“What did the unicorn say?” Nothing asked, knowing when to urge on a story, like any who’d grown up surrounded by them.
Sky nodded slightly at her knowing question. “It said, ‘The Sorceress of the Fifth Mountain requires the most beautiful maiden in the empire. Do you know where she might find such a girl?’ Lord All-in-the-Water said, ‘We will not feed her our children; it’s monstrous.’ The unicorn said, ‘That is no concern of mine, only the message I bring. She will not stop until she finds the one she needs.’ And in a rare display of public opinion, the empress herself parted her veil of silver to ask the unicorn, ‘Why does she hunt beautiful girls?’ and the unicorn said, ‘I understand they taste good.’
“The uproar at that answer caused chaos enough the unicorn was able to vanish. The story spread, and girls learned to fear the Sorceress Who Eats Girls.”
Nothing waited for Sky to deliver the final piece of the story, about the empress sending warriors to the mountain, asking the Living Mountains to attack, but he did not. As the silence stretched, invaded slowly by the snapping fire spirits and the soft hum of the wind through the midnight canopy, she lifted her head to peer at him.
The demon-blue gleam of his eyes glistened, and Nothing realized Sky gritted his teeth against tears. Furious tears. His lips parted, and she could see his bared teeth as he hissed a sigh.
“You’re afraid she’s eaten him,” Nothing cried, leaping to her feet.
Sky covered his face, scouring it roughly with his hands. Nothing hit his shoulder, which was immobile as a boulder.
He caught her wrist. “You have never seen a more beautiful maiden than Kirin Dark-Smile.”
Nothing did not tug free, or try to. She stared down at him. His up-tilted face was a mask of forced optimism. His grip was warm around her wrist, and he applied just enough pressure to pull her down beside him again.
“He’s not dead.”
“No,” Sky said.
“I would know, just as I knew the imposter! She didn’t eat Kirin because he’s not a girl.”
Sky pressed his mouth into a line of disagreement.
“Sky! What even makes a girl?”
“She took him, so she decided whatever the answer is, Kirin qualifies. And I—I agree with her. When he wants to be a girl, he is.”
Nothing took her turn clenching her jaw. She seethed for a moment, then carefully opened her mouth. “I don’t know anything else about the sorceress. That is the same story I know. I cannot think of more details, though I wish I’d asked the great demon of the palace.”
“You could ask at the crossroads shrines. If you’re careful and no one is watching.” His voice rumbled in his big chest. He still held on to Nothing’s wrist.
She turned her hand around to put their palms together. “He’s not dead,” she said again.
When Sky remained silent, she pressed, “If she ate him, why send the imposter? She’s keeping him alive for something.”
Sky looked directly at her then, and his terrible expression curdled the slight food in her belly. After a long, long time, he said, “Even if he is dead, we need to know that, too.”
NINE
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THEY LEFT the Way of King-Trees, onto a road marked as the Cedar Pilgrimage, it rained so hard they were forced to stop and shelter in the hollow of a King-Tree snag for two entire days.
The hollow’s peaked entrance was covered in tattered pilgrim flags pinned to the bark and prayer ribbons twisting in rainbow ropes. Strings of tiny bells made a pretty shimmering song in the heavy wind, and the rain splattered onto the gray boulders and ruffled the ferns, darkening slips of moss and trailing in streams down the deep furrows of the snag. The sky was so dark it seemed like night outside, and occasionally rain spat down onto their fire from the high boles rotted out into round windows. The floor of the hollow was dry, but Sky covered the back section with his oiled cloth and they huddled near their fire, pressed together under extra robes. Wind could not shake the ancient old tree, but its bones creaked as if the King-Tree still lived.
A crossroads demon had led them here when they stopped to give offering and Nothing inquired about the Sorceress Who Eats Girls. “Ask the snag demon,” it said, flicking claws toward the west. It possessed a striped raccoon, furry and emaciated, with tiny hands to climb its shrine and pluck blessing ribbons or pull apart redpop cakes, which rotted in its tiny claws. Dark-blue demon-eyes gleamed even in the daylight.
“What is a snag?” Nothing asked.
Sky said, “A dead tree. Lightning struck or taken by disease.”
“Right, brother,” said the raccoon demon, showing all its teeny-tiny teeth.
Sky turned his back, and Nothing fed the demon a drop of blood soaked into a crumb of cheese—the last of their stores. From here they’d be subsisting on what they could gather and hunt and bargain for from the spirits of the rain forest. The demon said, “Find the snag demon less than a day along that road; turn off when you hear the rattle.”
The rain began midafternoon, and she and Sky hurried, but there was only so much Nothing could do to make herself faster. Sky offered to carry her. She hissed at him just like the raccoon demon.
Even with her jacket drawn over her head like a hood, Nothing got wet. She scowled and trudged on, listening for a rattle.
But the whole forest rattled when the wind shook the canopy and thin, cold breezes cut down to rush through ferns and dying leaves. Or so she thought, until she heard it: a huge, low sound like a bear’s snore, which filled her head. Even Sky stopped. He twisted around to stare at her, and they darted off the path, following the sound.
The dead King-Tree itself caused it, when the wind blew through its ancient branches and slithered into the boles and the massive hollow.
Nothing knelt in the wide swath of barren earth surrounding the tree. Had the demon been a spirit until the tree was struck, killing them both, or had it found this home after? She put her hand to the cracking bark, exploring splatters of white and blue lichen. “Hello, beautiful old tree. We would like to sleep in the shelter of your hollow, with your permission, friend.”
“Friend?” rattled the voice of the demon. It echoed in the dark hollow.
“I am friend to the great demon of the royal palace, and would be yours.”
Sky passed her a small knife, even as rain plastered his hair to his cheeks.
Nothing cut the meat of her thumb and touched her hand to the bark. “Here is a sign of my honesty, and a gift for you. While we stay here, we will feed you.”
“I like it,” drawled the demon. Branches rattled overhead, shaking more rain upon them.
“And mine,” said Sky, cutting his hand too and gifting the dark-purple blood.
“Ah!” said the demon. “You may remain.”
Sky moved inside with all their goods, ruffling the pilgrim flags. Nothing said, “Snag demon? Do you know the Sorceress Who Eats Girls?”
“No.” The demon’s voice had turned petulant.
“Do you know of her?” Nothing wondered what this demon looked like. Had it taken the shape of its tree house, or something more like a worm or an owl or a badger?
“Whispers…,” it hissed, for effect, Nothing suspected. She smiled a little.