Mark had promised her a home by nightfall, and the sun was already low. He stood at the edge of the clearing with no hammer, no nails, and no saw. They had run here with only what they could carry. The people who wanted them apart were still out there, somewhere behind the trees. Mark looked at the woman he loved, shivering beside their small pile of blankets, and knew he could not let her sleep in the open. "I'll get a wall up," he said. He kept his voice steady for her. "One wall tonight. More tomorrow." He found a young tree at the clearing's edge and set to work with his bare hands. The bark tore his palms. The trunk would not break. He threw his weight against it until his arms burned, and the tree barely leaned. Night was coming fast. He had no tool to cut a single board. Then her cat slipped past his legs. The sleek black animal trotted toward a flat gray stone half-buried in the dirt. It pawed at something beside it, then sat and stared at Mark with bright green eyes. Mark knelt. Under the stone lay a chunk of flint, long as his forearm. Someone had shaped it into a blade, jagged and keen along one edge. He tested the point against his thumb and drew a thin line of blood. A tool. A real tool at last. He dragged the flint blade across the young tree's trunk. Chips flew. The work was slow and ugly, but the wood gave way. Mark cut one pole, then stripped its branches. He cut a second. His hands cramped and bled, yet the pile of poles grew. The cat watched from the warm stone. The sun touched the treeline. Mark had enough wood for a frame, but no time to raise it and no twine to bind it. The wall he promised would not stand tonight. He pressed the blade flat against his knee and let out a long breath. He had failed to beat the dark. He turned to tell her the truth. She was not looking at him. She was looking past his shoulder, her mouth open. Mark spun. Where the clearing had been empty, a small shelter now stood. Pale stone walls. A curved roof shingled in blue. Strange marks glowed soft along the doorframe, and carved vines climbed the wood. It had not been there a minute ago. The cat rose and walked toward the glowing door as if it knew the way. Mark gripped the flint blade and stepped in front of her. The shelter offered them a roof tonight. But he had not built it, and he did not know who had. He could not sleep in a thing he could not explain, and he could not keep her in the cold. "Stay behind me," he said, and reached for the door.

Mark's hand rested on the carved door. The glowing marks warmed his palm. He did not trust a thing that appeared from nowhere, but the woman behind him was shaking in the cold. He could stand guard all night in the open, or he could open this door. He chose the door. It swung in without a sound. Mark raised the flint blade and stepped through first. Inside, the air was warm. A fire burned low in a small hearth, though no one had lit it. Two beds waited against the far wall, piled with thick blankets. A table held bread, cheese, and a jug of water. The black cat slipped past his legs and curled up by the fire like it belonged there. "Mark," the woman whispered. She pointed at the table. "That's my grandmother's cup. The one we left behind." Mark looked. A chipped blue cup sat beside the jug. He had seen her hold it a hundred times. It could not be here. Yet there it was, filled with steaming tea. He set the blade on the table and picked up the cup. It was real. Warm. She laughed, a sound he had not heard in days. She wrapped her hands around the cup and drank. Then she touched one of the beds. "It's the quilt from home. The green one." Her eyes filled. The shelter had reached into their memories and pulled out the things they missed most. Mark wanted to feel the same joy. He did not. A house did not know his wife's cup. A house did not stitch a quilt from a home that burned. Something had looked inside them. Something had given them exactly what they wanted, and things that give that freely usually want something back. He ate. He drank. He let her sleep in the warm bed because she needed it, and he would not rob her of one night of comfort. He sat by the fire with the flint blade across his knees and watched the door until dawn. Morning light came through a small window. Mark stood and stretched his stiff back. The fire still burned. The food was still fresh. Nothing had attacked them in the night. He let out a breath. Maybe the place was only a gift. Then he saw the floor. In the dust near the hearth were boot prints. Large ones. They were not his. They crossed from the door to the beds and back, close enough to have stood over his sleeping wife. He had watched the door all night and seen nothing. Mark knelt and pressed his hand to a print. The edges were sharp. Fresh. Whoever left them had walked in past a locked door while he sat three feet away, awake. The shelter had not kept them safe. It had let someone in. And he knew, cold in his chest, that the man hunting them had found this place too.