She should have been smarter, come up with another plan. Maybe she should have taken Salay’s advice, and let the crew help with the problem? Tress wavered on a precipice as she thought about that.
Change has an illusory aspect to it. We pretend that big changes hang on single decisions, single moments. And they do. But single decisions and single moments, in turn, have a mountain of smaller decisions behind them. You can’t have an avalanche without a mountain of snow, even if it begins with one bit starting to tumble.
Don’t ignore the mountains of minutes that heap up behind important decisions. That was happening to Tress right at that moment. Full realization hadn’t dawned yet, but the glow was on the horizon.
The midnight monsters steered the boat in an odd way as they approached the island, and Tress soon observed why. Long, jagged lines of stone cut up through the sea here, like sandbars with teeth. The Sorceress had chosen her island deliberately; the approach to the place was exceptionally treacherous. Hidden rocks lay like mines, barely peeking through the seething spores, giving almost no hint to their locations.
Approaching, then, was nearly impossible. As the boat made a sequence of expert maneuvers—steered by monsters who knew the correct path by magical gift—Tress felt her stomach drop. This was a protection to the island they hadn’t known about. Huck hadn’t told them of it, perhaps with nefarious intent. （In fact he simply forgot, but that’s beside the point.）
If the Crow’s Song had arrived and tried to sail up to the island, it would have surely ripped its hull to pieces and died upon the spores. Her mission here had been doomed all along.
Eventually their little boat—a lone speck of color skimming the top of the void—navigated to shore. Here Tress could make out the legion of golden metal men standing in ranks around the Sorceress’s tower. Outfitted with spears and shields, Tress could almost imagine them as men in armor with lowered faceplates. If only they hadn’t stood so unnaturally still.
Other than the lonely trees and the hundred metal men, the island’s only feature was the tower itself. This, in contrast to the size of the island, was much larger than Tress had anticipated. Wide and tall, with a peaked top, Tress was too modest to say out loud what it resembled. I, of course, don’t know what modesty feels like—so when I mentioned what it looked like, the Sorceress asked me if I’d like a large yonic symbol splitting my forehead.
Tress had hoped for a way to escape once the boat landed, but the creature kept her wrapped tightly, lifting her and carrying her before itself as Huck hopped off the boat. On the stone ground, he looked toward Tress. The first time he had looked directly at her since they’d gotten on the little boat.
She glared back at him. He wilted visibly, like a vine without enough water. Then, however, he perked up—as if deciding something. “Yes. Yes, that’s it,” he said. “Not doing what she asked at all.”
He eyed the monster, then scampered forward before Tress could berate him again. They crossed the ground to the tower itself, the metal men letting them pass. The things seemed to be asleep at the moment, in Tress’s estimation. Merely statues.
The tower soon took her attention. It was an awe-inspiring sight, more silver in one place than she’d ever seen before. There was so much of it, in fact, that it would destroy spores at an incredible rate. Protection against enemy sprouters.
A door was built into the side of the tower, apparently also made of silver. Huck stood up in front of it, and in a loud voice, spoke. “As I was commanded, I’ve returned to the tower with a captive to present to the Sorceress. Magic door, please open! Uh, I was told—”
The door swung open on its own.
“Right,” he said. “Good.” He scurried in, then looked down at himself, then back at Tress. Uncertain what would happen next.
The midnight monster—now looking like a large centipede with tentacles for feet—let Tress go and shoved her through the door into the tower. It couldn’t follow, because of the silver. Instead it tossed her something. Her cups. The pewter one and the one with the butterfly. It had brought them—because it had found them in the boat and didn’t know if they were important or not.
As Tress fumbled to catch her cups, the door slid shut. Locking her inside and leaving her with only one choice.
To proceed. And meet her destiny.
THE SORCERESS
Tress took a moment to reorient herself, taking a deep breath, rubbing her arms—and trying to brush free the touch of the strange midnight creature. She thought of grabbing Huck, but he was quickly vanishing up a set of steps—using the running board alongside them as a ramp.