Kolindo crouched in the cattails and counted the vole tracks again. Three sets went into the mud. None came out. The little princess of the creek tribe stood beside her in shimmering water-silks, whiskers trembling. Voleena had asked her to find the beast that took three of her cousins. Kolindo had not told her the rest of her plan. She meant to tame it. The creek ran clear past them, bright with jeweled fish and gemstone crawdads. Her owl watched from a willow branch. Kolindo had hunted here since she was small. She was fast. She was lucky. She could stop time long enough to move her owl between heartbeats. None of that told her what a beast this size ate, or what would send it into a killing rage. "I need help," she said. "Someone who makes things." Voleena pointed upstream. "The fox in the silver hut." The hut sat in a clearing, roofed in filigree, gleaming like poured moonlight. Sylvara Silverwick opened the door before Kolindo knocked. Fox snout, faerie wings, flour on her apron. She looked Kolindo up and down. "Vole business," Sylvara said. "I heard." "I want to tame it. I don't know what it eats. I don't know what scares it. If I guess wrong it kills me." "Then don't guess." Sylvara turned back inside. Kolindo followed. Tools hung on every wall. "I can make you a calming charm. Reads a creature's temper. Tells you what it wants before you offer the wrong thing." "Make it." "I need scale-dust from the rainbow peaks. Treasure dragon country. Bring me a pinch and you'll have your charm by dusk." Kolindo went. She flew the ridges above the tree line, owl beside her, and scraped shed dust from a sunning ledge while the great dragons slept. She stopped time twice to slip past a waking eye. She was back before the shadows turned. Sylvara worked fast. She pressed the dust into a silver disc no bigger than an acorn cap and hung it on a cord. "Warm means fear. Cold means hunger. Still means curious. Don't be clever." Kolindo returned to the creek at dusk. The charm went cold, then still. She pushed through the reeds. The beast crouched in a hollow under the bank. Shaggy, moss-backed, taller than she was on its haunches. Three water voles slept curled against its belly. It had been guarding them. It lifted its head and looked at her with wet, worried eyes. The charm stayed still. "Oh," Kolindo said. Voleena crept out from behind Kolindo's boot and squeaked. One of the sleeping voles stirred and squeaked back. The beast made a low sound that was almost a purr. Kolindo set the charm down in the mud. She had come to tame a killer. She had found a nursemaid who did not know how to bring the children home.

Kolindo left the beast in its hollow with the three sleeping voles and flew back along the creek. The charm hung cold against her collarbone. She had a nursemaid to protect and a princess who still wanted a killer's head. Voleena would not take her word alone. Kolindo needed witnesses. She needed voices Voleena would trust more than her own. Her owl banked toward a crack in the hillside above the reeds. Kolindo had seen the crack before and never gone in. Now she did. The tunnel opened into a wide hall lit by lanterns that were not fire. Silver wood arched overhead. Rainbow stone flecked the walls. Red banners hung slack in the still air. She had heard rumors of a sky tribe grounded by a storm. She had not known they lived under her creek. A figure blocked the passage. Red hoodie, rainbow hair to the waist, robot wings folded tight against their back. The wings did not move. A small flying dog circled their ankles, prism-bright, wearing the same red crest. The dog barked once and lifted off the floor. Its owner did not. "You're above ground," Kolindo said. "You're below it," said Prism Skyweaver. "State your business." "There's a beast at the creek." "We know. That's why we're down here." "It didn't kill the voles. It's hiding them. I have proof." Kolindo held up the charm. "This reads what a creature feels. It went still at the beast. Still means curious. Not hunger. Not fear." Prism looked at the charm. Then at Kolindo. "One trinket." "Come see. Bring anyone. Your tribe listens to logic. The vole princess listens to her tribe's allies. If your people say the beast is gentle, she'll believe it." "Our wings don't work." "You can walk." Prism was quiet. The prism dog landed on their shoulder. "Show me first. Alone. If you're wrong, I go back down and seal the crack." Kolindo led them out. At the hollow, the beast was awake, licking mud from a vole pup's ear. Voleena stood on a stone at the water's edge, arms crossed, guards behind her. She had followed the tracks. She had seen the beast. She had not seen it feed the pup a curl of cress from its own paw. Prism watched for a long moment. "That's not a killer." "Say it to her," Kolindo said. Prism walked to the stone and said it. Flat, short, no softening. The guards lowered their spears. Voleena's arms uncrossed. She stepped down into the mud and touched the beast's foreleg. The beast made the low purr sound. "He stays," Voleena said. "On trial. He guards the haven until I say otherwise." The beast had a home. Prism had walked above ground for the first time since the storm. Kolindo had her witness. And Prism turned to her with a new demand in their eyes: fix the wings.

Prism sat on a flat rock by the creek with their broken wings spread on the moss. Kolindo crouched behind them and touched a bent strut. Metal flaked under her thumb. Pink hair frayed from a torn seam. She had mended arrowheads and vole traps. She had never mended anything that had to fly. If she guessed wrong, Prism would walk forever. She stood up and whistled for her owl. "I don't know how to fix these. But I know who might." The silver hut sat between two roots in the glade, its filigree still bright in the shade. Kolindo knocked. Sylvara opened the door with a file in her teeth and a small green dragon curled around her wrist. She took the file out. "You paid me last week." "I need more," Kolindo said. "Sky tribe wings. Robot bones and hair for feathers. Can you mend them?" Sylvara looked past her at Prism on the path. Her ears flicked back. "Not with what I have." She held up the dragon's tail. Silver thread wound through the scales. "I can bind metal. I can't spin the soft part. That comes from one place. The kitten folk east of here grow it in their fields." "Then I'll trade for some." "They don't trade with fae who bring machines onto their grass. And you have a bird. They hate birds." "I'll leave the owl." Sylvara shrugged and shut the door. Kolindo walked east through grass that turned rainbow under her boots. The bales rose ahead of her, big glittering balls stacked in rows. Kittens tumbled between them. At the center of the field, a tower leaned sideways under a rope-wrapped trunk, cats stitched into every stone. On a cushion above the door floated a very fat kitten with dragonfly wings and a crown. Diamond whiskers caught the sun. Kolindo bowed low. "King Rainbowhisker. I need yarn. Enough to reweave a sky flyer's wings." The king studied her. "Sky flyer. Metal wings." "Yes." "We don't feed metal." "They can't walk home. They can't fly. Without the soft weave, the wings stay dead." A kitten batted at her cape. She held still. The king lifted his scepter and pointed east, past the bales, to a hill where more kittens rolled. "Our purls are missing from the far field. Three of them. Something took them last night. Bring them back. You get yarn." "How long do I have?" "Sundown tomorrow. After that the mothers hunt, and they don't come back until the ground is red." Kolindo nodded. She turned to go. "Fairy." She looked back. "No bird in the field. No stopped time near the bale-purls. It tangles the weave." Her stomach dropped. She had counted on both. She bowed again and walked out through the rainbow grass with her two best tools taken from her before the hunt began.

Kolindo walked back through the rainbow grass with her hands empty. No owl. No stopped time. The far field lay past the last row of glittering bales, quiet in a way that felt wrong. She crouched at the edge and listened. Something big was breathing behind the hill. Something else was mewling — thin and scared, close to the ground. She crawled up the slope. In the hollow below, a plump kitten with dragonfly wings sat frozen in the grass, rainbow fur flattened. Ten paces off, a low shape pushed through the reeds. Broad back. Wet snout. Yellow eyes fixed on the kitten. A field predator, and hungry. Kolindo reached for her knife and found only her belt. She had left even that at the fox hut. "Move and it charges." The voice came from her elbow. Sylvara crouched beside her in the grass, apron dusty, file still behind one ear. Four small dragons clung to her shoulders and tail, silver filigree bright along their scales. Kolindo had never seen the fox leave her workshop. Sylvara did not look at her. "You followed me," Kolindo whispered. "I forgot something." Sylvara pulled a bundle of oilcloth from her apron. "Found this under the bench after you left. Old fox work. My grandmother's." She unrolled it. A tarnished needle lay on the cloth, long as Kolindo's forearm, dull silver. Knotted through its eye was a length of thread that shone every color at once. The braid was frayed in three places. One end had snapped clean. "Dragon silver. Rainbow thread. The old foxes braided it to bind big things." Sylvara touched the broken end. "It's dead like this." "Can you fix it?" "Now?" "Now." Sylvara clicked her tongue. The smallest dragon slid down her arm and bit its own tail. A bead of silver welled up. She caught it on the needle's eye and hummed three notes Kolindo did not know. The frayed places pulled tight. The snapped end wove itself back into the braid. The whole length hardened, then went soft as silk. Below them, the predator crouched to spring. The kitten made a sound like a hiccup. Kolindo took the needle. It weighed nothing. She stood. She whipped the thread out in a wide arc. It sang. She spun it over her head, faster, the needle a bright point at the end, and let the loop drop. The rainbow braid settled around the predator's shoulders before it could turn. She yanked. The thread cinched. The beast hit the dirt on its side, snarling, pinned by a line no tooth would cut. The kitten bolted uphill and slammed into Kolindo's knees. Sylvara stood up, brushing grass off her apron. "Two problems," she said. "One rope. The king will want to hear how his purl was almost eaten." Kolindo held the thrashing line steady. The predator was caught. The kitten was not a purl.