Avian Willowsong had chased one song his whole life, and now the forest refused to let him finish it. He stood where the last clear path dissolved into a snarl of trunks and vines. Somewhere past these trees waited the spirit court, and the lost ballad said to call them into song. He had the melody half-written in his head. He only needed to reach them. But the deeper woods had grown shut, trunks crowded close, and no gap showed him the way forward. He wore his faded purple coat, the lute slung across his back. He plucked three soft notes and listened. Last spring the trees had parted for his music. Now the sound died in the thickets and told him nothing. His silver fox pressed against his boot, ears flat, unwilling to step past the tree line. The little creature had followed him through every wood in Tatterton. Today it would go no farther. Avian knelt and stroked the fox's white-tipped tail. "I know," he said. "I can't see the path either." A butterfly drifted down and circled his head, trailing faint sparks that hummed like plucked strings. The bright wings tried to lead him left. He followed ten steps and struck a wall of brambles. The butterfly had no more sense of this tangle than he did. He sat on a root and almost turned back. Then a dry voice spoke above him. "Lost already? And you call yourself a singer." A raven watched him from a low branch. Its black feathers shone blue at the edges, and its eyes were far too sharp. Avian had heard old tales of a bird that spoke and knew every hidden road through the deep forest. He had thought them only tales. "You know the way to the spirit court," Avian said. "I know every way," the raven said. "The trees hide it on purpose. They don't open for pretty tunes." It cocked its head. "They open for a promise." "Name it." "When you finish that ballad, I hear it first. Before the court. Before anyone." The raven clicked its beak. "A bird gets lonely, singer." Avian looked at the fox, then the wall of trees. He had no better guide and no second chance. "Agreed," he said. The raven dropped from the branch and glided low between two trunks that Avian would have sworn were joined. A narrow gap opened where none had been. "Keep up," it called. "And don't trust your eyes in here." Avian whistled the fox forward and followed the black wings into the shut forest. The brambles let him pass. Behind him the gap closed, sealing the way back. He could not turn around now. He could only go where the raven led, deeper toward the court, bound by a promise he did not yet know how to keep.