Four Years Ago
Ash floated like feathers through the air, soft and slow. It coated the crooked lampposts and the rain-slick cobblestones, giving the Sinks the look of a city always on the verge of burial.
Hatim slipped between leaning walls, his boots splashing through shallow puddles that reeked of old iron and rotting roots. A curl of smoke drifted from the pipe of a slumped man in a doorway—one eye swollen shut, the other staring through Hatim as if watching something claw its way behind his ribs. No one greeted him. No one spoke. That was the rule down here: move, or be moved.
But the smell changed before the stone corridor opened. Not rot. Not rust. Something green.
He turned the corner, and there it was: the woven arch of Bone-Reed and Wyrmgrass. A little limp from age, maybe, but still pulsing faintly in the Akar-light like a slow heartbeat. Beneath it, a door lashed together with salvaged wood and Akar-hide twine. Hatim knocked twice—rhythm sharp, then soft.
The door creaked, reluctant. Warmth greeted him before anything else. Then the glow.
Inside, Maldri's hearth crackled beneath a pot blackened by years, the fire blue where it touched the carved volcanic stone. Shadows danced over bundles of Moonpetal Bloom hanging from the rafters, petals swaying with the breath of the room. Every jar on every shelf seemed to hum with its own memory—dustless, sealed with wax and quiet spells.
"Close that, boy. You'll let in the rot," came her voice.
Granny Maldri didn't look up from the pestle she worked with slow, rhythmic movements. Her knotted fingers moved like she was massaging the soul out of whatever root she'd trapped in her mortar.
Hatim shut the door.
"You eat?" she asked.
"Not yet."
She grunted and nodded at the kettle. "Two scoops. No more, no less."
He obeyed. The stew was thick with Thorn-Root and what smelled like smoked marrow, laced with the shimmer of Mistfrond. He didn't ask where she got the marrow. He never did. Down here, too many answers were traps.
He sat, bowl in hand, and leaned against the coalgrass mat by the hearth. It was still warm from Lyra's sitting. She was always here before him, always leaving traces—an emptied jar turned upside down, a sliver of copper-thread twine looped on the table corner. She moved like smoke: always ahead, always just gone.
"You missed her," Maldri said, not bothering to read his eyes.
"I know."
"Don't sulk. Help me cut."
Hatim grabbed the dagger and the bundle of splitleaves, their edges razored and still twitching from being harvested. They oozed a yellow sap that burned on skin. He moved carefully, letting muscle memory guide the strokes. Maldri watched, silent, until she turned back to her mortar.
"Good," she muttered.
That was high praise.
They worked in rhythm, the kind that felt older than either of them. The room filled with the hiss of sap hitting stone, the low bubble of stew, and the quiet tick tick tick of Maldri's left foot—always bouncing when she mixed something dangerous.
"You feel it?" she asked, voice low.
Hatim paused. "The shift?"
She nodded. Her eyes were sharp stones beneath her wrinkled brow. "Forest's blooming. Gloom-Lichen's waking."
His grip tightened on the blade. "It's early."
"Things don't wait anymore."
Silence returned. Somewhere above, boots thudded against iron grates. A scream came and went. Neither flinched.
"Lyra wants to go up," Hatim said after a long time.
"She always has."
"She wants me to come."
Maldri didn't answer. She wiped her hands, stood, and limped to the hearth. Her knees cracked with the effort, but her presence filled the room even more fully when she stood—like stone waking.
"I once thought I'd leave too," she said, ladling out a portion for herself. "Before the Sinks had its hooks in me. Before I knew what breath was worth down here."
Hatim watched the fire twist in the reflection of her eyes.
"Then why didn't you?"
She blew on her spoon, then sipped. "Because someone had to stay."
The flame snapped. A log split with a hiss.
The door groaned again, and Lyra stepped in, arms full of wrapped herbs and a satchel of gleaming bone fragments. Her cheeks were flushed, her braid frayed, and her eyes danced when they caught Hatim's.
"Told you he'd still be stirring soup," she said.
"You're late," Hatim said, smiling before he could stop it.
"Blame the Veil-Wasps. Nest moved closer to the Brine Tunnel. Took me half a bell just to get around."
She dropped the herbs on the table and leaned against the wall beside him. For a moment, their shoulders touched. He didn't move.
Maldri eyed them both. "Gloom-Lichen's blooming. I'll need two sets of hands tomorrow. The forest won't wait."
Lyra's smile faded, but she nodded. "I'll prep the balm tonight."
"Use the old recipe," Maldri said. "We'll need the thick stuff."
As the hearth dimmed and the stew thickened, Hatim looked at Lyra. Her fingers were already stained green again, her mouth moving silently as she recited ingredient ratios. Lyra hadn't changed. Still too sharp, too loud, like a spark in wet wood. Part of him—deep, stupid—was glad she hadn't left.
He caught her glancing toward the rafters—toward the place where the smoke slipped through a slit and vanished toward the sky.
She was dreaming again.
He didn't know if he would follow her. Not yet.
But the forest waited. And the lichen only bloomed once.