Liesel refuses to show me what supplies she and Otto bought until we reach the castle ruins. After a quick scouting of the remaining rooms,Otto declares us the only inhabitants, and Liesel settles on the floor of the main room we’ve claimed, one with the most intact walls and the least amount of lingering burnt smell.
I immediately start warding the space. I managed to find burdock root and dried angelica, as good as gold for my purposes, and I murmur the warding spell Mama taught me as I walk the perimeter of the room in widening spirals, sprinkling the herbs in my wake.
Liesel gathers a bundle of twigs and lights them. It’s a small fire, but it’s all we’ll need with her; one flick of her wrists, and we can feel the little blaze’s heat in every corner of this room, though the light is low enough that it won’t give us away.
And in this feeble construction of safety, my cousin dumps out the bag she carried up from Baden-Baden.
“Krapfen!” She declares proudly as she pulls a sugar-dusted pastry out of the bag. “One for each of us!”
“And bread, jerky, cheese, beer—but the krapfen seemed essential,” Otto adds. His eyes sparkle in the firelight when Liesel hands him one. She tears into hers, smearing white sugar across her cheeks and nose, and the whole area smells of sweetness and yeast and the bitter earthiness of my herbs.
I finish the ward and dust my hands on my skirt. As if my skirt is in any shape tocleansomething—it’s still crusted with grime from crawling out of Trier’s aqueducts. I’d be all too aware of that grime if not for the fact that wealllook a mess, but my cousin is halfway through a pastry as big as her fist, and Otto is smiling at her in a soft way that absolutely upends any thoughts in my head.
I kneel down next to Liesel. She tries to hand me my pastry, but I shake my head. “This first.” And I take out the vial of potion I’d made with the rest of the angelica, a quick mix with melted snow. I dab someon my finger and trace a protective sigil on her forehead, a line through an oval with a few branching limbs.
The glossy outline holds on her skin for long enough that I see the tree in my dream. The branches reaching, bending, swaying with the voice.
The voice hasn’t spoken to me in days. Not to try to sway me with Dieter’s magic. Not to torment me or help me.
I should be glad that it’s silent. Why do I feel like something’s changed, something else coming that I can’t see?
“Now, finish eating,” I start, “then we should all get as much sleep as we can.”
Liesel pouts. “But it’s Christmas.”
“We don’t celebrate Christmas.”
“But I missed Yule because I was on a tiny boat on the run from my evil cousin.”
Liesel deepens her pout, and I catch Otto’s bemused smirk, which he tries to hide behind a sip of beer that we got from the old mill woman. He makes a face at the taste, and I stifle a laugh.
I roll my eyes at Liesel. “You’re impossible,” I say, and she brightens. “Maybe the jäger would like to see one of our Yule traditions?”
Otto looks up, lowering the beer bottle from his lips. “Yes,” he says, eyes on mine.
“It’s only appropriate to leave an offering tonight, anyway, since we’ll be entering their domain tomorrow.”
“An offering to the forest folk?” Otto asks.
“And the goddesses.” I shrug, encompassing the whole of the pantheon. At home, it was a simple tradition with the offerings usually going to passing cats or swept up by parents after the children went to sleep. But here, will actual forest folk come to collect our offerings?
“In Birresborn,” Liesel starts, “we each leave offerings that are important to us, so the forest folk and goddesses know it’s meaningful.” She holds the last bite of her krapfen in her palms and sighs loudly. “Like this.”
I push the bite toward her and pick up my whole krapfen. “How about this one is from both of us? It reminds me of home. That’s a worthy sacrifice, don’t you think?”
Liesel eyes me, clearly seeing that I’m only trying to make sure she gets to eat her treat, but she grins. “If you insist.”
We both look expectantly at Otto.
He takes another sip of the beer and winces again. His eyes drop to the bottle, and an idea occurs to him; he rummages through his pack and comes up with one of the newer bottles, the ones he and Liesel just bought in town.
“This will be my offering,” he says. “Good beer. At least I hope it’s good. The girl I bought it from reminded me a lot of Hilde. She said that she brewed it using her mother’s recipe, and that’s what Hilde did, too.” He pauses, eyes searching mine. “Is that a good enough offering?”
I have to inhale twice, fighting to catch my breath. “It’s perfect.”
“Well, the forest folk will surely enjoy this more than the piss water we got from the mill woman.”
Liesel giggles, and Otto looks at me apologetically, but she’s heard and said far worse.
