In the corridor, Aarne was using an elegant-looking candelabra to light a number of torchères along the wall. “Now to your reward, monsieur.”

“My reward is to kill,” Hugo replied.

“Hmm.” Aarne shrugged. “Well, beyond that, the women would like to thank you.”

Hugo politely declined, explaining that he should get back to his billet in Solnechny Strana.

“Oh, but, monsieur, that is such a long way. Wait with us until the morning.”

“No, really, I can’t.”

“Oh, but Monsieur Hugo! They are so beautiful.”

That was how they trapped peasants in fairy tales. Hugo opened his mouth to make a bland announcement about what regrets Aarne should give the old women. Then he cocked his head. Faintly, so faintly it might have been the heartbeat of rabbits in a distant warren, he heard—a tune. A joyous, rhythmic melody carrying across the snow. “Is that… Johann Strauss?”

Aarne sighed. “The impatience of the young, monsieur. They were to wait for your entrance. It was to be a surprise.”

“I’m sorry—are they playing instruments?”

“There was also discussion of baking you a pie. With fruit,” he added. “But if you need to leave—”

He hadn’t heard Strauss in a year. Without thought, he was walking toward the sound. Aarne lit his candelabra again.

There were drifts on either side of a cleared cobblestone pathway, the snow lent a flickering orange by iron flambeaux. Ahead of Hugo stood a round building of whitewashed brick. Leaded-glass windows, with the yellow-and-orange light of candle fires dancing behind them. The door, two stories high, stood ajar.

“Isn’t this the abbot’s house?”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“Didn’t you say they weren’t in the—”

“I lied, monsieur.”

The music was the insistent and festive melody of “Die Königin ist fünfzig Fuß hoch,” played with enthusiasm on piano, violin, and double horn. It was the music that children of a hemophiliac upper class would dance to at Shrovetide.

Hugo took a deep breath at the door, intending only to compose himself, but he was also rewarded with a magnificent and mouth-watering smell. “Cinnamon?”

“They baked,” Aarne murmured. “I wasn’t sure they could.”

With the same fear any man would show upon finding a gingerbread house in the woods, Hugo stepped inside. The room was oval, with tower walls as sturdy as battleships. There were two stone fireplaces to shame Hollywood’s: draft horses could have been roasted on spits. The room was warm without being stuffy, a luxurious feeling Hugo had long ago forgotten. The shadows in the corners were deep and black and could have hidden goblins. Hugo was positive he felt eyes upon him.

But that passed through his mind quickly, for to his right was a carving table made of stone and heaped with food—a pig surrounded by greenery, but also latkes, blini, cheeses, and, at the center, surrounded by beeswax candles and set atop a wreath of dried flowers, a single pie.