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glinted behind his back while he peered under the bed. Always the same, at every backwater town and uptight mortal village.
    As the man straightened, Manon slipped from the closet and into the darkness behind the bedroom door.
    Mu ffl ed clinking and thudding told her enough about what the other two men ­were doing: not just looking for her, but stealing what­ever they wanted. Th ere ­wasn’t much to take; the cottage had already been furnished when she’d arrived, and all her belongings, by training and instinct, ­were in a sack in the corner of the closet she’d just vacated. Take nothing with you, leave nothing behind.
    â€œWe just want to talk, witch.” Th e man turned from the bed, fi nally noticing the closet. He smiled—­in triumph, in anticipation.
    With gentle fi ngers, Manon eased the bedroom door shut, so quietly the man didn’t notice as he headed for the closet. She’d oiled the hinges on every door in this ­house.
    His massive hand gripped the closet doorknob, dagger now angled at his side. “Come out, little Crochan,” he crooned.
    Silent as death, Manon slid up behind him. Th e fool didn’t even know she was there until she brought her mouth close to his ear and whispered, “Wrong kind of witch.”
    Th e man whirled, slamming into the closet door. He raised the dagger between them, his chest heaving. Manon merely smiled, her silver-­white hair glinting in the moonlight.
    He noticed the shut door then, drawing in breath to shout. But Manon smiled broader, and a row of dagger-­sharp iron teeth pushed from the slits high in her gums, snapping down like armor. Th e man started, hitting the door behind him again, eyes so wide that white shone all around them. His dagger clattered on the fl oorboards.
    And then, just to really make him soil his pants, she fl icked her wrists in the air between them. Th e iron claws shot over her nails in a stinging, gleaming fl ash.
    Th e man began whispering a plea to his so ft -­hearted gods as Manon let him back toward the lone window. Let him think he stood a chance while she stalked toward him, still smiling. Th e man didn’t even scream before she ripped out his throat.
    When she was done with him, she slipped through the bedroom door. Th e two men ­were still looting, still believing that all of this belonged to her. It had merely been an abandoned ­house—­its previous own­ers dead or smart enough to leave this festering place.
    Th e second man also didn’t get the chance to scream before she gutted him with two swipes of her iron nails. But the third farmer came looking for his companions. And when he beheld her standing there, one hand twisted in his friend’s insides, the other holding him to her as she used her iron teeth to tear out his throat, he ran.
    Th e common, watery taste of the man, laced with violence and fear, coated her tongue, and she spat onto the wooden fl oorboards. But Manon didn’t bother wiping away the blood slipping down her chin as she gave the remaining farmer a head start into the fi eld of towering winter grass, so high that it was well over their heads.
    She counted to ten, because she wanted to hunt, and had been that way since she tore through her mother’s womb and came roaring and bloody into this world.
    Because she was Manon Blackbeak, heir to the Blackbeak Witch-­Clan, and she had been ­here for weeks, pretending to be a Crochan witch in the hope that it would fl ush out the real ones.
    Th ey ­were still out there, the self-­righteous, insu ff erable Crochans, hiding as healers and wise-­women. Her fi rst, glorious kill had been a Crochan, no more than sixteen—­the same age as Manon at the time. Th e dark-­haired girl had been wearing the bloodred cloak that all Crochans ­were gi ft ed upon their fi rst bleeding—­and the only good it had done was mark her as prey.
    A ft er Manon le ft the