Nynevarre
Rozebaiel had several favourite little nooks across Laendricourt, but Nynevarre knew which of them she loved the most. It was the same spot in which she had been found, when she had first manifested among them. There was a rose-arbour adjoining the kitchen garden — the roses had been confined there, once, before they had gone mad and claimed all the house instead. Rozebaiel had been discovered there curled under a rose-leaf, a baby no larger than Nynevarre’s fist.
Nynevarre knew this, because she was the one who had done the discovering.
‘Little rose,’ she sang, as she walked that way. ‘Your Aunt Nyn has need of you.’
Rozebaiel replied at once, the dear child, as she always did. ‘I am here under the leaf.’
She had made herself tiny again, and tucked herself up snugly under a
