The next day, Minnie received a letter from Greengrove.

  She didn’t even pause to finish her evening snack. As soon as her shift ended, she clutched the envelope to her chest and sprinted for the menagerie.

  “A letter from Martha,” she announced breathlessly, dropping onto the sofa beside Herman, who blinked at her with his usual air of theatrical boredom.

  “Oh?” he said lightly. “What’s she want?”

  “I haven’t read it yet,” Minnie replied, already tearing the envelope open with the sort of eagerness usually reserved for birthday gifts.

  She unfolded the paper, eyes skimming the spidery handwriting. “Your father has thrown his back out again,” she read aloud. “It’s so bad he can’t get out of bed. Could you send us a letter? I’ll read it to him to keep him amused.”

  Minnie rolled her eyes, though her smile was fond. “Why does he insist on doing all that heavy lifting? He should leave it to Bob or one of his sons.”

  She turned the page. “We think of you when Bob brings honey from your bees. Still the best we’ve got. He says they’re not as friendly these days. They probably miss you too.”

  Her voice faltered on that line. It shouldn’t have meant so much, but it did. Martha wasn’t one for tender declarations, and this, small as it was, was the softest thing she’d said in years. Minnie could picture her at the kitchen table, writing between chores, jaw tight, trying to fold care into the letter without letting it show. Somehow, that made it land even harder.

  She looked up, expecting Herman to make some ill-placed joke. Instead, the cat was frozen mid-lick, tongue suspended halfway to his paw, eyes wide.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You had bees back in the village?” Herman asked slowly, his voice suddenly very serious.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Minnie blinked. “Well, no. Of course they weren’t mine. They were just… always around. Friendly. Their hive was near the pumpkin field. Martha says it’s right where they found me. Inside a pumpkin.”

  She smiled to herself at that. She used to feel uneasy when Martha said it, as though it hinted she didn’t quite belong. Now she could hear the humour in it.

  Herman did not seem amused, though.

  “I’ll leave it right there,” he murmured at last, almost to himself. “The bees will remember.”

  And suddenly it made sense. It wasn’t a metaphor. It wasn’t poetry.

  It was a thought sealed away inside Minnie’s mind. A message meant to survive forgetting, designed to lie dormant until everything else aligned.

  “That Martha,” Herman said quietly. “Smart woman. Telling it this way. Enough to lodge in your head, never enough to be questioned, until it mattered.”

  The place among the pumpkins and the bees in the north field—that was where it had happened. However the Everwise had done it, that was where Minnie’s memories were sealed, where the immortal had been hidden inside the mortal child. And that was where something else had been left behind.

  The key to the plan.

  And the bees, so conveniently guiding her through the castle now, watching, warning, were part of it too.

  Almost certainly, he himself had been factored in as well.

  Herman crouched low, fur bristling. “So that’s how it was.”

  They had to get to that field. As soon as possible. They had to go forward with the plan. Stopping now was bound to end in disaster. And, well, Fortuna had given her blessing. That counted for something.

  But there was just one problem.

  None of them could leave the castle. Herman couldn’t even step beyond the menagerie for fear of being detected. Minnie had no business outside the castle walls, and even if she could invent an excuse, she couldn’t bring herself to face the disinfection again.

  They needed someone else. Someone the bees, and whoever watched through them, would recognize. Someone smart enough to understand what was shown, and careful enough to say it without saying too much.

  There was only one option, really.

  They wrote the letter to Martha that evening. Minnie padded it with cheerful nonsense, kitchen mishaps, the “promotion” to cleaning duty, funny things she’d seen in the noble suites. She imagined Clim’s smile as Martha read it aloud, his head tilted, that crooked grin spreading as he laughed at her dry humour. She missed him so much it made her chest ache.

  But near the end, she tucked in the real message. Just a few careful lines:

  Martha, can you go to the hive at the north field? I left something there. Might keep the bees friendly. They’ll show you where. If you find it, will you write me back?

  No hint of magic. No sign of urgency. Just another odd request from an odd girl.

  They sent it through a castle runner. Minnie watched the sealed envelope disappear into the messenger’s pouch, her heart twisting.

  If Martha understood, and she would, then the path ahead might finally begin to clear.