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I turn quickly. “What did you say?”
They sigh in ecstasy. “One touch of it, and you will know true power—all your fears banished, all your desires granted.”
I grab one in my fist. It struggles. Fear distorts its features into a terrible mask.
“Let me go, let me go!”
The other creature hops down and bites my thumb. I bat it away, and it somersaults through the air, grabbing hold of a branch to break its fall.
“I shall let you go in a moment! Stop struggling! I only want to know about this tree.”
“I won’t tell you anything.”
“Squeeze it into juice,” Felicity says, goading me.
The creature’s mouth forms a terrified O. “Please…I’ll tell you all….”
Felicity gives a satisfied smile. “That is how you get what you need.”
I cradle the creature in my palms. “What is the Tree of All Souls?”
The creature relaxes. “A place of very great magic deep within the Winterlands.”
“But I thought the Temple was the only source of magic in the realms.”
The creature’s grin is like a death mask. It hops to a higher branch just out of reach.
“Wait…don’t go,” I call after it.
“If you would know more, you will have to travel to the Winterlands and see for yourself. For how can you rule the realms if you’ve never even seen its stark beauty? How can you rule when you know only half the tale?”
“I know what I need to know about the Winterlands,” I answer, but I’m not convinced. There is truth in the little beast’s words.
“You know only what they have told you. Would you accept it as true without questioning it? Without seeing it for yourself? Have you never thought that they meant to keep you ignorant of its charms?”
“Go away!” Felicity blows hard. With a yelp, the creature falls, bouncing off branches till it lands on a fat leaf with an audible oof.
“You’re a fool, a fool!” it gasps. “In the Winterlands, it shall be decided! You will know what true power is and tremble….”
“What appalling little beasts. I’ll show you how to tremble!” Felicity gives chase. The frightened things fly away through the trees.
“Go away! Leave us be, foolish mortals.”
Little Wendy cowers, covering her ears. “There it is again, the screamin’.”
Mr. Darcy hops wildly in his cage, and Wendy holds fast to it.
“Wendy, you stop that!” Mae scolds. “There ain’t no screamin’.”
“’Ere now, luv, take my hand,” Mercy soothes, wrapping an arm around Wendy.
Far off over the Winterlands, a streak of red floods the gray sky. It burns for a moment, then disappears.
“Did you see it?” Ann asks.
“Let’s get closer.” Bessie runs through the tall reeds and cattails that stretch between the forest and the wall into the Winterlands. The heavy fog seeps into the Borderlands here, coating us in a fine shroud till we are like handprints in wet paint. We stop short of the enormous wall. On the other side of the gates, sharp mountaintops, black as onyx, rise above the fog. Ice and snow cling to them precariously. The sky churns gray, a constant storm. It spreads a tingle through me. It is forbidden; it is temptation.
“Can you feel it?” Mae asks. “Slips under your skin, don’t it?”
