Fox pursed his lips, because he still didn’t like my answer.
I kissed Fox on the cheek. “Thank you for worrying about me.”
He let go of me in surprise. “I—um—yeah, of course.” He rubbed the back of his neck, a blush creeping across his cheeks. “Just—be careful, Daisy.”
“Always.” I smiled at him, and his cheeks seemed to get even redder, and he looked away in embarrassment.
I left Vala to look after Fox in the garden, and I followed the Grandmaster into the fortress and down the long and dizzying halls back to her office again. She let me inside first and closed the door behind her. I didn’t realize we were alone until I turned back to her, and she closed the door. I tightened my grip on the crown.
Slowly, she circled around me, toward her desk, and began in a matter-of-fact tone, “When the Lady of the Wilds ruled the wood, there was no crown. Your King Sunder razed his path to the heart of the wood, where the Lady held her court, and when he returned, he had a glorious golden crown and the Lady was gone. As he left, a great fog settled over Voryn. The roots of the wood turned bitter, the flowers poisonous, and the old gods rotted. We hadn’t protected our Lady, and so the forest would. The only way it could—with a curse.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “The Lady of the Wilds is gone?”
“Gone. For three hundred years.” The Grandmaster leaned back on the front of her desk, looking older than she had just a few hours before. “So—what do you think I thought when you came into my city with the last of our Lady’s old gods, King Sunder’s crown, and blood that could break the woodcurse? The last visitor we had destroyed our lives and left us here to die. I didn’t trust you at all—but now I see I don’t have a choice. That thing—”
“Seren,” I corrected.
She glowered at me. “Came from the wood. It found its way through the fog. Over the wall. Into my office, and if I wanted to be thick, I would ask why you and he were here at the exact same time, but you wouldn’t have risked your life to stop him if you were working together. And you did risk your life for this city—whether or not that was your intention.” She pushed off the edge of her desk and rounded it, opening one of the drawers. She took out a yellowed piece of parchment and presented it on the desk. It was a map—old and gnarled. “You were correct in your assumptions; I haven’t been honest with you.”
I came closer, looking down at a strangely detailed map. It showed mountains and rivers and valleys, but it also showed areas where ancients prowled, and near the center of the forest, just past Voryn, was a clearing drawn in a perfect circle.
The Grandmaster tapped her forefinger on it. “It stands to reason that returning the crown from whence it came will reverse the curse—by taking it to the heart of the wood, where the Lady once held her court, perhaps you’ll find where she went. But you aren’t the first one to try to break the woodcurse. My daughter once set out, and she failed.” The old woman paused and shook her head. “It is dangerous. Impossible, even. And only a Grandmaster or their apprentice knows the way, and I swore to myself I would never send another of mine out on this fool’s errand—”
“But I’m no fool, Grandmaster” came the voice of Petra from the door. I glanced back, surprised she’d come in so quietly. She closed the door behind her and gave a small bow. “Let me lead her to the heart of the wood. I know the way.”
The Grandmaster’s lips pursed into a thin line. “Absolutely not.”
“Then I’ll go without your permission,” Petra replied. “You saw that monster in the garden, Grandmaster. More will be coming. The fog is weakening.”
“Or the wood is growing stronger,” I whispered, my fingers curling tighter around the crown. I knew this was the kind of sacrifice I shouldn’t be letting her make, but I didn’t know the way to the heart of the wood. “Thank you,” I said softly.
Petra gave a simple nod. “We didn’t believe you at first. That was our mistake.”
“You go and you will die, Petra,” the Grandmaster said through clenched teeth.
“We shall see,” replied her apprentice, before turning and leaving the office once more. The Grandmaster stood there, visibly shaking, her fingers curled into fists. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or frightened. We finally had a set course—somewhere to go, a light at the end of this long tunnel. But to get there, we had to return to the wood, something I wasn’t very keen on.
As I left, the Grandmaster said, “You remind me so much of my daughter. I pray this fool’s errand breaks the curse.”
I did, too.
I tried to sort myself out before I met up with Fox again. This was for the best, I told myself.
This was the only way it could be. Our only hope.
Even if it killed me.
32
A Taste for a Truth
Fox
AS THE GUARDS led Seren to the prisons and Daisy left with the Grandmaster, I had to find something to do, so I went to the kitchens. My heart was still racing. It wasn’t like I could just go to sleep now, not after Daisy had almost died—again.
As I’d run through the halls with the Grandmaster and her guards, I had convinced myself that I was too late, and I was. Vala had gotten there in time, though. She had knocked the crown from his head this time, like I had done for Daisy back at the castle.
If only I’d chosen the east wing instead, Daisy wouldn’t have had to even face that corpse. I should’ve killed him back at the river. I should’ve snapped his neck and torn him into a dozen pieces, so even if he couldn’t die, he’d spend at least a decade trying to put himself back together.
But I hadn’t, and it still bothered me that I couldn’t understand why. It couldn’t have been that I’d been tempted by his offer . . . could it?
There was no one in the kitchens this late at night—the kitchen staff all asleep—so there was no one to shoo me out. Maybe staying a human wouldn’t be so bad.
Don’t even entertain it, I told myself.
Absently, I stocked a tray with leftovers from the pantry: coffee cake, carrot cake, and some sort of strudel, which also called for a hot pot of tea. As I plated some more pastries, my mind was off elsewhere. Why did Seren seemed so familiar? And why did he think he knew me? Had I bitten him in my previous life? Had I come upon him in the wood after he was lost? He was someone Daisy had once known, so maybe I’d met him, too?
I found a kettle in a cabinet and filled it with water from a pump that must’ve led to whatever water source the fountains in the city fed from, and set the kettle on the stove. I waved my hand over the stove, and fire sparked in the burner—
I glanced down at it with a start.
Did I just . . . ?
No. I couldn’t have.
I definitely didn’t know magic.
I stared at my hand for a moment and did the same motion—and fire burst onto my fingertips.
My hand began to shake.
“C’mon, this way!”
A voice startled me from my thoughts, and I jerked my head around toward it. It was that kid again—the one who’d pulled Daisy off the rampart earlier. He came into the kitchen, his hair golden, dressed in dark leathers that itched at the collar. How did I know they itched? He was followed by a tall, broad-shouldered man.