Artemis's Arc

Chapter 2 of 9

The new path held for an hour before it ended at a wall of brambles. Artemis stopped and listened. No birds. No wind. He reached into his pocket and drew out the petal that had brought him this far. It was the last one. Its glow had faded from jewel-bright to a tired ember, and the curved edges had gone soft, as if the petal were melting from the inside. He held it up. The brambles did not move. He pressed it flat against his palm and waited. A thin warmth answered him, and then nothing. He sat down in the leaves and thought it through. One petal, almost spent. One wall of thorns. If he used the petal here and the path was short, he would be stranded again with nothing. If he saved it, he would be stranded here. He turned the petal between his fingers and watched its light dim further. He had organized his life around chasing a face he could not prove existed. He could at least be honest about the arithmetic in front of him now. He stood and held the petal toward the brambles. The light flared once and went out. The brambles parted, slowly, into a narrow gap. Artemis stepped through before it could close. On the other side the trees thinned into a small clearing, and at the center stood a single flower he had never seen before. It was taller than his knee. Its layered petals glowed from within in pink and gold and pale blue, steady and bright, the way his spent petal had glowed when he first found it. He walked to it and knelt. Up close he could see the petals were the same shape as the one in his pocket. A whole flower of them. Enough to open many passages. He let out a breath he had been holding since the brambles. He reached to pick a petal and stopped. The flower's light pulsed once under his hand, like a small animal noticing him. Above its center, the air folded. A pale shape lifted out of the bloom — a butterfly with wings the color of the petals — and hung there, watching him. Artemis did not move. He had come into these woods to find a woman, and he had told himself he would listen first before he spoke. He lowered his hand and waited. The butterfly drifted once around his head and settled on the flower's tallest petal, folding its wings. It was guarding the bloom. He could not simply take what he needed. Whatever came next, he would have to ask.