The land-kinden’s eyes flicked in her direction without ever ceasing to look at the boy. He saw the likeness, then, in the way she stood, in that hard-edged face. She is like the Swiftclaw, I think, save that she has hair and they have none. Is it just the likeness, then? Or is she a killer, inside, like them?

‘Boy,’ the land-kinden woman addressed him directly. He saw Marcantor shift, angry at this lack of respect, but that knife was still somewhere, and now the woman was very close to his charge.

‘I listen,’ the boy said to her. She crouched a little, staring very closely at his face.

‘Spider-kinden,’ she spat, ‘you and that woman. I should kill you here. Were she still here, I would kill her without a thought.’ Her eyes, slanting and brown, bored into his. ‘You fear me.’

‘Why should I fear you?’ he got out. He hoped she took any shivering for the cold. For I can show no fear, not to the Swiftclaw-kinden, nor to her.

‘I can kill you,’ she hissed. ‘I’ve been killing Spider-kinden since before you were born. I need no reason.’

He stared into her face, exotic and uncompromising. ‘I have been driven from my home into this dark place by my enemies, yet I do not fear them. How could I fear you, who can do so much less.’ His voice was definitely trembling by the end, beyond his control.

He noticed the smallest tug at the corner of her mouth. ‘No Spider-kinden ever knew such eyes as you, boy. So large, such a colour.’ She straightened up. Without any concrete change, the threat had evaporated from her. ‘I am Cynthaen,’ she told them. ‘Santiren knows me, and we have our compact.’ The boy saw Santiren sag with relief at that statement, although she had masked her worry well.

‘You cannot stay here,’ Cynthaen added, ‘not amongst my people. They will not be as restrained as me. They will kill the boy, or give him to the beasts of the forest. He looks too like our enemies.’