21

Lang’s words chafed at me all through dinner. Perrault watched me nervously as I sat across from Fritz, my teeth on edge, sawing at my flavorless supper.

Don’t make me turn the request into an order.

I wanted to laugh. As if Lang could tell me what to do. As if who was leading our mission was more important than the people we’d come all this way to help.

An argument this sharp would once have paralyzed me—would have kept me safe in the freinnen’s room, out of trouble, out of range of all the mistakes I could make. But now, it only pushed me forward. Set me in motion.

It made me more reckless.

Cobie swam for the rowboat again as soon as the freinnen had left that night, and we shoved off with no hesitation after she’d returned and dressed.

“They’re lucky to have a place close by to play,” Cobie said as we scrambled up the hill toward the ruin. “Burg Rheinfels is perfect. Abandoned. Distant enough to hide the noise.”

I froze. “What?”

“Burg Rheinfels. That’s what the castle’s called. I heard the sisters say while they were getting dressed earlier.”

Burg Rheinfels. I’d heard the name before.

My mind raced.

The witch’s cottage, or the woodcutter’s? Tell me quickly.

The woodcutter’s cottage. My people won’t be going anywhere near your father.

In the conversation I’d overheard, a boy named Hansel had asked a girl named Gretel where they should meet. She’d cut him off, but not before he’d named two places—Katz Castle, and Burg Rhein . . . something. I’d analyzed the conversation, had heard their words over and over in my head.

My hands shook at my own foolishness. It had been so many days.

Hadn’t I noticed how familiar his voice was?

I knew the speaker. I’d used his radio.

Little Hansel in the woods had never been so inventive as Fürst Fritz of Terytoriya Shvartsval’d.

Back in England, I’d spent weeks watching Lang watch a room. It had irritated me, to see him so distant—always somewhere other than present, with me. He and Yu had hovered in doorways, lingered over their cups long after they were empty.

But though I’d questioned whether I’d know what I was looking for as I sought out the resistance, observing Lang had taught me. And now, I could do it better than him.

I kept watch over Burg Rheinfels. But I didn’t do it from a spot along the wall, looking obvious. I joined the party.

As we spun and stomped and the line of dancers chased its tail, I kept my eyes open, taking in the whole room. The party swirled with a few hundred people in a fantastic array of fashions—jackets and tunics and trousers, boots and slippers. And gowns, in every color, every fabric. Drop waists and empire waists, ballerina skirts and mermaid hems. Some new, some worn, some fine, some cobbled together from scraps.

I’d put on a cornflower-blue gown of my own and dressed Cobie in navy silk dug from the back of Margarethe’s closet. Pretty clothes, but unremarkable.

I’d intended us to be forgettable. Fritz’s face—his perfect, nondescript features—had given me the idea.

We danced and we watched. The Waldleute were here. They had to be.

My eyes roved the room, waiting for a sign. And suddenly, I spotted Lang, dancing with Margarethe.

He was wearing a mask, so it wasn’t his face I recognized first. Not the depth of his eyes or the dark of his lashes or the curve of his brows and his nose. It was his hands.

As he reached for Margarethe, I recognized at once the length of Lang’s fingers against hers, the shape of the perpetual charcoal smear around his middle finger and across the back of his hand. He’d been drawing again.

An odd ache spread through my stomach. And when the dance ended and Margarethe moved away, I surged forward, pushed past the girl who would have taken her place.

Lang shoved his mask up over his forehead. “Again?” he demanded.

“Keep dancing,” I hissed. I seized the hand some other girl had been about to take and circled him, rejoining the line.

“I told you not to come.”

“And I ignored you.” I spoke close to his ear. “I’m here to get some answers and to enjoy myself, and you’re not going to spoil it.”

“I’m enjoying myself, for once—” Lang grumbled, pulling his mask back into place. But Margarethe was gone, and his eyes weren’t seeking her out at the edge of the crowd.

I shook my head, taking his hand as we promenaded together. “No, you weren’t.”

“You’re right.” Lang’s fingers slid between mine, pressing the band Torden had given me against my fingers. “I wasn’t.”

I felt a flood of guilt, a wicked rush of power.

Lang was a good dancer; he sauntered, loose and bold, every step, every shift of his shoulders and torso in time with the music. He exuded confidence, and it attracted more appreciative glances than mine alone.

Wanting burned in me.

Eyes locked on one another, we circled once more. The music was loud, but not as loud as my heartbeat in my ears.

Lang bent his head, and his nose grazed mine, and the rest of the party suddenly seemed very far away.

I took a breath, drew back slightly. “Lang, I need to tell you something.”

Beneath the music and between our passes with other partners, I told him how I’d overheard the conversation between Hansel and Gretel. “And I realized tonight that one of them was Fritz,” I added, breathless. “And Lang, this is Burg Rheinfels. They talked about meeting here.”

“We could find them,” Lang murmured. “We might actually find them.” He gripped my waist and circled me again.

Potomac. My father. They were close enough to touch.

“And then,” I said, “we can go home.”

I found another partner after that dance, and Margarethe returned to Lang. We all watched the room from our places, seeking out secretive behavior, Cobie and I avoiding the freinnen.

I had lost track of the hours when Cobie appeared at my side later, her eyes wide and panicked. “Selah, the freinnen are leaving.”

“What do you mean?” I shook my head, trying to clear it of music and sparkle, trying to focus.

“We need to go,” she said, urgent. “If they beat us back to Katz Castle—”

“No!” I gasped. “They can’t!”

Cobie disappeared and reappeared in half a moment, Lang at her side. He seized my hand. “Come back with me, both of you. I’ll make up an excuse, say that we’ve been together.”

My stomach jolted at Lang’s touch; I ignored it. “Lang, you can’t make this go away. Margarethe knows you’ve been here.”

Lang cursed under his breath. “Hurry.” He pulled me through the crowd, pushed me toward the door, his calluses rough against my palms and my bare shoulders. “Hurry, hurry, and don’t get caught.”

We tore down through the woods and up the river, abandoning the rowboat Cobie had borrowed somewhere on the banks and swimming up the tributary beneath the castle. Cobie pulled herself onto the dock, the muscles in her arms straining, her navy dress black with water. I hauled myself up after her, slipping over the fabric of my gown.

We hurried down the corridor, hurried toward the chair propping the door open, hurried inside, ready to sneak into bed and put an end to this evening.

But the freinnen were already waiting.

Fritz was with them.