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None of us said anything to that. The statement seemed to silently echo in the quiet of the parlor. Lilja sagged against my side and I pulled her even closer. Helena and Alma were red-eyed. My every thought felt as thick as porridge from exhaustion. It was still deepest night outside.

“Let’s go back to bed,” I said. “There’s no use in sitting up.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

In my room, Lilja and I crawled into bed. She placed her head on my shoulder, and I held her tightly to me. My eyes filled with tears at the thought of losing her, but also because of all she had been through. Perhaps another sort of person would doubt what she had told us, considered them fantastical lies or the imaginations of a feeble mind, but I knew in my heart it was the truth. And even if I hadn’t, there was evidence aplenty—and not just the strangeness of Lilja’s arrival, of her manners and looks. I had seen how Alfrun had pushed Helena out of the way with a mere flick of the wrist. I had seen the uncanny eyes of that wolf. They weren’t that of an animal, but neither had they been human.

“Alfrun was the wolf?” I asked.

“Yes,” Lilja whispered. “She can shape-shift. She prefers the wolf.”

“And you can hurt her?”

“Because I’m an elf too. Elves are difficult to injure for humans.”

“But not impossible.”

She shook her head, and her hair brushed my chin. “Not impossible, no.”

“Is it odd?” I asked, laying my cheek against her hair. “Being here in Norstad? I mean, after… after you were held for so long.”

“It’s wonderful,” she whispered, and her words were thick with tears.

I thought about all the times we had talked of her past. What she had told us tonight cast everything in a different light. It was as if I had glimpsed it through fog before, like a gray shape against something grayer still, and now it was laid under a bright summer sun. When she had first walked into my store, she had just come out of years of forced apathy, of a desperate helplessness. And before that darkness and terror. No wonder she had seemed odd.

“I was so very young when I was captured,” she said. “For centuries, I was down in the dark. First with my father, then with Alfrun. I never truly lived.” She placed her palm on my chest, right above my heart. “But I’m happy I had this time with you, Selma. To feel what it’s like to love.”

“It’s not over between us,” I said around the tears in my throat.

“It has to be. I can’t put you in danger.”

“You’re… you’re going back to the mountain?”

Her tears dampened my pajamas. “What choice do I have? Alfrun will hurt you. Alma and Helena too.”

“I have the bracelet.”

“It won’t protect you if she uses her full powers, and she will. She’s determined to get me back. I defied her once. She won’t let me get away with it. Not before and not this time. I’m hers.”

I wiped away her tears with my thumb. “You’re not. You’re mine.”

“I wish it could be that way.”

“Sleep now,” I said because I would sob if I kept talking, kept thinking about this impossible situation. “Being exhausted won’t help.”

She pressed her face into my neck and sighed. I lay awake, and when her body finally softened against mine, my resolve hardened. I wasn’t going to give her up. I couldn’t. And not just because I loved her, but because she didn’t deserve to be a prisoner of anyone. And so, as Lilja slept, I made my plan, and when dawn lightened the window, I knew what to do.

I was dizzy with exhaustion, but I wouldn’t get any sleep. Not with my thoughts churning like a river in spring, so I got up and went to the kitchen. As I waited for the pot and the kettle to boil, I tiptoed through the house to the store. The rod was still in place. I pulled a page from the ledger and grabbed the pen.

In the kitchen, I poured oats in the pot. It would be bland without the apple, but I didn’t have the patience to cut one up. Not today. I needed to get on with my plan. With a cup of coffee, I sat down at the table. The first words I wrote on the paper were “sleigh and horse.” I added a question mark because I didn’t yet know where I was going. Next I noted down “food, warm clothing, extra boots, weapons, blankets.”

Helena and Alma stepped inside just as I ate my first spoonful of oatmeal. Alma stood behind me, reading the list over my shoulder. “Is that for Lilja?”

“It’s for me. I’m going to find Alfrun, and I’m going to demand she free her.”

I had expected Alma and Helena to try and talk me out of it. After all, it was madness, wasn’t it? But I had no choice. I had to do this.

“We’ll come with you,” Helena said instead.