Iris woke again to the blue bird bent over her in motherly concern, its iridescent feather crest outlined by the moon's lambent orange.

Iris groaned, her limbs sore and her head still spinning from the maze. "Let's not make a habit of this, okay?"

The blue bird cocked its head to the side, and perhaps it was the remnants of sleep blurring Iris's vision, but there seemed to be mirth in the bird's whirling eyes.

Iris had fallen asleep, or, if she were being honest with herself, collapsed at the base of the hill where the maze had spat her out, but now she lay on marshy ground in the middle of a wide flat expanse. Turning her head, she could see silvery puddles surrounded by rough sedge glinting all across the plain, and though there were no trees, gnarled roots roughened the landscape. Stretching her arm out across the ground, Iris dipped her fingers in the nearest silty puddle, and was surprised to find it cool but dry, like sand as fine as silk.

"What I would really love," Iris said, turning her head back to face the bird, "is to go home. But since I'm stuck here for now, I don't suppose you know some safe place I could go?"

The bird trilled, cocked its head to the side, and ruffled its feathers as it shuffled a few steps to the side.

You won't get anywhere lying on the ground, Iris translated, her elbows sinking into soft ground as she struggled to stand. Her limbs were heavy and barely under her control, and though Iris tried to attribute the unwieldy weight to exhaustion, she wondered too if it was the tug of this realm, its atmosphere slowly enveloping her and bleeding through her with its own colors. Iris's breath hitched as she remembered her time in the Candlewood, and suddenly she felt like crying, or screaming, or running as far and as fast as she could.

The crooning of the bird- Kismet, she remembered- coaxed Iris back into reality. Right, the swamp. First she had to deal with this swamp. It seemed to stretch on forever, the edges lost in the gloom of near-twilight, and what Iris could see of it suggested that each stretch was near indistinguishable from the rest. Just sedge, sludge, and silverly puddles.

Kismet was perched on one of the scraggly roots that arched out of the soggy ground, her brilliant azure nearly glowing in the gloom. As Iris approached her, Kismet fluttered over to a further root and chirped. Iris grinned. She had a guide, now; no need to worry that the swamp would end as disastrously as the forest or labyrinth.

The ground was treacherous as Iris followed Kismet. In some places it was as slippery as mud, and in others it sucked at her feet. But though she could feel the squelch of swamp between her toes with every step, her feet were dry as soon as she lifted them up. It was a queer sensation, but this whole realm was queer, so Iris thought little of it and didn't wonder what filled the ground instead of water.

She had been following Kismet for a while, carefully skirting the roots and puddles, when she slipped, her foot snagged by something small and hard she couldn't see. She fell forward hard, and the air forced from her lungs rippled across the puddle only fingers away from her face. As she wheezed and tried to suck in breath, Iris saw color bloom in the silverly puddle. What was once the color of fog warmed into red-brown and creamy white, with softer patches of color swelling and shifting throughout. At first Iris thought she was reading into random spirals, making sense of the chaos into something fanciful, but the longer she stared in the puddle the more clear it became that she was, impossibly, watching herself bind the rogue shade back at school.

It was mesmerizing to watch from above. In the viscous nearly-indigo shadows of the maelstrom, her green-blue flames flitted through like leaves in a teasing autumn breeze. There was grace to them even if there seemed no pattern. At the time, Iris had felt she moved with some higher purpose, some profound understanding of her surroundings, but now, watching from above, she couldn't tease out the meaning of her movements. Why did she turn right there, and duck down like a cat slinking under a fence? What cue forced her to spin like that, her limbs wanton and her face slightly too tight to be serene?

Kismet cried out a high pure note, and Iris dragged her eyes away from the scene. The murky swamp still loomed until the horizon, and Iris had little desire to stay in such a dismal place. A gnarled root jutted high out of the ground next to her, and she grabbed it to help herself stand.

Immediately lines of blue flame glowed like veins in the root, and across the swamp a series of roots began to do the same. Their light wasn't bright, but the color was vibrant against the swamp's monotonous gray and brown. It was more than curiosity that tugged at Iris to follow the light to the next puddle, and as she kneeled down over the next scene, Kismet let out a slow trill that Iris interpreted as a sigh.

In this puddle she watched herself bind the spirit in Ramos, and from without the heart-biting fear wasn't visible. Instead, watching herself chase down the spirit, Iris glimpsed the glory in the song the Candlekin had sung.

The next puddle didn't show Iris at all, but rather a woman with wild tawny hair, who was protecting three children from a rabid river spirit amongst the shattered remains of wooden effigies. The spirit was corporeal, a salamander the size of a wagon, and its eyes were red and black as it lashed its tail to and fro, splintering the wood that had been carefully wrought into animals for the springtime festival. Removed from the violence and the danger, Iris felt anger at the violation of the festival's sanctity, and vindicated triumph when the woman subdued the creature by lighting the wooden piles around it with green-blue flames.

The last puddle Iris stared into was vast, and the tumbling images that flashed before her told a story of many years. It started with a ship on the stormy sea, filled with the frightened faces of strange pale men. The frothy sea smashed into the ship's side and crashed onto the deck as lightning cracked the black sky. Masts snapped, sails tore in half, and sailors were swept screaming into the sea. The image swirled, and suddenly Iris was watching one sailor sink down into the eerie depths of the ocean, his silver hair floating in tangles behind his head and his white skin looking green in the eerie underwater light.

Light? Iris brought her face closer to the puddle, peering at the scene closely until shapes in the shadowy depths formed into figures, creatures with glowing eyes who swarmed the sailor and dragged him deeper and deeper until they reached an expanse of seaweed and sand. She watched them bind his limbs to strands of seaweed so that he floated slightly, stretched into a cross with his head lolling to the side. Iris saw another figure emerge from the dark water into the clearing, an undeniably male creature with a bony crest like a crown. She watched him swim closer to the drowned sailor, stare at him with whirling eyes, reach out to him with a mottled arm, bare his sharp, crowded teeth and lean forward- but then the image shifted again, and Iris was staring down at Erinlin, its rocky hills and green fields strange to see from above but impossible to mistake.

Iris thought perhaps she was seeing the world from the eyes of a bird, for quickly her view changed, the ground growing closer and closer until she was peering out at a town through the branches of a tree. The houses in the town were of a strange style, squatter and with more thatched roofs than slate. The people were strange as well, with darker hair and skin and cruder clothes. They walked anxiously, shoulders taut and steps hurried. Iris wondered if they expected a storm, but though there were clouds in the sky, they were scattered and pale.

But when disaster struck, it wasn't lightning or howling winds, but a slim figure with evil eyes slipping out from between the trees. With mottled skin and matted hair, he looked drowned, but he moved almost too fast for Iris to see, snatching a child from his mother's side and disappearing back to the trees. The mother didn't even scream, but just collapsed, sobbing, as the rest of the villagers looked away.

Before Iris could process her disgust, the scene changed again. Now the drowned man was sitting cross-legged on a stump, staring impassively at the thick-limbed woman across from him. His coloring was clearer now: pale, near-translucent skin with branching sea-green veins, arms purpled with looping bruises, and eyes at the epicenter of dark bruise-blooming flowers. His hair, though matted with blood and dirt, was white-gold and down past his shoulders. Through her revulsion, Iris recognized features reminiscent of Cecil, the Talvic man she had met on the docks, and wondered if this was what he had called the birth of the Candlemaidens. If so, it was a sordid origin; a filthy sheep carcass rested at the bottom of the stump and the woman's whole body was slumped with exhaustion and despair. Iris couldn't quite hear what they were saying, but something enraged the monster, and he suddenly flew to his feet and threw out his arms. Their merry games, Iris seemed to hear, but as she leaned closer to catch more of their conversation, her hair brushed across the surface of the puddle and the images shook, buzzing like angry bees.

Now there were rapid flashes of color and action: the woman carrying a limp body to a roaring bonfire, a young girl laying at the end of a pier and staring into the ocean, a water spirit shyly watching a man from behind a tree. The images flickered faster and faster, impressing on Iris glimpses of Erinlin and its history. She watched as a green-eyed girl learned to shape glass, as a Drowned child conversed with a river guardian, as a Candlemaiden with a dress like Mother Hall's stared out at Ramos from a ship slowly leaving the shore.

Crooo, Kismet cried, landing next to Iris and swishing her long tail feathers over the puddle. Blinking, Iris sat up and stared at the desolate swamp around her. After the familiar stark vibrancy of Erinlin, the dreary monotony of the fen was suffocating. Suddenly fearful, Iris couldn't shake from her head the terrible image of her frozen forever in this wasteland, kneeling over a puddle and wasting away, as unaware as she had been in the Candlewood. Iris gnawed at her lip; this whole land was treacherous.

"Sorry, Kismet," she said after a second, struggling to her feet. "I'm done. Lead the way. Please."

With a prim shake of her head, Kismet took a few steps and leaped into the sky with a couple powerful strokes of her wings. After turning a lazy circle over Iris's head, she veered to the left and glided down into the distance, her tail feathers glistening like dewdrops in the glum swamp. Iris had to run to catch up, alternating her gaze from the uneven root-strewn ground to the purple bird.

When Iris, a bit winded, reached Kismet, she was perched on a high root above a large puddle. Iris wanted to cry- there was still no end to the swamp in sight, and the puddle that they had reached teased a bright forest with a canopy of many-colored leaves.

Kismet trilled again until Iris looked at her, then dove into the puddle and disappeared. When she didn't resurface, Iris kneeled down by the puddle's edge and dipped in her hand. The not-water was soft and cool, and she couldn't yet feel the bottom. Lying down with her cheek against the ground, Iris stuck her entire arm into the puddle and squeaked. The tips of her fingers, though she couldn't see them, felt warm. She caught a glimpse of purple in the puddles image, before she felt something nibble on her fingertips. With a gasp, she yanked her arm out of the puddle. In its false reflection, the cocked head of Kismet opened its beak and let out a silent cry.

Well, Iris thought, I can't think of any other way out of here. So she kneeled at the side of the pool, stared at its wavering bright canopies, and then dove through the odd silt.

***

The forest Iris found herself in as she climbed out of the pool was very unlike the Candlewood. Its trees were dignified and defined, stout and outward-stretching like oaks, with leaves of bronze, copper and gold. The air wasn't oppressive, but rather sweet and brisk like the beginning of autumn.

Still, to Iris it felt like a prison. The latticework of branches above her, resplendent with its gleaming leaves, caged her in, and she found herself thirsting for unobstructed sky. She stumbled past Kismet and hurried to the edge of the forest, mercifully close and clear, where she sat down on green grass and stared at the purple sky.

At some point, Kismet fluttered next to her and started cleaning her feathers, running her long beak through their neat rows. Iris wondered about Kismet- was she like a river guardian, a sentient spirit in an animal guise? If so, what was she a guardian of, and why hadn't she spoken yet? Was she just a manifestation of memories and sentiments, like a shade? Or was she just a messenger bird, another pawn in whatever sick plans Death had for her? But Mother Hall had said Kismet was her own entity, or at least one with some measure of autonomy.

Was she a person, was basically what the question measured down to. Should Iris treat her like another sentient being, or...

Or what? It seemed a silly question. There was nothing to be lost by treating Kismet with dignity and respect.

Iris turned towards Kismet, who tilted her own head towards Iris in return and appeared to listen as Iris spoke. "Thank you for guiding me out of that swamp. I don't know what your part is in all of this, or why you brought me to that awful labyrinth, but when I look at you, I don't see malice. So, thank you for being somewhat familiar in this unfamiliar land." Iris sighed. "I don't suppose you can tell me what I'm supposed to be doing on this quest?"

Kismet cooed regretfully and shifted her wings.

"That's okay. We all have our parts to play, I guess. I just wish I had been given the script."

At that, Kismet seemed to laugh, her joyous voice trilling like small silver bells.

Iris sighed again and stared out at the realm that stretched before her. Far in the distance, little more than a blur, was a squat stone castle, where she presumed rested the inconveniently undignified throne. It wouldn't be a poor place to start to figure out this whole mystery, but she worried at how long it would take her to reach it. And in between it and her, she spied water and orchards and grave towns, and other stranger things for which she had no ready names.

"I'd best start by walking, then." Iris stood up, surprised to find her muscles slightly sore. Just being in this realm was taking its toll on her, and she had no idea how long she would remain here, ignorant and victim to its whims. She allowed herself another sigh, before deciding that her melancholy was unproductive. She was a Candlemaiden, and Death was, after all, part of her domain.

"Any suggestions?" she asked of Kismet. In reply, the bird burst into the sky with a long trill and flew off into the distance, slowly fading into the hazy purple sky.

"Left it is," Iris said with forced enthusiasm, before trotting off into the unknown.