The next letter was from Yaril. She wrote that she had hoped to hear from me by now. Her next sentence apologized for what was undoubtedly going to seem to me like a transgression on my dignity. She assured me that Aunt Daraleen had first come up with the idea, and that she and Purissa had merely gone along with it. At first it had seemed to Yaril no more than a prank, but she hoped that I would agree that the ends justified the means.

Aunt Daraleen had become a medium, and was currently the Queen’s favorite mystic advisor. The spirit of a Speck wisewoman spoke through Daraleen, telling the Queen many great secrets of their spirit world, and revealing to the Queen why the King’s Road had failed. Through Lady Burvelle, the secrets of the Speck ancestor trees were revealed to the Queen, as well as the spiritually enlightening properties of certain herbs and mushrooms and rich dishes. The Speck wisewoman revealed to the Queen the epic love story of how she had fallen in love with a noble soldier son, seduced him from his duty, and endeavored to have him join her forever in tree love.

My ears burned red as I realized how much of my private life Yaril had become privy to, and that my sexual escapades with Olikea and Lisana were Daraleen’s fodder with which to titillate the Queen and her court ladies. No one at court knew the true identity of the “dashing young soldier,” but that was small consolation to me. Yaril and Purissa greatly enjoyed their supporting roles as they tended to the moaning and twitching Lady Burvelle when she fell into her trances. Aunt Daraleen had hired an ambitious and very handsome young man as her secretary. He attended on her daily, writing up her revelations as chapbooks. Each was published, chapter by lurid chapter. The printers could scarcely keep up with the demand. I could read between the lines that my uncle was horrified and humiliated by his wife’s dramatics, yet Daraleen finally had everything she had longed for. She was the Queen’s favorite and a woman of great power now in Old Thares. Not only was it likely that Purissa would become engaged to the Crown Prince, but that Yaril might choose whomever she wished for a husband from among both old and new nobility.

I worked my way hastily through the remaining letters. Epiny had heard of her mother’s charlatanism and was both horrified at her antics and pleased that the King’s Road would progress no farther and that the sacred trees were now under the Queen’s own protection. Every other sentence seemed to be an apology to me that the secrets I’d entrusted to her and Spink were now the stuff of popular literature. Over and over, she assured me that the identity of the “mysterious young nobleman” was safe, and that there would be no tarnish on the Burvelle name.

Yet her letter was laced with good news as well. The Queen had proclaimed that all kaembra trees were sacred. No more would ever be cut. The Queen herself was planning to visit the “holy grove of the mystical ancients” the next summer, to see if she and her “medium” could not make direct contact with the natural spirits of the great trees. I shuddered. How gullible could the woman be? Yet at the same time, the Queen seemed very shrewd to me, for she had also decreed that to protect the Specks and their otherworldly wisdom, the Crown would now monopolize the tobacco and fur trade with the Specks and that traders who wished to deal with them must purchase a license.

I slid the last letter back into its envelope and leaned back in my chair. I contemplated the busy little town around me. A man hawking fresh bread passed me with his musical cant. A courier galloped past him and pulled his horse up sharply in front of the letter-writer’s shop, sending a plume of dust drifting. A wagon laden with a cage of squawking chickens went by in the other direction. So much life in motion, so many minor occurrences and coincidences, all intersecting in a strange and wonderful web.

I bundled my letters and stared down the dusty street, thinking that the trees of the Specks were now safe. I wondered if this was what the magic had intended all along. Had I trodden that harsh road, tripping from circumstance to coincidence to near death to serve this very end? My words had gone from my aunt’s prying eyes to the Queen’s ear. Lisana’s tree would not fall. She and Soldier’s Boy would know a tree’s life of time together. I had given a rock to an annoying boy, and triggered a gold rush and the burgeoning fortune of my family.

And here I sat, the conduit for vast changes in the world, and what did I have to show for it? I smiled sourly at the vagaries of fortune, and then gave myself a shake. Why, I had it all. My freedom. A woman who loved me. A home of my own making. I stood and stretched. Across the street, the letter-writer came out of his storefront and pointed at me. His eyes were very wide. The dusty courier said something to him and he nodded vigorously. Then he led the courier across the street to me. As I stood up, the letter-writer bowed to me. “An important man, I should have said. I should have known. Yes, sir, this is him, Lord Nevare Burvelle. I can vouch for him. I’ve received many posts for him.”