I lifted the little glass vial so it caught a glimmer of moonlight. “Do you know what this is?” I hollered to those watching. I didn’t tell them it wasn’t a wish. I didn’t tell them it was. I let their own imaginations take them to their own conclusions.

Sharp inhales. Murmurs. Panic dilating Sven’s pupils.

“It’s free for the taking!” I threw it into the black woods. The people stood stock-still for a long-held breath, then surged after the little bottle.

Sven released me with a shove and dove into the crowd. “Everyone back! Back! That wish is for the cause!”

His use of the word wish incensed them further. Someone screamed.

I turned and ran—or tried to. My legs wouldn’t cooperate—liquid from nerves, sharp agony from the pox. The most I could manage was a frenzied half skip. I clambered atop the mare Sven had lent me. The bare bones of her spine hurt almost more than my attempts at speed, but at least she could get me out of camp.

No reins. No saddle. I gave her a kick and she popped into a trot. Into the shadows. I could still hear the people’s screams, yelling, and Sven’s angry, frantic shouts rising above them all.

But on I rode until I reached the frozen canal. A schaatser ready to skate the greatest race.

A thief ready to find the Well.

A murderer with a heart of stone.

I was Myrthe. I was the Wishtress. However ugly that looked, at least I was free.

Chapter 29
Bastiaan

A dead fish held more color in its cheeks than Runt.

On the second sunrise since Bastiaan brought him home, winter had begun to prowl the skies, bringing thin sunlight and cutting cold at night.

The windmill smelled of herbs and blood. A pot of water boiled on the stove, refilled every couple hours by Bastiaan to keep his hands busy while Mother meticulously tended, rebandaged, and cleaned Runt’s wound without touching his blood.

When Bastiaan wasn’t refilling the water pot, he prayed. Even with King Mattias’s damning touch on his Talent, Bastiaan could still sense the Talent’s presence like he could when in the Stillness. When he had first traveled to the Well in the Stillness, he drank the water to see what might happen. The cool liquid had relieved his parched heart with a single swallow, and he never again felt thirst in his soul like that.

That difference—that satiated thirst—remained, even if his Talent didn’t. And to that inner spring Bastiaan prayed. Pleaded. Promised to do anything within his power if it would somehow revive Runt.

He’d spent the past two days on edge, watching the boy and watching the window, ready to fight should the king send militairen to the windmill.