‘I’m all ears,’ Henwyn said unsympathetically. ‘Do tell me how your heart was broken one more time!’

‘I’m trying to explain why you must not prevent me from going to fetch Thomas back,’ Estienne said with exaggerated patience. He stopped trying to start a fire with the ineffectual fire-bow and bent over to blow on it instead. A pathetic spark erupted from his lips and fizzled out mid-air. ‘Cursed country! There is iron in the very dirt! I can do nothing here.’

Henwyn rolled his eyes and with a sharp snap of his fingers, lit the fire. ‘Doesn’t affect some of us. You’ve been lazy, Estienne. Now why should I let you go into Faerie?’

‘His tithe’s seven years. I won’t wait. I can’t wait.’

‘No, I don’t blame you. He’s not worth waiting for.’

‘Not what I meant, and you know it. You know what’s at stake!’ Estienne fanned the flames impatiently. ‘I’m warning you, Henwyn. Don’t stand in my way. This isn’t just for me. We’ve made a grave mistake.’

‘Not that grave. As for your heart, it’s too soft and too fickle. I suggest you get over it. How long has it been since you saw the cursed green-eyed troll man? Four hundred years? Six?’

‘Five.’ Estienne eyed the elf with a mixture of distaste and distrust as he coddled the campfire into a blaze. The nights had begun to fall with a distinct chill although the days were still uncomfortably hot. He sniffed at the hint of frost in the air. ‘Before winter, I will go back, and I will finish what I started. I will take back what was taken from me. And I will kill him.’

‘Not your choice. And surely you don’t think I have any influence over it?’ Henwyn lifted his gaze to the sky and sucked at his bottom lip. ‘Not stopping you from pleading with Lord Hart, of course. Perhaps he may accommodate your silly whims.’

‘I’ll have two boons from him. Thomas’ life, and yours, you blackguard!’

The only response was an amused snort, and Henwyn shook out a blanket, laying it on the ground under the ash tree they’d made camp under.

‘Go to sleep, fair idiot,’ Henwyn said, ‘if of course you can for worrying about crowns and thrones.’

‘I worry about more than that, and you know it!’

‘A mess of your own making, nothing more. Now sleep!’

The next morning, Estienne woke in dew with the warmth of the sun already on him. Henwyn had disappeared, and he was in the process of deciding which god to thank for that, or whether he should curse them instead, when he espied a crow sitting high up in the ash.

It cocked its head at him. His fingers closed around a stone, and he lifted his arm, drawing it back in a threatening arc. ‘Shoo.’

‘Cwark!’

‘Am I supposed to understand that? Get gone, foul omen!’

He let the stone fly. The crow cackled as the missile fell several feet short and routed a blackbird from a bush below.

‘Cwark.’

Estienne threw another stone and dislodged the crow. Dusty wings beat a shower of silt into the air.

‘You are a strange one,’ Henwyn said, appearing behind him. ‘Talking to birds. If I didn’t know better I’d say you’d lost your mind, but you never had one to start with. Half a wit, too.’

‘Piss off. If I’m addle-pated it is only the result of too much time spent in your company.’

Henwyn chuckled. ‘I’ve made a decision. I’m taking you into Albion,’ he said, and thumped his staff on the ground. ‘Coming? Or did you have a conversation to continue with the lord of crows?’