Koth Conwen’s head was bent at an awkward angle against the back of her chair, the bitterblue already drying to an indigo crust in the deep lines framing her mouth. It was only when the old woman’s hands began to twitch on her lap that Lowen was sure she was not dead.

  She stood to cast about the room for some water and soaked the handkerchief still clutched tightly in her hand from a bucket standing in a corner. Hurrying back to her grandmother, Lowen wiped away as much of the slick blue staining her face as she could. Inky tears ran in twin rivulets around her nose to join the mess at her mouth. She knew she had no choice but to fetch her mother. Finally satisfied she had done all she could, Lowen spread a woollen blanket across her grandmother’s knees and rushed from the hut.

  Head down, eyes unseeing, Lowen was thinking only of reaching Kerra as quickly as she could. It took her a moment to register the hushed voice calling her name from the tree line.

  “Lowen. Lowen, please stop.”

  The voice was alien here—so out of place that for one disorientating moment, it felt as though reality had shifted into a dream.

  “Nicanor?”

  Lowen stopped and turned on her heel, gaze sweeping the trees crowded around Koth Conwen’s hut. Nicanor could not be here, so close to the Scrat village. It was impossible. Yet there he was, his horns protruding from the heavy boughs of a sweeping beech tree. He was standing in the sun-dappled shadows, silently pleading with her to go to him.

  “No,” Lowen breathed.

  She could not bring her mother here, not now her satyr lover had materialised in the heart of the Wild Scrat Grounds. Lowen had never witnessed an execution. It was not an act the Scrat condoned, but she knew the satyr did such things when a transgression was so great it could not be borne. She also knew that whether or not her mother agreed with the punishment, she would feel she had no choice but to inform Pyros of any satyr found lurking in Scrat territory. Nicanor was openly risking his life.

  Lowen crossed back towards her grandmother’s hut.

  “Have you turned fool?” she said when she reached him. "You shouldn't be here."

  She placed both hands on his broad chest and pushed him back into the trees. He could easily have resisted but he allowed her to propel him backwards, only stopping once his back was pressed against the yellowing trunk of the beech tree.

  “I was careful,” he said, gently removing Lowen’s hands from his chest. He tried to hold onto them but she snatched them away. “There is no one nearby.”

  “You have to leave. Right now.”

  “I know we did not part on good terms.” His words were measured and careful, as though he had rehearsed them. “I came to beg for your forgiveness. Lowen, I—“

  “No, this is not the time to discuss what has happened. My grandmother has the Blue Sickness. I must fetch my mother immediately and when she comes, you cannot be here.”

  “The Blue Sickness?” Nicanor’s eyes widened. “I have seen such a thing many times. Please, let me help.”

  Lowen hesitated. Her heart was beating painfully fast but Nicanor was familiar and reassuring, even after the bitterness of their last encounter.

  “You are certain you know how to help? This is my grandmother’s life. She cannot die.”

  Nicanor reached to touch Lowen’s face, fingertips briefly brushing the soft arch of her cheekbone. “I understand. I would not offer my help if I was not sure I could actually do some good.”

  Lowen nodded her agreement, biting her bottom lip to keep it from trembling. A black worry for her grandmother was snaking its way through her chest.

  “I need some kostawort,” Nicanor said. “It’s the small yellow flower that grows beneath the thornapple tree. Do you have any?”

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  A fresh bloom of panic. “No, I haven’t seen Grandmother use that particular flower.” Lowen turned away from the frankly dizzying sight of her satyr lover standing beneath the trees so close to her home. She looked up at the sky. It was a pale morning blue, strung with cobweb clouds.

  “I will search for the kostawort,” she said. “You can’t start digging about for plants, you will be discovered. Take this path to the small hut beside the herb garden. My grandmother is within.”

  “I will tend to her as though she were my own kin.”

  Despite the urgency of the situation, Lowen found herself searching his face for the awful, distant expression she had last seen etched upon it. Her heart lifted slightly when she saw that all trace of it was gone.

  “I know you will,” she said.

  She watched Nicanor pick his careful way along the narrow path, edged with clumps of pink and white woodland daisies. He was mindful not to leave behind any incriminating hoof prints.

  As he disappeared behind a tree, Lowen wondered what her grandmother would make of a strange satyr towering above her if she happened to rouse. Once the old woman realised he meant her no harm, she would probably be delighted. The thought only pulled the coil of fear and worry tighter across her ribcage and Lowen slipped from the shelter of the beech tree, half-running towards the grove of thornapples she knew grew a short distance away.

  She found the trees quickly, windblown and stunted on the slopes of a bald hill. They were in full blossom and as the morning breeze rustled against their thorny branches, the pungent, meaty stench of the neat white flowers wafted down to her. Lowen wrinkled her nose and strode towards them, bending to search for the creamy yellow petals of the sheltered kostawort.

  There were just a handful of small plants at that time of year. She breathed a grateful sigh of relief when she saw them, huddled against the knotted roots of the thornapple like stowaways hiding on a particularly large and ugly ship. A handful was all she needed. Reaching beneath the overhanging branches of the tree, Lowen pulled the determined plants free from their moorings. She almost fell over backwards as they left the earth they had been clinging to in a spray of soil and thin, delicate roots. Struggling to keep her balance, she failed to notice a thornapple branch swing back towards her. It scratched a long red line down one side of her neck. She grunted with pain but ignored it, straightening to sprint back to the hut with the precious kostawort clutched tightly to her chest.

  Lowen slowed as she reached the trembling curtain of feathers and beads at the threshold of Koth Conwen’s home, suddenly fearful of what she would find inside. She pulled aside the softly tinkling beads. Although her grandmother’s face was pale as parchment and her blue-rimmed eyes had rolled back in her head, her chest was still rising and falling, her clawed hands still twitching sporadically on the blanket draped across her knees. Nicanor sat beside her, a giant on a tiny stool. He was holding one of her hands and peering into her face.

  Lowen let the curtain fall back into place behind her. “I have the kostawort.”

  “That is good. I believe her condition is grave, we must hurry.”

  Conwen shuddered, trembling even beneath the warmth of the thick woollen blanket. Her eyes refocused and she lifted her free hand to grope at the air.

  “Gwyrdmet,” she whispered, her voice harsh and rasping. “Find the Green King. Protect the Gift.”

  With a final gasp, her hand dropped back to her lap. Her eyes fluttered and closed. Lowen held her breath, frozen where she stood until her grandmother’s chest began to rise and fall again.

  “That’s the second time she has said that,” Nicanor said. “What does it mean?”

  Lowen knew very well what it meant but they had no time to discuss age-old wars and ancient fears. “I will attempt to explain it. But first, please help me save my grandmother.”

  Nicanor nodded and rose from the stool. At his full height, his horns almost brushed the beams of the ceiling. He made everything in the hut seem small by comparison. The table still set for tea, the rocking chairs padded with faded cushions, even the blackened cauldron simmering with the last of the bitterblue, all appeared like children’s playthings beside him.

  A rustling of wings alerted Lowen to Odelin’s presence at the edge of the table. The bird seemed to be guarding Conwen whilst coolly preening one long, outstretched wing.

  “Go and keep watch, Odelin,” Lowen instructed. “Tell me if anyone comes near.”

  The magpie flew up into the air at once, darting through the small gap of the open window with practised ease.

  “Quickly,” Nicanor said, “we must grind the petals of the kostawort into a paste. We also need a small quantity of moon mallow seeds and some bark of the shiver tree.”

  Lowen cleared an area on the table for the ancient clay bowl and matching cudgel her grandmother used as a mortar and pestle. The implements were so well used, the bottom of the bowl was ground black and glassy. She turned to a squat, black chest beneath the window, lifting the heavy lid and rifling through the many vials and bottles stacked inside until she found the seeds and the tree bark.

  She tried not to look at Koth Conwen. That was not her grandmother lying sprawled in the chair; it was some blue-tinged, claw-handed stranger.

  “Find the Green King,” Conwen wheezed again. “Find Gwyrdmet.” Her voice was lower this time, dwindling to a harsh rumble in her throat. The old woman shuddered and fell back against her chair.