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autumn chill and winter snow. They had been patched and mended, relined and strengthened. They were too small now, and this season’s hard journeying had tested them to breaking point.
    I wandered, barefoot, beside the stream and came back with a handful of fern roots and a scattering of acorns. I could not make a proper poultice, for my small bag carried only essentials. My supply of powders and salves had run out many moons ago and I had lacked the time and resources to replace it. Perhaps that was just as well. Few healers practised their craft openly in Keldec’s Alban. The line between herbalism and magic went too close for comfort.
    I made a fire, my new knife striking a ready spark from my old flint. Wary of attracting unwanted notice, I kept the blaze small. When the fire was burning well I went foraging, returning with wild onions which I made into a soup. Some of Flint’s way-bread was still in my bag, saved for the times when I could not provide for myself.
    As I stirred my brew I felt eyes on me, watching from the high branches of the oak, from the shadows between the beech trunks, from the bouncing waters of the little stream. I sensed the presence of observers hidden in every chink and crevice of the great rocks that sheltered me. Close. Closer than I had ever felt them before.
    It was said the Good Folk had gone into hiding, fearful of Keldec’s long reach. Rumour had it that they had fled Alban altogether, choosing to dwell on the misty islands of the far west or in the cold, empty north. Neither theory was true, or I would not be aware of them now, all around me in this clearing. The little hairs on my neck stood up; my spine tingled with the strangeness of it.
    ‘Best if you don’t come near me,’ I murmured, trying not to look directly at any of them as I sat drinking my onion brew. ‘You and I, we’re trouble for each other. I want nothing to do with you.’ It sounded harsh and discourteous. And I did not even know if they would understand me; I had never spoken to them directly before. Now it seemed necessary to warn them.
    A pointed silence followed, in which I could almost feel their disapproval. In my mind, my grandmother spoke: Always share what you have, Neryn. Look after the Good Folk and they will do you no harm. If you hear people complaining that someone stole the eggs from right under the hens, or drank the cow dry before milking time, it will be because someone forgot that rule .
    Well, there were a few mouthfuls of the brew left. With some regret, I moved to set down the little pan at one side of the clearing, wedging it with stones so it would not spill. It looked a meagre offering, the amber liquid barely covering the bottom of the pot. And there were many of them; I need not look straight at them to know that. Sighing, I took the cloth-wrapped way-bread from my bag, broke off a piece, and laid it beside the brew. ‘I’m a friend,’ I said, my voice just above a whisper. ‘I offer you a share of my meal, such as it is. But I don’t want companions on the journey. Stay in your safe place. There were Enforcers at Darkwater. The Cull’s begun.’ I wondered if any place was safe.
    My little fire warmed me as I chopped fern roots and soaked them in water, then mixed them with acorn flesh I had crushed between stones. I would fill a cloth with the resultant pulp and put my feet in it for a while before I tried to sleep. It couldn’t hurt, and perhaps it would help. Maybe, further on, I would find birch trees from whose bark I could make a lining for my shoes. I eyed them, seeing the holes, the places where sole had parted from upper, the frayed cords that no longer tied up.
    As I worked, I saw from the corner of my eye that the pot of onion brew was already being investigated. Small hands were turning Flint’s way-bread over and over; a furred being in a red cap took a sharp-toothed bite from a corner – snap! A skinny creature with fingers like long twigs snatched the treasure