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ears and frightened-looking rabbits out of coat pockets. She juggled ten apples at once, and threw her voice to make it sound as though she was speaking to the crowd from inside the church, and she turned water into milk using a special cup she withdrew from her cloak.
    The villagers indulged her, tossing coins into her hat and exchanging smiles over the heads of their children. It was benevolent, innocent “magic,” these tricks—sleight of hand, misdirection. Nothing to be concerned about. And did you see? She has perfectly respectable red hair, and it’s graying with age, like a normal person’s would. It’s a wonder she’s even still alive, by the looks of her face.
    No, no witches here.
    Quicksilver watched the stranger all morning, crouched in the shadows around the church. Sometime after the lunch hour, Sly Boots found her, his scarf half torn and his face dotted with scrapes.
    â€œI got myself down, thank you very much.” He slumped against the church wall, flinging an arm over his eyes. “I thought I was going to die. Perhaps I have died. Are we up in the stars now? Did you die too?”
    â€œSly Boots,” whispered Quicksilver, “watch her dog for a while and tell me what you see. Not the stranger, don’t watch her, or her tricks. Just watch the dog.”
    Sly Boots groaned and pulled himself upright. Then he sat up straighter.
    â€œThat dog,” Sly Boots breathed. “It’s stealing things. It’s . . . it’s moving so quickly . . . like—”
    â€œLike the lit-up animals you saw with the witches in the woods?” Quicksilver interrupted. “Like the wolves at my convent.”
    As they watched, the old dog vanished in a soft flash of light. It then reappeared behind a man wearing a red cotton vest. The dog pulled a purse heavy with coins from his pocket and then disappeared again, with that same soft flash that could easilyhave been mistaken for a shift in the clouds, had you not been paying close enough attention.
    The man in the red vest absently brushed his coat, as if scratching an itch, and applauded along with everyone else.
    The old dog reappeared at the stranger’s side, nudging the stolen purse beneath the ragged hem of her cloak.
    Sly Boots grabbed Quicksilver’s arm. “Do you think—?”
    Quicksilver shook him off. “I can’t be sure. But we’ve got to talk to her. Maybe she knows about the wolves, and your parents too.”
    â€œI’ll kill her,” said Sly Boots, in a voice so deadly it stole Quicksilver’s attention. She placed a hand on each of his shoulders.
    â€œYou will do nothing of the sort,” she said. “Are you stupid? If you kill her, we won’t be able to ask her any questions. Plus, if she is a . . . well, you know. If she is, you probably wouldn’t be able to kill her, and then you’d end up just like your parents, wouldn’t you?”
    The hard light faded from Sly Boots’s eyes. His shoulders slumped, and he was the same mopey, clumsy boy she had met the day before. “I suppose you’re right.”
    â€œOf course I am. Now—”
    Anastazia.
    Quicksilver spun around, searching for the voice on the wind and finding instead that the village square was empty, the market closed, and the world cold and dark with night.
    â€œWh-what?” Sly Boots threw himself back against the wall of the church, his eyes round as two moons. “What happened? What . . . where . . . ?”
    â€œI believe the word you’re searching for is when ,” said a low, even voice. The stranger appeared before Quicksilver in a swirl of light. The light became dog-shaped, and then the old dog materialized beside her. When Fox, disoriented, swayed on his feet, the old dog appeared to smile at him.
    It was not a particularly nice smile.
    Quicksilver glared up at the stranger’s shadowed face. “Who are you?”
    â€œAn