Grimhilde stood before the mirror in her chamber, her fingers cold against the gilded frame. She had asked the question a thousand times before, and always the answer had pleased her. But the huntsman's lie had changed everything. She needed to know if the girl still lived, and if so, where she hid. She spoke the question. The mirror's surface rippled like water, and when it stilled, the answer came. Snow White was fairest, not Grimhilde. The words landed like a blade. But the mirror didn't stop there. It showed her a cottage deep in the forest, small and crooked, with smoke curling from its chimney. The girl was alive, hidden, safe. Grimhilde stepped back from the mirror and turned to the table behind her. The disguise was already prepared. A worn dress with faded flowers across the fabric. A knitted shawl that smelled of wool and dust. A cloak embroidered with roses, soft and harmless. She picked up the spectacles and held them to the light. They were perfect. No one would fear an old woman selling fruit at the door. She folded the costume carefully and placed it in a satchel. The cottage was far, but she would find it. Snow White's trusting nature would open the door, and Grimhilde would be the one standing behind it. This time, there would be no huntsman. No mercy. No mistakes.

Grimhilde walked through the workroom adjoining her chamber, past shelves lined with jars and bottles. The poison was already prepared, a thick liquid the color of honey that would stop a heart within minutes. But standing there with the vial in her hand, she saw the problem clearly. Snow White would not accept a bottle from a stranger. She would not drink from a cup offered at the door. The girl was trusting, yes, but not foolish enough to swallow something unknown. Grimhilde needed something the girl would bite into without question, something that looked innocent and whole. She set the vial down and walked to the window. Outside, beyond the castle walls, she could see the old tower at the forest's edge where she kept her most dangerous work hidden from the court. That was where she would finish this. The carriage waited in the courtyard below, ornate and weathered, the kind a traveling peddler might use to carry goods from village to village. She had prepared it weeks ago, filling its drawers with dried herbs and tonics, building the disguise layer by layer. Now she climbed inside and guided it toward the tower, the wheels creaking over the dirt path. Inside the tower, she pulled an apple from the basket she had brought. It was perfect. Red and flawless, with skin so glossy it caught the light. She held it over the workbench and pierced the skin with a needle, then let three drops of poison fall into the flesh. The puncture sealed itself as if it had never been touched. Grimhilde turned the apple in her hand, watching the way it gleamed. Snow White would see this and reach for it first. Not because she was hungry, but because it was beautiful, and the girl had never learned that beauty could hide death. Grimhilde placed the apple in the basket with the others, covering it with a cloth. The delivery method was chosen. The plan had no gaps left. She locked the tower door behind her and climbed back into the carriage, her disguise folded on the seat beside her. Tomorrow she would wear the old woman's face and knock on the cottage door. Tomorrow the threat would end.

The carriage left the tower before dawn, the poisoned apple wrapped in cloth and nestled among the harmless ones. Grimhilde had dressed in the old woman's clothes, her face painted with wrinkles, her hair tucked beneath a gray wig. The horse pulled steadily through the forest until the road narrowed to a single track carved between ancient trees. Then she saw it. The bridge had collapsed. Stone arches lay broken in the ravine below, covered in moss and broken timber. The only carriage route to the cottage was gone. She climbed down and studied the gap. Too wide to cross, too deep to risk the wheels. The sun was already climbing through the branches. If she turned back now to find another road, night would fall before she reached the cottage, and the plan required daylight. She needed the girl to see the apple clearly, to trust the harmless old woman at the door. Grimhilde unhitched the horse and left the carriage where it stood. She would go on foot. The forest path split ahead. One trail led around the long way, safe but slow. The other cut straight through a section of woods marked by trees twisted into strange shapes, their trunks covered in thorns that looked like dragon scales. The thorns formed walls on either side of the narrow path, dense enough to block any other route. Grimhilde chose the shortcut. She pushed through branches that caught at her disguise and tore the fabric of her skirt. Thorns scraped her hands. The basket with the apple swung from her arm, protected. When she emerged from the thorn forest, the sun was still high enough. Blood dotted her sleeves and the old woman's costume was damaged, but the disguise held. More importantly, she had learned something. The forest itself would not stop her. No bridge, no barrier, no path too dangerous. She would reach the cottage before dark, and nothing Snow White could trust—not distance, not isolation, not the forest's protection—would keep her safe. Grimhilde adjusted the basket and kept walking.