There was no castle, only Greymist Manor up on its rise. The hut by the lake was standing again, albeit under a cover of snow, and the cottages along the road were back in good repair, though dark. All the noise in town, which wasn’t much beneath the snow cover, came from the inn. The inn once again watched over the village square like a smiling mother, firelight in its many windows. There was no sign of an angry mob.
Fritz, who had dropped the poker and net at the hut by the lake, pushed his way into the inn. Villagers crowded the inn’s common room and staircase, but they squeezed out of the way so the man carrying Heike could sidle through the door. He’d carried Heike the whole way, and though she still looked like she was burning up, the man’s lips were blue, his hair now stuck to his forehead with snow and cold sweat.
Cries of alarm went up through the room, and at once they were set upon by Ulrich and Gabi, Dagny and Johanna, and then Falk, who came and took the spent torch from Fritz’s hand and then pulled his son into a hug so tight and so unexpected that Fritz froze for a moment in surprise.
“Don’t scare me like that, boy,” Falk muttered to him. “You’d give your poor mother a heart attack if she were still here, walking around out in the snow like that.”
“What happened?” Gabi asked as she pressed a hand to Heike’s forehead and brushed the hair from her face. “Where was she? Did Hans do this to her?”
“And who are you?” Ulrich asked the man holding Heike, who was getting some of the color back in his face. “I’ll not be having friends of the little king in this inn.”
The little king. The villagers remembered. Fritz pulled out of his father’s embrace and pushed himself between Ulrich and the man. “He’s not with Hans. He helped put things right again. Heike—I think she’s in trouble. Where is Doctor Death?”
“Here.” Like his namesake, the doctor materialized seemingly from nowhere, looming at the bottom of the stairs. His face was gaunt and expressionless as he looked down at Heike. “Bring her up.”
They hurried upstairs, where Doctor Death had them place Heike in one of the empty rooms of the inn. The doctor ordered them out, but before they could go, the door opened and Wenzel forced his way past Ulrich. His shirt was open, and his torso was bandaged.
“What happened?” he demanded. “Is she okay? Is—” Wenzel saw Heike on the bed and went ashen. “She’s not—?”
“She lives,” said the doctor, “but I must work. All of you, out.”
Fritz and the man stepped into the deserted second-floor hallway. Ulrich returned to grab Wenzel and forced him back into the room next door, where Fritz could hear them arguing.
Fritz sank against the wall, exhausted. The man who had been a flounder stood over him, looking dazed. Eventually he sank down next to Fritz.
“What’s your name, fish brain?” Fritz asked.
“Prince Altan,” the man said. “I came here from far away. I didn’t think I would ever see my home again. Maybe it’s gone now. Maybe I’m not a prince anymore.” He looked sideways. “What’s yours, pock face?”
“Fritz.”
“And what’s the name of the girl in that room, and the boy in the other?”
“The girl is Heike. The boy is Wenzel.”
Prince Altan seemed to consider this, then nodded slowly. “She ended up looking a lot like her mother. And Wenzel—not a bad name, for this place. So much changed. I suppose it’s been probably seventeen, eighteen years since I was last here?”
“How old were you then? Five?”
“Add twenty,” said the prince.
“You aren’t older than twenty-fivenow.”
The prince gave him a look, and Fritz shook his head. He knew better. Magic.
“You think you’re really out of magic?” Fritz asked.
“I think so,” the prince said. “At least, I’m out of the kind I can grant. But maybe that’s not permanent. Magic is strange, especially here.”
“Do you know what happened to Heike?”
“No idea. But she did give a lot of herself to make that wish work.”
Fritz put his head in his hands. “I hope she doesn’t die.”It’ll be my fault, and there’s nothing I can do to fix it.
The prince took Fritz’s wrists and lowered his hands. Fritz looked up in surprise.
“I may not look much older than you,” the prince said,“but I had a long time to think about things in that lake, and you need to listen to me now. We all make mistakes. The good people try to fix them. Sometimes you can’t fix them, and you have to live with what happens. Then you just pray to all the gods you know that you don’t have to live with it alone.”
