice, which I don’t.”

I’m thinking that’s exactly what she was planning to do last autumn when she started off for Laois all by herself. But I don’t say so. She was sensible enough to stop when I caught up with her. Something I’ll be glad of until the day I die.

“I’m going to sleep,” Blackthorn says. “No more talk about this. It’ll only give me nightmares.”

The next morning she’s cast off her bad feelings, and she’s walking around with a smile in her eyes and a spring in her step again. Makes me wonder what I was worrying about. Seeing her this way’s like magic, not spells and curses but a good kind of magic. Like spring flowers and sunshine and children laughing. I do miss sitting with her, just the two of us chatting the way we did before Flannan came. I used to drop in when she was free, bring her a brew, pass the time of day until she started work again. Makes me sad that we don’t do that now. If anyone drops in to see her, it’s him, not me. But how can I want things any different, with her so happy?