The doonie smiled. He gathered a pile of dirt and bits of stone onto a stretch of flat red rock and sat down in front of it. Bunching it together, he began to speak over the tidy mound. His voice was low-pitched, but Lizzie already knew it was in some fairy language so she wouldn’t understand it anyway.

Geordie came over to stand with her.

“What’s he doing?” he asked.

“Asking the dirt if it wants to be water, I guess.”

Except it turned out that Timony wasn’t summoning water. As he continued to speak over the mound he’d gathered on the rock in front of himself, the dirt began to take on the shape of a pot. A moment later, and he had a wide-mouthed clay bowl. He grinned at them when Lizzie clapped, then cupped his hands above the vessel. This time his voice woke water that rose up to the tops of his fingers and overflowed into the bowl under his hands.

“Good trick,” Geordie said.

The doonie shrugged, but Lizzie could tell he was pleased so she clapped again.

When he offered the bowl to them, Lizzie took it first and had a long swallow. She couldn’t remember the last time anything had ever tasted so good. The water was cool and fresh, as though it had just been dipped from a mountain stream.

“Not too much,” Timony said. “At least not all at once.”

Lizzie had another mouthful, then reluctantly passed the half-full bowl to Geordie. While he drank, she walked back over to the place where Jilly had disappeared.

“I still think it would be cool to know how to—”

She didn’t get to finish. Two strangers suddenly appeared in the spot and she scrambled back.

“Whoa,” she said, then took up one of the defensive stances that her old gym-mate Johnny had taught her.

“Easy,” Geordie said.

Lizzie had time to see that the newcomers were both young women—one red-haired with a feral tangle of curls, the other dark-haired and dressed like a skateboarder. Then the red-haired woman flung herself at Geordie and wrapped her arms around his neck. They were obviously old friends.

“How could you scare us like that?” she demanded. “We thought you were dead.”

“I think I was.”

The woman pushed back to look him in the face. “What?”

Geordie smiled. “This is my sister Christiana,” he said, introducing her to Timony and Lizzie.

“And I’m Mother Crone,” the dark-haired skateboarder said.

“That’s Timony,” Lizzie said. “I’m Lizzie and I’ve got to say, you don’t look like a crone.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised at how old she is,” Christiana said.

The dark-haired woman shot her a look, but Christiana only shrugged and offered a sweet smile in return.

“I’m . . . surprised to see you,” Geordie said to Mother Crone.

“You shouldn’t be. I’ve never meant you any harm.”