Winnie Sanderson woke on a cold stone floor with one thought burning in her skull: her spellbook was gone. The book held the recipe for her potion of eternal youth. Without it, she would wither like a dead leaf. She clawed to her feet and searched the dusty room, but her hands came up empty. Someone had beaten her again, and they had taken the one thing she could not live without. She stood in the old cottage, her home, now silent and robbed. The last fight returned to her in flashes. Candles. Shouting children. A circle of salt she could not cross. Then nothing. She had lost, and in losing she had lost the book. Now she had no trail, no clue, no first step. A hunter without a scent is only a fool stumbling in the dark. Winnie's sisters were not here to help her. She was alone. Her anger was useless. She forced herself to think. The book was not an ordinary object. It was bound with old magic, stitched with spells into every strap and clasp. Magic like that leaves a mark. Magic calls to magic. She found a shallow bowl on the hearth and filled it with rainwater from a cracked window ledge. She pricked her thumb on a rusted nail and let three drops fall. The water turned dark. She leaned over it and whispered the only words that mattered. "Book. My book. Show me where you sleep." For a long moment, nothing stirred. Winnie's heart pounded. If this failed, she had no other plan. Then the water trembled. A thin green light rose from the surface, the same green that glowed on the book's painted star. The light thickened into a line. It pointed straight through the window, toward the town below. Winnie gripped the bowl so hard it cracked. The spell had worked. The book still lived. It still answered her blood. The green thread hung in the air, faint but steady, like a hair of light pulling toward the heart of the town. She followed the thread to the window and looked out. Lamps flickered among the houses. The line sank down into those streets and vanished among the roofs. Her book was down there, in a stranger's hands, inside a town full of people who would gladly burn her. Winnie smiled, and it hurt her stiff face. She had her trail at last. But the thread led straight into the one place most eager to see her dead. She wrapped her shawl tight and stepped out the cottage door. The hunt had begun, and it led downhill, into the light, into danger.

The green thread led Winnie down the hill and into the sleeping town. She kept to the shadows between houses. But dawn broke fast, and lamplight gave way to open streets. A woman spotted her first. The woman screamed and pointed. "Witch! A witch in the market!" Doors banged open. Winnie's green skin and wild hair marked her plain as a brand. Men grabbed rakes and stones. She had walked into the one place that wanted her dead. She ran. Her old legs burned. A stone struck her shoulder and spun her sideways. The crowd closed in, a wall of angry faces. She clawed at the air for a spell, but fear scattered her thoughts. They would have her soon. Then a hand caught her wrist and yanked her through a gap. "This way. Don't argue." The boy pulling her wore a dark jacket with an orange burst across his shirt. Winnie knew him. He was one of the children who had trapped her in salt. Max Dennison. The last person on earth she expected to save her. He shoved her behind a stack of crates. A girl with short brown hair crouched there already, a red backpack on her shoulder. Allison Watts. She pressed a finger to her lips and glared at Winnie. "Make one sound and they find us both." The mob thundered past. Winnie's heart slammed. "Why help me?" she hissed. "You fought me. You stole from me." Max didn't flinch. "We didn't take your book. But I know who did, and I know what you'll do to this town if you get it back wrong." He pulled a small girl closer, a child in a pointed hat and striped stockings. Dani Dennison. His sister, by the way he shielded her. "Dani saw the man who carries it." The little girl lifted her chin at Winnie. "He's mean. Meaner than you." She did not look away. Winnie almost respected the nerve. Footsteps circled back. A hunter in the crowd had doubled around. Allison reached into her pack and flung a white arc into the dirt. Salt. A line of it. "Cross it," she told Winnie. "They can't follow where they think a witch can't be." The hunter saw the salt, saw no witch beyond it, and turned the other way. The trick held. When the street fell quiet, Max stood. "The town will tear you apart on sight. You can't walk these streets as yourself." He looked her over. "But a witch who doesn't look like a witch can go anywhere." Winnie understood. To hunt her book, she would have to stop being Winnie Sanderson. She would need these children, the ones who had beaten her once. Her stomach turned at the thought. She wiped the dust from her cloak and faced them. "Hide me, then," she said. "Make me ordinary. And take me to the man who holds my book."