And at night, when it was too hard to study the tiny words on the densely packed pages, Giselle would pepper Rosamund with questions about the creatures she had encountered. Fox would often join them, listening without saying very much, and about half the time Cody would join the impromptu sessions as well.

“One thing I cain’t figger,” he said on the fifth evening of their two-week-long engagement, as they relaxed in the outer “room” of his tent. There was cider instead of the usual beer, which was always refreshing on a warm night, and the Captain’s clever canvas chairs were remarkably comfortable. “Why is’t that y’all cain’t allus tell when a critter is gonna be good or bad? I ain’t never run inta that back in America.”

“And how many Elemental creatures have you run into until now?” Rosamund asked, passing around some pastries she had picked up at a bakery in the town that morning. Kellermann was exceedingly pleased with Rosamund, who had contacts that got her the best quality supplies at the best price here in Reichenbach. Even the quality of the food in the mess tent had improved.

Light came from a couple of lamps hanging from the top of the tent. Cody scratched his head, his brows creasing. “Well,” he admitted. “Not many. Seems like most of ’em are either Injun spirit critters, and don’t have no truck with a white man, or they’re jest—” he gestured with his hands. “Big. Way, way bigger’n I’d wanta wrangle, even iffen I could, which I cain’t.”

“And you are likely to see or encounter only Fire creatures, and only those that wish you to see them,” Rosamund pointed out, as Giselle bit into a slice of apfelkuchen. “In a country where the population is sparse, and there are many opportunities to avoid men, and in which Elemental Magicians are few on the ground. Whereas here . . . well, we have thousands of years of history. Generation after generation of Elemental Magicians, from the earliest who were little more than shamans, to now. We have a dense population, and a great deal of human meddling with magic, for good or ill. We also have the remains of old gods, and the spirits that the pagans worshipped. It is a wonder that you went as long as you did here on this continent without encountering Elementals.”

“All right,” Cody said after a moment. “But y’all didn’t answer my question. How do y’all tell what’s good an what ain’t?”

“Ah. Sometimes they could be either. That’s because, of themselves, many Elementals are neither good nor evil. They just are. And left to themselves, they are indifferent to humans. But Elemental Magicians and Masters can and do command them, and those Magicians and Masters have put those they command to tasks both good and evil. As the tree is bent, so it grows,” Rosamund concluded. “An evil Master will make evil out of any neutral Elemental he can coerce.”