Evander lowers his blade at the sound of my protest, having made only a shallow cut along his forearm.
I can’t stand to see a living thing in pain, least of all Evander. The nuns who raised me said I’d been that way since birth. Trying to put the wings back on a trampled butterfly. Tending the weakest plants in their garden. That’s what made me so well suited for walking in the Deadlands, they said. My love of life.
“I’ll do it,” I say quickly, raising my arm and my sword. “Valoria, take my vial of honey. If you start feeling dizzy, eat as much as you need.”
“Odessa, don’t you dare!” Evander growls as I grit my teeth and pull the blade across my skin. One quick slice, and I’m bleeding on the ferns and the big white lilies.
Normally the sight wouldn’t bother me, but today it makes me think of Master Nicanor’s ribbons of flesh. I fight to keep breathing steadily as Evander rushes to my side, covering the wound with a scrap of his torn shirt.
“That’s more than enough,” he says sharply, probably thinking we’ll attract that giant Shade with the mess I’m making. To my relief, the blood leaking from the shallow cut on his arm is already clotting.
“Just trying to help,” I gasp out as my knees buckle. I must’ve lost a bit too much blood. Valoria steadies me. I glance back over my shoulder and offer her a weak smile as Evander finishes tying my bandage. “You’re stronger than you look.”
Valoria’s lips twitch. “I know.”
“Death be damned.” Evander draws his sword again, a motion as fluid and natural as breathing. The few times I’ve seen someone best Evander in a sword fight, it was because he was too sick to know which end was the pointy one. “Looks like we’ll be taking the long way home tonight,” he grumbles, gazing at something behind us.
A hot prickle of fear stings the back of my neck as I whirl around, remembering the glimpse of rotten gray flesh in the shadows of the grove.
But the tightness in my chest dissolves. There’s nothing in the darkness. In fact, there aren’t any shadows at all. Instead, the silvery trees have been quietly replaced by a field of marigolds, just like the ones we crossed to get to the garden.
“How does an entire grove disappear like that?” Valoria asks.
“That’s how it is here.” I shrug. “Things are always changing. Moving themselves when you least expect it, just like the gates that let us in.”
“It’s why you’re lucky to be here with the Sparrow.” Evander shoots me an admiring glance. “Whywe’relucky,” he amends.
Already, a slight tug around my navel tells me that despite appearances, the gate isn’t so far away anymore. Since the grove shifted off to some other part of the Deadlands, more of the landscape has moved, too, and we’re suddenly much closer to an exit.
“There’s a gate at the back of the garden now,” I say, looking out across its wide expanse. There are dozens of fountains, bridges, and pathways to walk before we reach the new gate. “But we have to find the king first.”
“In that case, ladies...” Evander puts on a smile, but it wavers. “Fancy a nighttime stroll through this beautiful garden?”
We wind our way slowly past the fountain, pacing ourselves so Evander and I can gaze around tall statues and flowers in search of the king. The marble fountain and even some of the plants give off a muted glow that serves as our only source of light, and it’s a good thing, as no man-made lantern works down here.
“King Wylding,” I call softly, pointlessly. “Majesty?”
I don’t say it, not wanting to alarm Valoria, but I’ve never spilled that much of my own blood and not had at least a dozen spirits come out to fight over who gets to lap it up.
“This is beyond incredible.” Valoria plucks a stem of purple flowers and brings it to her nose—lavender, the symbol of serenity. The language of flowers is the same in this world as in ours, the only way the spirits can communicate with the living from here.
“Strange—it doesn’t smell like anything!” Valoria says, blinking at the lavender.
I tug on her hand, pulling her forward before she can spot the luscious-looking plums and apples hanging from the nearest tree. My injured arm throbs in response.
“Someday I’m going to figure it all out, you know.” Valoria’s eyes are bright and shining as she tucks the lavender stem in her hair. “The science behind our magic.”
I arch my brows. “I don’t think King Wylding would appreciate that kind of talk.”
“ButIdo. I’ve been studying the correlation between eye color and different forms of magic, like how everyone with blue-eyed Sight sees gateways to the Deadlands and can learn to raise the dead.” Valoria peers thoughtfully through the wooden slats of the bridge beneath our feet as we march over a small stream. “Someday I’m going to unlock the way magic works, and then I’ll be able to explain all sorts of things. Don’t you want to know why the Dead come back with their Sight but not their magic when you raise them?”
I wince, pausing just after the bridge and sheathing my sword. I don’t want to answer any more questions. I just want to think about Nicanor as I remember him in life, uninterrupted, so he can stay real to me. Not like that bloody mess on the ground.
As the princess stops beside me, I take both her hands in mine. “There’s nothing to study, or understand, or explain. It justis. It’s not science. Our Sight is Vaia’s gift to us. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can start enjoying life.”
“But Idoenjoy it!” Valoria frowns. “Learning is what makes things fun.”
“Hey, you two, hurry up!” Evander waves us over from beside a neat line of hedges, the garden border. “Look who I found,” Evander says as we approach, the calm in his voice straining.
