Prevna swaggered out of Mishtaw’s home in the Seedling Palace holding a decent sized waterskin and two cups. She smiled as soon as she saw me sitting exactly where she expected and I rolled my eyes back at her. It wasn’t my fault that this spot was the easiest to relax in. A gentle breeze, a good view of the land sprawling away from the Palace and the setting sun, and few people walked past the balcony during this time of day. Prevna joined me on the wide sap bench that jutted out from the balcony’s wall as laughter bubbled from dark brown dome behind her.

No doubt Pip, Creed and Petra’s son, was doing something cute again. We could have been in there with them, watching his antics or playing the nearly inevitable game of sticks and stones, but we always ended up on the balcony. Or somewhere else in the Seedling Palace, if Prevna was bored and needed something more exciting to do than watch the sun disappear over the horizon.

Mishtaw was a good mentor, if not as patient as Rawley and more in need of explanations, but, for all that she taught us well, I couldn’t deny the feeling of separation between us and them. The four of them—Mishtaw, Eliss, Creed, and Petra—were too much of a unit…a family for us to force our way in and I had no desire to push the matter. Eliss’s judgment didn’t help either though Petra would go out of her way at times to include us in whatever they were doing. Mishtaw and Creed seemed more content to let us make our own choices as long as we listened when it mattered.

Prevna poured a generous amount of golden liquid into a cup and handed it to me before filling her own and setting the waterskin aside. Then she clinked her cup against mine. “I thank the goddess for allowing you to honor Her with another year lived. May She keep Her gaze averted so you can honor Her for many more.”

“May I honor Her,” I clinked her cup back before taking a sip of Mil’s nectar and neglecting to ask Prevna how she had gotten such a big pouch when Mil was always swamped with requests.

We pricked our marks with our prayer needles for good measure and flung a few drops of blood into open air only to watch them flake away to nothing in a matter of seconds.

Prevna never forgot my naming day ever since she had learned when it was supposed to be. It was nearly impossible to get the exact day without a Grandmother keeping record, but last year around a handful of weeks after Welcoming the Winds she’d offer the prayer with some treat and this year wasn’t any different.

Odd to think I was fifteen already and that a year and a half had passed since Mishtaw took us more directly under her wing. Relic hunting hadn’t been what I thought it was. There were times when she’d follow up on rumors about some new relic that might have been discovered, but most often we were dragged along while she checked up on ones she already knew about. Maintenance, checking over protections, looking for any new developments and documenting her findings.

Once, I asked her why she left the relics where they were instead of bringing them back to the Seedling Palace. What if something happened to the carved stone hand she was checking over so intensely? Like the harp?

She rightfully pointed out that some things were too big to move, that not every relic was a portable object, and that sometimes the goddess liked things as and where they were. Sometimes, she was allowed to bring things back with her though, to inspect them further or bring them to the goddess’s nest. Mishtaw always seemed caught somewhere between relieved and intense focus whenever that happened. We’d lose her for days as she’d pour her attention into understanding the relic from the safety of the Seedling Palace.

Other times Mishtaw was summoned by the commander to help the Peacekeepers with keeping the Lady Blue’s fish from the shores or some other task Prevna and I weren’t told. That was the deal between them we learned: because Mishtaw wasn’t a Peackeeper but she monopolized Eliss’s time who was one, sometimes she had to return the favor. Eliss could have had her own squad within the Peacekeepers from what I understood, but she refused to be separated from Mishtaw.

The times they went to go fight we were dropped off at the Seedling Palace “to reconnect and keep an eye on Pip”. Pip didn’t really need any more minders as Creed and Petra’s families were more than willing to watch him while the pair took care of their whisper women, but Prevna and I would stop by for awhile to check on him. Normally that meant Prevna would play with him while I sat back and watched.

We’d also check back in with the cohort since that was what Mishtaw meant by “reconnect”. They got to make the most of the Seedling Palace’s resources and connect with whisper women from all the different sects. Sometimes, they would be taken on short missions away from the Palace as well so they wouldn’t be trapped in the branches for weeks and months on end.

Wren and Dera still made a point of chatting with us and catching up whenever we showed up where the Sprouts were housed or found them in one of the other spots they frequented. Wren had befriended some of the seedlings that had been brought to the Landing in the years after us as well older Sprouts, Saplings, and whisper women who couldn’t resist her charm. It meant she always had a good amount of gossip and stories to tell. Dera had amassed her own small following of people who were enamored by her unusual looks, sweet demeanor, and smarts. All in all, they normally couldn’t spend long talking before something else pulled them away but that was just fine with me.

Prevna set her cup aside and pulled out a comb from one her pouches before offering it to me. I accepted it in answer to her silent question and she gave me her knowing smile before she turned her back to me. Then she pulled her hair free of the tie holding it in place so I could indulge in a new guilty pleasure.

She had taken to wearing it up in a tail that flowed loose down her back and only one section braided back into it from over her left temple because her twin buns were “childish”. I still liked her original style but after she caught me staring at her hair one too many times in this new one, she asked me if I wanted to help her with it. I said yes even though I knew shouldn’t have and now a couple times a week she’d hand me a comb and let me take my time working through every inch. My excuse was that it reminded me of my time with Rawley and Prevna seemed proud of herself for finding an activity with close contact that I tolerated for longer than anything else.

As I worked on her hair my mind drifted back to the rest of the cohort. Breck had warmed back up to me after she heard a handful of tales from our travels and about the relics we saw with Mishtaw. She had also gotten closer to Loclen and Nii now that those two had settled into a strong friendship.

Juniper, surprisingly, was the one who now seemed to drift between groups. Sometimes she was with Dera and Wren, sometimes with Breck or Loclen and Nii, sometimes with Prevna and me when we returned. Ento and Idra still kept an eye on her but ever since the Rookery there was something that seemed somewhat broken in their dynamic and it didn’t help that Ento and Idra had coupled up, to absolutely no one’s surprise. Though that meant sometimes they were more focused at sucking on each other’s faces than anything to do with Juniper.

Ulo and Andhi didn’t interact with the rest of the cohort as much anymore unless there was an activity that forced us all together. They had found kindred spirits and sympathetic ears from others in the Palace and, frankly, I didn’t care enough about them to pay much more attention than that.

The cohort weren’t the only ones we’d see when we came back to the Seedling Palace. Esie and Kaylan had made a point to make sure Prevna and I joined them during the celebration of the Welcome of the Winds again for the past two years. Esie would also occasionally give me advice or updates on possibly getting my mentor restriction further lifted. It seemed that since my current arrangement with Mishtaw had been going well for over a year without any incidents a Scale might be more willing to offer further leniency. Frustratingly, Esie still only gave cryptic answers and silent smiles when I tried to ask about the Lady of Calm Waters. Apparently, I could only learn about my patron when she deemed it necessary and that hadn’t happened yet. She hadn’t called in the favors I supposedly owed either.

It was a rare occasion that I saw the other whisper women I knew from when I had been sent to the shore or the journey to the Rookery and I didn’t go out my way to be friendly with anyone new. Some of them wouldn’t notice me while others, like Hattie, always needed to say something to her favorite Little Diver.

I hadn’t heard from or seen Jin or Yule in years, thankfully, as it was easy not to go where they might be and they likely had bigger things to deal with continuing to try to kick me out of the Seedling Palace. Still, some part of me couldn’t help but feel like that particular trouble wasn’t entirely over and done with.

I also still went to the nested library while the new seedlings would be in practice to read through Shawsh’s scrolls and admire his newest sculpture. There were other libraries throughout the Palace I could go to—and I did—but there was nostalgic feeling that clung to that place that kept me going back. Clara was often still in the library when I arrived as well and I had no idea how she kept up with her training with the sheer amount of time she seemed to have spent in the library over the years. She was a Sapling now, on track to becoming a Scale, and still very disinterested in having her reading interrupted by anyone but Shawsh.

She also wasn’t forthcoming about what getting the last two boons was like. Wind whispering and elemental resistance. No one in the cohort had earned them yet despite the amount of time since we earned dark sight at the Rookery and the lack of training needed for that particular boon. Instead focus had been put on increasing our skill with shadow walking and our other more mundane skills.

Now everyone could travel to shadows out of sight, even Juniper, though the distance and shade needed varied for everyone. I could travel between medium shadows with miles between them now with little strain while Prevna was better at pinpointing small dark shadows to pop out of. We were both training at getting better at bringing others with us and she was gaining the edge with that skill as well. Though Wren was the true leader when it came to taking a companion through the shadows. She could take Chirp with her through the shadow paths without a second thought and, last I heard, now another person in addition to him wasn’t that big of a strain either.

I ran the comb through Prevna’s smooth, soft hair one last time before tapping her the shoulder with it. She took it back and then I set to work getting it braided and tied back like she liked. My first attempts had been terrible, but now my fingers easily followed habit and finished the task in minutes.

“All done.”

Prevna turned to lean back against the balcony’s wall with a sigh and drank more of her nectar. “You’ve gotten too good at that.”

I narrowed my eyes back at her. “Would you rather it look like a rat’s nest?”

She snorted softly and rolled her eyes. “No.” For a moment it seemed like she might elaborate, but then she changed the topic instead,

“Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“To check on the new relic?” I smiled back at her despite some apprehension. “Of course. Hopefully there’ll actually be one this time.”

We continued chatting as the sun sank lower and lower in the sky. Tomorrow we were supposed to somewhere within view of the Seedling Palace, but the Broken Spear Peaks weren’t even close to an idle place to travel from the myths and stories I heard. Mishtaw was determined to check out the rumors of a relic found there, however, so we would just have to brave them despite the rumors that had been building for years of kidnapped boys and a beast of wing and scale and realistic nightmares strong enough to kill a woman.