Croi goes warm and then cold. She feels as though she wants to both laugh and cry. Then she blinks and the person is gone. The spell cannot withstand the pressure put on it by Uaine’s magick and breaks, severing their connection. The threads dissolve in the air. She is left with the echoes of the fae’s emotions: desperation, regret, shock, and finally rage. There is no sweet tang of love or any bittersweet taste of longing. Whoever that fae was, Croi refuses to believe she is her mother.

“It is done,” Uaine says, the tension flowing from her face.

It is. The incessant tug is gone. Croi no longer feels any urge to move. Her body is hers once again. It takes her a moment, however, to move on from the glimpse of the fae she saw. Her chest twinges sharply and she rubs it. “Can you remove your vine from around my wrist?” She shakes off the sudden melancholy and asks as sweetly as she can.

Uaine purses her lips, then the vine falls away from Croi’s wrist. She takes one cautious step away from the tree. There’s no pull; her limbs don’t do their puppet dance. So she takes another step and another one and soon she’s dancing. She laughs raucously and the birds scold her. She whirls round and round until she falls to the ground, out of breath.

“Are you done?” Uaine asks. She’s leaning against her tree now, looking as though she’d like to disappear into its trunk again. Branches have rearranged themselves to form a bower for her.

“Maybe.” Croi gives a hum of contentment and makes herself comfortable on the ground.

“Do you know how to get to the Talamh Caisleán?” Uaine asks.

“No.” Croi scrunches up her face. “How do I get there?”

In response, Uaine looks her over. The dryad’s gaze is cool and measuring as if the person she’s looking at is not Croi but someone else. Croi frowns. She doesn’t like the dryad’s look.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she tells the tree creature.

“Like what?” Uaine raises an eyebrow.

“Like you ordered a meaty stew and the waiter gave you a piece of cabbage instead. I’m not cabbage!”

Uaine grins suddenly, her earlier gloom dissipating as suddenly as it arrived. “This Hag you mention, did she teach you a great many things?”

“No, she wasn’t a very good teacher,” Croi replies. “She also didn’t give me the answer to a very important question.”

“And what question was that?”

“Why do the fae get to rule the Otherworld? Why can’t brownies rule?”

“Brownies, being kinder, would be much better rulers,” Uaine says. “Alas, brownie magick is not up to the task of ruling an elemental kingdom. Fae magick is.” She glances at Croi. “You don’t know why, do you?”

“Since you know I don’t, why do you need to ask?” Croi grumbles.

“Well, it’s not important at the moment. You will find out why when you need to.” Uaine gives Croi a probing look.