Bastiaan’s stallion huffed as though expressing its own opinion about the matter. “Back when the way was known, the wealthy got through the Trials because they paid someone else to defeat them. Commoners, at least, try to defeat the Trials on their own . . . but they end up dying. The system is faulty. The whole purpose of the pilgrimage is to reach the Well with a heart and mind ready to receive. It’s about self-searching. Humility. It’s to better oneself in order to use the Talent for the betterment of the country.”

I felt robbed. I’d never traveled to the Well, never taken a pilgrimage of self-searching to prepare myself for a Talent. Yet I had one. The most powerful one. How could I have been expected to use such a rare Talent of wish-making with the appropriate wisdom when it was simply handed to me at birth?

“You seem to know quite a lot about the Well,” I muttered.

“I’ve studied it my entire life.”

My ears perked up. I was traveling with some impassioned Well fanatic. That could explain the maps in his windmill. “Have you ever been there? Do you know the way?” I tried to soften the desperate questions with a compliment. “You must know a lot about Talents.”

“I learn all I can.” His statement hung in the air, leaving me wanting. I didn’t miss that he ignored my question about how to get to the Well.

“What do you know about the Wishtress?” was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t seem to ask it. It seemed too brash. Too soon. “So Talents are for serving the king?”

“He’s the head of the kingdom, so in many ways . . . yes.”

If I followed Bastiaan’s line of thinking, he’d likely have me turn myself in to Murderous Mattias and be used as the schloss’s personal wish maker. It would be no different from being Oma’s source of income. “No wonder you disapprove of Sven.”

“To take advantage of people’s fear, of a kingdom’s chaos, solely to gain a Talent is the wrong intention altogether.” Bastiaan’s statement pierced the silence like the sharp tip of an icicle.

“Sven must have done something right despite your disapproval. The Well gave him a Talent, after all.”

“His actions caused King Mattias to grow more hostile toward commoners.”

“The king married a commoner.”

“That action is its own mystery.”

And I knew the answer—he married Anouk because he thought she was the Wishtress, not in some attempt to unite the kingdom’s classes.

“You can’t blame Sven for the Murder King’s actions.” My firm statement sent a nearby bird into flight. The fierce flutter of its wings sent a warning. I was getting too defensive. This argument was leading me into the dangerous waters of my curse. Get control. Rein it in.