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‘Well hello, sleepy heads.’ Elen turned from her task to offer them a broad smile, although Emma didn’t look up, which was good. Sereh was sure her face was flushed from the heat of the caves, having been outside for so much time.

Finn’s fearful look reminded Sereh to make no reference to how long she’d been awake, instead she smiled at the light-hearted taunt, as though she had been asleep until now. Arrow immediately loped to the cook pot and stood nose almost on the pot.

‘Are you hungry?’ Finn eagerly asked Arrow, and proceeded to bring the wolf-dog a large bowlful of pottage. He poured two further bowlfuls for them. Sereh ate with surprising relish. When she was full of food, and had gratefully taken a large mug of herbed tea, she finally asked one of her many questions, sitting back to look at Elen and Emma as she spoke. Of Gunnar and Brand there was no sign.

‘Is this hare meat? And if it is, how do you get it?’

Finn’s eyes lit with renewed excitement.

‘Can I?’ Finn began.

‘Yes, you can,’ Emma replied, without looking up from her task.

‘Come on then, I’ll show you,’ he chorused, and drinking the rest of her tea, Sereh stood to follow him, although not before her gaze rested on the baby Emma was tending. She was yet to determine if the baby was Rankil’s son, but right now, her curiosity as to what Finn wished to show her, overrode all else. Only as Finn pulled aside the curtain covering the passageway they were planning to take, did Jon speak, in a bored tone. ‘You’d best leave the wolf-dog here. You don’t want her to know the way to the warren.’

Sereh jumped. She’d not noticed Jon’s entrance into the common room, through another passageway. How many tunnels were there in the cave system?

As Finn paused, half in the curtain, and half out, with Arrow at his feet, Sereh almost walked into him.

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ and Finn hurried back to the cook pot and offered Arrow yet another bowl of food.

‘You stay here, girl,’ Finn suggested hopefully, placing the food before her. ‘We won’t be long, girl.’

Arrow raised her eyes to Sereh.

‘Stay here, Arrow,’ she confirmed, somewhat mollified to discover the wolf-dog realised she was her companion, and not Finn’s. After a long moment, Arrow resumed her second meal since waking. Sereh didn’t doubt that when they returned, Arrow would be asleep again.

‘Come on, Sereh,’ and now Finn hurried through the curtain and down a long passageway. This one didn’t seem to have any further rooms branching from it.

‘This is the way,’ Finn offered, the words coming back to her, as she followed him. She bit back her question as to what that place was. It seemed he wanted it to be a surprise. ‘You won’t believe it when you see it.’

Finally, Finn stopped, and turning towards her with a wide grin on his face, flung aside not a curtain this time, but a heavy-looking wooden door built into the side of the passageway.

‘What is this?’ She looked quizzically at Finn but walked through the door, and into a vast cavern. Behind her, she heard Finn shut the door with a loud thud. Still, he didn’t speak.

She ventured into a brightly lit cavern, her mouth dropping in shock. The cavern was only half enclosed in dull black rock; the other half open to the sky where the walls of the cave disappeared far higher than her head. There were collections of stones made from the black rock of the cavern walls, but from a certain height, they were all covered in a luscious looking grass. The cavern was so vast it easily contained at least twenty such structures of rock and grass.

‘What is this place?’ she questioned, walking into the dazzlingly bright space. It was cool and she was grateful for her cloak, hastily grabbed from the back of her chair before leaving the common room. She reached out to touch the first stone structure, and realised it was more mud and grass than stone. She turned to Finn, confused.

‘Wait a moment. Try and be quiet,’ he whispered loudly, enjoying her confusion as he continued to grin. Heeding his words, she stood completely still, apart from her head which darted from one strange structure to the next, as she wondered what this room had to do with what she’d been eating. And then it happened. Something ran across her foot.

A cry half ripped from her mouth, and she stuffed her hand inside it to stop more from following on. Her eyes turned downwards. Sitting just to the side of her feet was the whitest snow hare she’d ever seen. And probably the biggest too. As she stared at it in amazement, more and more of the animals crept out of what must have been their homes and started to munch the deep green grass. They paid no attention to her or Finn. When she finally looked up from the immediate area, she was amazed to see the entire cavern was filled with hundreds and hundreds of the white hares, from babies to adults. The adults were all as large as the first one she’d seen.

She turned to Finn. ‘So, it was hare,’ she stated. Finn waved her to silence, his grin growing ever broader. Then he stepped closer, whispering excitedly.

‘There are so many of them. If you’re noisy, they hide away, so you have to be quiet. All the time. Jon’s always telling me I’m too loud.’ His voice was filled with remorse.

‘They’re beautiful,’ Sereh gasped, astonished. ‘But how are they here?’

Finn shrugged. ‘They just are. Look, do you see that baby over there. Look at its little nose twitching.’ As though the hare had heard him, it looked at Finn and they both laughed.

‘It’s all nose and no head.’

‘You wait until its ears grow.’ Finn chuckled as softly as he could.

Together, they spent much of the long afternoon watching the animals. They never seemed to stop feeding. Every so often, they giggled at the antics of the hares, and on one occasion, Sereh sneezed so loudly, they all ran away, only to sneak out again a little later.

As the sun began to set, Finn spoke in a louder voice. At the noise, all the snow hares disappeared in the blink of an eyelid.