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creature
demanded.
    “Because the memory I carry is from one
who walked this way, and she told the village of her journey, and her memory
was gathered and stored in case another would ever need to find that way. Which
now, I do, to rescue those who will surely die if they are trapped much longer.”
    “A Memory Keeper,” the creature said
thoughtfully.
    “Yes,” Amina said firmly. “And I need to
be on my way.”
    “She lied, you know.”
    “Who lied?”
    “The one who gave you that memory you
are carrying. She was a deceitful one. She came here looking for treasure. All
she found was me. I sent her on her way. She never walked through these caverns
or went into the mine.”
    Dismay struck Amina’s heart. “No, that’s
not possible! There must be a way!”
    She pulled up the memory of the other
and, hesitating only a moment, plunged into the memory again, this time letting
the wholeness wash into her. If she went mad, so be it; without this memory the
other villagers, friends and kin, would die. It was her duty, her destiny, to
be a Memory Keeper, to risk all for the good of others.
    But she realized with dismay that the
creature was right. The girl-woman whose memory she rode had lied, using her
lies to gain herself attention from the other villagers in her time, to make
herself important. She rode the memory to its end, to the girl fleeing from the
chamber and up the narrow stairway of roots, running away from the fey creature
who laughed at her, all the way to her decision to tell a fancy tale rather
than admit to her panic and be laughed at by the other villagers for her pride
in thinking herself strong enough to outwit the fey. For in her time they had
believed in the fey creatures, and no one traveled the paths that were
supposedly theirs.
    And perhaps they had been right, Amina
though, opening her eyes with despair. It had all been for naught. All her
years of training. All her years of fear and overcoming it, in order to prepare
her for a time when she was needed, for when a memory was needed.
    And instead she had grasped the memory
of a foolish, prideful girl, much like she herself had been that first time she
opened the Memory Box. She was justly punished for that arrogance. But it was
others who would pay the price. It would be the miners who would die, either suffocating
or starving. Oh, no doubt she would die too—that was the price paid by those
who defied the fey. But it wasn’t the thought of her own death that crushed
her; it was the thought of the others.
    “So there is no back entrance to the
mine,” she said to the silvery creature, “and all this is for naught. I beg
your pardon for trespassing, and will leave immediately.”
    “Oh, I didn’t say there wasn’t a way to
get to your noisome mine from here,” the creature replied, watching her
thoughtfully.
    “There is a way?!” Hope surged back up
in Amina’s chest. “Please, I must get through to them! I must bring them out!”
    The creature stared at her for a long
thoughtful moment. “I see that. You really do care about them. What would you
pay for me showing you the way and letting them tramp back out through my home
here?”
    “Anything,” Amina replied. “I will pay
with my life.”
    “And what good would that do? Just give
me a dead body down here. Bad enough all the cleaning I’ll have to do after all
your miners tramp their muddy boots through my home.”
    “Then what do you want from me?” Amina
asked.
    The creature stared at her cunningly. “I
think I’ll show you the way first—that way you will be beholden to me.”
    Amina felt uneasy, remembering all the
tales of trickery and deception. Would this fey creature with the iridescent
wings show her a way only to close it and trap the miners permanently? Or show
her a false image and then claim something was owed? But what choice did she
have? She would never find a hidden way into the mine, if one even existed,
without the help of this creature, now that she