They met Mina in an what was once in armory buried deep in the lower levels of the palace. When Rowan was last in the kingdom, it held humanity's largest cache of weapons and armor. It had once been guarded by a dozen knights of the royal guard as well as the many walls of the palace itself, layered together like a great stone rose. Security around the palace’s hoarded weapons had only ever grown tighter when Rowan lived here. In the last days of the King's rule, everyone was desperate and the desperate sought arms.

The sole entrance to the vast armory remained guarded, though only by a few haggard lastborns. They would be no match for Rowan arboreal weaponry, but dispatching able-bodied lastborns would probably significantly impair the persuasiveness of his plea to Mina. He also felt that inflicting any more suffering on the lingering dredges of humanity would be cruel. He made his own entrance, through the ceiling from the floor above.

Inside the windowless armory Rowan and Esther explored with their hands. The weapons had disappeared from the shelves and in their place sat sacks of grain, pots of preserved vegetables in salt, and what felt and smelled like dried meat. Food had become a more precious resource than weapons now. Esther stole a piece of the meat to nibble on while they waited. Mina barred the heavy door behind her when she entered. The oil lamp she carried painted her face with gold and shadow. Purple dark bled from deep wrinkles across her cheeks and forehead. Rowan remembered a charming streak of grey that had marked her dark hair. She wore her hair in the same style now, tied in a tight and tidy bun, but the colors inverse, with a sole remaining streak of dark cutting through grey. Most striking of all, she wore an embroidered patch over one eye.

Rowan had never seen aging like this. So much of his physical person had changed since his youth. Pregnancy had reshaped his body. He'd worn through his clothing several times, adapting from what suited a young prince to what suited survival in the forest. His face was still his own, of course, but different, slimmer. Over the past decade and a half he'd become something new, even if some consistent features threaded the years together. Mina, wearing the same smock and the same focused expression, going about her duties in the same halls she always had, appeared changed only by wear. She was like an iron kettle that always keeps its sturdy shape even as its skin collects rust.

Rowan and Esther crouched behind barrels while she distributed flour into small bags. Rations, probably, though each bag contained only enough for maybe half a loaf. When she came close enough, Rowan sprung from his hiding place. The blunt root tips of his left arm pressed into her throat. They were not sharp, but they could grow through solid stone. Rowan knew well how easily they could force their way through human flesh.

"Stay quiet. No one knows we are here, understand?"

Had she screamed, he and his daughter might be discovered. Had they been discovered, he might have to fight to protect her. He did not want to kill any more humans but he would if Esther’s safely was on the line.

Fortunately, Mina did not scream. Calmly, she whispered only "Rowan?"

Rowan kept his arm pointed at her neck but withdrew the killing pressure. "And my daughter, Esther."

Mina spied the young girl peeking out from behind a barrel.

"Oh Rowan," She breathed, "You kept her."

"No one I can't trust can know about her. Can I trust you, Mina?"

Mina leveled her gaze with Rowan's. Both their eyes had hardness in them, Rowan's young and hers unchanged.

"Of course, I wouldn't let anything happen to your daughter. I feel enough guilt I did not stop what happened to you." She said.

Rowan lowered his arm. "There's nothing you could have done… Its good to see you again, Mina."

“Its good to see you alive. Your brothers... are they...?"

"They're alive. Not with me though."

“That’s the first good news I’ve heard in a long time.”

“Things look rough here.”

“Things are rough.”

Her squinting gaze stayed fixed on Rowan’s face, her eyes examining every last detail as if confronted by a puzzle.

“What is it?” Rowan thought she might have noticed the tiny brown flecks that had appeared among his freckles in the last month. So far even Esther had not noticed them. Hopefully she would not spot them and see that they were not flesh, but wood. But it was not for the flora encroaching his flesh that she stared, though his partially transformed body was certainly part of his greater inexplicability. Instead, she simply said, “You were a child when I last saw you.”

“I wasn’t a child,” Rowan said sharply, “He took that from me.”

The constant sadness etched into Mina’s face gave way to something more acute. “Oh, but you were a child Rowan. But now you’re grown, grown into a…” She looked to his daughter, then to him, unsure.

“A mother.” Rowan said firmly.

“Yes. Of course. A mother. I’m so grateful I get to see you like this. You have no idea how much it eases my mind. But…why have you come? There’s nothing left here.”

“For her.” Rowan beckoned Esther out from her hiding place with a smile. She approached Mina cautiously, poised to run. Mina was not a tall woman and at fifteen years of age Esther almost stood level with her, but still she was hesitant. She had only ever seen other humans from far off and not very often. She grasped her mother’s hand and stared. The torch flame flickered in her enormous inky black eyes. It was at times like this when Rowan saw just how much of a child she still was and, consequently, how desperately he needed Mina’s aid.

“Esther, this is Mina. She’s a friend of mine and a very good friend of your grandmother’s. She safe.” Rowan said to his daughter. Then to Mina, “I’m looking for a place for her, somewhere safe that she can stay.”

Mina’s stare hardened. “And you brought her here? To the Kingdom?”

"I’m desperate, Mina.”

“But to the Kingdom?! You of all people should know the dangers of bringing a child here. What if she were seen? What if she already has been?”

Rowan raised his gnarled arm, its tendrils still poised to strike. “Should anyone try and harm her, I am happy to send them the way of my father.”

Mina matched his severity with just as much of her own, “What little peace and order I manage to maintain here is fragile, Rowan. Do not suddenly reappear to upset all of that.”

“I’m just looking out for my daughter.”

“You choose a foolish way to do it.”

“You don’t understand, I-“ Rowan stopped. Esther’s grip on his fingers was suddenly very tight. Everything in this place, though degraded, was deeply familiar to Rowan. It was easy to forget Esther had never left the Evergrowth before. Everything here was an intensely new experience. All this talk of imminent threat probably wasn’t helping her mood. “Mina, is there anywhere else we can talk? In private, perhaps?”

Mina, sharp as ever, understood instantly. She sighed and began to rummage through various sacks on the shelves. When she found the one she was looking for, she reached in and withdrew a candy. A yellow crystal of shriveled preserved plum that she handed to Esther. Reassured by an encouraging nod from her mother, Esther took it and began to nibble.

“Wait here a moment, Esther. Your mother and I will only be a room over.” Mina said.

“You’re safe, I promise.” Rowan said.

Esther put on a proud face of bravery and bit into her plum.

Mina took Rowan into a smaller adjacent chamber, what had once been used for the storage of black powder. Now it was stocked with what appeared to be various herbal medicines, another one of Mina’s many fields of expertise. Rowan found some comfort in seeing a storage for war turned to one for sustenance and healing, but it did not change the grim reality outside in the grand hall.

Out of one of the many apothecary jars Mina extracted a hidden bottle of dark red wine.

“I was saving this for a future celebration,” She said, “But reasons to celebrate are hard to come by nowadays. Seeing you alive counts enough, I think.”

“I appreciate it.”  Rowan said, accepting a cup. He looked into the dark purple mirror of liquid in his hand and considered whether to drink. He’d only had ceremonial wine as a young boy and very little of it.

“Also, I need a strong drink after you decided to bring your daughter back to the heart of human affairs.” Mina said, taking a swig.

“I have good reason.”

“Eager to hear it.”

“I’m dying.”

A pause. Mina stared with her one eye, took a swig, and did not respond until she had drained her cup completely. “I see. Does the tree business have anything to do with that?” She tilted her cup to Rowan’s tendril arm.

“It does.”

“Did you really get it from the Goddess?”

“Who told you that?”

“It’s been fifteen years Rowan, people talk. Old folks especially. And I’ve sought out any information I could get after you disappeared.” She poured herself another cup, “Plus I saw the king’s body. Human weapons don’t make wounds like that.”

“Well, it’s true. But the Goddess doesn’t give power freely. This was part of a deal.”

“To save your brothers.”

“Yes.”

“Admirable.”

“I had to do it. But now my time is coming up. I need to find somewhere safe for Esther.”

Mina settled one hand on her hip. The same pose she used to take to scold Oleander for stealing from the kitchen all those years ago. “I still can’t fathom why you’d look here.”

“I’d heard you were running things around here still. I thought if there’s anyone I could leave her with, it’s you.”

Rowan’s mother had been very sick as long as he’d been alive. She was bedridden in most of his memories of her. Mina, the Queen’s midwife, had taken on much of the raising of him and his brothers in addition to her growing duties directing the mass of palace servants and workers. There had been times when she seemed the only person he could turn to. Behind her stern exterior was a gentleness well-suited for children.

In response, however, she drew from her hard side. “Well, you can find someone else.”

“I don’t have anyone else.”

“I’m saying no, Rowan.”

He stood in the tiny torchlit room stupefied. He had not traveled all this way from the depths of the Evergrowth to receive this answer.

“Why not your brothers? They made no deal with the Goddess.” Mina offered.

Rowan strained not to yell. “Never. I would never force a child on them. I want them- I need them to make that choice for themselves.”

Mina shook her head and poured herself more wine. She seemed to understand.

“But you would force one onto me?” She asked.

“This is different. Mina, you took care of us. You always take care of everyone.”

Mina set down the wine. She straightened her back, curled her fingers into fists. She had a way of standing that made her appear so much taller than she actually was. In her presence like this Rowan feel like a child again.

“Yes. I have. And now I have the remains of the kingdom to care for. Do you think that has been easy? For me? For any of us? Even us lastborns are beginning to burnout now. Everything is falling apart! I am just trying to give humanity as easy a death as it can die, but everything I have built is hanging by a thread. Our food stores are low, sickness is everywhere, and every day the forest’s monsters invade further into the streets. And on top of all that, you ask me to take in a child?”

Her hands waved furiously through the air as she spoke. Rowan had not realized just how bad things had become until he saw Mina, the unbreakable, as threadbare as this.

“A child that would have to be hidden, I remind you!” She continued, “Where would I put her? How am I to protect her if she is seen?”

“She’s old enough now that she can mostly care for herself, and she’s very good at staying out of sight. She wouldn’t be much trouble, she just needs somewhere to stay and someone to keep an eye out for her.”

“If she’s old enough now to take care of herself you could have taught her how to survive out there, like you did. She wouldn’t need anyone to-“

Rowan lost his composure. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want that for her!” He collapsed onto a barrel in the corner. He ran his fingers of flesh and wood over his face and through his hair. The words that followed came out wobbly and high-pitched “I know it isn’t easy. But I want to give her a childhood. I want her to have someone to look after her, to talk to her. I can’t stand the thought of her alone out there, like I was. I wanted her to have something different.” The tears began to roll down his cheeks, his speech fell into hiccupping and hot sharp breaths. “I tried my best, I really really have. It hasn’t been easy for her, I know. But I gave her a mother for fifteen years. I would give her that forever if I could, you have to know that I would! But I can’t. And all I can do now is… is not leave her alone! That’s all I can do. It’s all I can do. Please, Mina, help me do that. I’m begging you.”

Mina watched him fall apart like she had watched the royal family fall apart, like she had watched the palace fall apart, like she had watched the whole kingdom fall apart. By now she, etched with deep lines inside and out by tragic history, seemed impervious to misery and grief. To a certain extent she had to be. But if she truly felt no empathy she would not still be in the palace, playing deathbed nurse to hundreds. She returned the wine to its hiding place and went about tidying the shelves, thinking. Rowan thought this might be her way of refusing him, with silence.

But then she turned and sighed and said, “There are rooms at the top of the east wing tower. They’re in decent shape and no one goes up there. Too many stairs for old bones. I suppose she could stay hidden there. I could bring food and check on her once in a while. I can not promise her safety… but I can try. She won’t be alone.”

The earth lifted off Rowan’s shoulders. His precious daughter would not be left alone. He threw his arms around Mina, wrapping her in flesh and wood, wetting her smock with hot tears. “Thank you, Mina. You’re a saint. A saint! Because of you… I think I can go in peace.”

“The things I do…” She muttered, but she hugged him back. And perhaps, the torchlight glint in her eye was a tear shed for the little boy she once knew.