[ADD INNER CONFLICT — this isn't what Keava wanted, but she doesn't think she can do better. Also, does this scene go from positive to negative or the reverse?]

Keava stared at her prospective new workplace in some disbelief. Round, spiky towers at each of its four corners, the Gothic castle stood at the end of a long gravel avenue, with wide, manicured lawns and somewhat overgrown gardens on either side. Behind and to the left of it rose a great hill with some sort of little watchtower way at the top, and to the right the land sloped away into the trees and, beyond them, into Loch Fyne.

She'd seen pictures of Inveraray Castle, of course. It was one of the most picturesque, fairytale-looking castles in the country, and the seat of Clan Campbell and thus a major tourist destination for the Scottish diaspora throughout the world. But pictures didn't give a true concept of the scale.

"Not as impressive as it looks, of course," the actual Duke of Argyll, Archibald Campbell, said beside her, his accent distinctly Oxbridge and his shock of stark white hair looking like it had been through a lot more wind than had been blowing in the last week, never mind today. His face was lined with geniality and good humour, and his tweed jacket was patched at the elbows like that of a man with more practical concerns than sartorial impressiveness.

"Quite ramshackle, really. We didn't have real hot water until a few years ago — had to heat it on pots on the stove. Hardly ever had a bath in more than three inches of water, which gets jolly cold in the winter, I can tell you, especially when the central heating is dodgy, which it was until about ten years ago, when we finally scraped together the funds to have it redone."

The Duke smiled affably. "People think it must be terribly grand, living in a place like this, but the truth is that they're so ludicrously oversized that virtually all the estate's income must go straight back in to keep the old place from falling down about our ears. We're lucky to have the funds to fix things when they break, never mind install new mod cons.

"So don't expect a grand budget for the gardens," he went on. "We keep a decent amount set aside for garden and grounds staff because of course we must keep the place looking nice for the visitors — we couldn't survive without the visitors — but if anyone wishes to install a fabulous designer rose garden, I fear I must disappoint them." He sighed regretfully.

Keava looked over the gardens — very pretty, nothing too fancy. Good range of colour, a few exotic plants, and best of all, no sculpted topiaries. "So, I'd be in charge of just these gardens?" She gestured to them.

"Yes, that's about the size of it. Don't worry about the lawns: Dougie takes care of those, as well as the extended grounds. We've got a head gardener, Graeme, who will take care of buying plants and deciding what goes where. Your job would be the planting, replanting, upkeep, all that sort. Graeme does some of that too, of course, but his back isn't what it once was, poor fellow, so he needs help. Could you do all that?"

…It wasn't quite as isolated a job as Keava had been hoping for. Especially in tourist season, it sounded like she would be around a lot of people. But… "Do grounds staff need to interact with the tourists?"

"Oh, no, no. You might need to give the occasional wanderer directions or tell some rude child to kindly stop dancing on the begonias, but that's about it."

Keava thought she could manage that. In spite of her love of plants, she had never been inspired to violence by the murder of innocent begonias. "I could do that."

"Excellent!" The duke beamed. "I have no doubt of your abilities; the greenness of your thumbs comes highly recommended. But you should at least meet Graeme and see how the two of you get on."

And so Keava was introduced to Graeme the head gardener, who seemed crotchety at first glance but melted within a minute of meeting his prospective new under-gardener. The two of them talked plants happily for some quarter of an hour, after which Graeme was satisfied to lend his seal of approval to Keava's addition to the staff, and Keava was feeling optimistic about the possibilities of this job and the people she would be working with.

None of them, so far, reminded her of Brady Mason.

"You are satisfied, then, I hope?" the duke asked Graeme.

"Aye, she'll be aces, I reckon," replied Graeme, eyes crinkling.

And so Keava had the job.

That was only the first of many concerns, of course. Next, Keava needed to find a place to live that was nearer Inveraray and preferably farther away from other people. Like perhaps on top of a mountain or the bottom of the loch. Though, she had to admit, that would be an inconvenient commute. She wondered if the duke might let her build a little secret hermitage hidden away in the woods somewhere… Probably she oughtn't phrase it like that.

When asked about housing possibilities in the area, the duke mentioned a property for sale in the neighbouring glen, Glen Shira. Keava looking into it and found it to be a small cottage, quite suitable to her purposes. There were only five houses in the whole glen, well spaced, one of them associated with a sheep farm. Seeing hundreds of sheep every day sounded greatly preferable to hundreds of people. Sheep, surely, were less likely to provoke one to violence. Keava could live with this.

She had found a place to run to. Now to run to it.

[Is this a positive to negative arc?]

"Are you sure about this?" Ros asked her some days later, after Keava called her for help with finding real estate agents and all those other brain-numbing practicalities.

"The job pays better, and the house is closer to you and Mum and Dad, and more land for less money. I'll even have enough left over to have a few builders in to remove all the steel fixtures. What's not to be sure of?"

"I don't know; this is just a bit sudden."

Keava tensed up a bit and tried to pretend she hadn't. The last thing needed was Ros smelling trouble. "You know that I've been wanting to be closer to the rest of the family for ages. I saw an opportunity, and I jumped at it."

Ros accepted that, but Keava could tell that her antennae were out and twitching.

"And you've been telling me for ages that I'd be happier farther away from the city, haven't you?" Keava pressed.

"Aye, but…" 

"Well, then."

She escaped that one.

Her parents were easier to convince that all was well and that the move was a great idea. They were delighted to have her closer. Glen Shira was still near to an hour's drive from Oban, where her parents and Ros lived, but that was a great improvement on the three hours it had been before. Keava could visit so much more often, her mother gushed, and help keep her father out of mischief.

(Keava's father Colin denied that he needed keeping out of mischief. Keava's mother Una said that of course he didn't, except for that time he'd fallen off the roof, or the time he'd narrowly avoided electrocuting himself trying to fix the [toaster], or the time he had contrived to nail his own hand to the neighbour's fence…

Colin said all right, all right, she needn't continue. But he really had figured out what he'd done wrong with the [toaster], so if he tried it again…

Keava promised her mother to visit more often.)

Lorna also thought the move a good idea. "You've been there overlong," she said. "Much longer and you'll attract interest. And you'll be away from any chance of suspicion."

So, Keava sold her townhouse and moved into the cottage. Her parents, Ros, and Ros's daughter Ishabel all came to help. Keava tried very hard to put her troubles out of her head and be cheerful and normal. She could be cheerful and normal, couldn't she?

…The looks her mother and Ros kept giving her suggested that however she seemed to them, it was not cheerful and normal.

"Are you sure nothing's wrong, love?" her mother asked her quietly.

"Oh, a-aye. I'm just … stressed about moving. Worried about getting all the iron out of the house. Nervous about starting the new job — castles and dukes and tourists and all."

This explanation was perfectly plausible and included no hint of accidental manslaughter, so it was a mark of how well Una knew her daughter that she was not entirely reassured. "Well, if you need to talk, dear, you know we're all here for you, anytime."

"I know, Mum. Thanks." But Keava couldn't talk about this.

She tried very hard to be all right. She was brave, she was capable, she told herself as she started the new job. She could do this.

She cycled up to the castle for her first day of work and was immediately accosted by Rob's astonishment. Did she really intend to commute from Glen Shira on a bicycle? Keava assured him that she was inured to weather. By which she really meant that she had learnt a trick of convincing rain to miss her. Wind was less agreeable but could still be redirected. She did not, of course, mention any of this to Rob, who was favourably impressed by a young gardener who didn't mind a bit of rain. [Too many young people spent too much time indoors, in his considered opinion.]

…Keava was actually not that much younger than he was, but she elected not to mention that either.

Telling herself yet again that she was fine, everything was fine, she followed Rob to meet the other [grounds/policies] staff, who were all cheerful and friendly and eager to get to know her better and … and these people were going to make her ambition to be an aloof hermit very difficult, weren't they? Hell.

And then she went home and discovered, via knocks on her door and generous gifts of wine and homemade scones, that her new neighbours were even worse. The Napiers, owners of the sheep farm, were especially sweet, and Keava's instinct for reciprocity rebelled at being rude or aloof in response to such overtures of friendship. So she ended up chatting at length with Kirsty Napier while her husband Gavin and twenty-year-old son Craig examined a tumbled-down section of stone wall bordering the property and promised Keava that they'd help her repair it.

"That'll keep any of our stray sheep from getting in and munching on your garden," said Gavin. "Buggers will find any gap in a fence — once. And then forget about it and nearly kill themselves trying to get back. Take if from me, lass," he tapped the side of his nose, "there is no animal on God's good earth so bent upon its own destruction as the bloody sheep. Had to remove one from a chimney once. What's that, Kirsty love? Oh aye, we should be going."

The family left Keava with a lot of extra food, an invitation to dinner, and a number to call in case of sheep incursion. Keava resigned herself to a relationship. So much for hermitage. But she had to find out what possible story could lead to a sheep up a chimney. Or perhaps down a chimney. Through a chimney?

Graeme, at least, was all practicalities and no invitations. And Keava found she liked the duke — "Oh, call me Archie, I'm forever trying to convince people they won't be struck by lightning if they call me Archie," — who was sweet and eccentric and surprisingly down-to-earth and accustomed to hardship. He'd been something of a mountaineer in his youth, before he'd inherited, and knew all about roughing it. He claimed the cold-water baths of his childhood had been excellent preparation.

It was all working out rather well, Keava thought as she planted daffodils with her bronze trowel. Not as isolated as she'd hoped, but no one who set her teeth on edge. No one who pushed too deep into her personal space. She really was all ri— 

The rhododendron rustled behind her. "Oh, hey."

The unexpected male voice sent an electric jolt through Keava. She jerked up, whirled around. He loomed over her, her heart sped up— 

"Och, sorry lass, didna mean tae startle ye."

It was Dougie — late thirties, beard and hair both short and dark, wellies, sleeves rolled up, and blinking at her in surprise. Keava straightened, trying to push back the tingle of power already rushing down her fingers. "It's— it's all right," she made herself say, even as she began to see that it wasn't. She wasn't.

Dougie excused himself and continued on his way up to the castle, and Keava sat down under the rhododendron and realised that she was not okay. For a moment, she'd been back in that greenhouse, unwanted hands groping for her, catching her so hard it hurt. This … this was trauma, wasn't it? A horrible moment burned into her memory … that was trauma. She was traumatised. 

…And that made her even more dangerous.

Keava spent the rest of her workday in a state of advanced [cat-in-room-full-of-rocking-chairs] wariness, trying to be aware of every moving thing on the entire castle policies at all times, lest she be taken by surprise again. This, she thought bitterly, is why she should have found a way to support herself making silly hats to sell on Etsy and thus achieve true hermitage.

As soon as she could, she zoomed off home and spent a little quality time finding out whether the great internet, source of tutorials on everything from yo-yos to eyebrow-plucking to knitting jumpers out of dog hair, had any good advice on how to work through personal trauma. She was irritated to find that pretty much all the advice amounted to talking about it, talking about it, and more talking about it. Right, that was all she needed, having to tell people that she was afraid of committing murder by reflex.

Well just don't carry a weapon, they'd say, and how could she explain without admitting that she was never without a weapon?

Then she chased herself in circles for a while over whether she could talk about the assault itself without admitting to how it had ended, or who had done it. Certainly not to anyone she knew. Did she dare go to the NHS talking therapy service? …She was too afraid of saying something she shouldn't. What about an anonymous crisis line? She turned the thought over and over but never quite took the plunge.

She could have called Lorna. She almost did. But … would Lorna think her silly for being in such a flap over all this when, as Lorna had said, she had only followed her nature? Lorna didn't get upset about things. She just rolled with them, adapted, or stopped them dead in their tracks. Keava didn't like to let Lorna see her doing less. Maybe she'd call, if she really needed to, but … not yet.

Then she debated whether she should at least warn her coworkers that she was jumpy and ask them to try not to startle her. …Perhaps she should, if she could just do it without admitting that she'd been recently assaulted. Both Graeme and the duke knew Lily, and she daren't risk them mentioning it to her. Lily wasn't stupid. If she got more pieces of the puzzle… No. Keava wouldn't chance an intuitive leap.

She settled on writing. Quickly, furiously, she scrawled out an account of what had happened to her. She wrote in her native language, Gaelic, and she wrote only the facts. No feelings. Unless one counted how the pen kept scoring right through the paper.

A coldness rolled over her once she'd finished. She sat there at her kitchen table, staring at the jagged, angry words. Then she took the paper by the corner and, silently, expressionlessly, she stood, walked outside, and held the paper above her. Taking a deep breath, she focused her rage to a point, a spark, and with it blew out a tongue of flame.

The paper caught, and she watched it burn, scanning the words one last time before they curled into ash. The flame reached her fingertips, and she let go, letting the last corner drift to the flagstones outside her back door, watching to make sure every word burned.

Did she feel a little lighter? Perhaps. She turned away and tried to go back to normality.

But normality didn't feel so normal anymore. Keava went to work, she talked to her coworkers, she talked to her neighbours — it should've felt normal, but it didn't. More than ever before, she felt like a [wolf awkwardly inserted / poorly stuffed into sheep's woollen clothing]. Did she even belong among these people?

If she existed, then surely there must be other sìthichean. She had to come from something. She'd asked Lorna, but all Lorna had been able to tell her was: "The sìthichean have withdrawn from the Mortal World. They will one day return — they always do. But for now … they have vanished away."

"But then how am I here?" Keava had asked.

Lorna had thought for a long few moments before answering. "…We cannot know for sure, but … I suspect that you were brought here to hide you, somewhere no one would think to look. A changeling, hidden away amongst mortals, where you would be safe and unsuspected."

"My parents suspected."

"I didn't mean by them."

"…Then what did you mean?"

"Well … if it is indeed true that you were brought here to hide you … then it follows that you were being hidden from something. Or someone."

Keava had pressed for further information, or at least guesswork, but Lorna had none she was willing to offer. So, Keava had been left to wonder ever since. Who were her birth parents? Why had they brought her here? And was it them who had left her by the roadside or … was she a true changeling, exchanged for a human infant and exposed by the human parents in the hope of forcing the return of their true child?

…She tried not to think of that possibility. She didn't want there to be a set of bereft parents out there somewhere, nor a human child stolen away to who knew what fate. But she didn't even know whether they existed, so, until proven otherwise, she would try to believe that they didn't.

But her birth parents must exist, or had existed at one time. Somewhere out there were other people like her. People who she wouldn't have to worry about killing by accident. …People from whom she had been deliberately hidden, presumably for fear of what they might do to her.

It occurred to Keava that the flipside of finding someone you weren't a threat to was that they very well might be a threat to you. A threat you might not be able to fight off. And Keava didn't like that idea at all. But…

But…

She told herself there was no point longing for or dreading things that she couldn't find. She should put it out of her mind. Especially the little voice that said that the sìthichean couldn't be entirely gone from the world, if her birth parents had brought her here, and thus there must be some way…

No. Stop thinking about it.

Normality. She tried to find normality. She had a day where she found herself tensing up when she was alone with Graeme, even though he had never given her the slightest reason to worry. That evening, she went home and wrote out another account of what Brady had done, and what she had done to him. This time, instead of mere facts, she wrote what she'd felt.

She wrote about her surprise, disbelief, and the flash of fear that had soon burned away in the fury that had taken her over. That fire did its work and then had cooled into satisfaction, and—

Keava had to stop there. She breathed hard for a minute, and then took the paper out and burned it.

She still didn't feel guilty. Would it ever come? If it didn't … would that be worse?

Despite her troubles, Keava was beginning to settle into her new life. She liked crotchety but kind Graeme, she liked practical, lighthearted Dougie and his ready wise-cracks, and she liked the genial old duke, who after several weeks of trying had persuaded her to call him Archie. She had also met the duchess, Philippa, and several of the indoor castle staff, all of whom seemed pleasant enough. And on the home front, she was now on friendly terms with the Napiers and had already had cause to call them for sheep-removal. The son Craig had ambled up the glen, said an amiable hello, and then thrown the errant ewe over his shoulder  and ambled off again, talking to the ewe about how she should kindly not bleat directly into his ear, thank you very much.

Keava's parents took the opportunity of a weekend visit to help with the last of the unpacking, and then Keava followed them home on her bicycle — drafting behind their car at what most would consider alarming speeds — to help her father with a few repairs. It was all going well enough. She was coping. If she just kept going … things would get better, wouldn't they? Time heals, that's what they said. She'd be all right.

And then the tourist season started.

The castle staff more than doubled. Suddenly there were parking attendants and tour guides and a bunch of teenagers working in the tearoom and gift shop. The [policies] staff remained the same, fortunately, so Keava didn't have to work directly with anyone new, but the number of unfamiliar faces now swirling around her was staggering. And it wasn't even peak season.

She hid in the gardens as much as she could and planned her workday around avoiding tourists as much as tourists could be avoided. Graeme, luckily, was of the same mind and liked to be out of the way at the busiest times of day. The two of them worked out a Schedule in Defence of the Sanity of Introverted Gardeners and presented it to the duke, who laughed and approved it.

They found their new routine, and Keava grew accustomed to the occasional visitor wandering past while she was weeding or nipping off dead twigs. Sometimes she was asked a question or two about the plants. She found she didn't mind too much as long as they didn't take her by surprise. It was okay; she could manage this.

…Just as long as no one took it into their head to assault her.

"All right there, lass?" She looked up to find Graeme watching her. "Ye seem a wee bit jumpy around the visitors."

Keava put her head down over her weeding. "…Just the men," she muttered.

Graeme rubbed a hand through his greying stubble, thinking hard. "Some fellow messed ye around, did he?"

She tensed. But as long as she wasn't specific… "Aye."

Graeme grunted, disapproving. "Well, I'll not stand for that sort o' behaviour. Anyone who makes you uncomfortable, lass, ye just come to me, and I'll see 'em off."

Keava looked up at him, surprised at how well he had read her and touched by his concern. "Thanks, Graeme."

"Aye, well."

He wandered off to avoid any more awkward expressions of gratitude, and Keava smiled at his retreating back. Graeme wasn't really a grouch; he just played one in Defence of the Sanity of Introverted Gardeners. Well, one gardener. Namely himself. Wouldn't do to have people thinking he liked company.

And then a chill crossed the back of Keava's neck.

She tensed, looking over her shoulder. Rhodos … gravel walk … lawn… A bird chirped and hopped to another branch of the rhodo. A car moved in the distant visitor car park. Graeme's footsteps crunched away up the walk. Two brightly coloured tourists entered the castle policies. Nothing out of the ordinary.

So why was Keava's hair standing on end?

Half an hour later, she ran into Dougie coming from the woods across the lawn. He was peering into the rhodos and [some other bush] as if looking for something. When asked, he said, "…Thought I saw some sort of critter running through here."

"Like what?"

"Och, didna get a good look. Dog, mebbe? Large fox? I wouldna be bothered, 'cept I dinna want it diggin' holes in the lawn or frightenin' some silly tourist."

"I'll keep an eye out for it," Keava promised, thinking of the eerie feeling she'd had earlier. Perhaps she'd just picked up some furtive movement without realising it.

"Aye, thanks." Dougie went on his way.

Keava decided to check through the garden, just in case. She poked through the [formal gardens] before the castle and found nothing except for a child's hat, upside down and half full of dirt, which she was able to return to its rightful owner by following the telltale sound of a mother castigating her wayward offspring. From there, Keava moved on to [the bands of native trees and brush] that bordered the lawns. Here she found Graeme.

"Ho there," he said. "Seen anyone skulking around here?"

So he'd seen something too. "No, but Dougie thought he saw an animal of some kind. Maybe a dog or a fox, he said."

"Hmm." Graeme looked doubtful. "I heard it more than saw it, but I'd put money on it being too big for a fox. Don't suppose it really matters, but I'd like to know. Just in case, aye?"

The hairs on the back of Keava's neck chose that moment to stand up again. She felt eyes on her, and she couldn't help looking. She scanned lawn … bushes … trees. Nothing.

"Aye," she agreed with Graeme, rubbing at the gooseflesh on her forearms.

Graeme noticed. "Let's have a wee keek 'round together, aye? Just to be sure."

Keava agreed, and they took a walk through the outer gardens bordering the lawns. Twice Keava was struck by eerie feelings, a sense of something, just tugging at the edge of her perception. But when she turned her head, it slipped through her fingers like smoke.

"Seems all clear," Graeme said at last. "If there is some bugger hiding about here, he's doing a remarkable fine job of it." He turned to Keava. "Best get back to work, but tell me if you see anything, aye?"

"If it's a human, aye," she agreed, careful as she always was with the wording of anything that might be taken as a Promise. "Or some animal that needs dealing with."

"That'll do it."

She and Graeme headed back to their work, he pruning and she weeding. But Keava couldn't shake the feeling of something being off. It persisted all through the afternoon, growing in certainty all the while. Something was here, hiding away. Keava could feel it.

Her curiosity began to rise. What was this thing that tickled her sense so? Why was it here? Why was it hiding? The longer she concentrated, the more she became able to pinpoint a direction. If she followed it…

Keava took a minute to consider whether this idea was very foolish. Investigating some mysterious creature alone … mm-hmm, sounded foolish. But on the other hand, Keava was no defenceless youngster. She had proven she was deadly.

A voice in the back of her head pointed out that whatever this thing was … the fact that it pinged her radar like this told its own story. Normal creatures didn't do that. She wouldn't be so worried about tourists startling her if they did. So, it stood to reason that the cause of this ping on her radar … might be something supernatural. Like her. And if it was like her, it also stood to reason that it might be just as dangerous, if not more.

Well if THAT is the case, another part of her said tartly, why is it hiding from me?

Her curiosity took the forefront. Keava wanted to find out. But… She looked around uncomfortably at the thinning flow of tourists up and down the path to the castle. Maybe not with all these people still around.

If she waited till after closing time, after the parking attendants and other [grounds] staff had gone home… All she'd have to do was tuck her bicycle and its trailer out of sight, and everyone would assume she'd gone home. She knew the trick of not being noticed when she didn't wish to be.

Are you mad? asked the voice in the back of her head. Do you not remember what happened the last time you stayed after hours?

A shiver ran up her spine. She brushed a hand over her front to remind herself that she was fine and her clothes were in one piece. Aye, she told the voice, but that will not happen again because I won't let it.

She would hide herself, pretend she wasn't there. No one could attack her if they didn't know she was there. And if she were discovered by some hostile party … well. She had confidence in her ability to get out of it.

I thought you were afraid of killing anyone else, said the voice, trying to bite her conscience. 

I don't need to kill, another part of her shot back. Just … confuse and slip away.

But what if it's something dangerous?

…Then it may be a danger to everyone here, and … and it's my duty to deal with it.

She liked Graeme and Dougie and the duke and the formidable [castle housekeeper / manager, [name]]. She couldn't leave them in danger.

The idea of potential danger to her new connections, her new position … that decided it. She  would … no, not investigate. 'Hunt' was so much better a word.

[Is this a positive to negative arc, or the reverse?]

The light of the setting sun warmed the walls of Inveraray Castle from greenish-grey to burnt umber. Keava and bicycle were tucked away in the patch of trees nearest the car park. From there, she watched her coworkers get in their cars and head home. She waited until nearly six, glad of her warm jacket and also that it was not yet midge season and thus it was only human attention she needed to hide from. And then, sure that at least the exterior staff had all gone, she left her bicycle and ventured into the open.

She checked her fingers. Indistinct even to her own eyes — she was well hidden. She took a breath and concentrated, searching for the tickle, the ping in her radar. Somewhere on the far side of the [formal gardens] … in the little wood there. Silently, stealthily, she set off, skirting the car park, across the road that led first to the car park and then on to the castle. She ducked through a dense band of bushes and small trees, slipped swiftly through the nearly ordered [formal gardens], and then out the other side and towards the trees.

Her heart beat faster. She could feel it drawing nearer. The hair on her arms stood on end, and then the back of her neck too. She was alone, she had no back-up. And she was hunting.

She felt like a wolf following a scent. This way … no, that way. Her skin tingled, her nostrils flared. Wait … she did smell something, through the scents of bark and new leaves and loam. Faintly, barely there… Blood. Blood and spices.

She wove through the trees, breathing deep of the cool spring air, following the scent, following the tingle. Stronger it grew, and stronger, until— 

A sound between a gasp and a yelp. Eyes staring up at her — big, green eyes. Keava stopped so sharply she teetered.

A young man huddled against the trunk of an oak tree. He was bare to the waist, his pale skin marked all over with angry red welts. From some of them ran tracks of browning, dried blood. His green trousers were spattered with dark droplets. And his fine, sharp features were terrified.

"P—please, don't—" His voice was small — he was a bit small. Not like the wee little elves and fairies of folklore, not nearly that small, but narrow shoulders, slender limbs, slight build. He would have looked harmless, if there hadn't been something … off.

His ears. Poking up through a bedraggled mess of pale blond hair were too pointed ears. And his fingers … they were also too sharp. His nails were thick and almost claw-like.

He looked like an image Keava had once seen staring back out of a mirror. 

Her breath caught. She couldn't speak, just stood there, staring. The sìthiche crawled on his back away from her, stumbling over roots, dirt clinging to his hands. "I— I am sorry, I did not mean to trespass. I was only— only looking for shelter…" His accent was English, no clear regional origin, and somehow old-fashioned. His tone was near panic.

Keava finally understood that he was afraid of her. She struggled to find her tongue. "Who— who are you?"

He froze, shivering — and surely he must be cold, in this chill April evening. "I'm … called Theo, ma'am— er, miss, er, my lady?" He looked so lost and afraid. But Keava's heartstrings were too tight to be tugged on yet. He was a sìthiche. And he seemed to know that she was too.

"What happened to you? Why are you here?"

He wrapped his arms defensively around himself. "I … refused to do something I was told to do. It … wasn't taken well."

The welts began to conjure a picture. "Are you a runaway servant of some kind?" She had almost said 'slave' but opted at the last second to be delicate.

This proved wise, because even at the word 'servant' his shoulders tightened and rose in objection. "No! Or … not really. I'm a tailor."

Keava raised her eyebrows. "Refused to make clothes to someone's exactly specifications, did you?"

"…S'pose one could say so," he mumbled, but his gaze was evasive.

Keava narrowed her eyes at him. "And so they whipped you?" 

He withdrew a little farther, curling in on himself. "He was going to kill me. He just decided to … entertain himself a while first."

…Keava was liking the sound of these people less and less. She told herself not to generalise from the actions of one individual, but… She felt as if she were in a strange dream. Was this really real? Was she really meeting one of her own kind at last, battered and half-naked in a little patch of woods? "How did you escape?"

"He … he thought I was too beaten down to escape. He let down his guard, stopped watching."

A salient point occurred to Keava. "Is he looking for you?"

"…Doubtless."

Her insides curdled. "How likely is he to find you?"

Theo shivered again. "I— I don't know. Fleeing to the Mortal World was the only thing I could think to do that might lose him. Now … I just— I need shelter, just somewhere to hide. I'll not trouble you, please." His voice grew desperate. "If— if you'll only direct me to the borders of your territory, I'll go beyond it. I'll just … find a place to hide."

…Did he think this castle and its policies were hers? Or … was he just referring to the inclination of the sìthichean — so said Lorna — to be possessive of their turf? And why was he so sure she wouldn't tolerate him? A terrible feeling crept through her. This man knew what she was, knew as no one else she'd ever met. And he was behaving as if she were cold, forbidding … dangerous.

Through Keava's mind echoed a flash of Brady's dead body and the rush of satisfaction it had made her feel. Was that what she really, truly was?

Another memory flashed: Ros weeping in Keava's arms after her husband Kenneth had walked out on her and her little daughter Ishabel. Keava had flared with rage and started to declare that she would hunt Kenneth down, but Ros had stopped her.

"That isn't what I need from you. That isn't what Ishabel needs from you. She needs somebody to love her, because her daddy just abandoned her, and she doesn't understand why."

And so Keava's life had shifted to centre around being Ishabel's co-parent, being there whenever Ros had to work long doctor's hours. Keava had done all she could to assure Ishabel that she was loved and precious, and that her daddy leaving wasn't her fault. All it took was for Ros to ask, and Keava had set aside coldness and revenge and chosen something better.

…Mostly. She had still tracked Kenneth down in her spare time and done a little quiet mischief to him and the vain twit of a woman he'd left Ros for. Nothing serious — just a few nightmares … disappearing keys and remote controls … various batteries suddenly sucked dry … the air let out of their tyres … and a nice little bad luck curse that would attract spaghetti sauce, dirty puddle-water, bird droppings, and extremely localised rainstorms. Nothing much, really. [Just little stress-fuellers.]

Ken and his new girlfriend had split after just two weeks. Keava had pretended to be pleasantly surprised.

But the point was that she could choose. Maybe she couldn't be rid of her cold, vindictive side, but it did not rule her. She could rule it. And for the sake of being someone Ros, her parents, and Ishabel could love and cherish, she would.

She took a breath and looked at Theo. He looked … small, scared, hurt. Vulnerable. And he must be out of any place he knew. She let out the breath in a gust. She couldn't leave him here.

"You can't just go off on your own. Look at you — you haven't even got a shirt. Not to mention a couple dozen holes in your hide." It occurred to her to worry about that. Her own injuries healed fast, usually within hours. Why hadn't these? Or … had they originally been worse than this? They didn't look half healed… Maybe he just couldn't heal like she could. In which case … she could help.

"But … I haven't anywhere to go," Theo protested, confused and anxious.

"Then you'd better come with me, hadn't you?" Oh, good heavens, what was she getting herself into?

He stared up at her, eyes big. "…With you?"

"Well I can't very well leave you out here to freeze. My mother would be horrified."

"…You mean come home with you?" He seemed to be struggling with the concept. Surely the sìthichean were not all so inhospitable?

"I'm certainly not about to inflict you on anyone else." She raised her eyebrows at him. "Unless you'd rather spend the night in the woods like that? It's only April. The nights are still cold." She didn't know whether his ability to bear cold might be better than a mortal's, as hers was, but he looked cold now, and it wasn't even dark yet.

Theo winced and slowly pushed himself up to stand, watching her intently. "…You'd really help me?"

Keava felt a stab of misgiving. She knew nothing about this man or what dangers he might bring to her door. …But he was a sìthiche, like her. And that meant he must keep promises as surely as he must breathe. "I'll make you a deal," she told him. "I will take you home, feed you, shelter you, and tend your injuries … provided you tell me the full truth of who you are, where you came from, and why you are now in the run for your life."

He swallowed and took a shuddering breath. "If … if you will truly help me … then you deserve that much."

Keava tilted her head, feeling the unsettling twist in her stomach of a Promise about to be set in stone. "Is it a deal, then?"

He clenched his fists and nodded. "It's a deal."

The Promise turned to stone in Keava's chest. And for the first time, she stared into the eyes of someone who would be just as held to it as she was.