**DAPHNE**
Ash goes completely still, the look of shock that befalls him causing my heart to beat heavily enough to shake the bed. He looks... afraid.
“What?” He snaps.
Klyesque steps closer, her hand on her sword. “She awaits you in your throne room,” she sighs. “As far as the heads are concerned, I do not believe she killed them but-”
“She wants to speak to Daphne? How does she even-” He cuts off. “The Whispering Leaves.”
Klyesque nods, “We rode right through them to the cottage.”
My ears perk up at the familiar name Isabel used many times in her stories. “The Whispering Leaves,” I repeat, causing the two of them to stare at me. My eyes dart back and forth as I clamor through memories, trying to recall every instance of use. “The Forest of Whispering Leaves is *real?”*
*Oh Isabel...*
“Yes, it is very real,” Ash says, eyes falling across my chest to traipse about my hair, from the top of my head the locks that fall over the side of the bed. “Stay here,” he commands, stepping out into the hall. Turning to Klyesque he nods, “Guard her. I won’t be long.”
*Why is he going alone?*
“Wait a minute! She wants to speak to *me!”* I yell, standing next to the bed as Klyesque enters the room with a minute shake of her head. “I want to go with you!”
Ash turns toward me, his eyes glowing. “No. Lock this door,” he says to Klyesque before stepping out into the hall.
“Are you sure you should see her alone? You remember the tales of her - this one is very tricky,” Klyesque warns.
“That may be true, but I hold the power here. She is on foreign lands and has spent nearly twenty winters in the Mortal Realm. Do not let Daphne out of your sight.”
With that, he closes the door and Klyesque locks it behind him. Then in one motion she reaches for the latch of the door to the adjoining room - something urges me to speak.
“Wait!” I shout, freezing her hand on the lock.
She turns to me, questioningly. “Is there someone in this room who waits for you?”
I shake my head no, with a roll of my eyes. “Not someone. Something,” I say. “My cloak. I need it.”
She chuckles, “Why would you need your cloak?” She crosses her arms over her chest and smiles. “Lady Daphne, I adore you - I do. But Ash says you are not to see the witch and he has ordered this with good reason. I’ll not be disobeying him.”
I lower my head, trembling my fingers. I don’t know why I should feel so strangely about Ash’s desire to protect me, but something about it seems misplaced. Somewhere inside of me, I know this witch means me no harm. But I will not argue that point today. “I have something in my cloak that I do not want to lose,” I admit. “Something in the right pocket.”
“What?” She hisses. “What do you have?”
My eyes meet hers and she goes stiff. “A book. I found it on my bed one day back in Hadimere Palace, seemingly left for me by someone, though I don’t know who.” Taking a deep breath, I continue, “Then it was lost, I had no idea what became of it. But it revealed itself to me once more before we left for the Hadimere Forest.” I sigh, “I need it.” I shrug, not knowing what else to say. “It is written in foreign tongue, and I can’t read it. But I must not lose it again.”
“The book someone left on your bed,” she repeats. Her eyes narrow, but she nods slowly. “I know the book you speak of. Do you mean to tell me that you’ve had it all along? That book is in this castle?”
I nod and she closes her eyes with a curse. “Shit.”
**ASH**
All is quiet in the castle as I stride toward my throne room. Passing Dionie in the stairwell, I point toward my chamber signaling that he should guard the hall.
Finn stands behind the witch, his spear pointed toward her leaf stapled brown robes when I enter. As I approach from behind, she chuckles.
“Prince of Smoke and Fury, it has been too long,” she says in a voice too young to accommodate her years. Long ebony hair, tipped with silver at the roots, sways about her as if the whispering winds carry the tendrils themselves. Dancing and floating as they would be underwater. “Why did you not bring the child?”
I smirk, gliding toward my seat, granting her my back as I answer her. “What child do you speak of? The peasant, Daphne, is a woman, not a babe.”
“A woman,” she gurgles merrily as I turn around to study her presence.
She looks much the same as I saw her last. Skin so weather beaten, it is leathered with age, sharp pointed chin jutting downward in line with the slight hunch of her back. Her robes are covered in vines and leaves of the forest in which she resides. Beady black eyes stare back at me, her lips turning upward in a graciously deceptive smile.
“Where are my messengers?” I ask her and she opens her robes slightly to throw two frosted satchels toward my feet. They roll to a stop near the scaffold, and I signal two soldiers to open them for me.
The faces are a match to Jacar and Thedro, the two I sent out a fortnight past. “I found them upon the river gate. Gifts from the Queen of Winter, I assume. You should have known she’d not welcome anyone but you.” The witch smiles slowly, revealing a set of abnormally white teeth. Sharp as that of a biting cat.
“Have you not been eating then?” I ask, for witches take most of their flesh raw, and as so, their teeth are normally stained with blood.
“Fish of the river in the Mortal Realm have been my diet of late,” she admonishes. “I am truly done with it. Glad to be allowed to pass through at last.” Her eyes twinkle with magic and she raises her chin. “You have lifted your curse as well, I see.”
I frown at her, wondering at her claim. “What the hell are you talking about?”