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witch."
    Rolling her eyes, Grete fetched the dead animals. She carried them to the edge of the camp and, with a long, sharp hunter's knife, went to work. She returned to Adamina with a pile of bloody organs on a handkerchief. "Look at these," she said quietly, sitting down beside her.
    "Damn it," Adamina replied. The organs were all a strange purple-black, too small in size and warped in shape. They hadn't just eaten and gotten addicted to the rapunzel—they had been born infected with it, molded by it, needing it. "The forest is even more poisoned and broken than I thought. This just keeps getting worse." She stared at her half-finished soup, then set the bowl on the ground, stomach churning.
    Shaking her head, Grete prodded at the organs a bit more. "I do not understand how the villagers can be unaware of the problem. They should have sent for help years ago—decades even."
    Adamina frowned. "I think they are aware, actually. When I first arrived Victoria served meatless soup. That's unusual, but it does happen occasionally so I thought nothing of it… but now I wonder if the whole village avoids eating meat because all of theirs is so heavily contaminated." She wanted to beat her head against a tree. "They gave me a cool reception, and I know they delayed longer than they should have in summoning help, but I thought it was because they were one more small, superstitious village. I think now they were more afraid I would figure out they're fully aware of the problems with this forest."
    Fetching her knapsack, Grete pulled out a tin jar that proved to be empty when she opened it, and a small wooden box with multiple compartments for holding various herbs. Picking three, she sprinkled them over the blackened organs, then wrapped them up a handkerchief and bundled them into the tin. Tucking it away again, she stood. "I'm going to go clean up. Try to finish your soup."
    Adamina made a face but obeyed. She'd already eaten half of it, so it didn't matter much at that point, and she had no desire to be hungry sooner than necessary. Her stomach still churned with every bite, mind unable to leave off the memory of the creatures, all the terrible things that rapunzel could do to people. The royal order to burn all of it and ban it ever entering the country again had finally come after a terrible case of mass murder: a man had become so addicted that he kept marrying witches, or women who'd had their magic sealed away, and then would kill and eat them. Only because his newest wife had realized the danger before he could kill her, and managed to escape, had the matter reached the crown.
    That was only ninety-odd years ago. It was the last time anyone had major dealings with rapunzel, since shortly thereafter royal soldiers had swept the queendom to burn every last trace of rapunzel and ensure more would not grow. How had they missed an entire village?
    She looked up as Grete returned. "You and your mother—when you found that woman, did you destroy all the rapunzel? You must have, so how did it return?"
    "We only found a few small bushes of it around the base of the tower, and those we did destroy. We had planned to report it to the crown, but got so busy looking for the children we just forgot… and then we just wanted to close the whole matter, another mistake we should not have made." She stared glumly at the grass, hair half-shrouding her face, firelight drawing out the red tones in it and bathing her in flickering light.
    Adamina reached out, rested a hand on her shoulder in comfort, and when Grete seemed to lean into the touch she scooted closer and looped her arm around Grete's shoulder. "I have many stories of poor judgment and ignoring a problem until too late to my name. Who doesn't? It sounds as though you did the best you could, and I cannot say that in your shoes I would have acted differently."
    "Still, perhaps if we had acted differently…"
    "There is no saying for certain how events might have played out," Adamina