Edda and Franka had not demanded a story of Marta every night. Some nights, they conferred amongst themselves, as sisters often do—deep in some fantasy or disagreement—until sleep at last took hold of them. Other nights, they stumbled to bed after a vigorous day of study and play, already half slumbering. But on those occasional nights when sleep was kept at bay by one or both, restless and excited under the covers like children sometimes are, a story would inevitably become the solution. And even on those nights, there was no guarantee of what tale Marta would tell.

Maybe it was on the days when they had been particularly naughty, driving her to the ends of her patience, that Marta chose to tell them of blood witches; to frighten them into silence and good behavior. Or maybe it was the days when Marta herself felt morose, or nostalgic, or tired that she relayed to them the terrifying stories of her own childhood, that her mother and grandmother had told her to reform her own mischief into obedience. But the stories were told, and though Edda remembered them little, the blood witches in her mind had never been children.

Perhaps it was that time had worn away the memories of her youth to little more than shapeless outlines, upon which she had transferred her own impressions as an adult. Or maybe it was that uniquely childish desire to be older—that feverish wish she had held even then to be more than what she was—that had twisted her perception of blood witches into something else. Something further from her boring, common reality. Children were helpless, after all. Children were helpless, and silly, and stupid, just like she was. How could something so horrific as a blood witch be nothing but a child?

She voiced as much to Marta, who had slowly, sluggishly begun to partake of their meal.

“I’m not certain of why,” Marta replied, “But in the stories, it is so.”

“But…” Edda’s voice faltered. Now that she thought about it, there really had been nothing in the stories to suggest that the blood witches were not themselves like the children they were so fond of eating. It might even explain why, when a blood witch knocked upon a family’s door, so many of the tales had ended with them being invited in. Why those who had known them in life were so often their first victims in death. The meaning behind such details had all but escaped her until now.

Blood witches were evil disguised as innocence. That was what made them so fearsome, so horrible.

But to Edda, there had been something more terrifying than that.

In her mind, blood witches had always been barely human. Ghastly, corpse-like beings; gaunt, hollow-cheeked, and reeking of the grave. It was with gaping mouths and sunken eyes that they wrung dry the bodies of infants and stopped the blood of their parents in the vein. Those were the blood witches that had scared her back then. They had never resembled children. How could they?

After all, they had needed to resemble the thing that terrified her the most when she was younger. That even now warped and wrenched her stomach to recall, though she had already suffered far worse. The horrors of her adulthood—though far more potent and far more terrible—could not diminish it. Perhaps those first carvings upon the blank slate of childhood are always the deepest; they linger, as formative torments do, dulled but no less present in the face of greater and more recent agonies.

Because it had always been her mother she thought of when she envisioned a blood witch.

Edda reached for a slice of bread, placing it into her bowl before once again beginning to eat. The bread was soft, and though both it and the soup were now cold, Edda finished them quickly. She reached for another piece of bread, this time smearing a dollop of butter upon it. Marta shot her a disapproving glance, but silently continued her repast, perhaps too caught up in her own thoughts to offer another scolding.

“I will take these to the kitchens,” Marta declared sometime later, rising from her seat to stack the now empty dishes. She brushed off her apron, ensuring her kerchief was still neatly arranged before picking up the tray. That pragmatic determination had settled upon her once more. “I’d hardly a chance to meet the other servants last night. And if I’m to have their help, I must know them first.”

Edda, rather uncomfortably full once more, had leaned back in the settle. She nodded her understanding. “I must know when the next supply wagon from Ecsed will arrive,” she said as Marta turned toward the door. She would write to Gretel today, while Marta was out, to see if some branches of blackthorn could be sent to the castle.

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“I’ll ask after it,” Marta affirmed, reaching for the door handle.

But there was something else she needed to know, too; something that had been quietly bothering her ever since her late arrival at Cachtice Castle the day before. “Wait,” Edda called, before the door could be opened, “Might you look in upon the tea party this afternoon, Marta? I would know every detail you can gather of it.”

A brief flash of bemusement swept over Marta’s face. But just as quickly as it had come, it was replaced with resignation. “I shall do so,” she said quietly. She hesitated for a moment, undoubtedly on the verge of a question, but seemed to decide against it. “Please rest, Miss Edda,” she said instead, before departing with a soft thud of the door behind her.

Of course, given their current predicament, it must seem frivolous of Edda to worry over a tea party. But despite how much she had anticipated such occasions before, her interest now was for an entirely different reason. During her first life, she had arrived at the castle the very night she had awoken in the carriage. The next day, the welcome feast had been held—but this time around, it had happened a day late.

Today’s tea party, too, was happening a day later than it had before. What would that mean for her knowledge of the events to come? Would everything continue on as it had before, as if there had been no delay at all? Would lessons and gatherings and, eventually, balls and parties proceed as she remembered? If they did, then perhaps her prior knowledge could be used to her advantage.

But first, she needed to grasp how exactly things were unfolding now that she had shifted the timeline. And to do so she would need to line up as many details as she could remember from her first life with what was occurring in this one. Last night’s supper had been both different and—she thought—quite similar to what she remembered. The dining room and its occupants had been identical as had, she wagered, most of the conversation. But talk of the cities they hailed from, of fashion, and of the things to come were standard fare, and not necessarily a sure sign that things were the same. Especially when other things, like her meeting with Lady Novak, definitely had not happened before.

The tea party would tip the scales either in or against her favor. And for today, Marta would have to serve as her eyes.

Edda stood at last, and made her way over to the small, wooden writing desk that sat just below the chamber’s window. A fat ink pot and pristine quill waited sagely upon it. For a moment, she ran her fingers along its smooth, familiar surface; indeed, it was here that she had written her letters to Franka, during her first year or so at Cachtice Castle. Only silly, superficial nonsense had ever been contained in those letters. Certainly, they had been interesting to her then. And though part of her longed for such inconsequential exchanges once more, it would not help her or Marta right now.

They needed protection from a witch, and for that she would need to write to Gretel.

As she reached into the shelf below the writing top, her fingers came upon the unwrinkled stack of parchment that had been stored there for her use. She thumbed a piece out, placing it before her as she settled herself on the stool. For a moment, she allowed herself to pause, peering out across the countryside and shivering as the cool breeze from the open window brushed her skin.

It really was just as she remembered it. The neat cluster of wood and stone structures below her—the outer walls, the gatehouse, the barracks, and the stables and kennels behind them. The packed dirt training grounds, where another cohort of guards had begun their exercises. And in the distance, the rolling hills, the dense forests, the patches of village and farmland. It was as though an image from her memories of ten years past was displayed before her, and the feeling of reminiscence almost overcame her.

She could imagine the very same scene if her eyes were closed, the view from this writing desk. Seeing it again had made it all the more vivid in her mind. Coupled with the mundane sounds that drifted in through the window, and the fresh smell of spring on the air—why, it was almost peaceful. Almost enough to lull her into believing that the past decade of pretense and the betrayal that had come at the end of it were just part of a long, lucid black dream.

But believing such a lie would be too sweet, too convenient. It was precisely that type of gullibility that had led her astray in the first place. No more. Never again.

The sight before her, even her pleasant memories of it—they were the illusion. A carefully constructed façade of normalcy, beneath which something sinister lurked. Above which the threat of witchery hung. Like the blood witch this place harbored, this too was evil disguised as innocence. She would have to unmask it. She would need to reveal the seams that stitched this deception together and rip them out.

That was the only way she would survive. It was the only way to uncover each and every one of the secrets that had killed her. The only way to solve the new mystery that had just materialized before her.

Blood witches were usually children, Marta had said. But in all her time at Cachtice Castle, no child had called this place home.

Without realizing it, she had crumpled the edge of the parchment before her. She released it now, flattening it with her fingers. She took a deep breath, pushing down the anxiety that clawed and clamored in her chest, and began to write.