“I am your father.”

“You are a murderer. What will the kin say when they realize what you have done? Do you think you can hold on to your reputation? To your grace? Do you think history will remember you warmly?”

The king tilts his head. Nuala’s eyes sharpen. “Why ever do you think I would allow you to speak freely?”

Nuala starts running before he has finished speaking, but it’s too late. He says a word and she freezes. A second later stone covers what was flesh.

The Forever King clicks his tongue, and soldiers appear in the courtyard. “Take her to the human world. Give her to the human king in the castle outside the forest. Tell him to keep her safe. Someone will come for her eventually.”

Croi sinks to her haunches when the stone maid dissipates into smoke. The kinship she felt with the stone maid makes sense now. It turns out the stone maid hidden in the human castle in the human world is Nuala, the Forever King’s heir, Mabh’s sister, and Croi’s aunt. Croi rubs her chest. All that while she had been yearning for a family member, and one was present, right beside her.

Croi rubs her eyes and looks around the courtyard, abandoned now and showing the neglect it has suffered in the wildness of greenery, the broken cobblestones, the dirt and mold on the fountains. Dried rosebushes creep over the decaying surfaces of the courtyard; though the rose’s branches are desiccated, dry blooms still cling to the stems. Croi moves to go, then realizes that her dress is entangled with rose thorns from a nearby branch. She tries to pull it free, but suddenly the rose branch holding her dress retracts. Croi watches, shocked, as all the rose branches around the courtyard are pulled back to the rosebush. They weave round and round to first form a tall pillar before this pillar is further shaped into the figure of a woman whose skin is decorated with thorns and who sports withered roses instead of hair.

The fragrance of roses is emanating from her! The creature’s eyes are red, and her skin is a black-green, gleaming in the starlight.

“You…,” the creature whispers through dry lips.

Is she real, or are we still seeing ghosts?

Croi takes a deep breath. “Who are you?”

“Do you know Nuala?” the creature asks. “I’m her Rosen. I have been waiting for her return. Everyone says she will never come back, but I don’t believe that she would abandon me.”

“What’s your name?”

“You can call me Roisin,” the Rosen replies. “When I had a mother, that’s what she called me. Do you know where Nuala is?”

“Yes,” Croi replies.

The Rosen’s eyes widen, and she walks closer to Croi, her fragrance overpowering. “Where?”

“In the human world,” Croi replies. “She was turned into living stone. She has been there for as long as I can remember—almost seventeen years.”

The Rosen breathes in sharply, and her thorns become more prominent on her emaciated form. She looks at Croi more closely. “Who are you?”