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A li fled, terror clutching at her heart, knowing that the sword that swung behind her was coming closer with each swing.

She forced herself to go faster and was faintly surprised to find that she was managing it.

Perhaps that had aught to do with the fact that she was running on four feet—and she was running on four feet because she had been transformed by some foul spell into a rabbit.

She found it in her to curse her now quite large ears.

Smaller ones perhaps wouldn’t have been capable of so clearly hearing the ring of the sword coming closer and closer to her.

She risked a glance over her furry shoulder to find herself being pursued by none other than Colin of Berkhamshire, his wicked blade in his hand, a ferocious frown on his face.

He stooped suddenly, reached out and grasped her by the scruff of her neck.

“Aack!” she cried out in terror.

She was jerked backward.

It was then that she woke fully and found that whilst she was most certainly not a rabbit, she was definitely being hauled backward—into the solar, fortunately. That meant, though, that she’d fallen asleep sitting straight up against the solar door.

She wanted to weep with relief. Her first night had passed safely at Blackmour with only foul dreams to show for it. It could have been much worse. Any number of souls could have happened by and done the saints only knew what to her whilst she slept.

She was deposited without care onto the solar floor and Sybil’s maids leaped for the door to heave it to and bolt it. Ali rubbed the sleep from her eyes, then slowly crawled to her feet and turned to find Sybil sitting in a chair. She was looking, unsurprisingly, pale and terrified.

“Henri,” Sybil whispered, as if she thought the walls might be eavesdropping, “you are well?”

“Well enough,” Ali said, shaking off her unsettling dream. She stood quite happily on two feet and forced herself not to reach up and assure herself of the proper shape of her ears. “And you, my lady?”

Sybil looked to be on the verge of fainting again. One of her maids appeared instantly at her elbow with some strengthening bread and a large goblet. “I will survive it,” she said, chewing industriously, then taking a large swallow of wine. “But barely.”

In all honesty, Ali couldn’t blame her for her terror. Just the thought of being chained to Colin of Berkhamshire for the rest of her life was enough to bring any sensible woman to take drastic measures.

As Ali would certainly know.

“Have you seen him?” one of the maids asked.

“Is he as horrible as the tales say?” asked another.

“Has he killed anyone yet?” asked the third.

Ali pointedly ignored the fact that she’d just spent half the night dreaming of Colin pursuing her, his sword at the ready, no doubt planning on having her for his supper. She could hardly blurt that out without sending Sybil burrowing deeper into her sack of sustenance.

But, aye, she had seen Colin. Not only had she seen him, he’d given her food the night before when it would have been just as easy to have run her through, burst into Sybil’s solar, and drag the girl out by her feet to converse with him. He hadn’t seemed cruel beyond measure then.

But that was one occasion and perhaps he’d been overcome by unwholesome feelings of pity. She’d certainly given the strong impression of someone about to expire from terror. Would he be moved by such pity again? She had no idea; there was no sense in raising Sybil’s hopes unnecessarily.

But neither could she frighten the girl further without good cause.

“I have seen him and, aye, he is fierce,” Ali conceded slowly. “And he does have quite a peculiar smell about him, as the rumors have said. But I haven’t seen him kill anyone yet.”

“A pity he hasn’t done in Sir Etienne,” one of the wenches offered.

Ali agreed heartily, but didn’t say as much.

“He is so large.” Sybil moaned. “So intimidating. So fully without any mercy at all.”

How Sybil could tell that when she’d fainted at the mere sight of him Ali surely didn’t know, but she didn’t bother to point that out to her charge. Sybil was eating and Ali couldn’t bring herself to ruin the girl’s one pleasure.

“Enormous,” one of her maids repeated.

“Merciless,” another added.

“And we’ll likely see him kill someone before we leave,” the third added in a hopeful tone. “Wouldn’t you think?”

Ali frowned at the serving maids. By the saints, these three were no help at all. ’Twas little wonder Sybil was so terrified if this was what she listened to for the whole of the day.

Then she clapped her hand to her forehead. She had seen Colin of Berkhamshire, she had thought him as awful as the tales had said, and she was just certain, given the right amount of time, that she would see him kill someone as well. Who was she to think to defend him?

She rubbed her hand over her face and wondered if there was something in the air at Blackmour that rendered all within its reach bewitched. The place certainly reeked of secrets and works wrought in the cover of darkness.

Mayhap someone would take pity on Sybil and render her just as enspelled. It might be a mercy, given the fact that Sybil had no choice but to wed Colin.

Ali steadfastly refused to think on the fact that if she did but reveal herself, Sybil would be freed of her obligation—and Ali would find herself in the wench’s unenviable position as the Butcher’s bride.

She rubbed her hands together the way her sire had always done when he’d been finished talking of unsettling matters and was ready to be off and doing, then looked about her purposefully.

She had business to attend to—somewhere far from Sybil and her foodstuffs, far from Sybil’s maids and their foolish babblings.

And very far from her own troubling thoughts.

“Have you adequate sustenance here in the solar, my lady?” Ali asked Sybil politely.

How Sybil managed to look famished with a platter of sweets at her elbow Ali couldn’t imagine, but the girl looked fair to perishing.

“Bread,” Sybil said weakly. “Meats under sauce, if possible. Anything to keep up my strength.”

Which she would need, Ali had to agree. And if food was the girl’s comfort, then well was she entitled to it.

Ali bowed and left the chamber, charged with her accustomed task of venturing to the kitchens for Sybil’s extra rations.

This she could do—assuming she didn’t meet anyone untoward in the process.

There were, after all, so many souls to avoid.

Christopher of Blackmour with his piercing sight.

Jason of Artane with his inquisitive nose.

Colin of Berkhamshire with his ready sword and vast stores of irritation toward any and all past or future brides.

She peered down the passageway and saw no one. Well, that was an auspicious start, at least. She put her shoulders back and did her best to swagger down the way as if she belonged there and was charged with an important errand from an important lord.

There were men milling about in the great hall, but Ali paid them no heed aside from making certain no one loitered therein whom she needed to avoid.

She didn’t feel Colin’s immense reputation filling the chamber, nor Lord Blackmour’s dark, bewitching wickedness, so she supposed no one else would mark one lone knight skulking along the back wall.

The kitchens were a marvel of smells. Indeed, Ali couldn’t remember a time where she’d smelled things so fine, except perhaps memories of when her mother had been alive.

To be sure, things at Solonge had declined greatly when Marie had become chatelaine.

Well, unless a meal was destined for her plate alone.

Not even Ali’s sire was allotted fineries, though Ali suspected he never noticed.

Ali saw a small skirmish going on near the cooking pot.

A robust, elderly man, who Ali assumed was the cook by the lordly manner in which he waved his spoon, was scowling down at an equally elderly woman with hair the color of steel, who was glaring up at him and pointing her own spoon at him as if it had been a sword.

“Not enough sage,” the old woman accused.

“And you, Mistress Nemain, know nothing of how to make a good stew!”

“I’ve forgotten more about herbs than you ever knew, you puffed-up pretender!”

The cook puffed himself up—and quite impressively, Ali had to agree—his outrage clearly showing on every feature. “My herbs, ” he said haughtily, “do not cause warts!”

There was silence for the space of a heartbeat or two, and then the kitchen folk scattered in all directions.

Ali knew that now was the time to be about her business and then make her escape before an all-out war erupted.

She sneaked along the wall to the worktable, took the sack she had brought from Sybil’s chamber, and then very quietly and very carefully began to fill it with things that could be carried easily.

She had just begun to creep back toward the passageway when she felt the finger of doom tap her on the shoulder.

’Twas in truth just the cook’s spoon, but that was enough to startle her thoroughly. She whirled around in surprise.

“You,” Cook said, pointing at her imperiously, “come taste this.”

Ali gulped. “Me?”

“Nay, the pot hanging on the wall,” Cook snapped. “Aye, you. If you’ve any wits about you and a tongue that works!”

“Aye,” said Mistress Nemain, taking Ali by the sleeve with very bony fingers and pulling her closer. “Have a taste and be the judge. I say it wants for a bit of sage.”

“And I say ’tis perfect just as it sits,” Cook responded hotly.

“And I say you’re a fool who wouldn’t know sage from saffron—even if the pots were labeled in a manner that you could tell them apart!”