to remember the things that Pieter and Joachim had taught her, had said to her, about situations like this, but she couldn’t recall a single word.
I killed a man. Not directly, and not on purpose, but a man was dead, and she had been the cause. What possible justification was there for that? That he had intended to harm her? That doesn’t make it right. . . .
Her thoughts were interrupted by one of the sylphs coming to fly beside her. “Master, there is no one on the road. Where do you wish to go?”
She passed her hand over her sweat-damp face. “Find me another Master to shelter with,” she said, finally, because she would rather trust her judgment and punishment to one of her own than to those with no magic. And she would have to give herself up to that sort of judgment, of that she was certain. She had used magic to kill, and anyone who did that and did not give herself up would find herself hunted down by the Bruderschaft in short order. That was, at least in part, what they did.
As Lebkuchen sped on through the night—a night lit by a bright, full moon—and she continued to wrestle with her guilt, she scarcely paid any attention to where they were going. She only knew it was well past midnight by the moon when the sylphs chivvied her off the highway and down a narrow little path through what looked—at least in the darkness—like near-virgin forest. Lebkuchen slowed to a hesitant walk immediately; deciding that her mare’s safety was of more importance than her own comfort, Giselle dismounted and followed the sylphs, leading the mare carefully around the worst of obstacles, doing her best to clear the path of things like fallen branches that could trip her up.
At least concentrating on that left her unable to think about anything else but relief when she finally saw a dim, warm light shining through the trunks of the trees ahead.
But it wasn’t until she saw the old woman waiting with a lantern held over her head to guide Giselle to what looked like a hermit’s cottage that Giselle suddenly felt the full effect of the evening hit her with a hammer-blow of exhaustion. As she came in through the open gate of a little yard, Lebkuchen whickering eagerly at the sight of a little shed with three goats tethered in it, Giselle stumbled and might have fallen if the old woman hadn’t been there in a trice, with a steadying hand on her elbow.
“Not a word, Liebchen,” the old woman said in a firm voice that brooked absolutely no argument. “Your sylphs have told me everything. What you need now is a safe place to rest, and old Tante Gretchen is here to give it to you.”
“But—” Giselle began, her tongue feeling oddly thick with fatigue.
“But me no buts,” Tante Gretchen said, and took Lebkuchen’s reins from her nerveless fingers. “You go in that door and take the cot by the fire. I’ll see to your mare.”
Giselle did not even bother to argue. She stumbled across the threshold into a warm cottage, sweet with the scent of woodsmoke and herbs, spotted a cot at the hearthside and all but fell into it. She didn’t even bother to take off her boots, and was dreamlessly asleep before she had even pulled the blanket over herself.
3
GISELLE woke to the smell of sizzling bacon, and her empty stomach reminded her that she hadn’t had anything but beer and a sausage and bread the entire previous day. Tante Gretchen was sitting at a stool on the hearth, turning over strips of bacon with a fork on a flat griddle atop some coals. She looked over at Giselle and smiled. “There’s sausages and flatcakes already done. Go help yourself while I finish these.”
Giselle’s stomach growled loudly, and she pushed off the blanket to get up—
And discovered that she also had to quickly comb her fingers through her hair and shove it back over her shoulders—because, as it always did when she was under stress, her hair had grown.
Tante Gretchen blinked a little at that. “Does it always do that?” she asked, with keen interest. “Your hair, that is.”
Giselle made a face. “When things are not going well, it can grow as much as a foot in a day. I don’t know why. Mother said she had never heard of anything like it, and the only thing she could think of was that