Lily Summers's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Lily followed the fireflies along the stream until the light drained from the sky. The water led her far from her hill. Her feet ached. The trail's stones had cut her soles, and now the cold crept up her legs. Dusk turned the woods gray. She had no shoes by choice, no cloak by mistake, and no roof anywhere near. If she stopped here, she would freeze before dawn and lose the trail for good. She pushed on toward a sound of splashing. The stream widened into a cove ringed by rocks. A girl swam there, cutting the dark water in slow strokes. Her clothes lay folded on a flat stone, far from the edge. She did not seem to feel the cold at all. "You'll catch your death out here," Lily called. Her voice shook. The swimmer turned. She looked at Lily's bare, bleeding feet, then at the fireflies glowing in the bottle. She waded closer without hurry. "So will you," she said. "Worse. You're barefoot." "I'm following someone. He took something of mine." The girl climbed onto the rocks and pulled a shirt over her wet skin. "Marina," she said. "My uncle owns this cove. Nobody comes here but me." She studied Lily again. "You're chasing a thief in the dark with no shoes. That's stupid." "It's mine to get back." Marina didn't argue. She jerked her chin up the slope. "There's a cabin. Uncle's. Fire, blankets, a basin. You'll lose the trail overnight anyway. Water doesn't move in the dark." Lily hesitated. The bottle still pulled its light downstream, toward the stranger who had planned all this. But her feet had gone numb, and her hands could barely hold the glass. "Come or don't," Marina said. She was already walking. Lily followed. The cabin sat back among the trees, small and dark. Marina lit a fire and set a basin of stream water by the flames. Lily lowered her cut feet into it. The warmth stung, then eased. Marina looked at the green scrap knotted in Lily's fist. She held out her hand. Lily gave it over. "Silver thread," Marina said. She turned the cloth toward the firelight. "I've seen this. Not here. Downstream, past the falls. There's a house where the water splits. People come and go in cloth like this. My uncle won't go near it." Lily sat up. "You know where he's headed." "I know where the cloth comes from." Marina dropped the scrap in Lily's lap. "That's not the same as safe." Lily held the fabric and stared into the fire. She had shelter now, and warm feet, and a name for the place the trail led. But the fireflies still glowed toward the falls, and the house past them belonged to strangers who dressed like the thief. Her trail had a door now. She only had to reach it.