Mira, the witch of Bosquet Mire. Evil things befell those who stumbled too close to her hidden estate. Eyes turned to bulging egg sacs. Skin purpled with spreading rot that corrupted all it touched. Skulls sucked hollow as a decaying hornet nest, yet somehow left alive. Teeth turned to writhing maggots that couldn’t be plucked out. Those who simply vanished without a trace. Some, it was said, she kept as her servants. But none had yet returned to tell their tale.
Anya tightened her grip on her knife. “What I want is for you to spirit yourself out of here the way you spirited yourself in.”
“He told me how much he paid you,” said the woman, sniffling pitifully. “He should have paid you more. My lovely fox was worth a thousand of his pathetic hens. A million of your ugly, shit-patched huts. The greedy pig. Don’t worry; I gave him a form more befitting his character.”
As the words took shape, Anya’s breath quickened. She knew of only one creature in the Lichtenwald who could alter another’s form. A woman. A witch.
And she was sitting in Anya’s kitchen.
Almost imperceptibly, Anya’s hand wavered. “He…that man had a family.”
“They still have each other, and more, the poor skinny things. Why, I’ve provided them with a feast to last the winter, if they’ve the gumption.”
Ignoring the way her stomach dropped, Anya jerked her knife toward the door. “I said you need to leave.”
The witch did not move. “I know your name, Anya.” She smiled sweetly, dabbing her wet eyes. “He told me before I changed him.”
Anya’s grip tightened. She swallowed. “Why have you come?”
She spread the pelt flat on the table. “I loved my dear familiar very much.”
Her familiar. Anya had killed the witch of Bosquet Mire’s familiar for a basket of eggs.
“I didn’t know,” Anya swore, dropping her arm. “I would never–”
“He is dead all the same.” Her voice cut through the air, belying her mournful demeanor. “He ran away from me, and you killed him. My only companion, killed by a forest rat with shit on her roof and dirt in her hair.”
“Then you should’ve kept better care of him,” Anya said, taking an involuntary step back. But despite her fear, she stood up straighter. Witch or no witch, she had done nothing wrong, and she wasn’t about to quaver like a kicked dog.
Mira’s posture relaxed; so did her voice. Her moods seemed to fluctuate like a cloud in the wind. “Would you have me keep him caged? Tethered to a leash?”
“If that’s what it takes. Someone was bound to kill him, feasting himself on people’s livelihoods like that.”
“Not someone.” Mira rose, glided across the floor, placed a hand on Anya’s chest. Anya’s heart hammered as the witch flicked an idle finger at the lacing of her jerkin. “Only you.” Mira plucked her long fingers along Anya’s shoulders. Anya shivered. “I thought I might tie you naked to a tree, make you a cloak of him, sewn into your shoulders to keep you warm. Let you rot together.”
Anya jerked backward, hitting wood. She’d backed herself into the wall. The knife at her hip was utterly useless, but she clung tight to it nevertheless.
“But now that I see how pretty you are, I see what a shame that would be.” Her blue eyes met Anya’s. Mira leaned closer.“Perhaps I’ll make you into my new familiar,” she said, her breath warm in Anya’s face. It smelled of magic. She stroked Anya’s cheek. “You’re a clever girl. Would you like to be a fox? Or perhaps a little cat?”
“No.” Anya’s voice was low around her pounding heart, all bluster blown away with the witch’s breath. “I swear, IswearI didn’t know.”
“It doesn’t matter what you knew or did not,” said Mira, sadly. Then, her voice brightened. “But there is something else you do not know.”
Mira grabbed Anya’s shoulders and steered her to her table, then sat across from her, as if they were about to share supper. From nowhere, Mira produced a newspaper, folded open to the advertisements.
One was circled.Wanted: skilled tracker to aid in finding an uncommon beast.
“Only an expert hunter could catch my fox. And lucky for you, I have need of one.”
Eyes on the advert, Anya’s heart sped; in hope, this time. A way out. “I can kill any beast in these woods.”
“I do not want you to kill it, stupid girl,” Mira sniffed. “My ears in the capital tell me King Edgard has announced a contest. He wants to become a phoenix. He thinks it will let him live forever, and he isn’t wrong. The phoenix’s magic is incredibly powerful – more even than mine. He does not deserve the phoenix. He is stupid and cruel.”
Anya couldn’t help it; her eyes snapped up to Mira’s.
She smiled. “Sweet huntress. I am only cruel. He’s offering an absurd sum to the wizard who grants his wish, but whoever attempts it will need the phoenix itself. I never supposed any of those fussy scribes capable of discerning the bird even exists, let alone stupid enough to attempt catching it. Clearly, however,” she said, tapping the paper with a long, elegant fingernail, “there is one who is. He’s at least clever enough to disguise it, but the others will smell blood, and then it won’t be long before this forest is swarming with wizards trying to steal what should be mine.”
Anya’s head was swimming. “You want me to catch the phoenix,” she clarified. She had never seen the bird herself, though others had claimed to, deep in the Lichtenwald’sheart. None, as far as she knew, had attempted to catch it. There were certain things you didn’t hunt. Magical things, especially. The forest didn’t like it.
