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The hedge at the bend is thicker than it was when I was twelve and hiding from Katell in it, and I am a good deal bigger, and I sit in it for eight hours.

I listen to the lane. I have never done that, not properly, not sitting still; I have walked up and down it my whole life talking.

Hedge on this side, the field wall on the other, forty yards of ruts between the bend and the gate. The wall gives everything back half a beat late. A cart on the Morlac road does it. Yannick’s useless dog does it.

My own breathing, when I let it get loud, does it.

I know the note of this lane now as I know my own name, and I did not know I was going to need to.

I’m frightened. I say it to the hedge, under my breath, every hour or so, so that it does not get any bigger in the dark where I cannot see it.

The light goes.

A woman comes down the lane from the Morlac end with a lamp.

She walks as I walk. Her hair is coming down on the left side, where mine falls down, no matter how carefully I pin it. She is in my travelling dress, or in a copy of it I could not fault, and she passes the hedge so close I could put my hand out and touch the hem.

Her face goes by at the height of my own eyes.

I put both hands over my mouth, as Anaig had, to muffle my own scream.

It has my face.

I am terrified.

And I’m going to follow it anyway.

The dogs cause a fuss as it reaches the gate. It does not mind the dogs. It goes to the door and knocks, and I stop where I am, because my knees have decided it for me.

“Katell. It’s me. It’s cold.”

Katell, through the grille: “I know what the weather is.”

“Katell, let me in. He’s asking for me.”

“He’s asleep.”

“I came back.”

“Then you can wait.”

It stands at the door for a while. The dogs have stopped barking and started growling, which they do not do for the baker. The lamp in its hand does not move at all, and nobody alive holds a lamp that still.

Then it turns round.

“Oh,” it says, with my mouth. Perfectly polite about it. “You’ll be wanting to get in out of this.”

It is my voice. The pitch and the speed and the little hurry at the end that Corentin has been telling me to slow down since I was small.

“The Ankou rode out at noon. They saw him go through Morlac, they saw him in Trevern. He does that, Nora. He leaves. It’s what he is.” It comes a step toward me, and the lamp comes with it, and lights my own face from underneath. “You’ve stood in that yard three nights with a man who’d rather be somewhere else, and now he is.”

It has my face. It does not have my plans. It thinks Riwal has left me for good.

“Here,” it says. “I’ll do you a trade.”

“Go on, then.” My mouth works when nothing else does.

“Corentin. I can keep him exactly as he is.” It holds the lamp between us and it is so reasonable. “Not for a week. For years. I have done it before, slowly, where I am welcome and nobody is in a hurry.