Ranka trembled. She needed to save Vivna, but she was just a child, and these people bubbling with hatred were a sea of adults.

The wood beneath her hands shifted from brown to pale gray.

“Do it,” one of the villagers called. “Burn her!”

“We need to protect our families,” another agreed. “If we let her stay, who’s to say she won’t steal my daughters?”

The boy drew the flint from his pocket. He took a step forward, and Vivna screamed again, twisting.

I have to protect her.

I have to help.

A man took the flint.

“Wait!” Ranka cried, scrambling forward.

Sunlight flashed across her eyes, and then Ranka was in front of Vivna, arms spread wide, chest heaving. Half the town milled in front of her. Could she and Vivna outrun them all? “You’re looking for me.”

The pressure under her skin was so bad, it hurt. “My sister isn’t a witch. Look at her fingers—they’re injured. She was dyeing my nails. See?” She held them up, exposing the blisters, the raw, puckered skin that always carried a lingering pain. “Punish me—but let my sister go.”

The man with the flint lifted his jaw, his white cheeks reddening. “She helped you hide.”

“I forced her to,” Ranka lied. A headache pounded at her temples. Her skin crawled as if she were the one plunged into the fire, and the world flashed black and white, black and white. She blinked furiously, trying to clear her eyes. “Please—Vivna didn’t do anything wrong.”

“She forced me,” Vivna babbled. “I told her to leave, I never wanted her here.”

Ranka glanced back at her. Vivna had certainly gotten on board with that lie quickly.

The humans shifted among themselves, uncertainty breaking through the clouds of rage on their faces. They had come for a hunt, not a victim easily turned over.

Two familiar scents floated toward her.

“Vivna? Ranka?”

The crowd parted. Hans and Ursa stood with their arms brushing against each other, looking small and miserable in the cold. Their attention darted nervously from Ranka to Vivna. They looked older in the sunlight, the wisps of gray in their hair brighter, the lines in their faces deeper.

Vivna choked on a sob and sat up. “Mama, Papa, oh, thank the goddess.” She struggled against the ropes. “You wouldn’t believe—”

Hans held up his hand. He looked at his oldest daughter, a child stolen in a snowstorm, returned nearly a decade later, and whispered, “Did you know?”

Vivna stilled. “What?”

“Did you bring her here, knowing what she was?”

Vivna’s eyes dimmed. “No.”

“She knew,” someone accused. “She had to have known.”

“They’re both guilty. Even if the oldest isn’t a witch, she knew.”

Ranka’s heart slammed against her ribs.