cold, with no trace of the vibrant green life Idalia associated with dryad-kind.
Kellen always thought of the Wild Magic as hard, as something you had to invoke and pursue with spells and proper forms, but for Idalia it was as simple as stepping aside from her workaday self, entering the greater Soul of the world around her, and letting it well up within. The Wild Magic was a thing of harmony and balance; the presence of evil or injury called it into action as much as any will of the Wildmage. She felt its presence; felt it seek out its price from all who shared in the healing, understood her own part in that payment, and felt health and strength and wellness flow through her from someplace Beyond into the dryad.
It was as simple—and as mysterious—as that. Idalia was the portal through which Something reached to set the world right with her help and consent, and in a timeless moment it was done. Strength and healing flowed into her and out again in a glorious and intoxicating verdant river. It poured into the grey void at the dryad's heart, and gradually filled it. She saw the dryad's skin flush gold with health once more, and rocked back on her heels as the Grove-Queen rose to her feet.
The fauns cheered and turned cartwheels, and the brownies threw their caps in the air.
*Ah, my poor tree. … * the Queen said sadly, running her hand along the bark.
Idalia stood up, staggering a little with weakness. But only a little, and only for a moment, for her work was not yet over, and the Wild Magic would not permit her strength to lapse while that work remained unfinished. She caught her balance, and walked over to inspect the split in the trunk.
'As to that, my part in this is to repair your tree, my lady. Once I've taken that branch off, and sealed over the heartwood with tar and river clay, your tree should stand fast for many seasons more,' Idalia said, smiling.
Tar would seal the wound, forming a sort of bandage, keeping insects and fungus out. Clay would protect the vulnerable heartwood and give the tree time to build new defenses, and cutting away the split branch would prevent further damage.
'I'll come back tomorrow and take care of it; I need tools that I don't have with me.'
It was a while more before Idalia was let to leave, for the brownies pressed scores of thimble-sized tankards of mead upon her, and several thumbnail-sized loaves of acorn-meal bread, and the fauns brought her handfuls of berries, only slightly crushed. All in all, it was late afternoon before she returned to the cabin.
NOW she was tired; the Magic had no more need of her, and she felt as drained as if she had run for leagues.
Kellen was waiting to greet her, looking impatient.
'Where have you been?' he demanded. 'It's been the whole afternoon—'
'I was working,' Idalia answered tartly—a bit more sharply than she'd intended.
Kellen looked immediately crestfallen, and Idalia felt guilty about being so short with him. 'I healed the dryad—her tree was struck by lightning in that big storm that came through last night. I shared out most of the price of the healing, but I'll have to go back tomorrow and see what I can do about fixing her tree, so I'm going to need to use the tools for the day. I suppose,' she added with a smile, 'you're going to get your holiday after all.'
'But I'll help,' Kellen said quickly. 'I'd like to help. If that's all right, I mean.'
'Surely,' Idalia said after a moment's pause. 'I can always use an extra pair of hands.'
Kellen's eagerness to help shouldn't surprise her, she realized after a moment. He was a good lad, after all. No matter what Lycaelon had tried to turn him into. Yet somehow, every time he demonstrated his basic generosity of spirit, it surprised her. Maybe she'd lived alone for too long at that.
THE two of them spent the following day at the dryad's grove cutting away the dead wood from the oak- Queen's tree and sealing over the exposed wood. Though an axe and saws were not the sort of implements that would normally be welcome in a dryadic grove, this time they were tolerated (though the dryads could not look at them without shivering), and Idalia and Kellen bent to the work.
It was quickly obvious what part of the price that the brownies and fauns were paying. The brownies brought tar—they used it in waterproofing, milking rising sap from pines in the spring in the same way that they milked maples, boiling it down into tar. The fauns came back with handfuls of river clay when she'd done sealing the breech with the tar.
It was hot work—autumn might be on the way, but the late-summer days were still warm—but when Idalia looked at the finished job, her arm draped companionably over Kellen's shoulders, she was rilled with a deep satisfaction. What could be better than helping and healing, setting right what had gone wrong in the world?
She knew that Kellen felt much the same way that she did—that he could sense, at least a little, when something was out of balance and needed to be fixed. But there was still something deep inside himself that he didn't trust to always make the right choices.
