I woke later that night, opening my eyes to look up at the ceiling. Moonlight slanted in through the windows, pale beams hanging in midair with dark shadows between. I turned my head to see that Anne was still asleep, her hair a black halo against the pillow. I propped myself up on one elbow and looked down at her for a little while, watching the slight movements as the covers rose and fell with her breath. Loving someone is a warm feeling, like having a small well-banked fire burning steadily inside you, and I’d been surprised at how strong it had grown. I leant over to kiss Anne lightly on her forehead, then slid off the futon, moving quietly so as not to disturb her. I dressed, and walked outside in silence, drawing the door closed behind me.
The Hollow feels magical at night. The moon that shines down from above is a mirror of Earth’s, but the stars are completely different, glowing clusters of blue and purple and gold. The only sound was the faint rustle of the leaves in the trees. The night air was cool but not unpleasant; I crossed the front clearing, grass whispering under my feet, and rounded the copse to Karyos’s cocoon.
The sapling linked to Karyos’s cocoon had grown by leaps and bounds. It had been only as high as my waist when I’d first seen it, and now it was nearly twice my height, its leaves and branches shooting upwards while the other plants around the clearing had barely changed. The cocoon itself was a hemisphere around the tree’s base. It had grown with the tree, to the point that, from a distance, the tree looked like it was sprouting out of a very large anthill.
I rested my fingers against the cocoon, feeling the roughness of the bark against my skin. Above, the wind stirred the trees, the branches shifting gently before settling back into silence. I looked up at the stars, my thoughts moving in circles in troubling paths.
Movement in the futures caught my attention and I looked up to see a white shape appear from behind the copse, bright in the moonlight. “Can’t sleep?” Anne asked softly.
“That lifesight of yours is hard to fool, isn’t it?”
“Not lifesight,” Anne said as she walked closer. She was wearing a silk robe, embroidered in flowers in Japanese designs. “Just old habits.” She nodded at the cocoon. “She’s growing quickly.”
“What’ll she look like when she comes out?”
“Like a seven- or eight-year-old.”
“No bark or roots this time?”
“Not that I can see.” Anne placed a hand flat on the cocoon. “I can’t read her mind, but her brain development seems healthy. When we fought her two years ago, her pattern looked twisted. No trace of that this time. I think she’s going to do well.”
I looked at Anne, slender and thoughtful, gazing down at the cocoon, and had to smile.
Anne looked at me curiously. “What’s so funny?”
“I was just imagining her coming out of her cocoon and calling you ‘mama.’”
Anne smiled. “Would that make you her father?”
“You’re the one who’s been checking on her every week. If anyone counts as her parent by now . . .”
“I’m not sure how good a mother figure I’d be.” Anne tilted her head. “What is wrong? Something’s worrying you.”
I sighed and walked to the edge of the copse, sitting on a fallen tree. “It’s that talk I had with Arachne.”
“About the dreamstone?” Anne came over. “I thought you’d decided not to use it.”
“I don’t want to use it. I’m worried I might not have a choice.”
Anne sat down next to me. Her figure cast a long shadow in the moonlight, stretching to merge with the darkness of the trees behind. “Why?”
“You remember last year when I went to see the dragon that lives under the Heath?”
Anne nodded.
“When I told Luna, she asked me about what it had said. You didn’t.”
“I suppose not.”
“You weren’t curious?”
“I knew you’d tell me if it was important. Besides, I had the feeling that whatever you’d learned, it hadn’t helped.”
“That’s true enough.” I sat in silence for a moment. “I asked the dragon three questions. One was about Racheclass="underline" I wanted to know how I could turn her away from Richard. The dragon told me I had to convince her of the ‘truth of her fears.’ The other two questions were about you.”
Anne didn’t reply, and after a moment I went on. “First I asked how I could break you free of the influence of the jinn. Then I asked how I could become powerful enough to stay alive and protect the people I cared about. The dragon gave me the same answer to both. It told me I couldn’t.”
“You . . . couldn’t?”
I nodded.
“But that’s wrong,” Anne said. “You did break me free. Last year, in Elsewhere.”
“That wasn’t really me,” I said. “When I asked, the dragon told me that the link between you and the jinn was a function of the jinn’s own power, and that I couldn’t break it. And that was exactly what happened. I didn’t drive it out—you did.”
“I suppose . . .”
“The dragon explained its answer to the other question as well. It told me I could stay alive, or protect the people I cared about. Not ‘and,’ ‘or.’ And it told me that the person in question was you.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’ve been feeling for a long time that sooner or later, if I want to have a chance against mages like Richard and Levistus, I’m going to have to do something drastic,” I said. “The more I think about it, the more it feels like this Elsewhere thing might be it.”
“But you said it would probably kill you.”
“And now you know what’s worrying me.”
“No.” Anne put a hand to my shoulder; I looked up to see that her expression was unhappy. “I don’t want you sacrificing yourself.”
“I don’t exactly want to either.”
“Then don’t. How would it even help? You disintegrating yourself in Elsewhere isn’t going to help anyone.”
“Just because I can’t see how it could happen . . .”
“I don’t care,” Anne said. “You aren’t allowed to travel physically to Elsewhere without talking to me first. Okay?”
“I guess.”
“No, not ‘I guess.’ Promise me.”
I hesitated. Anne was looking straight into my eyes, her expression set. “Okay. I promise.”
I felt Anne relax and lean back. “Doesn’t it worry you?” I asked.
“What?”
“It’s a draconic prophecy. From what I understand, they’re never wrong. In fact, they can’t be wrong.”
“Well, maybe this one is.”
I gave Anne a look.
“You’ve already said that you don’t understand what dragons can do or how their prophecies work,” Anne said. “Doesn’t that mean that you shouldn’t be counting on it? I mean, if you’d really believed you couldn’t do anything to help me against the jinn, you wouldn’t have come to Elsewhere. But you did, and it worked. Maybe this prophecy will turn out to be a technicality too.”
“Doesn’t it bother you, having something like this hanging over your head?”
“I’ve never not had something like this hanging over my head.” Anne turned her palms upwards. “Sagash. Crystal. The Council and the Crusaders. Lightbringer, Zilean, Morden, Richard. And now the jinn and her. Every single day, I wake up knowing at the back of my mind that it’s only going to take one thing for my whole world to come apart. Maybe Crystal and Sagash will come back and they won’t make any mistakes this time. Maybe the Council will figure out what really happened at San Vittore. Maybe it’ll be Morden, or Richard, or someone completely new. I used to lie awake worrying about it. I’d stay up for hours and I’d finally fall asleep wondering if someone was going to come for me in the night.”