The governor-advisor, linen wrap billowing, swept over to Alba.

“Oracle-Apprentice. Former Apprentice. Remind me. Was it your prophecy that the”—he hesitated, leaning to hiss into her ear—“ heirs would travel here on their own? That we need not search for them?”

Alba eyed the cluster of guards. “Yes,” she murmured.

“Then we believe you will know this.” Jabbing his chin at the guards—“Show her!”—he thrust Alba forward.

Stumbling, trying to catch herself, Alba found herself suddenly inside the circle of the spears. For the briefest moment, she was not sure what was before her. She saw the forms of snout and paws and tail and legs and arms and hair, and she felt a hot breath and smelled something feral and earthy, and she understood creature before a half instant later, wolf became clear, and she cried out, trying to rise, to run, but the advisor held her face to the growling animal, and it was another moment of panic before she also saw girl—there was a girl clinging to a wolf and a wolf trembling, growling under her arms.

The girl was wild-looking. Windblown. Bedraggled. Her hair a tangle of curls and leaves and twigs and insect wings.

“You,” the girl gasped, and Alba, too, knew her. The heir.

The king and his wide-browed advisor watched Alba watching the girl inside the hovering spears.

“Tell us, Former Apprentice,” the advisor murmured. “Is this the one we seek? This mud-splattered snip? She has arrived”—the worm lip gave an unsettling twitch—“ just as you prophesied. Traveling here all on her own.”

Alba, mind racing, looked from girl and wolf to king, from king to girl and wolf. Among the guards holding spears to the beast, she saw the one who had abandoned the babes, his moons grown full and sickly green.

“Apprentice,” the advisor chided. “Tell us. She claims she is the one for whom we’ve been searching. That she was given to her parents by the mountains.” He simpered at the girl. “Is that right… Rae? Is that what you said you were called? The mountains? Oh, and the wind and the birds.”

Rae. Alba started. She had not known the girl’s name before, but she felt it as a jolt of truth. The girl’s hands, half-buried in the wolf’s fur, were trembling—the shuddering of leaves in a hillside tempest.

“Please,” the heir said. “I know the king has been searching; I know other children—like this girl”—she gestured to Alba—“have been taken. I know I must be the one you search for. I must be—but I promise I mean you no harm. Please, the others… let them all go.” Though the girl spoke unsteadily, almost in tears, Alba could see her resolve, the deep roots anchoring her underneath all her fear. Rae pointed again at Alba. “Let her go home to her parents. She’s not meant to be here. Please.”

The advisor laughed, and the king, too, cracked an odd, fractured smile. “This girl has no home. No parents. She’s here as our… guest. Come, guest.” The advisor turned back to Alba. “Surely you know. If this is the one, we might do as she asks. We might return all the children to their homes. If she is not… Well, what choice do we have? We must keep searching.” Glancing at the guards, he leaned conspiratorially, bulbous head hovering. “And, Apprentice, I note only one child. Where is the second we seek?” he hissed. “She claims no sibli—”