After her long, long rest Winter Mist is finally healed! I felt none of the sickly fever on her when I took her into my arms just now. There was only the fever of a lover's wanting. Night after night I laid beside her and whispered my heart out to her while she slept her deep and desperate sleep. I feared she'd slip away and never return. I don't know if the Sidhe can die as people do. She was fading, that much was plain to see. The only way I could think of to keep her in this world was to tell her everything I knew, that my voice would be a binding to hold her in Magh Croimor. Did she hear, did she know, will she remember? All the bright joy of her strength's return was shadowed when Baine blundered into the hut with Ma right behind her. We had to stop what we started. Again.

So I leave the hut to the women, mumbling curses as I go. Sure, what passes between a man and woman ain't a mystery to Baine or Ma. We shoulda just gone on with it! A husband and wife can do as they please, whenever and wherever and however they -

A sudden thought strikes me like one of mine own arrows, dark and deadly and straight through the heart. Are we, are we truly husband and wife? Aye, we were wed at Telltown and made our vows at Lugh's Fair. At Lugh's Fair. Now it is nigh unto Imbolc and we haven't yet done what all lovers do. There's always something that keeps us from what should be easy. There are couplings every day, everywhere, with no trouble, free as the breeze. Even the horses, the wolves in the woods, everything from the eagles down to the little silver fishes, and aye, maybe even Toad! But not Sean, the chieftain of Magh Croimor, and his sweet sidhe-queen of outlaws, no, not yet.

The thought makes me stride with great urgency and purpose across the field from Ma's hut, back to the place where we'd been starting to build a den for Winter Mist and me. Halfway, I stumble and kick at a stone, groaning with rage. We'll a place, we must find a place, we have to find a place before our own little home is finished. I start thinking of a soft bed of pine needles down by the stream, a sheltered notch in the hills, a nest of our own warm cloaks under a roof of boughs and sky...

My feet carry me somehow to where Aedan, Lasair and the rest are standing in a circle. A strange voice breaks into my dreamy plans. Who's this? A poet, reciting something to Lasair? Aedan has his dagger in hand, the others are showing their metal too. I snap to attention.

"Do you wish to send a reply to the princess, Labraid?" the poet is asking politely.

Labraid? How long has she been traveling in that disguise? A princess wants a reply from her, as a man, a strayed lover?

A princess? A princess with jewels, silver, horses and cattle? I rub my hands together, scheming. Lasair, as Labraid, looks very thoughtful, as if she is trying hard to remember or maybe, like me, trying hard to think of how she might gain from this.

I take a closer look at the poet. Where have I seen that foxy face before? More important, does he carry anything worth taking? Poets are usually well kept. I admire his horse and reach for the dangling reins with one hand, unsheathing my knife with the other. "Tell us more about this princess," I smile slyly at him, flashing the knife right in front of his nose.