I set my jaw. I’d better find out and if so, we’d move on. Nor was there any profit in getting all regretful because the reality of life among the Folk didn’t match up to my idle fancies. I’d never pined over leaving Vanam behind so I wasn’t about to start hankering after a life I’d never even known. I looked around for the good-looking lad with the twisted necklace. He was nowhere to be seen, nor were his cheerful fellows. Nor were the brightly decorated girls who’d been carrying wood and water with gossip and flirtatious glances.

A snatch of music drifted along on a lazy evening breeze. I followed it into the darkness of the night-time Forest and smiled with faint humor. At least my Forest blood gave me better night-sight than the outdwellers, one useful legacy from my father in a traveling life. Beyond a gentle rise in the land, I saw a golden glow of firelight caged in a complex ring of tree trunks and picked my way cautiously toward it.

Alone in the gloom, I fingered my share of the raiders’ booty. I could deck myself out with choice enough pieces to reflect my conquests, but what would that achieve? I’d just jingle like a festival rattle and I wasn’t open to offers, was I?

I pulled out the leather thong I wear around my neck and weighed the rings on it in one hand. One gold ring was a boring piece, won from a particularly stupid cousin of Camarl at Solstice, nothing beyond a weight of sound metal to buy me out of trouble that I couldn’t talk my way clear of. The other was a narrow band of red gold, delicate beading on either edge, finely incised with the stylized wave patterns that the southern Tormalin are so fond of. Ryshad’s Solstice gift to me.

My conceit was hardly flattered by these people thinking Usara was the best I could attract, but if I wore this, as a remembrance of Ryshad, no one here would know what it signified. I hid the rings back beneath my shirt and stowed the other jewelry in my purse. Let these Folk think what they like about me; I had more important fish to fry.

The leaf mold of the Forest floor yielded to a soft carpet of fallen brown needles and the green spring undergrowth no longer brushed my legs. Moss clung to gnarled and twisted roots that grasped the swell of the earth like ancient fingers and I put one hand on the rough and flaky bark of a yew tree. This was a younger tree, upright and firm, heartwood strong and resilient. I moved closer to the light, where the trees bent beneath the weight of years, split to empty hearts where time and decay had eaten the dead wood away. But the outer shells grew strong and vigorous, new wood flowing like clay over the old. The firelight was brighter now, and I heard voices and laughter.

In the center of the grove was the oldest tree, a stumpy half-circle, deep fissures in the hollow wood, branches arching outward to curve back down to the soft layer of needles. Some were rooting themselves afresh to send out bright shoots, while fallen wood lay dead on either side. The central tree was crowned with spring green, feathery sprays of glossy needles rising from the ancient wood. I breathed in the resinous scent and childhood memory stirred. No, this untamed place bore scant resemblance to the groves maintained and trained for bow staves in the cities of Ensaimin. I’d once asked my mother why the mysterious trees were so strictly fenced, disappointed by her explanation of poisonous berries. Looking at this mighty tree claiming its ground and extending its domain with seedling and branch, I felt my childhood fancy had been justified. Those trees had been fenced to stop them getting loose and driving out the tyranny of stone and brick.

But that was just a child’s notion. For the moment, I’d found what I’d been seeking. Folk sat where fallen branches offered handy seats, or where the living arms of the tree dipped down to offer their embrace. Loose groups around the fire fed it with dead wood granted by the great tree and her lesser daughters. The flames burned bright yellow, white at their core, crackling and shifting like a living thing.

As I was wondering how to insinuate myself into the gathering, one of those closest looked around and I recognized the good-looking lad.

“Join us.” He extended a welcoming hand.

“Good evening to you all.” I sat next to him and smiled, friendly and unremarkable, that’s me. Three sets of female eyes examined me for adornment and I was flattered by a hint of disappointment in the men’s gazes.

“You are Livak?” one asked politely. “Of the blood but an outdweller?” His hair and close-trimmed beard looked brown rather than red, though that may have been the light. You could find his face anywhere in eastern Ensaimin, round-jawed with heavy brows, but his vivid green eyes were unmistakably of the Folk.

“That’s right.” I remembered a phrase from an old song. “My father cast his dreams upon the wind and followed them. He was a minstrel and he paused a while to sing for my mother who lived in a city of Ensaimin.” Who had never taken pleasure in music since his departure. I discarded that sudden, irrelevant thought.

The girl beside him said something that escaped me, her smile so sweet it was probably none too polite.

“I speak little of the tongue of the Folk.” I dimpled some charm at the man.

“Don’t concern yourself. We all learn the tongue of the outdwellers, for trade and travel. Folk who come from far distant can have speech strange to our ears as well,” he smiled back. “I am Parul.”

“I am Salkin,” the good-looking lad with the necklace offered and the rest introduced themselves. Nenad was a skinny youth with a raw-boned face and freckles more affliction than adornment. The girls, sisters with well-formed figures and tightly curling auburn hair, were, from youngest to oldest, Yefri, Gevalla and Rusia. All wore a couple of unremarkable trinkets and discreetly hopeful expressions.

“What are you doing?” A square of leather on the ground had a set of runes spread on it, wooden and each half the length of my hand rather than the finger-joint lengths of bone I carried. Three triangles made of three runes joined to make a large one, creating a fourth in the center, just like a birth sigil.

“Seeing what the fate sticks show us of the future,” one of the girls, Gevalla, giggled.

“How very interesting,” I said slowly.

“Do you do this, beyond the wildwood?” Salkin asked. I could smell the spicy scent of new sweat on his clean body.

“We game with runes, sometimes for coin,” I replied cautiously. “Do you?”

Parul nodded toward a lively circle on the far side of the fire. “Certainly.”

I looked over and saw two bright blond heads among the range of russet and brown. So ’Gren had decided to pursue more promising game than Zenela. That was probably just as well, because I couldn’t see her romantic virginal notions surviving an encounter with him.

“Do the fate sticks show you the truth?” Looking no more than idly curious, my thoughts raced; aetheric magic is a magic of the mind. I’ve seen enough fortune-tellers to know the charlatans deduce four parts from five in any prediction from clothing or accent or demeanor, but did the Folk somehow hold the missing fifth? Perhaps there was some Artifice hidden in the wildwood. I held my excitement firmly in check but wondered where I might find a less precious book for Usara to choke down.

“If you truly want to know, the runes will speak to you.” Rusia took the sticks, fitted the three-sided rods into a larger triangle and tapped their ends level.

“How?” A woman in Col who claims to be Aldabreshin does good business weaving mystery over a spread of colored stones. Her trick is statements so vague they answer any query.

“You can ask particular questions,” Gevalla volunteered, her face eager, “or lay the sticks for a foretelling.”

“Or for a picture of where you are and where you are going,” added Yefri.