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frightened. Even Seraphine paled, muttering, “Holy Mother of God!”
    Meg wrenched free of Seraphine and bolted toward the stairs. The innkeeper tried to stop her, but he was blocked by his son.
    “
Non,
Papa. Let the Lady go to her,” Osbert said. “The only one who can break the curse of a witch is another witch.”
    “The Lady of Faire Isle is no witch!” Seraphine snarled.
    The taproom instantly turned into a hubbub of arguing voices, punctuated by the screams from above. Ignoring them all, Meg raced up the stairs. She only stopped when she realized Seraphine was hard on her heels.
    “No,” she said, turning back to her friend and speaking in a low urgent voice. “If I cannot help this girl, I am not sure how this will end.”
    “I am. They will take up that old beggar woman for witchcraft and you as well.”
    “That is why you must go find la Mère Poulet and hide her.”
    “Be damned to her. Old Mother Chicken must shift for herself. I am not leaving you.”
    “Seraphine—”
    “No!”
    Meg studied the adamant set of Seraphine’s jaw and sighed. “Stay, then, but try to reason with these men and keep any of them from going in search of the old woman.”
    “Now, that I can do.” She started to unsheathe her sword, but Meg’s hand shot out to stay her.
    “No, this is not a task for an Amazon warrior, but for Madame la Comtesse and her considerable charms of persuasion.”
    “Why can I never make you understand that it is far more effective to knock men’s heads together rather than try to beguile them?” Seraphine said, but she relented, easing her rapier back into its scabbard. “Oh, all right. Circe it shall be, not Hippolyte.”
    “Thank you.” Meg grimaced as another shriek sounded from above.
    Seraphine glanced upward uneasily. “I doubt this doctor will appreciate your interference any more than the village priest. You be careful, Meggie.”
    “I will. I have dealt with such ignorant fools before. I am sure this is nothing I cannot handle, just a young girl indulging a bout of hysterics.”
    Despite her brave assertion, Meg felt a shiver go through her as she headed back up the stairs. She had confidence in her abilities as a healer. She had been taught by that wisest of women, Ariane Deauville, and Meg had learned well.
    Yet it wasn’t Ariane’s gentle image that filled Meg’s mind as she climbed the stairs, but that of Cassandra Lascelles with her ebony hair, ice-white skin, and unseeing dark eyes.
    Of a sudden, Meg was a child again, creeping up to the forbidden tower room where Maman lit the black candles and bent over the steaming copper basin. Muttering her incantations, Cassandra would call forth spirits from the water, make the chamber echo with deep sepulchral voices.
    As a rational daughter of the earth, Meg wished she could deny that such black magic existed, but she had seen it for herself. She feared it could only be a matter of
when,
not if, she ever encountered such evil again.
    Perhaps even now it lay in wait for her at the top of the stairs in this humble inn. Meg trembled and then steeled herself.She was no longer Cassandra Lascelles’s daughter, but the Lady of Faire Isle, the bringer of light and reason.
    The horrible cries originated from behind the first door to the left. Meg started to knock, and stopped, the distraught sounds from beyond making all formality seem foolish.
    She pushed open the door, entered the bedchamber, and caught her breath, feeling as though she had just stepped into hell. An inferno of a fire blazed on the hearth, rendering the room hot and airless. The flames sent shadows on the wall, the glow making the faded bed curtains appear as red as blood.
    Candles had been lit, in the wall sconces, upon the mantel, and on a small table, as though someone believed that with enough light, the devil could be kept at bay.
    It hadn’t worked, Meg thought with a small shiver. He hovered over the bed, in the guise of a tall dark man.
    She closed the