Her expression was too naked—too private. Briony looked down at the fire.

“To answer your earlier, unfinished question…” Lisiya said suddenly, then cleared her throat. “No, Zoria was not a virgin. And now she simply is not—nor are any but we pathetic few, stepchildren and monsters, castoffs of Heaven. Like insects crawling out of the scorched ground when a forest fire has passed, only we survived the last War of the Gods.”

“You mean…the other gods are dead?”

“Not dead, but sleeping, child. But the sleep of the gods has already been ages long, and it will continue until the world ends.”

“Sleeping? Then the gods are…gone?”

“Not entirely, but that is another story. And I do not doubt that a few more aging demigods and demigoddesses like me are still caring for their forests, or landlocked lakes that once were small seas. But I have not talked to one of my kin in the waking world for so long I can scarcely remember.”

“No gods? They left us?”

Lisiya’s smile was grim. “Not by choice, mortal kit. But they have slept since your ancestors first set stone on stone to build the earliest cities, so it is not as though anything has changed.”

“But we pray to them! I have always prayed, especially to Zoria…!”

“And you may continue to pray to her if you wish, and the others as well. They may even answer you—when they sleep, they dream, and their dreams are not like those of your kind. It is a restless sleep, for one thing…but that is most definitely a tale for another time. As it is, we have dallied too long. Come, rise.”

“What? Are we going to walk again?”

“Yes. Follow.” And without looking back to see if Briony had obeyed her, Lisiya went limping away through the forest.

The late afternoon sun was burrowing into the distant hills when they reached the edge of the Whitewood. As they stood with the great fence of trees behind them, Briony looked out over the meadowlands of what she could only guess was Silverside. The grassy plains stretched away as far to the north and west as she could see, beautiful, peaceful, and empty. “Why have we come here?” she asked.

“Because the music calls you here.” Lisiya fumbled in her shapeless robes and drew out something on a string, lifting it over her head with surprising nimbleness. “Ah, a little sun on my bones is a kindly thing. Here, daughter. I am sorry we have not had more time. I miss the chance to speak to something less settled and slow than the trees, and for a mortal child you are not too stone-headed.” She held out her claw of a hand. “Take this.”

Briony lifted it from her hand. It was a crude little charm made from a bird skull and a sprig of some dried white flowers, wrapped around with white thread. “I am too old to come when summoned,” Lisiya said, “and too weak to send you much in the way of help, but it could be that this might smooth your way in some difficult situation. I have one or two worshipers left.”