Celestra Winterbloom had spent her whole life inside one wood, and now she needed to leave it. Her grandmother's stories said the ancient elven bloom once bridged the mortal and spirit realms. To wake that bloom again, Celestra had to find a place where the veil ran thin. She knew of no such place. So she followed the only clue she had: her frost magic. Where her breath froze in warm air, the two realms brushed close. For three days she walked past the last trees she recognized. Her wicker basket held wilted herbs and little else. On the fourth morning, her breath turned white in a clearing that should have been warm. The grass here grew silver. She knelt and pressed her palm to the cold ground. This was the place. The veil was thin here. A shriek split the air. Celestra spun. A creature dropped from the sky, all claws and tattered wings and hungry fangs. Its eyes burned purple. She ran, tripping over roots, and drew her slender dagger. The blade shook in her hand. The creature dove. She slashed at empty air and fell hard, her ankle twisting beneath her. Then something else moved. A second shape hit the winged creature from the side. It was tall, covered in dark fur, its head a bleached wolf skull with embers glowing in the hollow sockets. It struck the winged beast with clawed hands and drove it back. The creature screamed, beat its ragged wings, and fled into the trees. Silence fell over the silver grass. Celestra pushed herself up on her good arm. Her ankle throbbed. The dagger had slipped from her fingers into the grass. She could not reach it in time. The fur-covered shape turned toward her. Slowly it walked closer, its clawed feet quiet on the ground. To Celestra, it looked like a second monster come to finish what the first had started. She grabbed for her dagger. Her fingers closed on the hilt. She held the blade up between them, arm trembling. "Stay back," she said. Her voice cracked. "Stay back, or I'll cut you." The creature stopped. Its ember eyes fixed on her, and on the small blade shaking in her fist. It did not lunge. It did not speak. It simply stood over her, close enough that she smelled smoke and old fur. Celestra pressed her back against a tree and could go no farther. She had found the thin place at last. She had found the very ground she needed to begin her search. But she could not move. Her ankle would not hold her weight, and the thing that had saved her now blocked her only way out.

Celestra kept the dagger raised. Her back pressed into the tree bark. The wolf-skull creature stood over her, still as stone. Its ember eyes did not blink. She waited for claws. None came. "Put it down," the creature said. Its voice was rough, like gravel. "You will fall on it." Celestra did not move. "You saved me. Then you trapped me." "I did not trap you." It stepped back, giving her space. "Your leg trapped you. I stayed so the winged one would not return." She stared at the skull, at the fur, at the claws that could open her throat. Her arm shook from holding the blade. The pain in her ankle burned up her leg. She weighed the choice. If she stabbed him, she still could not walk. If she trusted him, he might kill her anyway. "Your name," she said, buying time. "Orpheus." He crouched, slow, so his eyes met hers. "You are bleeding. I can smell it. And I can smell your fear. Both are loud." The blunt honesty startled her. A monster would not warn her. She lowered the dagger an inch. "Can you carry me?" she asked. He did not answer with comfort. "Yes. But you should know the truth first." He went quiet a moment. "Sometimes I lose myself. I wake, and something is dead beside me. If that happens, run." Celestra's grip tightened again. Here was the danger, spoken plain. But he had spoken it. That mattered. She thought of the silver-grass clearing, the frozen breath, the thin veil she had crossed three days to find. She could not search for the ancient bloom with a ruined ankle and a winged thing hunting her. "I need help," she said. "I will trust you until you give me reason not to." She lowered the dagger and slid it into her belt. Orpheus lifted her without effort. His fur smelled of smoke and old ash. He carried her from the clearing, through the trees, to a wooden lodge patched with mismatched boards. Inside stood a wide bed dressed in black furs. He set her on it. From a shelf he took a bundle of white bandages and small supplies. He knelt and wrapped her swollen ankle with careful hands, claws tucked back so they would not cut her. "Rest," he said. "The winged one comes at dark." Celestra sank into the furs. She was safe, for now, in the home of a creature who feared himself more than she feared him. But she was no closer to the bloom. The thin place lay back in the open clearing, guarded by a beast with purple eyes. "That clearing," she said. "I must go back to it. There is something I have to wake there." Orpheus paused at the door. "Then you will need the winged one dead," he said. "It will not let you near."