Spring turned to summer. Sometimes the giant was able to sit up for a few hours, but he tired easily. Pigeons came frequently from the royal hunting lodge, and Magda seemed content with her work as the prince's nursemaid. Rue spoke once of a hope that the prince had changed, had gentled under her sister's care, but the look of horrified dread on her mother's face before Bronwyn turned away was enough to silence her on the topic thereafter.

The days lengthened, and once or twice the witch made her way into the village, tending an illness or bartering for supplies. Her giant seemed to suffer no ill effect from her absence, so she roamed a little more each week, often carried by the Mare, though she never stayed away past nightfall.

Robbie Longfellow, no longer pretending to be anything but a God's Hound, kept her company in a variety of sizes, sometimes striking out on errands of his own. After the fashion of his kind and true to the legends, he brought back lost livestock and children to their homes, harried bandits in the woods and defended innocents who came to mischief in the deep wood. Bronwyn watched him in the smoke of her fires and was proud of her friend. He was always alert, watching for something, even at home, but when she asked him, he merely thumped his tail and curled up before the fire, short legs curled under his long body.

Messenger birds came regularly for Grahme, and when he had the strength Rue read the messages to him, or held them flat while he read them. He only occasionally replied, dictating to their fair haired daughter. Eventually, she came to him with the replies already composed, and he nodded, satisfied, as she took on his role as advisor to strangers in far lands. The summer passed, and the first suitors came to see her. She met with them in the meadow, Robbie Longfellow a faithful chaperone, and while some were handsome, and others were wealthy, none came bearing her a climbing rose, a briar rose, and a rose from a far off land. Sweetly, she turned them away, or suggested alliances favorable to the great families of the land.

Winter passed, and spring dawned, and their giant began to sleep more and more each day, his massive frame grown thin and wasted. A message came from the hunting lodge where much of the court had relocated to be close to the crown prince during his recovery. An announcement would be made at the Festival of Spring Equinox, and all in the land were invited. Watching him in the mirror, Bronwyn and Rue saw that he still walked blindfolded by day. Bronwyn saw as well that at night, alone, he removed the cloth from his face and tested his sensitive eyes against the glare of first a single candle, and then more, until he lit as many candles as as he could, making it almost as bright as morning in his room. She could not shake her dread, seeing how her older daughter had come to care for him, seeing little telltale signs of temper or impatience in his actions.

As the day approached, nightmares kept sleep from her, and a sudden fever swept through the village. A third of the adults and almost every child fell ill, and she spent much of her time making potions and teas to send down the mountain, rarely going herself for fear she would bring the sickness to her giant.

The fever came to the tower anyway, and Rue and Bronwyn and Grahme all spent days delirious, the women taking turns bringing water when they had the strength. Bronwyn suffered with vivid dreams, some in which Robbie changed not only his size but his shape, tending them gently as a short legged and very hairy youth dressed only in leather breeches. A woman with skin as black as a starless night and dressed only in her long ebon hair would bring him medicines and potions in strangely shaped bottles in sandalwood boxes.

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The days lengthened, and Bronwyn woke one morning three days before the equinox, weak but with no fever. The ache of premonition chased sleep from her mind, and she sat stiffly. Foreign bottles and boxes sat on the high table, and Robbie Longfellow's small brindle form curled exhausted before the hearth. Rue lay sleeping on the trundle bed she had shared with her sister, her color improved as well.

Grahme's breath was soft, labored, the faintest of rattles echoing up from the cavern of his lungs. His face was cool beneath her fingers, the fever broken, though he did not stir at her touch.

She looked up at the mirror, standing uncovered by the hearth. She saw a young woman with healing hands. The woman’s face was deeply etched by salamander fire, elegant to her mother's eyes, horrible to all others. She stood on the courtyard steps at the royal hunting retreat, dressed in a simple dress of pale blue embroidered with small white flowers, and her scarred features were bared to the morning light. There was movement from the door behind her, midnight hair and bandaged eyes, and the princeling was led from the castle by a courtier.

The courtier smiled kindly at the woman, and Bronwyn frowned; the last time she'd seen him he'd accompanied the Lord Regent in taking away an infant boy newly forced from her body. A steward read from an official looking scroll, announcing something that was received with a wave of approval through the crowd. The gathered people, all of the assembled courtiers and the young woman whose lovely face was etched deeply by the salamander's mark, knelt before the crown prince, faces bowed low to the ground.

The prince reached up and released the bandage. As it fell away he looked down at the kneeling people around him. He reached down with a smile and touched the healer's shoulder, encouraging her to rise. She did so, morning glory eyes lifting to his golden eyes, but he did not see the glowing compassion in her gaze, the kindness in her smile. The salamander's mark pulled at her eyelid, at her cheek as she smiled at the prince, and the youth recoiled in horror. He asked a question, shock twisting his face and body language, and she recoiled in hurt but answered, bowing her head so her dark hair fell forward.

He pulled his hand back, to the horror of his retinue, and struck the healer across her marked cheek. Her head rocked back hard and she crumpled bonelessly to the unforgiving granite of the courtyard steps.

The mirror went dark, and a deep rage surged in Bronwyn's very bones. She felt the pull of fate like logging ropes around her heart, crushing the very breath from her. Sensing the change in her mood, Robbie Longfellow was on his feet beside her, hackles raised and teeth bared in a silent snarl. Clouds rolled across the sky, and the Mare neighed like thunder in the tower meadow.

A cough behind her, and she whirled, a hand lifting. Rue stood next to Grahme, holding him steady as he sat weakly on the edge of the bed. "If you can save her, go," Grahme said.

"I must go," she agreed, hoarse with fury.

"Yes, my love. Save her."

"And if I can not?" Thunder crashed overhead, and the Mare screamed again.

"Then do as you will."

The witch whirled and disappeared into the sudden night.