Seren Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 5 of 26

Seren left the birch stand with two gods owed and one problem left. Isaiah had to reach the hollow tree before dawn. The pantheon's gray-cloaks were walking every road that led there. An exile god crossing open ground was a body waiting for a knife. She went home through the back fields. Hank rode in her arm, the herb bundle still bound to his collar. In her kitchen she spread her mother's book flat and traced the routes she knew. Every road had eyes. Every path through the wood had a scout. She had hours. She sat at the table and pressed her hands to her face. She needed someone inside. Someone the pantheon still counted, even a little. She thought of her closest friend and pushed the thought down again. Then she thought of the coffee bar at the edge of the market, and the demigod behind the counter who had been thrown out and never stopped hating them for it. Ganzie was wiping the same spot on the counter when she came in. His orange hair was tied back. He looked at her, then at the cat, then at the door. "You need something," he said. "A way to move someone past the patrols. Before dawn." "Who." "Isaiah Moon." He set the rag down. "They'd gut me." "They already did." He was quiet. Then he reached under the counter and pulled out a folded cloak, deep black lined in purple, worn at the hem. Pilgrim's cut. The kind the temple handed out to mourners, no questions asked at any gate. "Took it off a shelf last winter," he said. "Been waiting to spend it." "That gets him through a checkpoint. Not across the wood." "I know." He whistled once, low. Something moved in the storeroom behind him. A black panther walked out on silent feet, red eyes steady on Seren. "She runs the shadow line. Patrols don't see her. She'll carry him to the tree line." Seren stared. "Why do you have a panther." "Long story. Take her." "Price." "When you sit," he said, "you remember I helped. That's it." "Done." She went to the birch stand at the second hour before dawn. Isaiah was waiting. She put the cloak on his shoulders and pulled the hood over his white hair. The panther crouched. He climbed on without a word. "Hollow tree," Seren said. "Don't stop." The panther went. In three strides she was gone into the dark, no sound, no shape, only a shift where the trees had been. Seren ran the other way, cat in her arm, to meet Belladonna at the shrine. She reached the hollow willow as the sky started to gray. Isaiah stepped out from behind the trunk, hood back, cloak torn at one sleeve. "Made it," he said. "They saw the cloak. They didn't see me." Belladonna waited in the roots. Two gods. One seat. Dawn coming. Seren set Hank down between them and reached for the words.