Albrecht lifted his hand with the twin blades. He studied the blood on their tips and wondered if that glittering liquid was what made the boy on the table in front of him become a wolf. Or was it his heart? His liver or lungs? Something in his brain? What made a body live? What kept it alive?

He understood well what ended a life. But what created it—what made something live—was a mystery. He would tear this boy into pieces to understand the magic that made him. Because Albrecht was finally able to admit for himself that’s what frissers were to him. Magic. It was unfair his sister had been graced with that magic but not he. He wanted it, and if he couldn’t come by it by birthright, he would take it.

From below, he heard pipe music. It got under his skin in the worst way.

“Silence!” he yelled.

The musician kept playing. Enraged, Albrecht slid his finger into Hans’s slit-open chest. Hans’s eyes opened. He jerked. Perhaps the liquid mercy had worn off. No matter. The goal was to open up Hans and then watch him change into his wolf form, not to spare the boy pain. Albrecht tasted the blood. Warm. Rich in metal and salt. But it tasted no different from his own.

“Shift, boy.” Albrecht leaned over him. Looked at the wolf’s black-ringed eyes. He was losing his patience. So be it. If Hans died, Albrecht had spare children in the dungeon.

Hans moaned. His lips moved, as if he was trying to say something. “P-p-p” was the only sound that came out. He held his human form.

Albrecht dragged the tip of his knife across a fresh length of skin. “Send the wolf out to play,” he said. “You’ll feel better. I promise.”

Someone banged the door.

He’d ordered no interruptions. “Guard! Stop that noise!”

The banging continued. The door would hold. He’d had it reinforced. But how was he supposed to work with such distractions? He yelled again, frustrated at Hans, frustrated with his men, enraged at the music that never, ever stopped.

Then came a cracking of wood. The door burst open. He turned, ready to make the intruder regret it. A great brown bear skidded into the room and stood on her hind legs. Her fur was wet, and it smelled of the woods.

“Hello, Ursula.”

Albrecht brandished his not-finger. It wasn’t the weapon he would have chosen, but it was sharp. It would do damage. His hand was quick, and if she came any closer, he’d strike.

“Let us end this quarrel,” he said. “With your surrender or with your death. The choice is yours.”

Ursula lowered herself to all fours. Standing, she was taller than he. On her paws, though, she was smaller. He eyed her claws. Easily the equal of his knife. But he was her better. He always had been. He would show her, once and for all, now.

Her lip curled. She growled. Albrecht stood his ground, waving his bladed finger. When her gaze shifted to the boy on the table, Albrecht lunged.

She dodged, quicker than he expected. But it cost her blood, enough that her paw slipped in it.

He stepped back, out of striking distance. Her black lips curled, and he could see blood on her teeth. Whatever injury she had was severe.

“Are you sure you don’t want to run away, sister? Go back to the forest with the rest of the beasts? Something tells me you’re dead if you don’t. And maybe even if you do.” He moved so that he was between her and Hans. Whatever happened, Hans could not get free.

“Your very life is bleeding out on this floor, inside a chamber you’d always expected would be yours,” he said. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll put a marker on the spot where you die, so that everyone who walks into this room from now until the end of time steps on your memory.”

She bellowed, spraying him with bloody spit. Then she stood on her hind legs. He looked at Hans to give her an opening. She took it, and his knife did what the guard’s spear had not. With a thrust that was sweet, swift, and deep, Albrecht found the space between her ribs, one he’d become familiar with by working with the corpses of countless animals.

He’d put a hole in her heart. He’d done it. Ended her.

Blood gushed from her chest, and she began to shift back to her human form. She dropped to the stones, an ugly monster with huge, bladed paws, a hairy back, and a woman’s face and breasts. It was a shame that things had had to happen this way. It was a shame she had to be born his sister and born first. She really was a magnificent beast.

He knelt beside her and waited for her to die.

Hans was weeping. Outside, the piper played. Albrecht, newly enraged at being distracted from this beautiful moment, cursed the sound and resolved to kill whoever was playing it. He stomped to the window, no longer afraid of heights.

“Piper,” he said. “I’m coming for you.”