“He’s not here,” she says.
“Are you sure?”
“More sure than you.”
I sigh and dig my sword deeper into the ground. “Well, I’m not sure at all.”
“You’re burning up goodwill here, magician.”
“How many times do I have to save the Wood to win you people over?”
“There’s no use saving it if you’re just going to hack it down.”
“I’m looking. For my roommate.”
“Your enemy,” she counters. She has grey-brown skin, ridged and rippled like bark, and her eyes glow like those mushrooms that grow deep in the woods.
“It doesn’t matter what he is,” I say, “you know who I’m talking about—how can you be sure he isn’t here?”
The dryad tilts her head back, like she’s listening to the trees behind her. Her every move sounds like a breeze blowing through branches.
“He isn’t here,” she says. “Unless he’s hiding.”
“Well, of course he’s hiding! He’s hiding bloody somewhere.”
“Ifwecan’t see him here, magician, neither will you.”
I pick up my sword and sheathe it at my hip. “But you’ll tell me if you hear anything?”
“Probably not.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I’m improbable.”
“This is important,” I say. “A very dangerous person is missing.”
“Not dangerous to me,” she hisses. “Not dangerous to my sisters. We don’t bleed. We don’t play petty games of more and most.”
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten that Pitch is the House of Fire.” I gesture to the woods behind her, all of it flammable.
Her head snaps up. Her smile creaks down. She switches her umbrella to her other shoulder.“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“If we see your handsome bloodeater, we’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”
“Not. Helping.”
“We’ll tell the golden one, then.”
“The golden one… Am I the golden one?”
She scrunches her nose and shakes her mossy hair. Flowers bloom in it.
“Who, then?”
“Your golden one. His golden one. Your pistil and stigma.”
