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These people were different, however. They did not wear the rough raiment of the townsfolk and seemed more solemn, and they acted curiously, too, spreading out to carefully examine every young tree on the hill. They checked the trunks, examined the branches and leaves, and pointed out any minor flaw to each other in quiet voices.

This took some time. But they kept coming back to the sapling, and several eventually took up seats underneath its small limbs. They watched others laying flowers and food in front of a majestic oak some distance away, with a blackened trunk.

Unlike the saplings, it was huge, having stood there since before this was a forest. Perhaps it had even been the first to grow here, dropped as an acorn by a bird, countless years ago, and started it all. Surely, none were larger, nor could there be, lest the hills themselves grew jealous.

But it was also full of decay, with arms that had once stretched to the heavens, but now lay on the ground in broken pieces, and a trunk that was eaten by rot. Lightning had struck it, or so the roots said, some years ago, although it had been weak from age even before then. The trunk was almost hollowed out now, and the spirit in the tree would soon leave it making us blind once more.

The sapling did not know what that meant, and didn’t ask. Roots often said strange things, and it was best not to pay them too much mind. Birds were better; it learned all sorts of interesting things from birds, a family of which had only recently begun to nest in its growing branches.

The roots responded that they hadn’t needed the gossip of birds once. They had been able to see for themselves, over a wide area. But then the lightning came and the old tree began to die. And now they could barely discern what was close around them.

The sapling didn’t know what to think about that, either.

All it knew was that the birds were unhappy and very loud, for they had a nest which they did not like anyone to come near. Yet more and more people had sat with the first ones, crowding the ground under the tree’s bright new leaves. Some had congregated around another sapling, not far away, and still more by a slightly older tree further down the little hill.

But the group under its limbs was the largest, and by the time the sun was sliding lower in the sky, some sort of decision had been made.

They left. The moon rose, silvery bright on a throne of clouds. The tree was not high enough to see its reflection on the water, for it could glimpse only a small line of blue beyond the distant cliffs, but the roots murmured tales of its beauty.

The sapling thought it beautiful enough on its own, so much so that it took a while for it to notice other lights, coming this way.

The people were back.

They had torches, although they were kept far enough away to cause no concern. There was a great throng present now, with many dressed in white and one in robes of a golden hue, who appeared to be the leader. And another, barely dressed at all, who knelt in front of the tree.

This last was a young man with hazel eyes and long brown hair that had been dressed in flowers. He was smiling, and seemed eager for something. He reached out to the sapling and the weight of his hand on its trunk was pleasing.

They were so warm, these creatures, as if holding the memory of the sun within their flesh. It was surprising that they did not glow, and yet this one almost did, with moonlight on his skin and the torchlight in his eyes as he gazed up at the tree. The man in gold asked him whether he was sure.

The young man nodded. And then the strangest thing happened. For he shed his form, discarding it like a dropped suit of clothes, and put on . . .

The sapling’s.

Section V: Wallachia, 1495

And England, 1588

Everyone

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Mircea was determined to send the guards away, which I thought was a bad idea, even though the demon seemed subdued. It had crawled next to a wall while the guards’ minds were being adjusted, and now its fire was slowly blackening the bricks around it. But if it was trying to burn through, it would be disappointed.

There was only another room like this one on the other side, also built of materials that were resistant to fire. And another beyond that. Followed by a mountain of earth unless it accessed the same tunnel we had used.

It would be a long way to run with the three of us on its tail.

But that was exactly where I would be. This thing had stranded us here; it stood to reason that it could get us back. Except that it hadn’t used that power to escape from the soldiers, or the townsfolk before them.

And it wasn’t using it now.

I felt fear creep up my spine, fear that it was too injured to be of any use, that it had trapped us here along with it. My future lay smoldering in a widening stain on the floor, yet I did not have the means to make the creature act, or even know that it could. And I didn’t trust its new subservience.

Louis-Cesare didn’t seem to, either, and gripped his sword hilt more firmly, although I wasn’t sure why.

How exactly did one cut fire?

Mircea came back from escorting the last of the bemused soldiers out, and barring the door after them. There was a cell nearby, another of the little rooms that branched off from the main cellar, most of which stored casks of wine or sacks of grain. In this case, it had been fitted with oversized iron bars spanning the arched opening, and a ward that lent a blue sheen to the darkness when you looked at it from the right angle.