A silent shadow descends from the sky in a long swoop. Enormous talons close on her shoulders. With one beat of its great soft wings, the giant owl carries her off into the sky.

The giant owl either cannot hear her, cannot understand her, or does not care. It flies higher.

Isabel does her best to reach up despite the grip on her shoulders and pick at its talons. She doesn't want to fall, but if she could somehow - climb its leg, maybe, pull out its feathers till it lands -

Isabel shrieks. Owls can hear well, can't they? Maybe it will find her too annoying to carry if she just screams and screams - maybe it will at least hold her gently again if she screams when it squeezes.

It eases off again. They're traveling quite fast; already the countryside zipping past far below is nothing she would recognize.

Isabel stumbles when dropped, but his grip won't let her fall. She looks around in bewilderment at the lake, at the owl-man looming over her. "Where am I - why did you take me - what's going on -?"

"Silence," he growls, shaking her by the shoulders.

"You can't just kidnap me -"

Odette shrieks - it hurts, she's afraid - and clutches one hand at one shoulder, one at her head, her name, her name -

"H-hello," says Odette.

No one says anything. They look at her uncomprehendingly.

One of the women opens her mouth and makes a birdlike whistling sound.

"Can... you understand me?" Etty asks, stepping forward, frowning. "Nod if you can't speak."

"What happened to you?"

It should be fairly clear at this point that no coherent answer is forthcoming, and indeed there isn't.

There are some interestingly shaped rocks around, and plenty of trees and bushes, some of which are indeed the sort that produce nuts or berries. In fact there is even an orchard next to the castle, surrounded by a wall but with the gate unlocked.

The side door creaks rustily open.

Etty slips in with as little creaking as she can manage, judges the wind gentle enough not to slam the door shut if she declines to re-close it, and proceeds into the castle cautiously.

It leads her, with a few acoustic detours, to a room at the top of a tower. It's a beautiful room, containing beautiful furniture and a beautiful canopied bed, and in the bed is a girl who may or may not be beautiful under normal circumstances but is currently red-eyed and tear-streaked and cocooned in a tangle of beautiful sheets.

"...Hello," breathes Etty.

"...I guess."

"Tonight. I don't know how many minutes. I walked around the lake first."

"I was - exploring - and I heard you."

"Nobody else ever did that."

"They can't have all been so - despairing as to not even look for tools to get away in the obvious places. Can they? Whatever they are now." A shudder of fear goes through her. "Will that happen to me?"

"It takes years," says the stranger. "Years and years. I don't know how many. And then when you're too far gone he'll find another one."

"So do I," she snorts. "It doesn't mean anything. You're for the Baron. I don't know what he does with you; I've never looked."

"Who are you, why are you here?"

"The Baron is my father."

"I hate him," she adds. "I want to kill him. But we're both immortal, as long as there's a flock..."

"He told me how to break the curse, for some reason, but even if I assume he's telling the truth..."

"Of course he did. He's not going to let you do it. The last time a man fell in love with Odette, he wrapped me in spells and made me go seduce him."

"And now I suppose he's made it even harder to. Meet people, than it was then," murmrs Etty. "- Don't call me Odette. I can't remember what it should be instead, but. Etty."

"Don't call me Odile," says the girl, smiling crookedly. "But I can't think of anything I like better."

"...Do you want me to think of something?"

"If you want," she shrugs.

"I'll think about it," Etty says. "...Is it safe for me to be here? Do you ever come out to the lake?"

"I've never done it before. I don't know what he'll do if he finds you here. Probably not anything you'll like."

"That would be in keeping with the trend. Does he come to this room much?"

"Plenty."

"I'm trying to figure out where to hide if he comes up the stairs while I'm here."

"Probably," she says, declining to cover herself.

"Are - you sure you wouldn't rather - put on some clothes -?"

"...Why?"

"Most people prefer it, in company."

"I don't think you're going to fuck me, so what do I care?"

Etty swallows. This person is the only friendly individual remotely accessible. If she wants any help getting out she'll have to accommodate her, at least on minor subjects. "As you like."

"...Something wrong?"

"Apart from my having been kidnapped and cursed?"

She shrugs. "Guess not, then."

"So someone managed to claim an unclaimed heart before? How did that happen?"

"Some prince was out hunting and almost shot her, then she turned human and he was smitten on the spot, apparently. He was very sweet to her. When the Baron sent me to him it was the best a man has ever treated me."

"- Then what happened?"

"He found out I wasn't really Odette and panicked and went to her and they threw themselves in the lake. When they died it loosed the flock and the Baron had to run and get another one to get his immortality back. I wish I'd killed him when I had the chance."

"He specified that I couldn't drown myself."

She snorts.

"I haven't tested it," Etty adds.

"Are you going to?"

"Things would have to be worse than they have been so far. Or I'd have to be able to accomplish a lot by dying that I couldn't do any other way."

She shrugs.

"You really don't know what he's going to do with me?"

"I hear him shouting at them sometimes," she offers. "He does that a lot. To me, too."

"Why? What about?"

"He tells me I'm a baron's daughter and I need to act like it," she says. "You, he named after my mother, so maybe he'll scream at you for leaving him."

"He named me after your mother?". Etty does not have words for how twisted that is.

"I don't know if he'll want to fuck you, but it wouldn't surprise me," she adds.

"I - I - thank you for warning me," whispers Etty.

"Perhaps, but - it would not be a pleasant surprise."

"True enough."

"Do you know - any details about how the curse works? If I am the first to do something so obvious as walk through an unlocked door there might be hope."

"Less than you do, I think. Except - when the Baron sent me to seduce that prince, I was supposed to make him say he loved me."

"Something about the unclaimed heart. Probably. If he said he loved you then his heart wouldn't be properly unclaimed for his Odette?"

"I guess. He didn't give me reasons."

"There's only ever been the one, and he was a man."

"But as far as you know the curse doesn't care."

"I don't know at all."

"I don't know anything about the early times," she says, shaking her head. "I can give you pens and inks and books, that's simple enough -" and she gets up, abandoning her sheets, and rummages in the drawers of an enormous oak desk.

"...Yeah. So've I. Do you think it's sudden or gradual?"

"Gradual. That's how the magic works," she says. "If he took them all at once he couldn't use them to make us immortal."

"...So if I break the curse you're going to die."

"Not right away," she says. "Unless I try to kill him and he kills me first. I just won't be young and beautiful forever anymore. But I'm tired of being young and beautiful."

"Of being young and beautiful," murmurs Etty, "or just of the circumstances you have to do it in?"

She snorts. "It's the same thing, isn't it? I don't really think I can kill him. I just know I'm going to try, next chance I get."

"What makes him hard to kill besides the part where he's immortal?"

"He's twice my size, a trained swordsman, a sorcerer, and sometimes when I look at him I can't think for screaming?"

"I don't know. I've tried. I've picked up a few things just living with him, but when he caught me with one of his books—" She shakes her head. "I catch fire if I try the library door, now."

Etty hisses a sharp indrawn breath. "Eegh."

"So I can light candles and freeze raindrops and make my rooms tidy themselves, but I can't do anything useful."

"I take it the spells for candles and raindrops won't work on a person. At least not him."

"You think I've never tried lighting his beard on fire? He put it out. I suppose I could freeze a drop of his spit but I don't see how it'd help."

"I was thinking freezing his blood. Or the fluid in his spine, or his brain."

"One raindrop's worth at a time, when I can't see any of it? Stabbing him would be surer."

"A small ice crystal in the heart could - well, if it were sharp, otherwise I suppose it would just melt harmlessly," muses Etty, nibbling her lip.

"You've a vicious turn of mind," she snorts. "I like that. But he's by far a better mage than I am. If I try a little trick like that, he'll catch me, and then he'll be on his guard and it'll be that much harder to get him on the next try."

"Not once."

Etty lets the obvious conclusions hang in the air for a moment.

"Do you want me to try loving you?"

"Absent other ways out. If you could."

"I don't know," she says, perching on the edge of her bed. "I've never tried."

"I don't think I'm unlovable. Although I've tried to avoid - attention - from men in my village, and doubt any women would have dared tell me if they were interested any more than I cared to chance whispering to them."

"Avoiding attention," she says. "Isn't that a dream."

"Perhaps we'll be out of here soon. Or if not me," she shrugs, "then - the next, I suppose, or the one after, if this goes on indefinitely, and you'd still have the chance to save yourself and all who'd have come after."

"I'll try with you," she decides. "You, I like."

Etty smiles a little bit. "Let me know if I can do anything in particular to help."

"Well, tell me about you," she suggests. "I hardly know anything about who you are. Maybe princes can fall in love with just a pretty face, but I think I need a little more to go on."

Etty sits on the floor and pulls her knees up to her chin. "I grew up in Astgabels. In Diotaland - are we even still in Diotaland? I have little enough sense of geography that I don't know how far he carried me. My mother died when I was small so it's just been me and my father, Carl. He's the sheriff. I kept house, but I had time to read - I was friends with the bookseller's daughter; she'd loan me things - and write. I mostly write about my own thoughts. I spend a lot of time in my head. That's what I wanted this for," and she lifts the blank scroll. "Especially since now I must fear forgetting - everything. Not just slippery brief thoughts."

"We're in Diotaland," she says. "Though my knowledge of geography isn't much better. I've only ever left the lake that once."

"I have not often traveled either. To a few neighboring towns, to buy things, not otherwise. But unworldly though I may be, I am puzzled about why the Kaiser calmly tolerates a baron who has been routinely kidnapping and draining the minds out of girls."

"Doesn't know, doesn't care, couldn't do anything about it if he did?" she suggests. "One of those, or maybe all three."

"Perhaps. Although - if it takes years to drain each, if the flock I saw is the second - there may have been more than one Kaiser since this began. I have heard that the royal court employs a sorcerer. Perhaps he is not a very good sorcerer, or the rumor was mistaken."

"Oh, it's been lifetimes," she says, nodding. "When the prince came, it was his mother who ruled. That must have been fifty years back at least. Maybe more like a hundred."

"You haven't been counting," observes Etty.

"What would be the point?"

"To know. To have an idea of how much the world outside the lake and the castle might have changed since the last time you had a look."

"I'm probably never going to see the world outside the lake again. I don't have anything to look forward to except my father's death or mine, and after the prince I was sure I'd never see either, until you showed up. Now - " She sighs. "I have no idea."

"Carl must be frantic. I'm sure I woke him when I screamed or he might have gone without noticing till dawn, but..."

"Is he likely to make trouble about you? The baron might have gone to kill him, if so."

"Sorry," she adds.

Etty covers her face with both hands and attempts to cry very quietly.

Etty tucks the blanket in around herself and continues to weep. "I know your father is - is who he is - but mine, I love him, and he would make trouble, does the Baron know that? How would he know, when he just picked me up out of the yard...?"

"He would've been watching you first," she says. "He does that. He's gone for months, sometimes, when he's looking for a new Odette. Has to find just the right one."

Etty whimpers.

The baron's daughter leads her gently to the bed and sits her down and hugs her.

Etty cries on her shoulder, quite effectively distracted from the nudity at this point.

"You can cry all you want," she says, "I don't mind."

The baron's daughter hugs her some more. "I know what you mean," she murmurs. "But sometimes I cry anyway."

"I know," says Etty ruefully, and she hugs back.

Hugs. Snuggly blankety hugs.

"I am so afraid of losing my mind," Etty murmurs. "Of writing so carefully so I don't forget and one day looking at the scroll and not remembering what it's for, or not being able to read it."

"I know," she says. "It'll be years, at least. Years and years."

"Depends on what goes first. I don't know why he cares if Odettes have minds left, but it's probably not for our literacy or our introspection."

"I don't think what the Baron wants matters that much to how the spell works, or there wouldn't be a way to break it like there is."

"Did he just - find the entire curse in a book, or is part of how you build spells a matter of obeying restrictions like allowing a way to break them?"

I'm supposed to know?" she snorts. "I just know he wouldn't have made it like that if he'd had a choice."

"No," agrees Etty, sighing, "I suppose he wouldn't. How do you light candles and freeze raindrops?"

"With magic," she says, leaning her head on Etty's shoulder. "I don't know how to teach it; I've never tried before."

"But - what do you do, are there steps or is it just like lifting your arm?" Tentatively, thoughtfully, Etty lifts her hand to rest it on the other girl's hair.

"Hm."

"Hm?"

"...It's not almost dawn, is it? I feel - odd."

"I don't think so. The sky's still dark."

"That's what I thought. There's this odd warm feeling. But if I'm not about to turn into a swan I don't know what it could be."

"I have warm feelings too," she offers.

Etty blinks. "Do you think it's the same thing?"

"...Mm?"

"My odd warm feeling and your odd warm feeling. Do you think they're related or were you just saying?"

"Mine's not odd at all. It's nice, I like it."

"Mine's - nice, I guess, it's just confusing, it's like someone's laid their arm against my spine and has their hand on the back of my neck. And I don't know why that should be because that's not where your arm actually is."

"Oh. Mine's not like that," says the baron's daughter.

"What is it, then?"

"Warm," she says. "And nice. Do you want to come into bed with me?"

"We're already sitting on - I - what do you mean?"

"I mean do you want to come into bed with me and share my blankets and hug like we're doing," she says. "I'd like that."

Etty thinks about this, then nods and repositions.

The baron's daughter crawls under the blankets with her and snuggles up, tucking her arm around Etty's waist and putting her head on Etty's shoulder again.

"Is it bad if you do? I could pinch you to keep you awake," she offers.

"Well," says Etty. "Soon enough I'll turn into a swan. I don't know if I'll start out knowing how to fly, so I might not like to be put out the window."

"You think he's - away, then. Going back to Astgabels."

"I don't know where he is, but he's not here."

"All right. Am I going to think like a swan when I'm a swan, do you know?"

"If you do, I'm going to have a hell of a time getting you out of my room," she giggles.

"Yes, probably," says Etty with a weak chuckle.

The baron's daughter hugs her.

Snuggle snuggle.

The baron's daughter sleeps on.

The blankets aren't so tangled as to make escape truly impossible.

With her wings out, Etty manages to fumble her way across the bed so she won't disturb the baron's daughter as she experiments with the new joints and the sensation of wind resistance when she moves. Her feet also take some figuring; the knees bend the wrong way and she's got the wrong number of toes.

Etty dips her head.

"You are," she says, delighted. "D'you want the window or the door?"

Etty's pretty sure she can't really walk, let alone fly - though she's definitely going to try flying, soon - and she turns her head in the direction of the door.

Etty nestles comfortably in her arms for this trip. But halfway down the stairs she finds her voice and peeps a soft swan noise.

"Mm? What is it?"

Can swans give withering looks? This one is going to try. She cannot answer the question. But she can lift her head up and look over the baron's daughter's shoulder back the way they came.

"Okay," she says, puzzled, and she carries Etty back up.

Etty points her beak at the scroll and ink and pen.

"Oh, that," she says, and puts down her armful of swan, and frowns thoughtfully.

Etty looks up at her. Surely she can just make two trips if she can make one? But she can't ask.

"I'll bring it out to you later," she says, and picks Etty up again.

Etty nods and settles her head on her own back for the ride. (It's kind of fun to do that once she's gotten over the concern that she will injure herself doing it.)

Down they go.

Etty waits to be put down. Not particularly impatiently. The baron's daughter is pleasant to be held by.

Just outside another of the side doors, the baron's daughter puts her down, then leans down and kisses her on the beak.

This surprises a little sound out of Etty.

"...Can you get in there when you're human, though?"

Etty nods.

She shrugs. "Okay. Then that's where I'll put it. He hardly ever goes there."

Etty nods again, then tries walking some more. She's not very good at it; if she thinks through each step in full detail she overbalances halfway through and if she tries to speed up she forgets how her joints work.

She giggles.

Etty clacks her beak at the baron's daughter. She stumbles over to the water, where at least she can expect to float if she forgets how to work her legs.

Etty waves.

"- Are you okay? That's - a drop."

"I'm immortal," she shrugs. "And the Baron thinks scars are unladylike, so I heal clean."

"But doesn't it hurt?"

"Not that much. I've had plenty worse."

"I heard a noise, it sounded like you broke a bone."

"Yeah, my ankle. It's all better now, see?" She twirls, moving lightly on both feet.

"...I guess you got used to it after however many decades?" ventures Etty uncertainly.

"Breaking bones is nothing new," she agrees.

"Why are you dressed like that?" Etty asks next.

"I hate wearing my dresses, but it's not comfortable being out here naked."

"What's wrong with your dresses?" She has many complaints about her situation, but her white feather dress isn't really one of them.

"He makes me wear them."

Etty looks down at her own outfit. "I haven't even been yelled at yet, and yet if I were to list the sources of my displeasure the fact that I did not choose this dress would not rate highly."

"That's you," says the baron's daughter. "I'm me. We're not the same."

"That is true."

"And you might not care about wearing dresses, but I care that my father beats me when I wear clothes he doesn't like, so I do it whenever I don't think he'll catch me."

"My favorite is 'Nona', but if you don't like it I have second and third choices."

"Nona's pretty. What are the other ones?"

"Verena. Saskia."

"I like Nona best," she decides, and she gives Etty a hug.

Hugs!

Hugs. Cuddly snuggly warm lovey hugs.

"That odd feeling is back. Well, it didn't leave, but it's changed," observes Etty. "I think it has something to do with you."

"Maybe it's the spell, telling you I love you."

"- Do you?"

"I've never done it before, how should I know? But I like you plenty," she says, snuggling her some more.

"I don't know. But I think he would've come roaring back here already if he knew."

Etty nods slowly. "Makes sense."

Nona shrugs.

"Maybe I should pay close attention to when the sensation changes."

"What for?"

Etty decides to summarize the reason as: "Impatience."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"If it's giving me useful information about what's helping, with the cursebreaking - then I could do more of whatever helps," shrugs Etty. "If it's smart feedback, anyway, it might not be."

"What exactly breaks the curse, anyway? Or do you not know?"

"He said that if someone who has never loved before swears to love me forever, then the curse would be broken."

"...Do they have to mean it?" she wonders.

"He... didn't say. I suppose you could just try reciting a sentence to that effect, to see."

"...The spell doesn't like it," Etty reports.

"So I guess I have to mean it," she says. "...How do I mean it?"

"I don't know. I've never been in love before at all."

"Well, have you ever kept a promise?"

"Yes - of course. Little ones."

"How do they work?"

"Someone asks me to promise something - Carl asks me to promise to be careful walking in the rain, Annika asks me to have a book back in three days - or seems unsure about something I might do - the butcher's not sure I really only left my coinpurse at home and will pay him tomorrow, the neighbor's not sure I'll tell Carl about needing to repair the fence -" She swallows a little when she mentions her father. "And I say I promise, and it means that I will try particularly hard, that as long as it's in my control it will happen and that I think it is in my control."

"I don't think loving you is very much in my control," she says. "And forever's a long time."

"It is a very long time," agrees Etty.

"Didn't work," Etty sighs. "Not as - cold, though."

"I guess that's better?"

"I guess."

"Sorry," she says, and hugs her again.

"...If I leave it here even after writing on it, are you going to read it?"

"I don't know. Do you want me to?"

"No."

"Okay, then I won't." She grins. "I promise."

"You seem sufficiently confused by the concept of promises that I'm not sure what to read into that."

"Well, you just explained them, didn't you?"

"Yes, I suppose I did." She chews her lip. "Don't take it personally if I decide to move it anyway - sometimes I'm paranoid."

"Okay," she says agreeably.

It's going to be hard to write in the dark, but she has all night every night to let her eyes adjust, Etty supposes. She starts looking for a flat rock that will be suitable for writing on.

There's one on top of the pile that should do nicely.

Excellent. And she's not going to be able to see any letters she puts down, yet, and Nona's standing right there, so it is not yet time to do her processing. "Is he still away?"

"I guess he is. He usually goes to the lake first, when he comes home from something."

"Maybe Carl is hard to kill."

"Maybe!"

"But probably not."

Hugs.

Hug hug.

"I'm afraid," murmurs Etty. "Of what will happen when he comes back."

"It's scary," says Nona, hugging her. "I'm sorry."

"Why is he like this, what happened - or has it always been this way?"

"I don't remember it that well," she says. "I was - well, about the age I look, when Mother left. A little older when he finally brought her back."

"I'm seventeen," volunteers Etty after a silence.

"I don't remember how old I am."

"Do you know what year you were born?"

She shakes her head.

"It's 1878 now."

Nona shrugs.

"Transforming isn't as bad as it could be, and being a swan isn't terrible except that I can't talk - or write," Etty comments idly. "I didn't figure out how to fly today, but I might tomorrow."

"I hope you do," she says. "I bet it's fun."

"I bet it is too."

Nona grins.

"I guess you don't turn into any kind of bird."

She shakes her head.

"What do you do all day," wonders Etty, "if you can't go into the library anymore?"

"Eat. Sleep. Cry. Climb things. Fall off of them. Tidy the castle. Fuck myself."

Etty permits herself a blink at that last.

"What?"

"I don't usually hear people talking about that."

"You asked me what I do all day. I do a lot of that."

"I suppose you do have to occupy yourself somehow." She chews her lip. "...Is the bit about catching fire in the library just you, or could I go in?"

"I don't know. But if you catch fire, you might not live through it, so I wouldn't try it if I were you."

"So us swan types are only eternally youthful, and not invulnerable," concludes Etty.

"He could've changed something after the prince, but if he did, I don't know about it."

"I'll only try it if I become so bored or desperate as to risk immolation, then."

"Okay."

"People say burning is the worst death. Are they right?" asks Etty.

"It hurts a lot. I don't know if it's the worst death; I've never died."

"I imagine the dying part is roughly similar in all cases."

"I've done a lot of things people die from, but it's different when you're immortal. I've been set on fire and beaten and raped, and I've jumped off the top of the tower and tried to drown myself in the lake and eaten rat poison and broken glass. Fire hurts the most while it's happening, but it doesn't last as long as some of the rest - but I don't know if it'd kill you faster or slower."

Etty shivers.

"What?"

"It's - gruesome."

"Well, maybe it's fixable."

"Maybe."

"Do you think you could teach me to light - does it have to be candles, or could I burn leaves and tinder and the like? I think I can adjust to this level of moonlight and be able to write, but the moon will wane, and I don't know how - how long it might take to break the curse."

"I have no idea," she says. "But if you light anything, he'll see it from the castle. And there'll be hell to pay if he sees you doing magic, I bet."

"Even if I go deep into the woods? Or as deep as I can, anyway, I don't know yet what's keeping me from walking or flying away but it must exist."

"Maybe not. And I guess he can't hurt you as bad as he can hurt me, or you'll die and he'll have to find a new flock again."