The queen's arrangements were efficient and discreet. By mid-morning, Finch appeared with a list, a schedule, and the expression of a man who had been asked to arrange a funeral and a wedding simultaneously while also planning a surprise party.
"Supplies have been gathered," Finch said, checking items off his list with mechanical precision. "Transport arranged. Guides hired. Though I must say, Lord Carter, traveling to the Silent Wood in autumn is... inadvisable."
"So everyone keeps telling me."
"The passes close with the first snow. Which could come any day now." Finch's eye twitched—a familiar sign of stress. "If you're caught in the mountains—"
"I won't be. The queen seems confident."
"The queen is confident about many things. Weather is not one of them." Finch handed Evan the list. "You leave at dawn tomorrow. Through the postern gate. Minimal fuss."
Evan scanned the list. Horses. Supplies. Cold-weather gear. Weapons (which he couldn't use but apparently were traditional). Magical protections (which might not work in the Silent Wood). A guide named Kael, described as "familiar with the northern routes, taciturn by nature, excellent at not dying in mountains."
"No Ross?" Evan asked.
"Master Hale was... deemed too enthusiastic for a discreet journey." Finch's expression suggested Ross had volunteered to come with enough equipment for a small army and a marching band. "Lady Emma will accompany you, as per Her Majesty's instructions."
"Of course she will."
Finch hesitated. "Lord Carter... if I may speak plainly?"
"Please do."
"This journey. The Weaver. It's not just about control, is it?"
Evan looked at him. The usually impeccable steward looked tired, his professional mask slipped slightly, revealing the worried man beneath. "What do you think it's about?"
"Knowledge. The dangerous kind." Finch lowered his voice. "The palace has secrets. Old ones. The kind that... reshape one's understanding of reality. The Weaver guards some of those secrets. And she doesn't give them away lightly."
"What do you know about her?"
"Only what the records say. And the records say very little, which is telling in itself." Finch straightened, his mask back in place. "Dawn tomorrow. Be ready. And pack warm. The mountains are unforgiving."
After Finch left, Evan went to the library. He found Mira at her usual desk, but today she was surrounded not by floating books, but by maps. Ancient ones, on yellowed parchment, showing mountains that didn't look quite right—their peaks too sharp, their valleys too deep, their forests marked with symbols that warned of danger.
"The Silent Wood," she said without looking up. "Also called the Quiet Forest. The Stillwood. The Place Where Magic Sleeps."
"Cheery."
"It's not meant to be." She pointed to a map. "See these markings? Old traveler accounts. They say the wood doesn't just silence magic. It... absorbs it. Digests it. Makes it part of itself."
Evan studied the map. The Silent Wood was a blank space in the mountains—no details, no features, just a white void labeled Here Be Silence in careful script. Around it, the mountains were drawn in precise detail, but the wood itself was empty.
"What happens to mages who go there?" he asked.
"Different accounts. Some say their magic stops working entirely. Some say it works... differently. Backwards, maybe. Or randomly." She looked up, her glasses slipping down her nose. "There's one account from a century ago. A mage who went in and came out... changed. He could still do magic, but it was quiet. Subtle. Like the forest had taught him to whisper instead of shout."
"That doesn't sound terrible."
"He also came out convinced trees were speaking to him. And that mountains had dreams. And that the stars were memories of dead suns." She pushed her glasses up. "Subtlety has its price."
Evan thought about his leaking, improving magic. Would the Silent Wood absorb it? Silence it? Or just make it... quieter?
"There's something else," Mira said. She produced a small, leather-bound journal from beneath a pile of books. "This was in the restricted section. It belonged to Althea. Before."
Evan took the journal. The leather was soft with age, the pages fragile, the edges worn from handling. He opened it carefully.
The handwriting was familiar—the same elegant script as the gardener's notes in her shed, but younger, sharper, more confident. Entries described magical theory, experiments, observations, breakthroughs.
Then, halfway through:
"The Weaver says magic is a conversation. Most of us shout. The wise listen."
"She showed me the silence between notes. The space between thoughts. The magic in absence."
"I'm afraid. Of what I'm learning. Of what I might become."
The entries became sparser after that. More cryptic.
"The palace dreams. Deep in its stones."
"What we bound sleeps but doesn't dream. It waits."
"The price of sealing was memory. The price of memory is truth."
The final entry, dated thirty years ago:
"I will forget. I choose to forget. The Weaver says some knowledge is too heavy to carry. Better to lay it down. Better to tend gardens than guard tombs."
Evan looked up. "She chose to forget."
"Or had her memory altered. Or... simplified herself." Mira took the journal back gently. "Whatever she learned in the Silent Wood, she couldn't live with it. So she stopped being the person who knew it."
"And became a gardener."
"And became a gardener." Mira closed the journal. "Be careful, Evan. Knowledge changes you. And some changes are irreversible."
As Evan left the library, he passed the Restricted Collection. The Codex of Unmaking glowed on its shelf, the silver clasps shining, the pages humming with their new, philosophical text.
It seemed to call to him.
He almost reached for it. Almost.
But he remembered Althea's journal. Some knowledge is too heavy to carry.
He left the library, the codex's glow fading behind him like a forgotten question.
***