Queen Anouk. Again. This time she didn’t wait for an invitation. She swept into the windmill and faced him. “I will not give up. You are a seeker of information, so here’s my offer. If you take me to the Well, you may ask me any question you desire and I swear to answer honestly.”

That was quite the offer coming from a queen. “Only one?”

“One per day.”

“And no question will be refused?”

“None.”

The king’s wife knew all manner of things he wanted to know. It was a gift only a fool would refuse.

But this was also Myrthe’s cousin. And she’d helped Runt. Myrthe trusted her. The temptation to accept the payment pulled at him, but to do so would betray the type of man he desired to be. The man he was trying to be for Runt, for Mother, and maybe even for Myrthe.

“Keep your payment. We leave within the hour.”

She opened her mouth once. Closed it. “Oh.” She must have been truly desperate to offer such a thing. One of his questions might have been to ask her why.

“I’ll ask you countless questions on the ride. You’ll likely tire of me on the first day.” He smiled. “But you have the freedom to answer or decline.”

“Thank you.” She shrugged out of her cape. “Myrthe wasn’t wrong about you.”

That statement was payment enough. Did Queen Anouk know that Myrthe would likely be at the Well? With Sven? It would be an interesting reunion, that was certain.

*  *  *

Anouk and Runt went to the stables to gather the horses. Bastiaan moved to go after them, pulling the neck of his coat up over his chin, but Mother stopped him. “Come back to me, Bastiaan.”

“You know that’s not something I can promise,” he said in a low voice.

She closed her eyes. “Try, at least.”

“Of course.” He embraced her and let his memories sweep him back to the years they’d spent together at the merchant’s. How desperately he’d wanted to free her. And once he had, he abandoned her again and again into the Stillness. She’d endured a lot and complained very little.

“We’ll see each other again.”

“I know.” This time she turned from him.

This was the farewell they’d grown used to. No standing on doorsteps waving a handkerchief. No lengthy exchanges or pleas for letters. A simple turn of the shoulder and walking different directions, so that one day when they looked back over their shoulders, one of them would be returning home.

Neither of them looked back.

Chapter 35
Myrthe