““It was all the answer Rook needed. He plunged his hand into the soil, long fingers grasping down. This was no offering to the earth, but a command to it, and the forest surged around us. Bramble roots as wide around as kitchen tables heaved up from the ground, bristling with thorns longer and more wicked than any sword. When they reached their full height they branched, heaving higher, knotting together, until they gathered us up in a fortress like something out of an old tale, a place where a cursed princess slept imprisoned. I was gladdened by the sight of those vicious thorns more than I could say, and wondered whether the stories would have gone any differently if the princesses had been the ones telling them.””
