Cappella and Esme spent their nights in the tree and their days at the refugee camp. Over time, the clearing felt more and more like a tiny village. The survivors had smoothed the earth and set up tents reclaimed from Cage Row in midnight raids. The work had taken weeks, and now when people woke up, they woke to visible breath and frost-skimmed grounds. No one slept in cages. No one ever would again.

Ursula had been much friendlier since that first day, and Cappella had grown to enjoy watching her cousin run things. She cared. She did. It was undeniable. She sometimes didn’t show it well.

Sabine was always by her side, but there was something strange about the way they moved when they were near each other. It felt stiff and uncomfortable. They had no bruises or injuries that she could discern, but the look in their eyes spoke of pain.

Cappella had seen them together in the forest for years. She’d avoided them, of course, first because they were bears, and then because she knew they were humans. Back then, they’d seemed as close as two lips. Now all sense of that was gone. She wished she understood why.

She’d only ever had her mother to get along with; it had never occurred to her that bonds of love could break. But in the past few weeks, rifts were all she’d felt. Between her and her mother. Between Ursula and Sabine. The two halves of the kingdom. Things had fallen apart.

Cappella wished she understood what broke people apart. It was clear what Ursula believed: that her brother’s violence had been the cause of all destruction, and that she could restore things with more violence.

To that end, Ursula had decided that everyone in the little village needed to learn how to fight. Cappella wanted to be good at this. She’d envisioned herself side by side with Hans, doing whatever one did to combat the forces of wickedness. But the first time Sabine came running at her with a stick, Cappella had dropped to the ground, positioned herself in the shape of an egg, and begged for mercy. Hans had at least had the decency not to laugh, but he was the only one.

Hans, of course, was a superb warrior, especially in his wolf form. He often watched over the camp while Ursula and Sabine sparred. Cappella liked watching him patrol, stopping every now and then to swish his tail at the older people who were tending their small fires, mending clothes, and preparing food.

One afternoon when he was doing this, she decided to play him a song, a soft one. As they’d started doing lately, the little werechildren gathered at her feet in their animal forms. Some rolled in the clover and swatted at each other, gently and in good fun, while the goats cracked nuts in their teeth. Cappella was grateful. There was nothing like the sight of children playing to help a person feel hope.

Hans sat down next to her. He’d shifted back to his human form and dressed. She couldn’t play, not with him sitting so close.

“Don’t stop. I liked it.”

She lowered the pipe. “I was finished anyway.”

“I’m hungry.”

“You’re always hungry.”

“I want all the food. All of it.”

They sat close enough that their shoulders touched. “What else do you want?”

“Don’t even ask,” he said.

She bristled. Information withheld felt like a lie. But maybe he didn’t want to hurt her with the truth. Maybe he’d left someone behind in the kingdom. She knew he’d suffered there. She could see it on his face whenever the subject came up. There might be someone he missed. She wanted to console him, even as it broke her heart.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She pretended to polish her pipe on the hem of her tunic. Two people could withhold truths.

He squinted, as if to examine her face more closely. He looked ridiculous. She couldn’t help but smile.

“Do you want to practice fighting?” he asked.

“Oh, I think I’ve perfected my technique.”

Hans laughed. “All the same, it would be fun, wouldn’t it?” He stood and offered her a hand. She let him pull her up slowly, to make it last.

“Not here, though,” she said. The last thing she wanted was for everyone to see her in her humiliation.

“Lead the way,” he said.

Cappella brought him to a clearing at the far edge of the woods. Beyond it was a plummet to the river; its churning meant that even the forest song was distant, muted. The trees would be the only witnesses.

Hans brought two fighting sticks. It stung to be struck by one, but Cappella wasn’t ready for swords or knives.

“Ready?” Hans tossed her a stick.

She caught it one-handed. “See? I’m a master.”

Hans shook his head, half smiling. They faced off. He started with the pattern they’d practiced. She kept up as well as she could, but trying to remember the moves took so much of her focus that she became clumsy.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Keep going.”

“It’s not as though King Albrecht’s soldiers are going to come at us with sticks,” Cappella said.

“True,” Hans said.

“Then why are we trying? What’s the point?”

“When you first started on your pipe, could you play the songs that you can play now?” Hans jumped back and she just missed his knuckles.

“No.”

“Learning new skills takes time,” he said. “You have to master the basics first.”

“You mastered them in a single go.” She was whining. She knew it. But it was true. She sliced down at him.

He parried her neatly. “You don’t turn yourself into an egg anymore.”

“If anyone came at me with anything more dangerous than this stick, I would turn into an egg, hatch as a chicken, and promptly perish.”

She lost track of the move she was supposed to make and pulled the stick into her chest. Hans stopped short of whacking her on the shoulder.

“You never feared me when I was a wolf,” he said.

“You were a cub! You were fluffy and small. How could I resist?”

“I’m irresistible. I know.”

She laughed. “Modest too.”

“All right,” he said. “Let’s see how you do against a wolf.”

Before she could fully register his meaning, he was out of his clothes and stretching into his wolf form, tongue out, tail wagging.

He ran at her, and she brought her stick down swiftly, not expecting to hit him but hoping at least for a tap. He jumped back just in time, caught her stick in his teeth, and wrested it from her grip, knocking her onto her bottom.

Do not become an egg. Do not become an egg. She very much wanted to become an egg.

He looked as if he might pounce, so she rolled away before he could pin her. She pushed herself up. He dropped her stick, and she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to pick it up or defend herself with her bare hands. Then she remembered her pipe and pulled it out of her pocket. That was better than a stick. Much harder.

She was breathing hard, part from exertion and part from the thrill of being alone with Hans and not having to worry about touching him. She was supposed to right now. She brandished the pipe and then lunged, as if she meant to strike his snout. He fell for it, and the second he leapt up, mouth open, she pulled back and spun away. He skidded as he landed, and she could tell she’d unbalanced him.

He turned, head low, creeping closer. She was glad she knew him as well as she did; otherwise it would have been terrifying to stand before a wolf with a mouth full of such large teeth. What would Ursula do? Cappella wasn’t sure.

She’d watched Ursula and Sabine spar—the only time lately the two women hadn’t seemed at odds. They were so big that when Sabine flipped Ursula, the earth shook. And it wasn’t just their size. They also looked so well matched when they fought, as if they had been made for it and for each other.

And what had Cappella been made for? Entertainment, she supposed. How feeble. She ran toward Hans. He rose on his hind legs. Then he put his paws on her shoulders and licked her face. Her knees buckled. She fell on her back, still holding her pipe. He pinned her in the dirt. So much for being like Ursula.

“You killed me,” she said. “I am slain. Let the mourning commence.” She wiped her wet face. “Ew, Hans.”

Hans lay down on top of her the way they sometimes had when they were little. She’d felt the weight of him on her before, but it had never felt like this, not with the soft earth beneath her and the solid weight of him on top of her. She was out of breath from exertion, but also from the thrill of his heartbeat against her chest.

She had no idea what to do with her hands. One still held the pipe and the other she finally decided to rest in his fur, caressing him gently as she had when she was a little girl and it had seemed a safe and natural thing to do. Neither one of them moved for the longest time. She loved him. She knew it to her bones. She loved him in every way a girl could love a boy. Her throat caught. Then, before she could say anything, Hans’s ears pricked, and he turned his head toward the woods. He stood, lip curled.

The little fox brothers, Sebastian and Simon, tumbled out of the bush. They were in their human form, yet she couldn’t help but think of them as foxes because of their deep orange hair and clever eyes.

“Queen Ursula sent us to find you,” Sebastian said, his cheeks bright.

“And we did.” Simon laughed and touched his fingertips together and made kissing sounds with his lips.

Cappella sat and brushed dirt from her hair.

“Hans was helping me with combat,” she said.

“That’s not what it looked like,” Sebastian said.

Hans growled playfully and leapt at the brothers, who scattered like leaves. They were still giggling when he took his human form and dressed. Cappella didn’t mean to peek as he did, but he was so quick about it she could hardly have looked away.

Then his hand was on hers, pulling her up. They stood almost as close as they had been when they were lying down. She liked this too. The slice of space between them crackled the way the air does before a thunderstorm. She watched his gaze travel from her eyes to her lips.

She remembered what was in her other hand. Her pipe. She smiled wickedly and jabbed his ribs.

“Oof, Cappella!”

“You said it yourself. Albrecht doesn’t fight fair.”

Hans snatched the pipe away and stuffed it in his pocket. “You’re unarmed.”

“At your mercy,” she said.

He laced his fingers through hers. “Shall we?”

She couldn’t speak for the thrill of it. They headed back to camp.