Violet Essence had died with a bundle of lavender in her arms. Now she was the lavender, or something close to it. She drifted through the forest as a shape of pale purple light, searching for the person the flowers were meant for. She did not know their face. She only knew she had to find them before the last bloom of the season died and took her with it. The trouble was her drifting killed the very thing she needed. Wherever she paused, the blooms below her curled and browned. A patch of lavender wilted in seconds when she hovered too long. She was spending herself to move, and every stop cost the flowers that kept her alive. She stopped counting the wilting stems. There were too many. Her light had thinned since morning. She could see the grass through her own hands now. If she kept searching this way, she would fade before she reached anyone. She needed to slow down. She needed to rest without touching a living plant. But she could not hold anything, and everything green she neared began to die. Then she saw a boy sitting against a lavender stone castle. Roses climbed its walls in a dozen colors. The boy had green skin and dark hair. Sores marked his arms. His red eyes lifted when her light crossed him. Most things fled from her. He did not move. "You're killing the flowers," he said. Flat. Not a warning. A fact. "I can't stop," Violet said. "If I land, they die. If I drift, I fade. I have to find someone." Basil Greenleaf looked at the browning patch behind her. Then at the roses on the wall. "Those don't die," he said. "I've sat here three nights. They never wilt." Violet stared at the roses. They were not lavender. They were not the blooms her form was tied to. Nothing living should have survived her nearness. "Try it," Basil said. "You look like you're almost gone." She had nothing left to lose. She sank toward a cluster of roses beside the boy and held still. Her light flickered. She braced for the petals to brown. They did not. The roses stayed open and red. For the first time since she became a spirit, she rested near a living thing that did not die for it. Her fading slowed. Her hands grew a little brighter. "They're not part of my season," she said. "That's why." Basil nodded once. "So stay near them." But she could not stay. The person she sought was somewhere out in the forest, among the lavender that would wither at her touch. The roses could hold her here, alive and safe and going nowhere. Violet looked at Basil. He had been alone three nights. No one had asked him to stay either. "I have to find someone," she said. "Will you carry the roses with me?"

Basil carried the roses in both arms. Violet drifted beside him, a shape of pale purple light. She thought the roses would let her travel safe. She was wrong. Behind them the grass browned in a wide, dead line. Every fern she passed curled and died. The trail marked her path like ink on paper. Anyone hunting the forest could follow it straight to her. "Look back," Violet said. Basil looked. The dead ground stretched far behind them. "They'll see that," he said. Flat. "From a long way." "I can't stop making it. I kill everything I pass." Her light flickered. "If someone's hunting, I'm leading them right to us." Basil said nothing. He walked. The dead line grew longer. They came to a shrine set among stones. Bright gems circled its arch. Flowers grew thick across the carved face, red and orange and purple. They did not wilt as Violet neared. She stopped and stared. "Those live," she said. "Near me." "Roses do that," Basil said. "These aren't roses." But the shrine flowers held. Violet drifted close. The blooms stayed open. She looked at the ground beneath them. No dead line spread there. The shrine soil stayed green. "It's the ground," Basil said. He knelt and pressed his green hand to the dirt. "This is her shrine. She keeps things alive." Violet understood. The shrine belonged to the one who watched over growing things. Her power ran through the soil here. It fed the plants faster than Violet could drain them. "Then I need her soil," Violet said. "On the ground I walk." Basil dug at the shrine's base with both hands. He scooped dark earth into the fold of his shirt. He worked without complaint. When his shirt was full, he stood. "Walk ahead," he said. "I'll spread it where you drift." They moved on together. Violet floated low. Basil trailed her and dropped the blessed soil in her path. Where the dark earth fell, the grass held. No dead line formed behind her. For the first time, she left no trail. They passed a still pond. Figures with long tails watched from the water. They did not flee her light. Violet almost smiled. She was no longer a mark on the map. Then Basil's shirt ran empty. He stopped. "That's all of it," he said. Violet turned. The soil had lasted them a short stretch. Beyond it, the forest spread wide and green. Her old poison waited in every step of it. "How much ground is left to search?" she asked. Basil looked at the dark line that ended at his feet. "More than one shirt," he said. Violet's light steadied. She had bought silence for a little while. But the person she sought was still out there, past the blessed dirt, across miles of living plants she would kill the moment she crossed them. She had hidden her trail. She had not solved the reason it existed.