Blossom knelt beside the fourth emptied nest just after dawn, counting the signs others had missed. The threat was moving faster than she'd predicted. She needed every creature gathered and safe before the pattern reached the heart of the Glen, where the oldest roots still held warmth. A rustle came from the undergrowth beyond the nest's edge. Blossom turned as a small form stumbled forward, dragging one hind leg. It was a field mouse, its fur matted with dirt and dried blood. The creature took three more steps before collapsing at her feet. Blossom moved without thinking, lifting the mouse gently in both hands. Something small and wooden pressed against her palm. The mouse's paw was clenched tight around a carved locket, holding a pressed rose petal behind a tiny glass face. Blossom recognized it immediately — this was no wild creature but one of the nestkeepers from the southern ring, the ones who carried tokens from the families they protected. The mouse's eyes fluttered open once, met hers with desperate clarity, then closed. Its chest still rose and fell. She had a survivor now, and survivors could tell her what the emptied nests could not. Blossom looked past the mouse to the ground where it had fallen. The earth was torn up in ragged strips, flower petals crushed into the dirt. Deep claw marks scored the soil in sets of four, dragged inward toward the nest. The marks were fresh, still damp at their edges. She traced one with her finger and felt the depth — whatever made these was twice the size she'd guessed. The nestkeeper had crawled through this to reach her. That meant the threat wasn't just emptying nests anymore. It was hunting anything that tried to escape. Blossom wrapped the mouse carefully in the edge of her sleeve and stood. The haven she'd planned to build at the outer rings wouldn't be far enough. She would have to bring every creature to the center now, surround them with watchers, and face the threat when it arrived. She pulled a golden rod from her pack and drove it into the soil beside the torn ground. The banner wrapped around it caught the morning light, bright enough to be seen from the next three clearings. Every creature in the Glen knew what the markers meant: danger beyond this point, turn back to the center. Blossom had placed two others overnight. Now she had eight more to set before the pattern closed in. She cradled the wounded nestkeeper against her chest and started walking. The gathering had begun.

Blossom carried the wounded nestkeeper toward the center, walking the ridge path where the roots ran deepest. The mouse's breathing had steadied against her chest, but it hadn't woken since the clearing. She needed it to wake. She needed to know what was coming. She stopped at the old southern gate, the one she'd trusted to hold the boundary while she worked inward. The wooden fence stretched in both directions, its carved posts woven with protective wards that had stood for three generations. The gate itself still glowed faintly in the morning light, its barrier intact. But when Blossom looked closer, her breath caught. The fence to the left of the gate had a hole torn through it at ground level, the wood splintered outward as if something had burst through from inside the Glen. Fresh claw marks scored the edges. The nestkeeper stirred against her chest, eyes opening halfway. Its voice came out barely louder than breath. "Came through... behind the banners... already inside." Then its eyes closed again. Blossom stared at the broken fence, then back toward the center where she'd been driving every creature. The threat hadn't been moving inward from the southern ring at all. It had crossed the boundary days ago, and she'd been pushing the Glen's creatures directly toward it. She turned and started running. Blossom reached the first banner marker within minutes and tore it from the ground. The golden rod bent in her hands as she snapped it across her knee and threw the pieces into the brush. She ran to the next clearing and pulled down that marker too, then the third. Her chest burned but she didn't slow. Every creature following those signs was walking into a trap she'd built herself. When she reached the fourth marker, she stopped long enough to turn the banner around, repositioning it to point creatures back toward the outer rings instead of inward. The nestkeeper's locket pressed against her ribs through her sleeve. She pulled eight more rods from her pack and began placing them in a new pattern, forming a ring that would guide the creatures away from the center and toward the cold root paths at the edge. It wasn't a haven anymore. It was a scatter point. She would lose the center of the Glen, and with it the promise she'd made to protect it. But the creatures would live long enough to find shelter beyond the boundary, and that was the only choice left that meant anything. By midday she'd reversed every marker and set new ones along the stream that ran through the outer edge. The water flowed clear over smooth stones, bordered by flowers still untouched by whatever hunted behind her. She laid the nestkeeper in soft grass beside the bank and pressed her palm to its chest until she felt the heartbeat beneath the fur. It would survive if she left it here, far from the center. The gathering she'd planned was finished before it started. Now she would walk back toward the threat alone and see what had already claimed the heart of her Glen.

Blossom stood frozen on the ridge path, listening to the scraping below. She'd thought she was choosing between saving the cottage and protecting the scattered, but the threat had already made that choice for her. It knew she would come. The bird's message hadn't been a warning—it had been an invitation. She looked down at the claw-marked log beside the path, then back toward the stream where the nestkeeper and the wounded bird waited. She could still turn around. Let the twelve in the cottage face what they'd chosen by refusing to leave. But her feet moved forward instead. Not toward the cottage, but around it, tracing a wide arc through the thickest brush where the thorned vines grew dense and wild. If the threat expected her to come straight down the path, she'd come from the side. She pushed through the barrier of twisted vines, thorns catching at her sleeves and scratching her arms. The cottage came into view below: pale stone walls, bright flowers still blooming around the wooden door, and circling it completely, a wall of living thorns that hadn't been there two days ago. The vines had grown overnight, sealing the cottage inside a prison of branches and barbs. No one was getting in. No one was getting out. Blossom crouched at the edge of the vine wall and pressed her ear to a gap between the thorns. Inside, she heard voices—low, frightened, but alive. Twelve creatures still breathing. The threat hadn't killed them yet because it was waiting for something bigger. Waiting for her. She pulled a golden banner rod from her pack and wedged it into the thickest part of the vine barrier, then snapped it sideways with all her weight. The wood cracked and the vines shifted, thorns scraping against stone. A gap opened, barely wide enough for something small to slip through. She leaned close and called through the opening. "South side. One at a time. Go to the stream." She didn't wait to see if they listened. She turned and ran back up the ridge path, boots loud on stone, making as much noise as she could. The scraping sound below stopped. Then it started again, faster now, moving toward her instead of the cottage. She'd drawn it away, but only for as long as it took to catch her. The twelve would have minutes, maybe less, to break through the gap and scatter. She'd given them a chance, but she'd also made herself the new target. The center of the Glen was lost. The promise she'd made to hold it was broken. But the creatures would live, and that was the only kind of protection left that she could still deliver.