The Gathering Spot was a poor place to spy on. Likely because it was designed to keep the meetings there private, but part of me didn’t appreciate the difficulty of my first mission—the rest of me was determined to show Esie that I wouldn’t fail. Hiding places were slim and I was too well known to easily disguise myself as part of the group.

I thought about declaring that I was there at the Lady of Calm Water’s behest and spy in plain sight, but doing that would likely result in the whisper women sending me away or not discussing anything I wasn’t supposed to overhear. So I figured it’d be best to keep that as a backup plan in case hiding didn’t go as planned.

Hiding in the large pile of sitting cushions was the most obvious option, but I didn’t want to pick it for that reason. All would it would take to be found out was a pillow shifting the wrong way or a whisper woman deciding to throughly make sure the meeting was secret.

Still, I did try to shadow walk to the shadows in the cushion alcove so I could bypass the regular gathering area outside the arena, and the tunnel leading into it, but no matter how many times I tried my mind wouldn’t—couldn’t—stay focused on those shadows and would be drawn to the deep shadow we were supposed to use. It felt similar to the way the ghost spot tugged at me whenever I made a shadow path now, though that tug was easy to ignore in the Seedling Palace. However, this was more than a tug. It was a combination of most of the shadows in the Gathering Spot feeling like they were iced over, too slick to grasp, and the threshold shadow drawing my attention like a lodestone.

It was uncomfortable having my attention forcibly shifted like that over and over again, and I’d never experienced something like it with the shadow paths. What’s more I hadn’t noticed the effect until I purposefully tried to avoid the main shadow. If I had to guess, I’d say the effect was the goddess’s work, and that was the only reason, other than needing more time, that caused me to stop trying to force my way through. Well that, and the fact that getting onto the platform was the least of my difficulties. Hiding was still an issue.

My other options for hiding involved hiding in the alcove holding the sitting cushions or the entrance tunnel after all the whisper women had settled, but then I was relying on luck that no one else would enter those places after the meeting started and that I’d still be able hear what was being discussed while staying far enough back to keep out of sight. And if I picked the cushion alcove, I might as well hide in the cushions for the extra cover.

If I wanted to take a lot bigger risk than the meeting likely warranted, I could also try to get onto the balcony that overlooked the Gathering Spot from the goddess’s nest, but I wasn’t quite ready to throw myself onto the goddess’s vanishingly small goodwill.

Which left me wishing I had a blessing like Loclen’s shadow blending or Kaylan’s far listening until I considered other directions I could try. Surely, there was some less obvious to hide around the Gathering Spot to listen in. Going underneath wouldn’t solve anything even if I could find a way to climb under the branch, and I could try to climb over the entrance tunnel, but from what I could tell that would still put me in the eye line of anyone on the top level of the arena. But above that…

I slipped into the Gathering Spot in the middle of the night and inspected where the branch curled over on itself to create a veil of obscuring pine needles. Rivon had already reminded Juniper and me that there could be paths hidden just out of sight when she dropped off the edge of the landing to the fire starter path below. Fire starters would hardly need to climb the branch for cleaning, but I doubted I was the first one set to spying on a meeting in the Gathering Spot. Few people remember to look up and I’d still be able to hear the meeting up in the needles.

My first obstacle to overcome when it came to reaching my chosen hiding place was climbing the smooth trunk of the branch. There weren’t conveniently placed smaller branches to pull myself up with until I reached the upper part the needles draped down from. I tried to whip the rope I brought with me around the back of the branch so I could hold onto either end and use the tension to climb up, but I mostly ended up slapping the side of the branch and came nowhere close to getting it to wrap around the other side.

Shadow walking was just as ineffective as it was for the rest of the Gathering Spot and I was getting more than a little worried all my attempts with rope would bring someone to check on the activity. If only I could climb the needles without them breaking—

I broke off that complaining thought as I remembered climbing the Seedling Palace’s pine needles the past. A braided rope leading up to the fighting arena from the Seed Landing. It’d be harder to hide such a thing when there less needles here than the entire platform that had been covered in them there, but I could always unbraid the thing after I climbed up.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Working quickly, I grabbed as big of an armful as I could of pine needles and tied off the bottom with some rope before repeating the process twice over. The top of each section was looser than I’d like, but I didn’t to waste time and energy twisting them tighter, especially when that risked tearing needles out of the goddess’s precious trees. I braided the sections together before tying them together at the bottom with my long length of rope and tied the other end of the rope around my waist.

For once, I was glad for my shorter stature as I set my foot on the lowest braided section and prayed that the whole didn’t break loose. Breaking armfuls of pine needles a stone’s throw from the goddess’s nest sounded nearly as foolish as climbing up onto Her balcony.

I held my breath as I trusted my weight to the braid of pine needles and—it held. Slowly, carefully, I climbed higher. The pine needles were slick against my palms and the braid shifted as I climbed, but the needles didn’t snap off and I reach the part where the needles fanned out at the top without issue. From there it was as simple as heaving myself up onto one of the supporting branches and straddling it for balance.

Then I locked my legs around the branch and began the exhausting work of hauling my makeshift ladder up after me. Arm length by arm length, I pulled on the rope I tied to the bottom of the braid until I got it up and over the branch I was on. Then I pulled on the braid so I’d have better access to more of it before I untied the rope and set to unraveling my work. I pushed and shook the needles free from the sections I had put them in so that when they fell back to their spots it didn’t look like they had ever been bound together at all.

When I sat back to appreciate the result of my efforts I noticed there were branches above I might have been able to tie my rope to and lower myself down, but I wasn’t sure exactly where the Gathering Spot was located in the Seedling Palace. It seemed to be the type of secret you figured out on your own as a seedling or others got to gloat how oblivious you are for not figuring it out as a whisper woman. A project for some other time.

As it was, I made sure that there weren’t any signs of movement above in case someone spotted me before I made my way to where the tip of the main branch stopped about three quarters of the way over the tunnel leading to the arena. The branch dipped slightly under my weight as it narrowed down to sprout needles, but as long as I kept still I’d have a good view of the entire arena and likely be able to hear most of, if not all, the conversation unless they decided to whisper.

Smiling to myself in victory, I tied my rope onto the branch I used to pull myself up from the braid, knotted it a few times along its length after untying it from my waist, and then used it to climb down back to the platform. All I could do after that was shove the rope behind the veil of needles and hope the Gathering Spot’s seemingly remote location prevented anyone from noticing it. I didn’t like leaving such on obvious loose end, but there was no way to prove the rope was mine and a quicker way up was worth the risk. If the rope was discovered and removed, I could always braid the needles together again.

Preparations in place, I went back to the Archivist’s building to sleep and wait for Esie’s update on the meeting. It came the next morning. The meeting was set for that evening, conveniently when I was supposed to meet with Esie for poison training, so I wouldn’t have to come up with some excuse to shake off Juniper’s curiosity about where I was going, not that she often asked when I went exploring, but the information informed me of two things.

One, Esie was much more skilled at wind whispering that Prevna and me. Which wasn’t exactly surprising even if it did give me something to aspire to. She could say much more than the short sentence or two we could manage with ease and her voice didn’t fade in and out in volume nor was the sound of wind underlying her words, slurring them slightly. It was if she was right next me, uncomfortably close so she could whisper in my ear.

Two, Esie had more of a hand in this meeting than she initially implied. I doubted the timing of the meeting was pure coincidence. Which also meant I wasn’t likely supposed to listening for new information to report back to her that she wouldn’t know otherwise, but rather she—or the Lady Of Calm Waters—really did want my take on whatever the meeting covered. It didn’t make sense to me that they’d use a favor just to learn my opinion on a meeting I wasn’t supposed to know about. A meeting Esie might already be attending if she got to pick when it was.

There had to be some hidden agenda I was missing. Some dangerous component I didn’t have the information to uncover until it was staring me in the face, like when I went to deliver the stone and got delivered into the hands of a wish maker instead. The trouble was I could still only guess at the Lady of Calm Waters and her intermediary’s motivations. What did ‘calming the waters’ even mean? Ending all fighting with the Lady Blue and her sea monsters? That seemed next to impossible and, for all the goddess and Her sister seemed to want to ignore the Lady Blue’s existence, I wasn’t sure they actually take well to her demise. And I strongly doubted the fighting could end while she still lived in the waters given all the stories about her vendetta against the goddesses.

Well, with my current resources I wasn’t likely to find out the answers to any of it. One way or the other, I’d learn more tonight. Perhaps even more than Esie planned on me knowing.