“Just because he’s friendly to the Council doesn’t mean he’ll be able to see through whatever story Leck’s spreading.”

“True,” Katsa said. “But we need clothing and information. And you need a hot bath. If we could get to Lienid without encountering anyone, we would; but it’s impossible. If we must trust someone, I’d prefer it to be a Council sympathizer.”

Bitterblue scowled. “You need a hot bath as much as I do.”

Katsa grinned. “I need a bath as much as you do. Mine doesn’t have to be hot. I’m not going to stick you into some half-frozen pond, to sicken and die, after all you’ve survived. Now, child,” Katsa said, as the merchant and the innkeeper shouldered bags of their own and headed for the inn’s entrance, “don’t move until I get back.”

“Where . . .” Bitterblue began, but Katsa was already flying from tree to tree, hiding behind one massive trunk and then another, peeking out to watch the windows and doors of the inn. When moments later Katsa and Bitterblue resumed their trek through the Sunderan forest, Katsa had four eggs inside her sleeve and a frozen pumpkin on her shoulder. Their dinner that night had the air of a celebration.

THERE WASN’T MUCH Katsa could do about her appearance or Bitterblue’s when it came time to knock on the storekeeper’s door, other than clean the dirt and grime as best she could from their faces, manhandle Bitterblue’s tangle of hair into some semblance of a braid, and wait until darkness fell. It was too cold to expect Bitterblue to remove her patchwork of furs, and Katsa’s wolf hides, no matter how alarming, were less appalling than the stained, tattered coat they hid.

The storekeeper was easily identified, his building the largest and busiest in the town save the inn. He was a man of average height and average build, had a sturdy, no-nonsense wife and an inordinate number of children who seemed to run the gamut from infancy to Katsa’s age and older. Or so Katsa gathered, as she and Bitterblue passed their time among the trees at the edge of the town waiting for night to fall. His store was sizable, and the brown house that rose above and behind it enormous. As it would have to be, Katsa thought, to contain so many children. Katsa wished, as the day progressed and more and more children issued from the building to feed the chickens, to help the merchants unload their goods, to play and fight, and squabble in the yard, that this Council contact had not taken his duty to procreate quite so seriously. They would have to wait not only until the town quieted, but until most of these children slept, if Katsa wished their appearance on the doorstep to cause less than an uproar.

When most of the houses were dark, and when light shone from only one of the windows in the storekeeper’s home, Katsa and Bitterblue crept from the trees. They passed through the yard and snuck to the back door. Katsa wrapped her fist in her sleeve and thumped on the solid Sunderan wood as quietly as she could and still hope to be heard. After a moment the light in the window shifted. After another moment the door was pushed open a crack, and the storekeeper peered out at them, a candle in his hand. He looked them up and down, two slight, furry figures on his doorstep, and kept a firm grip on the door handle.