Esie and the others had all settled comfortably on a couple treated skins by the time I joined them. Little platters of food from the cooks were spread between them too, but they touched their waterskins more than the cupfuls of alcohol that had been brought with the food. That bit of restraint made me more wary. They certainly hadn’t been restrained during the last party Esie had forced me to attend.

The conversation flowed easily until Esie patted the spot next to her and I reluctantly followed her directions. Then Hattie’s banter with Melka stuttered as Melka got distracted by my arrival and Tasha stared at me with some mixture of discomfort and regret. Hattie quickly recaptured her second-in-command’s attention after she gave me a quick wave and Kaylan smoothly drew Tasha into the conversation she was having Yeelan.

Esie handed me a flat bread wrap filled with bits of meat and cooked vegetables. I figured I needed to ask her a question before she asked me one if I wanted any chance of learning what I wanted to know. “Why are you here?”

She gestured loosely to the birds flying overhead. “Change of pace. Hattie and Tasha were eager to get some flying in and I liked the idea of stretching my legs.” She nodded to the goddess grown pine tree. Two more whisper women had justed from its shadow. “We aren’t the only ones.”

I stiffened. “Then—”

Esie shook her head. “Jin won’t be coming to visit her kin. The commander sent her out on a strict assignment and, even if she finishes that up early, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was sent out on another one until the next batch of Seedlings arrive and she’s too busy with them to mess with you.”

“Why would the commander care if Jin goes after me?”

Esie lifted her eyebrows slightly. “I never said she did.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but she continued with another enigmatic smile. “Though she might have taken an interest after your showing on the shore. Still, whether or not the commander cares, it’s in her best interest to keep Jin separated from you for now. Yolanda made a blood decree. If someone breaks it their whole sect will get more than a slap on the wrist.”

“And that’s why no one wants to me? Not even the older seedlings?”

Esie gave me that look that said what do you think? before she said, “Your reputation for being violent, difficult, and unappreciative certainly doesn’t help. I thought we agreed you were going to be a model of good behavior?”

I crossed my arms. “I was.”

She looked amused. “That’s not what your Sapling leader is saying back at the Palace. She’s saying that you challenged her authority on multiple occasions and are a liability waiting to happen.”

Fern.

“That’s not true!”

She waited.

“She just didn’t like me.”

Esie chuckled but otherwise waited again for my next statement.

“I got results.” Kind of.

Esie gave me a sidelong look before she asked, “The kind that prove you’re the best student ever and not likely to cause problems for whoever takes you under their wing?”

I couldn’t answer that, so I glowered down at the wrap in my hand.

She waved her words away. “No matter. You’ll have the mentors you need here and it sounds like you’ve made progress with your shadow walking. Catch me before we leave and I’ll give you a few more tips.”

I sat up straighter. “Why not now? You’re not drinking like you did before.”

Esie smirked. “Wouldn’t do to get falling down drunk before the general populace. There’s an image we have to maintain, you know.”

“But—”

She silenced me with a look. Still good-natured, still smiling, but it also managed to cut me with the question if I thought this was “good behavior”. It wasn’t, so I shut up. Better not to push her when I had yet to pay back any of the favors she or her mistress had done for me.

Instead I changed tacks. “What did you mean that I’ll have the mentors I need here?”

Esie nodded to a nearby group of Rookery tribes people. “Firestarters don’t count against your restriction and the ones here happen to know all there is about flying. See more whisper women than anywhere else but the Seedling Palace too.”

I wasn’t too sure about learning from random tribes folk, but I didn’t doubt that Tufani would whip us all into shape when it came to her birds. “Will the others learn from the Tracker?”

“Barra? I doubt she could be bothered to get her hands dirty.”

“Odd choice to be surrounded by a bunch of birds then.”

Esie booped me on the nose and I flinched back. “Don’t keep putting words in my mouth. I never said she had a choice about being assigned here.”

“Whisper women go where the goddess wills.”

“Indeed.” Esie’s voice gained an extra bit of weight on that single word, but I didn’t get the chance to peer at her face or question her about it, because in the next instant her hand touched Kaylan’s thigh and Kaylan dragged my attention to her as easily as she had pulled Tasha in earlier. And then Prevna arrived and Esie was gone.

Kaylan and Hattie kept us occupied by asking about our travels and training and going down the shoots. Melka, Yeelan, and Tasha settled into their own conversation on the far side of the treated skins until Tasha announced that they were going to go flying. Hattie hurried to join them while Kaylan said she was fine where she was.

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As soon as the others were gone, she caught Prevna’s eye and gestured with her chin to where Loclen and Dera had settled by a cooking fire. “Why don’t you go check in with your friends? Gimley’ll join you soon.”

Prevna was clearly curious about why she was being dismissed, but she nodded and stood back up. “Thanks for sharing your food with me.”

“Anytime.”

And then it was just the lazy lookout and me. I eyed her. “What do you want?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” I kept staring at her expectantly until she huffed out a laugh. “Put that intense look away, girl. Not all of us are up to our necks in meddling like Esie.”

“Then what is it?” I pressed.

“Thought you might want—” Her head cocked to the side like was listening to something as she cut herself off. With her I couldn’t be sure if she was listening to a whisper on the wind or something far off in the woodlands.

Kaylan smiled, slightly apologetic, at me. “The lesson will have to wait for another time. Esie needs me.”

“What lesson?”

She shrugged as she stood up. “Just thought I’d teach you a trick to not let Esie run circles around you next time you talk. I like seeing her surprised.”

I stood up too. “You could still tell me now.”

“Nah, we’ll see if I remember next time. No fun to rush it.” She gestured to Prevna and the others. “Go join your friends. Have fun! Storm knows Tufani will put you to work after this.”

She strode away and I glanced down at the treated skins before deciding that they could deal with it if the spot was occupied by the time they all came back. I didn’t join Prevna, Loclen, and Dera, though. My gut twisted a little to see how well Prevna got along with them. Better not to ruin more conversations with my presence.

Instead, I wandered over to where kids were still racing down the shoots, but after watching a few rounds go down I found that it didn’t seem nearly as compelling without the element of competition against the rest of the cohort. It might still be exhilarating, but I had my fill of that for the day.

Next I eyed where Breck, Ento, Nii, and Ulo had joined the high divers, but joining that group sounded like half the recipe for a disaster. Not to mention that swimming might be one thing, but jumping off a crazy high pillar into freezing water with ice still all around? It just didn’t sound smart.

So instead of going back to the area near the cooking fires and risk Prevna spotting me, I slipped over to the goddess grown tree and stepped into the shadow paths. It took me longer than I’d like to admit, but I made a path to one of the woodland pine trees. I ended up closer to the edge of the Rookery than I intended and up in the branches than on the ground, but progress was progress.

Rather than ruin a good thing, I stayed up in the tree and let the peace and quiet soak into me. After all the recent conversations it was nice to be alone, just for a bit. To relax without having eyes on me all the time.

Then, because there was no one around and I figured the goddess had better things to pay attention to on the first day of the cold season, I let myself run through the thirty-three poison recipes Rawley had taught me.

They were as close to healing as I could ever get now.

The reminder felt like a gut punch, but I forced myself to focus on the other things Rawley taught me. Hunting and trapping and fighting…connecting.

Patience. Listening. Preparation. Flexibility.

Her favorite lesson.

After all the talk of teaching and mentors and lessons I couldn’t help but think of it. I couldn’t say I’d been earning top marks on any of them recently. Not altogether. I could have been more patient and listened better when it came to the festerlings. Could have been better prepared when it came to rescuing Juniper and getting stuck on the statue. Could have been better at all of them when it came to Prevna pushing me to include the group.

Not that I could bring myself to share everything I learned about shadow walking still.

I sighed and leaned back against the tree trunk as her saying rose up from the back of my mind.

Ambition is nothing without discipline.

It was still as true as it ever was, but neither saying really helped with the new problem I found myself with: more and more people kept pushing to get closer, to know me, to get me to care.

Prevna had already forced her way in, of course, but now it sounded like Juniper wanted to learn from me, which meant Idra and Ento would always be hovering close by. Wren had seen more than she should during the trip to the Rookery and Breck kept looking at me more with that gleam in her eyes. That was to say nothing of Dera’s small bits of kindness and Loclen’s one-sided rivalry and Nii’s questions about my blessing.

It was too much.

Really, the only ones I could count on to keep things simple were Andhi and Ulo given our mutual dislike. And if that went too far between me and Ulo it could give Jin and Yule what they needed to press their grudge against me.

Things had been so simple before when all I needed to know was that the tribe feared and hated me, my siblings thought they were better than me, and no one was ever going to help me against her.

I didn’t know how to bring things back to that simplicity. Didn’t know if I really wanted to return to it.

But now I had to think about whisper women and guess at their motivations and connections and hope I didn’t press too hard in the wrong moment and ruin my chances at becoming one of the Chosen. I had to constantly deal with people wanting things and asking things and caring.

If it had been before I would have just cut them all down with my words and been done with it. It had worked well enough for years. But now I knew that Fellen and Rawley and Prevna would disapprove. Now I had superiors expecting me to get along with everyone else. Needing me to work with a group.

And that could be good, like when Breck and I worked together to get off the statue or when we all drank the shadows. All the times Prevna had helped me couldn’t be dismissed either, but I doubted I could become all easy smiles like Esie or a confident chatterbox like Hattie.

Nor did I really want to change completely. I was what I was and others should have to deal it just like I had to deal with them.

Which left me where?

Up a tree in a snowy, cold woodland while everyone else enjoyed themselves and got along and blissfully enjoyed the holiday without being accosted by people who meant well.

I sighed again.

By the time I returned to cooking fires in the Rookery—having solved nothing—all of Esie’s group had already gone and she was preparing to leave. Which meant she was down to the last few bites of a wrap and keeping an eye out for seedlings she wanted to talk to.

I had barely taken a step out from under the feathered pine tree when she spotted me and hurried over.

“You didn’t leave much time for your lesson,” Esie scolded lightly.

My lips pressed together. “I wasn’t sure you were actually going to teach me.”

She snorted, but gestured for me to keep talking. “Tell me about you make your paths between the shadows.”

I told her how I visualized the trees in detail and practiced entering the shadows different ways.

Esie took it all in before she nodded. “Good. You’re on the right track. My patron”—here she winked—“wants you to remember that the trees aren’t the most important thing to pay attention to. After all, you’re making a path between their shadows. You’re on the right track with picturing the shadows in different ways, like a pool of water, so keep practicing with that. But if you want to get good at traveling far away you’ll need to let go of picturing a specific tree and instead…focus your intentions and trust the blessing. The visualization you’re doing helps with that, but you have to let go of the idea that you need to already know what the place you’re going to looks like.”

Questions wanted to burst from my tongue, but she clapped me on the shoulder, stepped into the shadow, and said, “Like this!”

And then she was gone.