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Matthias.” He pushed down the disappointment at his nonexistent relationship with his father. This was hardly the time and place to dwell on bygones. “You put your life at risk for me too. And I’m grateful.”
    Matthias extinguished the torch, plunging them into darkness. “You must run now. And don’t stop until you’re far beyond the boundaries of Essen.”
    Carl took a deep fortifying breath and moved to the door and into the tangle of lifeless shrubbery.
    Matthias’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.
    He turned and found himself enfolded in Matthias’s arms in a tight embrace. “Godspeed.”
    Carl squeezed his faithful servant. “Good-bye.” And with that one word he knew he was also saying good-bye to his home and the way of life he’d always known.
    His chest constricted.
    “Now go! Make haste.” As suddenly as Matthias had hugged him, he just as abruptly shoved him away.
    Carl stumbled forward.
    “Oh, one more thing.” Matthias’s call followed him, and it contained an urgency that hadn’t been there before. “Don’tever tell Peter—my brother—who you really are, that you’re the baron’s son. If he learns your true identity, he’ll kill you.”
    “What?” Carl wanted to stop, to yell at Matthias for making such foolhardy plans.
    But Matthias pushed him through the shrubbery so that he stood exposed by the moonlight in the middle of the scant woodlands bordering the river behind the castle.
    Long shadows spread out around him like the ghosts of long-dead knights, waiting to pounce on him and drag him back to the dungeon.
    The barking of a lone dog in the distance and the frigidness of the air sent shivers of fear up his back.
    “You’re free,” Matthias whispered behind him. “Now run. Run for your life.”

Chapter
3
    M ARCH 1881
F ORESTVILLE , M ICHIGAN
    At the snapping of a twig Annalisa turned with a start, and the story of “Lily and the Lion” died on her lips.
    Her gaze combed the woods. The bare branches allowed her to see a fair distance in all directions. In late March the trees were gray and dull, brittle from the long winter and still devoid of leaves except for a few withered clusters that had forgotten to let go in the fall. The only sign of life within the towering maples was the sap that had begun to flow.
    “More, Mama.” Gretchen looked up at her, eyes wide with expectation. Even with a knit scarf covering her head and ears and a double layer of clothes, Gretchen’s teeth chattered and her thin body shook. The spring sunshine didn’t lend any warmth to the lingering winter temperatures.
    But the story had accomplished its purpose and kept Gretchen from thinking about how cold she was and the fact that her threadbare coat wouldn’t keep even the smallest mouse warm.

    Annalisa scanned the rough path that hardly counted as a road. And she peered to the wisp of smoke rising above the treetops, above her parents’ farmhouse.
    Vater had warned her about going out alone, especially since Ward had visited a month ago and again pressured her to sell him the farm. Everyone knew he wanted to build his sawmill on the prime spot on her land and that he needed to do it before the spring river drive, before the rivers thawed and the lumber camps to the north began moving their logs to market.
    She’d refused him just as Hans had done in the fall.
    Even though Ward had left peacefully enough, Vater had told her not to go out unless Uri was with her. Plenty of the farmers still blamed Ward for Hans’s death. But they’d had no solid evidence for bringing charges against him. And there were those—like Vater—who would think the worst of a wealthy, powerful man like Ward even if he’d been an angel in disguise.
    “ Bitte .” Gretchen danced on one foot, then on the other in the boots Idette had found among the outgrown belongings of her stepchildren. The boots were too large, but at least Gretchen had something. “Bitte. More story, Mama.”
    Annalisa glanced to the