For the first time, Isla looked around at where she had landed.
An oasis at the center of the mountain. Impossible. Beyond the stream she had fallen into stood hundreds of plants, growing right out of the cave floor, as if the rock was fertile.
The cave was freezing. She still shook from the cold of the water dripping down her face, her clothes soaked tightly against her skin. It was a wonderanythinggrew down here without sunlight or soil, let alone hundreds of different species. It didn’t make any sense. This cave had to be infused with Wildling enchantment.
“What is this place?”
He frowned down at her dripping clothing. It pleased her knowing she likely looked terrible, the long, oversize fabric swallowing her up, her hair in wild strands stuck to her cheeks. He made a move as if to dry her using his powers, then didn’t. Good. She didn’t need his warmth. “Wildlings built a garden in the center of a mountain, to protect all of the island’s flora. This cave harbors plants from every isle on Lightlark.”
Something in her chest tightened. So many Wildling plants had died since she was born, thanks to her powerlessness. She had believed them to be lost forever. But perhaps they still lived on, here.
“The heart of Lightlark blooms every hundred years, attached to a living thing. A plant. If you could identify which types of plants something like the heart might be drawn to, they could guide our search. We could go to where they originate on the island.” So that was why he needed her.
This, she could do. She had never seen most of these Lightlark species, but growing up raised by Wildlings meant she knew how they worked. What to look for.
She bent down, studying the plants closest to her. “For the heart to blossom regularly, it needs to feed off life on the island. It needs a willing, nurturing host.”
Isla made her way through the garden, and, after a while, the king followed her, deeper into the center of the mountain. The floras were fascinating. She saw a tree with leaves every shade of a fire. A smallcactus that grew a single, stunning, no doubt poisonous flower. A bush with vines that curled and uncurled like beckoning fingers.
One wall was covered completely in a mess of dark red roses. Isla could have sworn they were humming.
“Are they—”
“They only grow over dead bodies,” he said impatiently. “Or where blood is spilled. It is said they capture the last words of the dead who give them life.”
Oh.“Like the willow strands,” she said quietly. In Wildling, there was a crop of ancient, sacred trees where the memories and voices of the dead were kept. Twirling some of the limp branches around one’s wrist could make them speak.
Did that mean there were bodies buried in the mountain? Or had the Wildlings simply replanted them here?
Only when she reached the back wall of the garden, an hour later, did she speak again.
“Those,” she said, pointing at the uncurling and curling plants. “Something can be hidden in their middle. I’ve seen even birds live in plants like them. We call them purses. They ... carry things. Without killing them.” She looked pointedly at a plant on the other side, a carnivorous one that looked almost exactly like the purses except for the row of teeth she knew lined its core. She turned again. “And those,” she said, pointing at two trees with thick trunks. “We have something similar called coffiners. They have been known to grow around living things ... almost like a shield. Or, in some cases, as a prison.” Poppy had told her about a girl she knew who had gotten lost in a forest for weeks. A tree had grown around her in seconds, trapping her in its trunk. It had fed her and given her water but had tried to keep her. It had taken three Wildlings to free her. She shrugged. “It would be a perfect place for the heart to hide while also leeching off a living thing.”
Finally, she pointed at the pond she had landed in.
“Those water lilies have roots,” she said. “It could be stuck to a root like that, at the bottom of the water.”
Oro nodded. Made to turn around.
“So, what now?” she asked.
He worked his jaw, irritated, like every piece of knowledge he shared sliced against his very core. “I will decide on a place to start. One that has the plants you’ve indicated.”
That sounded fine. She smothered a yawn, exhausted. Her eyes searched for a way out of the cave. But there was no other exit. Only the hole, a hundred feet up, visible even from this side of the cave. She frowned. “How—”
He turned to look at her. And there was something wicked in his eyes, something that took great pleasure in the horror that overtook her face.
“Absolutelynot.You must have spent too much time under the moon, you lunatic, if you think that I—”
“It’s the only way we get back to the castle before sunrise,” he said.
She opened her mouth, ready to refute that claim, but he interrupted her.
“Trust me, if there was another way, if there was a way to do this withoutyou,we wouldn’t be here.”
Isla waited to feel the sting of his words, but none came. He disliked her just as much as she disliked him. And she was fine with that.
Quickly, before she could warn him what she would do if he dropped her, one arm knocked her legs from under her and the other caught her back. He looked down at her, sighed when he saw her blinking back at him, eyes wide in fear and threats—
