Until the other Wolfhunder speaks.
“Laying a hand on the Golden Wolf’s bride . . . men have hanged for less.” He raps his cudgel against his palm. “If the lady says mercy, we’ll settle for the whipping post.”
The room goes quiet again, save for the quiet sniffles of the children old enough to know how bad this can go.
Gisele looks to me, startled, seasick dread sparking in her face.
No one lives in the Hoenring for a year without seeing the recreational cruelty of the Wolfhünden. I can tell she still has only a bystander’s understanding of the lash. Doubtless she’s told herself if she keeps her head down, though, if she minds her business, if she follows the rules, she won’t wind up bound to a post.
She won’t wind up screaming in barebacked, bloody agony before the crowd. She won’t wind up torn between terror for the next fall of the whip, and hunger for it to bring her closer to the whipping’s end.
She won’t wind up like me.
Only someone raised as a princess could believe that following the rules would protect her.
And now, only I can stop this. Only I can call off the hounds.
I can do what sheneverdid, not all the times her mother had too much mead and struck out because I was just there, not when Irmgard had me whipped for nothing, not even once.
I can save her. Like she never saved me.
And she and I both know I have absolutely no reason to do it.
It’s, embarrassingly enough, the sniffling orphans who tip the scales. I grew up tiptoeing around the trip wires of nobility accountable to no one; these children don’t need to learn those cold lessons yet. And something about having Giseleknowshe’s at my mercy like this— that satisfies the ugly part of me.
“Not necessary,” I say, frigid and smooth as a glacier lake, even as I avoid Joniza’s stare. “Leave her be. You can’t beat sense into a creature gone mad.” I drop the coin purse on the floor. “I just came to leave a donation. Happy Winterfast.”
Then I sweep out the door. No wonder I thought the Gänslinghaus looked familiar. When I tailed Gisele here months ago, I’d just assumed it was a boardinghouse.
“Back to my castle,” I call to the driver, loud enough to carry inside. Extra emphasis onmy.
Ragne is waiting for me in the carriage as a black cat, nearly blending into the pile of fur wraps. As we pull away, I press a hand to my stomach. The knot of pearl is still there.
Of course Gisele isn’t the answer. She never has been before.
“Well, I tried,” I mutter.
“You did?” Ragne cocks her head.
I shoot her a dirty look. “Yes. I gave Gisele money and tried to make amends and it didn’t do anything.” I slump against the back of the carriage seat, turning the curse in my mind like a dead bolt, poking at the tumblers. “I guess it’s not about just giving back what I took from people. Since most of them deserved it, that makes sense . . . So the next move is giving to other people. We’ll go get money from the treasury and try again.”
“That was the Gisele?” Ragne asks after a moment.
“Yes.”
“I don’t think she likes you very much,” Ragne yawns, curling up for another nap.
“No,” I agree, “she doesn’t.”
“She smells nice, though.”
“So does cyanide.” I think of white pennies, and I think of red ones, and I tell myself it was Gisele’s own choices that landed us both where we are.
THE SECOND TALE
The White Penny and the Red
Once upon a time, between the snowy mountains and the deep, dark forest, two little girls lived in a castle.
