“Witch!” the man shouts, spittle wetting the rickety table I’ve spread next to a vegetable stand. “Damned witch!” Villagers turn toward me, their gazes burning.

“What makes you say that?” I say in the most soothing tone I can manage, slipping the Death card into the deck.

“You’ve got no husband.” He winces as if I have the plague. “Every girl over fifteen in this village is married or promised.”

I want to shout that I’ve known love. I want to shout that I’ve known lake water past my thighs and bright laughter with a girl on a summer’s day. But what would be the point of countering his hate with all I’ve lost? “I don’t have a husband, but I’m no witch—”

The man seizes a lit torch from a nearby stall, and it flares like a fiery rose in his grip. Sparks dance between us as he steps closer. I run in the opposite direction, but a wall of villagers blocks my escape and pushes me back. I stumble. The hair on my arm singes, and the pungent stink fills my nose.

“Burn her! Burn her!” The villagers’ jeers deafen me.

My dress catches fire. Flames engulf me like they engulfed Nimue. An ancient fury writhes within me, and I welcome the wings sprouting from my shoulder blades.

In flight, I feel free for the first time since the lake. Since Nimue. The villagers trip over their feet as their shrieks cut through the night.

I blast everything in sight with fire. Flames lick the thatched roofs like they licked her summer dress. The angry man with the torch is gone. Behind this pyre, the hooded figure of Death stains the sky red.