Quinn knew the outskirts of the border better than most—in fact, he'd go so far as to say he knew this place better than the citizens of Delle themselves. There was a reason this city acted as the dividing line between North and South Isla, and its unique placement in the belt of land where the weather was temperate, the greenery lush and Maere's power soaked into every cell of every plant, animal and Human.

He'd known this place well, when he was young. His mentor had brought him here, when Quinn's body was laughably small and his curiosity insatiable, to see what the cities of Humans were like for himself. Little Quinn, terrified, had fled from the teeming mass of people within the walls of Delle and run, swift as the wind.

Jacona, hardly as nimble as a frightened child, had no hope of catching up once Quinn disappeared into the brush to hide.

Taller now than it was then, the greenery just as formidable as Quinn stepped off the well-worn path and into the trees. Could he spot the place where he'd hidden from Jacona all those years ago? Would it be yet untouched by the civilization that crept further and further out from the city centre? He wanted to know, and at the same time, being near this place brought back those feelings of fear and shame. It might as well have been a million years, a million lifetimes ago, but inside, Quinn was the same shy boy. If Jacona could see him now, she'd laugh that he hadn't grown up at all, just gotten a little taller.

She'd been strict, Jacona. Too strict for the indecisive, easily spooked young Quinn. He wondered if she'd changed over the years any more than he had.

Here it was; the edge of the jungle gave way to bluffs, and more visible than ever was the hand-span that divided the halfway point of the continent, yawning like a mouth preparing to swallow the sun. Quinn stood on the north side, atop the bare peak, and on the south were hills that rolled gently up from the chasm, blanketed with tender grass, as if the entire scene had grown upward and outward from a single gap in the lowest point of the rock.

He'd known there was something special about this place the first time he'd seen it. Young Quinn, frightened as he was, hadn't been able to resist the urge to get a closer look. He'd scrubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands and scrambled down the rock face, inexorably drawn down to the place where green erupted from the ground. There was nothing like this in Vaegan; no mountains or jagged rocks, nor uncontrolled jungles. Things did not grow wild in Quinn's homeland. Could this be because Jacona had brought him to this place where Maere's power flowed unchecked? Or was it because Maere drew the plants growing here toward herself like a beacon, and away from the mountainous northern lands where life still struggled to flourish?

The answer wasn't any clearer to the adult Quinn than it has been to his younger self. Gingerly, he slid down over the larger stones, burying his hands in the thick moss for better grip. The passage of time seemed to fall away in the blink of an eye. The mountains, the valley; here was a place that was familiar at last.

It comforted Quinn to know such places still existed.

Here was the boulder he'd knelt upon to inspect the mossy hole in the ground, and here, the vines that snaked west to unknown lands and east toward Delle, like hands grasping to encircle the world Maere built in Her comforting embrace. Here was the veil of leaves that shaded his eyes from the brilliant sun and softened the touch of its rays as young Quinn lay curled in a nest of long grass. The tender shoots yielded to his weight but popped back up again to wave between his splayed limbs. And here, the sun-warmed stone he sat upon as he waited for Jacona.

She didn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her crawl down the cliff face as he had, clinging to the rocks. Jacona merely lifted her hand and beckoned, and a vine came upward to heed her call. She entwined it with the branches of a lone tree rooted near the clifftop and used it to slide slowly down to where he sat.

Quinn hadn't been able to take his eyes off her. "How did you do that?" he asked without so much as a greeting, when Jacona dropped lightly to the ground beside his perch, the greenery soundlessly absorbing her footfalls.

"This close to Homeland," she replied, "magic is much more powerful than in Vaegan. Look at how the living things here all yearn toward Her."

"That's exactly what I thought!" Quinn crowed. "But why only on one side? Look here; all these plants are growing up the hillside backwards, and up there, there's almost nothing."

"Not true." Jacona patted the vine that had helped her rappel into the valley. "The trees up there also face Her, and perhaps they also want to reach for Her, but they are outside Her sphere. It's because we've finally come to the Divide. Do you remember what I told you about the Divide?"

"On one side of the Divide is where the Vaegan live." Quinn recited Jacona's lesson by heart. "And on the other, Maere."

"Exactly." Jacona patted his head, ruffling his unruly hair. "Maere's magic reaches this point, but no further. It makes a perfect circle around her. She depends on the work of the Vaegan to make sure life flourishes where she can't reach."

"Oh." Quinn hadn't realized the Divide had drawn him to exactly the place they were originally coming to visit.

"That's how I knew I'd find you here." Jacona was trying to be kind, Quinn thought, but his mentor always wore an expression untouched by emotion. Her amethyst eyes met his, unblinking. Quinn still wasn't certain if he'd be in trouble for running off on his own.

When he didn't say anything, Jacona sat down beside him on the rock. "I brought you here to feel it for yourself. What it's like to be close to Her physically."

Quinn felt a little different, but not much. "I don't understand. What should I feel?"

Jacona laid her hand on her abdomen. "When I'm near Her, I feel heavy. Right here. It's like a force weighing down my body, and Her power is the centre of gravity connecting me to Isla, and the sky, and the Vaegan and Maere. It's different from usual. The magic is like an invisible stone in my core."

"I do feel heavy. I mean, not as heavy as back home, but more than I did since we came here. Is that it?"

"Yes, that's right," she coaxed. "When we left Vaegan, you probably felt lighter, little by little, as we moved further away from others. Now that we're at the Divide, Her magic is much stronger than Vaegan's. The closer we get, the more solid and heavy the invisible stone becomes. Do you feel how abundant life is here, within the sphere? Does it draw you toward Homeland, like I invited the vines to come toward me?"

Quinn wasn't sure. No vines came rushing up to him, either. "If I could, could I use magic here? Like you?"

"Not everyone can do it, but you could try."

"How do I turn it on?"

"It's on." Jacona patted his knee reassuringly. "You're born with it, as all Vaegan are. Being near Maere is enough."

Young Quinn stretched out a hand, as Jacona had, and beckoned a vine, mimicking her earlier movements. He willed it to move; to come closer, but the vine lay stubbornly still. "But how?"

Jacona breathed deeply and exhaled, her white lips forming a small 'O,' the breath leaving her so slowly Quinn wondered how she kept so much air inside. "I just will it. I feel Her presence and mine overlap. And as She wills life to flourish and grow, so can I."

Now he understood. Jacona hadn't made the vine obey her—she'd made it grow. She'd invited the magic into the plant and made it thrive, becoming in seconds what would have normally taken a full moon cycle. "So you didn't really move your plant, not really? It just grew toward you?"

"In a manner of speaking."

Quinn squinted at his vine and willed it to lengthen, even just a smidgen. It remained small and weak, without so much as a twitch. "But I don't feel a rock or anything in my belly. And I don't know how to invite the plants to come to me, either. How can I make it work?"

The long silence from Jacona made Quinn think he'd asked a question she hadn't yet decided how best to answer. "With each generation, fewer can call upon the magic to use for themselves," she finally said, turning her face toward the rolling hills. "But that's something we've long expected. It doesn't make us less capable of accomplishing our tasks. And not all of us access Her magic in the same ways, either. If you can't move your will into the plants, you might find you have abilities different from mine."

As usual, she had been right. Speeding the growth cycle was an ability Quinn would never come to have. Despite her instruction, Quinn never found access to his diluted magic during his year training with Jacona, and it would be many years more before he did so with any confidence. He hadn't seen her since, though he thought of her often. He always wondered how many other children she'd since taken to this spot and taught about the Divide. There could be no better physical example of the way Maere's power shaped Isla than in this spot, of that he was certain.

The longer he stayed, though, the more unsteady on his feet Quinn felt. Could it be his imagination, or did the life in the valley sprawl a little less vibrantly than it had when he was a child? He didn't feel the gentle extra nudge of heaviness in his body, either. Perhaps it was because Jacona wasn't here asserting her own influence. He hadn't known it, but Jacona's abilities were many times stronger than those of Quinn or his parents. As a mentor, she'd been unparalleled.

Quinn sat down heavily on the same rock he'd chosen all those years ago. Closer to the ground, the greenery was thinner, and the vines less robust, too. Plant life still yearned southward, but there were bare patches on the ground here and there. New trees had not grown up beside their venerated elders.

Maere's influence, it seemed, was not as strong here as it had once been.

Quinn couldn't even fathom why such a thing might be. This was the Ancient Divide, after all. Life had grown from this very spot to heed Her call and spread in every direction, blanketing South Isla. Some of the trees rooted here were as ancient as the planet itself.

He didn't have long to consider what might be wrong, though, before a snapping sound drew Quinn's attention back to the northern cliff face. A figure, a Human one, scrabbled for purchase on the splintering stone, grabbing for any moss or vine he could reach to arrest his fall. Quinn stood stock-still, uncertain what to do. If Jacona were here, he knew, she'd breathe life into the vines and wrap them around his limbs, or perhaps ask the bushes to join hands at the spot where stone met sky, like a leafy wall at the edge of the abyss. She'd invite the trees below to bow their heads together and rise up to make a canopy.

Quinn could ask none of those things. His magic was not a stone but a pebble, churning in his stomach as if it desperately wanted to find some other host.

The tumbling man's flailing leg struck an ancient root jutting out, exposed, from the crumbling cliff, and hooked in it, arresting him upside-down on a steep part of the hill, his travelling cloak tangled around him like a burial shroud. His head and shoulders hung over the edge, bowing toward the valley as he slid one arm gingerly out of the cloak, and for the first time Quinn realized he knew this person. The man was Madrigal.

Quinn opened his mouth to tell Madrigal not to move, that the trees on the north side were barely clinging to life, but he wasn't quick enough. The dry root tore loose and dropped the man headfirst over the edge with a shout. Madrigal raised his free arm to protect his face as he tumbled off.

Unlike Jacona, no foliage rose to break his fall.