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doing in this forest, children?”
    Helen heard Sylvie yawn convincingly behind her and allowed herself to yawn too. She did feel exhausted. “We’ve been having a midnight feast. Sorry …” she yawned again, “… are we on your land?”
    “Not yet. What did you eat for your midnight feast?”
    Helen looked round. There was, of course, no sign of food.
    “What did you eat?” the voice demanded again.
    “Everything!” Helen giggled. “We ate everything. Not a crumb left to offer you. Sorry.”
    “Shouldn’t you run off home now?”
    Helen peered at her watch. 3:00 am. Still an hour or so to sunrise.
    “No,” she smiled groggily. “I’m still sleepy.”
    The dogs were growling and sniffing round them. One thin female gripped a corner of silver blanket between her teeth and tugged. Sylvie rolled over in her pretend sleep and pinned the blanket down with her sore arm. Helen winced.
    Dark voices behind the pack muttered “just bite them where they lie” and “that’ll make them run.”
    The largest dog thumped his front paws on Helen’s thigh. She fondled his ears. He grasped her wrist in his teeth, his breath chilly on her skin, then waited for an order. Helen yawned, as if dogs bit her every morning when she woke up.
    The woman laughed. “Back off, Brodum, they’re not yours yet.” The dog let go.
    Helen yawned again and rubbed her eyes.
    “Up you get!” called the woman, in a voice used to obedience. “You should get home. Your parents will be worried about you. There will be a hot breakfast waiting for you.”
    “Not hungry,” Helen mumbled. “Still full of food … need another snooze.”
    She lay down, surrounded by paws, closed her eyes and muttered, “Funny dream … furry dream … ate too much cake…” She kept her breathing slow and deep, fighting the urge to whack the dogs aside and sprint away.
    “Prod them awake” and “make them run” the other voices urged.
    “No,” sighed the woman. “Let’s find other prey. These children are too full and sleepy to lead us a decent chase. If we find them on their feet another night when the stars are hunting above, then we will chase them until they fall.”
    Helen pretended she was asleep as the pack of hounds leapt over her and light footsteps ran past her. She pretended so well that Yann and Sylvie had to shake her awake.
    “You were great!”
    “No one has ever escaped the Wild Hunt like that before!”
    Helen yawned for real this time. “They won’t fall for it again, so we should head home, but don’t run! ”
    “I believe you now,” she added, as they pulled the foil blankets off Yann, “about the faeries invading your forest. It’s too late, but I believe you.”
    “So you got your proof then,” Yann said archly. “What was it? The beautiful boy Lily?”
    “No,” said Helen. “The dogs. Their breath was icy cold. And that woman’s voice was even colder.”
    “Why is it too late?” demanded Sylvie, as Helen shoved the blankets untidily into a pocket of the rucksack.
    “It’s too late, because I promised I would leave if you gave me proof. But I can’t leave now. I have to break my promise. I have to stay and get James back.”
    Sylvie growled. “No! You promised to go. If you stay, the Faery Queen will get her music.”
    Yann frowned, then agreed with Helen. “You’re right. Now that she has stolen the boy, the danger is not just to you. Perhaps you should stay. So I release you from your promise to me, healer’s child, because I know you won’t play for the Faery Queen once we free the boy, will you?”
    Helen thought of that cold voice and shook her head. But she didn’t make any more promises.
    Yann and Sylvie accompanied Helen to the track. The centaur and the bandaged girl kept going along the treeline, as Helen walked slowly towards the lodge. All that yawning had tired her out far more than meeting new friends and foes, and nearly being eaten by faery hounds. She fell into bed without even unlacing