“My mother betrothed the girl I like to the one friend I have,” he confesses in a voice so low, it is almost indistinguishable from the sound of the rain.

Croi feels an uncomfortable prickle in her heart. He has someone he likes. Why this makes her feel prickly, she doesn’t know, but it does. She doesn’t like the feeling.

“When I asked her why, she told me that I had no future with Brianna, so I might as well let her be with someone else.” He bites his lips again, punishing them. Croi wonders if she should protest, then decides not to. They’re his lips after all. He has the right to abuse them. “It almost feels like she’s preparing for our end,” he whispers.

“Try to keep yourself alive until I reach the Caisleán,” Croi commands him.

Irial sucks in a breath. “You’re coming to the Caisleán?”

“I met a dryad who broke the summoning spell on me in exchange for a task I need to finish for her. That task can only be carried out at the Caisleán. Don’t worry, my task doesn’t involve any blood,” Croi reports.

“Why are you telling me all this?” Irial asks.

Croi forgets she’s a tree and tries to shrug. “I don’t think you intend me harm.”

“I don’t,” Irial says.

“Besides, even if you intended me harm, you can’t exactly reach me. It’s nice to have someone to tell secrets to. I feel like an overfull teapot, about to overflow. Telling you eases me.” Croi sneezes and her branches creak. “I don’t have a nose, but I can sneeze. Dreams are illogical.”

“How will you get from the human world to the Otherworld?” Irial asks, ignoring her last few words.

“I have no idea. Uaine said to follow the magick, whatever that means,” she grumbles.

“Who?” Irial sounds startled.

“That’s the name of the dryad I told you about,” Croi elaborates. “Do you know what she means?” The fae doesn’t reply. “Oi!”

“Sorry. I don’t.” Irial looks at Croi long enough that she feels uncomfortable.

“Am I a good-looking tree?” she asks him.

He grins suddenly, his face lighting up. Croi shudders at his beauty. Her heart can barely handle it.

“The best,” Irial says.

Croi beams. At that moment, the dreamscape shakes.

“I’ve overstayed,” Irial says. “Your mind is trying to expel me. I’ll visit you again.”

His form shimmers and disappears, and Croi returns to being a tree all by herself. She closes her eyes and sinks deeper into her consciousness.

The noise wakes Croi before she’s ready. Something is banging at a branch in the tree above her while a thousand insects seem to be chittering right in her ear. She opens her eyes reluctantly and looks up. On the branch closest to the ground is a small bird with a sharp beak and a brilliant array of feathers. Croi wonders what wrong the branch did to deserve the holes gouged into it. The bird must feel her eyes on it because it gives her a quick glance before it resumes pecking.