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I fetch some bread and eat half of it outside the kitchen, where a cook is trying to carry a pot past my arm. I step out of her way and take the rest with me.

The Deep Ilden lies beyond the wall of old roots, north of the Heartwood. I pass through the seam and sit beneath the oldest trunk.

This is where my people come to make their bonds. I have brought no partner here. The grove knows the difference between my presence and a rite; the roots remain settled beneath the moss.

I could have stayed in the meeting room. There are hearing papers I ought to read again. Here, at least, I cannot mistake footsteps in the corridor for hers.

A white bud opens beside my knee. I leave it alone.

The sun moves across the gap in the canopy. I try to imagine Vai at the boundary stone. The escort will ask where she wishes to go. Tesseny lies west, with her sister’s room above the stall. Karath offers strangers who have asked for her work before knowing the sound of her laugh.

I cannot make either place unworthy of her. I knew that before she left. Knowing it gives me nothing useful to do with the afternoon.

At last I get up and follow the rim of the grove, clearing a fallen branch from the entrance. It takes both hands. When I turn with it, Vai is standing beyond the open seam.

For a moment I can only look at her.

Her coat is unfastened. The bag hangs from her shoulder, and mud has dried along the edge of one boot. She has walked far enough to loosen the braid at her temples.

“Reivaka told me where to find you,” she says. “She brought me to the wall and went back.”

I put down the branch.

“Come in.”

She crosses the moss toward me. The wall stays open behind her.

“Did you reach the boundary?”

“Yes. I went past it.”

I have to swallow before I can ask anything else.

“How was it?”

“Quiet. The escort sat with me at the council stone. She said I could name a destination whenever I was ready. When I said I wanted to come back, she walked me to the boundary. I crossed into the forest on my own.”

Vai takes off the bag and sets it on a dry root.

“I thought I would feel different as soon as I crossed. I kept looking back at the trees, waiting.”

“And did you?”

“I felt cold.” She laughs a little. “Then I felt foolish for expecting a road to tell me what I wanted.”

She comes within reach of me but keeps speaking.

“I could have gone to Asha. I still want to visit her. And I could have gone to Karath. I think I might have been good at that job.”

“You might.”

“I wanted to tell you about the chair Surevai brought yesterday. That was one of the things I thought about out there. I was trying to decide whether to go to his city, and imagining how you’d look when I told you I liked his furniture.”

I start to laugh. It catches before I can finish.

Vai reaches for my arm.

“I want the life we’ve been having,” she says. “Eating with you. Coming to find you when I’ve heard something you’ll hate. Having things of my own to do, and knowing you’ll be there afterward.”