She wanted to impress him, so she made a real breakfast: sliced ham, beef, tongue, three kinds of cheese, some of the precious bread (toasted over the fire, since it was getting a little stale), and generous dollops of butter and jam in a little bowl. His eyes lit up when he saw the feast in the basket. She tied the string to the shutter hinge so she could leave the basket down there with him until he was finished, and raced off to change and get her own meal.

When she returned to the window, he looked up at her and snapped his fingers as if he had suddenly had an idea. “I know what we can do!” he said, and laughed. “If you cannot come down, I will come up!”

She stared down at him, baffled. “How?” she replied. “The stones of this tower are like glass, they are so smooth. There isn’t enough of a chink between them for a bird to catch his claw.”

“This!” he said, tugging on the string that was tied to the basket he had just put the plates back into. “I shall go back to my shelter and bring my rope. I can tie it to your string and you can pull it up. You needn’t even try to find something to tie it to that will bear my weight—just tie it to the middle of a fireplace poker.”

She laughed at how clever he had been. Of course! The poker was made of stout metal, and was longer than the window was wide. Once his weight was on the rope, the poker and the stone of the tower itself would hold him. “Why didn’t we think of this before?” she said. “Oh, do run back to your things and bring the rope!”

He saluted her and ran off. She pulled up the basket, let down the string again, and took the basket to the kitchen, then waited impatiently at the window for his return.

It seemed an age, but eventually, Johann appeared around the bottom of the tower with a coil of stout rope over his shoulder. He tied one end to her string, and she hurried to pull it up and make it fast to the poker. She guided the poker in place as he pulled slowly on the rope, and once he was satisfied it was wedged properly, he scaled the side of the tower with all the skill of a practiced mountaineer. Before she was really prepared for it, he was perched on the sill, then jumping down into her room.

“Well!” he said, smiling. “Here I am at last.”

And then . . . the smile began to change. From cheerful, it turned . . . cruel. His eyes grew cold, and instinctively she began to shrink away from him. “Y-yes,” she faltered. “So you are.”