Anika knelt at the cracked edge of her pond and watched the last of her magic sink into the mud. Her wand sputtered a weak green spark, then nothing. She was a water fairy. Without water, her silver wings would go brittle, and she would never reach the storm prince whose lightning had scorched them twice already. She still meant to win him. She could not court him as a husk. The long-haired fairy found her there, hair dragging through the dust where a stream used to run. She was the elder Anika went to when things broke. She did not soften it. "Go to the storm prince's castle. Ask him for a feather from his wing, the braided one. Storm water lives in it. Bring it back, or your lands die by the next moon." Anika flew before her courage cooled. Her light purple dress snapped against the dry wind. She rehearsed the ask in her head, softer each time, until she almost believed he would simply hand it over. She never reached the castle. He met her over the pine ridge, already in the air, black hair wild, scars bright on both arms. He did not recognize her from a distance. He saw a fairy in his sky and threw a bolt. It clipped her right wing. The silver curled and blackened. Anika dropped hard through the branches, hit dirt, and rolled. Her wand skittered into the brush. Above her, he hovered, squinting down, and she saw the moment he realized who she was. His mouth opened. She did not wait for the apology. She grabbed her wand and ran into the trees. She ran until her wing stopped screaming and started throbbing. Then she heard paws. Three wolves stepped out of the ferns. Pale marks glowed along their flanks like drawn runes. The lead one, a lean gray female with green eyes, lowered her head to Anika's height and sniffed the burned wing. "You're leaking," the wolf said. "Not blood. Magic. Follow." Anika hesitated. The wolf was already walking. The other two flanked her, gentle at her elbows, nudging her upright when she stumbled. They did not speak. They led her uphill, away from the dead lowlands, into stone country she had never flown over. They stopped at a spring tucked between weathered rocks. Clear water fell in three thin sheets into a basin. Anika smelled it before she saw it and felt her chest unlock. "Drink," the gray wolf said. "It is hidden from droughts. It will hold you until you finish what you started." Anika stepped into the basin. The water climbed her legs and her wing knit closed, tender but whole. Her wand brightened in her hand. She had her magic back. She also had a debt to wolves she did not know, a burned meeting with the prince behind her, and a feather still to take from him.