I wasn’t able to stay in the dome for long after the healer left. Not after spending over a week trapped and immobile, though outside the healer’s nest was little better with all the healers and their clinking beads. I circled around to the backside of the dome and breathed a little easier once I was out of their line of sight and they were out of mine. Part of me wanted to pace, but I knew better than to aggravate my leg further after what I had already put it through by climbing the pine tree.

Prevna followed me and leaned against the dome with her full bag of streamers and chimes. I shifted this way and that, filled with the need to do something, but not immediately finding anything that would quell the restlessness.

“Your coat was torn,” Prevna pointed out.

The coat had been too bulky to squeeze into my pack, so I had tied it in place to the bottom of the pack with my bedroll. I pulled it free along with some thread and a needle from my pack. I wasn’t used to doing needlework with the thick, layered fabric the coat was made out of, so the result turned out lumpy and stood out starkly from the uniformity of the rest of the protective gear.

In the meantime, Prevna moved forward and leaned on the rail to people watch. The festivities for warming winds were quieter than those during the cold season, given that no one wanted to offend the goddess by celebrating the end of the season more closely aligned with her too much, but there was still strong drink to be found, stories to hear, contests to win, and group crafting to participate in if you were inclined toward any of those. Prevna was fascinated by seeing the whisper women and fire starters wandering by acting as boisterous and care free as any normal tribesperson celebrating the change of seasons.

Once I finished fixing my coat and was about to start checking over my sling there was a commotion at the front of the dome. Apparently, someone was caught off guard by not immediately finding us where we were supposed to be. I tucked my things away and stood with my pack slung back over my shoulders while Prevna reluctantly stepped back from the railing and lead the way back around the dome.

We found a young female fire starter standing in the middle of the healer’s nest looking both annoyed and apprehensive. When she spotted us her expression cleared.

“There you are! Good. Follow me.”

She pushed past us and started down the main branch without so much as a word of explanation for where we were going or why. Prevna and I shared a look but we hurried to catch up with her.

The fire starter took us through a maze of winding branches, one staircase molded inside the trunk of one of the giant pines, and over multiple ramping bridges, most of which were made from the amber sap and that seemed to provide easier access between different levels of branches for the fire starters who couldn’t use the shadows to quickly jump level to level. One bridge was woven using the long purple and blue-black pine needles and I barely trusted it to hold my weight even after I saw the fire starter and Prevna start across it. It was a wide bridge that spanned an unusually large gap between the branches on the outside of the grove of trees and it held as we all crossed it. The fire starter adamantly warned us to not cross it in the future unless we had explicit permission to do so. At the far end of the bridge was another fire starter with a hooked staff, like the fire starters who guarded the paths leading out of the Seed Landing.

Our fire starter tapped a tassel hanging from her belt that I had noted and dismissed before as an odd decorative choice and the other fire starter nodded in acknowledgment and let us past. Beyond the bridge was an area full of domes, like the healers’ nests, but rather than being clustered together these domes each had a platform to themselves. Granted, some those platforms were barely larger than the domes they housed, but others had what amounted to large balconies or even twice as much space as the domes they held.

Both Prevna and I realized that these had to be some of the whisper women’s quarters. I doubted they all were housed in the same area. The area was largely empty without much movement from either inside or outside the domes despite the fact that it was growing late into the night. The celebrations seemed to be happening elsewhere.

We were led to a large yellow dome with a platform that provided space for a handful of people to sit comfortably without touching. I knew this because two whisper women were sitting on cushions on the balcony with three unoccupied cushions arranged around them. I recognized both.

I hadn’t expected to see either one.

The whisper woman who had first brought me to the Seedling Palace, who seemed to be a…helper for the Lady of Calm Waters and whose name I still didn’t know took her arm from around Kaylan’s shoulders so that she could spread her arms in front of her.

“Welcome to my humble home.” Her face brightened when she spotted Prevna and she patted the cushion closest to her. “You brought a friend! Come watch the stars with us.”

I hesitated, darted a glance at Prevna, and froze. What was this? I had expected an interrogation or cryptic conversation with the commander or Mishtaw or even Jin. Not…not whatever this was.

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The fire starter bowed and left. Prevna seemed emboldened by the fact that I didn’t immediately snap out a denial of our friendship and she settled onto the cushion next to the one the whisper woman had patted. If I sat down I’d have to pick the one between them or step across Kaylan’s outstretched legs to reach the one on the far side.

Prevna introduced herself and the whisper woman got a glint in her eye when she said her own name, like she knew she was introducing herself to me too.

“Esie. My sister brought you over during the Dark Night Celebrations, didn’t she?”

Prevna nodded. “You look a lot alike.”

Esie chuckled. “Most of the time.”

Kaylan peered around Esie to beckon me over. “We don’t bite, Little Diver.”

I reluctantly made my way over to the cushion next to Prevna and sat down. “How do you know that nickname?”

She shrugged and took a sip from the cup next to her. “Hattie likes calling you that.”

I blinked, shocked first at her seeming familiarity with the other whisper woman and then the implication that they had talked about me. “You all know each other?”

Esie settled her arm back over Kaylan’s shoulders. “It’s difficult not to. You’ll probably know everyone by name or face by the time you’re done training or soon after too. The fire starters are another matter, but with less than a thousand of us we’re like a particularly big tribe.”

I wasn’t so sure I’d bother to remember so many names or faces, but it was unsettling to imagine myself connected to so many people. I was used to thinking of myself and those I interacted with as isolated parties, not as part of a bigger whole I didn’t know and didn’t have the information to figure out.

Kaylan interwove her fingers with Esie’s where her hand dangled over Kaylan’s shoulder and I felt, annoyingly, off-put again by the open display of affection. This might be a relatively private space with few onlookers, but they barely knew us. Most would have kept things more discrete until we knew each other better and were on mutually friendly terms—unless, of course, the rules I had grown up with had been altered here, like with the odd relationship between black handed healers and whisper women.

Esie gestured to the pitcher and stacked cups near Kaylan’s feet. “Have some if you like. Though you’ll want to water it down.”

Prevna asked, “What is it?”

Esie grinned. “Mil’s nectar. One cup makes you more alert, two makes you warm and fuzzy, and three will put even the strongest willed woman to sleep.”

Kaylan nudged Esie’s side with her elbow. “Only the best for her.”

I remembered Ressia’s warning at the arena that it was only for Sprouts and up at the same time I noticed the slightly glazed look to both of the whisper women’s eyes. I silently berated myself for not noticing it earlier. They were both clearly on their second cup.

I opened my mouth to turn down the offer but Prevna already had the nectar poured into two cups and was currently adding water to the first with her water pouch. She handed it to me before watering down the second cup.

Now that the nectar was in my hand it was a lot more difficult to turn it down, especially when both whisper women were looking at me expectantly. A strong part of me wanted to be rude and not risk drinking the stuff, even watered down, but I also knew I shouldn’t offend the whisper woman who was my only connection to my mysterious patron.

So I took the tiniest sip of the golden liquid and a burst of tangy sweetness coated my tongue.

Prevna took a sip after me and her eyes flew wide open. “This is really good!”

Kaylan snorted out a laugh and Esie chuckled before replying, “Isn’t it?”

I nodded in agreement, so she wouldn’t think I didn’t appreciate her hospitality, before decisively setting the cup down. I turned to fully face Esie. “Why did you call me here?”

She got that amused look on her face like she knew a joke I didn’t as she considered me. When Esie did answer her voice was more measured than it had been. “Celebration. You’re not frozen and you made it back to the Seedling Palace, all in a piece. That made my mistress happy which makes me happy.”

“Not to mention meddling,” Kaylan broke in. “She heard that prissy wretch Yule was going to try to drive you from the Palace one way or another if she saw you back in the Seed Landing with her little screens.”

Esie took a sip of her own drink before lifting it in a small salute. “This isn’t the day for such things.” She set her cup down. “Just like it isn’t the time for more serious discussions.”

I got the unsubtle hint. There was at least one more thing she was supposed to speak to me about on her mistress’s behalf, but I wasn’t going to hear about it tonight. I didn’t press her on the issue and the conversation turned to the other celebrations happening around the Seedling Palace before settling on the stars.

Esie’s platform really did provide a great view of them, even with the light from the pine cone lanterns. There was a large break in the pine needles overhead that showed a decent sized swath of the glittering forest of stars above. Kaylan asserted that Esie had picked her dome solely because of that viewing hole. Esie didn’t confirm or deny it.

Esie’s sister came and joined us after awhile, supported by a strong fire starter as she swayed on her feet. Her name was Yeelan and Esie insisted that her sister was normally the dour of the two even though she asked Prevna to make her hair like Prevna’s and then kept giggling as Prevna braided and bound it up. Kaylan told a few stories and I did my best to listen even when Hattie showed up in the middle of one with Melka and pulled me into a hug before I could stop her. Melka gave me an awkward nod as we both silently decided that not speaking about what happened on the cliff was the best course of action. Tasha also showed up along with four whisper women I didn’t know at varying points. Her eyes got wide when she saw me and she gave me the slightest bow. I think she saw that I had no desire to speak with her and she left me alone.

All in all, the platform ended up very crowded and it was a very odd, very surreal night. In a way it reminded me of the first night of the Heartsong Festival, but without dancing or singing and with a lot more people I didn’t know. I moved around to a side of Esie’s dome that was significantly less crowded, mostly because there wasn’t a lot of space between her dome and the railing there so it wasn’t a comfortable place for grown women to sit and converse. I had enough space though. Prevna found me, weaving a bit as she walked. She had finished her whole cup of watered down nectar unlike me. I could tell she wanted to hug me or put her arm around my shoulders or something, but she held herself back to a friendly pat on the arm. Then I let her talk for a bit and we somehow both ended up using my pack as a pillow.