Chapter 12

Rosabel La Rouge

This time when I went to the trailer at the end of the street, I had no doubt that the girl who lived there would see me, and that was okay. It was dark, past ten p.m., and I’d just come from the mall, but I still didn’t take my hoodie off for fear somebody would recognize me.

I’d bought things I’d had no clue how to even buy for someone else, let alone someone younger—shirts and jeans and shoes and boots and jackets and underwear—and it was just so overwhelming to figure out what to get and what not. I had never had to buy anything for myself when I was younger. Whatever collection came out in whichever brand Madeline was interested in in that time, the whole thing would just come to my bedroom in my size. She hadn’t allowed me to buy a single thing until I went on that mission to the Iridian School of Chromatic Magics.

Then I’d had to get a suitcase because there were too many bags and I couldn’t carry them while riding my bike, and the suitcase was a hassle, too, but I was already here. I went all around the trailer, the lights still on inside, and I didn’t have to wait long for her to come out from around back, peek her head out and wave at me.

“He—”

She brought her finger to her lips and I shut my mouth instantly—she didn’t want me to make a sound.

For the better, I thought, and I was going to just leave the suitcase there for her, but then she waved for me to follow her behind the tree, into the forest—no doubt to the treehouse, minus the house .

With the suitcase in hand, I followed reluctantly.

“What do you have there?” she asked when we were away from the trailer and the darkness of the forest was illuminated only by the bright moon in the sky. The trees weren’t dense, the branches thin, so moonlight had no trouble touching the forest floor here.

“Just some stuff. How do you always know I’m there?” I wondered because at this point it made me really curious.

“I just do,” she said with a shrug, then began to climb up the tree. I left the suitcase down when I went to climb behind her because, yes , I said I wasn’t going to stay, but this place was really nice. And secluded. And dark. And quiet.

And I just wanted some company that wasn’t…company. Not usual company. Just this girl.

“Bring it up. I want to see what’s in there,” she said when she sat up on the branch, and turns out, climbing with a suitcase in your hand is much more difficult than you’d think. I almost fell off the tree a few times.

“There’s not enough space,” I told Taylor when I made it up there and put the suitcase against the trunk.

“Plenty of space—I’ll just take a peek,” she insisted.

So, I sat farther away to give her more room to move, and she proceeded to open the suitcase only halfway to see what was inside.

She made no comment as she went through the stuff I’d brought for her and her siblings, and I resisted the urge to ask her if these worked, if they’d like them or if they’d even fit. It had been easy enough to guess her size, but I’d only seen her siblings once.

While she went through everything, I took out my phone to scroll through the Roe videos I’d downloaded for easy access, when, “Can I have that?” asked Taylor.

It was dark and she couldn’t really see much of the clothes and she looked very curious, so again, I turned the flashlight on and gave her my phone without a word.

It was for the better, actually. My eyes were on the sky and that bracelet was in my hands to keep them busy, and the sound of Taylor’s movements calmed my chaotic mind like magic. It was a warm night, the forest was asleep, and I was at peace for a little while. I breathed easy.

“What’s that?” Taylor asked when she came to sit next to me and gave me my phone back.

“Just something I got at work,” I said, showing her the bracelet.

“Let me see.” She took it without waiting for a reply, but I didn’t mind. It looked so much bigger in her hands.

“Were you in school today?” I wondered.

She only nodded.

“Do you like school?”

“Not really,” she muttered, and I was tempted to smile at how simply, how honestly she answered. “What’s it like being like you?”

I watched her as she inspected the bracelet, the way her little fingers moved as she spun it around slowly— exactly like I had been doing until now. She was copying my every movement.

No idea why that broke my heart.

“You mean, Iridian?”

She nodded again.

“It’s…” I closed my eyes for a moment to think of the right words. “It’s, uh…” I couldn’t find them.

As strange as it sounds, I couldn’t find the right words that would describe to her what it was like to be Iridian because, I realized, I didn’t know what being Iridian meant in the first place. A human being with the ability to access and control magical energy? Is that what I really was—that cold definition?

Being Iridian means being protectors, I wanted to say next, but that was a lie and I had already lied to her enough. We didn’t protect shit—we turned on our own when it was convenient. We were supposed to be the protectors of the world because we were the most powerful species, and with great power comes that responsibility. I’d actually believed that at one point, which now made me feel so stupid.

No, Iridians don’t protect anything they don’t care about, and they don’t care about anybody but themselves.

Then, I thought, being Iridian is being special, out of the ordinary, but that was a lie, too. We weren’t special; we were all the same. My own grandmother couldn’t stand the sight of me. My team leader had turned on me. A woman I’d considered a friend had tried to kill me.

And I had betrayed the man that I loved with my whole being because I’d been too much of a coward to do the right thing.

So, no, I couldn’t tell Taylor that lie, either.

In the end, I chose to say nothing, only watched her playing with that bracelet, until the night grew cold and she could barely keep her eyes open.

Then I took her back to the trailer with the suitcase, and I left.

Being in my skin was slowly becoming a torture again, just like before the Iris Roe. This constant state of feeling nothing and too much at the same time was going to make me lose my mind.

Nobody wanted to tell me anything. Cameron hadn’t assigned me to a team yet, I suspect, because Cassie was right—the team leaders didn’t want to deal with me because I’d been Mud. They knew I’d been Mud, they’d been there in the forest, most of them, and I bet at least a couple were in the same van they carried me back to Headquarters in. They saw me and they wouldn’t be fooled by the false statements I was forced to give to the media.

Others at the office were used to my presence by now, and they no longer bothered me with questions they knew I wasn’t going to answer. So, for the next week, I was on my own whenever Cassie was busy with work, and Jim and Jam continued to not be anywhere that I was in the Headquarters, and the archives I had access to insisted that the file I’d had in my own hands about Taland when I accepted my first “mission” didn’t exist anywhere.

Madeline was always home, and I hadn’t had the balls to break into her office for that book again, but the bracelet, at least, was perfect for playing with whenever I could. It calmed me down better than any stress ball.

I went back to Taylor a few more times— I know. But her tree was really comfortable, and she was always awake when I went there, and she was great company when we sat on that branch and listened to the night.

I sent her food and electronics for her and her siblings, anything I could think of. And I always asked what her parents said about it, if she wanted me to come talk to them, but she said no, it’s not necessary. She never asked why or said thank you, but she used the things I gave her, at least. She wore the pajamas and the jackets and sneakers. That told me that she’d liked them even if she never actually said so, and I was too embarrassed to ask. I took it.

Then there was Poppy.

She was always complaining that I didn’t spend enough time with her, and I agreed. I wanted to hang out, but every time we did, it was always to talk about the Iris Roe. Always questions about what I did and what I saw and how I overcame this and that challenge.

She never asked me how I completed all of them, though. How I got the keys, how I drained the Rainbow without magic. And I had no clue what the audience at the playground had seen, but the Council hadn’t published videos of what happened at the Rainbow mountain at all. I suspect it wasn’t just to hide the fact that Taland had given me his magic to drain the Rainbow, but to also hide how the other players had been out to kill me in those moments.

Poppy knew I’d been Mud. She’d taken care of me herself when I was—she knew very well. Yet she never once asked me about that part of the game, and I doubted Madeline had anything to do with it. Poppy would rather just… not know . She would rather just pretend with everybody else.

I was relieved, I suppose. What would I tell her if she asked? That Taland had done it for me, had given me his magic even though we had no clue what would even happen to him or me when he did?

Or would I lie to her and tell her the same thing Madeline thought I’d done—that I’d offered a player money to help me complete the game?

She would believe me; I was sure everybody thought that already. Which was absurd because money wouldn’t have made anybody carry me through the Drainage like Taland had done.

But the people didn’t know that, though. The Council hadn’t showed that video to anyone, either.

And now I didn’t even know if Taland had turned Mud. I couldn’t find him no matter how much time I spent looking at footage and pictures and reports from all around the city—useless, all of it. He just wasn’t there, and September twenty-first was still so far away.

But I did care about Poppy a great deal, so when she asked me to join her for a girls’ night with her friends from our old high school in the backyard of the mansion, I said yes. She wanted to show me off. I had nothing better to do and I was really hoping for a distraction.

I didn’t get one.

She’d set up a patio with pillars on the side and this shimmery fabric that raised like a tent with magic over it, with pretty lights and comfortable chairs and a round table in the middle. All five of the girls sitting with us ate and gossiped and watched me when they thought I didn’t notice.

It was all very fancy, very fairytale-like, very Poppy. Madeline liked these gatherings, too (because the girls all came from the rich and powerful families she called friends ) so she didn’t hesitate to pay for these things whenever Poppy asked.

Meanwhile I was daydreaming about sitting in a tree and looking at the moon in the company of a fourteen-year-old girl.

Over an hour passed by, so slowly.

I really didn’t want to spend another second staring at my plate and running my fingertip over the rim of my glass, listening to these girls talking about nothing in particular by using so many words. I didn’t blame them—that’s how they were raised. They weren’t bad, they were just…privileged. Like Poppy. And there was nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that I wasn’t.

How much longer until I can leave? I asked myself in my head, and the next second, my phone vibrated with a new text as if to answer me.

It was Cassie. Are you in? I could use a long break I’d left work some two hours ago, but I would most definitely go back to Headquarters just to escape this hell.

I stood up while the girls were still talking. The look in Poppy’s eyes said that she already knew.

“Excuse me, ladies. I got an emergency text from work. I have to go.”

I picked that lie because I was sure they wouldn’t want to argue about the IDD, at least.

I was dead wrong.

Poppy smiled a plastic smile. “Oh.”

“Why do you insist on working , Rosabel?” one of the girls said. “It’s far beneath you now, don’t you think?”

“You’re rich and you’re famous—it’s almost an insult to society to work,” said her friend, and the girls laughed.

Poppy did, too, but at least her laughter was fake.

Good thing I don’t really give a fuck about society then, I thought. “Oh, you know, it just stuck. I know what you mean, but I can’t quit now , it would be…” I said, and…

I stopped.

I looked at them, all of their sparkling eyes, perfect faces, perfect smiles.

Why are you lying? I asked myself.

I had no answer.

So, I spoke again, “Actually, I just don’t give a fuck about society.”

I turned around and left, and strangely there was a huge smile on my face as they gasped and whispered and some giggled before I was too far away to hear them anymore.

Fuck, that felt great.

Cassie laughed and laughed when I told her where I’d been and what I’d said to the Redfire girls I grew up with.

She hi-fived me at least a dozen times, and though the guilt was still there because of Poppy, I felt relieved. I felt free, just like when I first went to the Iridian School of Chromatic Magics. And Cassie was much better company than those girls any day, so I had no regrets whatsoever. I’d driven like crazy to get here on time.

“So, what have you been up to this week?” Cassie asked, and I found I had nothing to tell her that I hadn’t before.

“Same, same. Nobody wants me on their team. Jim and Jam lied to my face. Everything’s just…the same.”

She turned and looked around us at the other agents and IDD staff in the cafeteria. “Wanna go get some air?”

“Actually, yes,” I said because the weather was nice and also there wouldn’t be people outside, at least not close to us. We could talk more freely.

With our coffees in hand, we walked all the way to the back of the building, and outside in the dark where we could only make out the guards in the front. Cassie had found me not far from this very door that night she saved my life, actually.

“Okay—you gotta tell me what’s going on because I’m gonna fucking lose it soon,” she said in a hushed whisper as she pulled her wand from under her sleeve, then whispered a spell just as fast. Blue flames burst out the tip of her wand, illuminating the blue ink on her knuckles—the strangest, most beautiful tattoos I’d ever seen.

“Nothing. Nothing’s going on,” I tried because I really hadn’t noticed that she’d noticed something off. And now that we were outside and she’d locked us in a soundproof spell, she didn’t bother to keep her voice down.

“Don’t be bullshitting me, woman! You’ve been glued to that screen all day watching surveillance footage and snooping into archives—you’re looking for something. And what are the twins lying about? Don’t you dare tell me about that catfairie again because I will smack you.” She raised her wand at my face. “It is not beneath me, smacking. On the contrary—I quite enjoy it.”

Laughter burst out of me for a moment—she really meant every word she said. She was going to force the truth out of me, and I found that hilarious, mostly because she really didn’t need to. The only reason I hadn’t told her was because I didn’t want her involved. I’d already risked her plenty of times, but if she wanted to know so badly, I’d tell her the whole story.

“Erid and Michael had orders from someone to kill me in the catfairie forest that day. They made me Mud. Erid mostly, I suspect. She had a lot of magic, and I was wide open. Jim and Jam were there, and they saw the whole thing. They also saw how, before Michael could finish me off, the big catfairie just jumped from a tree and killed both him and Erid, then came for me. He came to kill me, too, but I passed out before he could. The only thing I remember before I shut down was this noise that the catfairie turned his head to look at, and then nothing. When I woke up, he was dead on the ground and the twins insist that I killed him. That they saw me pull his heart out, after he turned me Mud.” I spoke so fast my jaw was going to fall off me. “They’re lying about the whole thing and they won’t tell me why.”

The look on Cassie’s face.

We were in the shadows, but I saw enough to know that she was pissed, her eyes glossy and bloodshot, her teeth gritted.

“They…they just stood there? The twins—they just watched those fuckers trying to kill you?”

Oh, boy. That didn’t sound so good.

“Yes. But then they saved my life in the infirmary. They came to get you, as well, so?—”

“I don’t give a shit,” she cut me off. “They chose to sit back and do nothing in the forest. They can’t undo that no matter how many times they save your life now.”

“Cassie, it’s fine. Michael was our team leader. They couldn’t disobey his order.” And why the hell are you trying to defend the twins ? said a voice in my head. “They…they saved my life after, okay? It’s fine. They’re fine.”

Because I couldn’t hold it against them was the answer. Because I was afraid that in their shoes, I’d have done the same thing.

Or maybe not, but it didn’t matter. I still owed them my life.

Cassie closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. “They’re lucky I don’t send my cousins after them right this second. So damn lucky…”

I raised my brows. “Cousins?”

“The Mergenbach siblings—I told you about them, remember?” Cassie paused for a moment, watching me intently as if she was expecting me to start laughing or something.

But I did remember everything she told me about those cousins—she mentioned them a lot. And I wasn’t going to laugh about it, obviously. “Yeah, please don’t,” I said instead. “The twins are good. I know it—I feel it. They’re good, they’re just scared. Eventually they’re going to tell me the truth.”

“You sure?” she insisted.

I was getting a little nervous. I didn’t want to hurt Jim and Jam—well. I didn’t want other people to hurt Jim and Jam because I absolutely would if they didn’t tell me the truth soon.

“Yes, I’m sure. Please, just…don’t send anyone after the twins. Let me handle it.” It sounded like I was begging her.

“Fine,” Cassie said with a sigh. “Yes, yes, fine.”

She turned and leaned against the wall of the building and took a sip of her coffee. When she saw that it was cold, she whispered another spell, her wand still in her hand, and she waved at it once before the coffee began to steam again.

She forced a smile for me (she was still angry). “ Magic. ”

“Wow, how fascinating,” I deadpanned and drank my own coffee—cold. I didn’t plan to spell it, though. Not worth the pain when the taste was the same.

“Seriously, though,” Cassie said. “Maybe I should set up a meeting with my cousins one day. You know, just so you can say you know them.”

Again with her cousins. I tried not to sound suspicious, though I was a little at this point. “What are they, a big deal or something?”

A pause. “You really haven’t heard of the Mergenbachs before?”

Yeah, now I was very suspicious. “No, I really haven’t. Why, though?” I was pretty sure I hadn’t heard that name, had never come across it. “You keep bringing them up.”

Cassie smiled again, and this time it didn’t just look fake, but painful, too. “Because you’re an agent and they’ve been wanted once or twice, that’s all. I was just sure you’d have heard about them.” She didn’t give me a chance to comment. “Go on, keep talking. The twins are not the only thing you’re keeping from me.”

I flinched, not entirely sure if I should tell her anything. Just now she’d seemed so… off.

But on the other hand, I needed to. Goddess knew I needed to get this off my chest or I was going to explode. And just because Cassie was smiling when she didn’t want to, that didn’t take away everything else she’d done for me already. I knew she was trustworthy—I felt that, too. And though my instincts had led me astray before, right now I was choosing to make this easier on myself for once.

“I’m looking for Taland,” I said, and Cassie was not surprised.

“Tivoux—that Taland?”

“Yes, that Taland.” I looked down at my coffee, cheeks flushed now just because I’d said his name out loud. “He, um…he’s out there. I know it. And I’m just trying to find him.”

Cassie raised her head. “Between me and you, I find it suspicious that the search for him has stopped to begin with.”

That was certainly news to me. “The search for him has stopped?”

“Yep. They’ve put O’Bryan and his team on a new case and have moved Tivoux down from his top-three list. His last report said that he’d vanished, simply wasn’t there anymore. He wasn’t anywhere,” Cassie said, and my heart was already galloping in my chest.

“And when was that report brought in?”

She shrugged. “About two weeks ago.”

Two weeks ago, Taland was with me in the Iris Roe.

Fuck. Could it be that the IDD had really given up searching for him? Could it be that being in the Iris Roe had actually helped Taland get off their radar completely, so now they thought he was dead or something?

“There’s something else.”

I blinked, focusing on Cassie’s face again. “What else?”

“ You tell me— what else are you hiding?” she said. “C’mon, spill it. What is it?”

And I wanted to tell her. The words were at the tip of my tongue— Taland was with me in the Iris Roe.

It would have been so easy.

But I couldn’t because that was not about me. That was his truth to share if he wanted, and I wasn’t going to put him in more danger, not for any reason.

So, I said, “Nothing, Cassie. I’m just tired. I was made to lie—you know I was Mud. They made me lie about it and I hate it.”

“How did you drain that Rainbow, by the way? You never told me,” Cassie said, and I realized she was right.

But to tell her the truth meant to tell her about Taland, and I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to do that, so…

“I made a deal with another player,” I said.

Cassie nodded. “Jack Collins.” That was the name under which Taland had entered the game. Of course, she knew I’d worked with another player—she probably saw all the videos the Council posted.

“Exactly,” I said, my voice getting drier by the second. Fuck, I hated to lie… “Yes, exactly. Jack and I made a deal that he would loan me his magic whenever I needed it, in exchange for a million bucks.”

There. I said it.

And I was willing to bet a limb that Cassie knew it was a lie. She knew, but she paused for only a split second before she whistled and patted me on the shoulder.

“I’d have done it for five hundred grand, I swear. What a lucky fucking bastard,” she said with a grin. “So, does that mean you’re only four million dollars rich? Because that breaks my heart.”

She laughed and laughed, and I joined her, too. The sound of her was contagious, and for a while, that’s all we did.

“But it’s for the best that they decided to lie,” Cassie said after a minute. “Imagine if every Mud out there thought they could win the Iris Roe—just imagine it.” Her eyes sparkled in the dark like she was imagining it—and vividly.

And I did imagine it, too. I had a little girl who thought she could. Who wanted to. Who hoped for exactly that, to win the Iris Roe and to get out of that trailer she lived in.

“I just hate to lie,” I repeated—to her , specifically. About Taland and about that bracelet I’d stolen from the Vault by basically using her.

It had been so stupid, now that I thought about it. I needed to return it before she got in trouble for nothing , a piece of metal, an ugly bracelet without even a name. Fucking hell, I shouldn’t have kept that thing for so long, and I swore to myself that I was going to return it tomorrow, first thing in the morning.

When I left Headquarters, I couldn’t bring myself to go back to the mansion for fear Poppy would be up, waiting for me. I really didn’t want to have to talk to her right now.

Tomorrow. I’d apologize tomorrow.

And I had no other place to go, so naturally, I found myself walking on my tiptoes around that trailer, and going into the forest behind it, sure that Taylor would hear me and come find me in no time. It was almost midnight, but she was always up when I came to visit.

This time was no different.

It took her all of two minutes to find me and to climb up without a word until she sat right next to me on the branch.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” she said.

And together we looked at the moon for a while.

“What was it like in the playground?” Taylor asked, and she had never asked me this before. We’d talk about my home and the IDD and my missions, but she hadn’t once brought up the Iris Roe since that first time.

Tonight, I was in a sharing mood, apparently, because I said, “Bloody. Dark, most of the time. Terrifying.”

“Which was the worst challenge?” she asked in that sweet voice of hers, and before I knew it, she’d grabbed the bracelet from my hands to play with it, like always. She liked to keep her fingers busy with that thing just as much as I did. I let her—why the hell not?

“Hmm. I’m not sure. All were bad in their own way, but the last one was…particularly bad. It was evil. ” They’d made us bond our souls to innocent animals, and then they’d infected the animals with a disease nobody could even heal with their magic, so players had been forced to either sit there on the ice and watch them suffer, or kill them to end their suffering, just to complete the challenge.

Yes— evil was the right word, and Taland had predicted it long before we ended up in the Valley of the Roc.

“What was your favorite?” said Taylor, and it caught me by surprise.

“I didn’t—” have a favorite, I wanted to say, but I stopped. Because I did. “Night City.” It was my favorite because Taland had been there with me. We’d been together from there and to the end.

“What’s Night City?” said Taylor, her eyes wide and her lips parted, and she looked so fascinated I couldn’t help it.

I told her.

I talked about the elves and the orcs, about the buildings and the never-ending night, about Vuvu and even Refiq. I told her about the dragons, too, and the cloud that had made it hail, how that dragonfire had almost reached me before I jumped. I left out the bad things, the threats and the deaths and my almost- end, too, of course. But the rest, I told her. And she found it awfully exciting.

“But then how did you do it?” she wondered. “How did you do the necromancy spell when you were Mud?”

“I—” wasn’t, I started to say, but couldn’t.

I just couldn’t spit out that lie one more time. Not only because she obviously hadn’t believed me the first ten times I told her, but simply because I didn’t want to.

“A friend helped me.” Taland. My Taland. The man I breathed for. The man I would die for. Worse—the man I’d kill for without hesitation.

He’d helped me. He was the reason I was still alive.

“Wow,” whispered Taylor before she turned to the moon again, half a smile on her lips, her eyes wide and bright as if she could see everything I just told her written in the stars tonight.

Maybe she just saw it in her head instead.

Goddess, she was beautiful, this kid. The moonlight that touched her profile made her look like a drawing just now. The satin silver robe I’d bought her that she wore over her pajamas tonight just added to the image of her— like a dream, I thought, just when she said, “I have nice dreams sometimes. Only sometimes.”

I smiled. “What kind of dreams?”

“Just…nice ones. Where I have a house. My own room. Lots of a sketch books and coloring books and colors. And I eat lots of chocolate—my tummy hurts in those dreams.” She threw me a look as if she just realized that she said that out loud, and she thought it was silly, so her cheeks flushed within the second.

I forced myself to laugh a little, hoping she missed the tears in my eyes. “My tummy hurts in plenty of dreams, too,” I assured her. Mostly from fear, but still. I knew the feeling.

She grinned just for a second, then composed herself, and I almost saw me right there on her face. Almost.

A tear slipped from my eye, but I wiped it away casually.

“What else?” I asked, looking up at the sky again.

“Magic,” she said. “I have magic in those dreams. I feel it.”

“That’s…exciting.” Because what else could I say?

“It is,” Taylor said, and it occurred to me that this was the most she’d said in one sitting before. “It’s so cool—like I wave my hand and I whisper a spell and I make light when it’s dark in the woods.” And she waved her hand around dramatically.

Laughter came out of me from the surprise this time—she was usually very calm . And to shock me even more, she laughed, too. It was the first time I heard her laughing.

“It’s so pretty, the light,” she said, then turned to me. “Can you show me how you do it? And can you make it as big as my hand?”

It wasn’t even a question—of course I’d show her. “I think so. Let me try,” I said, and I brought my palm right under her fisted hand, and I chanted the spell to call for a ball of light exactly the size of her fist.

Pain shot down my arm lightning fast, but I was used to it now. I expected it, so I didn’t even flinch. To see the way her eyes lit up with the red flames that brought light to existence, then faded away, was worth it. Completely worth it.

Taylor laughed again. She brought her finger closer to the ball of light and tried to touch it, but it wasn’t concrete, the magic, so her finger went right through, which then made her laugh even more.

“Do you like it?” I asked, feeling more accomplished than I had in a very long time. Feeling… happy for a second there, just to see the way her whole face brightened up.

“It’s amazing,” she said, a bit breathless, then started waving her hand again, whispering the spell I’d just called for the light, but she got two Iridian words wrong.

“It’s Perbo houi luxis ara,” I corrected her, so she started again.

Waving her hand like Iridians did not do, she cleared her throat with a wicked grin on her face.

For the first time since I met her, she actually looked like a kid, and I wished with all my heart that she’d had magic, just for little while. I wished I could give her mine, all of it, just for a moment, so her happiness lasted.

Then she chanted the spell solemnly, “Perbo houi lexis ara.”

The forest exploded into colors.