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that I shall not return to The Laurels for some long time.’ She hesitated, made as if to impart more, then subsided, her mind racing.
    ‘Well then,’ said the voice of the wight, ‘so be it.’ The urisk moved from the gloom into the firelight and stood on the hearth rug, the coarse, curly hair of his head haloed in gold. ‘You must leave this place, and so must I.’
    ‘You?’ The declaration startled Asr ă thiel, jerking her out of her state of feverish abstraction. ‘What can you mean?’
    ‘What do you mean, What can I mean ? Did you suppose I had made your brick pile my home, as if I were some stray hound you’d adopted?’
    ‘Nay, of course not,’ the damsel bluffed, although she had assumed exactly that. ‘Where will you go?’
    ‘Where I will.’
    Feeling fractious because this blow fell on the back of the first, the damsel sought to dissuade him. ‘These are dangerous times.’
    Firelight laved the ragged and diminutive form of the wight. He uttered no word, but his nonchalant pose and the contemptuous tilt of his goateed chin communicated, Do you truly believe I am unaware of that? Do you suppose I care?
    Asr ă thiel was smitten by an unexpected sense of loss. She had presumed that the urisk would remain at The Laurels, even while she travelled about on the king’s business, and that he would be there to converse with her, delight her and vex her whenever she came home. Understanding afresh that nothing eldritch could ever be truly tamed, she felt bereft, as if something valuable had been stolen away.
    All at once there seemed to be countless matters stored in her mind that she had intended to discuss with the creature, yet had never mentioned. She tried to recall them all, but in the urgency of the moment most of them eluded her. Seating herself on the edge of the divan and twisting her hands together in her lap she said, endeavouring to keep plaintiveness out of her tone, ‘Why do you want to go? Have I offended you?’
    ‘My reasons are my own. No, you have not.’ The wight crossed to the window and leaped agilely up onto the ledge. Resting his forearm against the panes and his brow on the back of his wrist, he stared moodily out towards the far-off beacon fire. In the fireplace the black husk of a log imploded, setting off a brief fireworks display and conjuring a swathe of smoke ghosts.
    At length the damsel said resignedly, ‘I see you keep your own counsel, as ever. I will not pry. Allow me to say, though, that I will be sorry at your departure. Long have I believed you to be—’ she broke off, paused, then stammered with gaucherie that surprised herself, ‘extraordinary. That is to say,’ she went on hurriedly, ‘I believe you are different in most respects from other wights of your kind. I have learned that you possess deep knowledge of the great sciences, encompassing vast lore that reaches from the paths of the stars, to the minds of humankind, down to the roots of the mountains. You will tell me that I am not as well acquainted with other wights as I am with you, and therefore have no basis for comparison. Yet many tales are told about eldritch creatures, and not in any of them is there reference to one such as you.’
    ‘Every living being is unique.’
    ‘Are you the king of the urisks?’
    The urisk laughed, but with no good humour. ‘Quit conjecture,’ he said. ‘Keep to your weatherworking, which you are better at. Urisks are solitaries, and have no king, as anybody knows.’
    ‘Are you determined to leave this house?’
    ‘I am.’
    ‘Will you sometimes return? Will you visit?’ she persisted.
    ‘Weatherwitch,’ the wight said, ‘I seldom make promises.’
    Asr ă thiel nodded, struggling to keep her face from crumpling into an expression of disappointment.
    ‘But this I avow,’ he went on. ‘In your most bitter hour, look for me. I will come to you.’
    Touched by this unusual gesture of kindness from a creature prone to be as prickly as his namesake, the