Luna’s wings waved lazily back and forth as she smiled at Giselle. She had lovely white moth wings that glowed as if they were made of moonlight—the reason that Giselle had named her “Luna” in the first place. “I hope you never forget how to have fun. So many magicians are always dour and serious. So tiresome.”

“I’ll try not to, Luna,” Giselle replied. With a glance backward at the vista from the window, she left the three Elementals lazing about her room and went down the stairs to the lower levels of the tower. Unlike the sylphs, she couldn’t live on air alone, it was past breakfast time, and she was hungry.

Mother always had meals precisely on time, but when she was away, Giselle tended to eat irregularly. There was a tiny little kitchen on the bottom floor of the tower, a miniature version of the bigger one that Mother used. Mother said the big one had been the “refectory kitchen”—Giselle guessed that was where the sisters of the abbey had done all their cooking. It was certainly huge, but Mother said she liked lots of room when she cooked. And, indeed, perhaps that was because in the fall and winter, she often cooked large batches of things that could be kept in the freezing cold of the cold-pantry and would not spoil, and in the summer and a little in the spring, she put up huge batches of jams and jellies, preserved fruits and vegetables. She even cured whole hams of boar and venison!

Even when it would have been convenient, Mother did not seem to use her magic very much, at least not when Giselle was around.

Luna left her window and followed Giselle all the way down into the kitchen, which was unusual. The sylphs didn’t care for the enclosed room, which was only illuminated by lanterns and high slit windows at the ceiling. But it seemed that Luna’s curiosity was overcoming her distaste for walls this evening. She perched out of the way while Giselle cut herself some bread and cheese and filled a little bowl with pickles. “Where is the Mother?” Luna asked, as Giselle poked up the fire in the little hearth and held the bread and cheese on a toasting fork over the coals to melt.

“She went to Fredericksburg,” Giselle said, keeping a careful eye on her food.

“Why?”

Being with the sylphs, Mother said, sometimes with exasperation, was like being with a little child. Once they decided to converse, they often had never-ending questions, and often questions they had asked before, since it was hard to keep their attention on anything for long. Giselle didn’t mind.

“There are things that we need that we do not have and cannot get from the forest or our garden, our chickens, our bees, our little cow, or our goats,” she explained patiently. “Flour and salt and spices and sugar. Books. Cloth. Needles and thread.”