Joe came ambling back into the circle to sit down.

Mucum quickly moved away from his new girlfriend.

“Yow be fine, young boy!” Joe’s eyes hadn’t missed a thing. “It be good to see our Flo so ‘appy!”

Mucum squirmed under the gaze of his big eyes.

“Don’t think Oi didn’t see!” Joe tapped his nose, every inch the proud father.

Mucum cleared his throat and cast about for a new subject. His mind began to work again. “Where’s Ark?”

“Oh, don’t yow worry about him. He’s gone arf to explore, so he says!”

Mucum sat bolt upright, his head clearing in an instant. “No, he hasn’t! How could I have been so stupid?” He’d taken his eye off the root ball. “I have to leave. Sorry.”

His words fell into the crowd. The music faltered, stopped, as the other Rootshooters turned to stare at him.

Joe broke the silence. “What do yow mean?”

“He’s not exploring. He’s gone. Vamoosh! Run away!” Mucum shouted out the words, angry with himself. “And I should be with him.”

“Gone, yow say? But he told me …”

“He lied, Joe!”

The whole crowd sighed as Flo grabbed his arm. “Whoi would he do such a thing?”

Mucum felt backed into a corner. “Ark tried to explain. You wouldn’t listen. We ain’t miracles. Us two didn’t come here by some divine trickery. We were on the run.” He expected Joe to sweep his hand away like he did before, but the old man’s gaze stayed serious. “Our king, our country … your country. It’s in trouble. The whole place will be destroyed if the coup against the King is successful. If yer love the trees and yer home, you should listen up!”

A few of the miners began to mutter about matters up top being of no interest to them, but Joe raised his arm and they fell silent. “Young Mucum, tell us all.”

He did, right from the beginning when he bumped into a panicked Ark on the woodway that first afternoon that seemed so long ago. Could it really have been only two days ago? It was a story to beat all stories. The miners oohed and aahed with every event, shocked to hear of Dendrans who could fill their minds with treachery and lies. As Mucum described the encounter with the sewer rats, Flo’s heart almost burst with admiration.

“So, when you pulled us out of that water pipe, we were a pair of cowards, running from big men with swords,” Mucum finished, hanging his head down, unable to look at his friends.

It was Flo who leaned over and gently lifted his chin. “Yow see my kin ’ere? Warghh! I can promise yow that each of them thinks yow both be heroes! Am Oi right or not?”

Nobody spoke for a second, and Mucum knew he’d lost them.