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“Fine,” I said at last. “Give me a list of approved escorts.”

Doris’s eyebrows lifted. “A list?”

“Yes. Of people qualified to accompany me.”

“Oh.” She folded two hands neatly on the desk. “There’s only one.”

A terrible certainty settled over me. “No.”

“You haven’t heard the name yet.”

“I don’t need to.”

The door behind me opened before she could answer. Cool air moved through the office, carrying cedar, fresh-cut wood, and the faintest trace of sawdust.

I closed my eyes.

“Doris,” Barrett said behind me.

“Perfect timing,” she replied brightly.

I turned around.

He’d changed since that morning, although only technically. The climbing harness was gone, and his green work shirt had been replaced by a charcoal one that stretched across the same unreasonable amount of chest. A coil of orange rope hung from one huge hand, and he had a streak of dirt across his jaw that somehow made him look even more like he’d recently wrestled a tree and won.

Annoyingly, the second look didn’t make him any less attractive.

His gaze found me. He stopped. Then he looked at Doris. “No.”

I pointed at him. “That’s exactly what I said.”

Doris took a long drink of coffee.

Barrett’s golden-brown eyes narrowed at me. “What did you do?”

“Why do you immediately assume I did something?”

“This morning you were pulling up a protected root.”

“I was not pulling it up. I was determining the extent of the root system.”

“You were leaning backward.”

“Resistance can provide useful information.”

“It provided information. The roots grabbed you.”

Behind the counter, Doris made a suspicious little sound that might have been a swallowed laugh. “You two have met, then.”

“Yes,” we said together.

Barrett looked annoyed that we’d managed even that much cooperation.

I turned back to Doris. “There must be someone else. A forest ranger, conservation officer, another arborist—someone.”

“Not locally.” She ticked the options off on her fingers as she spoke. “The rangers aren’t certified for magical botanical zones, the nearest conservation officer is based eighty-seven miles away, and our other arborist moved to Arizona.”

I waited because that sounded like the beginning of an explanation.