Three children had vanished from Meadowbrook in a month. Gretel walked the market road with a knife under her apron and a list of names in her pocket. She had burned one witch in an oven a year ago. She thought that was the end of it. It wasn't. The candy houses kept appearing in the woods, and the children kept following the smell of sugar out of town. The list held six names. Six villagers she'd seen buying too much sugar, or humming while a child went missing, or watching the tree line the way a cat watches a bird. She needed to know which of them belonged to the coven. Accuse the wrong baker and the real ones would scatter. Accuse none and another child would go. She knew where to ask. She hated that she knew. The gingerbread cottage past the ravine had been rebuilt into something taller, with a painted sign curing above the door. Cordelia stood on a stool, nailing the sign straight. She wore the same star-marked hat Gretel remembered from the oven room. She did not turn around when Gretel stepped onto the path. "You brought a knife," Cordelia said. "Leave it in the umbrella stand." Gretel did not leave it. She stopped ten feet from the porch. "Six names. Tell me which ones are yours." Cordelia climbed down. She wheeled out a tea cart with two cups already poured and pushed it to the edge of the porch. "I don't give names for free." "You owe me a sister's worth." "I owe you nothing. You climbed out of my oven. We're even." Cordelia sipped. "But I'll trade. I want the bakery licensed by the village council. You get it stamped, I tell you how to spot my sisters." "How." "A mark. Behind the left ear. Small, like a raven's foot. You won't see it unless they lift their hair." Gretel's hand tightened on the knife handle. "Prove it." Cordelia lifted the white hair behind her own left ear. The mark was there. Three thin lines, black, sharp as ink. Gretel stared at it. She thought of the baker's wife who tied her hair back on Sundays. The schoolteacher who wore a scarf even in summer. The woman who sold apples and never once let her braid fall loose. "The council meets Thursday," Cordelia said. "Bring me the stamp. I'll bring you a name to start with." "You could be lying about the mark." "I could be. Check the next one you catch. If I'm lying, come back and put the knife in me." She set the second teacup on the rail. "Drink or don't." Gretel did not drink. She turned and walked back toward the ravine. She had a mark to hunt for now, and a deal she had not agreed to yet, and six women in Meadowbrook who tied their hair a certain way.

Gretel walked back to Meadowbrook with six names and no order. Any one of them could be the witch. The wrong first move would send the coven deep into the woods, and a fourth child would go. She needed a way to sort them fast, without knocking on doors. She stopped at the well in the square and watched. The baker's wife came out to sweep. Her hair was pinned tight. The schoolteacher passed with a scarf knotted under her chin. The apple seller braided her hair fresh each morning at her stall. Three of the six, all with their left ears hidden. Gretel could not lift the hair of a grown woman in daylight without starting a riot. She needed help. She hated that too. Hansel was chopping kindling behind their aunt's house when she found him. He set the axe down when he saw her face. He did not ask where she had been. He never did anymore. "I need eyes," she said. "Six women. I need to know which ones hide the skin behind their left ear." "Why." "A mark. Small. Like a bird's foot." He looked at her for a long time. "You said you were done." "I lied." He picked the axe back up. She thought he would walk inside. Instead he split the log clean and said, "The baker's wife. Sunday service. She takes her hat off in the pew. I sit behind her." Gretel's breath caught. "You've been watching." "I watch everyone now." He set another log. "Her neck is clean. No mark." One name gone. Five left. She wanted to hug him. She did not. "The schoolteacher pulls her scarf off to eat," he said. "I've seen her at the tavern. Nothing behind her ear either." Four left. Gretel sat down on the chopping block. "Why are you helping." "So you come home faster." He did not look up. "The apple seller I can't say. She doesn't uncover." Gretel thought of the apple stall. The woman kept her braid tight even in the heat. She kept a bowl of yellow apples on the counter, polished till they shone. Children stopped there on the way home from school. Two of the missing three had passed that stall the day they vanished. "Her," Gretel said. "I start with her." She went at dusk, when the stall was closing. She bought an apple. She dropped a coin behind the counter on purpose. The apple seller bent to pick it up. Her braid swung forward. Gretel saw the skin behind her left ear. Three thin lines. Black. Sharp as ink. Gretel kept her face still. She thanked the woman. She walked away with the apple in her hand and her pulse in her teeth. One witch found. Now she needed the council's stamp before the woman felt her looking.