My consciousness returns slowly. It’s less like waking up than swimming from the bottom of a deep pool back into open air. I dream of lying on soft sheets, of being tended by people with melodic, throaty voices who feed me broth and medicine and cool water. I’ll never have enough water again.

Then I’m awake. Really awake. I’m reclined in a warm bath in an airy, sun-filled room. There’s a slight ache in my head, but it’s comfortable here. I can hear the crackle of a fire, and greenery is visible through the window. Ferns with long, twisting tendrils hang from hooks in the ceiling, and the warm water smells of scented oil and herbs. There are round red berries floating on the surface like lingonberries in a forest pool.

After so many days trudging through the bone-chilling cold of Poison Forest, I think I must be dreaming. Perhaps Gate has used his magic on me again. If so, this is good magic. Very good. Not like what dogged us on the path through the woods or lurked in the dark water. Not like the green sap that burst from my arm in my dream of Thorne. I touch my mouth, almost expecting my fingers to brush against leaves and vines, forcing their way past my teeth.

I catch a whiff of something savory, and a fae woman in a robe enters the room and places a tray beneath the window. She’s a hamadryad, a tree nymph with skin of gray-brown bark and hair like weeds decorated with acorns. She hobbles and I realize she only has one leg, that the other is a wooden prosthetic.

I try to sit up, but pain sears across my arm. I look down at the four slashes cutting across my flesh. The stitches have been removed, and the infection cleaned out. The bath I’m lying in seems to have helped draw out the poison. The cuts are no longer seeping green pus or black around the edges.

The dryad sees me moving and rushes to the side of the tub, surprisingly quick.

She touches my forehead. “Praise Thorne, you’re awake.”

I blink at her. “Where am I?”

“You made it to Cliff Sedge, the home of King Cygnus.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Oakroot. I was summoned here from my tree to heal you. How do you feel?”

“Better.” I give her what I know must be a frightened look. “Is your tree in Thornewood?”

She shakes her head. “It’s kind of you to ask, but no. My sister’s was, though. She escaped, but when her tree died, she perished with it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

She nods, her face placid as a forest pool. Hamadryads are slow and quiet, and difficult to disturb. Long years of sleep inside their trees teach them to keep their emotions buried deep.

“Where is the girl who was with me, Neev?” I ask, suddenly frightened. I don’t remember how I got here. “And the young man, Agate?”

“Agate is in a healing room of his own, and Neev is resting. She’ll come in to help you dress for the early autumn feast tonight.”

The sylphs have more than one feast per season. They’re in tune with every nuance of time.

“It didn’t feel like late summer in the forest. It was so cold.”

“The spell the sorcerer cast over Thornewood hasn’t touched us. Our greenhealers have kept it off, healing the trees each time it starts to creep in, casting spells of protection and renewal.”

Just the mention of the forest makes me shiver, but she misinterprets it. “Here, you’ve grown cold.” She unfolds a towel and helps me out of the bath. My joints creak and my muscles protest, but I’m no longer cold, and that’s something to be grateful for. My mind seems to have cleared as well.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“A few days. We feared you might not wake at all, but I let your arm soak in the healing baths every day, and they seem to have revived you. Now, let’s see.”

She gestures for me to hold out my hand and inspects the gashes in my forearm. Giving a nod of satisfaction, she smears my arm with a balm that smells of green leaves and clean, moving water. When I close my eyes, it gently tingles, soothing the pain.

“New skin will grow soon,” she says. “It’s already improved from when you arrived. Just rest until it does. Eat—regain your strength.”

I let her bandage my arm and help me into a white tunic and a pair of soft, woven breeches. This close, she smells like raindrops on grass and fresh-turned forest earth. The food she left beneath the window for me is the best I’ve ever eaten—crusty bread, soft-boiled eggs with fresh fruit, and porridge made of ground, boiled tree nuts. I eat slowly. My stomach feels like a cavern, but I haven’t eaten enough to fill it in over a week, and I don’t want it rebelling against the food.

Cliff Sedge is built into one of the crags of the mountain called Frostmead, and my window looks out over the forest below. I study the colors of autumn beginning to turn the canopy of trees from green to red and gold, as they should. But farther out, past the border of Shoreana, I can see fingers of darkness, like ink spilled across a page of beautiful illustrations. I shudder and hug myself. 

Neev’s room is connected to mine and I go in when I’m finished eating. I find her lying beneath a linen coverlet on a canopied bed. She stirs at the sound of my footsteps and sits up to stretch.

“Thedra, you’re awake!” She swings her legs over the side of the bed, but I motion for her to stay and sit down beside her. Her wide gray eyes search my face with concern. “How are you?”

“Not normal, but better.”

She nods, chewing at her lip. “We were very worried.”

“I remember.” I give her a half-smile. “You offered to pray to Zori for me. And then Thorne.”

She looks embarrassed. “I just wanted to help you feel safe if you were...”

“Dying?”

She nods. It’s strange, being from a country where death is always on everyone’s mind. Zeleners speak of it like something forbidden.

“What happened after we drank the water from the lake?” I ask. “Everything is hazy and I’m not sure what was real and what wasn’t.” I think of Thorne’s rabbit eyes and stag horns.

“You wandered off, and we spent hours following the trail, trying to find you. Finally, we heard a sound, like an explosion. When we found you, you had that wound, and you were...confused. Gate kept trying to calm you, help your mind clear. But the fever made it worse. The water affected Gate, too. Made him irritable.”

I laugh softly. “Are you sure it wasn’t just his regular mood?”

She smiles. “It was difficult to tell. It wasn’t as bad for him as you. But you were already so sick.”

Neev pulls the blanket back and pats the bed beside her, as if assuring me everything is all right. I snuggle down beside her under the soft, woven spread, enjoying the smoothness of the sheets on my bare feet.

“It’s so nice to be warm.” I have a pang of guilt for what I must have put them through. I wonder how she got us both here in one piece, but I’m not sure I want to know the answer. “Is Gate all right?”

She nods. “He’s in one of the fortifying baths. He was drained from trying to keep you calm that last day. But he helped me get you here safely.”

I shake my head. It’s so strange that I don’t remember. I get up and walk around the room, inspecting the fiber-made tapestries and the plants hanging in woven baskets.

“Sylph magic must be awfully strong to have resisted such a horrible enchantment.”

Neev nods in agreement. “They say it’s older than the alliance of the Triumvir.”

“Of course. The sun begot the sylphs, the gods the elementals. The sylphs taught the greenhealers, the elementals taught the mages.”

Children from all the kingdoms learn this saying in school with their letters, but I remember too late that Neev’s mother kept her at home to hide her magic and she won’t be familiar with it.

“There’s a festival tonight,” she says. “With music and dancing. The first of the autumn feasts. Summer fled while we were in the forest. I can do your hair if you like, help you get ready? They brought those for you this morning, in case you woke up.”

She points to a tray where a variety of sylphan hair ornaments are laid out—combs of chestnut and alder carved into the shapes of leaves and ferns, pins of bone, and tiny river stones polished smooth and strung on a circlet of silver. The shimmering powders and dark lip tints so loved in Lazul are conspicuously absent.

I kneel beside the tray, and she joins me. Picking up one of the combs, I run my fingers over the delicate carving and the design of leaf-veins burned into its surface.

“I’ll do my own hair today. I think I’ll wear the circlet of stones, but this comb is perfect for you.”

I tuck the comb into the short, glossy brown tresses above her ear. Her cheeks flush, rosy-sweet against her fair skin.

“Should I glamour my hair?” she asks. “Purple, maybe? Or blue?”

I shake my head. “Deep green, or orange and red for autumn. But only if you want to. It seems like the sylphs favor natural beauty.”

“Dette always liked me to look my best when we were here.”

I arch a brow at her. “I’m not Dette, and the sylphs don’t keep servants. You were only mine for two days, anyway. During which, you plotted to steal my clothes and force me into taking you on a journey. I know you came because you wanted to find Dette, but thank the goddess you deceived me. I’d be dead otherwise.”

Neev’s eyes are on her gloved hands, clasped decorously in her lap, but she raises her head and meets my gaze. “I wanted to find Dette in the beginning. I still do. But I also...”

Before either of us can change our minds, I take her hand. She’s still looking at me, and I know I’m going to kiss her. Because I’ll regret it if I don’t. And I hate living with regrets. Even if it’s the only time, even if we’re both dead by the end of this journey, or if she goes with Dette instead of me, I have to let her know how I feel. But before I can, a sylph comes in through the open door.

“Princess Thedra!”

“What?” I say irritably.

“Your other companion is asking for you.”

Agate is tucked up in bed, cramming food from a tray into his mouth.

“Good morning,” I greet him. “You survived.”

He shoves a wad of bread into his cheek with his tongue so he can talk. “Yeah, no thanks to you, Thedra, wandering off, refusing to walk, accusing me of all manner of deceit and treachery.”

Neev laughs at him and he shoots her a grin that shows a flash of his white teeth. His brown eyes are warm with liking for her, and I’m hit with a stab of jealousy that makes me wonder if there’s something between them. But we’re not in the forest anymore, and I can’t let its clinging black thoughts back into my head.

Neev and I lounge on the bed as Gate eats his way through half a loaf of bread dipped in broth, soft-boiled eggs, and the same kind of porridge I had this morning. It’s nice not to be walking endlessly, to have nothing to do except lay about. Still, I have to tell them what happened.

“If you’re done cramming food down your gullet, I’ll tell you what I saw.”

He rolls his eyes.  “Oh, really? Now that we’re safe, you’ve finally decided to tell us what you saw?”

“Gate.” Neev’s tone is reproachful. “She wasn’t herself. She was sick and confused.”

“Don’t have to tell me. I’m the one who had my best riding boots puked on.”

I don’t remember this either, and I feel my cheeks redden. Not very queenly of me, vomiting on my subordinate’s boots. “You’re the one who wore your best boots on a journey through a forest,” I say, trying to cover my embarrassment. “If you glamoured me to get me back to Lazul, don’t see why you couldn’t do it for this.”

“Oh, believe me, I tried, even if you did threaten to kill me for it before.” He nods to Neev. “She did it in the end.”

“How?”

“She asked if you were going to let a stupid forest get the better of you. Something like that. Apparently, your pride is even stronger than your need for comfort.”

I press my lips together, secretly touched that Neev knows me well enough to say such a thing. Gate takes a long swig from his mug of barley beer. “Well?”

“I saw Rothbart. My mother’s chief sorcerer. He admitted to killing her.”

Neev’s eyes widen with horror. “Killing her? I thought they were lovers.”

“They were.”

“Then why would he kill her?”

“For her power. And he took Dette as well.”

Neev goes white to the lips, and I put my hand on her arm, not sure if she’s upset from recalling the terrible day Dette was taken, or something else. “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this in the forest?” asks Gate.

“Like you just said, I wasn’t myself. I didn’t even know what was real or not by then.”

I tell them about the sylph girl, the one who reminded me of Dette at first glance, and what happened to her.

“She drank your magic?” Gate looks ill. “I’ve never even heard of such a thing.”

“Neither have I. But it killed her. That’s not the most important bit, though. I think he has Dette.” I explain the rest of my encounter with Rothbart. “He promised me safe passage out of the forest if I return home.”

“Maybe you should.” Gate stretches his long legs under the coverlet, putting his hands behind his head. “You recall, I only came on this journey because you threatened me. It’s ill-fated.”

“No. That bastard has Dette, and whatever he did to my mother, he will do to her. He told me to shore my defenses. He’s not afraid of a confrontation. He was powerful.” I pause, my stomach churning at the memory of how he bested me. “More powerful than me,” I admit with revulsion. “Much as I never want to set foot back in that accursed forest, I need to get to Lebed. The sylphs have a shortcut, and if it means defeating Rothbart, King Cygnus might give me aid.”

Gate eyes me warily. “Do you even have a plan for how to rescue her?”

“I have some ideas. Will you be coming with me? The two of you?”

Gate’s brow furrows in contemplation, and Neev’s face is still white. She’s silent.

Gate sighs. “The king told me to bring you home safely. Haven’t done that yet.”

I think of the sad-eyed sylph girl whose name I never even got to ask, and the terrible way she died, and I’m frightened for him. For all of us. You’re not likely to, sleepy-spell boy.