“You’re hurt,” the woman sighed. She scooped water from the cauldron into a small bowl and grabbed a cloth, then walked over to Lily.  “Take off your jacket and sit down, so I can tend to your scratches.”

“Thank you,” Lily said again and slipped off Lux’s jacket. She meant to set it down somewhere, but the woman’s nose wrinkled in disgust.

“This reeks of brimstone!” the woman snapped and snatched the jacket from Lily. She sniffed it more carefully to be sure. “Where did you get this?”

“I-I didn’t smell anything,” Lily stammered, unwilling to tell her about Lux after a reaction like that.

“Of course not. You’re not attuned that sort of thing.” She shoved the jacket back at Lily, who took it uncertainly.

Lily held it close to her and breathed it in, but she didn’t smell any brimstone, not that she really knew what that smelled like. All she could smell was the way Lux had smelled, soft and sweet like sandalwood. She breathed in more deeply, and warmth flooded over her.

“Don’t smile like that,” the woman said. Lily had unwittingly started grinning at the thought of Lux, and she hurried to erase it. “Whoever gave you that jacket doesn’t deserve a smile like that.”

“Sorry,” Lily mumbled. The woman gestured for her to sit down, and Lily sat at the table, with the woman sitting across from her.

“The brimstone does explain why you hadn’t already been eaten alive by the charuns.” She touched tentatively at Lily’s hand, cleaning her wound of dirt. Lily cringed, expecting it to sting, but the hot water from the cauldron only soothed her pain. “The jacket deterred them until the scent of your blood overrode everything else.”

“Charuns?”

“The bird-goblin creatures that attacked you in the forest.”

“What does brimstone do to them?” Lily asked.

“Nothing. They just know better than to bother with people who smell like it.” She had finished cleaning the cut on Lily’s hand, so she turned her attention to the claw marks on her neck. She tilted Lily’s head, wiping the cloth along her skin, and then studied Lily’s face for a moment. “You live at the palace, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Lily tried to look at her, but the woman held her face at an angle. “I mean, I did.”

“You’re running away from something?” She lifted her eyes to meet Lily’s, then dropped them instantly.

“No.” Lily sighed, unsure of how to explain what happened. She didn’t understand what was going on, and she didn’t want to talk about Lux, not after how the woman had reacted to his jacket. “I mean, yes. Kind of. I never fit in there. So I decided to run away.”

“You ventured through the Necrosilvam because you didn’t fit in?” She stopped cleaning Lily’s neck and looked at her with suspicion.

“No. It’s hard to explain.” Lily gave up on a proper explanation and squirmed uncomfortably.

“You’re Iris’s daughter, aren’t you?”

“You knew my mother?” Lily’s eyes shot up, and she gaped at the woman, who took her own turn at squirming.

“We were friends for a time,” the woman nodded. She pulled absently at the dirty cloth, having sufficiently cleaned Lily’s wounds.

“What’s your name? Maybe I’ve heard of you,” Lily said excitedly.

“I doubt your mother spoke of me,” she said dryly, then she saw Lily’s expectant gaze and sighed. “My name is Wick.”

“Wick?” Lily furrowed her brow, thinking. Her mother had been dead for eleven years, and it’d been so long since anybody even talked about her. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”

“I think she kept me secret.” Wick gave her a wry smile.

“Because you’re a witch?” Lily asked.

“Mainly that, yes,” Wick nodded tiredly.

“How did you know my mother?” Lily leaned forward, excited for any drop of information.

“Oh it was so long ago.” Wick leaned back in her chair. “I don’t think I even remember anymore.”

“Oh please!” Lily begged. “It’s been so long since anybody’s spoken of her! My stepmother has all but banished her name!”

“There’s not much I can say,” Wick began, but she relented under Lily’s hopeful gaze. “Iris was very kind and an eternal optimist.” Wick stared at the bowl of water, absently running her finger along the brim. “Far too trusting, though. That was her downfall.”

“I suspect that will be mine as well.” Lily looked down at the jacket in her lap, the one she found herself clinging to regardless of all logic.

“Not if you learn from your mistakes,” Wick said. Then sighing, she pushed her chair back and got to her feet. “But it’s getting late. That’s enough talk for tonight. You need your rest for your journey home in the morning.”

“But I can’t go home!” Lily insisted.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

Wick threw the cloth in with a pile of rags and dumped the bowl back into the cauldron. She told Lily to take the bed, and though she tried to decline, Wick insisted. Lily slipped off her dress and so she only wore her slip. The bed felt lumpy and rough, as if stuffed with straw, but she didn’t complain. She slid underneath the tattered quilt, feeling only relief at having a warm, safe place to lie.

Though her eyelids were already getting heavy, Lily watched as Wick lowered the fire and locked up the cottage. She moved about, straightening things absently. There was no other bed, and Lily didn’t know where she planned on sleeping. She meant to ask her, but found herself asking something else entirely.

“How did you know I was my mother’s daughter?” Lily asked, suppressing a yawn.

“You look just like her.” Wick looked over at her. “Now get some rest.”

Lily pulled the covers more securely around her, feeling warmth at the implied compliment, and drifted off to sleep.

4

The Lord didn’t notice his daughter was missing until the morning, and that was actually more than Scelestus had hoped for. She had put a spell on the ballroom last night to keep everyone from noticing Lily slipping out with Lux, and it had worked too well.

The ball lasted far longer than it should have because everyone was having such a good time, including the Lord. When it finally ended, it was so late, and he was so exhausted that he immediately went to sleep, without checking on his beloved child.