“Could . . . that person be the one who is stalking you now?” Rosa wondered. “Do you recognize anything about the sense you are getting? Magicians are known to hold grudges for a lifetime. If you thwarted him, or someone else did, he might never give up.”

“Only if he could survive a four-story fall,” Giselle said, trying to keep from clenching her teeth. But when we looked for him, he was gone. He must not have been alone. Could whoever took his body away be . . . but how on earth would that person know who I was, or that I was the girl in the abbey tower? It seemed ridiculous. She was supposed to be an American, not a native to the Black Forest. Her public persona and her public name were different. There was nothing, nothing at all, connecting “Rio Ellie” to Giselle of the abbey.

But what if that doesn’t matter? What if all that matters is that I look enough like what he remembers to make him fixate on me?

“Whoever it is, we will make sure you are never left alone,” said Kellermann, instantly. “Do you have the feeling you are being overlooked now?”

“No,” she said instantly. “Not since we began the meeting. I think such things bore him, and he must have known I would come straight back to my vardo where he cannot see me. Fox, Rosa and I all warded it against any intruding eyes. Once I am in my vardo, I am invisible.”

“So he does not know that we know, now. All the better.” Kellermann nodded. “So long as you always remain within the show walls, I do not think anything can happen to you. But to be sure, do not accept packages or letters that one of us has not examined first. And do not trust any message that is given to you that purports to be from anyone in the show. Anything that must be told to you, I will tell you in person. Even if it is an emergency.”

“That is an excellent plan,” Giselle said, feeling extremely touched. Any other time, she might have been irritated—but she’d been watched for a fortnight, was no closer to knowing who was watching, and was beginning to feel more than a little paranoid. She was aware that these self-appointed tasks had the potential of adding yet more burdens to Kellermann’s already too-busy day. He would not have insisted on this if he was not sure it needed to be done. “And I cannot thank you enough. I don’t want to burden you more than you already are.”