After the long ride and that welcome bath, and with a full stomach, I anticipated a good night’s rest. But the decision that lay before me, along with the knowledge that I had kept the truth from Grim, turned my belly into a churning mass of disturbance. When fitful sleep did come it was attended by dark dreams. I did not make any noise—at least, not that I was aware of—but Grim knew, all the same, and stayed awake with me. He asked me once or twice if anything was wrong, and I said, Nothing worth talking about, which was a kind of lie, but not the bare-faced one that an outright No would have been. Geiléis and her monster troubled me less than perhaps they should have. I would deal with them and move on. I would send the creature in the tower packing or I wouldn’t. It was Flannan’s mission that tangled up my thoughts, the mission I longed to say yes to, in spite of all my reservations. It was the only thing that counted. The only thing I cared about. What Flannan had said, about my not being true to Cass if I held back from bringing Mathuin to justice, stuck in my heart like a prickly burr that could not be dislodged. Yet I knew going south would be a reckless choice, even with all those like-minded folk ready to stand up alongside us. Mathuin was powerful. He was ruthless. Some chose freely to serve him; others did so out of fear. He was quick to punish the disobedient and was ingenious in his cruelty. Yes, Flannan’s network was extensive, but I doubted, now, that anything less than a challenge by other leaders could overthrow the chieftain of Laois.

Last autumn I’d walked away from Winterfalls and headed south alone. Back then, my furious desire to see justice—the same passion I’d felt burning in me when Flannan had first told me his plan—had overwhelmed my common sense. If Grim hadn’t come after me and talked me out of going, who knew where I would be now? Back in Mathuin’s lockup, maybe, either thrown there by his henchmen, or magically transported there by Conmael. Though Conmael had given me five chances to get this right. So he might simply have appeared when I reached the border, made a comment about my poor judgment, and told me to go home. And although it galled me to admit it, he would have been right.

So why couldn’t I let go of this? Why couldn’t I tell Flannan straight-out that under no circumstances would I be part of this plot? In my dreams, brief, disturbing dreams, I saw Cass, a man whose goodness had shone from him, a husband who had loved me despite my faults, a father whose son had filled him with joy. I knew in my heart that Flannan was right—if Cass had lived, he would still be fighting. His greatest weapons had been his pen and his intellect. He would have found a way to go on using them. There were other dreams too. The lockup. The dark, the screaming, the thud of a whip on naked flesh. The filth, the things they did to me, the way I became so accustomed to being abused that I almost didn’t care anymore. The faces of those men who shared the place with us. Strangler. Poxy. Dribbles. Frog Spawn. Poor sods.