“And I was that moment?” Jocasta said quietly.
“Yes,” Darius said again, “but maybe not for the reason you think. I saw that you were alone. You were different from the rest of the Folk. I … well, I used that. To get closer, gain your confidence and turn your thoughts more and more against Towering Oaks.”
“You were in my mind?” Jocasta’s voice took on a dangerous edge, her hand tightened even further around the hilt of her dagger.
“No! Not that I didn’t try, I’ll admit that. I couldn’t get in, though. You have an ability to keep me out. Melanie, too, from what I gather, and, even if it pains me to say so, she’s stronger than I am.”
He turned to Thaddeus for confirmation, but the other man seemed to be barely paying attention.
“Anyway,” he continued, “you saw through me. I’m not even sure how. Malachi didn’t like that, and he punished me for it. Willow was able to undo what he did, and now, finally, I’m free. Which is good, because his plan is—”
“To destroy the Greenweald,” Jocasta interrupted. “You’ve said. He started with Glittering Birch, didn’t he?”
Darius nodded. “Bragnold first. I was supposed to turn him, slightly, to our control. Before I was placed here. But … I messed it up.”
“Obviously,” Jocasta said. “The man is a vegetable. For that alone you should be killed.”
Darius swallowed hard.
“I’ve done worse,” he said. “At least that one was an accident. You have to understand, Malachi is persuasive. He makes you believe that his plans are for the good of everyone in Subtle Hemlock. We’ll all benefit, and our House will grow stronger.”
He stopped, unsure of where to go from there.
“It’s all lies.” The voice was from behind him. Thaddeus spoke from where he was sitting. “It’s all so much crap. Malachi isn’t interested in fairness, or even simple profit. Those things I could understand. He wants to burn it all down because he feels like he wasn’t given a fair share in life not being born to a good family. At least that’s what he says. I think he’s just crazy.”
Darius nodded in agreement. “Exactly. What he’s doing now has nothing to do with the betterment of House Subtle Hemlock. Only with the downfall of everything else. It started with Soul Gaunts. He got rid of one House entirely, and in the process damaged Towering Oaks and Glittering Birch badly. The only thing that stopped it from being worse was Solomon returning with that sword of his, and Jediah’s sacrifice. I don’t think Malachi saw those coming, but it didn’t matter. He was still able to use that as a foothold in Glittering Birch.”
“To do what?” Jocasta asked.
“Not sure, really. He said something about friends who will help destroy the Greenweald, then he’ll turn on them and…”
“Friends.” Jocasta laughed. “Is that what he calls those things?”
“I don’t think he’s referring to those weird people in the bright clothes,” Thaddeus put in. “I think he’s talking about someone behind them.”
“Someone not from around here,” Jocasta said.
“Then it’s someone we need to stop,” a new voice interrupted.
Melanie had returned, seeming well rested and clean, although there was still a haunted look in her eyes.
Willow came behind her. The healer gazed impassively at Jocasta as she strode to Darius’s side, her hand taking his. The pleasure that simple gesture brought him ran through his body. Even here, in this half-ruined House, facing such an uncertain future, there was still some good in the world.
Good that he wasn’t at all sure he deserved to be a part of. He glanced at the woman next to him, returning her half smile. All he could do, he thought, was try to be a better person going forward.
“Malachi needs to be taken out,” Melanie was saying. “No ifs, ands, or buts. He’s evil. Maybe crazy. Who cares? And we need to stop whatever is going on that’s he’s set into motion, although I don’t know what that really is.”
“I do,” Jocasta said.
She moved around to sit on the steps leading to the second level. Up above, there was the sound of someone starting down the stairs, stopping and turning back. Other than that, there was no sign of anyone else around. Darius wondered how many people were even still here, and how many had simply wandered off.
“There’re these weird gates, full of swirling colors,” Jocasta was saying. “Under the Glittering Birch main tree. Jamshir disappeared into one of them. And one is bigger than the others and it’s from there that this evil … or wrongness … or whatever you want to call it, is coming from.”
“How do you know that?” Willow asked.
“It’s easy enough to feel when you’re standing in front of it,” Jocasta said. “It made me sick to the point of losing my breakfast.”
Darius frowned. He was well aware of Jocasta’s mental fortitude. Whatever was in this gate of hers must be considerable.
“And there are others?” Thaddeus asked.
“Yes. And a couple that don’t seem to be active. No colors or anything, just the wall of the chamber behind them.”
“Where was Jamshir going?” Darius asked, pretty sure that he could guess.
“Who knows? The gate he went through was black and dark gray.”
“Wait,” Thaddeus said. “The gates were different colors?”
“Yeah. The main one, the biggest was a sort of puke yellow and green. There was another that was a muddy brown. The black one Jamshir used, and another that was all different tones of gray.”
“Gray?” Thaddeus said. “Are you sure?”
“I’m not blind,” Jocasta sneered.
“No, you’re not. It didn’t occur to you what those colors were?”
“They seemed familiar.”
“Think harder.”
Darius wasn’t sure what Thaddeus was driving at. Gray and black, well,
