“You haven’t even asked about my Talent.” He pretend-pouted like a petulant child.

So focused on finding out how to get to the Well, I’d forgotten about his Talent. Forgotten he was like me. Maybe he’d understand, to an extent, my loneliness. My struggles. Maybe I could use that as a point of unity between us . . . and I could ask about the Well again after a little time passed.

“Tell me about it,” I said, though it cost me a slice of will to step back from the prior topic.

“I can see the future.”

I gasped. “You can? How far ahead?” Could he see my future? Right now? Could he read what my true motives were for being here? I suddenly felt vulnerable, a feeling I was learning to hate.

“I’m still figuring it out. I see snippets here and there. The Talent is very limited. I have visions, but they don’t always involve me. I can choose what I see only some of the time. It also seems limited to a day or two in the future.” He stopped to catch his breath, then grinned apologetically. “I haven’t talked to anyone else about the details. They’re not . . . well, they’re not like us.”

Us. For this brief moment, he saw me. Would that still be the case if he knew my Talent was broken?

Something cold inside me whispered he wouldn’t. Sven was finally choosing me in return after I chose to love him. But I’d rejected that choice the moment I woke up cursed.

I didn’t think I could rectify that.

I didn’t want to.

“That’s how I knew you were coming. Where my men could find you in the forest.”

Any warmth of welcome iced over. “You wanted to have me gagged.” As I recalled the frightening scenario, my anger returned. “And forced by arrow tip.”

“The arrows were for the man with you. I didn’t know who he was or if he’d kidnapped you because of what you are.”

Again, claiming to protect me. But his men had pointed their arrows at me as much as at Bastiaan. “And the gagging?”

“I didn’t want you to be forced to tell the men about your Talent. I trust them with bows and arrows but not with my Myrthe. I couldn’t risk them taking advantage of you.”

Sven had never been this protective of me. I would have liked to think his pilgrimage had changed him, but it was more likely my newly revealed Wishtress status.

“So what’s your cause? Why have all these people joined you?”

He scratched at the stubble on his chin. It made him look older. Fiercer. “We started with a petition to King Mattias, asking him to remove the Talent restriction for commoners.”

“And?”

“Still waiting.”

“Did you ask Anouk to help? Surely the king will consider her voice.”