Page 142 of Dark Water Daughter

I drew a deep breath, looking from her to Mary, who watched her ghisting without a word. But I heard her voice in my mind, her words shifting and settling into a truth that made my heart ache.

You’re the best of men, Samuel Rosser.

Tane spoke to the door, though I could not hear what she said. The birch tree groaned. The divide in its trunk yawned larger and larger, until Widderow’s crow swooped through with a raucous caw.

The old woman followed it with a perfunctory glance at the rest of us. “I’ve waited twenty years for this,” she complained, raising her lantern. “If we stand about gawping, I’ll be dead before I can spend my share.”

With that, she vanished into the cleft.

Demery smiled wanly, then gestured for Anne, Mary and Olsa to proceed him. Mary and Tane then vanished through the door together.

Benedict shouldered ahead of me into the shadows. “I hope this was worth it,” he muttered.

Beyond the doorway, thin lanternlight illuminated a staircase down into the dark. I carefully descended, each step accompanied by a forbidding creak and a rustle of hanging roots and falling dirt.

Finally the lantern stopped moving, the shadows settled and I joined Benedict on a dark, crooked deck. Ahead, Widderow tugged up the slats of her lantern and held the light high.

Golden light spilled across a treasury fit for queens. No, not queens. Gods.

There were chests of gold, barrels of gems, and sacks of gilded weapons. Urns spilled coins across the lichen-covered decking. Trunks yawned, packed with so much wealth they could not be closed. There were figurines of humans, animals and Other-born beasts in every precious substance. There were goblets of silver, horse tack marked with emeralds, and a hundred other items I was too stunned to identify. Everywhere I tried to look, a new marvel dragged my attention elsewhere.

Widderow made a gleeful sound and picked up a long, slim box. She opened it to reveal an array of hairpins exactly the same as her signature carnelian pin, but these carved in other semiprecious stones. She ran her fingers over them lightly, and cast Demery a beaming grin. The man smiled back.

Behind me, Benedict picked up a silver plate and rubbed it with his sleeve, then stared at his own reflection.

“Bretton’s original hoard was farther north,” Anne said, watching as Mary picked up a jade disc and held it in her palm. The older woman had a new steadiness about her, though I still perceived a shadow behind her eyes. I had seen shadows like that before, in my own eyes, in the eyes of veterans and widows, and I suspected it would never fade.

She continued, “Lirr moved it here before we sailed back across the Stormwall. These three ships house the bulk of it, but there are more caches throughout the forest.”

“There’s…”Mary seemed at a loss, turning the jade piece over. She surveyed the hoard. “There’s so much.”

“There’s enough.” Olsa Uknara swiveled a satchel from the small of her back to her hip and opened it, then started selecting small, cut gems from a chest.

“Well, you can retire now,” Anne said to the captain. She scuffed meaningfully at a spilled sack of coins with a scrape and a jingle. “Still have your eye on Sunjai?”

“Mereish South Isles,” Demery said, picking up the half-moon headdress of some ancient priestess. Silver glittered and a fringe of dangling jewels clinked as he held it to Anne’s forehead, as if checking how it would look on the woman. “Lirr had the right of it, lying low down there. I’ll buy myself an island and live out my days as an eccentric lord. Maybe I’ll even marry? I’ll visit Hesten every so often, though, of course. Phira would have my head if I did not.”

Lowering the headdress, he narrowed his eyes at it. “I should bring her something, shouldn’t I? And thequeen…Damnit.”

Anne smiled. It was the first time I had seen the expression on her face and it caught me off guard. She looked younger, less harrowed. More like Mary.

“You’re welcome to come,” Demery added, tucking the headdress under one arm. From his tone, I sensed that this was not the first time he had extended the invitation. “To the Isles.”

Anne’s smile faded a little and she glanced at her daughter. “We’ll see.”

“Will the ghisting remain here?” Fisher asked.

In perfect unison, Anne, Mary and Tane looked at her.

Fisher cleared her throat. “Will you remain here, Tane?”

“Wherever we go, we go together,” Mary said. “The new Mother Tree is already growing in her stead, and a new Mother Spirit within it. Tane is not bound here.”

Tane herself nodded silently, and I remembered the sapling growing where the bonfire had been. Where Mary ought to have died. The horror and the uncertainty of that memory turned my stomach and made my fingers clench. But it was over. Mary was safe and quite properly rich.

“Tane, do you not want to be free?” This question, to my shock, came from Benedict. He had lowered the silver plate, though it was still in his hand, and he looked directly at the ghisting.

The ghisting’s mouth curled up in a smile.