Helga had gone into the forest many times to collect rare plants for growing and brewing, but she had always gone in full daylight, with servants and older students to help her. Being here on a wet, wild night with only Rowena for company was another experience altogether. Raindrops hissed through the half-bare trees and spattered the mossy earth beneath them as they picked their way through the trees. Every now and then, they heard the crash of a rotten branch being blown to the ground, or a faraway animal howl that raised the hair on their arms and necks. Apparently the beasts of the forest were not any happier about the storm than she and Rowena were.

They found the hazel she remembered quickly enough, and Rowena slipped off her broomstick and kept a lookout, wand at the ready, while Helga surveyed the bushy, spreading branches.

"Are there any that will suit?" Rowena asked, not taking her eyes off the surrounding trees.

"A few, I think," said Helga. She drew her knife and removed several long, forked twigs, murmuring thanks and apology to the tree as her grandmother had taught her long ago. When a living thing gave up a part of itself for your benefit, it was only proper to treat it with respect. Good motives, good words, good actions; all these things made for better magic, or so Granny had said. She could not help wondering what Granny would have thought of her motives in this case - after all, she was cutting this wood in hopes of gathering evidence against a man she had always considered a colleague, if not a friend.

Best not to think of that now, she told herself, and concentrated on binding the hazel branches into a neat bundle. She was tying them off with a length of leather thong when Rowena clutched suddenly at her arm.

"I hear something."

"What?" Helga turned to look at her. Rowena's face was pale in the black frame of her cloak hood, her eyes wide with alarm and gleaming with reflected wandlight.

"Listen!"

The sound was so subtle at first that Helga could hardly believe Rowena had managed to isolate it from all the other noises in the forest. It was a stealthy sliding sound, as of something heavy moving across the fallen leaves on the forest floor. As it approached, it grew louder, and they both heard the crash and crunch of vegetation being flattened in its wake.

"It must be the size of a dragon, whatever it is," Rowena said softly. "Helga, your wand."

"Here," said Helga, tucking her bundle under one arm and holding her wand aloft so Rowena could see it. The creature that was making the sound was all but on top of them now; the shadowed undergrowth on the far side of the hazel was bending and swaying with its passage. She thought wildly of trying to escape on the broomstick, but that was impossible; even if it could support their combined weight, they would never be able to get through the maze of trees fast enough, not flying blind in the rainy dark. Beside her, Rowena muttered something under her breath, but whether it was a spell or a prayer, Helga did not know.

"Be still," she whispered. "Let it pass. Do not attack unless you must."

An instant later, a harsh hissing sound erupted from the thrashing, churning brush, and Helga felt her blood congeal in her veins. Rowena's thin fingers dug into her forearm with bruising force, but Helga scarcely noticed; her nightmare had come to life, and she was trapped in it, frozen with the terror of a dream from which she could not wake. Her head swam, but she forced herself to stay upright, knowing that Rowena had not the strength to hold her. The brave words she had spoken to Rowena about fate came back to her like a mockery. This was the sound of fate approaching, and there was no way to know how it would turn.

"It is going away," Rowena breathed next to her ear. "It is almost gone." She was right, Helga realized; the noises were fading, trailing off as the unseen creature moved deeper into the forest. In a moment, the only sound remaining was that of the wind. Rowena's grip slackened and fell away.

"Holy God," she said. "I have never -"

"Nor have I," said Helga. She was certain that her feet would be rooted to the ground, just as they had been in her dream, but when she tried, she found that they moved as well as ever. Thrusting out one hand, she summoned Rowena's broomstick to her. "Come, let's go. We have what we need, and I do not wish to stay here a minute longer."

Rowena re-mounted, and they left the forest in silence, with the bundle of branches lashed to the broomstick's handle to leave Helga's hands free for her wand. Crossing the open ground between forest and castle was torture for them both; it was difficult not to imagine that eyes were watching them from within the trees, or worse, that something was creeping along behind them, ready to strike while their backs were turned.

When they reached the castle, Helga went straight to a side door, jerked it open, and hurried down the steps to the storerooms. Rowena propped her broom against a wall just inside the door and followed more slowly, picking her way so as not to put too much weight on her bad hip. Before she had reached the bottom, Helga had lit a candle, pulled the bung from a cask of wine, filled a rough wooden cup, and drunk the contents down as if they were medicine.

"Give me some of that," said Rowena, arriving out of breath at her side. Helga hesitated - she knew from Rowena's dilated pupils and the slight, almost imperceptible slurring of her speech that she had already had a hefty dose of painkilling potion, and wine on top of that would do her no good. Then she gave in and filled the cup again. After the experience they had just had, she imagined Rowena needed it almost as much as she did.

Rowena took a long gulp, then made a face and handed the cup back to Helga.

"I did not say it was ready to drink yet," Helga said, and finished off the dregs. "Sit down, you look about to faint."

"It was you who looked like fainting just now," said Rowena. "What in heaven's name was that thing? It sounded like a serpent, but a serpent should not have been out at night ... and the size it must have been! I do not recall anything of the sort from the bestiaries."

"We must tell Godric and Salazar about it," Helga said. "If something that large is living in the forest, they ought to know. Suppose it grew too bold and decided to come out? It might harm one of the children."

"If we tell them, then they will know we have been into the forest," Rowena pointed out, "and they will want to know why. What can we tell them that will not reveal our purpose?"

Helga shook her head and filled the cup for a third time. "I cannot say. But it is the proper thing to do, Rowena. If it is some sort of a serpent, then Salazar will be able to talk to it, possibly even control it." Rowena opened her mouth to argue further, and Helga added, "The children are not the only ones who could be in danger. Some of the villagers go into the forest to hunt, do they not?"

"On occasion."

"Often," said Helga. "And I do not think you would want to see them hurt either, would you? Or one of them in particular, I should say."

Rowena frowned and chewed her lower lip for a moment before finally relenting. "You are right, I suppose. Very well, we will tell Godric and Salazar. But not right away. We should at least do the dowsing first. Then if there is something else to tell, we can do it all at once."

"Fair enough," Helga said. She put the empty cup down on top of the cask. The drink's warmth had spread through her body and taken the edge off her upset, but if she had any more, she would not sleep well. "We shall try tomorrow night. I do not think I could hold the rod steady at the moment."

"Tomorrow night, then."