“Tell me, girl,” he said to this strange daughter of his. “What is it you want in this world?”

“I wish to have a life that I can claim for my own, without paying for the crimes of my mother and father,” Maria told him. “Where do I go to do that?” When she squinted, the present was transparent, and she could view a future where Cadin flew above her in a different world, a place where every plant was one she had never seen before, a land in which there were trees with thorns and trees bent over in the wind, trees with blood-red leaves and those with branches as white as snow.

They were not far from a harbor, and gulls wheeled across the sky. The city of London was nearby, and smoke rose from the city’s chimneys in great black clouds. A city such as this was a wondrous and terrible thing where anything could happen. It was the place where one could find the end of her days or the beginning of her life. And yet Maria knew that this city was not the place where she would find her future.

Rebecca had come to stand beside her man. “That’s why we’re here,” Rebecca told their daughter. “So that you will have a life of your own. It’s your future we’re thinking of. We’re sending you away.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Maria said with dark bitterness. What would they want with her when they were so involved with one another?

Her parents exchanged a look. She was difficult indeed. Still, she was theirs, and they meant to see she was safely away from Thomas Lockland’s family, who might wish her ill. There was a far-off place called Curaçao, a Dutch Island where she might have a future that was very different from the solitary life in the fens that Hannah Owens had known. She could remain in a place where a woman alone had no rights to her own life or she could agree to her parents’ plan and travel half a world away where anything might be possible.

“Fine,” Maria said, grabbing for a crust of bread. The truth was, she was starving. She’d met her father, and known her mother, and had been lucky enough to have been found by Hannah Owens. Now she was ready for a life of her own. “I’ll go where you send me, but the crow comes along.”

They went on to Southampton, and in a shop near the docks, Rebecca bought her daughter parting gifts: a heavy woolen cape and a pair of boots for her journey. Maria slipped off her ragged shoes made of worn leather lined with wool. She was delighted with her gifts. The cloak was soft and lovely, and the boots were a pure wonder, red leather, made in Spain. Every witch should own a pair, whether she worked in a field or walked through the halls of a manor house.