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Fairhrim stood irresolute for a moment before asking, “Sorry?”

Widdershins jerked his round chin towards the back of the garden. “In the shed. That’s my contribution to your reckless endeavour, if you’re so hell-bent on tainting your credibility with this pursuit.”

“I can assure you that I’m not. However”—an eloquent look was cast towards Osric—“circumstances are such that I haven’t a choice in the matter.”

“The galvanised bucket, then,” said Widdershins. “You may keep it. Drown your sorrows therein when this inevitably ends in tears.”

Widdershins waded farther into the creek and disappeared under the long fronds of the willow trees that edged it. “Galvanised,” came his voice as he went, soft and dreamy again. “FromGalvani, surname of an eighteenth-century professor—made the legs of dead frogs twitch.”

Fairhrim watched him go. There was a vertical line between her contracted brows. “Am I going to end up like him?”

“What? Completely nutty?” asked Osric.

“Discredited.” Fairhrim bit her lip. “Stripped of everything that matters.”

“We needn’t worry until you start splashing about in puddles looking for tadpoles,” said Osric.

“You’re not funny.”

“And you’re not barmy. Stop worrying.”

“I’m not barmyyet. I fear that time spent with you pushes me closer to that edge.”

“Hah,” said Osric, because this was, once again, rich of her. “Let’s go find this bucket.”

They stepped through Widdershins’ overgrown garden to find a dilapidated shed. There, among broken spades and torn wellies and mildew and rust, stood the bucket. It was filled with a dozen large, grey-white, crumbly pieces of—something. Chalk?

Osric would’ve liked to be the first to work it out, but of course Fairhrim beat him to it.

She knelt next to the bucket and pulled out one of the bits. She ran her fingers over its faint markings.

“A plaster cast of the Stone,” she said.

She pulled more pieces out of the bucket and set them out on the floor. By the time Osric had processed her intentions, knelt down beside her, and begun to study the puzzle, she had finished piecing the bits together.

The Monafyll Stone’s cast, about six feet long, lay in its fragmented length before them.

“How are you so quick?” asked Osric.

“I’ve stared at pictures of the Stone for hours,” said Fairhrim. “Oh—look.”

Here and there along the pieces, small notes were pinned, written in a slanted hand.

“Widdershins’ translation notes,” said Fairhrim, groping about for her satchel. “Preliminary, I suppose. Read them to me, would you? Begin at the top, there.”

She pulled her notebook from her satchel. Osric had seen the hideous thing before—it was bound with a bright pink spiral and featured a fuchsia cat.

Osric read the fragmented bits of translation. “ ‘Children of the moon. Faerydom. Cure for all evil’—with three question marks; I don’t think he was confident about that one.”

“Right,” said Fairhrim, glancing up from her writing. “And then?”

“ ‘Beginnings of dawns and ends of evenings.’ Erm. Then he gets into the lunar calendar proper. ‘Hrímfrost Moon—January—Exile. Hyngre Moon—February—Light streaming…’ ”

Fairhrim took notes as he went, resulting in a table drawn in an illegible hand. (“What is this?” asked Osric. “Is that meant to be a number? Five or three? Fouve? Threeve?”)