Only minutes later he turned to her, relief in the lines of his tired face. “I feel her now.” He stepped out of the stream and Katsa followed. He wove his way through the trees until he came to a fallen tree trunk stretched across the forest floor. He measured the trunk with his eyes. He walked to one end, crouched down, and looked inside.

“Bitterblue,” he said into the trunk. “I’m your cousin Po, the son of Ror. We’ve come to protect you.”

There was no response. Po spoke quietly, and gently. “We’re not going to hurt you, cousin. We’re here to help you. Are you hungry? We have food.”

Still there was no response from the fallen tree. Po stood and turned to Katsa. He spoke in a low voice. “She’s afraid of me. You must try.”

Katsa snorted. “You think she’ll be less afraid of me?”

“She’s afraid of me because I’m a man. Take care. She has a knife, and she’s willing to use it.”

“Good for her.” Katsa knelt before the hollow end of the trunk and looked inside. She could just make out the girl, huddled tight, her breath short, panicked. Her hands clutching a knife.

“Princess Bitterblue,” she said. “I’m the Lady Katsa, from the Middluns. I’ve come with Po to help you. You must trust us, Bitterblue. We’re both Graced fighters. We can keep you safe.”

“Tell her we know about Leck’s Grace,” Po whispered.

“We know your father is after you,” Katsa said into the darkness. “We know he’s Graced. We can keep you safe, Bitterblue.”

Katsa waited for some sign from the girl, but there was nothing. She looked up at Po and shrugged her shoulders. “Do you think we could break the tree apart?” she asked. But then from inside the trunk came a small, shaky voice.

“Where is my mother?”

Katsa’s eyes snapped up to Po’s. They searched each other’s faces, uncertain; and then Po sighed, and nodded. Katsa turned back to the trunk. “Your mother is dead, Bitterblue.”

She waited for sobbing, screams. But instead there was a pause, and then the voice came again. Even smaller now.

“The king killed her?”

“Yes,” Katsa said.

There was another silence inside the tree. Katsa waited. “Soldiers are coming,” Po muttered above her. “They’re minutes away.”

She didn’t want to fight these soldiers who carried Leck’s poison in their mouths; and they might not have to, if they could only get this child to come out.

“I can see that knife, Princess Bitterblue,” she said. “Do you know how to use it? Even a small girl can do a lot of damage with a knife. I could teach you.”

Po crouched down and touched her shoulder. “Thank you, Katsa,” he breathed, and then he was up again, stalking a few paces into the trees, looking around and listening for anything his Grace could tell him. And she understood why he thanked her, for the child was crawling her way out of the trunk. Her face appeared from the dimness, then her hands and shoulders. Her eyes gray and her hair dark, like her mother’s. Her eyes big, her face wet with tears, and her teeth chattering. Her fingers gripped tightly around a knife that was longer than her forearm.