Once they started moving, he gave in and asked Martha for help. "I can't... tell me when you see flames, not just smoke, alright?" Briar was already seeing them, and he couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't anymore. Even in a jumbled mixup of memory and reality, though, Briar still had faith that he'd know Rosethorn the second he felt her.

"Yes," Briar breathed, coughing after he'd gotten out the word. Martha's promise replaced the desperate chorus of Find them, find them, find them in Briar's head with a slightly calmer mantra of Going to find them.

He withdrew his magic. There were no plants to run it through anymore. Briar would have to find them the old-fashioned way.