Guardian Doom wanted one tree. A tree tall enough to shelter every hunted creature in the Crypt. For that he needed a single seed, and the fifty-foot skeleton could not grow it alone. He walked through the meadow where spider webs hung heavy with dew, each strand catching light like glass. He stopped to watch a beetle climb a wet stalk. Even now, with the whole plan waiting on him, he could not help but look. Glow wisps drifted past his ankle bones. The smallest one darted up to his eye socket and froze. Her light flickered fast, afraid. "Leave," she said. "Demon lobsters are coming. They want your wife. She carries the sacred light in her heart, and they mean to eat her for it." Guardian Doom turned. Nyxis stood beside him, where she always stood. Her wings folded tight. Her yellow eyes did not move from the tree line. "Let them come," she said. He did not want that. He gripped his staff, the tall one crowned with a kindly skull, its eyes glowing warm. He raised it. The whole meadow darkened. His ribs widened. The soft watcher of beetles was gone. What stood now was the thing that only woke when something he loved was threatened. The shells burst from the grass. A dozen red bodies, claws snapping, scrambling toward Nyxis. Guardian Doom swept the staff low. Green light rolled across the meadow and pinned them flat. They clicked and strained and could not rise. A crow beast dropped from the webs above. Dark feathers, wicked face, benevolent hands. Corvina landed in the grass and crouched over the pinned lobsters. "I was passing," she said. "Don't make it a thing." She pressed her palm to the nearest shell. The creature stilled. Its hunger drained out like water. One by one she touched them. One by one they grew calm and crawled back into the dirt, harmless. "You could have left them crushed," Nyxis said. "I don't do that," Corvina said. "Unfortunately." The threat was gone. Guardian Doom lowered the staff. His ribs settled. He let the fear pass out of him. But the smallest wisp hovered near his skull, still trembling. "They will keep coming," the wisp said. "The light in her heart draws them. It is a fairy light. Only the one who made such light can shield it. The seed you want for your tree, and the shield she needs, come from the same place. Magi Lune. The fairy of the fern valley." Guardian Doom went still. He knew the name. He had raised a fairy from birth once and taught her his own magic, and Magi Lune had never forgiven him for it. She would not open her door to him gladly. But Nyxis needed a shield, and his tree needed a seed. Both waited in the same hands. He turned toward the fern valley. The one visit he had sworn never to make was now the only road left.