93. Little Flower
Lilith’s question went unanswered, like a pebble dropped into a still pond that gave back no ripples.
Nidhogg and Mio had never set foot in this factory, either; the forest to them was a green maze, trunks like pillars and leaves like scales. Unlike the Little White Dragon, though, they had basic sense. They hadn’t seen the plant-works in motion, but with their grasp of natural magic, they read the veins and valves inside each tree and guessed their use.
Even the Archbishop, quiet as a shadow behind them, could likely read the layout; her plant magic was the sharpest blade among them, a gardener’s knife that knew every root and rind.
Which meant, in the end, only the Little White Dragon was truly in the dark, a fledgling blinking at the canopy. The dopey little dragon hugged a wilted blue blossom in its pot and followed Nidhogg and Mio between the living columns like a duckling in a rain-laced grove.
She’d thought there would be passages from tree to tree, bridges like wooden arteries. There weren’t. She had to step out of one massive stump into loam soft as sponge, scrape ink-dark mud from her shoes like peeling off leeches, then duck into the next tree’s hollow.
“I really shouldn’t have worn these shoes today,” Lilith muttered, head down, wrestling with the black-brown smear on her white sneakers like fighting a tar pit. The shoes weren’t made for sludge; every step wobbled, every splash bit. In a blink, white turned crow-black. “Lamter really needs to fix its roads—kick this filthy mud off Lamter’s streets—or I swear, I’m going to be mad.”
“We’re walking inside their factory,” Nidhogg said, voice low as wind through bark. “Maybe the trees need this soil, special and rich. Don’t bully them into changing.” She crouched, tapped Lilith’s toe like a bell. “Cleanse,” the Black Dragon intoned, a Word Spirit carried like a feather on breath.
The mud heard and obeyed like a scolded pup; it hopped from Lilith’s shoe and pattered off like raindrops. What she’d scraped at for ages slid away in a heartbeat, and her sneakers gleamed like fresh snow under a clear sky.
“Every time, your trick feels so handy,” Lilith sighed, relief flaring like a warm lantern.
“It is handy,” Nidhogg said, a smile like a crescent moon. She used that Word Spirit Magic not just in a fight or to save time; she used it between sheets like silk ropes in the dark. Lilith had no resistance to it at all—she could only let the bad woman play as she pleased—enraged enough to want to bar her from the bed, like slamming a door in a storm.
“It’s handy, sure,” Mio said, arms folded, voice dry as tinder. “She leans on that magic to act like a hotshot. One day, it’s going to flip her cart.”
The Little White Dragon remembered the last time she fought with Nidhogg; the Black Dragon dropped an AOE and locked both her and the enemy in one sweeping net, like a tide freezing fish and fisher alike. She figured Mio had even more horror stories, stacked like firewood.
With that in mind, Lilith shot Mio a pitying look, soft as mist.
“But hey, which workshop did this little flower come from?” she said, tugging the thread back to the blue blossom in her arms, the question floating like a petal.
She’d found a logo on the pot that matched the factory’s crest, a glyph like a leaf-mark, and she hadn’t let Nidhogg take it back since. The little flower had had it rough—sold off like a fallen seed, finally back to the grove it sprung from, and then about to get scooped up by Nidhogg again. Lilith’s heart pinched, like seeing a butterfly pinned.
Luckily, the Little White Dragon had a soft heart. If Nidhogg wouldn’t hold it, she would cradle it like a bird in rain.
“Do you remember where you came out from?” Lilith lifted the flower to her face. A tiny girl and a tiny blue bloom stared at each other, dew-eye to dew-eye, the question simple as a spring.
The limp little flower shook its head. It didn’t know where it had been born, like a seed carried by the wind.
Seeing no answers in its swaying, Lilith tucked it back against her chest, a cradle of white sleeves. She glanced at Nidhogg, disappointment like a downturned petal. “What do we do? It doesn’t know either.”
“Then we go find out ourselves,” the Black Dragon said, indulgent as sunlight. “This thing looks high-tech, like a crafted orchid. I’ve never heard plant magic push far enough to make a flower with self-awareness. I’m guessing it’s a fresh R&D piece here, or something an academy on Mount Saernos cooked up first and sent over for trials.”
“Makes sense,” Lilith said, nodding like a reed. “But where do we actually look for its birthplace?” She tilted her head, practical as a pebble. “You gave me a whole analysis, and we still don’t know which workshop spat it out.”
“Don’t rush,” Nidhogg said, gentling her like pressing a swirl on water. “We do have a direction. We find the departments that handle innovation, or the ones that liaise with the academies. We go there, then track the blossom to its bed.”
“You’re right. Then let’s hurry,” the Little White Dragon said, patting her own head with a smack like a startled bird. The blue flower almost flew from her arms; it clutched her sleeve with its stem, blue petals scrunching like wrinkled silk. If it had a mouth, Lilith was sure it would be cursing like thunder.
“Easy. Don’t be so jumpy,” Nidhogg said, long since used to Lilith’s sudden leaps like a fish in a stream. She led them into the workshop ahead, her tone laying out the path like chalk on bark. “Next, we get a map of the factory. Then we mark the high-tech research departments. Then we search that patch for this flower’s origin. Any questions?”
“Yes!” the Little White Dragon shot up a hand, bright as a snapped twig. “Where do we get a map?”
“Good question. Maybe we head back to the gate and ask the guard; he should have a full plan of—oh. No need,” Nidhogg said, cutting off, voice flicking like a candle catching.
A chart showing the factory’s zoning hung right before them, pinned to the inner wall of a massive tree, lines like roots threading through wood.
