I cross my arms and press the toad to my heart. Everything has turned upside down since we left Magh Croimor at the beginning of the summer. I am now wed to an elf and she's been badly hurt in the fighting at Bog Ailinn. Da is gone. Keu's great arm is dead and I think he's dying too. We ain't seen the Night Raven since the battle. The stranger Lasair has come with us from Inver Colpa. Here I stand on the eastern rise of Magh Croimor, chieftain of this land, and of all things, hugging a toad to me.

Baine insists once more that the toad may save Winter Mist. Who could dream of such things? I look at my elvin wife lying so still on the grass. All the color has gone from her skin. She is pale as the moon. Her life still leaks weakly from a wound we cannot see. Baine is a fine healer but she is lost for how to help a woman of the Sidhe.

I reach into the folds of my brat and find Toad. He is oddly calm and for once has nothing to say. Very softly I set him down on Winter Mist and place her ice cold hands on top of him. Then I wrap her tightly in my brat and take her into my arms.

"Come on, we'll make a fire," I say to Baine and Lasair. Slowly, so as not to jostle my sleeping bride, we ride down into the valley and find our old place.

I feel the valley welcoming me home. I was born here and I know every tree, stone and hollow like I know my own hand. On the side of the bottom plain that's sheltered from the wind, that's where we go.

There's a niche in the hillside where I always kept some furs to warm me through the winter. Nearby there's a tangle of boughs thrown up against the side of an old ash tree. When winter set in, Da would cover it with pelts to make himself a den. I take some of those boughs now to make our fire. I'm sure Da wouldn't mind.

Once the fire is going strong, I bring the pelts down from my niche. They will be a soft and cozy bed for Winter Mist. Baine is already putting greens into a steaming pot of water. Lasair mutters something and stalks away. I hope she'll be setting some snares. I would go off hunting but I don't want to leave my ailing wife.

Night falls. We let the fire go down to red embers, still enough for comfort. I stretch out beside Winter Mist to hold her and bury my face in her hair. Now and then I whisper in her ear, telling her things I never said to anybody. I pour out all my silly secrets and stories, sad tales and a few pretty songs I know, on and on, until I think her head must be overflowing with my nonsense.

"Please be well," I finally breathe when there's nothing left to tell her. "We are home. Please be well, my love."