Once Almon had finished his overview of the ways in which their living conditions were improved by elven magic, he would lead Saphienne, Celaena, and Iolas further, showing them how the Great Art benefitted their culture.

He’d start by stressing that there were significant overlaps between the material and the cultural — including areas where the division between the two didn’t meaningfully exist. Amusingly to Saphienne, he’d illustrate his point using the Tome of Correspondence through which he communicated with his fellow teachers: all such enchanted tomes were physical tools that served a practical purpose, and yet the discussions within them were also living enactments of elven culture.

More subtly? The medium of conversation shaped how people spoke to one another; how people spoke to one another gave rise to conventions and norms; conventions and norms gradually became custom; custom shaped society; and society was what produced the mediums through which all conversations unfolded. To change any one part risked the whole.

Dispensing with the metaphor of the tome, the wizard would then clarify that what they were really talking about was the consensus of the woodlands. Politics, so the apprentices were to learn, was the application of cultural norms to decision-making, and the decisions reached by the consensus bound all elves.

When Almon joked to them that politics was where material circumstances and culture provoked each other into an argument? He’d only be half-joking: the consensus of the woodlands was an ongoing attempt to find harmony amidst that tension.

Yet doing so was easier said than done. How were elves to find consensus when starving? Or sick? Or when lacking the necessary education to understand what was being discussed, let alone to discern the implications of sophisticated proposals? So too, the apprentices would be asked to weigh the potential impact of deceit, including artistic deception that misrepresented the issues of the day.

Saphienne would think other thoughts, about poetry labelled subversive and history that was hidden.

Maintaining the consensus of the woodlands therefore depended upon supporting each and every elf in being all who they could be, termed their ‘natural right to flourish.’ This was necessarily balanced against what was required fromthem to ensure the thriving of the woodlands overall. Rights were reciprocal with responsibilities — but how, then, were dishonest conduct and unfair dealings to be identified and rectified?

That divinations were not directly admissible as evidence of wrongdoing wouldn’t be a surprise to Saphienne, given the myriad ways in which they could subtly fail. Nor would she find it hard to understand why witness testimony or physical evidence couldn’t be used to infer past events, since the problem of an evil wizard sculpting minds and matter was not merely philosophical.

But despite having gone over the reasoning in abstract… hearing that the solution reached by the consensus was trust? She’d struggle to accept that. She and Iolas would argue with their master about the danger, disturbed that wrongdoers who weren’t caught in the act were instead subjected to what was, essentially, trial by reputation.

Being told by the wizard that the only wrongdoing which went before the local consensus was that which couldn’t or wouldn’t be decided otherwise? Learning that would be of little reassurance, for he’d go on to clarify that the elders were first called upon to pass judgement — with members of the Luminary Vale aiding them when no determination could be reached. And Almon, at least, had already demonstrated poor judgement.

Yet, when raw doubt and fear were placed into the crucible of reason, what else could emerge but trust?

Almon’s argument would be that trust was the only alternative to might making right. If one rejected rule through power – as every wizard should – then everything else was simply a question of who one believed could be trusted. Any attempt to establish guilt or innocence through appeal to an objective measurement of the world ultimately reduce to trust in what one had been taught, which reduced even further — to trust in one’s teacher, or trust in one’s self.

Whether or not she’d be persuaded by the wizard, Saphienne would come to understand why Filaurel had been so frightfully concerned for her reputation.

But not all that the students were to cover was to be so fraught. After the fierce disputes on politics and justice had subsided, they could move on from the art of debate to examining magical arts.

* * *

“What have you gotten yourself into…”

Although Taerelle had stressed that she had something important for Saphienne to do, she had also made clear that it wasn’t urgent. Saphienne had decided to put off meeting her tutor for a few days, instead using the time to work on more detailed, coordinated outfit designs which she proudly showed to her friends.

Her confidence had only slightly diminished when Celaena suggested minor alterations to the way their clothes would hang. Then Laewyn had made a small request, wanting more lavish fabrics than Saphienne had originally envisioned. Then Iolas had oh-so-helpfully suggested the outfits incorporate embroidery — and then Faylar had enthusiastically agreed, proposing that the group should get together to decide on a pattern.

As she now stared at the sketches littering her bed, Saphienne realised she was going to be very busy until the festival, and she ought to find out what Taerelle needed. Hopefully it wouldn’t be much… and perhaps whatever it was would be an excuse to scale back on the garments.

Dressed in pale grey robes, the junior apprentice set out to visit her senior, enjoying the rainy day as she walked through the southwestern edge of the village where Taerelle supposedly lived. Near the outskirts she asked for directions and was pointed to a recently planted grove – less than a century old – where only one enchanted tree had been converted into a home.

She wondered what her tutor’s family would be like. Taerelle had said that she couldn’t stand being around them, which Saphienne imagined would make practising magic quite vexing. The prospect of casting spells around Lynnariel made Saphienne uneasy — loathe to endure her encouragement.

Yet when she arrived at the indicated house she saw it was a little smaller than her family home, and far less welcoming, the door and windowsills having been painted dim and mildly forbidding grey. Yet the doorstep was dry despite the weather, and stuck to the frame was a note in a neat hand.

“Saphienne,” she read aloud, “I am in the back; come around.”

Another augury? Annoyed, she went around the tree.

The back garden was overgrown but not untended, a frequently trod path running from the kitchen to a separate building — which Saphienne first mistook for a hillock. Then she saw wispy smoke rising above the grassy mound, and that an open door was cut into its side. The faint scent of burning hung on the damp air.

So loud was the rain and thick were the walls that Saphienne didn’t hear the commotion within until she stood in the entrance.

Taerelle was dressed in the black of her inner robes, but they hung loose behind her where she had thrown them off above her belt, draped like a skirt over her legs with only silver cloth wound tight about her chest for modesty. She was leaner and stronger than Saphienne had noticed, her skin glistening with sweat, and her braid whipped around as she swung the hammer she held with tremendous force — beating the glowing metal upon her anvil as she sang a song of crafting.

Yet how she sung captivated Saphienne. She did not whisper; there was nothing low or lulling in her voice. Taerelle practically shrieked the end of each verse, counting time with her hammer blows, unfettered as she bent what she worked to her will.

Saphienne swallowed, waited by the door, all but fascinated.

When Taerelle had folded the metal three times, she dropped her hammer to lean against the anvil and thrust what she had shaped back into the weak flame of the forge beside her. As she turned around she spotted Saphienne, but she only smiled, and waved her inside as she moved across the wide floor to a workbench, there lifting a pitcher of cool water she drank with relish.

“If you’re busy,” Saphienne offered, “I can come back later–”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Taerelle wiped her lips with her wrist. “You’ve kept me waiting four days — and I’m only practicing.”

Not consciously aware of all she was feeling, but aware she was on edge, Saphienne approached hesitantly, her eyes going to the stone walls. “This isn’t like any workshop I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s because it isn’t just a workshop,” Taerelle smirked, gesturing to where the girl stood.

Saphienne glanced down; strange symbols were scribbled underfoot in chalk. She started in fright and leapt away quickly, realising too late that she had wandered into a binding circle–

The senior apprentice roared with laughter, setting down her water as she doubled over. By the time she had recovered enough composure to straighten up, Saphienne had turned completely scarlet, which only made Taerelle howl again, wiping her eyes by the time she was spent.

“You–” The older girl guffawed. “You’re adorably ignorant.”

The junior apprentice folded her arms. “Stop laughing at me.”

“Lighten up.” Taerelle’s mirth subsided into giggling. “You’d be laughing just as much. Seeing you panic is also reassuring — you’re not as aloof as you try to portray.”

No dignity left to salvage, Saphienne tried to change the subject. “So, this is your sanctum?”

“Part of it. A wizard’s sanctum is just the private retreat where she works her magic,” Taerelle clarified, lifting a prepared towel. “My entire house is my sanctum. This is just where I practice those spells and other arts that could be dangerous if they went awry.”

“Don’t your family disturb you?”

Taerelle’s cold eyes narrowed. “When I meet them, but I don’t see–” Then they were illuminated by realisation, and she patted the towel on her shoulders as she explained. “You think I live with my family? Never again. This place is mine.”

Now Saphienne was intrigued. “But you’re barely in your forties… how do you have a house to yourself?”

“I made the case that it would be beneficial to my studies,” Taerelle shrugged, “and our master agreed. He wrote a letter of recommendation when I made the request. My family also supported it,” she sneered, “for all they pretended otherwise.”

Prying into her family life seemed unwise. “You said that you had–”

“Why do you keep looking away?”

She hadn’t intended to; the question inexplicably flustered her. “I…”

“Oh!” Taerelle giggled again, and she tossed the towel aside as she reached down to raise her robes back into their proper place. “I forgot what it’s like, being your age.”

Saphienne blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Best that you figure that out yourself.” Yet whatever she had read in Saphienne, she was endeared to her, and beckoned her closer once she was redressed. “Let me show you what you’ll be doing.”

There was to be no argument, Saphienne understood. She detoured to walk over the scuffed remnants of the old circle while Taerelle grinned approvingly.

Unrolled on the workbench was a diagram of a rod, clearly magical in design. The arcane notation was unreadable to Saphienne, but the measurements indicated the rod would be about a foot in length, crowned with some form of crystal. She could see that the interior was not to be solid metal, but rather layers differentiated by shading, the innermost matched to the hue of the crystal. “What kind of rod is this?”

“Wand,” Taerelle corrected her. “Do you know the difference?”

Saphienne didn’t.

“A rod is enchanted to perform a single function. Like, for example, nearly ending your apprenticeship.”

She rolled her eyes. “Very funny. What about wands?”

“The enchantment can be changed.” Taerelle ran her finger over the depiction. “A wizard or sorcerer can imbue a wand with a spell, and cast the spell from the wand until it is depleted. Some recharge over time… I’m not sure I’ll be able to figure that out for these, before they’re due.”

“You’re making more than one? Who requested them?”

“Our master.” Taerelle lifted the diagram. “He needs three rods, and has set me the challenge of making them as wands. Rods would be easy… which isn’t to say that the work is simple.” She rolled up the sheet. “If I can make them self-charging? He’ll be impressed. But to have a chance of doing that, I have to offload some of the work onto you.”

The anticipation of working with Taerelle excited Saphienne. “Doesn’t this count as teaching me magic?”

“No, because you’ll only be designing and making the fittings.” Taerelle tapped Saphienne’s head with the roll of paper. “You said you have experience making jewellery? These are to be works of art — each with different fittings. After much back and forth with our master, he has approved me utilising your skills.”

“You didn’t tell him–”

“Of course not.” Taerelle tutted. “He thinks I want your esteem, in the event you succeed in becoming a wizard. Which is not wholly a lie.”

Saphienne appreciated her bluntness. “What are the fittings to be?”

“Flowers. Three different flowers that do not bloom in summer.”

“Which?”

Taerelle smiled and pushed the diagram into her hand. “Whichever you choose. But make them pretty ones, and their symbolism happy, and only set the fittings on the outside of the wands. Once I approve your designs, I’ll let you use my forge.”

There, Saphienne hesitated. “…It might take me a while. I’m not very capable with craft magic.”

“Who taught you?”

“Gaeleath taught me to work stone and wood, but it was Eletha who–”

“Eletha?” Taerelle didn’t hide that she was impressed. “Well, aren’t you continually full of surprises. She very rarely takes on students — she turned me away. But you say you’re not good with craft magic?”

“Gaeleath thinks I just need more time.”

The senior apprentice strode across the workshop, moving to a shelf near the forge from which she lifted an ingot of unworked iron. Taerelle tossed it beside the metal she had been working, then pumped the bellows with her foot, the flames growing. “To the anvil.”

Eyes widening, Saphienne backed toward the door. “I have a prior commitment–”

“Not anymore.” Her tutor pointed in firm command. “Anvil. Ready your voice.”

As she reluctantly stood where prescribed, Saphienne felt that she might as well have been bound by a circle on the floor.

* * *

“What was that?”

“…I’m singing it like I was taught–”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“Where are your feelings? Craft magic is all about emotion — you only sound like you want to die.”

“Eletha sang it quietly–”

“You and I are not quiet. Try again.” … “No, louder.” … “I said louder!”

“Stop shouting at–”

“There’s some emotion! Put that into your voice.”

“But the song isn’t–”

“It’s your song. Own it. Sing it how you want it to be sung.”

“I don’t want to sing–”

“Perform or perish, prodigy.”

“Fuck off!” … “Fine.”

“…See? Much better.”

* * *

Quite apart from making the clothing and the wands, Saphienne had another task that she had to attend to — one she was dreading.

“There’s to be a meeting of the local consensus,” Filaurel had told her, back when the librarian had been asked to chaperone, “and usually I’m responsible for taking down the minutes. But this meeting will finalise the agenda for the summer festival, and I’m on the planning committee this year. They kindly made me their delegate.”

Saphienne had guessed the issue. “Why can’t you write the minutes?”

“I’m forbidden from taking minutes when I’m proposing a motion to the consensus. You want me to chaperone? Then you’ll spend the evening recording the events of the meeting in my place.”

Her request hadn’t seemed particularly difficult, and so Saphienne had agreed without complaint. Yet Filaurel had recommended she borrow two texts from the library that she’d never had occasion to read: ‘The Rules of Order for Reaching Consensus,’ and ‘Addendums to the Rules of Order as Agreed by the Eastern Vale.’

The rules of order turned out to be a very thick, dry book.

But the addendums took up four volumes.

“Really,” Saphienne whispered, “what have you gotten yourself into…”

She was sat in the teahouse, curled up on a comfy chair in a corner of the upper floor with her notes on her lap and the texts on the table before her. Alinar had been curious what she was studying, then had nearly dropped a book when he recognised its content, his expression conveying intense sympathy for her plight.

Still, with his teahouse quiet due to rain and thunder, he was refilling her cup with unrequested tea at regular intervals; and this time he brought her biscuits along with his bleak humour. “There but for the grace of the gods go we…”

“Alinar,” Saphienne asked, “why don’t we just use magic for the minutes?”

His extended sigh was telling. “It takes a meeting of the full consensus of the woodlands to agree changes to the rules of order, and the way all meetings are to be minuted–”

“Is specified by the rules.” She sipped her tea. “Believe me: I know.”

“Every time it gets discussed, there’s huge arguments about changing it. The main complaints are that it’s quicker to read through a written record than listen, and that any magical tampering with the minutes will be more obvious if they aren’t held in an enchantment.”

“Fine,” she conceded, “but why do the addendums reference the rules of order by section and line number — without quoting them?”

“No clue.” The elf adjusted his apron. “I guess they’re four books already, so if you included the references–”

Saphienne hung her head. “I should never have agreed to this.”

He chuckled. “I only attend when obliged to. Call me lazy if you like,” he said as he walked away, “but I’m happy to leave this to the likes of you wizards.”

“You’re welcome,” she muttered.

What really annoyed her? She didn’t have to read through the rules of order to take the minutes. The meeting would be run by an elected chair, and the assistant to the chair – not

the secretary – was responsible for keeping them. But Filaurel had known she wouldn’t be able to do it unless she fully understood what was going on, and so when the librarian had pointed her to them–

“Saphienne?”

She looked up from cross-referencing, feeling as though she were cross-eyed.

Laewyn was standing at the top of the stairs, resplendent in a white sundress beneath a gauzy orange mantle that was ill-suited to the storm outside. “I didn’t see you! How long have you been up here?”

The pile of notes beside her gave weight to her mournful answer. “Too long.”

Laewyn bit her lip. “Um, would you like a break…?”

She put her tea on the flat armrest of her chair and stretched. “Please! Give me any excuse to do something else.”

The other girl laughed. “I’m sitting with some friends by a window, if you’d like to come and meet them?”

…Perhaps not any excuse. “On second thoughts, I have dresses to work on.”

Yet Laewyn was undeterred, and she started gathering up Saphienne’s notes without care for their order. “Don’t be so nervous! You need more friends.”

“I’ll have you know that have more than–”

Saphienne stopped herself; she was being prickly again. And for all that she’d been self-conscious when she met Alinar, he’d turned out to be easy to talk to. Would it be so bad to make more friends?

“…Give me those. You can pack up the books. Would you mind carrying my drink?”

But when Laewyn led her to the window where her friends were chatting, Saphienne soon regretted coming down.

Laewyn didn’t notice the younger girl had stopped following as she resumed her seat. “Everyone, this is Saphienne.”

Lensa turned to stare at her from the opposite couch; Syndelle and Tirisa were sitting either side of their leader.

“…You’re an apprentice wizard.” Lensa sounded surprised, but her bright blue eyes weren’t pleased at all as she held Saphienne’s gaze. “That would be why you’re friends with Celaena.”

Tirisa was flushed with resentment beneath her makeup. “Explains a lot…”

Laewyn didn’t notice their hostility. “You all know each other?”

Syndelle finished draining her overly large cup. She regarded Saphienne far more warily than on their last encounter. “Hello Saphienne…” Her low voice was ponderous. “We didn’t know you’re smart…”

Tirisa leaned behind Lensa to punch Syndelle’s shoulder.

The girls sat next to Laewyn were younger, both about the same age as Saphienne, though she couldn’t remember their names. One craned forward to get a better look at her — and raised her eyebrows. “It is you! You’re the weird girl who spent all her time reading, aren’t you?”

“Alynelle!” Laewyn poked her in the ribs. “Be nice.”

“What? It’s true!”

Saphienne’s introduction was going terribly. No matter how much she’d grown since she last socialised with these girls, the spectre of exclusion lingered. She didn’t know what to say or do, only wanted to make her excuses and leave…

…But instead she felt for the purse in her pocket. “I was always reading,” she agreed as she sat on the arm beside Laewyn, still facing Lensa, “which I suppose might have seemed weird. Do you read much, Alynelle?”

The girl frowned, brushing her loose hair back behind her ears. “Why would I?”

No, Saphienne wouldn’t be excluded again. She recalled how the adults in the adjacent garden had seen her differently, once she had shown who she was; she knew then how she would carry herself.

Putting on her very best impression of Taerelle, she reached back and brought her ponytail forward, idly winding it around her fingers as she set her bulging satchel at her feet. “I have no idea…” She pointedly directed her question to Lensa. “…Why would anyone spend all their time reading?”

Her robes made her point for her.

The older girl inclined her head, acknowledging their contest. “You’re very young to be an apprentice to Master Almon, aren’t you?”

Laewyn was grinning proudly. “She’s so smart it’s scary. Celaena says she’s even smarter than her!”

“How nice.” Lensa lifted her teacup. “With all your reading, do you ever feel like you’re missing on practical experiences?”

Saphienne took her cup from Laewyn’s hand without looking, oblivious to how the act appeared as she sipped. “…I wouldn’t say I’m missing much. I studied with Filaurel, Jorildyn, Eletha, Ninleyn, and Gaeleath before I began my apprenticeship. I’m still taking lessons in sculpture.”

Quick to sing her praises, Laewyn added, “She’s very talented. She can make clothes, shoes, and jewellery.”

The last girl, on the far end of the couch from Laewyn, raised her voice in earnest excitement. “Can you cast any spells?”

“I’m accomplished with craft magic,” Saphienne pretended, “but Celaena and I are only just starting out — spells of the First Degree aren’t easy. It’ll be a while before we don the black.”

That won a smug smile from Lensa, who leant back with exaggerated ease. “So you can’t cast any spells.”

“I didn’t say that.” Saphienne gave her a quizzical look. “I didn’t say anything about spells below the First Degree. But then, we’re not meant to talk about our studies.”

Laewyn sighed theatrically at the girl who’d asked about magic. “Sorry Elisa, she’s not being rude. Saphienne always talks like everyone would understand–”

Lensa’s smile vanished. “I’d understand.” There was a subtle edge to her voice as she provoked Saphienne, an insistence that she was more than equal to anyone else. “I understand Celaena just fine. Which of your parents is the wizard?”

Growing more comfortable as she was challenged, Saphienne made a point of pushing the empty soup bowls in the middle of the table aside to clear space for her cup. “You’ll have to excuse me — I don’t remember your name.”

“Lensa. I didn’t remember yours, either.”

“Then let’s treat this like a first meeting.” Saphienne crossed one leg over the other. “Neither of my parents are wizards. As far as I know, no one in my family has shown magical talent before. Celaena is the only one of us who’s related to a wizard, though I heard Iolas has a distant relative who’s a sorcerer.”

Nothing in what she said improved Lensa’s disposition. “If none of your family are wizards, then why did Master Almon take you on as his apprentice?”

Saphienne had an answer that had worked before. She flicked her ponytail back across her shoulder and clasped her hands. “What can I say? He knows talent when he sees it.”

Tirisa finally scowled. “You don’t seem that talented to me.”

Her change in demeanour encouraged Syndelle, whose arms folded. “And you don’t scare me.”

Unfortunately for the large yet slow girl, Saphienne had an eye for weakness.

“Well, you’re right not to be scared.” She kept her tone mild as she spoke to Syndelle, watching closely Lensa out of the corner of her eye. “I’m not very frightening.”

Her admission pleased Syndelle, whose smirk betrayed that she mistook it for submission.

“Being possessed? Now that’s frightening.” Saphienne surreptitiously dipped her finger into her tea, tracing a curve on the tabletop. “We’re very fortunate that the spirits of the woodlands are so friendly to elves. Hyacinth has told me about all sorts of dangerous spirits in the wider world. The thought of being puppeted by one of them… losing control of myself…”

Saphienne closed the circle. “That scares me. Being attacked by something you can’t see, can’t touch, and can’t fight off? I’d be terrified

.”

Tirisa glanced sceptically at Lensa. “Who’s Hyacinth?”

“Hyacinth is a woodland spirit.” Would Hyacinth respond to her name being said three times by two different people? Saphienne shrugged. “I bested her in a duel, and now she’s forced to serve me for a year and a day. She’s hovering around us right now.”

Syndelle turned to Lensa more fearfully — who snorted.

Was that a faint breeze? If there ever were a time for Hyacinth to successfully read her body language… “Do any of you want to meet her?”

Lensa had heard enough. “Nice try. Celaena’s been studying for a few weeks at most. You’re not as smart as Laewyn says if you think that–”

Saphienne dramatically raised her hand.

Hyacinth announced her presence with glee, winding around the table as a playful zephyr that ruffled the hair of all the other girls while taking care to leave Saphienne well alone. As Syndelle gave a strangled cry and cowered, the spirit abandoned her teasing to alight not within the circle, but upon Saphienne’s hand, rippling the sleeve of her robe as though she grasped a gale.

Lensa had become beautifully pale.

Saphienne broke the shocked silence. “Thank you, Hyacinth. You may go.”

Joyfully, revelling in their mischief, the bloomkith stirred through the air, twirling in a final flourish before she departed, her manifestation entirely unnoticed by the scant other patrons.

Even Laewyn was wide-eyed, her past trauma from the hidden glade within them. “…Fuck, Saphienne. I didn’t know you could do that.”

She retrieved her tea. “It’s just ritual Invocation; hardly counts as magic. The point is–” Saphienne gave Lensa a winning grin while she spoke soothingly to Syndelle. “–I feel much safer, knowing that the spirits of the woodlands are protecting us. There’s nothing here that anyone should be scared about.”

After a long pause, Lensa cleared her throat. “You’re someone who’s worth knowing.”

Saphienne toasted them all with her cup. “Friends of Laewyn are friends of mine.”

Yet for all that Syndelle was relieved to be her friend, the smiles of Lensa and Tirisa were far more polite.

* * *

Three days before her mentor was due to set out to meet the human trader, Saphienne arrived at the library to find Faylar casually sitting behind Filaurel’s desk. “Faylar? Where’s Filaurel?”

He was anxious when he saw her. “She left me to watch the place — she said she had to fetch some things from her home. I think she’s going to test you… are you ready?”

Saphienne took off her satchel and set it next to the borrowing ledger, switching into the common trade tongue to give her stilted reply. “Yes. I am expecting that she is asking questions that are not being difficult to be answering.”

Faylar put his head in his hands, and answered in the same language. “You better be hoping that. If she tells us that you are unprepared, be remembering that I tried to warn you about the grammar.”

“It is not being too difficult,” she objected. “We are having understanding.”

He muttered a dwarven aphorism.

Though far more proficient in Dwarfish than the common trade tongue, Saphienne needed a moment to translate back into Elfish. “…I think you said, ‘A man once called me by the wrong name while he said he understood me.’ What’s that supposed to mean?”

A voice behind her said, “It means the odds are against you.”

Saphienne was hurrying around the desk before she realised what she was doing, and she found herself next to Faylar as he cheerfully addressed the Warden of the Wilds who had come through the door.

“Sundamar! I didn’t know you spoke Dwarfish…?”

The armoured man grinned. “And the common trade tongue; necessary evils.”

While the boy laughed, Saphienne recognised the man: he and Faylar’s mother had stopped her on her way to the shrine of Our Lord of the Endless Hunt.

Sundamar clearly recollected Saphienne as well, and gave her an awkward nod as he tapped a letter against the desk. “I’m looking for Filaurel.”

“She’s not here,” Saphienne said, reaching for the heavy ledger as she absently stepped in front of Faylar. “What do you want with her?”

The warden raised the correspondence he held. “This letter arrived for her, and it’s marked as urgent. I’m needed elsewhere–”

“I’ll take it to her.” Saphienne didn’t hold out her hand, both sets of her knuckles white against the spine of the book.

For a moment the warden appeared tempted to say more… but then his mossy eyes softened, and he left the letter for her to retrieve. “I’m sure you will. Please be as swift as you can manage.” He glanced past her to Faylar. “Tell your mother I said hello?”

“I will! It was good to see you.”

“And both of you.” The Warden of the Wilds took his leave with a bow.

Saphienne held her breath until he was out of sight.

“Saphienne?” Faylar very gently touched her elbow. “Are you alright? Why are you covered in sweat?”

She blinked. “I ran here,” she lied, setting down the book as she lifted the letter. “Do you know where Filaurel lives?”

“No, but–”

“I’ll just ask around.”

She was in such a hurry to leave that she left her satchel.

* * *

Finding Filaurel wasn’t straightforward. Saphienne had to ask several people before one was able to point her southward, and were it not for one of the librarian’s neighbours weeding by the warm daylight she would never have picked out the unremarkable house from the others in the grove.

She knocked on the door to no reply.

Less because the letter was urgent than because she had a terrible feeling of foreboding, Saphienne went around the house, peering through the windows to try to see if Filaurel was home… and if she was well. The sitting room was without character, so too the neat kitchen at the back of the house.

Yet, when Saphienne turned around to the survey the rear garden, she saw two things that were very out of place.

First was a short wall – bizarrely made from slats of wood – that enclosed a section of the garden. Though she didn’t yet know at the time, this was the only fence within the entirety of the Eastern Vale — far different in purpose to the enchanted stone that surrounded places like Celaena’s home.

Yet the second was even more striking. A large tree grew within the fenced-off area, distinct from every other she had encountered, with long and thin branches of bright green, its slender leaves hanging down from the drooping limbs as though pouring toward the ground.

Elves of the woodlands were taught the names for all the trees and plants when they were young, so Saphienne was quite stunned. She approached on guard, moving faster when she saw a figure sprawled against the trunk, legs stretched out before her and head tilted back limply–

With a large, fluffy, orange-and-white cat yawning on her lap.

Saphienne stopped; Filaurel was sleeping in the sunshine.

The cat languidly stretched and then trotted across the grass, nimbly hopping up onto the post of the gate, where it sniffed Saphienne’s sleeve before meowing for attention.

Eyelids fluttering, Filaurel drowsily spoke in the common trade tongue. “Come here, my minina…”

Again the cat cried, waving a paw at Saphienne.

The librarian opened her eyes — and sat up suddenly, alarmed to see Saphienne. “Why are you here?” she asked in Elfish. “What’s gone wrong?”

Feeling very foolish, Saphienne held out the letter. “A Warden of the Wilds left this. He said it was urgent.”

Her mentor blinked away her tiredness as she hurried over, opening her correspondence with one hand as she habitually petted the cat with another. Midway through skimming the text, she relaxed. “…We’ll be leaving a day later than planned. Our merchant was detained.”

Saphienne tentatively stroked the cat’s swaying tail as she studied the the tree. “Filaurel, what is this?”

The librarian was distracted by the end of the message. “…She’s a stray. I call her Peluda…”

She pointed. “No — I meant that.”

Filaurel lowered the letter. She didn’t need to look. Her palm drifted from her feline friend to lay just below her neckline. “…It’s a type of willow. I grew it from a cutting.”

“I’ve never seen one like it before.”

“You wouldn’t have.” She turned to behold it with a distant gaze. “There aren’t any others in the woodlands. It’s a hybrid. I wasn’t sure it’d grow here, but at least some spirits seem fond of it.” She smiled a very strange and delicate smile. “Humans call them weeping willows…”

Uncertain of what it all meant to her, Saphienne admired the tree all the same.

Filaurel shook her head as she came through the gate. “I meant to fetch some things. They’re just inside — I won’t be a moment.”

“Would you like me to help carry them?”

But her mentor was quick – too quick – to wave her off. “You might as well stay out here.” Her grin was well-rehearsed as she gestured to the purring cat. “Why not make friends with Peluda? She’s a sweet old girl. Just don’t try to touch her belly: she’s very particular about her personal space.”

Saphienne hid her disappointment as Filaurel went inside.

Once Filaurel had gone, Peluda sensed that Saphienne was upset. The gentlehearted stray tried to grab the girl’s hand with both paws to comfort her.

Alas, she pulled away.

End of Chapter 65