Daniel. She wants to hurt Daniel.

He was hiding, though, he had promised. Cocot had to put this right, before she found him.

I have the key, Cocot thought. The witch believed she had answers, but she didn't. She had her mother's keys and her mother's unspoken secrets, but no answers.

The king used the fairy tongue to tell Cocot that she had the key, but the fairy tongue was full of tricks; one word could mean another depending on where it was placed in a sentence. Not have the key—I am the key. Part fairy, part field flower, we are one, we are the same, like the brambles said.

"Such a shame your black horse is not here. I would enjoy having a horse like him for myself," the witch said, taunting.

"He is past your reach."

"None is past my reach should I call—as you will soon see," the witch said. "Did the hand fairy tell you the horse's story? Did he tell you what he did the first night he drank the evil from the fountain?"

"Soufflé told me enough" Cocot replied, staring at the cracked cobblestones. They reminded her of Hector's hooves. Blue-grey and broken.

"Are you sure?"

Hissing laughter slithered about Cocot's feet and the girl flicked her gaze up to see the witch's mocking smile.

"Well, Soufflé, does she know the story or not?" the witch called.

Soufflé appeared from behind the basin. "I told her what she needed to know."

"And that is exactly why I tasked Soufflé to befriend you. He has such a talent for handing out crumbs of truth to make himself believable, that you swallow lies and omissions without noticing. Now listen!" The witch grabbed Cocot's jaw painfully. "The first creature your sweet horse killed, his first act after drinking up as much evil as he could, was to trample a lost Bounet Rodzo girl. He crushed all eight inches of her under his hooves."

Cocot twisted her head free in spite of the stinging path the witch's fingernails made on her cheeks. She already knew the truth. The evil had destroyed what he loved most; his fine heart that wanted to protect creatures smaller than himself.

"What do you want by telling me these things?"

"I want what should have been mine for all these long, withering years," the witch said. "I am done with watching. I will call for Jean-Baptist to come."

Cocot shook her head. Free Jean-Baptist from the chalet and bring him here? Her cheek and neck ached where he had touched her. "I can't do help you. Let me go, please." She hated the useless words, and hated that she was scared enough to say them, to beg for freedom, but she said the words anyway.

"Let you go? But he is coming for you. Interloper, invader, filthy squatter who used his home as your own. He comes for you especially."

"No." Her body trembled, she couldn't control it. "No!" She thrashed helplessly against the clawed hands that held her down. She screamed and struggled to free herself as the fairies laughed. They were the village children holding her in place and taunting her again, only this time it was worse. So much worse that her mind could not comprehend, although her body did. She flailed at her captors like a wild animal hurls itself at the metal bars of a cage.

"Soufflé! Soufflé, help me!" she cried. Soufflé flitted forward a fraction of an inch then stopped. The witch devoured his every movement.

"Child, open the seal in the fountain and tell us where the other bottles are hidden and no one will hurt you," he said.

"Yes, Coquelicot, listen to Soufflé, your dear friend. Practically your uncle," the witch urged.

"Let me go!"

"That is enough, give her to me," ordered Wenslar imperiously. He faced the witch. "I will take her back to the hall, speak some sense into her."

"You will take her nowhere," answered the witch.

"My cousin is under my protection. As I will soon be king of these valleys and hills, I will do as I please."

He extended his hand to Cocot to help her stand, but her head was still shaking no and she could not stop it. She saw the future in the witch's face.

"Am I mistaken, or have you outlived all usefulness?" the witch asked softly. It was loud enough. With leering grins, the fairy guards pounced on Wenslar, dragging him away.

Cocot covered her ears, humming to not hear his cries of pain and the whistle, thump of blades.

The witch calmly knelt and using a charred stick, drew circles, lines and jagged figures on the cobblestones. Nearby, Wenslar sagged, lifeless to the ground, and the fairies huddled around his body, like rats with a bit of meat.

When she finished her drawing, the witch spat in her hand and hit the stones at the center of her diagram. She lifted her eyes. "Jean-Baptist, my love, is coming."

Cocot rolled to the side and bolted. She was a few steps away from the nearest house before the captain caught her arm and twisted it behind her back.

In the space of a breath, she was facing the witch.

"Better hurry and open the fountain for me, Coquelicot," she said. "He won't be long now. It is fitting that you should be the one to undo Fanchon's work. Her own daughter. In fact, I will summon her ghost as well, so she can come and watch. The whole family together once more." The witch bowed over her drawing, snarling several words under her breath and spitting again.

Behind Cocot, Captain Thraidox tightened his hold on her wrist until she whimpered.

"Bring her!" the witch ordered him.

"Let her go!" cried a sharp voice.

Daniel was there. She felt Captain Thraidox's hold go slack and she pulled away from him. Daniel stood behind the fairy, a wide kitchen knife at his throat.

"No one move or I'll slit him like a pig at slaughter," Daniel threatened. The other fairies bared their teeth and a few chuckled in anticipation.

The moonlight shone bright on the square, except for the rounded shadow cast by fountain's roof and where it was swallowed by the evil in the captain's eyes. The fairy's fingers were splayed and ready for the fight.

The witch tsked. "I don't believe we've met. How is it, boy, that you see us and dare interfere with our business here tonight?"

"Cocot," Daniel said, ignoring her. "Are you all right? Let's go."

"Wait," she whispered. She had to warn him. They would tear him to pieces like Wenslar.

"Come on," he urged her. He forced Captain Thraidox to start backing away from the fountain.

"Bring them both," the witch said and flicked her hand at the seething mass of fairies.

Daniel grimaced, pressing the knife harder. In a blur of movement, Captain Thraidox snatched the knife away and his fist smashed into the boy's stomach, doubling him in half. The fairy guards swarmed over Daniel, gibbering and squealing in delight.

Cocot threw herself at them to cover him from their blades and teeth.

"Alive!" the witch snapped. "I want them both alive."

Someone pulled Daniel away. Another grabbed Cocot's arm to raise her to her feet. Four branches of a raspberry bush lay on the cobblestones—leaves and berries crushed into black spots of gore. Daniel had brought them to her.

"You will want to watch, I'm sure," the witch said. "But first, tell me how it is that he sees fairy creatures?"

Soufflé cleared his throat hesitantly. "I helped the girl cast a spell this afternoon. A touch of pixie dust for his eyesight. The girl wanted to say goodbye."

Daniel pressed an arm to his side and gasped for breath at the witch's feet. She took something in her hand and cupped his chin with the other.

"Clever, clever. Such a faithful, useful servant. I will reward you for your clever idea later," she told the fairy.

Soufflé met Cocot's gaze and she blinked back the tears that threatened to drown her eyes. His every act of kindness had been a cruel lie in disguise.

"Tell me, boy, what is your name?"

"I am no one, and I am not afraid of you."

"Then you must be Daniel. You are very important to little Coquelicot. Her friend," the witch said. Jagged edges of glass flashed shining white in her hand. The broken bottle top.

"Daniel," Cocot breathed. Again, she saw what was coming in the witch's smile. "You were supposed to stay hidden. You promised me. You were supposed to forget."

"Is that true? He broke a promise? Well, it really is not your evening, is it, Coquelicot?"

"Let him leave, he'll forget, and I'll lose him anyway," Cocot begged.

"Of course I'll let him leave, if he wants to. What kind of horrid person do you take me for? But we should at least allow him the opportunity to repair the wrong he has done by breaking his promise. He came here to save you, to free you. Let him finish what he came to do, if he so chooses."

"No—" Cocot said.

"Send you back to the devil, is what I'll do," Daniel said at the same time.

"Choice is the greatest gift given to mankind, you can accomplish wonders and abominations. What will you choose? To walk away free, or to stay with me so that none here will harm your dear Cocot?"

"Walk away! She already promised me that!" Cocot cried.

"What do you mean stay with you? A prisoner?" Daniel asked.

"Don't—" Cocot started. The court magician pulled a gag between the girl's teeth and tied the ends fiercely together.

"Not as a prisoner, as part of my entourage, like the guards. You will choose to accompany and obey me."

"And Cocot goes free? No one will hurt her?"

"No living creature will touch a hair upon her head and Coquelicot will be free to come or go as she pleases. You have my word. I'll even give you my name. Hélène is what I was once called and is still my name. Do we have an agreement?"

Cocot tried to yell through the gag, to tell him no, to make him understand it was trick. If he agreed, the witch would change him with the evil, like the great fairies, but it wouldn't save Cocot. Daniel glanced back and forth between her and the witch, hesitating.

*** Daniel must make a choice, but either way, the witch wins ... ***