The spy network is competent and loyal. Rosario will learn of the missing stable hand soon enough, if he hasn’t learned of it already. He’ll find a way to reestablish contact with us. Iván and I will have to wait and trust our prince.

Guardsman Bruno dismisses us, indicating that we have just enough time to wash up and do laundry before the lamps are snuffed. After everyone is finished, I take a private moment to change out my straw and wash my rags.

It’s a good thing I got a nap, because I lie awake a long time, listening to my fellow recruits snore, hoping I’ve made the right decision to wait and do nothing.

15

Then

THE girl’s memories resurfaced in another dark cellar, as she was gathering turnips and dried meat for a stew. The meat was billed as lamb, but she knew it was really dog. And dogmeat stew wasn’t too bad, all things considered. The meat bits were a little dry and chewy, but the flavor was fine.

Not that Mula would eat any of it today. The stew was for guests, not slaves. And that was too bad, because Mula had worked through most of the night to clean ash from the bread oven. She was very tired, and very, very hungry.

She worked at an inn now, for a man named Orlín who had bought her from the monster woman over a year ago. Life was better at the inn, even though she worked sunup to sundown. Even though shiny callus rings on her wrists and ankles indicated that she was tied to her cot each night after her work was done.

A good worker, the monster woman had said, as she and Orlín agreed upon a price. But sometimes she tries to escape.

Mula knew these things had happened the same way she knew that the desert became hot in summer—it was assured, incontrovertible knowledge, even though she couldn’t place herself there. She didn’t actually remember.

When her basket was full, she began pulling herself up the steep stone steps leading to the kitchen. Halfway up, she stopped, gasping.

Because the back of her neck was prickling, and her limbs hummed with energy. It was almost like a song in her blood.

Familiarity grated at her. She had felt this before; she was sure of it. But when? Sometime while she lived with the monster woman? No, it was before that. Mula thought hard.

Flames engulfing a wooden shelf. Smoke making her lungs scream. A sizzling puddle of blood . . .

The basket fell from her hand. Turnips and meat strips spilled, toppled down the stairs, plunked onto the damp dirt floor. She hardly noticed.

Her hands shook, and she couldn’t get enough breath. A sorcerer was somewhere in the village. Maybe even here at the inn. And he had a sparkle stone with him.

She had to hide. If an animagus saw her, he would surely burn her. He would know, just by looking at her guilty face, that she had stabbed another animagus once, stabbed him so bad he died.