“Enchanted,” the girl corrected. “It makes them forget their troubles—what they have seen, what they have done, what they have lost. When the travelers are strong enough, they leave. But many become accustomed to having their demons be kept at bay. Many come back, desperate for more soap. Desperate enough to trade their daughters for a life’s supply.”

Emry stared at the girl in horror. Her grandmother had never told her this part. “Is that how you came to live here?”

The girl bowed her head. “If you stay too long on Avalon, the mist won’t let you return home,” the girl said, her voice small. “You become bound to the isle and its magic. Some girls still hope to pass through when they’re of age, but I came here as a baby.”

Emry shivered. So the girls—the priestesses—were stuck here. All because their selfish fathers had struck desperate bargains with the sorceress. They weren’t magic, not like the Lady of the Lake. Which made sense, because her gran hadn’t been magic, either.

“My grandmother was a priestess here,” Emry said, realizing.

“Yes, we know that story well. It’s why the Lady keeps us away from the travelers,” the girl said. She hesitated before adding, “Your father was born on Avalon.”

Emry gaped at the girl.

Her father had been born here? Her grandmother had been sold to the Lady of the Lake? Emry felt as though her brain was breaking from all of this new information.

“Perhaps,” the girl suggested gently, “you have seen enough of the soap?”

Arthur followed the Lady of the Lake through the forest, feeling entirely disarmed without his sword and his traveling companions. Merlin had been led away by a blushing maiden under some ridiculous pretense concerning soap. And now the young wizard was probably lounging in a perfumed bath, being attended by beautiful priestesses. Meanwhile, he was trailing through the woods after a powerful, terrifying sorceress, without so much as a sword.

You chose this, he reminded himself. This quest was your idea.

Whether it was a good idea or a bad one remained to be seen.

Right now, he was thinking bad.

A keening wail that started off like a teakettle and ended as a scream rattled through the trees. Arthur stiffened, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. It might have been the wind, but then again, it might not. The Lady didn’t seem to notice, so Arthur tried to pretend he hadn’t, either.

The island felt . . . not quite haunted, but not not haunted. It was uncanny. And most uncanny of all was the Lady herself. Arthur couldn’t imagine her using the jakes at a travelers’ inn.

She probably didn’t even pee.