Tilia’s smile was rueful. Golden flecks danced in her eyes. “The Undying Lands were never meant for mortals. You belong among your kin. I think you know that by now.”
“It’s… It’s not a goodbye, I just—” Trisha’s voice choked. “I can still come visit you.” She frowned. “I will. I promise. Next time, I hope to come with something more than just myself.”
Tilia didn’t answer, but her tree-bark face seemed to stiffen.
“A-And I could play?” she offered in desperation, staring deep into Tilia’s eyes.
“I’d like that,” Tilia said softly, perking up. “Play me something you’ve learned in your travels. A memory I can carry after you’re gone.”
Trisha lifted the lyre in her lap, running its strings under her fingernails. A memory from the mortal world that Tilia would appreciate? Did she, too, miss the sunshine and rain like the sylvan? Idly, she ran her fingers over the instrument, and a melody curled out, filling the clearing. Even if she didn’t know, her fingers and her magic seemed to sense what strings to pluck, what to play. The music grew, following an unvoiced knowledge from within. The lyre trembled under her hand. Magic flowed through the lyre, into her song. It felt like her old friend just had a much-needed sleep, now awake and ready to face a new day with profound rejuvenation.
Heat spread through Trisha. She coaxed out the cadence of the hooves against the ground, the drumming heart of the trees, the wind. How the sun crept over the sky, and the rot that crept over the land, bringing new life—the North Road.
Tilia listened with glee, green eyes closed, her bark hands digging into the soil. Her leaf-hair swayed as though touched by the unseen wind of Trisha’s song, and when the melody faded, she opened her eyes. They shone in bursts of gold and green.
Trisha didn’t stop there, enjoying the sense of her reborn lyre, its new timbre different yet the same. Her magic felt more attuned, gentler, under the tunes flowing out from the instrument. They sat a long time this way—Trisha playing, Tilia listening. At some point, Rilka drifted back, brought by the wind or the music. She didn’t speak, just fetched her little bone flute and joined Trisha. When the endless twilight and the music made Trisha too tired, she crawled back to the hollow in Tilia’s tree.
“I’ll come with you,” Rilka whispered in her ear, arranging Trisha’s long mahogany strands into a nest. “To see the sun. The people.”
Trisha smiled, the tips of her eyebrows arching in sweet appreciation. “If you wake up in time to follow me to the Opening, that’s enough.”
23
Trisha had hopedfor Rilka to forget her words. After all, a fairy’s promise was a double-edged sword. Instead, as they faced the morning, Rilka chirped cheerfully, “There’s no better traveler than I.”
As if to prove her words, once Trisha began preparations, she undid the saddle belt. It fell with a thud. “Thank you,” Trisha muttered. Biting her tongue, she knelt to pick it up.
A piercing cry jolted her, the saddle slipping from her hands back to the ground. Dapple turned his head, giving her an accusing look. The fairy was dangling from his mane, giggling as she used it as her swing.
“Rilka,” Trisha called out. “Would you get me a flower? I think Dapple would like one.”
His snort echoed in the dusk-wreathed clearing.I’ll eat it, he promised.
“You bet! I’ll get the biggest flower you’ve ever seen. We can feed it with your blood.”
The fairy leaped into the air, zigzagging into the forest. Only when Rilka was out of earshot did she exhale. “Needed todistract her. Don’t eat the flowers—if she remembers to bring them. Not until we’re beyond the portal.”
Dapple whinnied softly.Then, oats?
“Yes, my sweet boy.”
Trisha fumbled with the buckles, setting the stirrups, Dapple flicking his tail. Tilia watched her preparations, quiet, half-merged with her tree. Rilka had yet to come back, and Trisha, afraid she’d start to cry, hugged the tree nymph quickly.
“I’ll return, I promise. Ipromise.”
Tilia only smiled, quiet sadness in her green eyes.
Fearing her tears, Trisha mounted Dapple and gathered her woolen skirt onto her lap. Cradling the lyre in her arms, she snapped the reins. “Let’s go home.”
She almost grinned before nervousness wiped away her expression. Nearly four days in the Undying Lands. What would she find in the mortal world? Welcome or banishment? Would it have changed at all? She refused to think about it or what she’d tell Blainor. What she’d feel when facing him. His touch, his musk—the memory of his cedar drifted from nowhere. Her hands tightened on the reins. She didn’t know if he’d even be willing to see her when she reached Moorhafen.
But she knew she had to go back, apologize for running away. For not having the strength to face him after Midsummer. She drew a shuddering breath, not daring to hope. But she’d apologize, and if he turned her away, so be it; she’d accept.
Dapple swished his tail, and they were on their way. Mid-journey, on the Morrow Path, Rilka joined them. She carried an armful of morrowflowers, having already forgotten why she’d picked them, but she promptly landed on Trisha’s head and started weaving them into her tresses.
“When you bear children,” she murmured, “I’ll be their sister and aunt. I’ll teach them to fly.”
Trisha huffed, guiding Dapple away from the obsidian path, back to the waiting Opening. “You’d drop them from a cliff and then wonder why they didn’t unfold their wings.”
