She nodded. Her dress was splayed out on the rocks like his clothing. It had to be getting closer to evening, but the sun was still bright. The days were long now, with the summer solstice approaching.

“Have you made any progress with the songbook?” she asked. “I saw you were reading it when I came in.”

“Alas, no progress. I almost resorted to reading the poetry book, but I couldn’t stomach it.”

“What’s wrong with poetry?”

He shrugged. “Nothing, I suppose. It’s like singing without the music.”

She raised a brow in question.

“Right. You don’t sing words when you sing, do you?”

She shook her head. “No. Do you?”

Jaren didn’t love the idea of singing in front of someone who clearly had a far better voice than he did, especially when he’d never practiced. But he remembered the tune and words of one of the songs his mother had crooned to him as a baby, and he sang it quickly.

Leelo’s eyes lit up. “That’s wonderful!”

“Is it?” He chuckled. “My mother used to sing it to us when we were little. I’m surprised I still know the words.”

She smiled to herself. “I would never have thought to sing about a little filly in a meadow. But I liked it. Especially the part about the butterfly.”

Jaren sighed and crossed his arms on the rocks between them. “I wish we had something to eat. I’m starving.”

“I left the berries back in the cottage. I’m sure there are more nearby, though.”

“What kind of berries?”

“Blueberries. Maybe some lingonberries, but I don’t know if they’re ripe yet.”

“Right. Turn around. I’ll go find us some.” He waited until she was looking away, pushed out of the pool, and pulled on his still-damp trousers. It only took him a few minutes to find the blueberry bushes, and he picked them as quickly as he could, using his tunic as a makeshift basket.

He moved a little farther into the Forest and was just about to reach for a branch when he realized this wasn’t a blueberry bush; it was nightshade. Poisonous, even fatal, the small, blue-black berries looked similar to blueberries to the untrained eye. He glanced around him and noticed a patch of amanita toadstools growing nearby, their red-and-white-spotted caps bright against the grass. Fairy houses, Tadpole called them. But they were toxic, too.

Jaren was surrounded by danger, from the bright purple foxglove quivering in the breeze to the diamond-backed snake winding silently through them. He decided he had collected enough and made his way quickly out of the Forest to the clearing, then froze.

Leelo was standing with her back to him, still submerged below the waist. Her hair was so long it was nearly touching the water. She was doing something with her clothing, humming to herself as she worked.