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Clara dropped her spoon. “Truly?” Saint Luke’s was the most prestigious artists’ guild in the city, and for Alida to be accepted,

not just as a woman, but a young woman, was no small feat.

“Truly. And do you know the painting that did it? It was the Hooft family, monkey and all. It also helped fund these new lodgings and studio. You must see the light upstairs later, it is divine.”

Clara smiled. “You deserve the recognition, and it is time that the world knew your talent.”

“Yes, but that is not all. Now that I am in the guild, my apprentice will be taking over more of my commissions in the studio.

What do you think of that?”

Only a day ago, Clara had forfeited any hope for her future, and now bright new possibilities were being laid at her feet.

She could be a painter, a true painter, earning money for her art.

“It will be mostly portraits,” Alida continued. “Setting up the study and blocking the groupings. Perhaps not the most exciting,

but it would be good practice, and as I rise in the guild, so too would my apprentice.”

Clara pushed the cabbage in her bowl about with her spoon. She thought of Neese’s words, about the nature of human memory

and how it was too short to learn from the mistakes of the past. That was why she painted, she supposed; her art would outlast

her, its messaged carried down for generations. The paintings that her father had hung with pride on his wall had all shown

a dominated and subverted natural world. Canals hacked out of the earth, trees planted and spliced into precise rows to yield

a pleasing pattern to the human eye. But Clara did not want to paint such things. She would show the beauty of nature’s truth,

the twisted branches, the unruly waves. The creatures that called them home. If the same mistakes were to be made again, at

least this time let there be a reminder. Let there be a lesson so that it had not been for naught.

“I will have to think on it,” Clara told Alida, forcing a small smile. “The offer is most generous.”

“I do not make it to be generous,” Alida told her.

“I make it because you possess a rare talent, and I should like to see it flourish. But I think I understand. I have seen your work, and I know your temperament. As much as you endeavored to hide from me your inclinations, I don’t think you are well suited to serving the caprices of clients. ”

Alida put her spoon down with a sudden groan. “And that reminds me that I am supposed to meet Mr. Huygens at the guild at

noon.” She rose, and with one last fierce hug and a kiss to Clara’s cheek, left.

Helma cleared the dishes away, and for a moment Clara allowed herself the fantasy that she was back at Wierenslot with Helma

bustling about a warm kitchen as she grew drowsy in front of the fire.

But then Helma sat back down at the table, bade Clara pull her stool closer to her. “Come, sparrow. I know you have questions,

and I think it time that you knew the truth.”

Clara wanted to tell her that she was too tired for more truths laid bare, more anything, but she nodded. This was what she

had wanted, and though she was weary, there was nothing else for her to do now but listen. “Yes, I think you had better tell

me.”

“I told you many stories when you were a girl,” Helma said. “But there is one that I never told you. You know of the Water

Queen, but do you know that there is a Queen of the Trees as well? She rules from the land, her throne a twisted yew, her

crown a garland of willow leaves.”

Clara shook her head.

“Well,” Helma said, settling into the story.

“She is a good queen, a just queen. Seldom seen, but much loved and respected. She always believed that the people of the lowlands could take care of the land if they just understood it better. But that’s neither here nor there.

What you must know about this queen, is that she has a sister.

Now, this sister has just as much power as the queen, but unlike her royal counterpart, she does not like to intervene in the affairs of humans.

Better to let them muddle through it themselves and learn their own lessons.

That isn’t to say she never takes an interest in the affairs of men, or takes a particular shine to certain humans. ”

Helma took a meaningful pause, and Clara couldn’t help but notice a shift in her old nursemaid. That bewildered look that

Helma so often wore was gone, replaced with something almost like serenity, a beatific glow.

“What... what are you?” Clara asked on breath.

“Oh, tut.” Helma rearranged her skirts. “What names do they have for us now? Not quite a kabouter, nor an elf. Something older,

something far more powerful.”

The clouds had cleared, and Clara stared at the sun slanting in from the window. Somewhere outside, a magpie called. The sounds

of the city rumbled on. “You lied to me,” she said finally.

“I did no such thing!”

“All these years, I believed you to be my nursemaid, my companion.”

“Ah,” said Helma, holding up a knobbed finger. “And did I ever say I wasn’t? No, I only omitted certain small details.”

Clara scowled. “You say that the Old Ones don’t meddle, but it seems that they certainly like to insinuate themselves into

the lives of humans.”

“Now,” continued Helma, “you tell me that you always considered me a friend, a companion. When you were young, you certainly

loved me. But as you grew older, you came to see me as burdensome, a hindrance to your follies.”

Clara started to protest but Helma silenced her with a frown on her gray brows. “Don’t fret, sparrow. I always knew that you

had a good heart. I wouldn’t have come to Wierenslot if I’d thought you beyond redemption. And with parents such as yours!”

She huffed. “Well, you did need a friend.”

Clara’s mind was already racing ahead. “You knew about Maurits,” she said in a breath of disbelief.

Helma smiled, not in the least bit contrite. “Of course. I could see the magic shining off that boy the moment he stepped into the kitchen.”

“And you knew he’d come to take me.”

“No,” Helma said with a definitive shake of her head. “He might have come with that intention, but the moment I saw him looking

at you I knew that he would not lay a finger on you, not when he had already fallen in love.”

It was too much. Hearing of his love from someone else—and not just anyone, but her oldest friend—was all it took to break

the dam of tears that Clara had been able to hold in thus far. She let the salt flow freely, wishing her tears were a conduit

to the sea so that she might be forever bound to her lover’s final resting place.

With Helma’s arms tightly around her, Clara rocked back and forth, an ebb and flow of tears. “I took him for granted,” Clara

said through gasps. “I thought he would always be there, whether it was for me to be angry with him, or to forgive him. If

I died, then I died first.” Never did she consider that she would be left alone with only her severed heartstrings and far

too few memories.

“My little sparrow,” Helma crooned. “What a gift you have been given. You know what it was to be loved wholly, unconditionally.

You know what it was to be loved by someone who would swallow the whole world before they let you come to harm.”

Clara bitterly disagreed. If this grief was not harm, then what was? But there was no use trying to explain to Helma the aching

void in her chest, so she wiped away her tears and endeavored to save her howling grief for nightfall when she was alone.

“Now,” said Helma standing and extending her hand to Clara. “Will you come meet my sister?”

The clearing where she had bid goodbye to land was bathed in dappled sunlight, but still a chill ran through Clara.

Had it truly only been a matter of days since she was here last, determined to sacrifice herself?

What a strange sensation to revisit a place that she had thought she would never see again.

Helma caught the shudder, and gave Clara a little pat on the arm. “There now, nothing to be frightened of. We must come here

because she does not like to venture into the city, you understand. Not enough trees.”

“Why did she not come to the last gathering?” Clara asked, wrapping her arms about herself.

Helma did not respond. She was peering up into the canopy. “Oh, she was mostly likely there, somewhere. Ah!”

A gust of wind blew through the copse, scattering the sunlight like stained glass through the leaves. Clara craned her head

up to try to see whatever Helma was seeing. But there was nothing there, only dancing leaves.

And then Clara looked back down, and had her first look at the Queen of the Trees.

Except, it wasn’t the first.

“Tryn?”

The old woman was smaller than Clara remembered, but carried herself with a regal bearing, twigs and grass in her long, gray

hair. On her head sat a crown of twisted willow branches, and in one hand she carried a gnarled staff of yew. Her other hand

she held out to Clara, and some instinct propelled Clara forward to offer a kiss on the wrinkled skin.

“There now, she is not half so wild as you always said,” Tryn told Helma with a triumphant smile.

“A cap for your new grandson,” Helma said as she handed Tryn the cap that she had been knitting all those months ago. “I wish

him health and every happiness.”

Tryn accepted the cap with a bow of her head, and it disappeared into some fathomless pocket in her shapeless smock.

Rising, Clara turned toward Helma. “Tryn is your sister?”

“Did you think I would let you wander off into the world without a friend, someone to watch over you?”

Clara opened her mouth, shut it again. Turned back to Tryn. “You are an Old One?”

When Tryn laughed, it was the sound of wind through branches. “Oh, yes. I am the oldest of the Old Ones. Queen of the Trees.

The mist maidens and widde juvven all serve the forest under me.”

“And Jan is... king?” Clara looked about, expecting him to likewise appear out of the leaves themselves.

A toothy smile split the old woman’s face. “I’m sure he likes to think so,” she said with a long-suffering huff. “He is my

companion.”

Clara could barely make sense of it. “Do you really live on a farm? Was it all for the sake of a lesson?”

Helma made a little sound in the back of her throat, but Tryn shot her a stern look. “What you call a lesson, I call love.

My sister has always loved you, and so I love you too, child. It was our honor to be there for you in the dark. That which

is learned from experience is far more ingrained than that which is lectured by an elder. Ask any child in the nursery. You

only needed the opportunity of experience, and because I love you, I gave you that opportunity. As for where I live—” Tryn

gestured to the trees around them. “I am not bound to one place or another. Only, I do not care for the city, with its cobbles

and polluted canals.”

“Care for it you might not, but I’ve still got to bring her back before nightfall,” Helma told her sister. “There might not

be a bounty on her head any longer, but I won’t have her catching cold once the sun goes down.”

“Always a worrier,” Tryn said with a wink at Clara.

“But she is right. I am glad that we have met again, Clara. Now that the Water Kingdom has fallen, there will be a council of all the Old Ones, from land, water, and air. No more decisions being made by a single king or queen that will affect all of us. Thade would have never agreed with me, but humans ought to be at the table. An emissary between the lands, perhaps.” Tryn smiled broadly, her eyes creasing.

“It grows dark, and I will not keep my sister from discharging her pledge to keep you safe. Goodbye, Clara. I expect that I will be seeing you again. I do hope the wishes were of some use.”