“You belong to the mountain. It pays to be respectful.” She gave me a shrewd look and pulled out another wooden bundle. A strip of yellow silk clothed its chest, and something about the color made my throat go dry.

“Who is that one for?” I asked.

“This is for a man whose body has outlived his soul, his daughters say. He was a merchant once, proud and powerful. Now he sinks deeper and deeper into madness, speaking only of roses. His daughters begged me for help, and I will tell you what I told them. This man will never forgive himself. His heart already belongs to the mountain, and he will die before the spring unless he can find a reason to live.”

“A merchant?” The world went gray, then yellow as the silk.

“Yes. A merchant with three daughters, though only two remain to him. I have brought this here in the hopes that some small mercy might be granted him.”

Father.

“What of his daughters?”

“One is married, the other still too young to wed.”

“Who did she marry then?”

The hedgewitch placed the figure on the snow and gave me a smile with too many teeth. “You know his name, child.” She turned to go.

“Wait,” I screamed after her, but she did not, and her hunched form faded into the forest while the roses whispered and the life I’d chosen shattered like glass.

My father was dying. Madness, the witch had said, but I did not think it was madness. Guilt, perhaps, and grief, one too many losses piled up on his broad shoulders. He had been quietly breaking since my mother’s death, diminishing, fading, desperation turning him into a stranger. Now he feared his eldest daughter dead or worse, and he had given up at last while Aspen married Avery to keep the family fed and Juniper. . .

I had to return.

I had bought myself time, here in the wilds, but I had been a fool to think I could escape forever. My family needed me, and perhaps my presence would give my father the strength he needed to survive the winter.

And if not?

I gazed at the roses, seeing another casket, another time. If I could not save him, then I had to see him. I had to say goodbye. I had to tell him I forgave him, even if he couldn’t forgive himself.

Then I would return to the Huntress.

The wolf turned her head to look me in the eyes, and there was a message there that I could not read and was not sure I wanted to.

Something shifted. The wolves were restless, and there was a strange edge to the air.

Rowan should be back by now.