Mila Strand wanted to open the finest salon in Fern Gully. Instead she knelt in mud, trimming a badger's fur while rain soaked her shears. She had no shop, no roof, no walls. She worked under an open sky and begged every creature to hold still. She parted the badger's wet coat with her comb. "Almost done," she said. "Just this last side." The wind answered first. A gust bent the ferns and flung grit across her hands. The badger flinched. Her blade slipped and sheared a bald stripe down its back. The badger squealed, twisted free, and bolted into the brush. "Wait! Come back!" Mila dropped her shears in the mud. Her third ruined cut this week. Each gust undid her work. Each rainfall blunted her tools. No creature would pay for a crooked, half-finished trim. Without a shop, her dream was already failing. She wiped her eyes and looked up. A short, broad figure stood at the edge of the clearing, watching her. He had a braided beard knotted with silver rings and thick arms crossed over a red tunic. Mud caked his heavy boots. He did not flinch at the rain. "You've got good hands," the dwarf said. "Lousy workshop." "I don't have a workshop at all." Mila stood and faced him. "The wind takes half my cuts. The rain takes the rest. I can't build a reputation out here." The dwarf grunted. He walked to a fallen trunk nearby and knocked it with his fist. The wood held firm. "I've got a cottage," he said. "Thatched roof. Four walls. Dry as a bone inside. Belonged to my cousin. He left Fern Gully last spring." Mila's heart jumped. A real building. A roof over her shears. "How much do you want for it?" The dwarf scratched his beard. "It's a wreck inside. Collapsed shelf. Cracked door. Nobody's touched it in a year." He studied her. "Fix it up, it's yours. I don't want coins. I want one thing." "Name it." He tugged a silver ring loose from his beard. The braid below it had grown wild and matted. "These knots took me ten years to grow," he said. "I want them styled by the best hands in the gully. Prove you're worth the roof." Mila picked her shears out of the mud and wiped them clean on her apron. She did not have a basin, or good light, or even a chair. But she had walls coming, and a client waiting. "Sit on the trunk," she said. "Hold still. And when I'm done, you hand me the key." The dwarf sat. Mila lifted the first braid and set her blade against it. The rain still fell. But for the first time, she was cutting toward a door that would open.