Pen drew to a halt, uncertain about what to do next. All around him now and no longer moving forward, the aeriads hummed and sang. He glanced about for help, but there was no help to be found. He had gotten as far as he was going to get without doing something on his own, and he had no idea what that something should be.

“Cinnaminson?” he called softly.

Ahead, the tree roots shifted, and in their slow grating and scraping he heard the sound of his own death. Like snakes, they were coiling and uncoiling in anticipation of wrapping about him, of squeezing him until there was no breath left in his body. He felt himself begin to shake as the image eroded his courage, and he tightened his grip once more on the darkwand.

“Cinnaminson!” he called again, louder.

As if in response to his cry, the tree roots parted where their wall was thickest, and he saw revealed in the pale trickle of sunlight and tiny flashes of iridescence the bodies of dozens of young girls. Thousands of tiny roots wrapped about them, cradling them in nests of dark, earth-fed fiber, their ends attached to the exposed skin where clothing had rotted and fallen away. Their eyes and mouths were closed, and they appeared to be deep in sleep, locked in dreams that he could only imagine. They must have been breathing, but he was too far away to be certain.

Then he saw Cinnaminson. She was off to one side in an area in which the tendrils had not yet grown so thick, and her body was still mostly exposed and unfettered. She slept the sleep of the others, and most probably dreamed their dreams. But her place among them was newer, her coming clearly more recent.

He didn’t stop to think about what he should do. He simply started toward her, compelled by his determination to get close enough to touch her and, by doing so, to wake her and then to free her. He didn’t know how he would manage it or even if he could. He only knew he had to try.

–Pen, no– Cinnaminson cried out, her voice separating suddenly from those of the other aeriads.

Instantly, the tanequil’s roots began to shift, the rasp and scrape of fiber on earth and stone so menacing that Pen froze in midstride and brought the darkwand up like a shield. The wall had re-formed in front of him, barring him from getting any closer, telling him in no uncertain terms that he had transgressed. Tendrils stroked the exposed skin of his hands as the tree roots closest to him lifted out of the earth. In his mind, he could hear a hiss of warning, a sound so soft it was like the rustle of sand on old wood.