And the reality of the situation brought her spirits crashing to the ground, even as the people of Schopfheim streamed toward the entrance in the center of that canvas wall. She couldn’t afford a ticket. Not if she expected to get to the Bruderschaft Lodge without resorting to theft. It was dismaying, how much things cost when you couldn’t make them for yourself. Food, for instance. Her prize money was slowly trickling through her fingers, and what had seemed like bounty as she collected it didn’t seem like so much when you found out just how much an innkeeper was prepared to charge you for food you could have cooked yourself at a quarter of the cost.

Lebkuchen’s head came up as she scented other horses behind those canvas walls, and she whickered, her ears pointed forward. With a sigh, Giselle turned her away from the tempting venue. I can’t. I’ve run out of Tante Gretchen’s food. Things are more expensive in towns. I can’t keep counting on finding hayfields to sleep in. Lebkuchen would need stabling too, while I went in there, and I can’t possibly afford—

“Do you want to see the wild people?”

That voice, as much inside her head as out of it, told her that one of her Elementals was nearby. She looked up. One of the sylphs—this one with white and silver butterfly wings—had just swooped in to hover above Giselle’s head, eyes sparkling with excitement. She didn’t know this one, but as always, the sylphs seemed to recognize her and what she was immediately. “It is wonderful! You will like it so very much!”

Giselle took a quick look around to be certain no one was near enough to hear her talking to thin air. Traffic on the road was nonexistent for the moment; it was all one-way, heading for those enticing tents. Narrow strips of meadow bordered the road here, with trees beyond. “I don’t have the money,” she said, sadly. “I’d need to pay for a ticket, and pay for a place to put my horse while I watched the show. You know that humans need money for—”

“Wait!” The sylph dashed off. Blinking with confusion, Giselle moved her mare over to the side of the road, under a lovely green beech tree, and waited as she had been asked. What on earth could the sylph be—

“Here!” The sylph was back, waving two scraps of paper, one in each hand, as she sped toward Giselle. For anyone else, it would just look like two bits of paper, swirling about on the wind. “Here!” The sylph dropped them, and hovered expectantly, as Giselle snatched them out of the air.

To her astonishment, they were tickets. One was for stabling on the show grounds, and the other—admission to all attractions and the show itself!

“But—how—” She gaped up at the sylph.