Tentatively, Anna touched it; it was softer than anything she’d ever touched before, except maybe rabbit fur.

“Now le’s check th’ bottom’f th’ other chest, under th’ spare sheets,” Aunt Jinny said, loading her down with the skirt and dress. “I’m a-thinkin’ we c’n hev us a liddle sewin’ bee t’day. Git thangs cut out, anyways.”

Underneath the spare sheets was another treasure. Another voluminous skirt, and not one made out of flour sack or canvas. It was a nice faded pink cotton that you wouldn’t know was faded unless you looked closely at the seams. It even had a touch of rose ribbon trim around the hem. They grinned at each other over its folds.

By the time supper came around, they had three skirts cut out, extra waistbands for both, and a nice pile of pieces much too big to be called “scraps.”

“I do think,” Aunt Jinny said, surveying the wool pieces critically, “I do think, iffen y’all don’ mind ’bout a bit’f patchwork, I c’n git that there wool coat outa what we got left. I c’n line it with fur, I’ll bet. I got plenty’f rabbit, or I c’n arst the Ravens what they got t’trade. Beaver ’r otter’d be good.”

“Aunt Jinny, thet’d be fine!” Anna beamed. “It’d be like bein’ a-wrapped up in my kinfolk!”

“Why, so it would,” her aunt agreed with a huge smile, politely ignoring the fact that Anna was actually not blood-kin at all to Jinny’s Ma. “An’ it shore is better’n leavin these thangs in them chests, where they ain’t doin’ nobody no good.” She took the remaining lengths of wool and cotton and stowed them back in the blanket chest, then laid the cut-out pieces in the linen chest, layering them with lavender. “Thet’ll do fer now. We c’n start a-sewin’ when we got time an’ they’s light t’see by.”

Anna was disappointed not to be working on that pretty cotton—but the storm hadn’t blown over yet, and it was getting dark enough to make it hard to thread a needle.

“Le’s hev supper, an’ y’all c’n pop up on th’ stove an’ read a spell,” Jinny said.

Back up on the stove, Anna continued where she had left off.

On hearing that all I wanted was to be a farmer again, my host shook his head. “There is no land here that is not in someone’s hands,” he said, “And while I would welcome you, I do not think you ever want to have anyone as lord over you again. Go to the New World, my friend. There is land for the taking there. And I will help you. This is why.”

Now came a part that Anna had to read carefully, then read over again, before she properly understood it. It seemed that from Hungary westward, magicians—the ones that weren’t bad, that is—organized themselves into something called “Lodges.” Which didn’t make any sense to Anna, because the only “Lodges” she knew about were places beavers lived . . . so eventually she just decided to try to stop making it make sense and just accept that was what they were called. And these “Lodges” were for the purpose of hunting down bad magicians and stopping them.