“So, how did you find me?“ I asked simply. I needed holes in their answers to gauge what they were going to mean to me. Allies that could be weaponized or enemies in disguise?

One of the younger women, fierce-eyed and wind-bitten rose up just slightly, enough to speak.

“We heard,” she began, “of the girl pulling in powerful Melbringers for a cleansing.“

She ambled forward, her boots crunching frostbitten moss. “We were hunting one of them. A Melbringer who thought she could ...