“Yes I would,” Rosa said firmly. “If he’s a true berserker, then he does more than just go battle-mad. He’s a shape-shifter. And I have things to deal with a shape-shifter. You won’t fit my special armor, and you don’t know how to use my axe or my crossbow.”

“Crossbow, mebbe. Special armor, no. An’ I ain’t never seen no shape-shifter.” Cody cleared his throat awkwardly. “So I reckon I’ll take on th’ old man.”

“The witch is mine.” Fox’s eyes glittered in a fashion that suggested he was very pleased with this. “She holds the stolen power, and perhaps the stolen souls, of too many. I shall be pleased to free it, and them.”

They planned.

And then they got Elfrida to feed them a very special meal, made in her oven, and despite everything, they slept.

Fox slipped out first, swathed head to toe in a kind of oversuit that Elfrida had whipped up for him overnight out of sheets. He left in the early dawn, and if Giselle had not been watching for him, she never would have seen him against the snow. He left the mirror behind, tied to the raven, who had decided it was safe to observe again, from a distance. The witch had begun a scrying spell using a mirror of her own, presumably to keep an eye on the outside of the abbey, so that they could ambush anyone who ventured out. This was exactly what they wanted. In fact, their plan counted on it.

The fire had predictably died down overnight, and just as predictably, there was insufficient wood for it. Dieter, who seemed to have gotten the job of woodcutter as well as every other chore that neither his mother nor his father cared to do, was sent out, with much scolding, to fetch more. That was Rosa’s signal; like Fox, she too was swathed in a garment made of a white sheet, and out she went.

When there was no sign that anyone in the camp had noticed her leaving, and the raven had determined Dieter was well out of earshot of the camp, no matter how much noise he made, it was Cody’s turn.

And he was . . . something of a sight. He was bundled up in Mother’s old woolen cape with the hood up. Over his trousers he wore a skirt. His head was so wrapped in a long scarf that nothing was visible but his eyes . . .

...and the two blond braids that hung down over the breast of his cape.

They were two of Giselle’s braids, the hair that she had gratefully cut short when they first arrived. These, and Rosa’s spell of illusion, should make him pass at a distance for her.

“I look like a durn fool,” he said, voice muffled by the scarf.

“There’s no one to see you but me and Kellermann,” Giselle pointed out. “And Kellermann looks even sillier.”