I took a step back, hand moving toward my pistol. "Me?"

  "Yes, you, honey!" The voice was deep and smooth, with an edge of hunger to it. "Oh man, this is WONDERFUL. I been waitin' so long for someone to show up. Well, not just anyone. Someone interesting. Someone with a little... spark, you know? And you—" The flower leaned closer, uncomfortably close. "—are very interesting."

  "What are you?"

  "I'm a sunflower, baby. Ain't it obvious?”

  "Sunflowers don't talk."

  "Well, most sunflowers don't talk, that's true. But most sunflowers don't got the good fortune to grow in magically saturated soil for decades neither. I'm special. Real special." The grin widened. "Name's Audrey. Audrey Three, actually. Did you know my old man was in a musical?"

  I stared at it. "What?"

  "A musical! You know—singing, dancing, the whole shebang! Big stage production. He was quite the performer, I'm told. Or maybe I dreamed that. Hard to say, really. Memory gets a little fuzzy when you're rooted in one spot for this long with nobody to talk to, nobody to appreciate your talents. Could drive a lesser plant right off the deep end, if you catch my drift."

  “Yeah, I know what a musical is, Audrey. I just have a hard time imagining a dancing and singing plant.”

  "Audrey Three," Audrey Three corrected, a bit of an edge creeping in. "And speaking of which—how 'bout a song? I got a whole number prepared. Real showstopper. You're gonna love it, baby. Everyone does. Well, everyone would if anyone ever stuck around long enough to listen..."

  "No thank you, Audrey Three," I said quickly.

  "Your loss, honey!"

  "We'll... keep it in mind," I said.

  "Oh, that's fine, that's fine! But lemme tell ya, you're missing OUT. I got a voice that could wake the dead. Literally! This place could use some LIFE, you know? Some pizzazz! But hey, you do your thing. I'll be here. Always here. Can't exactly take a walk."

  I looked at Vasil. He shrugged.

  I turned back to Audrey Three. "Right. Thanks for... that?"

  A talking sunflower. That was unexpected. If the magic radiating from this place had leaked into the soil enough to create a giant sentient plant with a lot of teeth and delusions (or were they?) about musical theater, I had to wonder what we'd find inside the cathedral. What else had grown here? What else had been touched by the magic?

  We left Audrey Three humming some kind of tune about feeding and growing, and headed toward the cathedral's entrance.

  As we stood in front of it, I looked up at the rusted bell. Half-covered in moss, probably hadn’t made a sound in a very long time. I stepped closer to the stone doorway and ran my hand over the carvings. Some of them had worn flat, some of them had been damaged or broken, but I could still make out some symbols: plants, spirals, what looked like a crescent moon. The moon was interesting. Then again, people loved their suns and moons.

  The entryway was blocked by vines, so I pulled out Stabigail to cut through them.

  The second I drew it, white light exploded all around me and the dagger released its loud choir note. Glitter went everywhere.

  “BITCH!” Phisto yelled.

  Vasil stumbled around waving his hands like he’d gone blind.

  I stood there blinking spots out of my eyes. Right. The flourish. I'd forgotten about that.

  "Warn us next time before you do that," Phisto said, fur standing on end.

  "Woops. Sorry," I said. "I forgot."

  Inside, the air was cool and damp. Light filtered through cracked stained glass windows, casting colored shadows across the stone floor. Some of the glass was shattered or missing, but a surprising amount of panels had survived—images of plants growing, seasons changing, a woman with dark hair and silver eyes standing beneath a full moon. That had to be Bies.

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  The main hall was large and open, with high ceilings and stone pillars covered in moss. Along the walls were more symbols carved deep into the stone. More plants and spirals.

  "This must have been quite something back in the day," I said quietly.

  At the far end of the hall stood an altar. Stone, waist-high, covered in wet leaves and debris. Above it hung a painting.

  The painting was flawless, a sharp contrast to the rest of the cathedral that had been overtaken by rot, decay, moss, and creeping vines, slowly becoming part of the swamp.

  It looked like it had been hung yesterday. The colors were still vibrant and every detail was sharp. A woman stood in a field of flowers, dark hair flowing, silver eyes bright. She was smiling, one hand extended toward the viewer as if offering something, the other glowing with a white light.

  She looked eerily similar to my mother. Not exactly. But close. Very close. The same bone structure. The same nose. The same way her hair fell. That meant she also looked like me.

  "That's... odd," I said.

  Phisto padded up beside me. "Why is there a painting of you on the wall?"

  "No, that’s not what’s odd. I mean, yes, it’s odd that she looks like me, but what I meant was everything else in here is rotting. But that looks brand new."

  Vasil hopped closer to get a better look. "You know, I've never actually seen her image before. The Church burned everything with her likeness on it many years before I was even born. She really does look remarkably like you."

  "Yeah, yeah," I said, stepping toward the painting. "But how is this thing pristine? Look at this place."

  I reached out, not quite touching the canvas, just moving my hand in the air in front of it. There was something there. A faint resistance, like pushing against warm water. A tingle ran up my arm.

  Magic.

  The painting was protected. Preserved by some kind of spell or enchantment. That's why it hadn't rotted with everything else. Someone, or something, had made sure this image would survive.

  "It's protected," I said. "There's magic keeping it intact."

  Vasil cocked his head. "Interesting."

  THUMP!

  I spun around. Nothing. Just the empty hall.

  Phisto's ears were up. "Did you h—"

  "Yes," I said. "Of course I heard that."

  Please, Mēnē. Please. Just five minutes. Five minutes of peace. Five minutes without something jumping out at me or trying to eat me or violently trying to end my life in some other way. Is that too much to ask? I've been very good. I've only killed people who deserved it. I think. I never ask for anything. I never complain. Can't a girl just stand in a creepy cathedral and look at a magic painting without the gods deciding it's time for more nonsense? I'm begging you, Mēnē. On my knees. Metaphorically. I'm not actually getting on my knees because this floor is disgusting and I've ruined enough clothes this week. But begging still, please just five minutes of peace and quiet.

  THUMP!

  I still couldn’t see what was making the sound.

  “Why have you forsaken me?!” I asked, but Mēnē did not answer.

  This time I heard a rattle. I tracked the sound—it was coming from a closet to the side of the hall. The door looked moldy but mostly intact. Leaning against it was another closet in worse shape, doors missing entirely.

  "Aha!" I said, raising both pistols. "I got you now, you son of a bitch."

  "Wait, wait!" Phisto said. "Maybe it's just someone hiding in there. Someone innocent."

  "Oh yeah? Would someone innocent hide in a closet and make thumping sounds?"

  "Yes?"

  I shook my head. "Phisto, you sweet summer child. Only guilty people hide. Innocent people announce themselves. Innocent people don’t need to hide. People who want to kill you hide, waiting for the right moment to put a knife in your back. And monsters. Monsters hide in closets, too, waiting to do whatever it is that monsters do."

  THUMP.

  "GUILTYYYY!!!" I screamed as I emptied both pistols into the closet. The door splintered into pieces, and blew off its hinges with a crash. “How you like that, huh? HA HA HA!”

  Inside stood a shaky skeleton, arms in front of its face, one leg bent, one leg up into the top corner of the closet. None of the bullets had hit it—they'd all gone into the wood around it.

  I stared at it. It stared back between bony fingers.

  "...Hi?" the skeleton said, very slowly lowering one hand to give a tiny, limp wave. "Please don't shoot again?"

  "We'll see about that. First, explain why you were in the closet," I said shaking my pistol at him.

  "We were hiding."

  I looked, but there clearly was no one else inside the closet. "We?"

  "Yes! Me and my friends. These fine fellows." He pointed at a rat in the bottom corner, and a spider hanging in a web.

  I sighed. "Okay. So what were you hiding from?"

  "Well, when we heard someone coming, we decided to hide. The swamp isn't a safe place, you know. I didn't want to get killed."

  I stared at him for a long moment. Then I looked at Phisto. He gave me a blank look back.

  This fucking skeleton.

  "You know what, whatever. Do you have a name?"

  "Oh yes! My name is Nectar. But my friends call me Skelly."

  I sighed. Again. I'd been doing a lot of that lately.

  I looked at the spider and the rat. "Are you his friends? Do you call him Skelly?"

  "I don't call him anything," the spider said. "I can't understand what he's saying. Why would I call him anything?"

  The rat twitched its whiskers. "I don't know. I just got here."

  I looked back at Nectar… or Skelly. He was smiling. Or at least, his skull gave the impression of smiling. "See?” he said. “Best friends. Thick as thieves, the three of us."

  I looked up at the ceiling. "I see, Mēnē. Good one. This is a trial. A test of my patience."

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