I’d gone from being their savior to their sacrifice in half a day. I didn’t blame them for their anger, but anger should never be allowed to result in revenge. That was how Talents got cursed, how towns got destroyed, how morals died, how blood spilled.

But even a wish couldn’t undo human nature.

“Let’s go.” Hedy’s eyes burned like campfire coals.

Kees untied the reins of the two horses. “Let’s double up. Don’t want her slowing us down on foot.” He jerked his chin toward me. Though he tried sounding gruff, I caught the compassion in his tone.

Then to my surprise Kees, Hedy, and Sven stripped themselves of weapons and left them on the forest ground. They’d likely be searched upon arriving at the kleinschloss, but to walk into Mattias’s domain with no weapons struck me as foolish.

Had Sven really seen the future about their attack? Or did this have something to do with Hedy’s Bane? Sven had mentioned getting her close enough to the king. Close enough to kill him? She must be powerful.

But she could also be controlled if Mattias knew she had a Bane. Could he sense that sort of thing? How far away could he be and still control her?

Sven mounted a horse, then gestured to me. “Get her up.”

Kees shot me an apologetic look, and I felt a bit more human beneath his gaze. He hoisted me onto the horse behind Sven. If I didn’t have the gag, I’d bite his shoulder until I drew blood.

Not long into the ride, he twisted and tugged the gag down and shoved his canteen at me. “Drink.”

Maybe I wouldn’t bite him . . . yet. “What did you do with Bastiaan?”

“You really want those to be the first words out of your mouth to me?”

“Answer me.”

“You have five seconds.” He shoved the opening of the canteen against my lips and tipped it up. Icy water poured down my face, my neck, but hardly a swallow went down my throat.

I gulped the liquid until Sven wrenched the canteen away. I glowered at him, dripping and cold. “How does it feel to trade in a person for your own gain?”

“By strengthening myself, I can better serve my followers. For a people to be strong, their leader needs to be strong.”

“For a people to be strong, the people themselves need to choose to be strong. We are not sheep!”

“Says the girl who was a wish cow her whole life.”

My mouth went dry and my lungs couldn’t seem to find air. “You claim to oppose the king, yet now you want to give him the last wish in existence?”

“We both know you won’t give it to him.”

He was right. I wanted to give it to Bastiaan. Why was I talking? I needed to get that tear out.