Death Lilys moved fast for a plant, hissing a warning a second before they grabbed their victims. Once you were caught, it pricked you with two barbs and injected its toxin. One of three things happened next. You die, and it feeds off your flesh, spitting your bones out when it’s finished. Or you don’t die, it spits you out, and you suffer horribly, dying later. Then there are the very few who don’t die at all and become healers. Like me.

On the opposite side, Peace Lilys wouldn’t capture a person or bother anyone. As far as I know, Flea and I were the only people they’d taken. And here was another irony—Tohon used Peace Lily serum to create his dead soldiers. The serum preserved the dead body in a fake life so they didn’t decompose. His magic did the rest, but I still hadn’t figured out how.

“Stay away from that one.” I pointed to the Lily farthest southwest. “That’s the Death Lily.”

“How can you tell?” Quain asked. “They all look the same.”

“Death Lilys have a faint odor of anise when you get closer, and Peace Lilys smell like vanilla. If you smell anise, then you’re within range of its vines.”

“Oh, so anise will be the last thing you smell before you’re plant food. Good to know.” Quain backed up a step.

“Now what?” Loren asked.

“I’ll see if any will open for me.” When I had returned to the Peace Lily that held Flea’s body, it had bent down and deposited him onto the ground. Perhaps one of these would drop Kerrick. Every fiber of my being hoped so.

Please be here.

I approached the closest and waited. Please be here.

Nothing happened. Not a twitch of a vine nor a rustle of a petal.

After a few minutes, I moved to the next. Please be here.

And the next. Please.

And the next. Be.

And the last. Here!

The Peace Lilys ignored me. “Please?” I said to it, hoping it would take me and explain as one had after it had refused my sister. I’d gotten the impression that the Peace Lilys were all one being with each flower an extension of it, like fingers. Same with the Death Lilys, but with another being at its core.

Still nothing.

Loren gestured to the flowers. “What’s going on?”

Crushing disappointment and grief, but no need to state the obvious. “I’ll see if I can find out.” I walked over to the Death Lily.

“Uh, Avry,” Quain said. “Are you sure that’s a good—”

A loud hissing drowned out the rest of his words. In a flash, white petals surrounded me, blocking all light and noise. In the darkness, two barbs pricked my upper arms and the toxin flowed into me like a soothing elixir. Escaping my pain-filled body, my consciousness floated free and I connected with the thoughts and contented feelings of the Lily.

Welcome back. A surge of pride. More? Thinking I wanted its toxin sacks, it showed me a mental picture of another cluster of Lilys nearby.