Four

Each morning the prince bought a fresh loaf of bread from the bakers across the village square and took it up to Hilda’s cottage on the hill. On the third day she caught on and began meeting him halfway down the hill, Henrike in tow. Hilda would oblige him with a stroll around the town square, where Henrike would run off to play with some of the other children or with Ilyas, who had taken to following Evren like a small shadow.

Hilda asked the prince questions about his homeland and his magic, and for the first time the prince found himself explaining his deep love of magic to someone else. He had never done so before, though not for lack of trying; most people seemed to think he loved it because he could do it when no one else could. But Hilda listened, and he sensed that there was an understanding in her—maybe because of something she said, or the way she cocked her head—that he loved magic for what it was.

She wanted to know about all the wishes he’d ever granted, the riddles he’d given, why he’d given them and to whom. How did he choose his recipients? Had he ever tried to have someone he trusted wish that he could have full control of his magic again, without the use of the riddles? He admitted that he hadn’t considered that before, but he would now.

He asked her what she would wish for. She said she didn’t know. He moved closer as he asked the questions intended to get her thinking. Was she lonely? How long had she been living with her daughter on their hill, separated from the village not only by distance but by her duty to protect the town from the witch in the forest? Did she wish she could live a normal life, a peaceful life? She never answered these questions directly, just made small noises of acknowledgment.

By the sixth day, most of the town seemed to know of the prince’s wish-granting abilities. He was certain Hilda hadn’t told anyone, so it had either been a stray word from the innkeepers or from a member of the caravan. The prince didn’t mind once he realized that the promise of magic didn’t entice the villagers to come to him with requests or pleas. They seemed to share the innkeepers’ and Hilda’s reluctance when it came to magic. Maybe they thought they’d had enough of it.

Well, it didn’t entice the adult villagers.

That afternoon, long after Hilda had excused herself from their walk to return to her work, the prince was lounging outside the inn, basking in the sunlight, when a small voice accosted him.

“I want a wish.”

He looked around and found a waif of a boy, no older or bigger than Hilda or Ilyas, standing several feet away and staring at him with blank blue eyes. The boy’s blond hair was weedy and hung in his face.

“I don’t grant wishes to children,” said the prince. “Go away.”

He closed his eyes again, but he felt the boy still standing there, staring at him.

“I want. A wish,” the boy said.

“I want. You to go away,” replied the prince.

There was a scrape of rock and then a sharp pain across the prince’s forehead. He leaped to his feet, wiping blood from a cut above his eye, just in time to dodge another rock. He surged forward, caught the boy’s scrawny wrist, and twisted until the boy cried out and dropped the rock.

“Little devil!” the prince snapped, shaking the boy. “This is why I don’t grant wishes to children! You’re fiendish, impulsive things. You can’t be trusted!”

There was a brief, high-pitched scream from across the square. “Hans! Oh, Hans! Take your hands off him, you brute!”

A blond woman came flying over to rip the boy from the prince’s grasp. She glared at the prince as she checked little Hans’s wrist and head and the whole rest of his body, as if the toad had been in a brawl.

“How dare you?” she exclaimed, pressing Hans close to her chest. “How dare you handle him like that—he’s just a baby!”

Hans’s flat blue eyes stared at the prince from the depths of his mother’s cleavage. A crowd was beginning to gather on the edges of the square.

“He was throwing rocks at me because I wouldn’t grant him a wish,” said the prince, jabbing a finger at the cut on his forehead. “Is this what you teach your spawn to do when they don’t get their way? Throw rocks?”

“Why couldn’t you just give him a wish?” Hans’s mother was wailing louder now, as if she had been the one hit with a rock. There were actual tears in her eyes. “He’s a little boy, he only wants a wish, how could you be so cruel to withhold a wish from a child?”

Evren appeared by the prince’s side then, ready to smooth the situation over, but the prince held up his hand.

“Fine,” he said, teeth bared. “Your devil child wants a wish, he has to answer a riddle first. That’s how it works, and everyone has to do it.”

The mother blinked at him as Hans wriggled out of her tight embrace, almost shoving her away. “I can do it,” he said. “I can answer riddles.”

The prince loomed over him. “Here it is, hellion. What slew none, and yet slew twelve?”

The boy was so young he seemed not even to completely understand the form of the question. Even if he had, he couldn’t have gotten it right, because this riddle had no answer. The prince had created it intentionally as a riddle with no answer, so no matter what answer was given, it would be wrong. It was the counterpoint to his easiest riddle.

Hans stood silent, his lips pressed tight, his face turning red, his eyes roving around the square.

“That’s too hard,” complained Hans’s mother. “Can’t you ask him something easier, so he can answer it? Or so I can answer it for him?”

“You can’t answer for him,” the prince spat, his ire well and truly up. “He must answer, and he gets the riddle that he gets. The world does not hand out wishes on a platter just because one is a child, and your child is no more special than any other. Oh, did you not realize? Better you find out now than later, I suppose—”

“Altan!” Evren hissed in his ear, jerking his arm to pull him away. “That’s enough!”

The prince turned to the boy once more. “And what will you be, little Hans, when you no longer have your mother to hold you and tell you everything will be okay? Will you still be a devil? Or will your neighbors quash you before—”

“Enough!” Evren said again, grabbing the prince by the lapels of his coat and bodily shoving him toward the inn. After the first few steps, the prince allowed himself to be pushed, and once they were inside the inn, he stomped his way up to their shared room on his own. Evren shut the door behind them.

“You just told a small boy you hoped his neighbors would kill him,” Evren said, red-faced and out of breath.

“If you haven’t noticed,” the prince replied, dabbing daintily at his bloodied forehead with his kerchief, “I hate children.”

“Yes, but normally you’re not so vicious about it! We only have one day left. Can you please not get us attacked by the villagers? I’m worried about the caravan, too—I doubt they’ll want to associate with us now. We’ll have to find our way out of this forest ourselves.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard; there’s only one road.”

“Altan, please . . . maybe we should leave now.”

“No! I’ve got plans.”

“What, the conquest of a tailor? Surely you can find someone else in the next town or city we come across.”

“I’m not leaving yet.”

“You’re causing more trouble, is what you’re doing.”

“Tomorrow is the day she’ll let me grant her wish,” the prince said. “Tomorrow night, during the troupe’s final performance. I’ll stay here until then, what about that? I won’t leave this room.”

Evren eyed him, looking weary and much older than his years. “You’ll stay right here? In this small inn room? I’ve never known you to stay cooped in a palace, much less a room half the size of your wardrobe.”

The prince put his hand over his heart. “I swear it, Evren. By our holy bond, I swear it.”

Evren sighed. Sank onto the end of his bed.

“Fine,” he said. “We’ll stay.”

Then he put his head in his hand and said, “But please . . . do not threaten any more children.”