Page 89 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
“Beau,” she started, “if these vinesdogo all over Faerie, do you think they could get a message to our parents?”
Beau shrugged. “It’s possible. We’ve never tried sending messages outside the palace, though.”
“We’ve never had to.”
“Fair point.”
Aislinn lay the tip over her palm. “Please,” she whispered, “find our parents. Let them know we’re safe and where we are.”
“Should we mention Dillon?”
“How would we explain that?”
“Good point.”
The vines didn’t carry precise words, more feelings and ideas. They’d used them growing up to play games of hide-and-seek, following a quiet tug to secluded hiding spots. They could sense how the sender of a message felt, perhaps gain a sense of what they wanted them to do—let’s make mischief, come find me, I don’t want to sleep alone tonight—but whole sentences were beyond that. They couldn’t pack Dillon’s return into them.
Dillon headed over with Luna, eyes widening at the vines.
“The vines…” he whispered, crouching down beside them.
“Must have been a while since you’ve seen them, I imagine.”
“No…”
“What?”
He shook his head. “It’s no matter,” he said. “Think nothing of it.”
Minerva whistled from the bank of the river. “Ready to move, children?”
“Are we children?” Beau queried. “I feel like we are not.”
“I’m nineteen,” Dillon offered. “Give or take fifty years…”
“I’m twenty-one,” said Caer.
“I’m thirty-three,” announced Luna.
Aislinn snorted. “I thinkyoumight be the only child, Beau.”
“Oh… whatever.”
“Minerva’s over five hundred. I think we all seemed like children to her,” Luna explained, passing the reins of one of the wargis into Caer’s hands before turning to her own mount. Dillon tried to help her up, but the wargi instinctively crouched down to her level.
“Are you really thirty-three?” he asked, trying to hide his actions.
She nodded. “Dwarves age slowly.”
“Out of interest,” he said, “does that mean you’re thirty-three,thirty-three,or more… younger?”
“Does it matter?”
“Um…”
“She’s teasing you,” Beau said. “She’s basically our age.”
“Ourage, maybe,” said Aislinn with a grin, “not yours, Baby Beau.”
