“Sven, you don’t know what you’re saying!” Myrthe’s voice turned shrill, and she moved to grab his arm. He’d do well to listen to her. If the mob believed what he was saying, they’d tear this markt apart. “There’s no proof the next Wishtress is even alive yet.”

The crowd pressed closer to Sven, ignoring the girl. “They say it was a Talented who killed the king. They must know something.”

Bastiaan could bear it no longer. The announcement was his purpose for waiting in the markt. He left the crowd behind, left the limping girl behind, tucking the bread loaf under his arm.

His king was dead. Memories came in waves—of the mentorship, the fathering, the friendship he’d shared with the crown of the land.

And how he, Bastiaan, was the Talented who’d killed him.

Chapter 4
Myrthe

I wish . . .

An unfinished sentence—two little words—that prefaced countless dreams, hopes, and desires. Greed, lust, selfishness. It always started with those two words—words I despised almost as much as I despised the thaw.

Almost.

I sat on the grassy bank of Canal Vier—the main canal of Fairhoven and Winterune’s life source. My home rested in a field near one of the four fingers of this mighty canal, my doorstep practically on its banks. It made skating in winter that much easier.

Made it feel like the Vier flowed and froze only for me.

Though it was summer I gripped the laces of my ice skates in one hand and a small glass vial that held a wish in the other. The hand holding the wish trembled.

You stole it, Guilt whispered in my mind.

I made it, I retorted in a mental tug-of-war with my conscience. It’s rightfully mine. Yet I still shot a glance over my shoulder at our canal house with its carved-wood gables and shutters tied open to let in the fresh air.

I had met Oma’s wish quota this week. One wish per week to cover my room and board. When I was younger, it was one wish per day. But then it got harder and harder to make myself cry, so she relented.

She didn’t need to know I created one extra. But if she did find out I’d kept a wish for myself, all frost would break loose. “You don’t know the rules. You don’t know how to use it safely.” She said those words as often as “Good morning” and “Hurry up.”

“So teach me,” I whispered to the sky. She had promised once to instruct me in the Wishtress ways. Every age day she allowed me to use a wish for myself. She would write up a contract, we’d discuss the terms, and then the wish would be used. Safely. The right way. Oma’s way.