The Falcon had already brought his hands together, thumb and forefingers in a triangle; he was murmuring under his breath. I felt the hum of his magic building, and thin sparkling lines of light began to flicker across the space framed by his hands. They went faster and faster, until all that triangle caught, and as if that had provided an igniting spark, a halo of white fire went up to wreath his body. He spread his hands apart, the fire sizzling and crackling over them, sparks falling like rain to the ground, as if he was making ready to throw. The working had the same hungry feeling as the fire-heart in its bottle, as if it wanted to devour the very air.

“Triozna greszhni,” the Dragon said, the words slicing out, and the flames went out like guttering candles: a cold sharp wind whistled through the hall, chilling my skin, and was gone.

They stared at him, halted—and then the Dragon spread his arms in a wide shrug. “Fortunately,” the Dragon said, in his ordinary cutting tones, “I haven’t been nearly as stupid as you imagined. Much to your good fortune.” He turned and went back to his chair, the shadows retreating from his feet, spilling back. The light returned. I could see the Falcon’s face clearly: he didn’t seem to feel particularly thankful. His face was as still as ice, his mouth pressed into a straight line.

I suppose he was tired of being thought the second wizard of Polnya. I had even heard of him a little—he was often named in songs about the war with Rosya—although of course in our valley the bards didn’t talk overmuch about another wizard. We wanted to hear stories about the Dragon, about our wizard, proprietary, and we took pride and satisfaction in hearing, yet again, that he was the most powerful wizard of the nation. But I hadn’t thought before what that really meant, and I had forgotten to fear him, from too much time spent too close. It was a forcible reminder now, watching how easily he smothered the Falcon’s magic, that he was a great power in the world who could make even kings and other wizards fear.

Prince Marek, I could tell, liked that reminder as little as the Falcon had; his hand lingered on his sword-hilt, and there was a hardness in his face. But he looked at Kasia again. I flinched and made an abortive grab for her arm as she stepped away from me, out of the alcove, and went to him across the floor. I swallowed the warning I wanted to hiss, too late, as she made him a curtsy, her golden head bowed. She straightened up and looked him full in the face: exactly as I had tried to imagine doing myself, all those long months ago. She didn’t stammer. “Sire,” she said, “I know you must doubt me. I know I look strange. But it’s true: I am free.”

There were spells running in the back of my head, a litany of desperation. If he drew his sword against her—if the Falcon tried to strike her down—

Prince Marek looked at her: his face was hard and downturned, intent. “You were in the Wood?” he demanded.

She inclined her head. “The walkers took me.”

“Come look at her,” he said over his shoulder, to the Falcon.

“Your Highness,” the Falcon began, coming to his side. “It is plain to any—”

“Stop,” the prince said, his voice sharp as a knife. “I don’t like him any better than you do, but I didn’t bring you here for politics. Look at her. Is she corrupted or not?”

The Falcon paused, frowning; he was taken aback. “One held overnight in the Wood is invariably—”

“Is she corrupted?” the prince said to him, every word bitten out crisp and hard. Slowly the Falcon turned and looked at Kasia—really looked at her, for the first time, and his brow slowly gathered with confusion. I looked at the Dragon, hardly daring to hope and hoping anyway: if they were willing to listen—

But the Dragon wasn’t looking at me, or at Kasia. He was looking at the prince, and his face was grim as stone.

The Falcon began testing her at once. He demanded potions from the Dragon’s stores and books from his shelves, all of which the Dragon sent me running after, without argument. The Dragon ordered me to stay in the kitchens the rest of the time; I thought at first that he meant to spare me watching the trials, some of them as dreadful as the breath-stealing magic he had used on me after I had come back from the Wood. Even in the kitchens, I could hear the chanting and the crackle of the Falcon’s magic running overhead. It sounded in my bones, like a large drum played far away.

But the third morning I caught sight of myself in the side of one of the big copper kettles and noticed I was an untidy mess: I hadn’t thought to mutter up some clean clothes for myself, not with the rumbling above and all my worry for Kasia. I didn’t wonder that I’d accumulated spots, stains, tears, and I didn’t mind it, either; but the Dragon hadn’t said anything. He’d come down to the kitchens more than once, to tell me what to go and fetch. I stared at the reflection, and the next time he came down I blurted, “Are you keeping me out of the way?”

He paused, not even off the bottom step, and said, “Of course I’m keeping you out of the way, you idiot.”

“But he doesn’t remember,” I said, meaning Prince Marek. It came out an anxious question.

“He will, given half a chance,” the Dragon said. “It matters too much to him. Keep out of the way, behave like an ordinary serving-girl, and don’t use magic anywhere he or Solya can see you.”

“Kasia’s all right?”

“As well as anyone would be,” he said. “Make that the least of your concerns: she’s a good deal harder to harm now than an ordinary person, and Solya isn’t egregiously stupid. In any case, he knows very well what the prince wants, and all being equal he’d prefer to give it to him. Go get three bottles of milk of fir.”

Well, I didn’t know what the prince wanted, and I didn’t like the idea of him getting it, either, whatever it was. I went up to the laboratory for the milk of fir: it was a potion the Dragon brewed out of fir needles, which somehow under his handling became a milky liquid without scent, although the one time he’d tried to teach me to do it, I’d produced only a wet stinking mess of fir needles and water. Its virtue was to fix magic in the body: it went into every healing potion and into the stone-skin potion. I brought the bottles down to the great hall.

Kasia stood in the center of the room, inside an elaborate double ring drawn on the floor in herbs crushed in salt. They had put a heavy collar around her neck like a yoke for oxen, of black-pitted iron engraved with spell-writing in bright silvery letters, with chains that hung from it to her manacled wrists. She didn’t have so much as a chair to sit on, and it should have bowed her double, but she stood straight up underneath it, easily. She gave me a small smile when I came into the room: I’m all right.