Anna Stasia woke under a canopy of pink blossoms, and she was an elf now. She knew this because her ears came to points, her hair fell red past her elbows, and her old human life had ended a heartbeat ago. She had wished, dying, for a world with real magic. Something had listened. Now she sat up in the grass, laughed once, and reached for the power she was sure lived inside her. She waved her hand at a fallen blossom. Nothing happened. She tried again. The blossom stayed on the ground. She needed a teacher. That much was clear. Someone in this world could show her how magic worked. But she had no map, no name, no direction. Then she saw the stones. Flat markers stood between the trees, each carved with runes. Anna Stasia crawled to the nearest one and traced the marks with her finger. The symbols meant nothing to her. She circled the stone, hoping the other side would help. It only held more runes she couldn't read. She checked three more markers. Each carried the same strange writing. Without it, she could not tell which way led to a village, a school, or anyone at all. A snuffling sound broke the quiet. Anna Stasia turned. A blue basset hound waddled out from the blossoms, low to the ground, its skin folded in loose rolls. It had three heads. All three noses pointed at the same stone she had just touched. The center head pressed against the runes. The left head barked twice. Then the whole lumpy body turned and shuffled a few steps away, stopped, and looked back at her. "You want me to follow you," Anna Stasia said. She did not know if that was foolish. She only knew the dog understood the stone, and she did not. She followed. The three-headed hound led her through the trees, past marker after marker, never once slowing at a wrong turn. It sniffed each stone, huffed, and chose a path. Anna Stasia stopped fighting the runes. She let the dog read them for her. The blossoms thinned. Ahead stood a small cottage with a curling, shingled roof and tiny windows lit from within. Vines climbed its walls. Warm light spilled from the door. The hound trotted straight to the step and sat, all three heads facing the door, waiting. Anna Stasia caught her breath. She had solved nothing about the runes herself. She still could not read a single mark. But she no longer needed to. The dog had carried her past that wall to a door, and someone lived behind it. She raised her hand and knocked. Footsteps moved inside. The latch turned.

The door swung inward before Anna Stasia could step back. Warm light poured out. She had knocked without knowing if she'd be welcomed, and now there was no choice but to face whoever lived here. The three-headed hound trotted past her legs into the cottage like it belonged there. Anna Stasia followed. Inside, glass tubes climbed the walls. A long table held beakers of green, blue, and violet liquid. Steam hissed from a coiled pipe. A cauldron sat in the corner, its sides carved with leaves and vines. A woman with bright pink hair bent over the table, both gloved hands wrapped around a bubbling flask. She did not look up. "Hello," Anna Stasia said. "I'm sorry. Your dog brought me here." "Not now." The woman held the flask steady. The liquid inside turned from blue to a sick yellow. "It's running. Don't touch anything." Anna Stasia stayed by the door. She watched the woman pour the yellow liquid into the vine-carved cauldron. It hissed and threw off a thin ribbon of smoke. "I need a teacher," Anna Stasia said. "I'm an elf, but I can't use magic. I don't know how any of this works. Please. I have nowhere else to go." "Bella." The woman said her own name without turning. "And I don't teach." She reached for a small vial and tipped three drops into the cauldron. The smoke went white. "But you're doing magic right now." "Alchemy. Not the same." Bella watched the cauldron like it might run away. "Magic comes from inside you. This comes from the table. Elves get magic for free. I don't." Anna Stasia stepped closer. "I don't get it for free. I've tried. Nothing happens." Bella glanced at her for the first time. Her eyes moved once, up and down, then back to the cauldron. "Then you're broken, or untrained. Either way, not my problem." The cauldron hissed louder. The white smoke darkened. Bella's shoulders locked. "No. No, no." "What's wrong?" "The stabilizer." Bella grabbed a rag and reached for the vessel. "It's turning. Get down." Anna Stasia didn't think. She grabbed the vine-carved cauldron by its cool handles and swung it away from Bella, toward the open door. It burst as she moved. A wet green cloud slapped the wall. The blast knocked Anna Stasia to the floor. Her ears rang. The three heads of the hound barked at once. Smoke cleared. Green sludge dripped from the ceiling. Anna Stasia sat up, coughing, her red hair coated in it. Bella stood untouched. She looked at the ruined cauldron, then at Anna Stasia on the floor. "You pulled it toward the door," Bella said. "That was fast." She set down the rag. "Fine. You can stay. You clean, you fetch, you don't touch a running batch." She frowned at the dripping wall. "And I'll watch why your magic won't come. Someone has to."

The next morning Anna Stasia mopped green sludge off the floor while Bella set up a new batch. The alchemist's cottage looked like something from a picture book, all curling wood and warm little windows, but inside it smelled like burnt copper. On the crowded worktable, tubes bubbled and vessels ticked. Anna Stasia wanted to ask about magic. She waited until Bella straightened up. "You said magic comes from inside," Anna Stasia said. "How? Show me where to start." Bella frowned at her running batch. A blue liquid climbed a coiled tube. She should not have stopped. Anna Stasia saw her decide to stop anyway. Bella picked up a small glass vial of pink liquid, thick with rising bubbles, and turned to face her. "Fine. Magic is a channel," Bella said. She turned the vial in her fingers. "You reach in. You pull. It flows. Elves do it without thinking." She rolled the vial across her palm. "You want. You focus. It answers." The bubbles spun inside the glass as she talked. "I've wanted," Anna Stasia said. "Nothing answers." "Then you're doing it wrong." Bella tapped the vial against the table to make her point. "Feel the pull like a rope. Grab it." Tap. "Don't beg. Take." Tap. Anna Stasia closed her eyes and reached for anything inside her. She found nothing. No rope. No heat. Just her own breath. Behind her, glass cracked. The stopped batch had run past its point. The blue liquid in the tube had turned black. Bella spun toward it and dropped the pink vial. It shattered on the stone. Pink liquid hissed across the floor and mixed with old sludge. A sharp smell rose. "No," Bella said. "That was the last of the base." She grabbed a rag and killed the flame under the black tube. The batch died with a wet gurgle. She stood over the ruined worktable, breathing hard. The three-headed blue hound backed into a corner. All three heads watched the spreading pink stain. Anna Stasia knelt and touched the wet floor. The pink liquid had eaten a pale mark into the stone. "I'm sorry. You stopped for me." "I don't stop." Bella's voice was flat. "I stopped. That's the last time." She looked at the dead batch, then at Anna Stasia. "The base took me three months to distill. I can't make more without a moonflower. They grow deep in the forest." "Then I'll get it," Anna Stasia said. She stood. "I broke your work. I'll fix it." Bella studied her. "You can't read the rune markers. You'll get lost." "The hound reads them." Anna Stasia looked at the three heads in the corner. "It brought me here. It can bring me there." Bella wiped her hands. "Fine. Bring back a moonflower, whole, roots and all. Then I'll believe you're worth teaching." She turned back to the table. "Go before the light drops."