Epilogue

There was no reason to stay in Soth In’La and every reason not to, but it hurt to leave it behind, knowing what they’d lost. Cree and Ume returned to the Northern Lake to wait—for what, Cree wasn’t sure. Would the Hidden Folk seek them out? Did they already know? It seemed the right thing to do, regardless. It was almost spring by the time they arrived, but Cree barely noticed the crocuses and narcissus poking up along the road between patches of thaw.

Despite the ache inside her, Cree went on as she had before, finding work washing dishes in a little town off the lake while Ume took orders for dresses when the locals learned she’d sewn her own. They’d been settled a week and had seen nothing of the Hidden Folk. Cree wondered if they gave a damn. They’d only wanted their property kept from the hands of a mortal, after all. With both mortal and child dead, she supposed they must be satisfied.

She hadn’t cried—not then, when the pregnancy had been forced upon her or when she’d lost the child as she supposed, and not now that she knew the truth and had lost the child twice over. But feeling Ume’s sorrow as she lay beside her at night was like having the blood leeched slowly out of her. Ume had wanted to tell her of the boy, how he seemed in the brief look she’d gotten of him, but Cree had asked her not to. It was a comfort, at least, that the boy had no name to haunt her memory. She didn’t need a face.

“We should go out to the woods,” Ume murmured from the verge of sleep beside her as Cree spooned against her in bed. “They aren’t called the Hidden Folk for nothing.”

What would they say? That they’d tried and failed to rescue the child? And, oh, by the way, thanks for telling us he was mine.

The tears demanded an outlet at last, and Cree hugged Ume to her tightly while she wept for hours, grateful that Ume simply let Cree hold her without words, without trying to soothe or comfort. There was no comfort to be had other than Ume’s love and Ume’s warmth.

In the morning, she agreed to take a walk with Ume to the wooded side of the lake, and they went hand in hand, neither speaking. Cree felt as if she were marching to her own funeral. They sat on the rocky shore among the trees, bundled up and shivering together as they waited. After an hour, Cree was ready to call it quits, feeling a mixture of relief and bitterness at the absence of the Hidden Folk, but as she rose, she saw the Caretaker standing still as one of the trees.

The woman beckoned, and Cree approached with Ume at her side, clinging tight to her hand. She’d meant to start out with the passionless facts, that they’d been unable to save the child, but instead the ache inside her impelled her to an outburst of pain and anger.

“That was my child!” she shouted. “You sent us to fetch my own child for you! What kind of monsters are you? Meer, Hidden Folk, Men! You’re all the same!”

The Caretaker remained unruffled. “There are many things in the pool of knowledge, some bright and clear, others murky. We knew you were the mother of Pearl. We also knew it would make your task harder if the waters of this knowledge were transparent.”

In the midst of more anger at the cryptic speech, Cree paused. “Pearl?”

“The boy chose a name. He spoke, and it became so.”

Ume was crying. “I tried to save him. I failed you all. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Cree.”

Cree pulled Ume close to her side and kissed her hair. “Don’t, love. It isn’t your fault. Please don’t. If they weren’t so damned set on not interfering in the affairs of mortals, they could have saved him themselves, years ago.”

“You misunderstand,” said the Caretaker calmly. “We do not travel beyond the hill. It was not until you came near that we were able to engage you. It seemed the right solution, but we do not have foreknowledge, only knowledge.”

“I didn’t come near,” Cree grumbled. “You came into the middle of Mole Downs and interfered in my affairs. You ought to have left me there.”

“Cree.” Ume’s gasp was sharp with surprise and hurt, and Cree felt like an ass for wishing to be dead rather than here with Ume. And she didn’t. Of course she didn’t. But dammit, she wished that just for a little while she couldn’t feel.

The Caretaker, for once, seemed to have an expression of sympathy instead of the cool, emotionless mask. “You came near, Cree Silva, because you died and came under the hill. And you were not in the middle of the town of Mole Downs. The men who attacked you had driven your body out into the wasteland and left you to bleed. That is where I found you, and I knew you for the mother of Alya’s lost child. We do not often change the course of mortal events, but we had been neglectful of our own, and so I chose to act.”

Cree’s throat went dry. She’d suspected she might have died, but this wasn’t what she’d thought. “I’m sorry,” she managed at last. “I am grateful for that. Despite—how it turned out.” She flicked her eyes toward Ume. “I wouldn’t leave you for the world,” she murmured. “Ever.”

“But, again,” said the Caretaker, this time, it seemed, a bit impatiently, “you misunderstand.” She looked at Ume. “You have not failed Pearl. Your actions drove Prelate Nesre to act rashly to protect his prize. As we told you, he coveted even more power. He used Pearl to lure MeerRa to In’La.”

Cree shook her head, not seeing how it was somehow a better outcome that another Meer had been drawn into Nesre’s web.

“The fire was MeerRa’s,” said the Caretaker, speaking slowly, as if Cree weren’t very bright. “She released the boy and killed the prelate.”

“She…what?” Blood pounded in Cree’s ears. She wasn’t hearing right. Couldn’t be, because MeerRa hadn’t been a “she”—of course, Azhra hadn’t been a “he” then, either, and who was Cree to question who anyone else was, after all? But Pearl… What was the Caretaker saying about Pearl?

Ume shook her from her lightheaded confusion with two hopefully expelled words. “Pearl lives?”

The Caretaker inclined her head. “We hear him. He is in the world of the living. He is safe from harm, and he is content.”

“Where?” cried Ume, weeping now with tears of joy as she clung to Cree. “Where is he?”

“He does not tell us the name of the place. Pearl’s world has been very small, and now that his shell has broken open, his thoughts are not as clearly conveyed to us, with so many things to see and hear. But Pearl is clear about one thing. He is with the mother of MeerRaNa.”

The mother of MeerRaNa. Cree felt her knees go weak beneath her, and she dropped unceremoniously onto her ass, though Ume tried to catch her. She had a son—the child of a Meer. And he was with Azhra.