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Cypress clomps through a leaf-curtain, saying, “Wait here.”

Alone, I peek at the settlement. The pastures and candle paths. The ponds and stream. Recesses where trees umbrella overhead to create idyllic little picnic plots.

A multitude of centaurs presides over the landscape. They speak in low tones, practice hurling bladed stars and shooting archery at target markers, or thumb through books.

The rest consider my presence. The shabby dress. My rounded ears. The crossbow and bolt stained with centaur blood. I shuffle closer to the threshold where Cypress had disappeared.

From within the pavilion, glass bottles clatter. Cypress reemerges wearing a gauze cloth strapped around his flank, replacing the cord from my dress as a compress. The textile sparkles at the center of his wound.

“Pixie dust,” he explains. “For my injury, it will suffice. I can apply it to your laceration, though the side-effects are potent for humans, particularly ones of your diminutive size.”

“I’m fine,” I say.

“If you insist. The offer will stand. In the meantime, throwing stars leave an inflammatory bite at the very least. Should you require an opiate for the pain, we can spare a bottle of toadstool essence.”

“I’ll manage. It’s a scratch.”

Hunting accidents. Puncture wounds. Animal bites. Razor claws. Slashes. Stitches. Parasites. Fleas. Coming from a home that functions as a refuge for animals, I’ve survived worse.

Cypress inclines his head. “Very well.”

My head swings between his bandage and our audience. “Do they know what I did?”

“Centaurs are perceptive, but they do not react hastily. They see I am alive, and we are together. That is enough to draw a peaceful conclusion. They will not condemn you.” The equine hands me back the tassel cord and juts his head toward another edifice. “Come.”

I reattach the closure to my cloak, drape the mantle around my shoulders, and shadow him across the pasture and into a yurt with threaded vines for walls. Grass and a cluster of large pillows surround a bed of logs. A blaze springs to life when we enter, the timbers pulsating.

“Sit,” Cypress says, motioning to a pillow. “Please.”

I falter to hear that hospitable word drop from a Fae’s mouth. My limbs sink to the cushion, its plushness relieving my aching backside.

The centaur lowers himself carefully, stretching out his front limbs and tucking rear ones beside him.

A skylight gawks at the constellations. Above, one of the celestials shifts, arcing from its spot in the firmament to a different region. Then another star leaps to a new location.

I blink, but it’s not an illusion. The stars are mobile, swimming through the expanse.

“In Faerie, the stars have their own lives to lead,” Cypress volunteers while glancing up. “However, it is a private existence for them. Thus, we cannot always witness it, not even from the heights of The Solitary Mountain. The privilege of viewing this spectacle depends on your location. In The Heart of Willows, this is possible.”

I know the sound of pride when I hear it. The upward slant and sturdiness of it. “So this is where you’re from?”

“All centaurs grow up here,” he answers. “We are wanderers—nomads of The Solitary Forest. Still, this is our hub, where we return for periods of rest. I come here when not serving the wild at Puck’s side.”

He says this fondly and faithfully. Interesting that for such an impassive being, the satyr’s name raises the sides of Cypress’s mouth.

“I’d thought you lived with him in The Wicked Pines,” I say.

Promptly, the centaur’s lips falter as though a leaden object has landed there. “Faeries revel and copulate in The Pines. They do not keep houses there.”

I shift on the pillow. An unbidden vision of Puck doing to a random Fae what he’d described to me in the pit springs to mind.

My chin stings when I talk. “I’m surprised the satyr doesn’t want to be buried in that place.”

“Pick another companion if you wish to criticize him,” Cypress warns from across the flames. “Do not engage me thus and expect support. Unless, of course, you have vast experience in such activities.”

“Why did you bring me here?”

My question diverts him. “First, tell me three things.” He dips a finger into the fire’s ashes, then runs that digit across the grass, drawing the inside of a tree trunk, complete with grains, rings, and a central knot.