She was at the table in a single stride, plucking the rose out from the ice as easily as if it had been water. Maybe it was water. Maybe the ice was in my eyes, or in my veins, and the rose was just a rose and none of this was happening.

“A rose for a rose, a thorn for a thorn.” When none of us spoke or asked for clarification, she took a step toward me. “You,” she said, and her voice, at least, was human.

“These are your daughters?” the woman asked. When my father did not respond, she took a step closer. “When you trespassed on my land, hunting down my kin, I greeted you with more courtesy than you deserved. Put down your sword, old man.”

The blade fell from my father’s hands, whether of his own free will or by the force of her suggestion.

“Please, take me instead,” he begged, falling to his knees in supplication.

“You took a rose from my garden. Now I shall take one from yours.” Her eyes found mine again. “You must be Rowan.”

Aspen understood the woman’s meaning before I did. She flung herself in front of me, shielding me with her slender frame.

“Aspen,” I said, ice gripping my stomach.

“You can’t take her.” Aspen planted her feet firmly on the hard-packed earth.

“I can, child, and I will.” The bear roared again from beyond the door. “Consider yourselves lucky that I am content with just the one.”

“Why?” Aspen, who I had always thought a little too conceited for her own good, rose to my defense again, finding words while the rest of us were struck dumb. “Rowan didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You gave her the rose?” the stranger asked my father.

“Yes,” he said.

I heard his heart breaking. It echoed sounds I had only ever half imagined, the sharp crack of frozen sap, the groan of the ice floes breaking up in the spring, and the long, slow howl of the lone wolf.

“Then it is done.”

My father picked up his discarded sword and charged. She knocked him to the ground with predatory ease, plucking the sword from his limp hands.

“Come with me,” she said, and her words slid into my bloodstream with the scent of roses.

“Rowan, no!” Aspen grabbed my arm, and Juniper clung to my other side, sobbing.

“I spared your father’s life once. I will not spare it a second time,” the woman said. She raised the sword, and I pushed past my sisters to stand before her, placing my hands on the sharp edge of the blade.

“Please,” I said.

Green eyes bored into mine. “From you,” she said, lowering the sword, “that word sounds much sweeter.” I shivered at the cold from the open door, my teeth chattering as a strange numbness filled me.