Chapter 81

I asked for it on the fourth morning.

I had slept three nights in a room in the tree with a round window and a door that did not lock, and on each of them I had woken before dawn and lain listening to the city not make any noise. I had eaten what was put in front of me. I had walked the walkways with Rowan until my legs stopped shaking on the high ones. I had gone back twice to my mother’s rooms and sat on the floor under her shelf, and not opened the last book again.

On the fourth morning I wrote on the slate and gave it to the woman in grey to carry to the king.

SILVERBROOK. ALL OF IT.

***

He did not tell me himself. I understood why when I saw who was in the room.

It was the plain room with the table, and there were four chairs at it now. Elandor sat in one. Two of the others held elves I did not know, young-looking and weathered, in travel-stained grey, with the stillness of people who have slept a great many nights on the ground. The fourth c