Not that it would have mattered. I deserved the curse. I deserved death for what I’d done. I dropped my face into my hands, but Oma rapped her knuckles on my skull. “None of that now.”

“Ouch!”

“You mustn’t cry.”

I released a scornful laugh. “Oh, now I mustn’t? The moment I turned twelve you demanded I let the tears out. To let you collect them. To let you keep them in a trunk like a treasure-hoarding dragon.”

“If you cry, you’ll perish.”

“Then that’s my choice!” Silence dropped upon the small shelter and hung like a fog.

“Your life was given to you.” Oma’s grey eyes sparked with orange fire. “A gift. And just because it’s yours doesn’t give you the right to end it.”

I knew where she was going with this. She wanted my Talent back. She wanted wishes again. This had nothing to do with my “gift of life.” Oma had never been moved by death—not my pappje’s, not my mutti’s, not Coralythe’s sons’. The only reason she cared about mine was because I was a commodity.

I took a long breath. “Why aren’t we home?”

“The gable house burned to the ground.”

“What?”

She held my gaze, showing more emotion over this than over death itself. “After you were cursed, Coralythe fled and I assume she must have gone to the king because hardly two months later, militairen set fire to our home. Anouk had gotten wind of the order and sent warning in time for me to get you out and into hiding here.”

Our home, gone. “Why does the king want to kill me?”

“There are likely many reasons. Perhaps he thinks you killed King Vämbat. But he also needs a wish to thaw Canal Vier.”

“The canal is still frozen?” Even after the curse? After all this time?

“Whoever froze it is an enemy of Fairhoven. They are trying to destroy us. No summer crop grew because no one could water their fields. People have fled to other cities built around rivers because they need water. All trade has stopped. Food and supplies have grown scarce. The schloss itself is importing water, but it’s hardly enough to sustain them. I’d have used a wish to undo it, but Coralythe destroyed my stash.”

Oma said this almost as a question. I didn’t meet her gaze. I had destroyed the wishes in a petty tantrum.

She threw something on my lap. I flinched, expecting a fist to follow, but when it didn’t I glanced at the item. The black cover with gold script. The book about the Wishtress—the one I’d stolen from her trunk.

“You need to get your Talent back. So I’m giving you what you always wanted.”

“A book,” I said, voice wooden. “You think I’ve always wanted a book? All I ever wanted from you, Oma, was kept promises.”