“We’ll get the other two after the job is done?” Jubilee asked.
“Correct,” Briona said. “You’re all going to be extremely comfortable for a while. But now, part two. It’s the Feywild for you now.”
Saeldian lifted their hand. “I’m sorry, but can it wait until after we’ve slept?”
“No,” Briona said. “It won’t take long, and there’s no time to lose. I wondered if you’d make it.”
“We can’t,” Saeldian said. “We barely pulled off the theft. I’ve got nothing left.”
“We weren’t told we’d be leaving right away,” Kell objected. “We don’t have our kit.”
Briona lifted the whole mass of Mariel’s hair and brushed it smooth. “That wardrobe has what you need.”
Kell was closest, so he opened the doors. “What? This is my pack.”
“How can that be?” Jubilee asked, and moved over. “Shit. You went to my parents?”
“They’re delighted to know you’re going on an expedition.”
Saeldian couldn’t breathe. Jubilee glanced at them. They shook their head. The Zhentarim had to know where Saeldian lived, and therefore they knew about the Righthoofs. But that had been only a fact. It hadn’t been real.
Saeldian couldn’t go back to the rehabilitated fish run and the milk goats and Wisdom’s explanations. They’d never go along with Verity’s affectionate badgering. When Saeldian and Jubilee returned from this job, Saeldian shouldn’t even stay long enough to say goodbye.
They accepted their pack. Heavy, but not unbearably so, filled with supplies to eat and make shelter and cast spells. A corner of a folded letter poked out of the front pocket. Was it from Bastion or Serenity? And how many times did they say that they were proud?
Saeldian was going to be sick. They smiled and swung the pack onto their shoulders. “You’ve thought of everything.”
“No time for compliments.” Briona parted a section of Mariel’s hair and divided it into four strands. “The Kiss is in your hands. Take it and go into the gardens. Look for the oak tree, and the bluebells beneath. Look to the wall, and the gate that will open when the moonlight shines on it.”
They couldn’t do this. They needed time before just dashing off. “You don’t understand. I need tosleep.”
“Sleep when you get there,” Briona said. “The time you need is on the other side of the wall.”
“It’ll be all right,” Jubilee said. “We’ll change clothes and go.”
“No time for that,” Briona said. “So you’d better pack them carefully. Or buy a new set. Or twenty.”
“Why are you rushing us like this?” Saeldian couldn’t hold on to their composure or their careful manners, and they were too worn out to try. “We don’t even know where we’re going!”
“Because the way thins for only a few minutes,” Lorzok said. “On certain days and under certain stars, there is a precise moment. And it’s opening soon, isn’t it?”
“It’s already open,” Briona said. “And you’re all arguing instead of getting down there.”
“You are going to the domain of Hearthaven’s Repose,” Mariel said in her gravel-crunching voice. She relaxed as Briona wove her hair into a braid. “They welcome guests who need shelter, rest, and protection. Be in harmony with them—it’s your best disguise.”
“We need to know more than that,” Saeldian objected.
“There’s no time.” Kell gripped Saeldian’s elbow. “We have to go. I’ll make sure you get your sleep.Move.”
The Golden Rose’sgarden was a wild, informal thing, with flowers mingling at a celebration and only narrow paths for a traveler instead of the orderly arranged beds of blooms organized by height and color. But the only light that shone were the flashes of fireflies, hovering in a cloud over the blossoms and under the boughs. The moon’s round face was high in the southern sky, with Selûne’s tears shining in her wake. The oak and its carpet of bluebells rested next to a wall draped in clematis and ivy along the south end of the Golden Rose’s garden, and the gate Briona had mentioned was nothing but a drawing on the stone.
It was a good drawing, of course. It was of a wooden gate, one that had been charmed into growing that way. Every bar a bough, sprouting hard green apples barely past setting. But between its gaps was stone wall. The whole drawing rested in the shade of the wall, where Selûne’s light could never fall on it.
Saeldian looked up at the fireflies and oak leaves. “Good spot for moonlight, wouldn’t you say? Should shine down on this ‘gate’ any moment now.”
“Shh,” Jubilee said. “No complaining when there’s a puzzle.”
Saeldian smacked their forehead. “Everything about the fey is a trick. Sorry. I’ll stop. But that’s not a gate, and the moon can’t shine on it—”
