That was because Kellermann was also disguised as Giselle, with another two braids dangling over the cloak he wore. Which was Giselle’s. As were the dirndl and smock, and perfume. Rosa had worked the much more difficult spell of seeming on him, and even to Rosa’s eyes, she had to concentrate on the man she knew was under all that in order to see him. Otherwise it was like looking into a mirror.

“All right, out you go,” she said, and off Cody went. There was a window in the storage above the kitchen he could just barely fit through and climb out of that would let him out onto the snow drifted to the second floor. He trudged down the stairs, and in about half an hour, the witch bit off an exclamation.

“The girl!” she spat. “The little bitch is getting away! What a time for Dieter to be cutting wood!”

“I’ll get her, never fear,” the old man rumbled, and got to his feet. A moment later a sort of ripple passed over him, and he seemed to disappear. “She’ll never see me coming. Ha.”

“She had better not. She’s at full power, and you are—” Johann snapped.

The old man interrupted him. “I am your senior in years, wisdom and power, boy!” his voice snarled out of the ripple in the air. “And don’t you forget it. Or cripple or not, I’ll teach you that lesson all over again.”

Then came the hardest part. Waiting. Waiting until they were sure that the old man was too far from their camp to call back. “All right,” Giselle said, finally. “Now, Kellermann.”

He was faster than Cody had been, even with the burden of a dress. It wasn’t more than fifteen minutes later that the witch let out a volley of curses that practically scorched the air, and Johann, who had been watching the mirror beside her, echoed her. “It was a trick! It was all a trick! The first one must have been the Bruderschaft hunter. This one is her!” The old woman looked wildly about, cursed again, and picked up a staff and a sickle. “Curse men to the darkest hells, why are they never with you when you need them?”

And with that, she scuttled off across the snow like a black spider, leaving Johann alone. She didn’t even give Johann a chance to respond.

The mirror she had left beside Johann went dark, no longer controlled by the old woman. Now Johann was limited only to what he could scry . . . and it didn’t appear that he knew how.

“My turn,” Giselle whispered.

18