Healing the vegetation wasn’t easy or fast. I often had to spend a lot of alone time with one tree or plant, and then frequent visits were required to keep aiding each step in the process. One day, I was sitting in an orchard near the Rowan castle, painstakingly encouraging each tree to grow its fruit. The day was sunny, and the grass—which had returned quickly—was green and lush beneath me. There was less birdsong than there used to be, which was a little weird. The animals had been hit as hard as the people, but many assured me that within a year, we could expect our furry and feathered countrymen to replenish their numbers.

I rested my hand on the bark of a cherry tree, my eyes closed. I felt the pulse of the tree’s life and tried to join it with both myself and the land so that we could lend the tree our strength. A thump in the grass beside me snapped me out of my trance, and I looked down to see a bright red apple in the grass beside me. I smiled and picked it up.

“This isn’t one of mine,” I said as a familiar shadow fell over me.

Dorian eased himself down beside me, sitting cross-legged. He carried an apple of his own and bit into it. He swallowed and smiled back at me. “Our second harvest. I would’ve brought you some from the first, but we needed them too badly.”

“You should’ve kept these too.” I bit into the apple. It was delicious. “Second, huh? I’m behind.”

He glanced up at the cherry tree. “You seem to be doing just fine. Besides, you’ve also had to do twice as much work as me, remember? You’re not overtiring yourself, are you?”

I leaned back in the grass and swallowed another bite of apple. “Nothing I can’t handle. After that crazy journey to the Yew Land, hanging out here with trees all day feels downright lazy.”

Dorian stretched out beside me so that our shoulders touched. “Do you have plans to go back to the human world? I know you must be burning to.”

“I am,” I admitted. “We’re pushing two months. Two months, Dorian! Isaac and Ivy have to be out of the NICU now. I need them to know who I am. And I need Roland to know I’m okay too. I’m nearing a point where the lands will be okay without me, but then ... well, I’m not sure of my next move. When I last saw Kiyo, he made it clear they weren’t giving up on preventing the prophecy.”

“I feel pretty confident that Maiwenn’s preoccupied with exactly the same kinds of tasks we are in restoring our lands,” he said.