“I don’t know!” Daylily replied, her voice small before the terror of this creature. Her eyes fixed upon the newborn, which lay quietly, eyes full of Bronze light. “He was attacked by a white lion and chased into the Wood. I could not follow him!”
The giantess studied her as a cat might study the bird upon the lawn. But she said only, “You must find him. Thirteenth Dawn approaches. The twelve must be one on Twelfth Night, and the final blood must be given.”
The final blood must be given.
“Of course!” said Daylily, desperate and breathless, for she understood nothing yet simultaneously felt that it all made complete sense, and this frightened her far more than the looming presence of Kasa or the lurking shadows of her brethren or even the silent children. “The final blood must be given! But how do I find him? Where has he gone?”
The shadows began moving on the fringes of her vision. One by one, Advocates and Initiates alike passed on through the Wood and disappeared, dragging the children behind them. Only Kasa remained, and she only for a moment. “Time draws nigh,” she said in her voice as deep as a bull’s. “Find your Advocate. We will complete the securing of the tithe. But find your Advocate.”
Desperately, Daylily reached out. Her hand, by some power not her own, stretched toward the baby in Kasa’s arms. For a moment, it wasn’t her hand at all.
You can’t let this happen! said the wolf inside her.
Then Kasa was gone, taking the baby with her. Daylily stood alone in the green Between, clutching the Bronze until it cut her flesh. Her shoulder throbbed and her face was gray with pain.
But she took a step. Then another.
And across the vast, unknowable reaches of the Wood, Bronze called to Bronze. Daylily walked on fevered footsteps, and the trees made way before her.
It certainly wasn’t the most reliable of calendars. But it was all Foxbrush had in this world where hours were told only by the lengthening of shadows, and months by the ripening of fruit in the trees.
Or by the growth of a man’s beard.
Foxbrush lifted a hand to inspect the bush that his face had become. Places on his cheeks utterly refused to grow more than the thinnest layer of fluff, giving him a lopsided and patchy appearance. But eventually the rest had grown so thick and soft that most of the thin patches were disguised.
The hated thing. Too hot for the weather, inconvenient for the unsanitary conditions, and far too hospitable to strange crawling beasties. There was no shaving it, however. Redman had shown Foxbrush how to keep it somewhat trimmed with a stone knife, which was an agony. For the most part, he was obliged to let it have its way with his face.
He touched it now as he walked down the path from the Eldest’s House, following in Lark’s wake. None of his old friends or acquaintances would recognize him now, four months into this unnatural exile. At least he hoped they wouldn’t! He doubted very much he would recognize himself were someone to hold a mirror up to him. He’d probably scream at what he saw reflected there.
Foxbrush grinned ruefully at this thought and left the beard alone. Lark had suggested several times that he let her and her sisters braid it as they braided their father’s beard. “Keeps it out of your mouth,” she insisted. But that was a line Foxbrush the dandy could not quite bear to cross, even now.
The morning was cooler than previous mornings, still warm but hinting at the relief of rainy seasons to come. Autumn swiftly approached, and the elder figs in the orchard were already producing their third crop. Foxbrush had been delighted to learn that these resilient trees could produce four rich harvests in a single year, so swiftly did the fruit ripen. And what a bounty each time! He had never before tasted elder figs, but he knew with the first bite—after Lark showed him how to peel away the skin, which split at the stem and came off like a bandage—that he did indeed taste the near-mythic edible gold about which he’d read so much.
Of course, the folk of the village were not the only ones to appreciate this bounty. Thus, every morning, Foxbrush followed Lark and a cluster of children down to the orchard. (He was still not considered strong enough to participate in men’s work but was shuffled off with the young folk every day.) Armed with tiny blowguns and darts dipped in a stinging, itch-inducing poison, they established themselves at intervals throughout the orchard, prepared to fend off any birds, monkeys, lemurs, or other determined connoisseurs of the elder fig’s riches.