Wenzel shivered. He didn’t know; he hadn’t thought about that. It was well past midday and might be dark by the time they reached the village. Something could have happened in that time. He might return to a village of wargs.
“I believe they’re all okay,” he said aloud, to reassure himself.
Hans scoffed. “Believeall you want; the wargs are vicious. They’ll tear everyone apart. That’s what they did to Katrina. You remember that, don’t you? That’s what they did to Hilda, too. They tear them apart to kill them. And later their corpses become wargs.”
“Shutup, Hans.”
Hans smiled. “Making you nervous? If the wargs can come into the village now, I doubt anything will stop them from jumping through the windows. They’ll go for the children first,probably. The smallest and weakest. Or maybe they’ll gang up on the biggest and strongest first, so they can have their way with the others.”
Wenzel felt his pulse in his ears. Shadows appeared on the edge of his vision. The horse’s ears flicked back and forth, its eyes rolling. “Hans, you need to stop—”
Hans was smiling down at him now, the empty smile of an animal toying with its prey. “They’ll get to Heike, too, all alone in her little cottage on the hill. What part do you think they’ll tear open first? Her chest or her face?”
Heike will be okay, Wenzel thought.Heike will be okay, Heike will be okay, Heike will be okay.
But what if she wasn’t?
A shadow darted across the road. The horse screamed and reared back and sideways, throwing Wenzel off his feet. He landed on his back with a bolt of pain. The horse’s hooves tossed snow over him as it took off—not down the road, but into the forest—with Hans and the sack of gifts on its back.
Four
“No!”
Wenzel lurched to his feet and took off after the horse. Heike’s boots banged against his chest. Hans’s voice echoed through the trees as he yelled at it to stop, but nothing was going to stop the horse now for low, four-legged shadows pursued them. They were perfectly black against the blinding white snow, with no definitions to their features. It was as if pieces of the world had been cut out, and all that was left were the fathoms of beyond.
But Wenzel quickly realized that while the horse was running from the wargs, the wargs weren’t pursuing the horse. The wargs had never killed animals. They were pursuingHans. Hewas the one that was afraid.
Baking bread. The satisfaction of repairing one of the common room chairs or tables. Getting a new spice from the caravan traders.
“Hans!” he called. “Hans, grab the reins—”
The horse had disappeared between the trees, and when he saw it again, some way in the distance, neither Hans nor the sack of gifts was on its back anymore. Wenzel kept running—he dared not do anything else—and charged through between trees to where he thought Hans must have fallen.
Something heavy slammed into his back, throwing him forward into the snow. Hands turned him over, and a weight dropped onto his chest, making it hard to breathe. He blinked the snow out of his eyes.
Hans sat on him, burnt and frostbitten face twisted, knife held to Wenzel’s throat.
“You scared the horse,” Hans seethed. “You’re trying to get me lost in the woods again. Trying to kill me.”
Wenzel could see the wargs on the edges of his vision, lurking behind the trees. “No—no, I was trying tohelpyou.”
“Stop lying,” Hans said. “I know you all hate me. Heike hates me. The adults hate me. Liesel hated me.” His lips twisted. “It was easy to push her. You all hate me so much, you’d have thrown me out like you did from the castle. You’d kill me the moment you get the chance.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“I saidstop lying.”The knife pressed against Wenzel’s throat. “I know you would. They all would. You think I don’t knowpeople hate me? They think I’mwrong,that I’m cruel. Just like my father, they say. Maybe they won’t let me back in if you’re dead, but I won’t get back at all if you’re alive, will I? You’ll kill me before I get the chance.”
“Why do you want to go back so badly? Why not go somewhere that people don’t know who you are? You can start over.”
“It’s my home.” Hans’s voice broke.
The wargs were emerging from the trees, blue-flame eyes sparking.
He is afraid,Wenzel thought.He is afraid like all of us. And he’ll kill me for it.
“Hans,” Wenzel said, “Greymist Fair isn’t your home anymore. The villagers don’tcareif you die. They don’t want to kill you because they don’t care about you. To them, you’re already dead. They stopped thinking about you as soon as you were gone.”
Hans’s expression began to change. The stiff snarl softened. His eyes widened.
