But where was Gothel when she wasn’t with her daughter?

She always told Rapunzel she was taking care of the family farm, buying necessities at the market, and checking on her kitchen garden—which was liable to go to the aphids if not carefully watched.

If there were any white lies about where she actually went, they usually involved a certain dark mountainside where a certain glowing flower grew. Gothel would sing and stroke its petals, and her skin plumped up and her hair sleeked. Safe and young for another week! She always felt so old after visiting Rapunzel. The girl positively wore her out with her demands and wild emotions.

And doe eyes.

And rosy cheeks.

Anyway, the Sundrop was her normal secret.

But this time…

Deep in one of the few still-standing ruins on a deserted hillside, torches flickered and a fire blazed in an ancient hearth that hadn’t been lit in a thousand years.

Between these two sources of distinctly human luminescence was a ring of uncomfortable but well-dressed people—and their much rougher-looking guards. Although several tried to disguise their faces and the sigils of their houses with veils and cloaks, it wasn’t at all hard to recognize the Baron of Smeinhet, the Duke of Kraske, the Countess Bathory, and a number of the lesser lords of the lands surrounding the kingdom. Shifty eyes in well-fed faces looked from one to the other suspiciously.

Standing between these ridiculous figures and the hearth fire—so she was all silhouette and no detail—was the woman who had gathered all these wretches in gold and silk.

Gothel.

“All right, I’m here and my people are getting nervous,” the Baron of Smeinhet snapped. “It had better be good.”

“Oh, it is good, I assure you,” Gothel said. “The girl is approaching her nineteenth birthday. Marriageable age.”

“Long past marriageable age,” a masked duke scoffed.

“Shut up, swinehound,” the Countess Bathory snapped.

“Or what?” The duke snorted. “What possible thing could a woman do to me?”

“I could use my vérhounds to track down all your mistresses and cause a scandal for you—and then bathe in the girls’ blood.”

The man, who had a rich wife from a powerful family, many mistresses, and no standing army, went white.

Gothel hid her own disquietude at this interchange. Selling her ward to the highest bidder was one thing; princesses were always married off to people they barely knew. Selling her to a sadistic, well-known murderer like Bathory was too much—even for the very flexible morality of Mother Gothel. There wasn’t a smallholding within a hundred miles that didn’t scare their children into good behavior with stories of Bloody Lady Bathory, and how she kept her skin so young, and how young girls often disappeared from the villages around her castle.

“Folks, please. Can we focus on the important thing at hand?” Gothel said, waving her arms for attention and trying to change the subject. “Which is how much one of you lucky people is going to pay me for her bride price.”

“I find this whole matter of bidding for her hand disgusting,” Countess Bathory growled, flashing an angry look at the duke she had bickered with. “Wives aren’t chattel to be sold as objects….”

“You make an excellent point, My Lady,” Gothel said with a curtsy. “And as a freethinking woman myself, I applaud your speaking out for our sex’s rights.”

“…so I will bid for her as a maid,” the countess finished. “As is appropriate. Servants are chattel and property. As are the children of the destitute and poor.”

“All right, that wasn’t exactly where I thought you were going with that,” Gothel admitted. Not that she was entirely surprised. “But I take your point. The auction will be for a bride, servant, or licensing fee, whatever you want to call it. Blind bidding, three rounds only, less if there is an offer so generous that it can reasonably be understood to preempt the process. Have your servants drop off your bid, stamped with your house sigil, at the giant oak with the cross-shaped gash on the road leading to Leipserg.

“And please, before you complain, let me remind you: the girl’s power has grown greatly, now that she is nearly an adult. As her guardian and the person who tirelessly raised her for nearly twenty years, caring for her and listening to her…Well, it’s only fair I be recompensed for the burden of responsibility of such a dangerous—and talky—young person. Plus, how she eats! Why, her teenage appetite alone costs me more than—”

“You say she’s powerful,” the Baron of Smeinhet interrupted. “We have no proof. Only your word, and wives’ tales.”

“Yes,” a marquess said. “We’ve traveled here at great risk twice now with nothing to show for it.”

“You don’t trust me?” Gothel asked in mock offense. “Really, does this look like a face that would lie to you? Don’t answer that, I’m teasing.

“While I’m hurt, I’m not entirely surprised. How about this: you choose amongst yourselves a single witness you can trust. He—or she—will return with me to observe the deadly magic of my powerful ward…and report back to you lot.”

“How do we choose someone we all trust?” an old earl called out. “None of us trusts each other—much less anyone else’s servant.”

There were several muttered agreements to this.

“But that is precisely the answer,” Duke Kraske spoke up. “We need someone no one can trust—so everyone will. Viscount Thongel, that horrid spy is now with you, I see. What’s his name? Crespin?”

The spy in question, sort of disguised as a common servant accompanying Thongel, looked startled at the mention of his name—but not displeased.

“Crespin worked for Smeinhet over there until Thongel offered him more, and he worked for me before that,” Kraske continued. “I dare say he has worked for us all at one time or another and been clever enough to save his own neck time and time again. I say we send him, with the usual rewards and threats if he betrays any of us along the way or tries to disappear.”

The spy nodded, the large head on his spindly neck bobbing like an apple on Samhain.

“That makes sense,” Smeinhet murmured, crossing his arms.

“I agree to it,” Thongel added. One by one all the deplorables nodded and assented.

“Excellent,” Gothel said with a grin. “It’s a day’s journey. We should get started tonight.”

She looked through a crack in the ceiling to gauge and gaze at the waning, whisper-thin moon dramatically. Its light fell on the white, white teeth in her smile, creating her intended effect: it made even the hardiest, most sadistic souls there wonder at her mysterious powers.

Halfway there, she thought. She had the nobles—and Rapunzel—right where she wanted them.