“Good idea. Best do a trial run on her own, anyway, before telling onkel about your suspicions — ‘cos then he’d be haunting all her steps and I know that can be scary as fuck,” Astrid says, light and breezy and familiar.

Pike almost rivalled Guilfoyle in terms of similarly skeletally frightening and protective older men. But the augur, in his turn, was always the most animated when working with magic and the spirits; he’d been disappointed in Astrid’s lack of interest, but at least he had Aura Hardie to discuss the matter.

And Astrid and Gwenaëlle are friends; they have been friends for a very long time, and Astrid will very confidently declare I was there for Morgana’s birth, but if pressed to say exactly how long it’s been, she finds herself petering out on specifics. The days and years blur together in a wintry haze. (How old is Gwenaëlle’s daughter, now?)

When she does this walk up the mountain with a sheep’s carcass, she often has to enlist someone else for sheer muscle — sometimes Gwenaëlle’s husband himself, big and broad — but today, Astrid is doing the carrying. She has several dead rabbits tied up by their legs and bouncing at her hip.

“How’re you feeling, Morgana?” she asks, craning her head to flash a grin at the girl.