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  Berthold took his daughter’s shoulders in his hands, looking into her face. His eyes had the gentle cast he reserved solely for her, his most precious piece of stolen treasure.

  "Do you not think I can see into the heart of my only daughter?"

  Helvig’s lip wobbled. The king gave her space to speak, but she said nothing, just pressed her lips together until they lost all feeling. She would not cry. Not over this. It would be admitting too much, and even though her father could see into her like glass, she still had her pride.

  Berthold sighed, releasing his daughter. He knew when not to push.

  "This is your business, Helvig. But don’t let it get out of control. The boys need you, the camp needs you. I don’t want to see you wrecked again. Remember Astrid."

  Helvig felt as though a ghost had passed through her. A wave of cold with no shape and no purpose. Just numbness and death.

  "I remember."

  The Robber King kissed his daughter’s head and she stood still for him, silent tears rolling down her cheeks. Then he turned and trekked off through the snow.

  When he was gone, she took a gasping breath. Helvig smudged her tears off her face with the edge of her sleeve. Gerda would be missing her. She needed to get inside.

  She found the witch sitting on the bed, brushing out her impossibly long hair and singing softly. She had stripped down to her shift but was still wearing her furry reindeer boots.

  "What did your father want with you?" She asked lightly. Too lightly, Helvig thought. Maybe she already suspected that Berthold had not taken her entirely at her word.

  "Nothing interesting," Helvig replied in a hollow voice. Try as she may, she had never been able to hide her feelings like Gerda could. Every impulse and injury burned right out of the lantern of her body for all the world to see. "Business chatter."

  "Business? Something wicked, I hope." Gerda’s coy, prying smile curled through Helvig’s stomach in a tingle of heat. "Plotting another kidnapping?"

  Helvig’s smile was tight. God, she was weary, and she didn’t know how to look at Gerda without getting hurt in the process, but she must try to be friendly and sisterly. Especially tonight, after she had shared such an awful story.

  "No, you were a one-off."

  No sooner had she thought of Kai than she was reminded of the other story Gerda had told, the one that teased the kisses and confessions behind a curtain of modesty.

  Helvig shucked off her heavy coat and yanked her gloves off in her teeth with a little more vehemence than was strictly necessary.

  "You didn’t tell me about your princess," she said, and immediately hated herself for it. Jealousy bloomed from the words like blood from a wound.

  Gerda didn’t seem disturbed. She continued her long, luxurious strokes.

  "You never asked."

  "You were very bold. To just say, outright…"

  "What? That I loved her?" She fixed Helvig with her pale eyes, shameless as the virgin in the manger. "That we passed the time as lovers do, with smiles and sighs and touches?"

  "The men—"

  "Hang what they think, or what they say. I cannot be bothered to care."

  Gerda turned back to her work and silence crashed down between them. Helvig stood clenching and unclenching her hands at her sides, heart pounding like she had just raced Wilhelm to the nearest river and back.

  She wanted...She didn’t know what she wanted.

  After a moment Gerda spoke, her voice the rustle of dead leaves.

  "You didn’t tell me about her, either."

  "Who?"

  "Whatever girl you see when you look at me. The one who made you so afraid to speak kindly to or touch another woman."

  Astrid’s name sat like a stone in the pit of Helvig’s stomach. The heaviness of it pained her, and so did the knowledge that she had carried that name for three years now, all the while drinking deep from the bitter cup of her own guilt.

  Still, she did not give the name over to Gerda.

  The witch finished her work and put her comb down on the floor with a definitive click.

  "I see."

  She was obviously disappointed by Helvig’s silence, and the thief felt angry with her for that. How could Gerda deny Helvig her secrets when she had harbored her own for so long?

  But then reason returned to Helvig. The only thing Gerda did not freely give of herself to anyone who asked were her secrets. She had earned the right to that much, in her long years of suffering.

  "I should get to bed," Gerda said. She had her back turned to Helvig, and her shoulders were harshly squared. "It’s sure to be a long day tomorrow."

  "How do you mean?"

  "You and your family have been very hospitable to me during these last few weeks. I don’t wish to wear out your welcome, and now that you’ve heard my story, you understand why I must keep going. My brother needs me."

  Helvig moved quickly to sit at Gerda’s side. She was desperate to keep her but didn’t know how. What could she possibly say that would outweigh a brother lost to the wilds of the north, or at least believed to be?

  Her father’s words, wary and wise, played over in her head.

  I fear it's driven her mad.

  Helvig had never known her father to be wrong, but she also had a hard time believing Gerda was mad. Misguided, perhaps, fixated on a hope she needed to give up. But not mad.

  Helvig took Gerda’s hand between her own. Her bones were so thin, but Helvig knew the strength beneath her skin. When Helvig had first met Gerda, she had wanted to protect her. Now she saw that Gerda was perfectly capable of protecting herself, and had been doing so for a very long time, but Helvig still wanted to care for her, if only to give Gerda a few moments of well-earned rest.

  She could not lose this magnificent creature now, when her valor and cunning were on such brilliant display and she had finally decided to share the truth of her quest.

  "I’m so sorry about your brother. I didn’t know."

  Gerda smiled tiredly. How many times she had received such condolences?

  "Thank you."

  Helvig wished desperately to give her greater comfort, but she had nothing else left to say. So, she darted in and kissed Gerda’s cool cheek, a firm, closed-lip kiss of fidelity.

  Gerda accepted the token with a courteous smile, but she also tilted her face into the touch, exposing her creamy white throat. Helvig’s lips buzzed when she pulled away.

  "Gerda," she began, placing her words down as carefully as she would her feet on a frozen lake. Her head was swimming with the memory of Gerda’s skin, but she willed herself to speak plainly. "Do you think it’s possible that maybe…That is…How can you be sure that Kai is alive, after all these years?"

  Gerda’s thumb swiped over Helvig’s knuckles in a soothing, circular motion. The touch sent warmth spreading all the way up her arm.

  Gerda shifted in a little closer, until their hips and knees were touching.

  "There were many times I lost faith. But then I would hear Kai’s voice in a dream or hear a dark story whispered in a tavern. Or a little child would tell me how they had seen the Snow Queen outside their window just the night before, and I was emboldened. I just…I know he’s alive, Helvig. I feel it in my body as strongly as my own heartbeat. If he had died, a piece of me would have gone with him."

  Ideas came together in Helvig’s mind, slow and deliberate as tributaries feeding into a river. A tremor of excitement ran through her, and Gerda must have felt it too, for she held Helvig’s hand a little tighter.

  Gerda looked startled but hopeful, as though something wonderful and long-expected might finally happen to her.

  "What is it?" she asked, leaning in even closer. They were so near to each other now. Helvig’s chest was tight with fear and desire. Still, she would not let herself shatter the tenuous trust between them with an indiscretion.

  She tore her eyes from Gerda’s mouth and pressed another hard kiss to her temple, breathing in the scent of cedar in her hair.
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  Then Helvig was back on her feet, already a safe three steps away from Gerda so her hands and mouth couldn't wander.

  "Get dressed. I’ve got a surprise for you."

  Gerda blinked delirium from her eyes.

  "Oh? Another present?"

  Helvig released her friend’s hand and stood. She peeked out the tent flap to ensure that her father had retired, and that the boys were otherwise distracted.

  "No. Something better." She gave Gerda her best rakish grin, the one that only came out in moments of thrilled cock-sureness. "Something…darker."

  TEN

  Helvig wasn't sure how long the little church had stood abandoned in the middle of the woods. The building was squat and wood-shingled, with a rusty gate hanging cockeyed from the meager perimeter fence. Part of the roof had caved in from the weight of one too many snowstorms, and the parts of the roof left standing were covered in a layer of snow so thick it looked like gingerbread frosting.

  "They say the midnight mass is held for those who died in the last year and never entered into heaven or hell. Or purgatory, if the Catholics are right," Helvig said. The deafening midwinter quiet made her feel as though she should whisper. "They say God allows the shades one night a year to gather, to read the scriptures and confess and prepare their hearts to cross over from this world to the next. Some find absolution. Others choose to stay."

  When Helvig had told Gerda that she might know of a way to divine whether her brother was still alive, Gerda had leapt at the chance. She had learned many methods of divination in her time as a witch's apprentice; she knew how to read candlewax dropped into water for news of upcoming marriages, and she could discern the sex of a baby from the splash of a mother’s milk, but nothing had proved sufficient in revealing anything about Kai to her outside of vague platitudes.

  "It will only work if Kai died in this region, and only in the last year, but if you’re sure you tracked him up here…"

  "I’m positive."

  Gerda had brought Svíčka along, despite Helvig’s reminder that it was likely to make noise and spook the ghosts. Now the crow shifted constantly on her shoulder and stretched its wings out before folding them in again. It was a strange thing for a bird to do, and Helvig wondered if it was feeling nervous.

  Gerda certainly was, despite her calm exterior, or else she wouldn’t have insisted on bringing along her feathered companion.

  "Then the crowd will reveal whether or not he’s alive," Helvig said. "I’ve heard sometimes spirits are more likely to show up if someone who loves them is nearby."

  Gerda took a step towards the church, her new boots crunching through the snow, and Helvig's hand shot out to grasp her wrist.

  Gerda turned to face her, and they were suddenly very close, close enough that Helvig could see the tiny snow shavings that had gotten caught in Gerda's eyelashes. The glow of the lantern gave both of their faces an eerie cast.

  "What?" The witch asked, shifting even closer.

  Helvig took a shuddering breath, the air pooling in clouds around her mouth.

  "Mind your step in there. If you aren't careful they will catch the fresh scent of you and fly into a rage. Ghosts cannot abide the presence of the living, not tonight all nights. This night belongs to them."

  Gerda quirked a fair eyebrow. Snow was gathering in a brittle tiara on her head. "You don't think I've seen my fair share of ghosts? We're haunted things, you and I."

  Helvig felt a powerful urge to go down onto her knee into the snow. She wanted to pull off Gerda's glove with her teeth and kiss her perfect, cold fingertips, to press her mouth to the softness of her wrist and feel blood rushing through underneath.

  Instead she reached up and brushed the icy crown away, as quick and casual as if she were wiping a smudge of dirt off Rasmus' forehead.

  "Better haunted than haunting. I won't carry your corpse all the way back home through the snow, so if you want a proper burial sometime in your life, you had better be careful."

  "I'll try to keep your inconvenience to a minimum."

  Without another word, Gerda took the lantern from Helvig and turned towards the iron gate. She nuzzled her darling bird with her cheek and made a clicking sound that sent Svíčka winging up into the air.

  The crow wound a tight circle in the sky, so dark against the night that it almost disappeared, and then came to rest on the church’s decaying roof. Svíčka scuffled around as though she stood on untrustworthy, shifting ground, and let out an ear-splitting cry.

  Helvig winced.

  "That bird's going to give us away. Why is she acting like that?"

  Gerda glanced back at Helvig, a wise smile playing at her lips.

  "Birds are cleverer than people are, and crows always know when the dead are nearby. She’s been trained for far more than looking pretty and doing tricks for morsels. She’ll act as sentry, and the dead won’t mind her."

  Gerda's feet left a trail of dark prints behind her in the snow as she slipped through the crooked gate. She climbed the steps to the door of the church and paused, casting one last wary glance over her shoulder. Helvig wanted to rush up the steps to her, to throw an arm around her shoulders and deliver her into safety. But before she could say anything, Gerda had disappeared into the ecclesiastical darkness.

  Helvig trotted along the side of the building, looking for a vantage point from which to spy the proceedings. She was grateful for the swollen moon casting silvery light down onto the clearing, but navigating in a midwinter night still wasn't easy.

  She did not dare to set foot within the fence, and avoided the front gate by a safe couple of feet. She knew a boundary line when she saw one, no matter how flimsy this one may appear.

  A window that had been knocked out just above her eye level beckoned. She dragged over a hefty fallen branch, almost thick as a tree stump, and stood balanced on it to see inside.

  The church was an open sore of emptiness, stripped of any adornment by thieves and weather. Thin wooden pews stood at attention facing a rudimentary altar. The ground was littered with fallen leaves and drifts of snow that had settled in through the open roof.

  Gerda's skirts dragged behind her across the floor, audible in the perfect quiet of the church. No mice rustled around in the walls and no birds cooed at each other from the rafters. Even Svíčka had gone still on the roof, and Helvig wondered if the crow really was watching for ghosts with those keen, beady eyes.

  The place had a patient, receptive stillness about it, a silence that felt too much to Helvig like an open grave waiting to be filled. She wondered idly if bringing Gerda out here was the best idea. She had heard enough stories about this church to know that real danger may wait for them on this night, but she also knew that without a strong conviction that there was no Kai left to search for, Gerda would scour the ends of the earth for him until the soles of her boots wore out and her hair turned grey.

  Helvig held her breath as Gerda settled herself in one of the pews near the back of the church. No banshee cry split the air, no phantoms appeared to drag her by the hair out through the front door. So far, Gerda was proving the stories wrong, and Helvig very much hoped she could keep it up.

  Helvig shifted on the log beneath her feet as Gerda glanced around the church, examining every eave for signs of the dead. Helvig sensed nothing ominous besides the feeling that the longer they stayed out here, the more likely her father was to find out that she had disobeyed him.

  Gerda gripped the pew on either side of her with pale fingers.

  "Just how long do we have to wait?" She asked.

  As soon as Helvig opened her mouth to say that she didn't know, that the stories never specified, Svíčka began to caw on the roof. She cried out over and over again, letting loose ear-splitting sounds that made the muscles in Helvig’s stomach clench. Undeniably, this was an alarm.

  Despite her fear, Helvig couldn't help but marvel. She would have to try teaching Bae to sniff out gold, or to stamp with his feet whenever caravans heavy-laden wit
h costly merchandise were nearby.

  Helvig pressed herself against the wall of the church, trying to take up as little space as possible. She hoped she would not have to wait much longer, but just as Svíčka’s warning cries were starting to grate on her, the fresh dead of the last year began to arrive.

  At first, they were simply the suggestions of shapes between the trees, a slow-moving sense that something was not quite right. In the stories, ghosts were always spry and effervescent, but Helvig knew better. She knew the heaviness of the dead, the way foreboding dragged at her heart whenever they were near. It wasn't that she had seen many in her life, nor that she considered herself any kind of medium. But Gerda had been right when she had called Helvig haunted. No matter where Helvig pitched her tent, or how far away she ran from the sins of her past, Astrid always found her. You couldn’t escape a ghost when it lived inside your head.

  "Put out the light!" Helvig hissed.

  Gerda swung open the lantern's glass hatch and blew out the flame inside. She returned her hands to her lap, her movements so tiny that her clothes hardly made a sound, and sat in statuesque stillness. Svíčka’s cries had abated, but the crow still skittered along the roof and clucked to herself nervously.

  Now, harbringing dread settled into Helvig, colder than the cruelest winter. The trees beside her stirred though there was no wind, and the distant crunch of snow beneath unseen feet grew closer and closer. The only comfort she had in this horrible situation was that Astrid, with her goldenrod hair and her brown eyes so full of hate, had been dead for a very long time. She would not be in attendance at this night's mass, having already crossed over to whatever nether world had opened its arms to her years ago.

  The church's iron gate swung open of its own accord. The heavy presences swirling through the forest coalesced into figures as clearly outlined as Helvig's own hands. They came from all directions, emerging from footpaths and stepping fully formed from forest blackness.

  When she glanced from the corners of her eyes, she clearly saw singular figures dragging legs behind them, or couples walking arm in arm, or tiny children reaching out to grip at the cloak of whoever was near them. But when she looked right at them, faces faded to vague desolation and the ghosts lost their substance. It was only through the accidental glance that she could see the details of their clothes, the bulletholes in their breasts, the rictuses of mortal pain scrawled across their faces.