But his facts were weapons. “Why did Levec tell you this?”
“I asked.”
“And he answered?”
“Not the first time. Not the second. But, yes, in the end, he answered. You have no trouble imagining that Levec could do what he did.”
“No. It’s not Levec—”
“It’s Alowan. But it was Alowan who brought Daine to Terafin—to heal you. Alowan understood the damage done to Daine, and in his way, he provided Daine what he felt was the only opportunity to heal it. And he provided safety from Corniel. Do you doubt it?”
Did she? The answer she wanted to offer was yes. Yes, she doubted it. Alowan’s healerie had been an oasis of peace, a refuge, a place of life and light.
“Do you doubt that I can become what he was?”
Yes. Yes she doubted it. But the word wouldn’t leave her lips because she could see—for just a moment—the steel of the older man in the youthful lines of the younger man’s face. She swallowed. “I hope you can,” she said softly. “And at least you wouldn’t be Levec.”
He laughed, the sudden shift in expression and tone shattering the brief glimpse she had had of his future. She turned to face endless forest; he once again caught her elbow. They both understood that it was important they not be separated, although neither had said it in so many words.
They walked for half an hour before Jewel once again stopped. The forest had not substantially changed, and it was hard—for someone born and bred to city trees—to easily differentiate between the trunks of large trees; they might have been walking in a circle, for all she knew. The sun did not noticeably change; the light across the forest floor still fell at a steep incline, not a gradual one.
And Jewel was done with wandering, like lost children, in a fairy-tale landscape. These trees were part of her forest, and her forest was part of Terafin. It was to Terafin that she now walked. There was no sudden clearing, no obvious path, to follow, but it wasn’t necessary. She wasn’t lost, here. She could not afford to be lost.
Ahead, in the same light, she could see the sudden glint of silver leaves. “You’ll like this,” she told Adam, “as long as the cats aren’t there.”
“I like your cats.”
“They’d kill you if they could.”
“Yes, but they can’t and they accept it.” He smiled. “Ariel loves Shadow. Do you think he would kill her, if he could?”
“No.”
“No?”
“She’s never, ever going to be dangerous to him. You might be.” The silvered leaves of impossible trees were now overhead; they caught light to the right and left for as far as the eye could see. “I don’t think the cats like to terrify people. The best they could hope for with Ariel is terror and death.”
“Do you think that was always true?”
“Always? I don’t know. I only met them once before they arrived here.” Silver gave way to gold, as it had in one other forest, the cooler color surrendering the heights to the warmer one. “They were made of stone, at the time. But they seemed the same.”
“The same?”
“They stepped on each other’s tails and paws and tried to nudge each other into tree branches. They tried to land in the same spot. They made a lot of noise.” She sighed as gold gave way to diamond; the warmer color to ice. She didn’t really care for diamonds, and never had. But the trees themselves were arresting. “They were utterly silent in the presence of the Winter King.”
“They served him?”
“Yes. I think he turned them into stone; he didn’t say why. Or how.”
“They weren’t stone when they found you again.”
“No.” She smiled as diamond gave way to a clearing. In its center, standing alone, was a tree of burning flame; it seemed taller than Jewel remembered it. Taller, grander, red leaves crackling in a blaze that would never consume them. “I remember my first home. Not my family’s home; not Rath’s, but mine. It was crowded. You couldn’t walk from one end to another without tripping over someone.” The fire’s light spanned her cheeks as she lifted her face.
“We didn’t have a day of silence. We didn’t have a day where one of my den wasn’t stepping on someone’s foot or tripping them or stealing some of the food off someone else’s plate. Some days, we had Duster in a raging fury; that made almost everyone go quiet until she stormed out.
“The cats remind me of us. They’re friendlier than