“I will sing an ode to your breath that you bathe me in, fair Thorn-Tongue.” And he began to sing—a foul limerick laden with suggestions for better uses for her tongue. “Stop your ears, lest I offend you, child-mother. Or shall I sing of your sweet girl? And the joy she brings my queen?”

Heather glowered down her nose at the creature. Her jaw ached.

The light filtering through the hanging vines grew soft, and then dim.

“That’s it, then, Thorn-Tongue. The day is over. Release me, and I will tell you where to find your once-unwanted daughter.”

Heather’s jaw trembled, but held.

“You must be Shadow’s girl, to know my tricks so well. It won’t be long now. I wonder—did he tell you this is the easy part? The part where you could still turn and run, like the last of Shadow’s child-mothers? A changed mind can turn and change again, can it not? You did not want her at all—and now you do—enough to walk this path?”

Heather ground her jaw and felt a warm burst of oil over her tongue. The creature yelped.

“I hope you kept your teeth in your pocket, child-mother. You’re going to need them.”

***

As the vine shadows grew long, the petals of the flower curled and pulled inward, sealing in the poison red cloud and the bobbing stamen.

The amber honey hardened to a dark shellac and the pod began to sink into the earth, drawing its forest of vines behind it, until nothing but a dark cave lay at Heather’s feet—a gaping hole in the wasteland she had crossed as she pulled her teeth and wet her rough tongue with blood.

The creature’s rattling snores travelled through the thorn roots and tickled her mouth.

Heather reached up and pinched the end of his nose and the tip of his tail, then stretched her tired jaw and drew the thorns out of his middle.

Yellow eyes shot open and dripped honey at her through the darkness.

“This has never worked for anyone, you know,” he said. “Even Shadow’s own bride—in the days before his many girls—never returned from the wood beyond the tunnel, and most turn back before they ever reach it. It’s much easier, you see, to turn a circle than to hold it at the half. But by all means, carry on. The farther you go, the sweeter your little one sings.” Mud-colored lips pulled back from green teeth as the creature grinned up at her.

“First question?”

Heather wrapped her mouth around the long thorns. “How do I get to Estella?” The bristles clattered as she spoke. Blood ran down her chin.

The creature’s hedge of brow rose. “The child has a name now? Well, that’s new. She’s not ‘the baby’?”

“Answer my question.”

“What was the question again?”