“No, I can handle the beasts. They trust me,” Rosa said, and sighed. “All right. I expect that the Captain and the Indians are—”

“—are violatin’ your privacy an’ comin’ up. Kellermann’s with us,” called Captain Cody from below. “Iff’n yer afraid t’be seen—”

“Oh don’t be an idiot, get up here!” Rosa snapped, and soon enough, the sound of boots on the stairs heralded two of the three. Fox’s footsteps could scarcely be heard, of course, because he was wearing his usual soft moccasins. They were all in pants pulled hastily over their nightshirts, and wrapped in blankets, including Fox. It seemed that when it came to sleeping in Bavarian cold, he had decided to do as the white men did, and bundle into a warm, thick, red flannel nightshirt. They all pulled chairs up to the side of the bed and huddled in them.

Rosa and Giselle took it in turns to tell them what they knew, and Elfrida added how she intended to keep the rest of the company from taking fright. When they finished, Cody and Fox exchanged a look and a wry smile. “See, now, Fox, I tol’ ye the ladies woulda figgered out a short plan afore we got up here,” Cody said. “Here’s th’ thing, though. Fox an’ me, we’ve seen a good bit’a fightin, an’ we figger this storm ain’t but the beginnin’. It’s got a evil feel to’t. That kinda matches up with you tellin’ me there’s some Fire Magic mixed up with it, on’y turned t’cold. I ain’t never seen that, but I heerd ’bout it, from a feller in England what recognized me as a mage.” He shook his head. “That feller allowed as how he ain’t never heerd of a Cold Elemental critter that weren’t all bad, clear through. You go makin’ a deal with one’a them, an’ it freezes all the heart right outa ye.”

“That . . . doesn’t sound good,” ventured Giselle.

“Yep. An’ it gets worse. ’Cause I kin tell whoever’s out there, if he ain’t a Master, he’s damn close.” He picked at the edge of his blanket. “Still, Rosie, yer right. We cain’t go makin’ no plans without knowin’ who’s behind all this, how strong they are, an’ maybe, iff’n we’re lucky, what their plans are. An’ the good news is I bet they might go guardin’ ’gainst Fire, Air or Water scryin’, but they ain’t gonna ’gainst Earth.”

“The Earth doesn’t like them,” Rosa muttered, after a long moment; her face was screwed up in concentration. “There is someone in this group that the Earth is powerfully revolted by.”

“That there’ll work in our favor.” Cody leaned forward earnestly. “Rosie, I gotta say somethin’, cause this ain’t the first magical fight I been in. I know y’all reckon I’m a flibbertigibbet, an’ maybe sometimes I am, but look here, the strongest thing we got workin’ fer us right now is thet we trust each other. We gotta make sure whoever’s out there cain’t work on thet an’ break it. Savvy?”