She led them towards the fire, gesturing to a large log on the ground. "Please, sit. We will bring you blankets and food, and our ceremony will begin momentarily."

Will and Horace glanced at each other, and then sat down on the log bench. As soon as they'd settled, one of the children came running around the side of the fire, carrying two large white clothing items in a neat stack.

"These are dry and warm. Please feel free to remove any wet clothing and lay it out to dry. Your food will come soon," the woman said warmly.

Will and Horace shared another look before they reluctantly, and at the same time, gratefully, began stripping off their outer layers of sodden clothing. They may be surrounded by murderous enemies, but they were cold and wet and appreciated the opportunity to get more comfortable. Will hung his cloak over a nearby log, and Horace left his chain mail on the ground in a heap. They both kept their weapons on hand, though. Neither of them had forgotten what these people had done and were planning to do.

The woman knelt next to Will and took one of the white blankets from the boy's arms. As her sleeves slid back to her wrists, Will swallowed a gasp as his eyes locked on her left arm, which ended at the wrist. There was no hand, no fingers. Just a rounded stump of fully healed flesh covering her wrist. She used the end of it like a hand and didn't struggle to unfold the white cloth at all.

She didn't notice Will's reaction, but Horace, who's eyes were also wide as he noticed her stump, couldn't stop the horrified gasp from escaping his lips. He had not had the chance to be warned by Will about the strange decapitations, and now he was paying the price. Horace's wide eyes glazed over the entire camp, just now seeing the missing hands and legs. His face drained of color, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.

Will couldn't blame him. He couldn't help but stare at the woman's stump as it moved around so close to his face.

The woman glanced up at him, gave him a small smile, and said nothing as she looked back down. He fought the urge to lean away from her as her knee brushed the toe of his boot. This woman, and these people, were not only horrifically disfigured, but they were murderers and criminals. They were his enemy, and he knew better than to let his enemy get too close to him. But so far it seemed she didn't know who they were, and she didn't seem to want to burn them alive or offer them as a sacrifice. So for now, he tolerated it. She was offering them warmth and shelter, even food and clothing. And after the difficult day he and Horace had had, he couldn't turn it down, especially with the prospect of learning more about them.

If their mission to gather intelligence on the druid camp came with a hot fire, fry clothes, and a free meal, all while not getting burned to death, then it was about to be the best mission ever.

Will took the opportunity of the woman's nearness to examine her face closely. She was young, and surprisingly beautiful. She had red hair, like many other druids, thick and curled. Her eyes were hazel, and she had a splatter of freckles across her nose and cheekbones. Lewellyn, that was her name. He remembered it from what the woman at Jenny's restaurant had told them. Lewellyn was supposedly the one who could control fire, the one who was setting fire to many of the buildings. He had been expecting a much older woman, someone who looked evil and a little bit insane, like the King of Celtica. But she looked like Jenny, or Alyss, or any other woman his age. She was not what he had expected, too kind and gentle. She didn't look like a murderer.

She let the white material unfold, revealing a thick cloak, and she reached over Will's shoulders to wrap it around him. She looked up at him, meeting his eyes as she started to tie the front of the cloak together at the base of his neck with her one good hand.

As her hazel eyes met Will's brown ones, she paused and tilted her head, studying him more closely. Her eyes widened. "It cannot be," she whispered.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Is anything wrong?"

Her gaze burned into his, making him blink uncertainly. She didn't answer for a long time, so long that Will shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"I thought that you had..." she trailed off without finishing. After another long pause, she finally asked, "Do you know who I am?"

It was Will's turn to study her closely. He took in her face, her hair, her clothing. The way she held herself. No, she was not familiar. He had never seen her face before, and he had never spoken to her.

Her eyes glowed more intensely, and Will stiffened as his vision went dark for a second. He could still feel the wood underneath his legs, the dirt under his boots, Horace's uncertain breathes next to him. But it was like he went blind for a few seconds.

As soon as the darkness came, it was gone, replaced with new images. Lewellyn was there, still sitting next to him, but the forest around her was replaced with wooden flooring and tongues of flame. He was no longer sitting in the forest, he was at Stamford Inn. He was on the first floor, looking towards the door, trying to find the exit in the hazy smoke. He stiffened further as the visions appeared again, the flames curling into fingers that reached out to him, setting his cloak aflame and singing the hair on his face and arms. In the corner, Alyss stepped out of the fire, her arm stretched out towards him.

But it was not Alyss. It was her.

Lewellyn reached out to him, mouthing words he couldn't understand. He did not answer, just stared at her, recognizing that she and Alyss looked nothing alike. So why had he seen Alyss instead of this woman?

The images melted away, and Will blinked, once again staring into Lewellyn's eyes with the fire behind her making his pupils shrink down painfully to pinpricks. His eyes stung and he rubbed them with the back of his hand, disoriented with the changing visions.

"Will? Are you alright?" he heard Horace whisper to him, but he only had eyes for the strange woman.

"How did you do that?" he said softly. He didn't trust his voice fully enough to shout it, otherwise, he would have.

"So you do know who I am," she replied, equally as soft. Her fingers and wrist finished tying the white cloak around him, and she stood up and backed away from him, the glow in her eyes becoming dimmer and more bearable.

"I do," Will shifted in his seat in relief as she backed off. "Was it you? At the fire?"

She nodded. "I was there, yes. I thought you had died."

"Well, I didn't," Will snapped. "I thought you were someone else. Did you make me see things? Visions and dreams? People who weren't there?"

She shook her head, her brows drawn down in a hard line over her eyes as confusion crossed her face. "Everyone else in that inn stayed asleep and died peacefully. You were the special one, the one we did not expect to see. I did not do anything to you, I only offered my hand to see if you would be willing to become our sacrifice." She turned away from him, staring into the fire, and Will let out a long breath as her eyes finally left his. "You looked at me strangely and then crawled further into the flames. I left, assuming you would die."

"You did not look like yourself. You looked like someone else, I swear it."

"Who?"

Will swallowed hard. "My wife."

She raised her stump to her chin, and if she had any fingers they would have stroked her jaw thoughtfully. "Interesting. Esus blesses me once again, it seems."

She's the one who can start fires. The one the King told me about. Before Will could say anything, Horace beat him to it, his voice rising in anger. "So you're the one who can control the fire?" he asked, his hand going to his sword. "Do you know how many people you've killed?"

The woman only gazed at him matter-of-factly. "I do what my god orders me to do. It is not a crime if it is ordained."

"If you made Will see someone else then were you the one who made me see Cassie?"

"Cassie?" she looked puzzled again.

Horace narrowed his eyes. "My wife. I saw her only a few moments before we met you. She was standing by the fire, calling out to me. Did you make me see her, with your magic?"

The woman smiled. "I did not make you see anything. Esus showed you what he wanted you to see. Perhaps he was beckoning you, to be the next sacrifice."

"Never," Horace hissed. "It wasn't real, it's malicious trickery to lure people to their deaths! How could you?" he shouted loudly. Several people nearby turned to look, and then quickly turned back around, seeming to ignore the entire conversation. They weren't surprised at all.

Will tightened his fist around the hilt of his saxe, a wave of his own anger rising under the surface of his barely controlled emotions. He couldn't wait any longer. He was sick and tired of her deceptions and lies. "You're a druid, with magic. You control the flames. I know all about your tribe, and your ways."

"How do you know that?" She whirled around with a strange mixture of fear and fury in her eyes.

"I know what you do and what you've done. I know about the ceremonies, the sacrifices, the fires you set. The woman you sent yesterday night with a bottle of spiked kerosene, I spoke to her. She told us everything she knew."

Her eyes widened with increasing anger. "Renee? You took her?"

"So that's her name." Will shook his head consolingly. "We took her after she burned down the restaurant in the village. She was injured when I took her into custody, and she told us everything we needed to know without making us hurt her further. She is being treated well and will be released once we get this situation under control."

"So you were inside that fire as well?" She smiled slightly, her anger still simmering under the surface. But now it was replaced with an eerie curiosity, satisfaction almost. "You are lucky, you know that? You're the only person to ever be inside our sacrificial fires and survive it, aside from me. The two of us have unique shared experiences. It makes me wonder if you have been blessed by my god, too." She cocked her head. "Something tells me you have."

Will shrugged. "I don't believe in your god, so I couldn't care less if I've been blessed by him. I'm just thankful to be alive and to have found you and the rest of your tribe."

He expected her to feel threatened, to react with anger or get defensive, maybe even attack him. But instead, she just smiled a little wider. "And I am glad you've found us. You were meant to be here, I can see that now."

She started to walk away without saying anything else, and Will stood uncertainly. "We aren't finished. You have so many more questions to answer--"

"In time. We must begin the ceremony now. I will speak more with you afterward." She waved him away, almost flippantly, and gestured back to the log. "You can both sit here for the remainder of the ritual. You will observe, and not partake." She glanced back one last time, almost out of sight around the side of the fire. "You should both count yourselves lucky, ordinary people never witness our rituals. You're the first to see one in hundreds of years." With that, she disappeared behind the fire.

"Lucky?" Horace snorted, and Will kicked him again. He scowled at Will, pulled the white cloak over his shoulders and tying it. "She's as crazy as King Carr was." He put a hand on Will's arm. "Do you really think it's a good idea to stay here and let them do this? What if they try to burn us alive again? It didn't end well last time, what makes you think this is going to be any better?" His voice lowered and fear crept in. "What if she makes us see things again? What if she can magic us straight into the fire?"

Will clasped his hand and shook his head. "I have no idea what's about to happen, Horace. Trust me, I don't like it either. But do we have a choice? Besides, I have a hunch about her powers. Did you see how she didn't realize she had given us visions? She thought we just saw her, as herself, even though we actually saw her as someone else."

Horace raised an eyebrow. "You think she doesn't realize she's doing it? That it's all some sort of accident?"

She genuinely had no idea that I didn't recognize her. She thinks I stared straight at her in that fire. She somehow doesn't realize that she doesn't look like herself. Maybe it is a magical fire power, who knows. "She did say no one else has ever seen the inside of a sacrificial fire. Maybe everyone sees loved ones in those flames, and they just never knew it before."

Horace shrugged. "We'll have to find out later. Add that to the growing list of things that make absolutely no sense in this whole mess." He adjusted himself to sit more comfortably on the log. "I guess we'll just have to hope we don't die."

"Precisely," Will said quietly. The druids were starting to gather around the fire in lines. They all held bowls in their hands and wore wreaths on their heads, fresh ones this time. They tossed their old wilted wreaths into the fire and each time they added another, the fire hissed and spit, growing larger by the second. Lewellyn stood at the center only a few feet from the hot flames, and raised her arms. "Welcome, my friends. Welcome, visitors. It is time to give thanks to Esus for all he has given us. It is time to pray, to ask what he requires, and to deliver it."

The people all nodded. Will and Horace both stood and moved a few steps away from fire, giving the large gathering of people more space to spread out. They backed all the way up to the tree line, and the chanting started.

The ritual had begun.