“Yes.” Bert looked very serious. All the robbers looked serious. So did the raven. And the dwarves. They were all looking at Anya—only the Wizard didn’t. She was eating her egg, sprinkling salt on each spoonful before she lifted it to her mouth.
“I have thought about it, and I know it’s important.” Anya hesitated, torn between a strong desire to commit herself to Bert and Dehlia’s cause and an equally strong feeling that she had to stay focused on the Quest. “I’ll do my best, my very best, to talk to Morven about it. If I survive. But I can’t promise anything more.”
Bert opened her mouth to speak, but the Wizard got in first.
“Can’t say fairer than that!” she announced cheerfully.
“But—”
Bert started to talk, but the Wizard held up her spoon.
“No, no, can’t have my guests pestered,” she said. Anya wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw the faintest wink cross her left eye, where Bert could see it but Anya almost couldn’t. Whether it was the words, or the possible wink, or that silver spoon held up so firmly, Bert subsided, though her mouth was set in a grim line. She exchanged a look with Dehlia. Anya could interpret that one, or thought she could. The robber and the raven were not going to give up.
“Why me?” asked Anya. “There must be tons of other princesses, or even princes in a pinch, who are actual heirs to their kingdoms. Why not choose one of them to reestablish the whole Bill of Rights and Wrongs and the High Kingdom and everything?”
“You are not the first we’ve tried,” said Dehlia calmly. The gaze of her single eye was fixed uncomfortably on Anya again. “Nor, it seems, will you be the last.”
“Eat your breakfast, Anya,” said the Wizard. “And you may ask your questions. Danash and Holkern are in the treasure room, and will bring up a selection of gifts for you to choose from shortly.”
Anya ate her first breakfast while Ardent galloped through a second and possibly third breakfast next to her, if you counted the two-minute pause he’d taken between polishing off a plate of fried bacon and eggs and a bowl of porridge.
“You’ll get fat,” she said to him as he looked longingly at a plate of freshly cooked kippers.
“I’m just making up for future lost meals,” said Ardent with dignity. But he didn’t take a kipper. Smoothie did, eating it slowly with her face all scrunched up, until the Wizard suggested she go to the reflecting pool and catch her own fresh eels.
Shrub was under the table again, as was evidenced by the occasional horrible crunching noise as some particularly hard-shelled insect met its end.
“Witches,” said Anya when she had finally finished breakfast, toast crumbs and marmalade drops just wiped off her mouth.
“Yes?” asked the Wizard.
“I remember reading somewhere ‘All witches are cooks, but not all cooks are witches.’ What does that mean?”
“Cooking is the foundation of witches’ magic,” the Wizard answered. “They cook blessings or curses. So they must be cooks to begin with.”
“The stories say they’re all ugly,” said Anya. “But in the vision I saw, they looked normal. I’m pretty sure they were witches. A coven of thirteen. I mean, some were better-looking than others, but they didn’t have those horrible noses, and the hairy warts and everything.”
“Ah, you didn’t see them dressed up,” said the Wizard. “Great-Aunt Deirdre had the most awful hairy wart. She used to put it right on the end of her chin. Ghastly! But no, they’re just like you and me. The tall hats, the warts, the snake-infested hair—that’s all traditional costume. Like my beard, hat, and staff.”
“And in the stories I read witches are always evil,” said Anya. “But again, the ones I saw seemed nice enough. Hard to tell just from that, though.”
“Some witches cook more curses than blessings,” said the Wizard. “Sometimes that’s because they feel out of sorts with people and want to make trouble. That kind often gets called evil. But far more often the curse cookers are doing it because that’s what people in their local area want. Supply and demand. They’re not intrinsically evil. Or good. But witches do tend to be good at business. Sometimes they get so good at it they become confused about good and evil, measuring everything only in terms of money.”
Anya nodded. This made perfect sense, and fitted in with the plan that had been forming in her head ever since her bath.
“The preparations I saw in my vision, the thirteen witches getting ready to cook something tomorrow … I guess today, actually … their kitchen was under canvas spread between standing stones. Do you know where that might be?”
The Wizard looked at Bert, who still had a very serious expression on her face.
“Probably Brokenmouth Hill in the middle of the Blasted Heath,” said Bert slowly. “The standing stones look like teeth, hence the name. Witches do use it for their feasts.”
“Is it far away?” asked Anya. “And is the Blasted Heath very dangerous?”
“Two, maybe three days on foot for you,” Bert replied. “But the Blasted Heath is safe enough. Lots of little farms and villages, and most of the villages have their own witch.”
“I thought it would be a barren wasteland,” said Anya. “Inhabited by fell creatures. That’s what it said on my favorite map. There were pictures of all kinds of monsters on it.”
“That must be a very old map,” said the Wizard. “The Blasted Heath was indeed like that long ago, but has been settled and prosperous for centuries now.”
“It’s too far, though,” said Anya, her face a little fallen. “I thought I could get my pint of witches’ tears there tonight.”
“Witches don’t c-c-ry,” said Ardent. “I remember that. C-c-can’t remember why.”
“It would be more accurate to say witches don’t cry from sorrow,” the Wizard clarified. “Nor do they laugh. At least not in front of outsiders.”