“What did I say? In the story, what did I say? Did they hear me?”

“Who, Flannan and Brother Dufach? They could hardly not hear you—they were right there.” She waits for me to catch up so we can walk together. “You made the clurichaun battle end in bloody slaughter. Warriors who’d forgotten everything but the weapons in their hands and the enemy waiting to be killed—I think those were your words. You tell a good story, I’ll give you that. But this was . . . it was different. Almost uncanny. Brother Dufach suggested it was the curse affecting you. The crying getting into your head and . . . well, taking over.”

I could tell her different, but I don’t. The monster crying was part of it, that’s most likely true. But the bloody slaughter was in my head already. No shaking it out. No shutting it down. And kindly Brother Dufach’s part of the problem. “Sorry,” I tell her. “Sorry I messed things up.”

“Forget it,” says Blackthorn. “If we think this through, maybe we can learn something. Where were you, all this time? I went right back to the house, looking for you.”

Secret. But I can’t keep secrets from her. Be like one half trying to lie to the other half. “Something happened,” I say. “Something strange.”

“Tell me.”

“Thing is,” I say, “maybe it wasn’t real. Could have been what that monk said, the crying getting to me. Making me see things that weren’t there.”

“What things?”

“One of those little folk. Like the one I told you about before. He talked to me.”

“Saying what?”

“Sad old place.” Not going to tell her the wee fellow offered me a drink and I drank it. “There were more of them. In the woods here. Dozens of them.”

Blackthorn looks around as if she might see little folk popping up everywhere. “Why aren’t I surprised?” she says. “Was that all he said?”

“They needed something lifted. I helped them. He showed me where you were, more or less. And . . . well, he said it was secret.”

“But you’ve told me.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Could have been your imagination, I suppose, brought on by the monster’s voice. Though you seem all right now. I suggest we don’t go rushing in and telling Geiléis about this. Or anyone. I do plan to ask Geiléis about the fey again, in a general sort of way. This is an odd place, Grim. Even odder than I thought it would be.”

I mumble some kind of answer. Maybe I did a good deed just now, with the wee folk. Still, I hit her, and I ran away, and that little man found me blubbering like a baby. Balance that up, and the good deed doesn’t count for much. “Sorry I ran off,” I say. “Sorry about before.”

“Stop saying sorry, will you? Chances are none of it was your fault. Especially if this curse works the way we’ve been told it does. Next time we leave the house, you’re blocking your ears. And don’t argue.”