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That was too easy. I shut the front door behind me, gave her a suspicious look that she answered with an innocent smile, and tiptoed over to the cabinet to open the heavy wooden door she’d indicated. Quite as I had feared, the bottom shelf did not contain any written notes with world-shaking revelations. Instead, I found a mustard-coloured woollen blanket and two linen sheets, smelling faintly of cloves and wormwood.
‘I suppose,’ I said, pulling a face at her over my shoulder, ‘that this is your way of sending me to bed?’
It was impossible to be annoyed by the laughter wrinkles that deepened around her eyes. ‘You’ve had a long day, dear.’
Which was true, and I should have been exhausted. But I lay awake for hours in the abundant pillows by the fireplace, thinking about Creon, thinking about bindings and dying gods and the Mother’s hopes of eternal peace, before I finally sank away into feverish sleep and dreamt I was building a bone throne in my old bedroom on Cathra.
I woke up late the next morning, and still no one had shown up looking for me.
I pondered that fact as I untangled myself from the blankets, raked my fingers through my hair to tame the fuzziest locks, and clambered from the pillows. The bag of grief was gone from its spot beside the door, which suggested Zera was already up and moving. When I glanced outside, the doves were nowhere to be seen; they likely had flown off again, looking for new fortunate souls to be tricked into blessedness.
The world was turning as it always turned, and yet no one appeared to be terribly concerned about my disappearance. Creon had not reached out to me with demon magic, at least. And wouldn’t Zera have told me if they were desperately combing the forest right now, or if Sizzle the dragon had chased my friends away from their attempts to rescue me?
I snuck out the front door, still rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Had my message of heartfelt triumph been convincing enough to make them leave me alone? Or worse …
Had my message never reached Creon? Did the forest block his demon magic to protect Zera from the outside world?
A cold fist clenched around my heart. Hell, for all I knew, he’d spent the last night hanging on by the last threads of his sanity, fearing for my life at every heartbeat, while I was sleeping the sleep of the innocent on a goddess’s cottage floor. I half-ran, half-stumbled around the garden, tripping over chickens, the grass cold and dewy under my bare feet – where was that bloody goddess when you needed her?
‘Here, dear,’ Zera said behind me, her gentle voice laced with amusement.
I snapped around and found her on a little stool behind a man-high bush of blackberries, her hessian bag on one side, a bucket full of fruit on the other. Her wrinkled hands were stained with purple juice, and so were her lips. She didn’t look like a goddess. She looked like a mischievous child sneaking away from work to indulge in autumn fruits, except she was a few millennia too old to play that part.
‘Breakfast?’ she dryly added.
‘Yes. I mean, thanks.’ I dragged myself towards her, pulled a plump blackberry from the nearest thorny branch, and stuck it in my mouth. It was juicy enough to drown in. ‘Do you have any idea where Creon and the others are?’
‘Hmm.’ She dropped a handful of berries into the bucket. ‘They’re fine.’
That was about as reassuring as Tared telling me I wasn’t to blame for his troubles with Creon. I plucked another blackberry, stuffed it into my cheek, and said, ‘Are they looking for me?’
‘Oh, not exactly.’ She looked entirely unbothered by the statement. ‘It’s hard for me to tell you where they are right now. But you can trust they won’t be particularly worried.’
Which did not make sense, a full night after I’d disappeared – but doubting her too openly seemed impolite. I sank down in the damp earth beside her and began pulling berries off branches more systematically, sticking half of them straight into my mouth and dropping the rest into her bucket.
‘Why can’t you tell where they are at this moment?’ I finally said, having discarded several brusquer alternatives.
‘It’s the “this moment” that gives me trouble.’ She smiled that young smile at me. ‘Time is not linear in the forest, and around this island in particular. Our moment is not the same as their moment.’
Which explained how the forest was able to extend her lifespan, but created several other questions, too. I swallowed a berry and slowly said, ‘What even is the forest?’
Zera chuckled. ‘What is sunlight?’
‘Um.’ I glanced up at the straight blue sky, squinting. ‘The … light … of the sun, I suppose?’
Her weathered face was so very gentle, her eyes so deeply compassionate – but there was a decidedly devilish edge to the smile that trembled around her lips. ‘A great philosopher was lost on you, Emelin.’
‘Hey!’ I burst out laughing, realising only at the very last moment that I probably shouldn’t throw berries at goddesses – even if they were goddesses making me the target of their amiable ribbing. ‘No need to stoop below the belt, Your Divinity. What you’re trying to say is that the forest just … is?’
‘I’m confirming my suspicion that you think best when annoyed,’ she said, sticking a blackberry into her mouth with nimble fingers. For a moment, she oddly reminded me of a content squirrel munching on its nuts, and every flicker of annoyance melted away again. ‘But, yes. The forest was here before I came to be. It may have had something to do with that happy occasion, but I couldn’t tell you for sure.’
‘Are Orin’s mountains the same?’
‘Not the same at all,’ she said slowly, ‘but similar in some ways, yes. They certainly have a soul and have kept him alive since Korok’s death. Inika’s underwater caves, too, before you ask.’
Underwater caves.We had been wise to target the forest in our search, after all; I wasn’tthatmuch of a swimmer. ‘And the Labyrinth is one of those places, too? The one below the Crimson Court, I mean?’
She heaved a sigh. ‘The poor Labyrinth.’
