The morning dawned grey, the sun an occasional glimpse behind the clouds. The girl woke with a restless energy and a premonition, the feeling that things had changed. Today is different, somehow, she thought. All around her the land gleamed, washed clean by the rain. Is this a new start for me?

She felt excited but anxious, and flipped back the blanket. Jaime's leg was hooked over hers, and she eased out from under his weight. Her shoulder was stiff, and she winced as she got to her feet. She pulled on her clothes that dried by the fire as quickly as she could; they were still damp and smelled of burnt food. The packhorse grazed in front of her, but she couldn't see Sooty. Her anxiety flared.

Behind her, Jaime stirred, yawned. 'Are you making tea?' he asked, rolling over.

'No,' she said.

She went out into the wet grass, hurried around the corner of the ridge. Straight away she could see Sooty lying down. The horse's curved ribcage rose above the sea of grass like the hull of an upturned boat. Horses lie down sometimes, it doesn't mean anything's wrong, the girl thought as she ran over, but she already knew that it was.

She could see Sooty's belly moving up and down with each breath, but when the girl knelt down beside her it was obvious Sooty couldn't get up. The earth around her hooves was muddy from her struggles to stand, and she made little grunts in her throat. The girl felt the horse's body carefully all over, but none of the wounds seemed to have worsened from last night, although the dressing on her chest was seeping. The girl put her ear to Sooty's belly and listened for the usual gurgles and swishes that meant the horse's insides were working normally. She couldn't hear anything. That's bad.

She sat on the grass and lifted the horse's big head to rest it in her lap. She stroked the bones of the long nose, brushed away the flies that gathered in the corners of her eyes. Sooty blinked and snorted. Groaned softly.

'I'm going to get help for you,' the girl whispered. 'But I need you to hang in there. Don't you give up on me now.' She cradled Sooty's head and rested her cheek on the horse's cheek. She didn't want to leave her even for a minute, because if Sooty's life was over then surely she should be here with her at the end. But then she decided not to think like that and got up, placing Sooty's head gently back on the ground. 'I'll be as fast as I can,' she promised.

She sprinted back around the corner of the ridge to the shelter, nearly colliding with Jaime, who was dressed and leading the packhorse. The girl ignored him and ran to the packs that were on the rocks, near the now extinguished fire, waiting to be loaded. She started going through them, loosening cords and pulling things out.

'Were there coins, in the packs? Did the villagers have any coins?' she asked, urgently.

'Why?' Jaime said. When the girl didn't reply but just kept scrabbling through the packs, he said, 'Where's Sooty?'

'Sooty's not good.'

Jaime let out a long breath. The girl didn't look at his face but she knew the expression that would be on it.

'We can't stay here -' Jaime began, but the girl cut him off: 'Where are the fucking coins?'

Jaime unbuckled a satchel he had slung around his shoulder, and pulled out a pouch. Tossed it to her. She snatched it out of the air and went to push past him, but he caught her arm. 'What are you doing?'

'I'm going to Maidenpool, to buy stuff for Sooty. Medicines. I think it's her... I think she has colic. Or something, from not eating, or not drinking, or drinking contaminated water or... ' the girl shrugged Jaime's hand off. 'I won't be more than an hour.'

'We don't have an hour,' Jaime said. 'There are people following us and even with the rain washing away our tracks it won't take them long to -'

'Why do you care, you can just kill them all again,' the girl snapped. 'You're good at that.'

'These people might not be villagers. They might be soldiers,' Jaime countered. 'You need to stay with me. I can't protect you if you're away from me.'

'Then come with me.'

Jaime shook his head, impatient. 'This is a bad decision, girl. You need to use your logic and not your emotions.'

'I'm not going anywhere without Sooty,' she said stubbornly.

'Fuck!' Jaime raised his hands and looked at the sky in frustration. 'She's a horse. I know you... consider her to be a friend, and... I know you love her, alright? But she's a gods damned horse. There are thousands of horses -'

The girl turned from him and ran , before he could physically stop her, down the slope to the trees, refusing to listen to another word.

Maidenpool was not far. A small creek bordered the wall around the town and a cobbled lane wound through it. The thatched roofs of the houses clustered around a central market place, but the girl didn't want to go into town today. She kept to the outskirts and circled the municipality, around the vegetable plots and orchards, the freshly turned earth steaming in the sun. It was still early enough in the day for most of the residents to be sleeping.

She saw one fisherman mending his skip, but he didn't see her. She paced herself so as not to tire too quickly, but she'd always been a good runner. By the time she reached the hut she was looking for she estimated that less than half an hour had gone by.

The hut was set back from any nearby houses, surrounded by tall trees that cast a permanent shadow, with a thin dirt footpath leading to the only door. There was a low fence surrounding a garden that seemed at first sight, impenetrable. Brambles and thistles clutched at the girl's clothes as she passed, and behind the overgrown shrubs, strange flowers grew in pots. Plants from lands the girl had never been to were hidden under common weeds. From cages and hanging baskets draped with cloth, or encased in sheets of metal to shield their contents from prying eyes, things chirped and whined.

The air in the garden was thick with smells, some bitter, some sweet, but all completely foreign. The girl had been here before, though, and didn't allow herself to be distracted. She knew that if there was anyone, anywhere, in all the places she'd been to, in all the years she'd travelled around Westeros, who could help Sooty... this was surely the person.

She reached the front door but turned right without knocking. Another, narrower, path ran under a small barred window and on around the side of the hut. She followed it, ducking gingerly to protect her sore shoulder, under the almost-invisible, gossamer wire strung with hundreds of tiny gold bells. They tinkled in unison. By the time the girl had reached the trapdoor behind the hut's fallen-down porch, unseen beneath a carpet of vines and moss, it had already propped open.

'Maeg? It's me, Ivezh's daughter,' the girl said. She crouched down so the person on the other side of the black slit could see her face. The door lifted, and smoke the colour of a bruise gusted into the air. It smelled like cinnamon, and metal.

'Come in, girl. Daughter of Ivezh, my blood sister, ' the woman on the steps said. Her voice was soft and musical, and she spoke as if she were singing each sentence. Then she turned and descended the steps, back into the smoky interior of the underground room. The girl went down the steps behind her, pulling the door closed above their heads.

The steps were more than she'd remembered, or maybe Maegi had lowered the floor. It seemed to take minutes to reach the bottom. The girl stepped into the wide circular space, with smooth featureless walls rising to the height of the steps, the ceiling fading into the darkness and a thick layer of purplish smoke hovering overhead. Around the walls were pots on stands over little fires, and shelves cluttered with objects.

'You need help,' Maegi said, as if someone had already told her. As if she'd been expecting the girl's visit. She stood in the centre of the room, her hands clasped together, the brown fingers protruding from the wide sleeves of her robe as spindly as bird's feet. 'I will help you if I can. You are my blood-sister's child, that makes you mine too.'

'Thank you, but I have coins to pay. You know I don't believe in that blood-relations thing, Maeg,' the girl said, frowning. 'Coming over on the same ship doesn't make you sisters. Just... good friends.' She didn't want Maeg to think she was somehow responsible for her well-being. She hadn't been to this place for years, and didn't really plan on coming back again any time soon.

A memory surfaced then, of how coming here with her mother had terrified her once. She couldn't remember exactly why, now. The place seemed harmless, just very hazy.

'Whether you believe or not makes no difference,' Maegi said, in her musical voice. 'Your mother and I were united by slavery, the horse girl and the girl from the Shadowlands. Men thought to buy and sell us like livestock, to use our bodies, but we swore to be free. We made a pledge. That is why we are sisters. With no family, we make our own family.'

'Yeah, yeah, I know Maeg, I get it. You had a bond.' The girl had heard it before and wasn't interested. She coughed in the smoke, which seemed to have coated her mouth in a tacky film. Whatever is being cooked in those pots is potent. She should put in a fucking chimney. 'I do need your help, though. I need some medicine for my horse, who is very sick. She... she can't stand up and her belly is... there's no sounds in there, I think - I -'

'Hush, girl,' the older woman said. Suddenly she was standing next to her, holding one of the girl's hands in her own. The girl blinked. She hadn't seen Maegi take a step, or move her hands. The smoke in here really plays tricks, she thought. Maegi's skin felt soft and brittle, like very old parchment. 'Your horse. She ails. She is poisoned?'

'I think she has colic.'

'A stomach poison, from bad water.' The woman nodded and stared into the girl's face. Her eyes were black. Cold radiated up the girl's hands, up her arms and into her sore shoulder, down her spine. There were so many fires burning in the room that it should have been warm, but it was freezing.

'Do you have medicine for her?' the girl asked, wanting to be gone.

'Yes, my child,' Maegi said. 'Come.' She led the girl to the shelves along the wall, where the room curved around the steps. From here, the girl could see that the space continued on into the dark, like a tunnel. She turned to look at the shelves beside her, fascinated by the strange things crowded along them.

At eye-level, a yellowish spiralling bone jabbed out of a red velvet frame. It was about as long as her arm, wider at the base and narrowing to a tip. The girl paused, then looked at the next object, a flattened scaly skin that might have belonged to a lizard. She reached her hand out but Maeg stopped her.

'Don't touch what you don't know,' the older woman said. 'These things are not what they seem.' She was holding an opaque bottle in one hand with a long tube coming out of it.

'Is that the medicine?' the girl asked. She was distracted by a thin open case on a shelf above her head. A silver arrow of impeccable quality nestled amongst some kind of pale straw, which glowed in the dimness. I miss my bow and arrow. I would buy another, the girl thought. 'Are you selling this stuff?' she asked, pointing. 'Does that come with a bow?'

Maegi smiled. 'The arrow of misfortune fits any bow. Longbow, short recurved bow, double bow, it can even be the bolt for a crossbow. But you are better off keeping your eyes on the unicorn horn and the basilisk shed. They will only cause you temporary pain.'

'Is it poisoned?' the girl wanted to know. Her eyes kept straying back to the silver of the arrow's shaft, the faint light from the straw surrounding it pulsing like a beacon. Drawing her in. It's so well made. Faultless.

'The arrow is soaked in a poison, or what you may call a poison if you didn't know of such things. Black lotus root, blind bloodfly paste, manticore venom, and other... things.' Maegi smiled and fluttered one hand. 'It will strike in the heart of any on whom it is fired, for the barbed head seeks out the life of its target and the shaft will turn in flight. You can never miss, with this arrow.'

'Amazing,' the girl said, impressed. 'What's the stuff it's in? That shining stuff?'

'Ghostgrass. It absorbs the curse so that the case is safe to touch.'

'What curse? I thought you said it was poisoned.'

'It is, both. Or neither.' Maegi shrugged as if descriptions were meaningless. 'Whoever touches the arrow itself will take enough of the... poison into their blood that they will suffer a terrible misfortune in...' she flapped her hand vaguely again, 'a day, a week, two weeks. A fall, drowning, in their sleep, a sickness, murdered, executed.' She smiled. 'But, they will die.'

'Oh.' The girl was disappointed. She'd been rather keen on the arrow that never-missed. This is why I hate magic. Too complicated, and always a hidden catch. She took the vial of medicine from Maegi instead, and swirled it round. 'Will this make my horse better?'

'Yes. The tube goes into one nostril, down to the stomach. Then lift the animal's head and tip the contents, all at once.'

'Thank you. And... one more thing.' The girl blushed a little as she asked. 'Would you have any um... moon tea? I've... I've run out.'

Maegi laughed. 'Of course, child.' She turned away and pulled a small packet of dried herbs from a drawer. She pressed them into the girl's hand along with the vial. 'Is this man not the one for you then, that you do not want his babies?'

'No, it's not that Maeg,' the girl said. 'I don't want anyone's babies.' As she said it, a tiny thought unfurled inside her, that perhaps it might be nice to have Jaime's baby. Not now, of course, or any time soon but... if ever I were going to have one. I mean, if I had to. Jaime's would be nice.

'What is his name?' Maegi asked. Her black eyes bored into the girl's.

'Well, he calls himself Jaime. But that's not really his name,' the girl answered, flustered. But just as she said it, something floated loose from the tangled mess in her mind, a recent memory, of Draw the outlaw. On the bridge-road. She clearly heard him say again, in that lisping tone: 'Now now, Jaime, don't over-excite yourself...'

The floor felt like it tilted and righted itself. Draw called him Jaime. It's not an alias. His name really is Jaime.

'Jaime,' said Maegi, her eyes dark and intense. 'Like Jaime Lannister. The Kingslayer.'

This time it felt like the room spun around and then suddenly stopped, because the girl found it was hard to keep her balance. 'No,' she said, automatically. But the pieces of her mind clicked into place like tumblers in a lock, and she knew.

Yes.