Mira Felweave crouched behind the giant rose bush and pressed a hand to her mouth so the villagers would not hear her breathe. She was part girl and part cat, and her claws had pushed through her fingertips again without asking. Torchlight moved between the trees. A man shouted that the monster had been seen near the well, and a woman answered that it had killed a goat, though Mira had killed nothing. She only wanted to reach the old healer's cottage past the tavern and ask if a curse like hers could be unmade. She wanted to be held once without cutting whoever held her. A dog bayed. The torches turned toward the rose bush. Mira pulled deeper into the thorns, and the thorns opened her arm from wrist to elbow. She bit down on her sleeve and did not make a sound. Something landed in the dirt beside her. Not a villager. A small beast with bat wings folded tight, twisted goat horns, and a wolf's teeth showing when he breathed. Flowers were stitched crookedly onto his vest. Mira's claws snapped out toward his throat before she could stop them. He did not move. "Don't," he said. "I'm Fennel. I help things the woods want to keep." His voice was low and even. She lowered her hand. Blood ran down her fingers into the leaves. "They'll kill you," Fennel said. "They've brought dogs." "I have to get to the healer," Mira whispered. "Past the tavern with the pastel sign. She knows old curses." "Not tonight. Tonight you live." He tilted his head toward the far side of the bush. "There's a drainage cut behind these canes. Goes under the road. Follow it to the stream. I'll pull the dogs west." "Why?" Fennel looked at her claws, then at her face. "Because you didn't use those on me." A torch swung close. Fennel spread his wings and crashed out through the top of the rose bush, snarling loud enough to shake petals loose. The dogs broke after him. The men followed the dogs. Mira heard the pack thunder off through the underbrush. She crawled into the drainage cut on her belly. The stone was cold. Her arm left a dark smear behind her. She counted her breaths the way she had counted them by the door, waiting for the man who never came back, and she kept moving. The cut opened onto a stream. She washed the blood off her claws and looked west, where the torches still burned, and east, where the healer's cottage waited past the tavern with its soft painted sign. She could not go to the healer now. The villagers would circle back by morning, and every path into the village was watched. Fennel had bought her a night, nothing more. She needed a cure the villagers could not block, and she needed someone who knew where such a cure was kept.

Mira followed the stream until the village torches faded behind her. Her arm still bled. She needed a name — someone outside the village who knew old curses — and she had none. Wandering the woods blind would only put her in front of the next hunting party. She stopped where the water pooled and tried to think like the man who used to think for her. He had always said: when you don't know the road, find someone who does. She smelled mushrooms before she saw the boy. He drifted a hand's width above the moss, translucent, a cluster of pink and violet mushrooms where his hair should have been. He was cupping his palms around something bright and counting under his breath. A firefly. Then he opened his hands and let it go. Mira froze. Her claws slid out on their own. She waited for him to scream and run like the others. He turned. He looked at her ears, then her claws, then her face. He smiled. "Seven," he said. "You made eight." A second firefly lifted off her shoulder. He watched it climb. "I'm Oliver. Do you want to play?" She could not remember the last time anyone had asked her that. Her claws pulled back a little. "I need help," she said. "I'm looking for someone who knows curses. Old ones. Someone the village can't reach." Oliver tilted in the air. "The shrine lady knows things. Not a lady. A fox." He pointed through the trees. "There's a stone place with jewels. Flowers on it. She sits there sometimes." "A fox." "Wrong color," Oliver said. "Blue marks. She tells fortunes." Mira's breath caught. A fortune-teller was not a healer, but a fortune-teller would know who was. "Show me." He floated ahead between the trunks. Mira followed, keeping her claws down. He did not look back to check if she was still there, and that felt stranger than anything. The shrine stood in a small clearing. Pale stone, vines, bright stones set into the carving, flowers heavy on every ledge. It glowed faintly in the dark. On the low step sat a fox the color of storm water, thin green marks running along her flank like writing. A rose was tucked behind one ear. The fox lifted her head before Mira spoke. "Chimera girl," she said. "You've been bleeding a trail since the village. Sit down before something else finds it." Mira sat. Her hands shook. "Can you tell me who can break what I am?" The fox studied her a long moment. "My sight has been cursed. Half of what I see now is lies." She flicked her tail. "But your answer isn't in the cards. It's in a book. Pale stone tower, west. There's a song in it that unbinds fused things." "Who has it?" "A man who does not want it read." The fox stood. "Walk with us at dawn. You are not safe alone." Mira nodded. For the first time since the drainage tunnel, she knew where to go.

The fox curled tight on the shrine step and slept. Mira sat with her back against the cold stone and listened. Every branch that cracked sounded like a boot. Dawn was still hours off. She had bled a trail from the village, and hunters were not slow. If they swept this clearing before the fox woke, Mira would face them alone with claws she could not trust. She stood. The shrine glowed faintly under its vines and jewels, flowers heavy on every ledge. It felt like the wrong place to die. She looked for cover. Behind the shrine, a huge rose bush rose taller than her head, thick with red blooms and thorns the length of her finger. A hiding place, if she could stand the cuts. She stepped toward it. "Don't crawl in there bleeding," a voice said. "The thorns will make it worse." Mira spun, claws out. A very tall woman stood on the stone step where no one had been a breath before. Green hair. A dress of living leaves and flowers. She was barely taller than a child, but the air around her felt heavier, like a room with someone important in it. The fox did not wake. The shrine's stones brightened where the woman's hand rested. Mira knew, without being told, whose shrine this was. "You came," Mira said. Her voice cracked. "People pray here for years." "I know. I am late to most things." Mother Nature looked at Mira's arm, then her ears, then her claws. "I heard you an hour ago. I should have heard you at the village. I'm sorry." No one had ever said that to Mira. She did not know where to put it. "Hunters are coming," Mira said. "Yes. Three of them. Close." Mother Nature stepped down off the shrine. She touched the base of the giant rose bush. The canes shivered. New shoots pushed out of the dirt, fast, weaving into a low tunnel under the thorns. "In. Both of you. The bush will close." Mira scooped the sleeping fox against her chest. The fox weighed almost nothing. Mira crawled into the tunnel of canes. Thorns brushed her back but did not catch. Behind her, the shoots knit shut. Through the leaves she saw boots enter the clearing. Three men. They circled the shrine. One knelt where Mira had been sitting and touched the blood on the stone. He said something low. They spread out. Mother Nature stood in plain view beside the shrine. The hunters walked past her as if she were only a flower. One brushed her sleeve and did not turn his head. They searched the clearing twice. They did not search the rose bush. After a long time they moved west, toward the tower road. Mira breathed again. The fox stirred against her ribs and blinked up. "Morning?" the fox murmured. "Not yet," Mira said. "But we can walk now."

The rose tunnel ran farther than Mira expected. Mother Nature's shrine fell behind. The canes closed at their heels and opened ahead, a slow green throat pulling them west. The fox limped at Mira's side, awake now, ears low. Then the tunnel narrowed. The thorns pressed in. Mira tried to fold her claws under her palms. She could not. Fear kept them out. A thorn caught her wrist and dragged a long red line. Another snagged the pad of her thumb. She hissed and jerked back, and three canes hooked her at once. Blood dripped onto the moss. "Stop," the fox said. "You're marking the floor." "I know." Mira looked back. Dark drops behind them, bright drops ahead. A trail a child could follow. The hunters had gone west on the tower road. This tunnel was pointing them the same way. "We can't keep going," Mira said. "I'll bring them right to us." The fox's ears twitched. "There's a witch near here. Plants. She owes the shrine a favor." "Will she run?" "Probably. Try anyway." The tunnel bent. A round opening let them out into a small hollow ringed with ferns. A girl knelt in the dirt there, sleeves pushed up, sorting cut stems into two piles. Small. Freckled. Flowers stuck in her red hair like she'd forgotten they were there. A belt of glass bottles clinked when she moved. She looked up at Mira, and her hand went to a bottle, but she did not stand and she did not run. Mira froze. She waited for the scream. It did not come. "You're bleeding," the girl said. "A lot. Sit down." "I'll cut you." "Then don't." The girl pointed to a flat stone. "Sit." Mira sat. The fox curled against her leg. The witch — Hazel, she said, once, and did not repeat it — took Mira's wrist between two fingers and turned it. She did not flinch at the claws. She smelled like crushed leaves. "Hunters are tracking the blood," Mira said. "I heard boots earlier." Hazel uncorked a brown bottle. "This closes small cuts. Won't help if you keep tearing yourself open." She looked at Mira's hands. "Your claws are the problem. Not the thorns." "I can't put them away." "I know a plant that quiets grip. Shadowmoss. I've hunted it three years." Hazel's mouth twisted. "Never found a strand." "Then what do we do now?" Hazel dabbed the salve along Mira's wrist. The bleeding slowed. She pulled a folded cloth from her apron and wound it tight around Mira's hand, binding the claws flat against the palm. She did the other hand the same way. "Walk soft," Hazel said. "The wraps will hold a day. After that you need the moss, or you'll be bleeding again by the next tunnel." Mira flexed her bound fists. The claws did not tear through. For the first time in days, she left no red print on the stone. "Where do I find it?" Hazel looked west. "A manor. Glass gardens. I'll take you as far as the gate."