“I’ll send word they can expect us then. You’ll have your sausages at luncheon. Kellermann just made an arrangement this morning with Stuck’s. They’re going to supply our luncheon from now on, on condition they can say so outside their tent and at their bierkeller when Oktoberfest is over.” Rosa laughed at Giselle’s expression of surprise. “Yes, yes, Kellermann has us endorsing restaurants now. I suspect if the show were to stay here instead of returning home, he’d have you endorsing soap and corsets. Honestly, Kellermann has taken to this sort of promotion as if he was born to . . . what’s the English word? Ah, ballyhoo.”

“He certainly takes good care of the company,” Giselle said, standing up. She felt her head, frowned at the looseness of her hair, and began to unbraid her it. “Time to cut this again. Have I got coals in the stove?”

Rosa checked. “All set. Shall we get this over with as quickly as we can?”

It took nearly an hour to get Giselle’s hair unbraided, cut and braided up again, and every scrap of it burned in the little stove that heated her vardo. Burning the hair in the stove was the only way to keep the entire wagon from stinking of burned hair, but the smell still wasn’t pleasant until Rosa tossed a couple of pinecones on the coals to take the stench out. The oddest thing was, the sylphs and pixies and even the zephyrs that loved sweet smells would flock to the chimney and act like cats in catnip when she burned her hair. There truly is no accounting for taste.

Giselle felt very sorry for Kellermann each time she had to do this—when he’d realized how fast her hair grew, he’d gotten a wild idea to sell locks of it as souvenirs, and the poor man had been jumped on by herself, Rosa, and Fox. “Put the hair of an Elemental Master out there for anyone to get his hands on?” Rosa had said, horrified at the very idea. “Why not just put Giselle up on an auction block and be done with it?”

“Uh—would it be that risky?” Kellermann had gulped.

“Yes!” all three of them had said, together. Then Giselle had explained how having her hair in his possession could allow any magician—particularly those practicing dark or blood magic—to quite literally control her. “From the moment I left the abbey,” she told him sternly. “I have made absolutely certain that every strand of my hair was accounted for and burned to ashes.”

“Oh . . .” Kellermann said faintly. “But it is such a pity . . . are you sure?”

“Yes,” they all three chorused, and that was that.