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of matted, fouled beards, yellowed teeth, snarled hair and filthy faces made her grimace. The reflection from theknife gave relative heights, proving that girl’s captors were Dwarves. But…not the sort of Dwarves that Lily was used to dealing with.
    Lily frowned. This was unexpected…perhaps. It looked as if more than one Traditional tale was getting tangled up here.
    And the tales were warped and twisted. Those foul little creatures were not the kindly helpers of the proper Traditional Path; the Snowskin Path brought creatures that might be ugly but were always nurturing and kind. Brutish was the most charitable word to describe the things that were being reflected now. The way they were treating the Princess was entirely terrible. Rosa had spirit, and Lily could not imagine her staying there unless she was being held in some way.
    Meanwhile Jimson was searching for every reflective surface he could find near her, trying one after another so they could get a better idea of what was going on there. It was beginning to look as if they were not going to find anything useful, until—
    “Ha,” Jimson said quietly, and suddenly a crystal clear—if somewhat warped, as if it was being viewed through a bubble—image of what was the filthiest kitchen Lily had ever seen appeared in the mirror she was holding. “Fly’s eye,” Jimson said. “Best we’re going to get.”
    Well, the little brutes were definitely Dwarves, probably digging an illegal mine. The Tradition was definitely at work here, however badly twisted, for there were seven of them; seven was the right number for a Snowskin Princess. The fact that Rosa’s looks didn’t match the Snowskin Path didn’t seem to matter this time—a Snowskin had “cheeks white as snow, lips red as blood and hair black as ebony,” and Rosa was much more in the line of a Princess Dawn with her rosy cheeks and golden hair. Well they would have been rosy if they hadn’t been smudged with dirt and tears, and it was getting hard to tell she had “locks of gold” what with all the bits of forest snarled in them. Lily’s wince turned into a cringe; the poorchild was definitely the worse for wear. A Princess, even one with Rosa’s unorthodox schooling, was ill-suited to being a servant and cook. She was indeed bruised, dirty and looked exhausted. And behind her trailed a long chain, binding her to the hearth.
    “Find me where that cottage is,” Lily said grimly. “I want to get to her before the Huntsman tracks her down.”
    If this was the Snowskin Path there was a logical approach that would compel The Tradition to throw a lot of power on Lily’s side to make this right again—what was more, when Lily broke her disguise, it could be as herself and not as the evil Queen Sable. That should make it possible for her to get the girl safely away before revealing that she was also the Evil Stepmother. It was pretty obvious now that The Tradition was moving in such force that Lily needed Rosa to understand the deception that she had been perpetrating as Queen Sable. She had only met Rosa a handful of times, all on formal occasions, in order to keep herself as the mysterious Rescuer just in case such a thing would be needed, and to make sure Rosa never felt she could depend on Lily to save her at any point, but a Fairy Godmother was the sort of person who made a lasting impression.
    “Have you seen enough for now, Godmother?” Jimson asked.
    She stood up. “I have,” she said. The reflection disappeared, and one after another, more glimpses flashed across the mirror’s surface. Jimson was tracing a path back to the Palace, from reflection to reflection. When he finished, he would have a clear way to the Dwarves’ cottage that he would read to her. She in her turn could transfer it to a map.
    Meanwhile she had preparations of her own to make. A second transformative spell—probably best to make it part of a cloak—something that might break that chain…and something to use