I eat an apple from the kitchen stores and a piece of cheese, and keep walking. My ordinary shoes are made for comfort while standing for long hours on stone floors in a kitchen. They are not meant for walking. A blister forms and bursts. I limp the last mile, moving as fast as I can when I spy water shimmering in the distance.
At the river’s edge, I bathe my aching feet.
“Witch of the River,” I call out, feeling ridiculous. At least I’m alone. There’s no one around to witness me acting like an utter fool. “I wish to know where to find Kai, the Crown Prince of Montrace. I offer you this gift in exchange for your aid.”
I raise the shoes like I’m showing them to her, and toss them into the river.
A raven lands on a nearby branch and cocks its head at me questioningly.
“I know I look ridiculous, okay?” I grumble. The bird caws. “Don’t rub it in. I feel dumb enough already.”
I stand there for several minutes with my new friend, contemplating whether I should turn around and go back to the castle in defeat. The raven caws again, more urgently, andflutters its wings. Squinting, I see a wave cutting through the water heading toward the shore. The queen’s red shoes wash up on the rocky sand.
I gape at them, astonished. When I pick them up, they’re not even wet. Anger boils my blood. The River Witch rejected my gift.
I hold them up for the raven to inspect.
“Can you believe this? I walked all this way, and she threw my offering back in my face.”
The raven leaps off its branch and flies over my head. Turning, I follow its flight path. It lands on the rim of an old rowboat a little farther down the river. Understanding dawns.
“You want me to go further out into the river?”
It just stares at me with those beady eyes.
“Okay, then. I’m not giving up.”
I tie my skirt around my hips and throw my possessions into the boat. After shoving it into the water, I pull myself inside—only to realize, as the current sweeps me toward the center of the river, that there are no oars with which to paddle.
Chapter 10
I drift.Night falls. I lay in the bottom of the boat, using my pack as a pillow, and stare up at the stars.
The raven perches on the bow of the boat and bleats its rough caw.
“Stop laughing at me.”
The breeze ruffles its feathers but it doesn’t take wing.
Hours later, with dawn breaking across the sky, I’m jolted awake by the crunch of my wood boat’s hull on sand. Land! I sit up in a rush, but I’m knocked almost flat when a gnarled figure grabs the worn rope tied to the front and hauls me a foot up the bank.
“Hey!”
“Hay is for horses,” she snaps. “You’re the girl who sent me those shoes. What do you want?”
“Help.” I scramble to get out, but she gives another hard tug and I fall, hitting my knee. She’s strong for an old woman.
“I’ve helped you,” she says, dropping the rope. “We’re even.”
“I need more help. I’m looking for Kai. The Crown Prince of Montrace?”
The witch howls. Her long gray hair is matted and tinged faintly the color of seaweed. When she turns to me, her face issmooth-skinned but her eyes are ancient. She’s compelling, if not quite beautiful, in a terrifying way.
“Kai and his soldiers destroyed my orchard,” she declares indignantly. “Razed it to the ground. I owe that man nothing.”
She peers closely at me. “What do you want with him?”
“I want to save him from The Snow Queen.”
