Lena Marsh pricked her finger on a needle that wasn't there. She was pulling thread from empty air again, blue thread this time, coiling it above the counter of her shop. Her father slept in the room above her, breath rattling through the floorboards. The garment on her table was half-finished: a long shirt of pale linen meant to draw the sickness out of him. She did not know yet if it would work. She only knew she had thread now, and hands that made it, and a father who would not last another winter without something more than tea. The bell over her door rang before she could hide the thread. Governor Calloway Hild stepped inside, silver hair combed flat, spectacles fogged from the cold. He smiled the way he smiled at market days. Two of his men stayed on the step. He looked at the blue thread hanging in the air, then at her blue-tinted nose, then at the shop banners moving in the draft. "They say you spin from nothing," he said. "They say your nose goes bluer when you do it." Her hands went still. The thread dropped and lay across the linen like a vein. "I sew," she said. "You do more than sew." He set a folded paper on her counter. A closure order. His seal, already stamped. "Outsiders don't hold shops in my village. Not without my permission." Her sister came down the stairs then, paint on her knuckles, purple hair still tangled from the woods. Linny had been home four days. She stopped on the last step and read the room in one look. "You're closing us," Linny said. "I'm offering," Hild said. He kept his eyes on Lena. "Marry me. I'll call your gift a blessing. I'll send your cloth to every city on the coast. Your name will be known." He tapped the paper. "Refuse, and you're outsiders by nightfall. Banished. The three of you. In this weather." Lena thought of her father's cough. She thought of Linny's boots, still stained from the clearing. She thought of the half-finished shirt. The door opened again. Nell Larkspur stepped in without knocking, snow on his shoulders, the fox at his heel. The governor's men did not stop him. They stepped back. Nell looked at the paper on the counter, then at Hild. "Leave," Nell said. "This isn't your business, half-blood." "It is now." Hild's smile thinned. He picked up the closure order, folded it once, and slid it into his coat. "Three days," he said to Lena. "Answer me in the square. Or pack." He left. The bell rang behind him. Linny turned on Lena. "You're not marrying him." "No," Lena said. Her hands had started moving again, pulling thread without her asking. "I'm finishing the shirt. Before the third day." Upstairs, her father coughed.

Nell came down from the hill at dusk. He didn't knock. He shut the shop door behind him and stood in the lamplight with snow melting off his boots. The fox slipped in beside him and settled by the hearth. Linny was upstairs, changing the water in their father's basin. Lena had the half-finished shirt spread across her counter. She had been staring at it for an hour. "You can't marry him," Nell said. Flat. He looked at her hands, then away. "Hild." "I know." Lena smoothed the linen. "You'd take banishment." "I'd take the shirt finished first." Her fingers pulled a thread from the air without her meaning to. It hung there, blue. "Once he's well, he'll know what to do. He always did." Nell watched the thread. "You believe that." "I have to." He was quiet. Then: "Tell me what you need." She touched the collar of the shirt. "Something of him. In the weave. Or the magic goes through him and out the other side. Like pouring water on a stone." She had learned this reading her mother's old notes at the counter that morning. It had taken her until noon to understand the word essence. It had taken her until now to say it aloud. "Blood. Breath. Something living. And a way to pull it into the thread without killing what's left of him." "He's too weak for a cut." "I know." A small sound from the corner. The chipmunk she'd made a jacket for last week sat on the windowsill, snow on its petal-shaped ears, watching them with round eyes. Lena had forgotten she'd left the window cracked. She closed it gently. The chipmunk didn't move. "There's a witch," Lena said, not looking at him. "In the woods. They say she can pull a thing out of a body without breaking it." "No." Nell's voice dropped. "Not her." "Nell —" "You don't know what she takes." "Do you?" He didn't answer. That was answer enough. She had heard the name before, the way people said it in the shop and then apologized for saying it. She hadn't known he'd already paid something to her. "I'll find another way," he said. "Give me the night. There are books at the library. There's my mother's line. Something." Lena looked at the shirt. Two days left. Her father coughed above them, thin and wet through the ceiling. "All right," she said. "The night." He held her eyes a moment longer, then went. The fox followed. The bell rang once behind them. Lena waited until the sound of his boots faded down the cobblestone. Then she took her cloak from the peg. She banked the fire. She wrote a note for Linny and left it under the thimble on the counter. She went out the back way, toward the woods.

Lena was past the woodpile when boots hit the snow behind her. Linny caught her sleeve at the edge of the yard, breath white and fast. "Back inside," Linny said. "I have until tomorrow night." "You have until they smell you." Linny didn't let go. "The fae have our scent from the ridge. Mine worse than yours. Nell's not with you. You go past the tree line without him and we're both taken, and Father dies alone in that bed while a witch you've never met sits waiting for you to say her name." Lena's hands went still at her sides. The note under the thimble suddenly felt stupid. "Then what," she said. Linny let go of her sleeve. "We need something that kills them. And I know who to ask. I'm not happy about it." They cut across the square by lamplight. Linny walked ahead, hat pulled low, coat paint bright even in the dark. She stopped in front of a cobblestone shop with silver trim gleaming along the eaves. She stared at the door a second longer than she needed to, then knocked. The man who opened it was broad and clean, sleeves rolled, apron scorched at the hem. He looked at Linny first. His mouth flattened. "You," he said. "Forge." "Thought you left." "I came back." He stepped aside without inviting them. The shop smelled of coal and oil. Rings and spoons lay in a tray on the counter. Behind them, half-drawn on butcher paper, a long blade profile. "My sister needs iron," Linny said. "The kind that bites fae." Forge looked at Lena. Her blue hair, her blue-tinted nose, her still hands. Then back at Linny. "Who's hunting you." "Things past the ridge," Linny said. "They have our scent." "Why me." "Because no one else in this village would even try." He didn't answer that. He wiped his hands on a rag. "Iron won't hold an edge on its own. You want cold iron with silver in the weld. I have three pieces down the stairs. They aren't finished." "Finished enough to cut?" Lena asked. "Enough to kill something once, if you don't miss." He looked at Linny again. "Last time you stood in this shop you told me to stop wasting steel." "I was wrong," Linny said. Flat. Closed. Forge held her eyes a moment. Then he lifted the counter panel and jerked his chin at the dark behind it. "Down," he said. "Both of you. Don't touch the quench barrel." The stairs went under the shop into a low room warm with banked coals. Three blades lay on a bench, rough and dark, silver seams running their spines. Lena picked one up. It was heavier than she expected. Her hand didn't shake. Linny took another. "Now we can walk," she said. Lena nodded. “To the witch we go.”

They left the village before full dark. The blade in Lena's coat knocked her hip with every step. Linny walked ahead through the snow, hat low, purple hair catching lamplight from the last house. Past the last fence, the trees closed over them. The ridge waited beyond a slope of frost-laden pines, their branches shining like glass in the moon. "He won't forgive you," Linny said. "For going to her." Lena kept walking. "Nell doesn't get a say in this." "He does. You just don't want to give it." Linny stopped at a downed log and swung her leg over. "You don't know what her help costs." "Do you?" "I know what it cost him." Linny's voice went flat. "He took her hand. That's a debt. She'll name the price when she wants to, and he'll pay it. For me." Lena's hands went still inside her sleeves. She had not known that. She had not asked. They crossed into a stand of frost-white pines. Something small moved at the base of a trunk. A chipmunk, pale-furred, pink at the ears, watching them with round wet eyes. It did not run. Lena thought of the tiny jacket her hands had made without her permission. She kept walking. "Are you scared?" Linny asked. "Yes." "Good." The ground sloped. Ahead, between two leaning trunks, pale wisps drifted low over a ring of mushrooms. Blue and violet caps glowed under the moss. The Whispering Glen. Lena stopped at its edge. Her breath shook. "Do you like him," Linny said. “Nell?” "He's a friend." "Lena." "He's a friend." She said it again to make it true. The kiss sat behind her teeth. She swallowed it. "If I lose Nell’s trust doing this, I can live with it. If I lose Father, I can't." Linny watched her a long moment. "You won't say it. Even out here." "Say what." "That you want something." Linny shook her head. "A fae boy. You. It'd be the bravest thing you ever did. That's why you won't." Lena stepped past her, into the ring. Nothing struck her. The mushrooms held. She turned and put her hand out. Linny took it and crossed. They’d be safe in here. Safe enough to summon the witch. Inside the ring, the wisps thickened. The air went warm. Lena spoke the name into it. "Polona. Polona. Polona." The trees behind them creaked and leaned. A door opened where no door had been, cut into a trunk wide as a house, lit from inside by a low green flame. A woman stood in it. Silver hair. Eyes too bright for her face. Neither young nor old. "Marsh girls," the witch said. "Both of you.” She grinned with a tilt of her head. “Oh, how he'll be angry." "I need a magical trinket," Lena said. "Something that’ll pull the essence from my father without weakening him." Polona smiled, and it was not kind. "Come in then, and we’ll talk about what you'll owe." The sisters hesitated before looking at each other. They stepped out of the circle and through the threshold

Inside, the cottage was warmer than any winter house had a right to be. A green flame burned low in a stone hearth. Dried herbs hung from the beams. Runes cut into the door frame caught the firelight and held it. Polona shut the door behind them. The sound was small and final. Linny stayed near the wall, one hand near her coat where the iron blade sat. Polona sat at a table that had not been there a moment ago. "Sit." Lena sat. Linny did not. "The trinket you want is simple," Polona said. "A needle.You thread it, you draw one breath of your father through the eye, and the shirt takes the essence without taking him. Obtaining the needle is a journey. And I will show you where to start.” She tilted her head. "If you pay the price." "Name it," Lena said. Her hands were flat on the wood and would not move. "Your mother's gift. The spinning. I take it when the shirt is finished. Not before." Lena's mouth opened. Nothing came. "You would still have the shirt," Polona said. "Your father would still be well. You would sew like any other seamstress after. Needle and thread. No more cloth from air." "That's our mother," Linny said from the wall. "That's the only piece of her we have left." "I know what it is." Polona did not look at Linny. "That is why it is worth the magic." Lena thought of her father's chest rising slow under the quilt. Two days now. Maybe less. She thought of the tiny jacket her hands had made for the chipmunk without asking her. She thought of the shirt half-finished on her table, still hungry for the living thing it needed. "Pay it in pieces," Lena said. "Part now. Part later." "No." "Something else. Years. Service. I'll owe like he owes." "You have nothing else I want." Polona's bright eyes held on her. "Lost things find me. Your mother's gift is lost inside you. You barely use it. You’re afraid of it. It came to me before you walked in." Linny stepped off the wall. "Lena. We leave. We find another way." "There is no other way! We have two days," Lena said. "Then he dies knowing you." Linny's voice cracked once and set. "Loving you and knowing you carry a piece of the love of his life." Lena looked at her own hands, pricked and blue at the tips. She thought of her mother teaching her to pull thread from nothing, laughing when it came out crooked. “You’re sure there is nothing else,” she whispered. Polona’s hand clasped hers. It was supposed to be comforting. It was not. “No, my dear.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “Lena. We find something else,” Linny warned. She shook her head. There was nothing else. “I’ll pay once my father is well.” She met the witch’s unshaking gaze. “If it is truly worth the price, then it is worth your patience.” Polona nodded once, as if she had already known. “Go to my sister,” she said. “I don’t know what she does now. We’ve never been friends. But she’ll know how to get the needle.” Lena shook her head. She had nothing more to give. “It won’t cost,” the witch said as if she knew. “Fern Nattle.”

Polona opened the cottage door and the warmth went with her. She stepped into the trees and did not look back. The runes on the frame went dark. The table was gone. Lena and Linny stood in wet leaves with the cold biting through their coats. "Move," Linny said. They started down the slope toward the glen. Lena kept the witch's directions in her head like a thread she could not drop. Fern Nattle. The librarian. Home before dawn. A branch snapped behind them. Then another, closer. Lena's hands went still at her sides. "Run," Linny said. They ran. The frost trees closed in on either side, icy branches raking Lena's sleeves. Something pale moved between the trunks, keeping pace. Then two. Then more. Lena counted five before she stopped counting. The mushroom ring appeared ahead, blue and pink caps glowing at the base of the twisted trees. Linny grabbed her wrist and yanked her inside. They stumbled into the center of the ring, blades out, backs together. The fae stopped at the edge. Long limbs. Wet black eyes. They circled the mushrooms and did not cross. "They can't come in," Lena whispered. "We can't stay in." One fae reached a thin arm across the ring, testing. Linny cut it. It hissed and pulled back. Two more pressed forward from behind. Lena looked at her own hands. She thought of the chipmunk's jacket. She thought of thread from nothing. "Keep them off me," she said. "What?" "Just do it." Lena knelt. She pulled thread from the air between her palms, blue and fast, twisting it into a strap thick as her wrist. Linny turned and slashed at the nearest fae, opening its shoulder. A second lunged and she drove the iron blade through its throat. Lena stood with the strap in both hands. A fae reached across the ring for her. She whipped the strap around its wrists and pulled. The thread cinched tight and held. The fae shrieked and thrashed and could not break it. "It works," Linny said, breath ragged. Her blade caught a third fae across the ribs. The edge came away dull. She looked at it. "Lena." Four more stepped out of the trees. Lena started another strap. Her fingers shook. The thread came slower. A blade flashed from the dark and took the nearest fae through the neck. Then another. Sterling Forge stepped between two trunks with a short iron sword in each hand, sleeves rolled, apron gone. He moved through the fae like he was finishing a piece of work. Linny stared. "You came." "Blade needed testing." Forge cut down another. "Yours is dull. Trade." He tossed her a fresh one. She caught it. The last fae broke and ran. The woods went quiet. Lena's strap lay across the moss with the bound fae still twitching inside it. "Librarian," Lena said. "Before dawn." Forge nodded once and led them out of the ring.

Forge walked them out of the trees just as the first gray light came up behind the ridge. Lena made it to the edge of the village before her legs went. She caught the fencepost with one hand and slid down it. The thread work had taken more than she had to give. "Up," Linny said. She got a shoulder under Lena's arm. "Not here. Not in the street." Forge took the other side without asking. They half-carried her through the empty lanes to the cobblestone shop with the vines on the front. Linny kicked the door open and they got Lena onto the bench by the cold hearth. Her hands lay in her lap and would not close. "Fern," Lena said. "I have to get to Fern." "You have to sit," Linny said. She pressed the back of her hand to Lena's forehead. It came away wet. "You're gray. You spun until there was nothing left. You go out that door now and you fall in a ditch." "There isn't time." "There's less time if you're dead." Linny turned to Forge. "Get Nell." Forge did not move. "He'll ask what happened." "Let him." "He'll know she went to the witch." "He'll know anyway. Go." Forge looked at Lena once, then at the door. "I don't like walking up that hill to talk to him." "Noted," Linny said. "Go." He went. Lena shut her eyes. "Don't tell him what I traded." "I won't." "Linny." "I said I won't." They waited. The shop ticked and settled around them. Upstairs their father coughed once in his sleep and was quiet again. Lena counted the coughs the way she used to count stitches. The door opened without a knock. Nell came in first, the fox at his heel, its green tail dragging leaves across the floor. Forge came in behind him and shut the door. Nell crossed to the bench and knelt. He took Lena's wrist, two fingers on the pulse. His jaw was set hard enough to see it move. "You went back to her," he said. "Yes." “You promised,” he all but growled. A tear slipped down Lena’s cheek and his shoulder fell a touch. He brought his free hand up and dragged the tear away. "What did you give her?” he whispered, almost a plea. Lena opened her mouth. Linny stepped between them. "A trinket for a trinket. Nothing you need." Nell's green eyes flicked up to Linny and held. Linny did not move. After a moment he looked back at Lena. He did not let go of her wrist. "Bread," he said to Forge. "Broth if there's any. The kettle." Forge went to the stove. Nell pulled a small cloth pouch from his vest and shook dried leaves into his palm. He crushed them and held them under Lena's nose. Her head cleared a half-step. He put his other hand flat between her shoulder blades. Warmth came through her shirt, steady, not gentle exactly, but not sparing either. "Drink when he brings it," he said. "Sleep an hour. Then we go to Fern." "You're angry." "Yes." His thumb moved once across her wrist. Gentle. Caring. "Drink."

Lena slept an hour and woke worse than she'd hoped and better than she deserved. Nell had the door open before she'd tied her boots. Linny went ahead with the fox. Forge stayed back at the shop to sit with their father. The walk to the library was short and cold. Lena kept a hand on Nell's arm and pretended she didn't need it. The library rose off the square in dark stone, its tower thin against the sky. Colored glass held pictures Lena had never learned the meaning of. Linny pushed the door and the smell of old paper hit them. Fern stood behind the front table with her staff across it, the red crystal dull in the low light. Her glasses swallowed half her face. She looked at Lena. Then she looked at Linny and her mouth thinned. "You brought her," Fern said. "She's my sister," Lena said. "I know what she is." Fern set both hands on the staff. "Say what you came for." "A needle," Lena said. "Polona said you know how to find it. The one that can sew a living thing into cloth without killing it." "I know where the map to it is kept." Fern's eyes did not leave her. "What are you offering." "I have nothing to trade," Lena said. "I know that. I came anyway." "Then go home." Lena's hands stayed still at her sides. She made them move. "My mother had songs. She wrote them down. I can give you one. The one she sang the night my sister was born. No one else has it." Fern's face did not change. "One song. For a needle that no living person has held in forty years." "Ten, then. All of them." "Not enough." Nell stepped forward. "Take mine." Fern's eyes cut to him. "Yours what." "The true story," Nell said. "Why my mother left the fae. Not the one the village tells. The one no one has." The room went still. Linny turned her head. Lena felt her own breath stop. "Nell," Lena said. "It's mine to give," he said. He did not look at her. Fern lowered herself onto her stool. She uncapped an inkwell and set out a clean page. "Sit," she said. "Slowly. I want every name." He sat. He spoke for a long time in short flat sentences. Lena heard a bargain broken, a child promised, a knife, a river. She heard why the fae had not forgiven his mother, and why they would not forgive him. When he stopped, Fern's pen kept moving for another minute. Then she blotted the page and closed the book. She reached atop her staff and pulled off the red crystal. It caught the colored light and threw it back white. "It will guide you to the needle," Fern said. "Do not lose it. Ill need it back." Lena took it. It was warm. Nell would not meet her eyes.

They came out of the library into gray light and saw the watchers at once. Two men in Hild's gray coats stood at the corner of the square. Another leaned by the fountain. They did not pretend to look elsewhere. Fern's red crystal was warm in Lena's palm. It pulled, faintly, toward the ridge road. The ridge road went past the fountain. "They'll take you before you reach the tree line," Linny whispered. She did not stop walking. "Keep going to the shop." They reached the seamstress shop. Forge was already at the door, sleeves rolled, an iron bar loose in his hand. He had seen the men too. "Three," Forge said. "Maybe a fourth by the alley. Your father's asleep. Fever's down a little." He looked at Linny, jaw flexing. “I’m not a housekeeper.” “Yet you’re still here,” she said with a forced smile. Lena set the crystal on the counter. It rolled a quarter turn toward the back wall and stopped. Toward the woods. Toward the deadline she could not beat on foot. "I can't leave through the front," she said. "I can't leave through the back either. He has both." Nell stood by the window, one finger on the glass. "He wants you to run. Then he can paint us the bad guys." "He said I have three days. Didn’t say I had to spend them here," Lena said. “He won’t see it that way,” Linny said. “His men will stop us.” “Then we don’t give them the chance.” Lena looked at her sister. "Linny," she said. "Wear my coat with the hood up. Take the crystal in a closed hand. Walk out the back toward the ridge. Slow. Let them see you." "They'll grab me," Linny said. "They can't hold you." Linny's mouth twitched. "Fine." "Forge, with her. Iron out. Don't hide it." “I didn’t say I was going,” he grumbled. She grinned. “Didn’t you? I could’ve sworn I heard you.” “I think I heard it too,” Linny said. “Kind of grumbly and rude.” Forge looked at her, his face a dull glare. “Fine. If only so I can get my swords back once you foolishly fall off a cliff.” "Nell." Lena did not look at him. "You and I go out the front. Toward the governor's house. In daylight. We ask for an audience." Nell's head turned. "That gives him you." "It gives him the wrong thing to watch," Lena said. "The crystal goes with Linny. So do their eyes. We meet at the mushroom circle.” They moved. Linny went out the back in the blue coat, crystal tight in her fist, Forge a step behind with iron bare. The watchers broke from the fountain and followed at a run. The alley man went with them. Lena and Nell walked out the front into an empty street. No one stopped them. No one was left to. At the governor's gate Lena did not knock. She surveyed for watchers before she turned east toward the ridge and began to walk. Nell kept pace. "He'll know within the hour," Nell said. "Then we have an hour to get as far away as we can," Lena said. The road opened before them. The crystal, somewhere ahead in Linny's hand, was already pulling them on.

The ridge road bent into pine shadow. Lena and Nell caught up to Linny and Forge at the edge of the mushroom circle. The pale caps glowed low in the moss. Linny held the red crystal in her fist. Forge stood behind her with an iron blade bare across his forearm. The fox sat at Nell's heel, ears flat, its green tail twitching. A small chipmunk with pink flower ears clung to Linny's collar, shivering. Linny handed the crystal back to Lena. "They lost us at the creek. We doubled twice." "Good thing you had help," Forge said. He rolled his shoulder. "Me." Linny cut him a look. "Why are you here? You don't owe us this." "I owe myself a proper test of my blades," Forge said. "Fae will do." Lena stepped to the tree line. The pull of the crystal dragged her palm toward the deep woods. Nell caught her wrist before she crossed. "The moment your foot lands past this line, they smell you," Nell said. "Both of you. My mother's barrier is at the village edge, not here. I can slow them. I can't stop them alone." "Then we mask the scent," Lena said. She knelt in the moss. She held her hands over the ground and let the air behind her eyes open. Threads came, faint, silver at first, then dulling to gray. She saw the shape of it before she made it. Four narrow bands. Woven tight. A cloak that would sit over skin like a held breath. "I can do it," she said. "Four bands. One each." "How long do they hold?" Nell asked. Lena watched the pattern in her head. The threads frayed at the edges even as she imagined them. "They wear off. An day. Maybe less past the ridge. Once they thin, the scent comes back." "And knitting them?" Linny said. She already knew. "It will take from me. I won't have much left after." Forge glanced back down the ridge road. "Hild's men will find the shop empty by now. They'll come up the path." "Then I start," Lena said. She pulled the first thread from nothing. Her fingers moved fast. She had made a jacket for the chipmunk without thinking. This was harder. Each band drank a little more warmth out of her chest. She tied off Linny's first, then Forge's, then Nell's. She fumbled her own knot twice. Her hands went still at the end, not from fear, but empty. Nell caught her under the arm. Linny took the crystal from her palm. "It worked," Nell said. He held the band to his nose. He smelled nothing. "Move now." They crossed the tree line together with the bands around their wrists. No fae came. The woods stayed quiet. Lena walked between her sister and the woodcutter, breathing shallow, counting the minutes she had already lost against the minutes she had bought.

They pushed deeper past the ridge. Snow lay hard over the roots. The pines stood close, branches iced white, needles glittering under a thin sun. Lena's boots broke through the crust with every step. She had walked an hour past the tree line before her knees started to shake. She had walked a second before she went down. She caught herself on Nell's arm. He was already reaching for her. He had been watching her the whole time. "Enough," Nell said. "You stop here." "The needle," Lena said. The crystal in her fist pulled north. "We have a day. Less." "You have an hour if you keep walking," Nell said. "Sit." He put her down against the trunk of a wide pine. He pulled off his own coat and wrapped it around her before she could argue. His hands worked at her collar, tucking the wool close under her chin. His fingers were warm. Her fingers were not. Linny knelt in the snow beside them. "She can't sleep out here. The bands don't help with cold." "I know," Nell said. Forge scanned the trees. "Ground's frozen. Can't dig. No dry wood close." "I'll find shelter," Nell said. "Alone?" Linny said. "Faster alone." He pressed his palm flat to the bark above Lena's shoulder. He closed his eyes. Lena watched the green in them fade behind the lids. "Stay in the pine cluster. Fox stays with you." The fox settled against Lena's hip, green tail curled over her knee. Nell stood. He looked at her once more before he went. He did not say what was on his face. He did not have to. He was back before the light shifted. He came out of the trees at a hard walk with snow on his shoulders. "Hollow under a fallen frostwood," he said. "Dry inside. Room for four. A wolf's been using it. She let me pass." "A wolf let you pass," Forge said. "Moss on her back. Old thing. Fae-touched." Nell knelt and lifted Lena under the knees before she could stand. "Hold on to my neck." "I can walk," she said. "You can't." She put her arms around his neck. His pulse moved fast against her wrist. He carried her the quarter mile without slowing. Linny and Forge walked behind with blades bare. The hollow was low and dry, floored with old needles. The wolf sat outside it, gray with green in her fur, and watched them file in without rising. Nell set Lena down against the inner wall. He built a small fire at the mouth. He fed her water from his own skin, one sip at a time, his hand steady behind her head. "Sleep," he said. "I'll wake you at dark." "The bands—" "I'll watch the bands. I'll watch you. Get some sleep." She slept. He sat beside her the whole time, one hand on the hilt at his belt, the other resting light against her wrist, counting the warmth back into it.

Lena woke to Nell's hand on her shoulder. The fire at the mouth of the hollow was down to coals. Outside, the wolf with moss in her fur stood facing the trees, hackles up, silent. "Something's out there," Nell said, low. "Been circling an hour." Lena sat up. Her fingers still felt slow, but her head was clear. "The bands?" "Yours is thinning." He touched the thread at her wrist. The weave had gone soft. "It caught your scent before I could wake you." Linny was already at the mouth, blade drawn. Forge crouched behind her with a cold iron edge across his knee. The fox pressed flat against Lena's leg, ears back. Something moved between two pines. Tall. Branches for antlers. Blue light ran under its bark like veins under skin. Snow slid off its shoulders as it turned its head toward the hollow. Its eyes were pale and lit from inside. "Frostwood," Nell said. "It won't leave. It has her." "Kill it," Forge said. "Iron won't drop it fast. It'll scream first. Every fae within a mile comes running." Linny didn't turn her head. "Then what." Nell looked at Lena. He did not ask. He only waited. Lena understood. She pushed the coat off her shoulders and held out her wrist. "I need new thread." "You just slept it off," Linny said. "You can't spin again." "I can spin one." Lena's hands were already moving in her lap, fingers pinching at nothing, pulling. A pale strand came up between them. "Not for us. For it." Nell caught on first. "Wrap it." "Bind its legs. The wolf holds its head. You put the iron in before it opens its mouth." Forge nodded once. Linny's jaw set. Nell went out low along the hollow's lip. The mossveil wolf moved with him without a sound, shoulder to his hip. Lena crawled to the mouth and fed thread out of her fingers in a long, thin line. It pulled at something under her ribs each time she drew. She kept drawing. The frostwood creature stepped into the clearing. Nell whistled once, short. The wolf lunged for its throat and hung there, jaws locked. The thing reared. Lena flung her hands forward. The thread whipped out across the snow and caught its forelegs, then its hind, cinching tight. It went down hard on its side, silent, mouth still shut. Forge crossed the snow in three strides and drove the iron through its ribs where the blue light gathered. The light went out. The bark went gray. No scream. No answer from the trees. Lena's hands stopped. She sat back on her heels. The wolf let go and looked at Nell, then padded back into the pines and did not return. "Move," Nell said. "Now. Before another one comes looking for it." Lena stood. The crystal in her pocket pulled north.

They left the hollow at a run. The crystal pulled north, warm against Lena's palm. Snow packed hard under their boots. The fox darted ahead, green tail flashing between trunks, then stopped short at the lip of a frozen creek. It looked back at Nell and did not cross. "It's holding," Nell said. He crouched by the fox and set a hand on its shoulder. "Something on the other side." Forge came up beside Linny. "Your fox is scared of water now?" "He's smarter than you," Linny said. She did not look at him. “In fact everyone in town is smarter than you.” "That why you left it behind last spring?" "It wasn’t the town I left." Forge's jaw tightened. He turned to the creek and said nothing more. Lena stepped past them. The crystal tugged harder, north across the ice. "It's close. Whatever's guarding it is on the other bank." "Then we go around," Nell said. "There's no time." Lena held up the crystal. Its red center burned brighter than it had all night. "An hour, maybe less." Nell looked at her. His green eyes caught the low light. "Stay behind me." They crossed the ice one at a time. The far bank rose into a stand of frostwood, branches thick with rime. Between two trunks stood a shape Lena had taken for a stump. It opened its eyes. Pale, lit from inside. Not one of them. Smaller. Older. A woman's face carved into bark, roots for legs, arms folded in her lap. "Warden," Nell said, low. "Don't draw iron." Forge's hand froze on his hilt. The warden's mouth moved. No sound, but Lena felt it in her chest. A question. She stepped forward before Nell could stop her. "I came for the needle. I'll pay the toll." The warden lifted one root-hand. “It is more than you have,” the cracked voice rasped. “Your life. Or our freedom. We shall see.” Her eyes dimmed. She sank back into the trunk between the trees and was wood again. Behind Lena, Linny let out a breath. "What did she mean your life." "The woods give nothing for free." Nell did not look back. "Whatever Fox sensed is out there. And they’re scared of it." “Well, I’m not.” "Lena—" Nell started. "No." She put her hand on his chest. “Do not offer to go alone. Not again.” His hand wrapped around hers and held them. “Okay. We go together.” “Just in case?” she asked, her heart skipping. A smile. It crept along his lips in a perfect crescent. He cupped her cheek and pressed a longing kiss on her lips. “Just in case,” he whispered. Forge cleared his throat, obnoxiously loud. They parted, and Lena ran her thumb over her bottom lip. “How far?” Linny asked, the smile on her voice. The crystal pulsed once and went still in her pocket. Ten paces on, past the warden's tree. “It feels too easy,” she mumbled. A needle stood upright in a knot of black roots. Silver. Thin as a hair. It hummed when Lena knelt and drew it free. Nell's shoulders dropped a fraction. Forge exhaled. "We have it," Lena said. Linny looked at the trunk where the warden had been. "You’re right. It’s too easy.” And as if the forest agreed, a roar shook the trees.

The roar came again, closer. Trees cracked to the north. Lena shoved the silver needle deep into her coat pocket, next to the crystal. Nell pulled her back from the roots. Linny drew her iron blade. Forge stepped in front of her without thinking. “Run,” he ordered. “Creek,” Nell said. "Now." They turned. The fox shot past them, green tail low. Ten paces from the bank the ground shook. A shape came through the frostwood trees, snapping trunks like reeds. It was taller than the shack Nell lived in. Pale stone for skin, cracked at the joints where blue light bled through. Vines wrapped its arms. Ice hung from its jaw in long spikes. One eye burned pale blue. It fixed on Lena. "Warden's price," Linny said. "Your life. Or its freedom." "I heard her," Lena said. The troll swung. Forge shoved Linny sideways. The stone fist hit a tree and split it. Bark rained down. Nell's eyes lit green. He put a hand flat on the nearest trunk and the branches above the troll bent low, snagging its shoulders. It roared and tore free. The forest groaned around them, angry at Nell for using it again. "It's stone," Forge said. "Iron won't cut it." "The cracks," Lena said. "The light. That's where it's held together." Her hands were shaking. She made them stop. She pulled thread from the air, silver-fine, and cast it at the troll's ankles. The thread caught in a vine and pulled tight. She spun more, faster than she had before, until her fingers burned. She looped the troll's knees, then its wrist. It stumbled forward onto one hand. "Forge," she said. "The seam at its neck." Forge ran. He jumped onto the troll's bent arm, climbed the shoulder, and drove his iron blade into the blue crack under its jaw. The blade bent. He wrenched it free and drove it in again, deeper. Linny threw her own blade up to him. He caught it and struck a third time. The troll shuddered. Blue light poured from its neck. Nell pulled Lena back as the stone came apart. The head fell first. The body folded. Vines slid loose in a wet heap. The warden's tree, forty paces back, cracked open and the woman-shape stepped out of the wood on new legs. She looked at Lena once. She walked north and did not look back. Forge dropped down beside Linny. His sleeve was torn. Blood ran from a cut above his eye. She tore and cloth and held it to his head with a dainty touch. "Test enough for you?" Linny said, her voice soft. His hand covered hers as he held it against his head. "For today." Lena pressed her hand over the needle in her pocket. It was still there. Her father was still waiting. Then she felt the scent-band on her wrist crumble to nothing, thread by thread, and drift away in the cold air.

Lena stared at her bare wrist. The last thread of the scent-band drifted off into the wind. She felt the cold hit her skin as if a door had opened. Somewhere north, something raised its head and smelled her. "Mine's gone too," Linny said. She held up her wrist. The band there had crumbled to dust. Forge checked his own. Nothing. Only Nell still had one, and his was fraying at the edges. "They'll come fast," Nell said. He looked north through the frostwood trees, where the troll's roar had come from before. "We can't outrun them all the way home." "Then I make new ones," Lena said. She pulled thread from the air. Her fingers shook and the thread came out thin and gray, not silver. It broke before it reached her wrist. She tried again. It broke again. "You're spent," Nell said. "You bound the troll. You've got nothing left." "I have to." She tried a third time. The thread snapped and drifted down onto the snow. The emerald-tailed fox came back through the trees. It stopped at Nell's boot and stared north, ears flat. A branch cracked somewhere far off. Then another, closer. "They have our scent already," Linny said. Flat. Done. "Running won't help. We fight, or we hide." "Hide where?" Forge said. Nell knelt and put his palm flat on the snow. His eyes lit green. The forest above them groaned. He was asking, and the forest was angry with him for asking again. A frostwood cluster twenty paces off shifted its lower branches down, low and thick, the icy limbs folding into a shell around the trunks. "There," Nell said. He stood. Blood ran from his nose. "It won't hold long. The forest hates me now." "Your scent-band," Lena said. She grabbed his wrist. The last band was still there, worn thin but whole. She pulled it off him. She unwound the thread with her fingers, slow, careful, until she had four short strands. "Lena—" Nell said. "One each," she said. She tied a strand to each of their wrists. Her own, Linny's, Forge's, Nell's. The strands were shorter than a finger. "An hour. Maybe two. Enough to reach the ridge." "And after the ridge?" Linny said. "After the ridge we run." Lena pushed them toward the folded trees. "Move." They crawled into the shell of iced branches. The fox slipped in last. Nell dropped the forest's cover behind them. Outside, the snapping came closer. Something huge passed within ten paces, sniffing. It did not stop. Lena pressed her hand against the needle in her pocket. Two hours to the ridge. Then open ground, and whatever the fae sent behind them, all the way to her father's door.

They crawled out from under the folded frostwood after the sniffing thing passed. The strands on their wrists were already dimming. Lena led them up the slope toward the ridge. The needle in her pocket pulled her forward. Her father was on the other side of that ridge, waiting. They reached the crest at first light. Six men stood in the snow with crossbows raised. Village men. Hild's men. Lena knew two of them by name from the market. "Down," the tallest one said. "Weapons in the snow." Forge did not move. Nell stepped in front of Lena. The fox flattened its ears and hissed. "You don't understand," Lena said. She held her empty hands out. "There are things behind us. Fae things. They have our scent. If you stand here you die too." "Governor's orders," the tall one said. "Banishment writ. All four of you. Weapons down." "Listen to me." Lena's voice cracked. "Something is coming up this ridge. Minutes. Please." A second man moved behind Nell and grabbed the fox by the scruff of its emerald tail. The fox yelped. Nell turned. His eyes flared green. Three crossbows swung to his chest. "Nell," Linny said. Flat. "Not now." Nell's eyes dimmed. He let them take his knife. Forge dropped his hammer in the snow. Lena knelt and put the silver needle deep in her coat lining before a hand closed on her arm. They were roped at the wrists and marched off the ridge, down through the tree line, toward the village. Lena kept looking back. The men did not. "They'll come to the ridge and find nothing," she told the tall one. "Then they'll come to the village. Do you understand what I'm saying?" He did not answer. They were brought through the back gate of the governor's estate and down a stone stair Lena had never seen. The cell had a dirt floor and one barred window at ground level. The men shoved them in and locked the door. The fox was not with them. Lena did not ask where it had been taken. Hild was not there. A guard said he would come at midday. Lena sank against the cold wall. Her hands went still in her lap, the way they always did when she was afraid. She thought of her father in his bed, the shirt unfinished, the needle in her pocket useless behind iron. She thought of the village above them, sleeping, and the woods behind the ridge, and what was walking out of those woods now toward the houses. She started to cry. Quiet, then not quiet. Nell sat down next to her and pulled Lena's head into his chest. He did not say it would be all right. He only held her. "He's going to die in that bed," Lena cried. "And they're all going to die up there. And no one is listening." "I'm listening," Nell said. Above them, a bell began to ring.

The bell above them kept ringing. Boots came down the stone stair. Hild stopped outside the bars with two guards behind him. He looked at Lena the way a man looks at a stain on his coat. "You made this difficult," Hild said. He adjusted his spectacles. "A writ. A trial. A quiet banishment. I offered you a house. You chose a cell." "There are fae in the woods," Lena said. She stood up. "They followed us to the ridge. They have our scent. They will not stop at the tree line." Hild smiled the small smile she hated. "Miss Marsh. The bell rings for many reasons. A fire. A stray cow. Your imagination is not one of them." "Then send a man to look," Nell said from the wall. Flat. Hild did not turn to him. "I do not take orders from a half-blood in irons." Linny stepped to the bars. "Send one. If she's lying, hang us tomorrow. If she's right, you'll want us out of this cell." "Everything is a bargain with your family," Hild said. A scream tore down the stair. Not a man's shout. A man being opened. Hild's face changed. One of his guards drew his sword and ran up the steps. A second scream came, shorter. Then a wet sound and nothing. "Governor," the remaining guard said. His voice had gone thin. Hild stared at the stair. His hand shook against his coat button. "You need us," Lena said. She pressed her palms to the iron. "Iron dulls on them. Nell knows the woods. Forge has cold-iron blades in the guard room upstairs, taken off us at the ridge. I can bind them with thread. You cannot. Your men cannot. Open the door." "If I open it you run," Hild said. "If you don't open it, you die in this cellar," Forge said. "And so does every person in the square above us." Something heavy struck the door at the top of the stair. Wood cracked. Hild's mouth worked. Lena watched him weigh it. Without the village he governed nothing. He was a man in a suit in an empty house. He pulled the key ring from his belt and threw it through the bars. It landed at Lena's feet. "Our weapons," Nell said. "Guard room. Second door." Hild's voice was low. "Go." Lena turned the lock. They ran up the stair past the body of the first guard, past a broken door, into the estate hall. Forge kicked open the guard room and threw Nell his knife, Linny her blade, took his own hammer. They came out the front gate into the square. Crystal Moss Square was on fire. A thin creature with too many joints dragged a woman by her hair across the cobbles. Something with antlers stood on the well and watched the houses. A boy Lena knew by sight lay face down at the baker's step. Lena pulled the silver needle from her coat lining. Her hands were not still now. "With me," she said.

Lena stepped into the square with the silver needle in her fist. Nell was already moving. Forge took the left with his hammer. Linny went right with the iron blade. The thin, many-jointed creature dropped the woman it was dragging and turned toward them. Two more slid out from behind the well. Then four more from the burning bakery. Lena counted eight and stopped counting. "Too many," Forge said. "Push them off the villagers," Nell said. "Then hold." Lena spun a length of thread from her palm and threw it at the antlered thing on the well. The thread caught its wrist and jerked it down onto the stones. Forge stepped in and broke its knee with the hammer. Linny drove the iron through its throat. A creature came at Linny from behind. Forge saw it and shoved her sideways. The claws opened his shoulder to the bone. He kept his feet. He swung the hammer one-handed and cracked the thing's skull. "Forge," Linny said. "Fine," he said. Blood ran to his elbow. "Keep moving." Nell's eyes glowed green. He caught one by the jaw and held it while Linny cut. Another raked Nell's ribs. He didn't sound. He kept his hand on the jaw until the thing stopped kicking. More came from the alleys. Lena's needle hand shook. Iron would not be enough. Not for this many. Then she saw the cobbles between them and the tree line, the long stretch of dirt path leading out of the square toward the woods. "Nell," she said. "The roots. Can you call them here?" "They're waiting for me," he said. "They want me." "I'll give them thread instead. You give them a direction. Drag the fae back." He looked at her. He nodded once. Lena dropped to one knee in the middle of the square. She opened both hands. Thread poured out of her, silver and endless, more than she had ever spun. It ran across the cobbles in every direction, hooked around ankles, wrists, antlers, jaws. Nell pressed his palms to the ground. The stones split. Roots came up under the thread and took it and pulled. The fae were dragged backward across the square. They clawed the cobbles. They screamed. The roots did not stop. Something with claws broke loose and lunged at Nell's throat. He was still on his knees, still holding the roots. He could not move. A pale light rose behind him. A woman stood there, made of light and winter air. Nell's mother. She put her hand through the creature's chest and it fell apart like ash. She looked at Nell once. Then she was gone. The roots dragged the last of the fae past the well, past the baker's step, past the gate, into the trees. The square went quiet. Forge sat down against the well. Linny knelt beside him and pressed her coat to his shoulder. Lena collapsed. “Lena!” Nell shouted. He crawled to her, weak from his own usage of power. Still, he took her in his arms. She was barely conscious. He felt her pulse. She could feel it slowing in her chest. “Please, Lena.” His lips pressed to her head. “I love you.” Darkness threatened her, but she managed the words with a smile. “I know. I’ve always known.” He met her tired gaze. “I was too scared to admit that I love you too.” His face flashed from elation to fear. He held her tighter as she drifted off.

Lena woke in her own bed. The ceiling of the upper floor of her shop was above her, the beams she knew by heart. Sunlight cut across the quilt. Her father's room was quiet through the wall. She heard him breathing. He was still alive. The silver needle sat on the table beside her, clean and waiting. She could not lift her hand to reach it. Her arm felt like wet rope. Nell was in the chair by the bed. His head was down against the mattress, one hand loose around hers. The fox slept at his feet, green tail curled over its nose. He had not shaved. Dried blood crusted his sleeve where a claw had opened his ribs. She moved her fingers. He came up at once. "You're awake," he said. "How long?" "Day and a night." She tried to sit up. He put a hand on her shoulder and eased her back down. He brought a cup to her mouth. She drank. "The square," she said. "Cleared. Forge is stitched. Linny's with him." "My father." "Still here. Waiting for you." She looked at the needle. Her hand shook when she lifted it. She could not have threaded a button. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. The shirt was folded on the chest at the foot of the bed, half-done, the linen pale in the light. Nell watched her count the hours in her head. "Lena," he said. "What." "Marry me." She turned her face toward him. He did not look away. "Not Hild," he said. "Me." "Nell." "I have the shack. I have the fox. I have an axe and two hands. That's all." He stopped. "It isn't much." "It's enough." He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them the green was steady, not glowing, just his. "Whatever happens with him," he said. "Whatever he decides. If he takes the shop. If he sends the writ again. Your father. Linny. The boy at the shack. I'll feed them. I'll keep them warm. You don't have to finish the shirt alone." "You'd carry all of us." "Yes." She worked her fingers into his. Her grip was weak. His was not. "Then yes," she said. He bent his forehead to hers. The fox lifted its head, watched them, put its chin back down. "Sleep," he said. "I'll be here." "The needle—" "Tomorrow. Your hands need to come back." She let her eyes close. The needle waited on the table. Her father breathed through the wall. Nell's thumb moved once across her knuckles and stopped there. She slept. She would wake with strength enough to weave, or she would not. But she would not wake alone, and neither would anyone she loved.

Lena woke to boots on the stair. Not Nell's. Heavier. Two men, then a third. She heard the shop bell below, and Linny's voice sharp and low, and then the boots came up anyway. Nell was already standing when the door opened. The fox rose with him, ears flat, green tail low. Governor Hild stepped inside alone. His guards stayed on the landing. He took off his hat and held it against his chest like a man at a sickbed. His spectacles caught the window light. "Miss Marsh," he said. "You look better than I feared." She pushed herself up against the pillow. Her arm still felt like wet rope. The silver needle sat on the table where she had left it. "Three days," Hild said. "I came for your answer." Nell did not move. He did not have to. "My answer is no," Lena said. Hild's mouth made a small, tidy shape. He looked at Nell. He looked at the needle. He looked at her hand, and at the other hand, the one closed around Nell's fingers. "I see," he said. "My hand is spoken for." He nodded once, slow, as if she had confirmed a figure in a ledger. He turned the hat in his fingers. "The square is still black with blood," he said. "Six families are burying tonight. The council has told me plainly that the woodcutter and the seamstress saved what was left. I cannot sign a writ against either of you this week. I would be pulled down in the street." "Then don't sign it," Lena said. "I won't." He smiled with only his mouth. "This week." He set the hat back on his head and adjusted it. "People forget, Miss Marsh. Faster than you'd think. A month from now they'll remember the fae and forget who stood between them. When that day comes, I will remember this one." He looked at Nell a moment longer. Nell looked back and said nothing. Hild left. The guards went down after him. The bell rang once as the door shut. Lena's hand was shaking. Not from the magic this time. Nell sat on the edge of the bed. He took her wrist and turned it palm up and held it until it stopped. "He'll come back," she said. "Yes." "He'll wait until they forget, and then he'll ruin us slow." "Yes." She closed her eyes. "I can't think about him. Not yet." "Then don't." His voice was flat and close. "One thing at a time. Your father first." He reached past her to the table. He lifted the silver needle between two fingers and laid it in her open palm. He closed her hand around it, slow, until she held it herself. "It'll be okay," he said. "Start with him." Her fingers closed. They held. They did not shake.

When the guards were gone and the shop was quiet again, Lena sat with the silver needle in her palm and knew she did not know how to use it. Polona had told her the needle would draw essence without draining a life. She had not told her how. Her mother's notes said blood, breath, or essence. The needle was the tool. The hand was still hers. She swung her legs off the bed. The floor tilted, then held. Nell watched her but did not stop her. "I need the notes," she said. "And the shirt." Linny brought them up from the shop. She set the folded linen on the bed and the notebook on Lena's knee. Her purple hair was pinned back. Paint still marked her knuckles from before the woods. "You look like you'll fall over," Linny said. "I might." "Then sit." Lena opened the notebook. Her mother's hand slanted across the page. Blood is fastest. Breath is safest. Essence is truest. She read it three times. Breath. Not blood. Not the last of him. "Breath," she said. "I take it on the exhale. Not the inhale. I only take what he lets go." Nell's jaw set. "You're guessing." "I'm reading." The fox slipped in from the landing and lay across her feet, green tail curled tight. Its weight steadied her. Forge came up the stair with his shoulder bound. He looked at the needle and the shirt and said, "Tell me what to hold." "Him," Lena said. "If his hand shakes, hold it." They went into her father's room. Glen lay small under the blanket. His eyes opened when she sat beside him. The hopeful light was still there, thinner now. "Papa. Breathe out for me. Slow. As many as you can." He nodded. She threaded the needle with a strand she pulled from the air, pale as morning. She held the point above the linen collar, close to his mouth. He exhaled. She caught the breath on the needle's tip. The thread pulled through the cloth on its own. A faint warmth ran up her wrist. The linen brightened where the stitch closed. He breathed in. She lifted the needle away. "Again," she said. They worked like that. Exhale, stitch. Inhale, wait. Linny counted his breaths under her breath. Forge kept his hand under Glen's. Nell watched the color in Glen's face and the color in Lena's. After twelve stitches Glen's cheeks had more pink than they'd had in a month. After twenty, his hand steadied on its own. Lena's fingers still held. She stopped before she wanted to. She set the needle down. "It works," she said. "How much more?" Nell asked. "Days. The shirt has to be finished. Every stitch is a breath." She looked at her father. He had already fallen asleep, breathing easy. "And I have to be here for every one." Outside, the shop bell rang. Someone was at the door.

Lena went down the stair with the needle still warm in her hand. The bell had rung once and gone quiet. Linny reached the door first and stopped. Nell caught Lena's elbow on the last step. Forge set his good shoulder against the wall beside the frame. The door was not their door. The wood had gone pale and grained wrong, and a thin seam of silver light traced its edge. It opened without a hand on it. Polona stepped through into the shop. Silver hair, bright eyes, the same plain robe she had worn in the glen. She looked at the fox on the stair, then at Lena's fingers around the needle. "He is stronger," Polona said. "I felt it from the tree line." "He is," Lena said. "Then the shirt is working. Then our terms are due." Linny stepped in front of Lena. "She hasn't finished." "The bargain was after the shirt is completed," Polona said. "I am early. I am also patient. I will take what I came for and wait for the rest." Nell's jaw set. He did not speak. He had his own debt with her, and they both knew it. Lena moved Linny aside. She had agreed. She had known the cost when she took the needle. She held out her hands, palms up. "Take it," she said. Polona set two fingers against Lena's sternum. The shop went still. The fox's ears flattened. A pull started under Lena's ribs, careful, like a thread being drawn through cloth. The pull found nothing. Polona frowned. She tried again. Her fingers pressed harder. Lena felt the tug reach deeper, into the place where her mother's songs used to sit when she was small. The place was warm. The place was full. But there was no loose end for Polona to catch. Polona lowered her hand. "Well," she said. "Well what," Linny said. Polona kept her eyes on Lena. "Your mother's power was lost inside you. You did not know where it went. Neither did I." A small smile lifted one corner of her mouth. "Every thread. Every stitch. You spent it back into yourself." "So you can't take it," Lena said. "I cannot collect what is no longer lost." Polona tipped her head. "The terms named a lost gift. The gift is found. The debt is void." Forge exhaled. Linny did not. "That's it?" Linny said. "That is it," Polona said. She looked once at Nell. "His debt, however, will come due…soon." She stepped back through the pale door. The seam closed. The wood of the shop door was ordinary again. Lena sat down on the bottom stair. The needle was still warm. Her hands were steady. Upstairs her father breathed in, breathed out, each one stronger than the last.

Polona's door closed and the shop settled. Lena stayed on the bottom stair with the needle. Upstairs her father breathed easier than he had in a year. She should have felt safe. She did not. Word travels fast in a small village, and too many people had watched her pull thread out of the air in the square. She knew what came next. A knock. Then a writ. Then the road out of town before her father had finished healing. The first knock came before noon. Linny opened the door with a blade near her hip. It was the baker's wife, holding her son. The boy's arm hung wrong at the elbow. His sleeve was dark with blood. "They said you helped in the square," the woman said. Her eyes did not meet Lena's. "I didn't know where else." Lena looked past her. Others waited in the lane. A man with a bound leg. A girl with a burn on her jaw. An older woman leaning on a fence, coughing red into a rag. Not a crowd with torches. A line. Lena set the needle on the counter. Her hands stayed still, the way they went when she was afraid. Then she made them move. "Bring him in," she said. She worked through the afternoon in the front room. Not the silver needle. Not her father's magic. Just plain thread, warm water, clean cloth, and the small hum under her ribs that had come home to her. She spun a fine strand from nothing and laid it along the boy's arm. The bone drew straight. He cried once and stopped. The baker's wife pressed a loaf into Linny's hands and would not take it back. Nell stood by the door and let them in one at a time. The fox sat on the stair, green tail curled around its paws, watching each face. Nothing about Nell was hidden now. Pointed ears. Green eyes. The villagers looked, and looked away, and stayed. The girl with the burn touched the fox's ear on her way out. "They'll talk," Linny said between visitors. "Hild will hear." "Let him," Lena said. The old woman with the cough was last. Lena drew a thin thread through the collar of her dress and told her to breathe. The rag came away clean. "Bless you, girl," the woman said. "Bless your father." When the door finally closed, the counter was covered in bread, eggs, a jar of honey, two coins someone had left without a name. Linny bolted the latch. Glen came down the stairs on his own feet. He held the rail, but he held it lightly. He looked at the food, then at his daughter. "You didn't hide," he said. "No," Lena said. Upstairs the shirt waited, half-stitched. She was known now. There would be no leaving quietly. Whatever Hild did next, he would do it in full sight of a village that owed her.

The morning after the healing line, Lena walked to the tree line in a dress Linny had painted overnight. Pale green vines curled along the hem. Linny had not slept. Forge carried the flowers. Moss ran ahead barefoot, then ran back, then ahead again. Glen walked on his own feet, one hand on Linny's arm. Nell waited in a clearing just past the ridge. The fox sat at his boot. He had washed his face and combed his hair and it still stuck up in the back. When he saw Lena, his hands went still at his sides. There was no priest. There was no book. Fern had sent word she would not cross the ridge, but she sent a page torn from an old register with two lines on it. Linny read them aloud. Lena and Nell said the words back. The forest did something then. A ring of pale light lifted from the moss around their feet, low and steady. Nell's mother, or the memory of her, or the woods themselves. Lena did not ask. She spun a thin gold thread from the air and tied it around Nell's wrist. He took her hand and did not let go. Moss laughed. Glen cried without hiding it. Forge clapped once, loud, and Linny elbowed him and then leaned into his shoulder for one breath before pulling back. They ate on a blanket at the clearing's edge. Bread from the baker's wife. Honey. Eggs boiled hard. Lena kept her hand in Nell's between bites. A boy from the village came up the path near dusk with a folded paper. He would not step past the tree line. He held the paper out at arm's length. "From the governor," he said, and ran. Lena opened it. The hand was neat. Two lines. By order of the office of Governor Calloway Hild, the Mossweave shop was to be inspected for unlicensed practice at first light. A second writ named Nell as a person of interest in the disappearance of a village girl four winters back. Nell read it over her shoulder. His jaw set. The fox stood up. "Today," Nell said. His voice was flat. "He sent it today." "I know." "He waited." "I know." Lena folded the paper small and pressed it into her palm. Her hands wanted to go still. She made them move. She stepped in close and put both hands on his face. "Tomorrow," she said. "Give me tomorrow." "Lena." "One day. That's all I'm asking. Then we fight him." He breathed out. She kissed him. He stayed angry under her mouth for a moment, then he wasn't. His hand came up to her hair. Behind them Linny took the paper from Lena's fingers without a word and put it in her coat pocket. Forge saw and said nothing. Glen watched the sky. Lena had one day. She meant to keep it.