“Sven requests that you ride with him. If not at his side, at least at the front of the crowd. For your safety.”

I would have liked to tell Sven where he could stick his request. “The reason I’m unsafe is because he told everyone who I am,” I snapped.

Kees wove his fingers together and held them out like a step for me. “It gave the people hope. And hope can fill the empty belly for far longer than any meal can.”

Not if the hope itself was empty too. I plopped my booted foot in his hands, and he hoisted me up. This horse was bonier than Diantha’s mare. I clucked it forward until we were not far behind Sven. He acknowledged me with a wave, but I kept my distance. For both our sakes.

I fumed the entire ride—so much I could hardly track our path other than we were moving north. I felt their eyes. Heard their whispers. Bent under their speculations and hopes and desires. When we stopped for water at a stream, I almost didn’t dismount. I didn’t want to be among the people.

They watched me too closely.

But I needed to refill my water pouch, so I slid off the mare’s back with a deep ache that forced me to ensure my footing and let my muscles loosen before daring a step. When I finally approached the stream, the people parted. Like I had the pox. Or a curse. But they left behind the residue of their longing.

To know. To touch. To ask.

I hurried back to my horse, but the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. A man stood a foot away, holding out a piece of dried meat in a bowl of bark. “Thank you, Wishtress. Thank you for coming with us.”

Dumbfounded, I allowed this strange man to place the meat in my palm. He left, but then a young woman came twisting mittens in her hands. “It’s such a comfort to know the Wishtress is one of us—a commoner. It’s like the Well is on our side.”

Then a line formed, as though permission had been granted to approach me. One after the other, people grew bolder and bolder.

“My son has the pox. Please heal him.”

“I lost my ferry business when the canal froze. Can you free me from the debt?”

“Why not give each of us a wish to use once we get to the Well? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

The closer they got, the less I received gentle thanks like the first two people. I saw need that I wanted to meet. But I also saw dangerous desire.

Oma’s face on a dozen commoners.