a thicket of oak and wound up the belly of a hill toward the top. The grass on either side was dense and long. At this time of year, the dominant color wasn’t green, or even the wild lavender that bloomed in broad strokes on the hillsides. It was the vast fields of plenderil flowers that painted the meadows and slopes crimson.

She knew she shouldn’t have left the safety of the castle, or the family unguarded. She had to risk it. Watching. Waiting. It was getting to her. She felt cooped up. She had to move. Get away.

And there was something she had to do.

The sun felt good. Warming. Bees, a few moths with small, delicate white wings, hovered about the wildflowers. She drank in a breath of air, clean as the sky above.

The trail forked, one running directly to the top, where a water tower crowned the summit like a hat. The other trail sloped more gently, coming upon the tower gradually from the other side. She chose the slower path. She was in no rush to get there.

Her mind turned to Medlara’s warning, trying to sift through the words and sensations. The forbidding fog. The riddle about a harp. The urging to “seek the answers.” What did it all mean? She’d been over it a hundred times, but no new ideas came. Only more questions.

The trail wound around the hill and dipped into a shady copse. When she emerged from the trees, the path turned down into a meadow, where someone sat in a field of plenderil.

Jen slowed, coming up quietly behind until she recognized the thick auburn tresses. “Bit, what are you doing out here?”

Bit’s shoes and socks were off. Her shoulders jumped and she plunged her feet deep into a cluster of crimson flowers. “Jenny, you startled me.” She gave a little laugh of relief.

“You shouldn’t be away from the castle.”

Bit gazed at the patchwork of orchards, farms, and pastures below. “I know, but it’s so beautiful here. I had to come.”

Jen sat beside her. “How did you get away?”

“No one will notice I’m gone.” Bit gave a little laugh, but her eyes were sad.

Jen frowned. “But Dash, Father . . .”

“Dash is running patrols. Your father and mother are meeting with dignitaries.”

Bit ran her fingers gently up the stem of a plenderil. “Did you know, these grow nowhere but in Aerdem?” She held the plant near the top, where the crimson flower bowed like a poppy. “You can snap it off here.” Her thumb and forefinger slid down the stem. “And here.” Then she grasped the base. “But you can’t pull it out.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Try.”

Jen tried. Grasping the narrow stem with both hands, she pulled as hard as she could. The stalk broke off in her hand, but the rest of the plant remained embedded in the soil.

“See,” Bit said. “Your father told me. The roots go too deep.”

“I’m sorry I broke the flower.” Jen laid it on Bit’s lap.

“It will grow back.”

A lavender bush within arm’s reach reminded Jen of a great head, the stalks like hair stirring in the breeze. Buzzing droned from within the bush as bees floated lazily among the blossoms. Bit began gathering long blades of grass, plenderil, and baby’s breath, arranging them in groups on her lap.

She glanced at the scar on Jen’s eyebrow, then nodded toward the water tower. “Are you going up there?”

Jen swatted at a fly. “Yeah.”

Bit plucked a dozen lavender stalks. The bush buzzed like a hive, but she moved gently, calmly among the blossoms. The bees paid no more mind to her hand than if it had been a tree branch or a cluster of leaves. “This is your first time up there since—”

“Yeah. First time.” Jen felt ashamed, angry with herself.

“What happened up there?” Bit braided two stalks of lavender and a plenderil flower, and tied them with a stout grass blade.

Jen watched her braid another set before answering. “You know the story.”

“I don’t. No one will talk about it.”

“There’s nothing to say. I fell. That’s all.”

That wasn’t all. She’d been with her father at the top of the water tower, trying to use Wyndano’s Cloak. Then . . . the rest was a black nightmare she refused to think about.

Since then she’d been frightened of climbing trees, rocks, ladders. Anything going straight up. How could she be frightened of what she loved most?

But whatever danger was coming, her family needed her, counted on her to be strong. That’s why she’d come here. She needed to climb that tower. When the Cloak came back, she might have to use it. How could she, if she was afraid?

Frustration and anger nipped at her like a snarling dog. Fortunately, Bit didn’t push her to say more. Instead, her friend tied a flower braid to the end of another, and did the same with four more braids.

“Let’s go up there together,” Jen said hopefully. Maybe she’d feel calmer if Bit was along. “We can go skinny-dipping.”

Bit blushed and pushed her feet deeper in the plenderil. “I want to finish this wreath.”

Why was she hiding her feet? Come to think of it, Jen had never seen her get dressed. She’d always written that off to Bit’s shyness. But there was much about Bit that was mysterious. Coming to Aerdem in rags with a group of refugees. Where had she come from? What happened to her parents? Bit couldn’t say.

Still, if she needed privacy about her feet, she could have it. Jen loved her too much to push the point. She took a knife from her belt. “Hold out your hand.”

Bit set aside the wreath and held out her hand obediently, fingertips laced with the scent of lavender. Jen gave her the knife. Bit held it in her palm like it was a snake or a poisonous spider and let it fall to the ground.

“Look, Bit, it might not be safe out here. The danger can come any time. You need to protect yourself.”

“I know, but I couldn’t, wouldn’t use a knife.” Her eyes were open and pleading.

Jen put the knife near Bit’s knee. “Okay. Just keep it near you. In case. I won’t be gone long.”

Jen moved up the trail, but glanced back at Bit. How do you explain a girl who was frightened of knives, but put her hand in a bush humming with bees?

Jen shrugged. She had her own problems to worry about. The water tower loomed above, and she felt her heartbeat quicken.

The sun was falling toward the hills, but Jen felt hotter. Sweat trickled down her face and back, doing little to cool the nest of prickles at the back of her neck. She paused to tie her hair in a knot and stuffed it down her shirt.

A few minutes later she stood at the bottom of the tower, a cylinder of wooden planks, shiny with pitch, rising thirty feet. A ceramic pipe from a higher hill siphoned water into the tower. Boards nailed crossways formed a crude ladder. Little trickles of green at the seams marked the leaks.

Morbid curiosity drew her away from the ladder to the other side of the tower. There, jutting out of a cluster of daffodils like a strange, deformed flower, was the rock that had opened the gash above her eye. Dried blood still stained one side.

Her knees wobbled and she steadied herself against the tower wall. “That’s the last thing you should’ve looked at,” she muttered.

Retreating to the ladder, she reached for a rung and felt her heart bolt to a gallop.

Take it slow, she thought, but her hand was shaking. She lifted one foot to the first step, but kept the other firmly rooted on the ground. “What’s wrong with you?” she cried. “It’s only one step.”

It might have been a mile, the way her body trembled. She forced the leg up and waited for her limbs to quiet. They didn’t.

One step at a time, she told herself.

She reached for another rung and her foot found the next board. All she had to do was push down with that foot and the other one would join it. Her heart drummed inside her chest. She waited for it to calm. It didn’t. She pushed on anyway, drawing the other foot up. A wave of dizziness overtook her and her head swam.

She clenched her teeth until her jaw ached, then forced herself to reach for the next rung. One foot followed on the next step and she froze.

“It’s only three steps,” she said bitterly. “You could fall right now and not get hurt. You’ve jumped farther.”

It didn’t matter. Sweat soaked her clothes. A queasy snake twisted in her stomach. “Don’t look down.”

She did. The ground tilted and spun. Quickly backing down the ladder, she stumbled to some bushes and threw up.

Afterward, she collapsed onto some grass, thoroughly disgusted with herself.