Moonlight Moss stood on the porch of her mushroom house and watched another birch go grey. The bark faded while she looked at it. Somewhere past the safe trees, in the tangled dark of the Thornwood, the Heartstone lay lost, and every hour it stayed lost, more of her forest went quiet. She was small and fast and the only one left who could go after it. That was the trouble. That was also the plan. She tightened the laces on her green shoes and checked the flower-wrapped dagger at her hip. She clicked on her flashlight. The beam cut a thin white road through the ferns. Behind her, the lantern by the door glowed steady. She did not look back at it. By the time the friendly trees thinned, her wings felt heavier. The Thornwood always did that to her. Stay too long, and her tie to the living forest would fray to nothing. She knew this. She kept walking. At the forest edge she stopped. Something in the brambles stopped with her. She swung the flashlight low and caught two yellow eyes, set wide apart, close to the ground. The eyes did not blink. A slow breath moved the leaves. Whatever it was had smelled her already. Moss's chest went cold. She was fast, but not faster than a hungry thing that already had her scent. If she flew straight in, it would run her down under the thorns where her wings could not open. She thumbed the flashlight off. The dark rushed in. She stayed still and listened to the animal shift its weight. A small voice came from the stream at her back. "Fairy. Down here." A tiny mermaid no bigger than Moss's hand had pulled herself onto a wet stone. Her tail flashed teal in the moonlight. "It hunts by smell," she whispered. "Wash in the stream. Then cross the water. It won't follow through." Moss hesitated one breath, then knelt and rinsed her arms, her hair, the hem of her leaf dress. The cold bit. The mermaid pointed to a flat rock upstream where the current cut deep. Moss stepped in, waded, climbed out on the far bank. Behind her, the yellow eyes swung side to side and lost her. She crouched in the wet moss on the Thornwood side and shivered. She had made it in. She was also alone now, past the last friendly water, with her scent washed off and her flashlight dark so the predator would not find her again. The trees ahead grew close and mean. Somewhere under them was the Heartstone. Moss wiped the water from her eyes, drew the little dagger, and started walking deeper in.

Moss pushed deeper into the Thornwood with her dagger low. The brambles closed over her head. She could not fly here. The branches wove so thick that even the moon did not reach the ground. Somewhere ahead, the Heartstone should glow. She saw only black tangle. Every hour she wasted, another tree in her forest went grey. She needed height, or a light, or eyes better than her own. She climbed a twisted trunk to look. The canopy above was a solid mat of thorns. No stars. No glow. She dropped back down and pressed her fist against the bark. Panic pushed up her throat. Then she smelled smoke. She followed the smoke to a small clearing where a broad-shouldered man knelt in the leaves. His apron was scorched. A little black dragon lay curled in his lap, breathing slow. The man's amber eyes caught her flashlight beam when she clicked it on. He did not flinch. "Fairy," he said. "Put the light down. She hates it." Moss lowered the beam. She told him fast: the Heartstone, the grey trees, the tangle she could not see through. The man, Roric, listened without moving. When she finished, he looked down at the dragon in his lap. "She's sick," he said. "Three days. Won't eat. Won't leave the forge. I carried her out here to find what's poisoning the air." He touched the dragon's snout. "She used to breathe fire bright enough to read by." Moss stared at the small dragon. An idea landed hard. "If she breathed now," Moss said, "even a little, we could see the canopy. The Heartstone shines. I'd spot it from the flare." Roric shook his head. "She can't." Moss knelt in the leaves across from him. She drew her dagger and cut a strip from the mossy grip. Tiny flowers still clung to it. She held the moss under the dragon's nose. "My forest," she said. "What's left of it. She's a forest creature too, somewhere back. Try." The dragon's nostrils twitched. She lifted her head. Her sides pumped once, twice. A thin thread of orange fire coughed out and climbed. It hit the thorn ceiling and spread flat against it for one long second. Moss looked up. Far to the north, past three ridges of black branches, a green-gold light answered through the leaves. Steady. Low. The Heartstone. Then the dragon's flame died and she sagged against Roric's chest. Moss marked the direction in her head and did not let herself blink. Roric watched her. "Go," he said. "I'll follow when I can carry her." Moss stood. Her hand shook on the dagger. She had a heading now. She also had a sick dragon behind her, a blacksmith who would slow, and less time in her chest than when she'd stepped into the Thornwood. She started north.