Aurora knelt in the dirt outside her cottage, pressing wet moss against the hippogriff's flank. Blood kept coming. She had built this whole life at Timber Lake to heal creatures like this one, but her garden still refused to bloom. Without those petals, she had only her hands and whatever she could find. The creature shuddered against the stone path. Its saddle was tooled leather, fine work, stitched with a crest she did not know. A short blade hung from the strap, and one stirrup was snapped clean. Whoever had ridden this animal had not climbed down willingly. She ran inside and tore strips from a clean sheet. Back outside, she packed the wound with yarrow from her kitchen jar and bound it tight. The bleeding slowed. It did not stop. Footsteps came hard up the path. A young man with red hair and a torn green vest staggered into the yard, one hand pressed to his own ribs. He saw the hippogriff and dropped to his knees beside it. "How bad," he said. "Bad. I need to move her inside." Aurora pointed to the small stable she had built for nights like this. Together they lifted the creature, slow and careful, and laid her on fresh straw. Aurora coaxed the small fire in the corner brighter for warmth. The hippogriff's breathing steadied. Aurora looked at the stranger. Blood streaked his sleeve too. "Who's chasing you?" she asked. He met her eyes and said nothing for a long moment. "Nobody chases me," he said finally. "They follow. There's a difference." The hippogriff was alive. But whatever had wounded her was still out there, and now it knew the way to Aurora's door.

The hippogriff slept on the straw, but her wound was darkening at the edges. Aurora knew that color. Infection was close. She had nothing in her garden strong enough to stop it. She wiped her hands and turned to the stranger. "There's a greenhouse past the ridge. Rare herbs. Come with me if you can walk." He stood, slow, one hand still on his ribs. They took the path together through the pines. Halfway there, a small russet fox slipped from the ferns and stopped in front of them. It dropped something bright onto the moss and watched Aurora with calm eyes. She knelt. The seed in her palm shimmered with patterns that seemed to move on their own. The fox turned and vanished. Aurora closed her fingers around the seed. "This isn't from any plant I know," she whispered. The stranger looked at it and then at her. "Then plant it," he said. "Whatever it is, it came to you for a reason." They hurried the rest of the way. The greenhouse stood in a clearing, its glass panels catching the afternoon light. Inside, Aurora pulled down a small pot of blessed soil she had saved for something important. She set it on the worktable. Her hands were shaking. She pressed the seed into the dark earth. The stranger reached to steady the pot, and his fingers brushed hers. The soil glowed gold. A green sprout pushed up between their hands, unfurling fast, reaching for the light above them. Aurora stared. The sprout was already budding. Whatever this plant was, it was growing for the hippogriff, and it was growing now. She lifted the pot carefully. "We need to get back," she said. "Before she gets worse." Outside, the wind shifted through the pines, and somewhere beyond the ridge, hooves moved on stone.

They ran the path back through the pines. Aurora cradled the pot against her chest. The little plant pulsed with a soft green light, its leaves opening wider with each step. The stranger kept pace beside her, one hand pressed to his ribs. Hooves struck stone somewhere behind them, closer now. The hippogriff lay where they had left her, breathing shallow in the wildflowers near the log. Aurora knelt and pressed a glowing leaf to the dark wound. The bloom sighed open. Golden light spread across the hippogriff's flank, and the darkened edges began to fade. A branch snapped beyond the trees. Aurora's head snapped up. She had no weapon. She had only what her grandmother had taught her. She pressed both palms to the ground and whispered the old words for hiding small things from large eyes. Warm air rippled out from her hands. The hippogriff, the stranger, and the pot blurred. Straw bloomed over them in long golden strands, heaped and ordinary, smelling of dust and summer barns. Aurora knelt beside the pile with empty hands just as a rider broke from the trees. He sat tall on a pale horse strung with summer flowers, his tunic bright orange against the green. His eyes swept the clearing. "You there. Have you seen a red-haired man, wounded?" Aurora wiped her hands on her apron and shook her head. "Only foxes today, sir. And I've straw to move before dark." She kept her voice flat, tired, the voice of a woman with chores. He studied her a long moment. Then he turned his horse and rode north along the ridge. Aurora waited until the hoofbeats faded. She let the spell drop. The straw thinned to nothing, and the hippogriff lifted her head, eyes clear for the first time in two days. The stranger exhaled. But Aurora's hands were shaking, and she knew the rider would circle back. She had bought them an hour. Maybe two.

The hoofbeats faded into the trees, and Aurora let out a slow breath. The rider was gone, at least for now. She turned to the stranger, who sat pale against the log, one hand still pressed to his ribs. The hippogriff dozed in the grass beside him. Aurora wiped her palms on her apron and gathered her courage. It was time to learn who she had saved. She led him to a quiet spot near the glass fountain, where pale blue water flowed in steady drops. She dipped a clean cloth into the basin and pressed it to his ribs. The water shimmered against his skin. From her satchel she pulled bruisewort and yarrow, crushed them between her fingers, and packed them against the wound. He flinched but did not pull away. "You don't have to trust me," she said softly. "But I need a name." He studied her for a long moment. "Kieran," he said at last. "Kieran Thornbound." His voice was low and careful. She nodded and kept working. The glowing sprout pulsed in its pot beside them, leaves bending toward him as if it knew. When his color returned, she helped him to his feet. The hippogriff lifted her head, then settled again near the warm embers of a small fire Aurora had built. Inside the cottage, Aurora ladled stew into bowls at the small wooden table. Bread steamed beside a clay pot. He ate slowly, watching her with green eyes that gave away nothing. "Who's chasing you?" she asked. He set down his spoon. "People who think they own me. They don't. They have leverage." He paused. "There's a difference." Aurora waited, but he said no more. She did not press. She had learned patience from wounded animals. They told you what they could, when they could. By the time the bowls were empty, she knew two things. He was not her enemy. And whoever wanted him back would not stop at one rider. Aurora rose, latched the shutters, and looked at the man at her table. She had chosen her side. The garden would have to bloom faster now.

Dawn came gray and cold. Aurora carried a small wooden table out to the yard, where the hippogriff rested in the grass beside a weathered log. Kieran followed, slower, one hand at his ribs. They had maybe an hour before the summer court rider circled back. She set down ink, a kettle, and waited for him to speak. Kieran reached into his vest and laid a talisman on the table. Gold curled around bright gems. Aurora knew the crest. The court of dreams. "This is mine," he said. "They want it back. They want me back with it." He did not explain further. He did not need to. Aurora unrolled a folded map of the fae courts and pinned its corners with stones. She traced the summer border with one finger. "He'll come from here," she said. "That gives us the lake side and the ridge." Kieran studied the lines. "Hide, or move?" he asked. "Both," she said. "You move at dusk. I stay and lie to him again." He shook his head once. "If he presses you, he'll burn the cottage." "Then I give him a trail going north," she said. "You go south with the hippogriff. My neighbor will leave a lantern at the ridge if the path is clear." Kieran's jaw tightened. "You shouldn't carry this for me." "I already am," she said. She pulled the glowing sprout from her apron pocket and set it beside the talisman. Its leaves leaned toward him again. "The garden isn't ready," she said quietly. "But this one bloom is. Take it. If the wound opens on the ride, press a leaf to it." He closed his hand around the pot like it was something breakable. They shook on the plan over the table. Kieran tucked the talisman away. Aurora rolled the map and walked to the stable to ready the saddle. The hippogriff lifted her head, alert now. The plan was set. Dusk would decide the rest.