At the sound of the children’s screams, Ursula became the bear. She crashed through the underbrush until she was practically on top of them, looking frantically to the left and right for whatever had terrified them so.

“It was flying,” Nicola said. “It had metal wings.”

Ursula took her human form. “What was?”

“That.” Sebastian pointed to the ground. The twitching hind legs of a rat poked out of the snow.

Ursula lifted the rat by its tail, freeing the rest of its body and a pair of feather-light metal wings lashed on with leather strips. The rat’s body had been broken irreparably. She hated for children to see this.

She carried the rat back to where she’d left her clothing. She examined the wings on its back. A winding mechanism of some sort lay between them. She didn’t dare touch it, lest she harm the rat further. Even through the harness, she could feel its frantic heartbeat. The poor, poor creature. She turned it over again. Its eyes were wide and rolling, and blood oozed from its ears. She snapped its neck to end its suffering. Shivering, she dressed.

By then, Hans and Cappella were upon her.

“That’s one of Albrecht’s devices,” he said.

“I suspected as much. But I don’t understand how a rat with wings figures into his metal-man schemes.”

“The wings will keep a metal man wound. They’ll keep it going.”

“Then why did the rat crash?” Ursula asked.

“I don’t know,” Hans said. “But it means he’s getting closer.”

“That he has succeeded with a rat is no proof he knows how to do this for anything larger,” Ursula said, as much to convince herself as Hans and Cappella. “Meanwhile, we should burn this poor creature.”

“Why would he send it?” Cappella asked. “Does it mean anything?”

“At the very least, it means he’s still thinking about us,” Ursula said.

“We need to patrol,” Hans said.

“That’s for me to decide,” Ursula said. She immediately regretted her words and her tone. She knew she’d embarrassed him, and in front of Cappella. This was exactly the sort of thing Sabine was talking about when she’d said Ursula never considered anyone else’s opinion but her own. “Hans, you’re right, of course. I thank you.”

Dinner was quiet. People huddled around fires, eating soup and thin slices of potato bread because the wheat stores had been exhausted. The children’s noses were red and running, and there was none of the usual laughter that tended to erupt during mealtime.

Afterward, Ursula turned to Sabine. “Walk with me.”

Once they were away from the rest, Ursula said, “What do you think he meant by sending the rat?”

“Whatever it was, it didn’t exactly strike terror in my heart,” Sabine said. “I pitied it.”

“He was testing his concept, I think. Seeing if he could make a metal soldier fly.”

“If he can’t make a rat fly, he’s not going to make anything larger fly, let alone some sort of undying metal soldier. But even if he did, we could knock it out of the sky with a rock. We could sink it in the river.”

Ursula felt a rush of love for Sabine. An immortal soldier would give most people nightmares. Here Sabine was already figuring out how to end one.

“What if he succeeds?”

“We can talk about ifs forever,” Sabine said. “If Albrecht attacks. If he sends more flying rats. If he somehow manages to make a flying man. But it doesn’t change what we must do.”

“I know, fight back. But we cannot fight—”

“That wasn’t what I was going to say,” Sabine said. She put a hand on Ursula’s forearm, and they stopped walking.

“All my life I’ve been at the mercy of the king. Your father,” Sabine said. “I was taken from my parents. I had to live where he said. I had to sleep in a cage. I had to make my way in the world by turning myself into an amusement for others. I don’t want to do this anymore. I think we should leave.”

“But this is my land,” Ursula said. “Our land. This is our home.”

“He’ll attack us. We’ll attack back. The only end of that cycle is death,” Sabine said. “I don’t want any part of it. I want to live. I love the woods too. But I want to make a home someplace else.” Light from the near-full moon bounced off the snow and illuminated Sabine’s expression. She wanted Ursula to understand. To see things her way. But Ursula couldn’t. She’d learned diplomacy. She’d learned combat. When one failed, you used the other. Running away was never an option. What was life if she didn’t have a kingdom? What kind of leader was she if she gave up her home?

“What if we stole his metal men?”

“Ursula,” Sabine said. “We have no army. We have farmers. Elderly people. Children.”

“I should have killed my brother when I had the chance.”

“And then, what, did you plan to stroll back into the castle and take over?”

“The people in the kingdom are miserable,” Ursula said. “They’re as hungry as we are. I’ve seen them when I’ve made runs for supplies. I even left some of the potatoes where they’d be found. They’d welcome me.”

“Perhaps they would,” Sabine said. “Or perhaps they would view you as the monster Albrecht’s told them you are.”

“What would you have me do?” Ursula asked.

“Better than this,” Sabine said. “I just got out of a cage. I have little desire to go back inside one.”

“But there will be no cages!” Ursula couldn’t help but yell.

“Maybe none that you can see,” Sabine shot back.

They stood facing each other, breathing clouds of mist into the night.

Ursula had never been so dispirited. The two of them might as well have been speaking different languages. If Ursula didn’t understand Sabine, the reverse was true as well.

“We’ll figure it out,” Sabine said.

Ursula didn’t think so. She’d gone over everything she’d ever been taught about diplomacy, which had failed. About fighting, which looked hopeless. She knew Sabine was trying to tell her something, trying to get her to think in new ways, and it felt impossible.

And in any case, this was Ursula’s work to do, and she had failed. The next attack Albrecht made might end them.

“Are you coming?” Sabine asked.

Ursula shook her head. “I’ll be on patrol. Don’t wait up.”