I gaped at her in astonishment. Not because what she was saying didn’t make sense, but that she’d noticed all these comings and goings and I hadn’t. I knew I wasn’t the most observant, and that I’d a tendency to walk around with my head in the clouds, but it was alarming that I’d miss something so obvious.

“All these merchants know about the trolls,” Sabine continued. “But more importantly, no one interferes with them. No one asks questions. Which means others either know about them too, or they’ve been paid off. Hundreds of people must be aware the trolls exist, but they remain a secret from most everyone on the Isle. The only way that’s possible is that they are more in control than anyone realizes.”

“You’re right,” I said, because though I may not have considered the practical aspects of trolls’ control over the Isle, I knew no one was beyond the King’s reach. “Sabine, do you know what a regent is?”

She shrugged. “Like a king?”

“It’s the title given to the individual who is temporarily head of a kingdom in place of the monarch.”

“But the Isle doesn’t have a monarch.”

I lifted one eyebrow, and watched understanding settle on her face. “I think the first regent was put in his position by the trolls after they were cursed, but only because they thought it would be temporary until Anushka was tracked down and killed.”

A crease formed between Sabine’s eyebrows. “But then… wouldn’t it be in the best interest of the Regent not to find her? To keep the trolls contained, and thus keep control of the Isle?”

I nodded. “That’s exactly what I think the Regency has been doing throughout history. On the surface, they’ve made it look like they are helping search by legalizing the witch-hunts, but in reality, they’ve been harboring the one witch who mattered most. I don’t have any proof, but I think that might have something to do with Catherine’s fall from grace – that she got too close to the truth.”

“Catherine?”

“La Voisin,” I clarified, so used to her knowing everything that I’d forgotten she didn’t know the outcome of my meeting with the witch she’d discovered.

Sabine’s frown stayed in place as I explained Catherine’s connection to the Regency and the reasons for my speculations, growing deeper when I told her about the spell I’d done with Chris the prior night. “So even though she might not understand how important Anushka is, Catherine might still know her identity?”

“Not that she’s likely to tell me anything,” I said with a grimace. “She’s terrified of the Regency.”

“Too bad none of your books has a spell for plucking knowledge from someone’s head,” she said, giving Anushka’s grimoire a poke.

An idea burst in my mind like a firecracker. “Sabine,” I said. “You’re a genius.”

The cook had given me a strange look when I’d appeared downstairs in my dressing gown, but she hadn’t interfered when I’d gone into the pantry to retrieve a sprig of rosemary. Back in my bedroom with the drapes drawn and my door jammed, I’d carefully torn the page containing the spell for the skin cream out of the grimoire. After I’d copied the contents of the page out on a piece of stationery under Sabine’s watchful eye, I carefully rolled up the original, wrapped a strand of the hair Chris had stolen and the sprig of rosemary around it, and held the package over my washbasin full of water.

I understood better now than I had before why the spell worked as it did: the piece of paper with the spell on it focused on the memory I wished to extract, and the hair acted as a link to Catherine, while the rosemary improved and strengthened the clarity. Water was the element of choice because memory and thought were fluid and transitory, ever changing.

“You’ve done this before?” Sabine asked.

“A variation of it,” I replied, examining my work. “Magic doesn’t work on trolls, but it does work on half-bloods.” The spell had been intended to find lost items, but I’d adapted it before when I’d used it on Élise in order to extract the memory of when she’d last seen the clove oil I’d needed for the injury I’d sustained during the earthshake. Catherine had told me that the incantation used was merely a way to focus on the desired outcome, so I was sure it was possible to change the spell again to suit my purposes.

“But if magic doesn’t work on them, why does a curse?”

I bit my lip. Her question was one I’d pondered at length before. “I don’t know. But hush now, I need quiet for this.”

Staring at the rolled-up paper, I focused my thoughts. I wanted the strongest memory associated with the spell, but more than that, I wanted to know whom it had been for.

“When did you cast this spell?” I whispered, then dropped the package into the water. “And for whom did you cast it?”

Touching the surface of the water, I felt power surge through me while the roaring sound of a river flowed out of the basin. The paper spun round and round, then as though it had suddenly tripled in weight, it plunged to the bottom.

Sabine gasped, and I almost did, too. That hadn’t happened before.

My pulse fluttered in my neck, and it was a struggle to maintain my concentration as the water turned dark and murky. There was movement, but I felt as though I were spying on a scene taking place in the darkest of nights. Whispers of sound teased my ears, but I couldn’t decipher what they were. Leaning closer to the water, I peered into the basin, trying to pick out something familiar.