Mason Crafton crouched behind a fallen log at the forest's edge and watched the prince feed the dragon by hand. From the log, the mountain filled the sky, and the dragon's dark scales caught the morning sun. Mason had spent three weeks tracking these two. Three weeks of cold meals and wet boots, learning what the prince knew that no one else did. The forest had a throne. Whoever commanded the dragon commanded every wolf, boar, and stag under the trees. Mason meant to take that seat. The problem was simple and it was killing them. The dragon did not answer Mason. It answered the prince. Mason had tested it. Twice they had lit a smoke fire on the ridge and waited. Twice the sky stayed empty. The beasts of the deep woods watched Mason pass without fear now, which was progress, but none of them bowed. A lynx had followed Mason for two days and then wandered off when a jewel-bright bird cut across the trees toward the prince's house. That was the truth of it. Every road in this forest ran through one man. Mason shifted their weight and studied the prince. He wore a pink cape and a small crown and he laughed while the dragon nosed his shoulder. He did not look like a king. He looked like a boy who had gotten lucky. Mason had heard the story from a farmhand at a gate two valleys over. Ruby. Lock of hair. A gift, and then trust. The prince had bought the dragon with a piece of himself. A flash of blue cut through the branches above Mason. One of the diamond birds. It circled once and dropped toward the wooden watchtower that stood past the treeline, where the princess kept her post. Mason understood then. The prince did not command the dragon alone. He had a partner, a signal, a whole system of birds and smoke and diamond. To take the throne, Mason would have to break the link between them, or copy it, or replace one of them entirely. A gift of their own. Something the dragon could not refuse. Mason backed away from the log without a sound and worked their way through the trees toward the small, tidy house near the forest's edge where the prince slept. Lights burned on every floor. Mason circled the porch, found a window unlatched at the back, and slipped inside. On a shelf above the hearth sat a small wooden box. Inside the box lay a single black scale, the size of Mason's palm, still warm. Mason closed their fingers around the scale and felt the weight of it. The prince's proof. The dragon's first gift. Mason tucked the scale into their coat and walked out the front door. By the time the diamond birds noticed, they would already be halfway up the mountain.

Mason climbed until the trees thinned and the ground turned to loose rock. The scale sat heavy in their coat. Behind them, a blue flash cut through the branches — one of the princess's diamond birds, already tracking. Mason knew what that meant. The prince would know soon. The princess would know sooner. Mason had hours at most before the whole forest turned against them. A branch cracked to the left. Mason froze. A boar stepped out of the brush, tusks low, breath steaming. It was bigger than any pig Mason had ever seen, and its eyes were not afraid. Mason drew the scale from their coat and held it up like a coin. The boar looked at the scale. The boar looked at Mason. Then it lowered its head and charged. Mason threw themself sideways. A tusk caught their sleeve and tore it open to the elbow. Mason rolled behind a rock and crouched, breath ragged, blood running warm down their arm. The scale had done nothing. The boar knew the dragon. It did not know Mason. A stolen piece of proof was not the same as a bond. The boar circled the rock. Mason heard its hooves on the stone. Above, more diamond birds gathered, quiet, watching. Mason understood then. The birds were not attacking. They were witnesses. They would carry the story back to the tower, and from the tower it would travel to the prince, and by nightfall every creature in the woods would have Mason's scent and face. Mason had one move left. They pulled the scale from the dirt where they had dropped it and hurled it downhill, hard, into the trees. The boar's head snapped toward the sound. It crashed after the scale. Mason ran the other way, uphill, hands and knees on the rock, until the sound of hooves faded. When Mason finally stopped, the coat was torn, the arm was bleeding, and the scale was gone. Somewhere below, the boar was sniffing at a piece of black bone that meant nothing without the prince beside it. Mason sat on the stone and looked down at the forest. The tower rose above the trees near the edge. Even from here Mason could see a small figure on its platform, watching the sky. The princess. The birds answered to her. The dragon answered to the prince. Mason had tried to steal one link in the chain and learned the chain did not break that way. The scale was not the gift. The hair and the ruby were. A piece of the giver. Mason pressed a hand against the torn sleeve to slow the blood. They had climbed the mountain with a stolen thing and lost it to a pig. They would go down now with nothing but a plan. If the dragon only answered to a piece of its keeper, then Mason would have to bring the dragon a piece of the keeper itself.

Mason came down the mountain by dusk with a torn sleeve and a new plan. A piece of the prince was what the dragon wanted, so a piece of the prince was what Mason would take. But the prince's house sat near the forest's edge, and the diamond birds had watched Mason climb the mountain that morning. If Mason walked up to the door again, the birds would flash blue through the trees, the princess would see from her tower, and every creature in the woods would come running. Mason needed to reach the house without being seen by the sky. Mason crouched in the brush and studied the ground between the trees and the house. The birds circled high, quick and bright, scanning the open path. Mason watched them for an hour and learned two things. The birds followed movement above the bracken. And the birds did not enter the smoke from the prince's chimney. Mason crawled to a dry hollow, scraped together damp leaves and pine, and lit a small fire. The smoke rose thin and gray. The nearest bird veered off. Mason waited until the wind pushed the smoke sideways across the yard, then crawled under it on their belly, the torn arm dragging in the dirt. They reached the back wall of the house without a single flash of blue overhead. A window stood open above a wash line. On the line hung a shirt, a pair of white trousers, and a folded pink cape with gold thread at the collar. Mason recognized the cape from three weeks of watching. The prince wore it every morning. Mason cut a strip from the inside hem where no one would see the missing cloth, and cut a second strip that held three blond hairs caught in the stitching. Mason pocketed both and crawled back through the smoke. By the time Mason reached the treeline, the fire had burned down and the wind had shifted. A diamond bird darted low over the yard, then another, sweeping the space Mason had just crossed. They found nothing. Mason pressed the cloth against their chest inside the coat and felt the hairs through the weave. From the ridge above the forest, the princess's small figure still stood on her tower platform, watching the sky she thought she controlled. Mason turned toward the deep woods. The dragon would not answer to a scale. It might answer to hair and thread from the man who fed it rubies. Mason had the piece now. What Mason did not have was a way to reach the mountain without crossing open ground again, and the smoke trick would only work once.

Mason reached the deep woods by moonrise with the cloth folded inside their coat. The hair was there. The thread was there. But holding a piece of the prince was not the same as knowing what to do with it. The prince had sent his gift up the mountain wrapped in ritual — a ruby bound to a lock of hair, carried by a jewel bird, answered by a scale. Mason had the pieces and none of the pattern. Without the ritual, the cloth was just cloth. Mason crouched beside a fallen log and tried to think it through. The dragon had come down for hair and a stone. That much was clear. But the prince had done something else too, something Mason had watched from the treeline for three weeks and never understood. He had spoken to the dragon first. Every morning at the birdbath at the forest's edge, he stood alone and said the same short words before the birds flew. Mason had been too far to hear them. Without those words, a bird carrying blond hair might be met with fire. A branch cracked behind them. Mason turned. Between two trunks stood a thing taller than a man, hunched, its arms hanging past its knees. Yellow eyes. Long claws. It did not move. Mason recognized it from the farmhand's story that had spread through the valley — one of the creatures from beyond the second stream. It should have torn Mason apart already. It only watched. Mason understood then. The creature was waiting to see what Mason was. A stranger in the deep woods, carrying the prince's scent on stolen cloth. Mason pulled the strip with the blond hairs from their coat and held it out flat on their palm. The creature stepped closer. It sniffed the cloth. It sniffed Mason's torn sleeve. Then it turned and walked back into the trees without a sound. The forest thought Mason belonged to the prince. The cloth worked on the small creatures. It would not work on the dragon without the words. Mason sat down against the log and pressed a hand to their eyes. The plan had a hole in it now, a clear one. To finish this, Mason had to hear the prince speak to the birdbath. That meant going back to the forest's edge before dawn, close enough to hear a whisper, while the princess watched the sky from her platform and the jewel birds swept the open ground. The smoke trick was spent. Mason would need a new way in. But the cloth had passed its first test tonight, and the deep woods had let Mason live. It was enough to move on.

Mason stood up from the log and felt the ground tilt. The torn arm had gone hot under the sleeve. Blood had dried into the cloth and cracked when they moved. New blood ran down to the wrist. Dawn was hours away, and the birdbath at the forest's edge was a long walk through the deep woods and down the slope. Mason would not make it. Not like this. They needed to stop the bleeding and rest, or they would fall in the leaves and be found by whatever came next. Mason walked because sitting meant sleeping and sleeping meant dying. They kept the good hand pressed against the tear. After a while the trees opened onto a slab of rock, and under the slab was a hollow just deep enough for a body. Someone had used it before. Folded blankets sat inside. A leather satchel leaned against the wall. A bundle of sticks lay ready by a ring of stones. Mason did not care whose it was. They crawled in. The satchel held a clay jar of honey, a strip of dried meat, and a roll of clean linen. Mason understood then. This was one of the prince's stops, laid out for him or for the princess when they crossed the ridge. Mason poured honey into the wound and clenched their teeth until the shaking stopped. Then they wrapped the arm tight in the linen. The bleeding slowed. The hot feeling stayed but stopped climbing. Mason ate the meat and lit the sticks with a flint from the satchel. Heat came back into their fingers. Through the mouth of the hollow, Mason could see the shape of the princess's tower on the ridge above the trees, its rope railings pale against the sky. A lamp burned in the top room. She was watching. Below the tower, farther down the slope, something taller than a tree stood among the pines and did not move. Mason stared until they were sure. Metal shoulders. A blank face plate. An old guardian, left by someone long before the prince, planted at the tower's foot like a fence post. It had not stirred at Mason's fire. Mason understood the shape of the next problem. To reach the birdbath before dawn, they had to pass under the tower's sightline and under whatever the metal thing was set to watch for. But they would reach it. The arm was closed. The fever had a lid on it. On the wall of the hollow, someone had scratched a crude bear with red-painted eyes, a marker for the stop. Mason touched it once for luck they did not believe in and lay back on the folded blankets to sleep one hour, no more. When Mason woke, the fire was low and the sky above the ridge had begun to gray. The arm held. Mason stood up and started down toward the forest's edge.

Mason came down through the pines with the linen tight on their arm and the sky graying above the ridge. The metal guardian stood where it had stood all night, blank face turned toward the slope. From the tower above, a lamp still burned. The princess was awake. Mason crouched behind a stump and studied the giant. Its head sat higher than the lowest tower window. Its shoulders were rust and old paint. A cable ran from its heel up into the pines, thin as a fishing line. Mason followed the cable with their eyes. It went to the tower. Mason understood then. The guardian was not a watcher. It was a bell. Step in its circle, and the cable would pull, and the princess above would know a stranger had come. Mason could not go around. The slope on one side dropped to rock. On the other, the pines thinned into open ground under the lamp. The path to the birdbath ran straight through the guardian's feet. Mason searched the ground and found what they needed at the base of a pine: a small yellow puppy asleep on a bed of needles, one of the stray creatures the prince fed on his rounds. It woke and sniffed Mason's hand and did not bark. Mason lifted it and carried it to the edge of the guardian's circle. They set it down and pushed it gently forward. The puppy trotted in, curious, and put its paw on a flat stone near the giant's heel. The cable jerked. High above, a soft bell rang once inside the tower. Mason ran. Not through the circle, but around it, low and fast, while the lamp in the tower swung and a shape moved at the window. The princess would look for a fox, a deer, a puppy. She would see the puppy and call the bell a false alarm. Mason reached the pines on the far side and did not stop until the birdbath sat gray in the clearing below. They dropped behind a log and pressed their good hand to the ground and breathed. The strips of cloth were still in their shirt. The hair was still in the stitching. The arm still held. Behind them, the puppy yipped once and the tower lamp settled. The guardian did not move again. Mason had crossed. But the sky was lighter now, and the prince would come to the birdbath at dawn to speak his words, and Mason was closer than they had ever been. They lay against the log and watched the stone bowl and waited for a voice they had crossed a mountain to steal.

Mason lay flat behind the log and watched the sky turn from gray to pale blue. The birdbath sat in the clearing below, its stone rim wet with dew. Then the birds came. Three of them dropped out of the pines and circled low over the bowl, wings flashing like cut glass. Signal birds. The princess's eyes. Mason pressed their cheek to the dirt. If the birds stayed until sunrise, the prince would see them, and any stranger near the bath would be seen too. Mason counted the birds again and thought fast. They could not fight the birds. They could not outrun them once the sun cleared the ridge. But the birds were couriers, trained to carry and to follow. Mason remembered the cloth in their shirt, the one with the blond hairs still caught in the stitching. The prince's scent. The birds knew that scent. They served the pair who kept the forest, the golden princess in her tower and the blue-coated prince who walked the paths at dawn. If the birds smelled him, they would go to him. Mason tore a thin strip from the cloth and rolled it around a pine cone. They crawled to the edge of the clearing, staying under the low branches. The nearest bird landed on the birdbath rim and dipped its beak. Mason tossed the bundle underhand. It struck the moss ten paces past the bath and rolled. All three birds turned their heads. One lifted off, then the next, then the last. They circled the bundle, dropped, and one caught it in its claws. The three rose together and flew north, away from the clearing, toward wherever the prince slept. Mason did not wait. They slid down the bank and reached the birdbath in six strides. The stone was cold under their good hand. They crouched behind it and pulled the rest of the cloth from their shirt. The hairs were still there. Now they only needed the words. The prince would still come. The birds would reach him and turn back, and he would follow them here to see what they had found. Mason had bought minutes, maybe less. They wedged themself against the base of the bowl where the shadow fell longest and waited with their breath held tight. Footsteps came sooner than Mason expected. Boots on wet leaves, steady, unhurried. A man's voice hummed low, a tune Mason did not know. The prince stopped at the bath and set his hands on the rim. He leaned close to the water and whispered three words into the stone. Mason heard each one clean. The prince straightened, looked north where his birds were still returning, and frowned. Then he turned back toward the pines. Mason stayed still until the boots faded. They had the words. They had the hair. The mountain was next.

Mason stayed low behind the birdbath until the prince's boots were gone, then broke for the tree line with the cloth and words tight in their head. The mountain rose past the pines, and the plan was simple: cross the forest edge, climb the ridge, use the words at the summit stone. But before Mason reached the second row of trunks, a whistle cut the air. The prince had turned back. He stood at the far end of the clearing with his hand on the birdbath rim, staring at the wet dirt where Mason had knelt. He had seen the print. He drew a short blade and started walking the edge of the forest, slow, sweeping left to right. Mason dropped behind a fallen log. The prince was between them and the mountain now. Every path north crossed his line. Mason had minutes before the birds came back with the pine cone, and once the birds returned the prince would know the trick and the direction. Mason needed the prince pulled the other way. Not chased off, not fought. Pulled. Mason crawled south along the log until the ground dipped into a wet hollow. Two boys were there, crouched by a fern with a jar. Mason knew them by sight from the valley farms, the Cooper brothers, one in a striped shirt, one in green. They were catching beetles. Behind them, half-swallowed by moss and reeds, sat an old sagging house with a rotted porch, a place the valley kids dared each other into. Mason pressed a finger to their lips. The younger one, Oliver, opened his mouth to yell. Mason held up the strip of pink cloth. "The prince is looking for whoever took this," Mason whispered. "If you run to him and show him where you found it, he'll give you a coin each. Say you saw it near the swamp house." Max grabbed the cloth. The boys tore off through the ferns, shouting for the prince. The prince turned at the shouting and followed them south. Mason waited until the blue coat vanished behind the reeds, then ran for the ridge path. Halfway up the slope a gray shape stepped from a laurel thicket, upright, wearing a checked jacket and a bead string around its neck. Fenrir Goodpaw. Mason had traded him dried meat twice on the lower trail. The wolf sniffed the air, caught the prince's scent on Mason's shirt, and stepped aside without a word. Mason climbed past him and did not look back. By the time the sun cleared the ridge, Mason was above the tree line with the hair, the cloth, and the three words. Below, faint through the pines, they heard the prince's voice at the swamp house, sharp and confused. The route to the mountain was open. The prince now believed the thief was a child near a rotted porch, and every minute he spent there was a minute Mason climbed higher.

Above the tree line, Mason knelt on flat stone and laid the items out: the pink cloth, the strand of blond hair pressed inside it, and the three words held in their mouth like a coin. The summit was still an hour up the slope, but the plan cracked open the moment Mason looked at the empty sky. The dragon would ignore any gift carried by hand. It answered to jewel birds. The princess's flock was down at the birdbath, guarding the stone, and every one of them belonged to her. Mason had the prince's pieces and no way to send them. A thin voice cut the wind behind them. A small girl in a pink sleeper stood ten steps down the path, thumb in her mouth. Lily. Mason had seen her once at the valley market, wandering between stalls while her mother shouted her name. She should not be on this mountain. Before Mason could speak, an older girl scrambled up the slope after her and caught her wrist. Emma Rose, from the same valley farms. "She followed the boys," Emma said, breathing hard. "Max and Oliver ran up here after the prince left the swamp. She trailed behind. I trailed her." Mason was about to send them both back when the laurel above the path shook. A gray, matted shape stepped out, taller than Mason, teeth bared, yellow eyes fixed on the girls. Fenwick Hollow. Mason had heard the name from traders — a thing that lived in the high scree and took goats. Emma pulled Lily behind her and drew a short kitchen knife. Mason stepped between them and Fenwick and held up the pink cloth. "The prince's," Mason said. "Smell it." Fenwick leaned in. The growl dropped to a low rattle. He did not retreat, but he did not lunge. Mason's mind moved fast. Fenwick was not a bird. But the rule was jewel birds, and Fenwick was no keeper's servant either — he answered to the prince's scent only in the way a stranger answers a badge. Mason lowered the cloth. "I need a jewel bird," Mason said, half to themselves. Emma's free hand went to her collar. A thin gold chain hung there, and on it, a single diamond earring stud, small, bright, unmistakable. "I found it by the birdbath last week," Emma said. "I was going to give it back." It was the princess's. The match to the one her birds already carried. Mason stared at the stud. A jewel, not a bird. The rule said jewel birds. Mason had a jewel and no bird, which was worse than before: now the missing piece had a shape and a name. Mason closed their hand around the cloth and the hair, and turned back down the slope toward the flock at the birdbath. To send the gift, they would have to take a bird from the princess herself.

Mason turned back up the slope instead of down. The birdbath could wait. Emma and Lily could not. Both girls stood on the path with their eyes fixed on Mason's hands, on the pink cloth, on the earring at Emma's throat. If they ran home now, the story would reach the valley by dusk, and the princess would hear that a stranger held her lost stud and the prince's cloth on the mountain. Mason had to keep them here, or turn them, before they could speak. "Come with me to the shelter," Mason said. "Both of you. It's close. Lily needs to sit." Emma did not lower the knife. "Why should we?" she said. Mason pointed at the scree above them. Fenwick Hollow still crouched at the edge of the laurel, watching. "He tracks by sound. If you run down alone, he follows. If you stay with me and the cloth, he lets you pass." It was half true. Fenwick had not moved since smelling the prince. But Emma looked at her sister's bare feet and lowered the knife an inch. They walked. Mason kept the cloth in front like a lantern. Halfway down to the shelter, two boys stepped from the rocks. Max and Oliver Cooper, the same brothers Mason had used at the swamp house. Max held the kitchen knife now. Behind them stood a smaller boy Mason had seen once at the market — Ethan Rivera, valley boy, no business here. "You said the pink cloth was a lie," Max said. "You made us tell the prince wrong." His voice was flat. "Our dad is still in the woods." Mason stopped on the path. Four children, one knife, one earring, one cloth. Any of them could carry the story down. Mason made the choice fast. "I lied to the prince," Mason said. "Not to you. The prince and princess do not own this forest. They command the dragon and they keep it from you. Your father went in three days ago because no one told him where the safe path was. I know the safe path." Mason held out the pink cloth to Max. "This keeps the deep creatures off. Take it. Find your father. Do not go home first." Max took the cloth. Oliver grabbed his brother's sleeve. Ethan stared at the earring on Emma's chain, then at Mason. "What about her?" Ethan said. Mason turned to Emma. "The stud is the princess's. If you give it back, she thanks you and forgets you. If you give it to me, I put an end to her hold on the dragon, and the forest opens." Emma looked at Lily. Lily was chewing her thumb, tired, done. Emma lifted the chain over her head and dropped it into Mason's palm. Mason closed their hand around the stud. The boys went uphill with the cloth. Emma carried Lily down toward the shelter, not the valley. No one was running home. Mason had the jewel now, freely given, and four witnesses bound by their own errands into silence. The bird was still the missing piece. But the mountain path was clear, and the princess did not yet know her stud was gone.

Mason followed Emma and Lily down to the shelter door. The pine boards stood open where Mason had left them. Emma set Lily on the straw pallet and covered her with the blanket Mason had used the night before. Lily was asleep before her sister finished tucking the wool. Emma turned to Mason with the knife still in her hand. She had given up the earring, but she had not given up the blade. "You said you would end her hold on the dragon," Emma said. "When." Mason weighed the answer. The girl had a valley to walk back to. A mother. Neighbors who would ask where the stud went. Mason could not send her home yet, and could not keep her here by force. "By tonight," Mason said. "If you stay in the shelter until dark, it is done. If you leave now, the princess sees you before the sun drops, and she calls the dragon down before I reach it." Emma looked at Lily. She sat on the pallet beside her sister and laid the knife across her knees. Mason stepped outside and pulled the door most of the way shut. Then Mason heard the boys. Not uphill, where Max and Oliver had gone. Downhill. Voices carrying up the slope through the pines. A man's voice, older. A woman's. Then a boy answering — Ethan. Mason crouched behind the shelter's woodpile. Ethan Rivera was climbing the path with two adults. A gray-bearded man in a checked shirt. A woman with a hand on Ethan's shoulder. Mason had seen them once at the market stall below the ridge. Hendersons. Ethan had not gone with the Cooper brothers into the woods. Ethan had gone home and told. "He had the princess's earring," Ethan was saying. "On Emma. And a piece of the prince's cape. Max took the cape into the woods." The bearded man stopped on the path and looked up at the shelter roof through the trees. "How long ago," he said. "An hour," Ethan said. The woman said, "We send word to the tower. Now." Mason did not wait to hear the rest. Mason went in low through the shelter door, took Emma by the wrist, and put a finger to her lips. Emma saw Mason's face and did not speak. Mason pointed at Lily, then at the back window. Emma shook her head. Mason let go of her wrist. There was no time to carry a sleeping child out a window while three people climbed the last bend of the path. Mason slipped out the front instead, past the woodpile, into the laurel. Behind Mason, the Henderson woman was already calling up toward the princess's tower, her voice thin and clear in the cold air. The silence had held for less than an hour. Mason ran for the birdbath with the earring in a closed fist, and no plan left but speed.

Mason ran downhill through the laurel with the earring in a fist. Behind, the Henderson woman's voice climbed toward the tower platform. Ahead, the trees thinned into the open ground above the birdbath. If the princess heard the call before Mason reached her flock, the jewel birds would rise and the dragon would come down. Mason had one chance left. Steal a bird before the tower answered. The path cut past the old lookout on its tall wooden legs. Mason saw a small orange puppy tied at the base of the ladder, ears up, tail flicking. Bait, or a gift left for the princess. Mason cut the rope with the knife and shoved the puppy uphill toward the shelter path. It yipped once and ran. Good. A moving noise in the wrong direction. Mason kept going. Below the tower, a doe and her fawn broke from the brush and bolted across the slope. They had heard the Henderson woman too. Mason followed the line they cut, staying in their dust, and reached the low pines above the birdbath. Three jewel birds sat on the rim of the stone bowl. No sign yet of the flock rising. The princess had not answered. Mason emptied the honey pot from the shelter into a strip of linen and laid it flat on a flat stone six paces from the bowl. The birds saw the shine and the smell together. Two lifted, circled, and dropped onto the linen. Mason waited for the third. It came. Mason brought a folded coat down on all three at once and pinned them. Two got free. One did not. Mason held the bird in one hand and the earring in the other. The Henderson woman was still shouting up at the tower, but the tower window had not opened. The old bell-trap below the platform sat quiet in the grass, its cable cut weeks ago. No one up there had heard her yet through the shutters. Mason tied the earring into the bird's foot-band with a strip of cape thread, whispered the three words into its feathers, and let it go. The bird climbed straight up the mountain face. A shutter banged open above. The princess leaned out over the rope rail of her platform, hair loose, staring at the bird already past her reach. She shouted. The rest of her flock burst from the tower eaves and chased, but the jewel bird was small and high and gone. Down on the path, the bearded man broke from the trees and saw Mason at the bowl. He ran at Mason with a length of firewood raised. Mason did not fight. Mason turned and ran uphill along the deer track. The man was older and the slope was steep. By the second bend Mason was alone in the pines. The dragon would answer the earring, or it would not. Mason had spent the last card. The Hendersons had reached the tower too late to stop the send, and the princess had seen her own jewel leave her hand. Mason kept climbing toward the summit to meet whatever came down.

Mason climbed past the last of the pines and came out on bare rock. The slope above the treeline was open stone, gray and wind-scoured. No cover. From the tower platform below, the princess and any watcher with her would see a moving figure clearly. The dragon had not yet appeared. The jewel bird was still climbing somewhere out of sight. Mason needed to speak the three ritual words to seal the summons. Speaking them here, in the open, was the same as painting a target. Mason crouched behind the only shelter left, a shelf of stone the size of a table. Below, two figures had reached the birdbath. The bearded man and his wife stood by the bowl, pointing up the slope. The Hendersons. The wife cupped her hands and shouted toward the tower. The shutter above answered. A scrape of gravel behind. Mason spun with the knife. Emma Rose stepped out from a crack in the rock, Lily behind her. Emma's face was streaked with dirt. She had not stayed in the shelter. "You said nightfall," Emma said. "I sent the bird." "Then say the words." "They'll see me." Emma looked down at the birdbath, then up the empty ridge. "Cover," she said. She pulled Lily by the wrist and walked out onto the open stone. "Get back," Mason hissed. Emma did not turn. She waved both arms above her head. Lily copied her. Down at the bowl, the Henderson woman shouted and pointed. The bearded man started up the slope toward the girls. The tower shutter banged wider. The princess leaned out, hair loose, and called her flock down toward the two children on the rock. Every eye on the mountain went to Emma and Lily. Mason understood. Emma had bought the seconds. Mason pressed both palms to the stone, put mouth to rock, and spoke the three words the prince had whispered at the bowl. Low. Clear. Once. The stone did not answer. The sky did. A shadow crossed the sun. Wide wings, black. The dragon came down the mountain face in one long slide, the jewel bird a bright fleck ahead of it. The Henderson man stopped on the slope. The princess's flock scattered from the shadow. Emma pulled Lily flat against the rock. Something huge moved in the brush below the treeline. Fenwick Hollow, drawn out by the noise, watched from the edge of the pines with orange eyes. Mason stood up. There was no reason to hide now. The dragon banked and turned toward the ridge where Mason stood. The earring caught the light on the bird's leg as the bird looped once and dropped onto Mason's outstretched wrist. Mason had the jewel, the bird, and the dragon's attention. The princess had none of them. The words were spoken, and the mountain had heard.

The dragon settled on the ridge. Its claws scraped stone. Its head lowered until one yellow eye met Mason's. The jewel bird sat quiet on Mason's wrist, earring still knotted to its foot-band. Mason had the summons. Now Mason needed the forest to see it. Below, the bearded man stopped halfway up the slope. His wife caught up behind him, cheeks red from the climb. The Hendersons stared at the dragon and did not move. The princess's flock circled once, then broke apart. Her shutter above the trees stayed open, silent. But the ridge itself was not silent. A low growl came from the pines. Fenwick Hollow stepped out onto the rock, orange eyes fixed on Mason. Behind Fenwick, other shapes gathered at the treeline. A spotted bobcat crouched over a fresh kill, chewing without taking its eyes off Mason. A doe and her fawn watched from a gap in the brush. Higher up, a gray wolf that was not Fenrir stood with its ears flat. They had come for the dragon. Not for Mason. Emma crawled to Mason's side, pulling Lily behind her. "They don't know you," she whispered. "Show them." Mason lifted the wrist with the jewel bird. "Down," Mason said to the dragon. The dragon did not move. Mason's throat went dry. The words at the birdbath had summoned it. No one had taught Mason what came after. Fenwick took another step forward. The bobcat dropped its kill. The wolf's lip pulled back. Mason remembered the cloth. Mason still had one strip of the prince's cape tucked in the belt. Mason pulled it free and pressed it flat against the dragon's lowered snout. The dragon breathed in. Then it breathed out, hot, over Mason's hand. The dragon lifted its head and turned it toward Fenwick. It did not roar. It only looked. Fenwick backed a step. The bobcat picked up its kill and slunk into the brush. The wolf sat down. A voice called from below. "Wait." The prince stood at the edge of the pines, out of breath, pink cape torn at the hem. He had come up from the swamp trail. He looked at Mason, at the dragon, at the cloth in Mason's hand. He did not draw a weapon. He did not shout for the princess. "That's mine," the prince said. His voice was flat and tired. "You used my scent." "They obey it," Mason said. "They obey me," the prince said. "For now." The dragon did not turn to the prince. It stayed beside Mason. Fenwick did not move toward the prince either. The forest had chosen where to look. The prince saw it. His hand went slack at his side. "We should talk," he said. Mason lowered the cloth. The beasts had not bowed. But they had stopped. That was enough for one day, and it was more than the prince had left.

The prince waited for Mason's answer. The dragon breathed beside them. Above the pines, three jewel birds cut a tight circle over the ridge. Mason knew that shape. The princess used it when she was counting. She was measuring the standoff to send word. If her message left the tower before Mason answered the prince, she would decide the ending, not Mason. Mason had until her birds finished their arc. Maybe a count of thirty. "Call them off," Mason said. Mason pointed up at the circling birds. "Or I send the dragon at the tower." The prince looked at the birds. His mouth tightened. "She won't hear me from here. The signal goes through them." "Then give me something she'll read." The prince pulled the torn hem from his cape and held it out. Mason took it. Mason wrapped it around the jewel bird's foot-band, above the earring. Two of the prince's things now. One of the princess's. Mason lifted the wrist and the bird took off, climbing hard toward the tower. The three circling birds broke pattern to follow it. That was what Mason wanted. A bird carrying the prince's cloth and the princess's jewel would land on her sill before her count finished. She would have to read it before she wrote anything. "You've bought an hour," the prince said. "Maybe less." "I've bought tonight." Below the ridge, Fenwick Hollow sat on its haunches and watched the doe cross behind it without flinching. The bobcat had not come back. The wolf had gone. The forest had settled. The Hendersons had climbed no further. The bearded man had his hand on his wife's arm. They were watching the dragon breathe. Emma tugged Mason's sleeve. Lily was asleep against her shoulder. "You said by nightfall." "It's done," Mason said. "She can't move against us before dark. Take Lily home." Emma looked at the dragon once more, then started down the slope toward the trees where their house waited past the second stream. The bearded man stepped aside to let them pass. He did not try to stop them. The prince watched the girls go. "She'll come herself in the morning," he said. "With everything she has left. The birds. The stone gate wolves. All of it." Mason had seen the gate he meant once, from the ridge path — twin wolves carved in stone at the mouth of her keep, teeth bared at anyone who climbed toward the tower. Mason had thought them decoration. The prince's face said otherwise. "Then we talk before morning," Mason said. The prince nodded. He sat down on the rock, tired. The dragon lowered its head between them like a wall neither could cross without the other's leave. Mason had stopped the princess's message. Mason had not stopped the princess. The night was Mason's. The keep gate was hers.