“I have a question for you, Ms. Thimble,” I said, finding my courage once more. “I seek your knowledge.”

“Do you? Sit and tell me what knowledge you hunger for.”

I sat in my usual chair, the one where I had drawn her human face countless times. I kept my art satchel on my lap, feeling safer with something between us.

“What do you seek, child?” the troll whispered to me in a soft, enticing tone.

I studied her guise boldly. It was so skillfully rendered; she looked every bit of human as I was. Only the mirror had given her away. Only her reflection had betrayed her.

“The magic of disguise you’re wearing,” I began, and my heart was beating again, so fast it turned my voice into a wisp. “How did you weave it? How did you cast it? Is it metamara magic?”

Mazarine’s grin widened. “And you desire to know this why?”

“Because I want to cast it on myself.”

“Defeat does not suit you, and yet you think deceit would, Clementine?”

Her words provoked me, but my silence only amused her more. She leaned closer to me, her amethyst necklace swinging with her languid movements.

“You want revenge, young one?”

“I want what is mine,” I said. “I want to regain what was stolen from me.” And I had no doubt that one day I would win back Hereswith and call it home again. But I needed to bring the Vesper family to their knees in order to do so.

“And you believe disguising yourself will enable you to attain such things?”

“Yes.”

She sat back, but she was reveling in my answers. “Do you know where I was born? I come from the mountains, from a duchy you can only imagine despite the fact that you lived for so long in its shadow. The magic I wear is not something you have ever encountered here, Clementine. It is old, ancient. I created this enchantment of disguise long before the cruel duke was assassinated.”

I had always wondered how old she was. To know she had been alive before the Seren Duchy fell apart informed me that she was well over a hundred years in age, and I shivered. She had lived in an era that was nothing but legends now, and I sought to rectify it. Perhaps trolls had longer life spans than humans. But even as I tried to convince myself . . . something didn’t feel quite right, as if time had turned sour in the room. As if Mazarine had stopped the hours from touching her, somehow.

“My magic is very dangerous, and it will require a great cost,” she continued. “And I do not know if a human girl is strong enough to bear such a price.”

She’s trying to frighten me, I thought. She’s testing my mettle. Don’t back down, don’t be afraid. . . .