“How are you finding the clothes?” I asked.
Karyos glanced down at the blouse and skirt she was wearing. Luna had picked them up for her. “Uncomfortable.”
“Are they the wrong size?”
“I dislike wearing them.”
“It’s a good habit to get into.”
“They feel restrictive,” Karyos said. “As though they are shaping me.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way,” I admitted. “But I suppose they are.”
“It was not always like this,” Karyos said. “I remember the groves in Greece. Humans would come with offerings, baskets and amphorae.” She looked up at me with big dark brown eyes. “Would they bring me offerings now?”
“If you showed yourself outside?” I hesitated, thinking of what would happen if she stepped out of the Hollow into its reflection in the Chilterns, with its villages and motorways and big industrialised farms. “I don’t think it would go very well.”
Karyos nodded sadly. We sat for a little while in silence.
“I could try to find you something more comfortable,” I said. “Clothes aren’t really my speciality, but there’s probably something out there that would suit you better.”
“Arachne used to tell me that,” Karyos said. “I wish she were here.”
It was a simple statement, but it hurt. I missed Arachne too, and talking like this to Karyos was when I missed her the most. Karyos might share some traits with Arachne—she was an ancient magical creature, with strange powers and an otherworldly lair—but our relationship was very different. If Karyos had been Arachne, instead of me asking about her day, she would have asked me about mine. Before I’d opened my mouth, she’d have noticed that I was upset and ask how the conversation with the Council had gone. I would have told her, and she’d offer advice. She wouldn’t have given me easy answers—most of my problems don’t have easy answers—but she’d help me to see things more clearly, and I’d always leave her lair feeling better.
But Karyos wasn’t Arachne. The hamadryad had spent most of her lifetime entirely isolated from human and mage society, and she was hopelessly ignorant of the modern world. With Arachne, I’d felt as though I was the child and she was the parent; with Karyos, it was the other way around. Instead of looking to her for answers, she was the one looking to me.
“I miss her too,” I said. “But as far as that goes, I might have some good news. I think you’ve got a good chance of seeing her again.”
Karyos looked at me in surprise. “I thought she was gone.”
“For me. Maybe not for you.”
“How?”
“I’ve been thinking about the way that dragon took her away,” I said. “Arachne’s lived a very, very long time, and I think that dragon’s part of the reason why. So if that’s the way it protects her—spirits her away when she’s in danger—why was she still around?” I leant back, resting my hands on the tree trunk. “Dragons exist outside time as we perceive it. If you were a dragon, and you wanted to save the life of someone like Arachne that had a lot of people trying to kill her, how would you do it? Well, seems to me a really easy way would just be to transport her forward in time eighty or a hundred years or so to a point where all her attackers were dead of old age.”
“Was that what it did?”
“I don’t have any proof, but it fits,” I said. “Arachne told me in her letter that we weren’t likely to meet again, but I’m human. For you, though?” I nodded at the young tree behind Karyos, its leaves silhouetted against the sky. “A hundred years probably isn’t even one full rebirth cycle.”
“I’ll be able to see her again?”
“I’ll have to do some research,” I said. “But I think so.”
Karyos smiled, her face lighting up. It transformed her from a grave, silent creature into a happy one. “That would be wonderful.”
We sat for a little while, the silence more companionable this time. “Are you comfortable with me living here?” I asked Karyos.
“Yes,” Karyos said. “Why?”
“We’ve never really talked things out,” I said. “I mean, when we first met, you were trying to kill us. And we kind of killed you. Obviously it didn’t stick, but you were living in this shadow realm for a long time before we moved in.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have a problem with that?”
Karyos looked confused.
Okay, apparently I need to spell this out more clearly. “Are you angry about what we did?”
“Why would I be?”
I tried to think of a good answer to that and failed.
“You took this realm by right of conquest,” Karyos said. “You could have slain me.”
“That would have made Arachne unhappy,” I said. “Besides, there aren’t many magical creatures left. I didn’t want to cut that number down without a really good reason.”
Karyos nodded. “I was damaged and unable to renew myself. When my tree died, my life would have ended. Leaving me alone would just have been a slower and more complicated way of killing me. You preserved me, and I am grateful.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Though . . .” Karyos hesitated. “Now that my mind is clear again, I feel lost. This world is so different. So much has been forgotten, so much is strange. When you tell me about this new England, it makes me feel . . . helpless. I do not know if there’s a place for me here.”
“I think the world would be a smaller and duller place without creatures like you in it,” I said. “And there are plenty of other humans who feel the same way. They might not always be easy to find, but they’re there.”
“I hope so,” Karyos said. She looked at me. “What are you going to do?”
“For now?” I said. “Find Anne, and deal with the Council. I’ll work out the rest as I go.”
* * *
—
It was an hour or two after sunset when I returned to my cottage. I closed the door behind me, drew the curtains, then took off my jacket and shoes and socks. My gear was laid out on the desk, my trousers folded over the back of the chair, then I cleaned my teeth and washed my face. Only at the very end did I take off my shirt.
With my clothes on, my arm could pass for normal. Anyone who looked at my right hand would notice that it was too pale, but pale skin can be explained. Stripped to the waist . . . not so much. It wasn’t just my right hand that was pale, it was also the wrist and most of the forearm. Just above my elbow, the colour changed to my normal skin tone. Mostly. White tendrils reached up from the forearm like vines, spreading around the joint so that their tips touched my upper arm.