I was squatting behind an elderberry bush when my skin prickled. A chill; a sense of strangeness. Had I heard a distant cry, a voice neither human nor animal? It was gone now. I tidied myself up and rose to my feet, senses alert. The small birds that had been chattering in the trees and searching for insects in the grass had fallen abruptly silent.

When I got back to the others, a fire had been kindled and water set to heat. There was no sign of Grim. “That was quick,” I said to one of the men, but he made no reply beyond a nod. I sat down next to Flannan on one of the blankets. I still wasn’t used to letting Geiléis’s men wait on me, but the respite was welcome; I had aches and pains all over. At a certain point Grim reappeared, but did not come to sit by us. Instead he leaned against a tree on the far side of the small encampment with arms folded. He looked relaxed, off guard. I knew that pose; it was deceptive.

I accepted cold salt meat and a dried-out hunk of bread, softened with water from the stream.

“You’re very quiet,” murmured Flannan.

That moment of strangeness was still with me, though I was starting to wonder if I’d imagined it. I wasn’t prepared to ask outright if anyone else had heard something odd. One thing I did notice: Ripple, who should have been exhausted after the long day’s walk, was instead on high alert, ears pricked, body tense as she scanned the area around the camp. Obedient to Flannan as always, she stood beside him, but her unease was plain.

“Lady Geiléis?” I asked.

“What is it, Mistress Blackthorn?”

“The birds stopped singing all at once; did you notice?” I let that remark fall into the silence. She could make what she wanted of it. To me, the hush around us signaled the presence of the uncanny. I’d noticed it before, at Dreamer’s Wood. Dreamer’s Wood was full to the brim with magic.

“You are acute, Mistress Blackthorn,” Geiléis said. “Of course, we are drawing closer to Bann, though we have some miles to travel before the tower comes into sight. Its voice—the monster’s voice—carries a long way, and creatures have better hearing than ours. It has the power to silence them. Or so I believe.”

“Extraordinary,” said Flannan. “It sounds like something from an ancient tale. I heard nothing at all.”

There was a note of doubt in his voice, which surprised me. “Every ancient tale has truth at its heart,” I said. “That’s what I’ve always believed, anyway. But after years and years of retelling, the shape of those old stories changes. What may once have been simple and easily recognized becomes strange, wondrous and magical. Those are only the trappings of the story. The truth lies beneath those fantastic garments.”

Geiléis was gazing at me with apparent interest; she had set aside her food almost untouched. What unusual eyes she had, of a light gray-blue with a darker rim. The sort of eyes that belonged in just such an ancient tale as we were discussing.