While the storm continued to gather high above the jungle canopy, Max followed Mineau as she pushed through the trees and into the deepening shadows. When they had first set out he looked as far into the jungle as the fading light allowed, scanning for ruins or anything else that would offer them a refuge from both monsters and the coming rain. Mineau had found more than one ruin during her time wandering alone, so Max had harbored a cautious hope that they would stumble onto something quickly. But it wasn't long before the light began to fail and as a chill wind pressed down around them, Max felt that hope recede.

Instead of watching for new hideaways as they pushed into the jungle, he spent more and more time monitoring Mineau’s progress. Her dogged steps through the undergrowth had slowed and twice Max had almost walked into her back while he was looking over his shoulder. Her movements had lost the terrified abruptness he’d seen just after the jungle had erupted into screams, but he could tell from her rigid posture that she still feared groups of monsters might be lurking somewhere just out of sight. Rather than scanning the forest for shelter, she peered at the nearest trees and bushes, watching for monsters that might descend on them from the shadows.

Max couldn’t blame her. He glanced behind them as often as he scanned the jungle for safe places to hide, and the gathering darkness made it easier and easier for him to imagine that something was following them, quietly, just out of sight. He found himself pausing and allowing Mineau to move ahead while he aimed an ear behind them and listened for sounds of pursuit. If they had set out earlier in the day, they might have found the shelter they’d hoped for despite their plodding progress, but when Max heard the first tip-tapping of rain washing over the leaves above, he finally resigned himself to the fact that they would have to settle for whatever shelter, however meager, they could find.

As Mineau continued to make creeping progress, Max stopped and turned in a slow circle, peering through the trees in search of anything that might help them avoid the worst of the rain. The only candidate he could see was a massive, ancient looking tree that loomed dimly in the middle distance. Its wide trunk had grown twisted and gnarled as it spent centuries reaching branches out to catch the light that filtered down from the upper canopy, and one of these branches had grown until it could no longer support its own weight. It had dipped to the ground and put down new roots, and as it thickened it had created a hollow at the base of the tree. Max considered it, then sighed. He didn’t think it would allow them to stay entirely dry during the night, but it would keep them out of the worst downpours. Hopefully.

Max turned to call out to Mineau, but his voice was lost in the wind descending through the upper canopy. He took a deep breath and called out again.

“Mineau,” he said. “We need to stop.”

Mineau whirled to face him, her club held ready and her eyes darting back and forth as she scanned the forest around him. She relaxed slightly when she saw that nothing murderous was bearing down on them. She didn’t seem to have noticed the rain.

“What?” She looked down at his leg. “Your knee?”

Max shook his head, then looked pointedly up at the canopy as the first raindrops wound their way through the leaves to spatter on their faces. “I don’t think we should keep stumbling around in the dark once the rain gets heavy.”

Mineau waited expectantly, but when Max said nothing else she swept one hand around at the shadowy jungle. “Then what? We lay down under a bush and wait it out?”

“Sort of.” Max pointed at a wide, gnarled tree. “If we stay under that tree we might be able to stay dry. Mostly. It looks wide enough for both of us. I can’t tell how deep that hollow is.”

Mineau followed the line of his finger and frowned.

“Maybe,” she said. “But I don’t think we’d get much sleep laying down on those roots. And anything wandering around would see us if it got close enough.”

Max shrugged. “It doesn’t seem like the monsters actually wander very much. They come when we do something that makes them angry. Or if you hit one accidentally with a rock. Otherwise it seems like they keep to themselves.”

“We don’t know that for certain. If you'd asked me yesterday, I would have told you the jungle would never move under my feet. We shouldn't assume none of the monsters roam around.”

Max nodded slowly. “Fair point. But even if there are monsters moving around, we should be able to see them coming.”

“You want to stay up all night and watch for monsters?”

Max looked up as a sheet of warm rain swept over them. “I want to avoid walking the rest of the night in wet clothes and boots full of rainwater.” He half turned to face the tree. “We could step on something even if it wasn’t looking for us. Or fall down a hole.”

Mineau opened her mouth to protest, then tilted her head in acknowledgment. “Wouldn’t want you falling down another hole,” she said. A smile pulled at the corner of her mouth.

Mineau looked dubiously at the tree again, then up as thunder rumbled over them. The roiling gray sky was barely visible through the upper canopy.

“Right,” Mineau said. “Let’s check it out.”

Max fell into step behind Mineau as she began pushing her way toward the tree, grateful the discussion hadn’t devolved into an argument. His new companion was clearly opinionated and he could tell already that he was the more deferential of the two of them, but Mineau didn’t seem unreasonably stubborn. She was just decisive. Max decided he could work with that.

Even in the last of the gloomy light, the hollow at the base of the tree looked surprisingly inviting. Max had assumed that the overhanging branch would have left the hollow exposed both in the front and the back, but the space was nestled between two clumps of crawling roots. The roots on the far side had risen high enough to form a wall that blocked most of the wind and rain, and made the little depression accessible from only one direction. Moss carpeted the interior and it looked spacious enough for both of them to settle into half-reclining positions.

“Cozy,” Max said.

“Hm,” Mineau said as she stooped to inspect the little haven. She straightened and looked him up and down. “We should both fit,” she said. “Just.”

And they did, just. After Mineau climbed in after him they both lay back against one mossy root and planted their feet against the other. They had to bend their knees only slightly, but they could keep a hand’s breadth of space between their shoulders.

“Cozy,” Max said again.

“Yes,” Mineau said flatly. “And fragrant.”

Max sniffed experimentally, wondering what earthy jungle scent she found so unappealing. What he smelled instead was himself. The sharp, acrid scent of his unwashed body that he had almost begun to ignore. And he smelled Mineau.

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“Yes, that, too.” Max agreed. He looked out into the jungle. “We could take turns standing out in the rain, scrubbing ourselves with moss or…leaves or something.”

“You first,” Mineau said.

They sat in silence for long enough that Max began to wonder if Mineau had fallen asleep, despite herself. As he listened to her steady breathing he resolved to stay awake and watch for monsters. He’d managed to steal a few minutes of rest after their flight from the wandering palm, so it seemed only fair.

He jumped only slightly when Mineau’s voice came out of the darkness next to him.

“This was a good idea,” she said.

Max felt a warm little glow of appreciation bloom in his chest.

“Better than getting wet,” he said.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, listening to the rain and the occasional grumble of thunder. The jungle wind sometimes reached them, but the many twisting branches above them kept most of the rain from riding the wind into their mossy depression.

“You can sleep, if you’d like,” Max said. “I’ll stay up.”

“Thanks. I don’t think I can yet.”

Max glanced at her, worried that she was still rattled by the explosion of screams that had shaken the forest. She had seemed so commanding during their fight with the wandering palm that he’d been a little surprised that the great noise in the forest seemed to have shaken her so badly. He was starting to worry that maybe he shouldn’t have followed her lead when she’d barked a command at him. Maybe her confidence was more bluff than he realized and he should be more careful deferring to her judgment.

He tried to keep his sideways glance casual so that she wouldn’t feel like she was being inspected, but she caught his eye almost immediately and held it until he looked away.

They lapsed into silence again, listening as the rain became a deluge.

***

Max woke with a gasp when Mineau's fingers dug into his thigh.

“Quiet!” she said, her voice a hiss in his ear. “I think something’s coming.”

Max raised his palm to conjure flame, but Mineau grabbed him by the wrist and forced his hand back into his lap.

“Wait,” she whispered. “Just look. It might not see us.”

Max gently pulled his hand free, then leaned forward as far as he dared. He stared out into the jungle, still bleary-eyed and fuzzy-headed, trying to hear something other than the steady rhythm of the rain. He struggled to make sense of anything beyond the guilt of having fallen asleep when he’d intended to let Mineau rest.

Finally he leaned back, shaking his head in the dark. “I don’t hear anything.”

“The light,” Mineau said. Her voice was calm, but insistent.

Max blinked and sat up a little straighter. When he’d fallen asleep the darkness beyond their little hideaway had been complete. Now, coming from somewhere nearby and visible along the underside of the root in front above them, Max could make out a faint blue-white glow. It was just bright enough to let him see his hand in silhouette when he held it in front of his face, and as he watched the glow continued to brighten. Slowly but steadily, it grew stronger until Max could begin to make out the plants of the undergrowth nearby.

Painfully aware that he and Mineau had squeezed themselves into a space that any single monster could block with their own body, Max began to shift his weight, trying to get his legs under him. If an aloe suddenly appeared, he wanted to be able to throw himself through that opening before a green tentacle could pin him to the ground. Or, in the worst case, tackle it backward out into the open where Mineau could follow and make quick work of it.

“Quiet,” Mineau hissed again. “It might hear you.”

Max froze. He agreed that, so far as they knew, most monsters didn’t seem to be effective hunters. If he and Mineau stayed hidden, if they kept quiet, all their experience so far told them they would be safe. But Max’s experience hadn’t included a monster that wandered the jungle at night, as this one apparently did, and that evening’s earthquake had been a powerful reminder of just how little they knew about the jungle and the forces that had brought them there. He may just have been lucky so far that nothing had found him in his underground hideaway. If whatever approached was something they’d never encountered before, it would be silly to sit still and not at least try to get ready for an escape.

But, he knew, it was an even worse idea to attract unnecessary attention with an argument.

Slowly, grudgingly, Max relaxed against the root at his back. As he watched the blue-white glow gradually brighten, he tried not to dwell on the fact that taking refuge in a little burrow with one exit had been his idea.

As Max sat back and watched, the glow spread evenly through the undergrowth, shining up to illuminate the undersides of hanging vines and then, very faintly, the leaves in the nearest trees. He strained to hear the sounds of movement, hoping that he could better understand what approached if he understood how it moved–on how many legs, or whether it pushed its way through the jungle, or clawed itself along–but as he sat next to Mineau, he couldn’t hear movement of any kind. And then it occurred to him that maybe the source of the light wasn’t actually moving, just getting brighter.

By the time Max could identify individual leaves on the undersides of the nearest trees, he could also see Mineau’s face in profile. Looking at her, at the way she’d cocked her head and begun to frown, he knew that she was just as puzzled as he was.

Max leaned close enough to Mineau’s ear that his whisper was barely more than a breath. “I’m going to look.”

Mineau hesitated, but finally she nodded once, tersely. She adjusted her grip on her club where it rested across her knees.

As slowly and as quietly as he could, Max gathered his legs under him so he could use both his hands and his feet to raise himself up to see over the root that formed the front of their enclosure. Holding his breath in an effort to stay quiet was the only thing that kept him from letting out a little gasp of wonder.

Mineau grabbed at his arm as he shifted again, trying to hold him still, but he shook her off as he leaned forward to peer out from under the sheltering branch above them.

“Look,” he said.

All across the jungle floor, nestled between the bushes and ferns and saplings that were vying for space, a host of beautiful, luminous flowers were blooming. The flower nearest their enclosure stood alone, but clusters of fours and fives stood nearby.

Each flower pointed downward, hanging like a bell from a long stalk no thicker than Max’s smallest finger. The flowers were fringed with overlapping blue petals that had an almost crystalline translucence and the light spreading through the forest came from the center of each downward facing bloom. By their bluish light Max could see that each flower’s stalk was surrounded by a circle of funnel-shaped leaves. Each was tilted to channel rainwater inward toward the center of the plant. As the wind swept over the nearest plant, Max realized that at the base of each flower was a green bulb, and each bulb was at least partially full of water.

“What is it?” Mineau whispered.

Max could hear the impatience in her voice.

“Just come look,” Max said again.

He ignored her short, frustrated sigh and studied the nearest flower as a new stalk finished rising from the circular nest of the rain catching funnels. The bud at its tip pointed upward and glowed only faintly. When the stalk was as tall as its neighbors, the end of the stalk curved elegantly downward and the bud began to open. As it did, the faint blue white glow locked behind its tightly folded petals grew brighter. When Mineau settled next to him, Max pointed at the bloom.

“I think the rain may have brought them out," he said. “They're beautiful.”

“Orla, what are these flowers called?” Mineau waited, then grunted softly. “‘Rain Lotus,’ she says.”

Max drew a breath to ask Aurum the same question, but he stopped when he noticed a dim shape moving on the far edge of the flowers’ light. When Mineau shifted her weight next to him with an incautious grunt, he grabbed one of her wrists.

“Shh,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “What’s that? Far edge of the clearing.”

As it inched closer, Max could see that it had a vaguely human shape, but it was too small and something about its movement disturbed him. A moment later he realized why–it was floating rather than walking. As the thing drifted closer, a chill settled over Max as its slack posture and misshapen limbs began to emerge from the dark.

“It looks like a whole new kind of trouble,” Mineau said.