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“And the shelf?”

“The Heartwood grew that itself.”

“While I was sleeping?”

She rises, wiping her hands on her skirt. “It adds things when it wants someone comfortable. The room was here already. The shelf is new.”

“Does it usually want guests comfortable?”

“It’s usually content to give them a bed.”

I glance back toward my corridor.

“Daurek said I could close the door.”

“You can.”

“But the room can still change inside it.”

“Yes. If it grows anything you don’t want, tell me. I’ll remove it.”

That helps. I finish my tea and hold the empty cup in both hands.

“Does he decide what it grows?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes he spends the morning arguing with what grew without him.”

“The flowers?”

She gives me a level look.

“He was closing the flowers along the corridor wall before dawn,” she says. “I passed him on my way to check the western paths.”

“He left one.”

“I saw.”

I wish that didn’t please me. He might simply have missed it.

Reivaka starts toward a broad archway. I follow her onto a covered walk overlooking a courtyard and stop.

Our entire row of market stalls would fit in the space below. Windows open above it on three levels, with stairs curving up between them. Every wall is living wood. High overhead, the trunk divides into limbs thicker than the tower at Tesseny’s east gate.

I’m standing inside a tree big enough to hold a house, a hall, and all the people who work in them. Last night I was so cold and tired that I followed Reivaka to a bed without looking up.

“The Heartwood,” Reivaka says. “Daurek’s home. The Heartwood Court meets here, too. You’ll find petitioners waiting in the northern rooms most mornings.”

Through an opening on the far side of the courtyard, I can see the forest beyond: wet ferns, narrower trunks, paths winding out of sight. That’s the Ilden. This enormous tree is the house at its center.

Somewhere above me, a woman opens a shutter and shakes out a blanket. A man below calls up a complaint about the crumbs.

At least I know what that argument is about.

Reivaka leads me along the walk toward the hall. A root lifts at the edge of the passage, pushing a fallen twig out of our way. I slow to watch it.

“I’ve never lived somewhere that cleans up after itself.”

“Enjoy it before you meet Ziku.”