They ran until Davis fell over some glass and narrowly avoided getting cut by it. While he got back up, Miriam scanned the trees for any sign of the woman.

Her legs hurt more than usual, her head pounded in the silence. There was no one in the trees, but she didn't for a second believe that they were alone.

"Damn it," said Davis, "She changing it as we go."

Miriam bent and picked up a leave that had somehow landed without smashing. She looked up and saw that the stone tree it had fallen from had delicate gem-like buds and blossoms. It was pretty. Davis followed her gaze and shuddered.

"This place is so creepy."

She sat, still holding the perfect little leaf. It even had a little stem sticking out from it. Maybe she had a bit of sting she could wrap around it, make a necklace or a bracelet. She emptied her pockets onto her lap. She didn't have much. Echo had most of her stuff. She had a dirty copper coin, a bit of fluff and the bolt from the bird cage at the market.

Davis watched her for a second but then stared back out into the trees.

"I was told some things about them, about the creatures like that woman," he told her. "She was right when she said hers was the patient people. She'd- wait for years and years if she had to. The wire wolf will make her hurry though, but it could still be weeks. We'll have to eat sometime, and she knows that. Don't you have any food? No. Of course, you don't."

He was breathing hard, clutching his side.

"'People of water and sun, stay still and never see things the same. Precious to them are the rocks and waves and things of old. Gems and gold are...gems and gold are'...damn, how did it go? How did she put it?"

She? Miriam looked at him, wondered about who had sat him down and tried to teach the wandering wild boy poetry.

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"No. I got the lines mixed up. 'Shapers of branches and forest delight in the shape of the dreams of the chorus. Gems and gold, no interest hold. Unless dreams in them are told.'"

He smiled at Miriam.

"I remember now. The Queen did it when she first got trapped. Before she captured her guide. She got stuck in a forest. Only then the creature had liked her and wanted to stop anything from outside from killing or hurting her. It was before she knew not to talk to people, and she had spent a day telling the tree-woman of her sister and the evil thing and how she found her way and..."

He stopped, his eyes falling down to the ground. He looked hurt. Miriam wanted to hear more, to hear the Queen's story. But even if she could speak, she wouldn't have been able to ask seeing his face like that.

"She had an earring her sister had given her, etched with the image of the flowers they grew. They shouldn't have grown the flowers, they needed all of their garden for growing food, but they felt less hungry with the flowers there. She gave that to the woman, and left the forest."

He sat down next to her again and looked at the few items on her lap.

"Let's see what I have," he said, pulling his pack off his back and opening it. A few clothes, a tiny amount of food and little else. "Shit!"

He held his side, and a little hurt sound escaped him. Then he fell, landed in a heap. Miriam ran over to him and rolled him onto his back, his eyes glazed. He looked up at the blank sky.

"I'm sorry," he said, not talking to Miriam. "I'm sorry."

He kept quietly apologising as Miriam pulled his arm away from his side and lifted his top. He chest was cover in colour, red blood and purple bruises.

"I've done some really horrible things, you know," he said as she silently panicked over not knowing how to help. "I had to do some just to keep my ass alive."

Miriam shushed him, but he ignored her.

"But the worst thing I did was to my little brother," he told her. "Jace followed me everywhere, right up until I did something and he got blamed. They want to kill him, Mir. Because of what I did."

Miriam didn't know what he wanted her to do with this information, or what she should do about the fact that it looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his ribs.

"I want you to promise me something. I want you to promise to save Jace."

She froze, then looked in his eyes.

"You're going to give the tree woman my light. She's going to take it and let you out of here."

There was a noise to their right, a small strangled cry. Miriam stood up, ready for a fight. But it wasn't the woman who walked out of the trees.