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The provisions were more than adequate.

The entire village came together in a towering display of generosity and efficiency. By nine o’clock this morning, we had two horses and a sleigh stocked with enough food, firewood, blankets, and assorted comforts to last us days. Somehow, one of the women found time to knit a jacket for Shadow which, combined with the other gifts, left me unaccountably flustered—given my companion’s size, it would have taken her hours. Bambleby and I entertained ourselves at the cottage by coaxing a recalcitrant Shadow into his new raiment, which was patterned with flowers and equipped with a jaunty hood. The dog hung his head in abject embarrassment until his tormentors deigned to relieve him of this woollen pillory, and he spent the next hour pointedly ignoring me.

Fortunately, the path taken by Lilja and Margret into the wilderness was clear, for it had not snowed since their abduction, and sailors believed the skies would remain fair for another day or so. As the villagers readied our provisions, Bambleby and I hiked up to the spring one last time.

Poe had made little progress with his tree, though the snow was scattered with soot he had shovelled from the interior. Bambleby exclaimed in displeasure at the sight of the venerable old tree reduced to a husk.

“Frost-blasted,” he muttered. “Disrespectful bloody bogles.” Before Poe or I could speak, he touched the tree, and it was healed—ruddy with health and radiant with greenery against the winter pallor. Poe gave a cry and fell upon his sharp knees before Bambleby, trembling, which the latter took no notice of whatsoever. When Poe brought him a magnificent loaf as a thank-you present, Bambleby said rudely, “I am sick to death of bread. Bring me something that will keep me warm in this hellish place.”

“Can he do that?” I said after Poe went scrambling back into his tree home, from which arose a queer chorus of clanging and scraping and a sort of bubbling noise. Bambleby only waved his hand and went back to his sulking.

Poe reappeared within the hour with a basket woven from willow boughs, covered with a coarse wool blanket. Bambleby accepted it ungraciously and without even glancing at the contents, even though whatever was beneath the wool steamed intriguingly. I had to take the basket away from him, and found within half a dozen glazed cakes, not unlike those I have seen Ljoslanders consume on special occasions. These would continue steaming until eaten.

Poe answered my questions with something approaching good nature, his black eyes a little damp as his fingers lovingly stroked the roots of his tree. They were simple enough: Where had the tall ones taken the girls? (To the place where the aurora bleeds white.) What do the tall ones fear most? (Fire.)

“Waste of a question,” Bambleby said as we departed. “They are of the ice and snow. What else would they be afraid of?”

“Thank you for your advice,” I said. “Though I note you waited to volunteer it until after its usefulness had passed. What do you think is the place where the aurora bleeds white?”

“I don’t know, but I simply cannot wait to find out. You did not ask your third question.”

“How observant you are.” In truth, I couldn’t have articulated why I withheld the third question, apart from an intuition that it would be important later. It is an intuition I have come to trust, for if you spend enough time studying the Folk, you become aware of how their behaviour follows the ancient warp and weft of stories, and to feel the way that pattern is unfolding before you. The third question is always the most important one.

The laden sleigh drawn by two of the hardy, shaggy Ljoslander horses awaited us in the village. The horses were white, which struck me as an omen of something, though I could not guess if it was good or bad. These were no ordinary horses, but beasts used to picking their way over open countryside laden with drifting snow, and even clambering up mountains.

Aud surprised me before our departure by giving me a hug and kissing me on both cheeks. I flushed and mumbled my way through the experience. She drew Bambleby aside and spoke to him quietly. When he returned to the sleigh, he was frowning.

“What?”

“Aud seems to think I will leave you for dead at the first sign of trouble,” he replied. “Either that or devour you myself. She offered me a boon in exchange for your safety.”

“I hope you said yes,” I said unperturbedly. “You may keep the money. I claim the silver sheep.”

He rolled his eyes. Moments later, after another round of tedious goodbyes, we were on our way.

The sleigh glided smoothly over the snow. We followed the road for the first hour. Two of the villagers went before us on horses, men who had been part of the first search party. They showed us the place where Lilja and Margret had left the road, a spot where the Karrðarskogur rolled down from the mountains and cast blue shadows over the wheel ruts and footprints. There the men took their leave, as Bambleby and I would continue on alone, having refused Aud’s offer of a guard.

The forest seemed to make a path for us as we followed the clear marks of trampling in the snow, as if the trees had shuffled aside to make way for whoever or whatever had passed there before. Only in places was our way blocked, once by a tall birch that I could have sworn, from a distance, stood to the side of the clearing. The boughs creaked and groaned, and it felt as if the forest was slowly closing the path again, like the healing of a jagged wound.

I got out and walked with Shadow whenever the ground climbed over a hill, to give the horses some relief. I looked back at my footprints in the snow, deriving some primitive form of satisfaction in seeing the mark I’d made on that unfamiliar world. Shadow, loping at my side, left no tracks. He never does.

Bambleby stayed put in the sleigh, wrapped in two blankets and speaking only to complain about the cold. His nose turned a brilliant red from blowing it, the sound of which always seemed to coincide with moments when I was spellbound by the quiet loveliness of the snowy wood. Finally I demanded that he eat one of Poe’s cakes, and was relieved by his acquiescence, which spared me the effort of shoving it down his throat.

The cake was warm to the touch, so soft it might have just emerged from the oven, and it transformed Bambleby’s mood. He strode alongside the sleigh for the rest of the afternoon without his blankets or scarf, face flushed with warmth, absently brushing his hands through the boughs of this tree or that. Whatever he touched burst into bloom, scattering the snow with leaves like beaten emeralds, red berries, pussy willows and seed cones, a riot of colour and texture crackling through that white world. Soon enough our little wilderness path could have been a grand avenue decked out for a returning general’s triumphant procession. Birds hunkered down for the long winter crept out of their burrows, chirruping their alarmed delight as they grew drunk on berries. A narrow fox darted across our path, a starling clutched in its mouth, sparing us a dismissive glance as it slunk back into the velvet shadow.

I tried very hard not to be awed by this flamboyant display of Wendell’s. It was the first time I’d seen him be free with his magic, and it left me feeling unsteady and on edge; I realized that I was used to ignoring that part of him, or at least looking past it. As we crested a rise, I turned to see all that colour unfurled across the sleeping landscape, trees jaunty and defiant even as the chill winds snatched at their leaves like nipping wolves.