I couldn’t compromise myself—my life—with care for others. I needed to focus on myself in order to survive. A lonely path, but it was my only choice.

“Your Sven has amassed a disgruntled following. He’s a threat.”

“He’s a champion for commoners.”

“That’s what I’m trying to—” Bastiaan’s fist gripped the reins as though to suffocate the sentence he allowed to slip out. “Listen. He’s going about it all wrong. Sven is stoking the fire for war, not dousing it. His focus is all about the Well, when what the people really need right now—what the kingdom needs—is for Canal Vier and the Handel Sea to be thawed. His focus is off—”

“Stop,” I demanded.

He clamped his mouth shut.

I took one deep breath and pictured frostbite turning my heart cracked and white. I let it spread over the heat of emotions until it cooled into something hard and heavy. My next words emerged glacial. “I’m not interested in your opinion of Sven or if he’s stealing your glory by helping the commoners.”

“That’s not what I—”

“I. Said. Stop.” It was unkind of me not to allow him to defend himself. But I had to stay in one piece long enough to get to the Well. If that meant insulting the man who’d pulled me out of the bushes, opened his home to me, and volunteered to guide me, so be it.

Besides, I’d paid him—or at least tried to. I owed him nothing more.

From ahead, Runt gave a low whistle and averted his gaze, trying to act as though he hadn’t heard our exchange. I couldn’t let myself care.

The horses plodded along, their hoofbeats a drum of sound between Bastiaan and me. Finally, when I thought he’d succumbed to my request of silence, he said, “You’re quite a different girl from the one I met at markt.”

Stay cold. Don’t crack. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

*  *  *

The evening turned a pale orange beneath the drowsy sunset sky by the time we reached the forest. If Oma knew I was riding under a dark canopy of leaves with a canal rat and a strange man cloaked in secrets, she’d have my hide. But a wildness had gripped me since leaving the schloss. A disregard for my own safety, my own life even.

“Almost there.” Runt broke the long silence that had taken over our ride the past hour.

Bastiaan and I were about to go our separate ways. I shouldn’t allow our parting to be so tense. He had helped me, after all. Significantly. Maybe I could ease into a casual conversation. Sprinkle some dusting sugar over the crusted mogul that was our current state. “So . . . you live in a windmill?”