Rosa looked up at Pieter. “After you feed them and let them sleep the first thing you must do is get them clean, Pieter,” she said, sternly.

Pieter looked down at all of them. “Pieter must shear your heads like sheep,” he said. “You will have bugs in that hair. All except little girl. Little girl must keep pretty hair.”

Thankfully the children all thought that idea was hilarious, and the one that looked to be the eldest agreed, ruefully, that they did have bugs in their hair. Pieter nodded solemnly. “We go home, Rosa,” he said. “Help children up.”

By this, he meant that Rosa and Giselle were to help the children to climb up on him, for he intended to carry all of them to their destination. The biggest one straddled his neck and clung to his head; he had one on either shoulder and more cradled in his each of his massive arms. So that he could see and would not stumble—or crush something—Giselle made a second light, and sent it to float above his head until he got to his cave.

“Good night, Yellow-hair, Red Cloak,” Pieter rumbled, his mouth turned up in a curiously charming smile. “Pieter was happy to help. Pieter is happy to have new friends. All is good again. Yes?”

“Yes, Pieter,” Rosa said warmly. “All is well that ends well. Time to get your new friends to their new home, and put them to bed.”

Giselle nodded. Two of the children held in Pieter’s arms were already nodding off. Pieter smiled, nodded instead of waving, and turned. The last they saw of him, he was lumbering—carefully—off into the distance, along the swath of destruction he had cut through the forest to get here.

Rosa looked at the cottage, which was now nothing but a ruin. She frowned, and turned to the oven. A few pieces of wood had fallen out when they pushed the Blood Witch inside and were lying on the ground, still smoldering. Rosa walked over and picked one up, blowing the end into flaming life again. Striding deliberately to the ruined cottage, she tossed it inside, where the old straw from the roof immediately caught and blazed up.

She and Giselle stood together and watched the cottage burn. It didn’t take very long; the place must have been as dry as old paper.

“You were very lucky, you know,” Rosa said, soberly. “An extra child, given away to someone who wanted and loved you. We of the Brotherhood hear stories like the ones those children told far too often. Except that what we see is bones, or sometimes bodies, in sheltered places in the woods. Parents who can’t feed themselves, much less their children, lead them out into the woods and leave them there. . . .”

Giselle shuddered. “How often does something like that happen?” she asked.

Rosa shrugged. “Once is too often. But what happens in cities can be worse.”