No one was behind the house. Just an empty chicken coop and a tiny garden, all blanketed with snow.

She hooked one leg over the sill and was about to draw up the other when something caught her eye. The tinderbox, on the floor by her feet. It must have fallen from the mantel and slid across the planking. It was almost like her mamá had left it for her. A parting gift. Cloak, fire, and food.

The girl reached down and grabbed the tinderbox, shoved it into her herb basket beside the cloak, and slipped through the window.

Her boots crunched in day-old snow. She guided the window shutter so that it closed without a sound. She took a deep breath of clean, smokeless air, gathered her basket close, and sprinted for the trees.

Each footstep was a cacophony of sound, and her every muscle tensed, waiting to feel searing, sorcerous fire at her back.

But nothing came. She reached the trees and dashed behind a thick trunk, pausing to catch her breath and to peek behind her.

The tiny hut she’d shared with Mamá was barely a lump in the snowy meadow. Smoke curled up from the roof. The animagus’s people had probably broken through the door by now.

Beside the hut was the smaller lump of the chicken coop, and for once she was glad they’d had to eat or sell all their chickens. She didn’t have to worry about them burning alive.

Everything was blanketed with white, glittering slightly in the weak winter sunshine. And against it all was a line of shadows, sized like the feet of a little girl, a perfect trail for anyone to follow from the house to the place where she stood.

They would give chase the moment they realized she wasn’t inside. The girl couldn’t outrun people on horseback. But maybe she could outthink them. “Use your head,” Mamá always said.

For all she knew, the animagus’s entourage was made up of horrible sorcerers just like him, the most powerful people in all the world. But if they knew anything about hunting, they would have surrounded the hut right away. Never leave your quarry a good escape. All the mountain folk knew that.

The cold was already seeping into her boots, and her urine-soaked pants were growing icy. The girl’s gaze lingered on her home for a final, mournful moment. Then she turned and fled into the forest.

2

Now

I don’t know how old I am. Sixteen or seventeen, is everyone’s guess. Rosario insists I’m younger, but I don’t feel young at all. Today, in any case, I’m going to acquire a birthday. Well, an adoption day, but everyone says we’ll celebrate my adoption like a proper birthday every year from now on. Which sounds nice.

I mean, I’m grateful. I really am.

But I would be just as grateful if Elisa and Hector were fishermen on the coast instead of the empress and prince consort. What I want is a quiet, personal ceremony; what I’m getting is political theater.