But she was not to blame for any of this. What people decided to do with what they bought from her was their problem. If a wise woman hadn’t been available, the wife would have found another way to kill her husband, the unfaithful husband would have strayed anyway—though perhaps with less gusto—and the Gifted bully would have used stones and fists.

The village girl was getting closer now. What would she ask for? What would she offer in return? Emerahl smiled. People fascinated and repelled her. They were capable of being amazingly kind and ferociously cruel. Emerahl’s smile twisted. She had placed the villagers somewhere closer to the cruel side of humanity.

She moved to the top of the stairs and began to descend. By the time the girl appeared, panting and wide-eyed, in the doorless entrance of the lighthouse, Emerahl was most of the way down. She stopped. A quick channelling of power set the small pile of sticks and branches in the center of the floor burning. The girl stared at the fire, then looked up at Emerahl fearfully.

She looks so scrawny and worn out. But then, so do I.

“What do you want, girl?” Emerahl demanded.

“They say…they say you help people.”

The voice was small and subdued. Emerahl guessed this girl did not like to attract attention to herself. Looking closer, she saw the signs of physical development in the girl’s face and body. She would become an attractive woman, in a thin, scrawny way.

“You want to charm a man?”

The girl flinched. “No.”

“You want to un-charm a man, then?”

“Yes. Not just one man,” the girl added. “All men.”

Emerahl cackled quietly and continued down the stairs. “All men, eh? One day you might make an exception.”

“I don’t think so. I hate them.”

“What about your father?”

“Him most of all.”

Ah, typical teenager. But as Emerahl reached the bottom of the stairs she saw a wild desperation in the girl’s eyes. She sobered. This was no sulky rebellious child. Whatever unwanted attentions the girl was enduring had her terrified.

“Come over by the fire.”

The girl obeyed. Emerahl waved to an old bench she had found on the beach below the cliffs after a shipwreck, long before the village existed.

“Sit.”

The girl obeyed. Emerahl lowered herself onto the pile of blankets she used as a bed, her knees creaking.

“There are potions I can make that will take the wind out of a man’s sails, if you know what I mean,” she told the girl. “But dosing a man is dangerous, and temporary. Potions are no use unless you know what’s coming and can plan for it.”

“I thought you might make me ugly,” the girl said quickly. “So they don’t want to come near me.”

Emerahl turned to stare at the girl, who flushed and looked at the ground.