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figure on the village’s northernmost bridge. The figure wore a dark cloak, and even from this distance, she could see that the figure was gazing up at the belfry, right where Quicksilver stood.

.6.
T HE S TRANGER

    â€œW hat is it?” asked Sly Boots, scooting his way across the roof toward the belfry. “Do you see something?”
    â€œI . . . I don’t know,” replied Quicksilver. “I suppose it’s just a traveler.”
    But Quicksilver knew, in her deepest heart, that this was no normal traveler. The sight of the stranger gave Quicksilver a chill, even with the sunlight shining down upon her. Something about the stranger seemed familiar—the way she moved, the shape of her hand holding the cloak at her throat.
    Quicksilver climbed down from the belfry and perchedon a gargoyle shaped like a howling wolf. The stranger walked smoothly into town, cloak trailing through the mud, and when she reached the square, where the market bustled on, oblivious, the stranger found an unused stool and sat upon it.
    And sat. And sat.
    The stranger sat on this stool for such a long time that Quicksilver began to doubt her own memory. Had this person just arrived, or had she always been sitting there, on the south edge of the market, still and dark?
    â€œWho is that?” whispered Sly Boots loudly, poking his head over the roof’s peak. “Quicksilver?”
    â€œNot now, Boots,” said Quicksilver, climbing down the side of the church, using the stone wall’s intricate carvings of wolves as handholds. Though Quicksilver could hear an increasingly unhappy Sly Boots calling after her, she ignored him. There was something much more important to puzzle out, now that she could see better:
    Beside the stranger sat a dog with a small pack tied to his chest, and the dog looked remarkably like Fox.
    He was older than Fox, his chin shaggy with white whiskers, his coat grayed. But she could not ignore the resemblance—there were his alert brown eyes. There was his torn left ear.
    Quicksilver’s Fox hurried over, even the slow-roasting chicken forgotten. He put himself in front of Quicksilver and growled at the stranger and her dog, his teeth bared.
    â€œIt’s all right, Fox,” whispered Quicksilver, although she could not be sure that it was.
    A young boy in a tasseled linen shirt, passing by with a small bag of potatoes slung over his shoulder, glanced at the stranger, then glanced again, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.
    â€œWho are you?” the boy asked. He examined the stranger from head to toe and made a face. “You’re ugly.”
    â€œAnd you are very unpleasant,” said the stranger, in a voice warm and smooth as sleep. The stranger peeked out from her hood. Her strong, steady voice did not match her lined face, nor the chalky white skin flaking at the corners of her mouth.
    â€œWhat of it?” demanded the boy.
    The stranger shrugged. “Just an observation. Perhaps you’d be happier if you had something . . . pretty in your life?”
    And with that, the stranger bent to scrape her knobby fingers across the ground. From the cracked cobblestones, she pulled a bouquet of purple and yellow flowers and presented it to the boy with a flourish.
    The boy gasped, a grin spreading across his face. He ranacross the square, calling excitedly for his mother.
    With a tired whuff , the old dog pulled a lumpy hat from beneath the stranger’s cloak and laid it on the ground.
    â€œDid you see that, Fox?” whispered Quicksilver. “She’s good. She slipped those flowers out from her sleeve, I know she did. I’ve done something like thatbefore myself. Remember when I dragged that garden snake out of my prayer robe and Sister Marketta fainted?”
    Fox backed away from the stranger, whining uncertainly. He nudged Quicksilver’s arm, but she did not budge.
    Soon a crowd gathered around the stranger to watch her draw coins out of