I drop to the ground, my cloak pooling around me, and try to catch my breath. So long as my brother did not turn back after me, I should be safe. I press my hand into the stitch in my side and focus on breathing as I watch the wood. There is no sign of him. No movement in the forest, only the leaves of a branch waving there. Then, again, closer to me, the leaves on another branch flutter.

The wind. Has it come back to check on me? Does it expect something of me now? No, that makes no sense, for what can I do for an element of the air?

“Hello,” I say softly as it reaches me. It makes a single circuit around me, a quick rushing passage, and then slows to rustle through the new growth upon the bushes around me. Almost certainly a wind sprite. I’ve heard of such things, magical creatures with changeable temperaments, their only body the movement of air. I’d thought them folk tales, but there’s no arguing with the breeze before me.

Nor is there any doubt that it helped me. I cannot understand why it would, but I am grateful to it, so grateful—for the aid it rendered me, and because it did so without knowing me, or having any reason to other than that it could.

“Thank you,” I tell it, and find I am crying again, only this is not the heartbroken sorrow of earlier. This a strange, warm feeling, tears slipping down my cheeks as I smile at the air—at nothing I can see.

The wind fans around me, cooling the tears upon my cheeks, and I smile back at it. “Thank you,” I tell it again. “I don’t know if I can do you a good turn, or if you need one, but I am grateful for your kindness.” I needed it today, this reminder that I am not alone, that there are allies and friends around me, whether I can see them or not, from this kindly wind to the boy who helped me up at the foot of the stairs.

“I hope we will meet again,” I say, wiping my cheeks. The wind only rustles around me again. It has no words to answer, but it flutters along beside me as I make my way out of the woods, and leaves me only as I near the gates.

I whisper a goodbye after it, certain it understands, and hurry to the stables. It’s foolish, perhaps, for it’s the first place my brother will come when he returns. But I must ask someone, and there is the young woman who generally looks after my horse. Redna is her name.

“Please,” I say as she steps out of an empty stall, a pitchfork in her hands. “Do you know where the girl is—the one whom Valka blamed yesterday?”