as the harmonica player gave up for the night. “In that case, your best defense is to never be out of the company of one of us. Don’t answer any invitations that ask you to go somewhere alone. Once you’re on the road again, never leave the compound. I think it’s time to tell Kellermann and Cody about this.”
“Tell Cody an’ Kellermann ’bout what?” The very two people they were talking about strolled up at that moment on their way back to their tents; evidently they had remained behind to continue discussing the arrangements for the move into winter quarters.
Quickly, Giselle explained about the unseen “watcher” that had been plaguing her for the past two weeks. It was a great relief to her that neither of them treated her as if she was overdramatizing anything.
Or worse, making it up. Because if she hadn’t been the subject of this intense and intrusive regard, she would have a little difficulty believing in it.
“If’n I was home, I’d’a say it was likely ’nother mage tryin’ t’figger a way t’steal yer power,” Cody said, finally. “My Ma—she’s the Master in the fam’bly—she warned me ’bout that. Gen’rally fer a feller, it’s a purdy straightforward ritual murder.”
The way he paused made her mouth go dry. Rosa filled in what Cody had not said grimly. “And for a woman, it’s violation,” she said, mincing no words.
Giselle found herself clutching the side of her vardo as her mind flashed back across the years. In her mind’s eye, she saw “Johann Schmidt,” if that had indeed been his name, as clearly as if it had been yesterday. She saw him kneeling over her, just before Mother burst through the door of her room and attacked him. The cruel expression on his face made her shudder even now. And now . . . now she wondered. Had he known what she was? Had stealing her power been his plan all along? She felt her knees going a little weak, and steadied herself.
“Giselle, are you all right?” Rosa asked in concern.
“Yes . . . yes, I am,” she said, and shook the memory off. “Just, I never knew that before. And it might explain something that happened to me a long time ago. Please, don’t concern yourself about it.”
“How can I not?” Rosa demanded. “You are as white as snow!”
“Giselle,” Cody said slowly, using her real name as he rarely did. “You kin tell us. Ain’t we friends?”
We are . . . and I have trusted them with so much more. . . . Steeling herself she told them, briefly, what had happened. As briefly as she could manage. And it was still hard; she was shaking before she was done.
“Could . . . that person be the one who is stalking you now?” Rosa wondered. “Do you recognize anything about the sense you are getting? Magicians are known to hold grudges for a lifetime. If you thwarted him, or someone else did, he might never give up.”
“Only if he could survive a four-story fall,” Giselle said, trying to keep from clenching her teeth. But when we looked for him, he was gone. He must not have been alone. Could whoever took his body away be . . . but how on earth would that person know who I was, or that I was the girl in the abbey tower? It seemed ridiculous. She was supposed to be an American, not a native to the Black Forest. Her public persona and her public name were different. There was nothing, nothing at all, connecting “Rio Ellie” to Giselle of the abbey.
But what if that doesn’t matter? What if all that matters is that I look enough like what he remembers to make him fixate on me?
“Whoever it is, we will make sure you are never left alone,” said Kellermann, instantly. “Do you have the feeling you are being overlooked now?”
“No,” she said instantly. “Not since we began the meeting. I think such things bore him, and he must have known I would come straight back to my vardo where he cannot see me. Fox, Rosa and I all warded it against any intruding eyes. Once I am in my vardo, I am invisible.”
“So he does not know that we know, now. All the better.” Kellermann nodded. “So long as you always remain within the show walls, I do not think anything can happen to you. But to be sure, do not accept packages or letters that one of us has not