He took her through the wear on each article of clothing, watching her face change as he spoke, watching her hands move over the material. She was calm and confident in her craft as sheexplained to him how she would mend the damage. He didn’t listen to her—he didn’t care how or even if the clothes were mended—but he enjoyed watching her mouth.
“I’m in your debt,” he said when she had finished. “Truly. I can pay you in coin, or I could perhaps bring some fabrics or other items from the caravan for you, if that would be more useful. Or... well, I have another method of payment that many people prefer, but it would require you to do one small thing.”
“I’m not interested in that,” she said plainly, shoulders stiff.
“Oh no!” The prince raised his hands. “No, my lady, I apologize; I didn’t mean to imply anything impure. Rather, what I meant was that I can pay you with a wish. I can grant wishes, you see. All you must do is answer a simple riddle, nothing that would be too hard for you to handle, I’m sure, and the wish is yours. Whatever you’d like.”
Her shoulders relaxed and her eyebrows lifted. “Magic? I see. Yes, that’s certainly not so impure. Anything I like, you say?”
“Whatever your heart desires.”
Her gaze skimmed toward the open door, through which Henrike and Ilyas were visible. They were chasing each other around the base of the linden tree under Evren’s watchful eye. “Mmm. Why a riddle? Have you been cursed?”
The prince shifted as her sharp attention returned to him.She wasn’t surprised when confronted with magic, or if she was, she recovered very quickly. And she apparently wasn’t as easily dazzled by the promise of it as some people were. The same was true with the innkeepers.
“No curses,” he explained. “I have always had magic. The riddles were my own fault; one day I started awarding wishes for correctly answered riddles, and that was what my magic became.”
She studied him, seemed to catalogue the parts of him. “Interesting. This riddle, do I have to answer it immediately? Can I hear it now and have some time to think on it, or should I wait until I’m sure I’d like to take the wish, and then I can hear the riddle?”
No one had ever asked the prince such a question. “I suppose you can hear it, though I promise any riddle I give you would be as easy as I could make it. In exchange for your work, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” she said. A small smile played on her lips. “I’d like to hear the riddle, then. Tell me now, then come back at the end of the week, before the caravan leaves. I’ll have all your mending done so you can pick it up and hear the answer.”
She had taken the baitandshe’d given him a week to manipulate her wish. He could easily charm his way close to her by then. He couldn’t have planned it better himself.
“One week,” the prince said, smiling with all his teeth. “The night before the caravan leaves.”
“And the riddle?”
It was his easiest, not because everyone knew the answer, but because it had many answers, and to him they were all correct. It was almost impossible to answer incorrectly.
“What leaves you empty,” he said, “and fills you up?”
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. Howdid 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 theadultvillagers.
That afternoon, long after Hilda had excused herself from their walk to return to her work, the prince was lounging outsidethe 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.
