“I just kept falling!”

Juniper was more than a little bit put out by her quick trip through the shadow paths. It wasn’t the first time she had said that and I was starting to doubt it’d be the last. Barra nodded again without giving away any annoyance or boredom or exasperation at being brought back to the same point for the fourth time.

I hated that I couldn’t read her. It wasn’t like this was the first time I had been confronted with someone who hid their intentions or emotions, everyone did that to an extent, but normally through their words or actions I could glean something. I could pick out if they were being genuine or not from years of watching others.

Barra’s polite smile had an even chance of being real as fake or a forgotten quirk of her lips and I could not tell.

I didn’t want to spend more time in her presence than I had to, in case Barra learned something about me that I didn’t want her to know, without any way for me to spot the threat, but she had arrived at the feathered tree before me after hearing Juniper scream. And I couldn’t exactly leave when my lesson was the cause of Juniper’s wide eyed fear and stress. Especially not if there was a chance I’d be labeled as even more of a troublemaker for making another seedling scared of one of the goddess’s boons without me there to defend myself.

No one else was here yet. Breck and Prevna had been deaf to Juniper’s scream since they were in the shadow paths and those that were watching the lesson were charging up the cliff as quick as they could to reach the tree. Either Wren had forgotten that she could step through the shadows too, to reach us faster, and got caught up in the others’ momentum or she didn’t think she had the focus for it. I was impressed they still had the energy to sprint after all the running we had already done throughout the day.

I tried to signal and call down to them that Juniper was fine, that they could slow down, but all I managed to get in return was a twin nasty look from Idra and Ento. It seemed like Nii, Andhi, and Ulo hadn’t heard the scream from wherever they were, figured someone else was taking care of it, or were taking the long route here like the others.

“I stepped into the shadows but I didn’t…stop like normal.” Juniper’s hands clenched together. “I hate falling.”

It wasn’t ever really pleasant, I could give her that.

Instead of simply nodding along with Juniper’s rambling rant again, Barra gently broke into the one sided conversation. “It seems you’ve stumbled onto a bit of an…advanced technique.” Juniper brightened at that omission. “Not everyone can form a path before they step into the shadows, but we generally hold off on trying to teach it until a seedling has shown an aptitude for…controlling their entrances and exits, for reasons you’ve experienced. Better to walk through than accidentally crack your head open on an unexpected branch or rock.”

I barely kept from glowering at Barra. Juniper was fine. I had already checked her over as best as I could from a short distance, so she and the whisper woman wouldn’t get suspicious, and there wasn’t a speck of blood or mind fog or any other warning sign to be seen. She had the wind knocked out of her from hitting the ground, but that was it. I doubted there’d even be a bruise to mark her harrowing experience.

Juniper straightened, a bit of the defeated look leaving her. “I can do an advanced technique?”

“It works best and easiest over short distances with another tree or shadow that you can see, and, of course, the deeper black and bigger the shadow the easier it is to do. Some don’t think it’s worth the effort to learn since the skilled shadow walkers can establish the same kind of path in a second or less once they are in the shadow paths—with typically better accuracy. Still, there is one prodigy that can do it over longer distances with seemingly little to no effect on her accuracy when she wants to.”

If Barra was trying to cheer up Juniper she was failing miserably. I watched as Juniper’s hope about completing an ‘advanced technique’ so early into gaining the boon, however poorly, diminished with every sentence until it became that she had done a ‘pointlessly difficult technique’ poorly.

Still, I placed the information away in a corner of my mind with the determination to master the technique. I didn’t need three guesses to know that the prodigy had to be Hana and I still wanted to show her up on the one skill she had to her name.

Juniper focused on something else Barra had said. “How can I improve entering and exiting the shadow paths?”

Barra shifted and delicate clinks filled the air as various bits of glass bumped against each other. Really, it was a bit of a wonder that we hadn’t heard her before we saw her when we first met in the hut.

“My mentor would have me enter the shadow on the trunk of the tree like I was entering a tent. It helped to have an action to match what I was supposed to imagine. Perhaps that is why so many seedlings say they feel like they are falling when they first learn how to shadow walk. The common practice of breaking the shadow with your heel must make it easier to picture the ground crumbling out from under your feet.”

The flaws with entering the shadowed trunk seemed obvious to me, but Juniper excitedly took to trying something new. Never mind that there wouldn’t be a tree trunk for her to mime with in the shadow paths and the shadow on the trunk of the tree might be harder to reach and enter, if the sun’s angle made it into a narrow strip. But, perhaps, it’d help her visualization and ability to use the shadows on branches in the future.

Nor did I like how desperate Juniper seemed to be getting about improving her skill with the shadows. She was supposed to be more collected than that.

Perhaps Barra’s advice, however limiting it might be, could help her get the basics down. Juniper stepped in and out of the feathered tree’s shadow several times using Barra’s trick before giving me a look that said this was the sort of advice I should have been giving her—completely ignoring the fact that she was traveling through the same shadow and she had wanted to make a path between different ones. There hadn’t been any discussion of improving her ability to enter and exit the shadow. She still had some trouble when it came to exiting too, that it still felt like falling upwards, but she liked that she wasn’t falling all the time.

Then she entered the shadow again and minutes passed as the sun got lower and lower. I tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut and the fact that Barra had encouraged her to try to leave from a different shadow. Surely, this time couldn’t go as terribly as the other two? Surely, no one could be that bad with a boon from the goddess?

Juniper still hadn’t returned or come into view elsewhere in the Rookery by the time Idra and Ento thundered over to us, out of breath and irritated.

Ento drew in on a long breath as she took in the scene before she focused on Barra. “Where’s Juniper?”

At the same time, Idra took out her ire on me. “This is your fault! I knew we shouldn’t have trusted you!”

I dodged the punch she aimed at my chest and then dodged again when she tried to trip me. Ento got between us. “Not now.”

“But she—”

“She doesn’t have the pearl. Does fighting her help protect Juniper?”

“It could,” Idra grumbled, glaring at me over Ento’s shoulder, but she didn’t try to take another swing.

Ento turned back to Barra. “Can you track her?”

“No one can track someone in the shadow paths and I can only track my bits of glass. She doesn’t have one, so she’s as lost to me as the rest of you.”

Ento’s jaw clenched. “So Juniper could be anywhere if she traveled through another shadow?”

Barra tilted her head slightly to the side. “I doubt she has the range and skill to go very far. If you want to look for her, go to the deepest shadows you can sense in your range and she’ll likely be there—if she hasn’t stepped into the shadow paths again.”

I moved to go look for Juniper, better that than continue to stay at the tree with Barra, but Idra cut me off. “No. We don’t need your help.”

I stopped. Not willing to get into another fight so quick after the last one, especially in front of a whisper woman.

Ento and Idra ran off and soon after that Barra left too. Thankfully. I could have gone after Juniper too, despite what Idra said, but I figured someone should stay at the tree in case she showed back up here, and Wren and Dera still needed to be filled in on what was happening.

I saw Breck before the other two. Apparently, she had picked up on the fact that something was going on and that Juniper and I didn’t just happened to be in the shadows whenever she left the shadow paths. I filled her in and then filled in Wren and Dera once they puffed their way over to the tree.

Dera volunteered to stay and watch the tree while Wren caught her breath and then strode off with Breck to do what they could to help. There weren’t any small birds she could ask if they had seen anything, but Wren was determined to check with the storm birds in case they had spotted anything. Breck had wanted to practice her shadow walking and search for Juniper in one go, but we managed to convince her that we shouldn’t risk another person going missing right now.

Two people didn’t need to watch the tree, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to risk another fight with Idra. And I realized that I had forgotten to make sure everyone had a signal, so that we knew Juniper had been found and everyone didn’t keep running around for no reason. It made me wish talking on the winds was our next boon instead of boring dark sight.

I walked over to the edge of the cliff to see if Prevna was out of the shadow paths yet. Twilight would be coming soon and if she didn’t leave the shadows before then, she wouldn’t have a shadow to exit from, except from the goddess grown tree, until the moon rose high enough to bring back the shadows. Given that she hadn’t appeared yet it seemed like she was having trouble making the path between shadows.

Looking over the bottom half of the Rookery I saw a figure making her way up the switchback path. It was hard to be sure with the cliff blocking what remained of the light, but in the gloom I thought it was Prevna. It helped too that the figure waved and I doubted that anyone else would wave at me. I gestured for her to hurry up and made my way back over to the tree and Dera.

She was fiddling with a bit of bone and I let her be, though I wasn’t sure if she could see well enough to make anything detailed. Still, seeing the bone shift under her fingers like it was wet clay was odd enough without being able to tell what she was trying to make.

Dera jumped a little as I settled nearby and the grass crunched under my weight. She rolled the bone back and forth between her hands before chancing to look up at me. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“Waiting on Prevna.”

She nodded, a quick dip of her head, and kept fiddling with the bone. Like she couldn’t decide if she was allowed to go back to what she had been doing now that I was there.

“You can keep practicing.” Better that than awkward conversation.

She nodded again, but, rather than continue to shape bone, Dera tucked the bit in her hands away and shifted to face me more full on. Like she had come to an unwelcome decision.

“Did you want to become a whisper woman?” Dera asked. Soft, barely above a whisper.

I cleared my throat. “Didn’t have much of a choice.”

She fidgeted, but didn’t take her question back as she waited for a real answer. The knowledge that Prevna was getting closer, that she’d want me to answer honestly, fully, pressed at my back, but that wasn’t enough to get me to open up. Not to someone I didn’t trust yet. Her nerves, though, which should have been annoying and the memory of her crying, worrying, caring—just a little bit—that got me to be honest.

Just one word.

In that moment, I didn’t want to hurt anyone else who managed to care. My fingers found the poisoner’s pouch with the felt leaf.

“No.” I forced my hand away from the pouch. “You?”

“No.”

That surprised me. “Why not?”

She shifted, and sounded somewhere between wistful and sad. “I thought it’d be amazing when I was younger, with all their power and cool abilities, but then I realized I’d be separated from everything I knew. That I wouldn’t be able to go home…and that was terrifying.”

“Oh. Leaving home was one of the good things to me.”

Once I had cut off my healer’s beads and ruined that path forever. Sure, not seeing Rawley or Fellen wasn’t ideal, especially with no way to repair the damage I had done. But being able to walk around and not have every step be a chance at running into her or the twins or Father was a clear relief. To walk around and not have everyone immediately see Gimlea.

Dera sounded confused. “You don’t miss it?”

“I have what I need.”

Dera lapsed into silence after that and I didn’t make any attempt to bring the conversation to life again. The moon started to rise high enough that we could see easier in the dark, but it wasn’t quite good enough to make deep shadows that weren’t stretched thin by the time Prevna found us.

“Good, it was you.” Prevna smiled at me. “I wasn’t sure if I was waving to Miyan or some random tribe member. Where did everyone go?”

I glared at her for the quip before filling her in on the situation. She wanted to go right away to help, but I was still leery of coming across Idra and Ento again. So, instead, Dera went with her to help search, now that she was rested up from her run up the cliff, and I stayed to keep an eye on the tree.

It took another hour or so for the search parties to find Juniper and even longer for everyone to trickle their way back and check up on her status. Apparently, she had ended up out in the woodland, but not far from the Rookery. Then, instead of walking back, she tried to shadow walk back and got stuck in the shadow paths when twilight fell and took the shadows. Since she wasn’t able to leave out of the shadow she entered Juniper kept trying to make a path to the feathered tree, but she had lost one shadow and couldn’t “find” the other one. I wasn’t sure if you could make a path with only one shadow once you were in the shadow paths, and I made a mental note to possibly look into that in the future or not get caught in circumstances where it might be a problem.

Ento found her once the moonlight brought the shadows back and she was able to escape the shadow paths. Juniper didn’t like having anything to do with shadow walking near twilight after that.

Rather than go down to the hut we had been given when it was already late again and have to run back up the cliff at dawn, I took it upon myself to settle in an abandoned nest near the Tamer’s hut. Tufani was less than amused when she found me in the morning and made sure that next time I “cheated” she wouldn’t let it slide.

“Nests are for birds and bedrolls are for sleeping. Or what would you have me do if you woke up with a storm bird on top of you?”

I could tell “get it off of me” wasn’t the acceptable answer, so I promised to sleep in my bedroll from now on. She gave me a look that said moving my bedroll to the top of the cliff to get out of running wasn’t an acceptable answer either.

I decided not to push my luck.