Phoryne Rose wanted one white rose, and she meant to steal it tonight. The bush grew just past the vine-covered manor next door, thick with layered white blooms. She could root a cutting at home, coax it into a whole hedge of her own. All she needed was one stem. She stepped outside in her nightdress and pink heels, boa fluttering at her toes, and pushed through the gap in the hedge. The manor sat dark and quiet. Vines trailed over its tall windows. No lights burned inside. Good. She crossed the wet grass, careful in her heels, and knelt beside the rose bush. Its blossoms glowed pale in the moonlight. She pinched a healthy stem between two fingers and pulled her small shears from her pocket. "Those are mine." The voice came from behind her, low and even. Phoryne spun. A man stood between her and the hedge. Tall. Black hair. His skin caught the moon like something carved. Runes marked his neck and hands. His pale blue eyes did not blink. He wore a dark coat that belonged in another century, and he had crossed the whole lawn without a sound. "I'm sorry," she said. Her heart slammed. "I thought the house was empty." "It is never empty at night." He looked at the shears in her hand, then at the rose. "You came for one flower." Phoryne stood slowly. Her heart in her ears. She should run. But he stood between her and the only way out, and she knew, somehow, that she could not outrun him. "I only wanted a cutting," she said. "To grow my own. I never meant to take the whole bush." He stepped closer. She smelled cold earth and something older. "People do not walk my grounds after dark," he said. "They know better." His gaze moved over her flushed face, her freckles, her slightly different colored eyes. Something in him paused. "I didn't know," she whispered. "Nobody told me anyone lived here." "Alaric," he said. Just the name. He tilted his head. "You are not afraid enough. That is unusual." Phoryne swallowed. "Should I be?" He reached past her. His hand closed on the stem she had chosen. With one twist he snapped it clean and held it out to her, thorns and all. "Take it," he said. "But understand something. You have walked onto my grounds now. I have seen your face. I will remember it." She took the rose. The thorn bit her thumb. A bead of blood welled up, and his eyes dropped to it at once. He went very still. "Go home," he said, quieter now. "Before I change my mind." Phoryne backed toward the hedge, the stolen rose pressed to her chest. She had what she came for. But the oldest thing in Plight had tasted the sight of her blood, and he knew exactly where she slept.

The next morning, Phoryne carried her stolen rose to the magic shop at the edge of the lane. She had rooted plants before, but never one that glowed pale in the dark. The old witch there could help. The shop's shelves seemed to shift as Phoryne stepped inside, jars sliding to show pink blooms and rooting powders, as if the walls knew what she wanted. "You've brought me something," the plump old witch said. Whisper smiled and set down her tea. She was the kind of woman who hugged strangers. She reached for the stem in Phoryne's hands. "Let me see, dear. We'll have this growing in no time." Then her husband looked up from his workbench. Wibbly was a bent old wizard in a star-covered robe, and he had ignored Phoryne until now. His eyes fixed on the rose. He dropped the trinket he was fiddling with. "No. No, no, no. Put it down, Whisper. Put it down before it opens." "Wibbly, hush," Whisper said gently. "It's only a cutting." "Only a cutting." He shuffled closer, fast for a man his age, and jabbed his cane at the white petals. "Where did you get this, girl? The walled place. The dark one. Say it wasn't there." Phoryne's throat went tight. "I only took one stem." Wibbly went pale. He gripped his wife's arm. "These roses don't grow on their own. He feeds them. A bloom for every soul that wandered his grounds and never came back." He tapped the stem where the thorn had cut her. "They drink. That's why they shine. And now yours has tasted you." Whisper's smile faded. She set the cutting down with care. "Sweetheart," she said softly, "how did he let you leave?" "He gave it to me," Phoryne whispered. "He said he'd remember my face." Wibbly barked a dry laugh. "Of course he did. He didn't give you a flower. He planted a marker." He waved a shaking hand at the rose. "A piece of his garden in your house. He'll always know the way to it now. To you." The shop went quiet. The shelves stopped shifting. Phoryne stared at the pale bloom she had wanted so badly. It no longer looked lovely. It looked like an eye. "Then I won't grow it," she said. "I'll burn it." "Too late for burning," Wibbly muttered. He sank onto his stool, done with the subject already. "You brought his blood-rose past your own door. He'll come to check on it. They always do." Whisper wrapped the cutting in cloth and pressed it back into Phoryne's hands. Her warm eyes had turned worried. "Take it home, dear. Keep it living. If it dies, he'll want to know why." Phoryne walked out clutching the rose she could no longer throw away. She had wanted a hedge of white flowers. Instead she carried a leash, and the man at the other end knew where she slept.

Phoryne walked deeper into the forest behind Taio. Oaks, willows, and pale birches crowded close. She waited for the pull inside her, the tug that always dragged her toward Alaric's grounds. She felt nothing. For the first time in weeks, the binding was silent. Her hand went to her scarred thumb. "I can't feel it," she said. "The pull. It's gone." Taio stopped beside an old oak with a broad crown. Koot still rode his shoulder, arms folded, watching. "My domain hides you," the tree god said. His voice was low, like a note under the roots. "No hunter's magic reaches through my trees. Here you are lost to him." He set a hand on the oak's bark. Leaves turned toward him like faces. "But I have not yet said you may take the bloom." Phoryne's heart jumped. Taio's green eyes fixed on her at once. "Your heart moved," he said. "I hear the faintest beat. You cannot lie to me here." He was calm, not angry. "So do not try. Why should I give a soul-flower to a stranger?" Koot shifted on his shoulder. "Told you he'd do this," she muttered. Phoryne stood still. She could not hide a flutter, so she gave him the truth. "I stole a cutting from a walled garden. I wanted to grow one white rose at my home. That's all." Her voice shook. "It was a trap. The rose is fed by souls. One drop of my blood bound me to its master. Now he can find me anywhere. I left my home to run from him." Taio listened. The forest listened with him. "I don't want to hurt anyone," Phoryne said. "I only wanted something beautiful. The bloom is the one thing that can cut the tie for good. Not hide it. Break it." The tree god watched her heartbeat, not her face. She let it race. She let him hear how much she wanted this. "You feel no false note," she said. "Because there isn't one." A long silence. Wind moved the leaves. Then Taio nodded once, slow. "True," he said. "Your heart holds no lie." He lifted his hand from the oak. "I will let you seek the bloom. But it does not grow where I can reach it. It grows at the still heart of my forest, past the water. The way is guarded." His green eyes held hers. "You must walk it alone. I cannot carry you there. And what guards it will test you as I could not." Koot's wings snapped. "Alone? Taio, she'll die in there." "She may," the tree god said. "Or she may reach it." Phoryne looked at the trees ahead, dark and endless. The pull was gone. Only the bloom remained, deep in the guarded heart. She wrapped her hand around her scar. "Then show me where to start," she said. Taio pointed past the oak, toward the sound of water. “ You go when you are ready, not before. The forest and I shall guard you, hide you until you are ready.” His voice steady “You and M’Kaiah will stay with me.” “It’s KOOOOOTTTT!!!!!” Koot sounded like she could rip his head off. I was sure she would not succeed.

Phoryne walked back the way she came. The lake fell behind her. The trees closed in again, and the guarded path led her to the clearing where Taio and Koot waited. The tree god stood with his arms crossed, leaves trailing from his cuffs. The tiny fairy sat on a low branch, kicking her bare feet. Phoryne stopped in front of them, empty-handed once more. "The mermaid won't let me cross," Phoryne said. "Not with water. Not with promises." She looked at Koot. "She wants your apology. She said your name like a wound." Koot's pink eyes went wide, then narrow. She shot off the branch and buzzed in the air. "No. No, no, no. I won't go near that spiteful fish." Her wings snapped fast and hard. "Whatever she told you, she's lying. She always lies." "She named you," Phoryne said. "She tasted your water and knew your hand. That's not a lie." Koot dropped to the branch and turned her back. "I did nothing to her." Her voice cracked on the last word. "I got everyone else killed. The fire took my whole family. I ran and they burned. Is that what she wants me to say?" She wrapped her thin arms around herself. "I left. I always leave. That's what I do." Taio knelt. His deep voice filled the clearing like water in a low place. "You left her too," he said. "When the flames came, you woke the ones you could. You left one behind. The lake keeps her now. She was your kin." Phoryne stared. The mermaid's cold face made sudden sense. Not a stranger's spite. A sister's grief. Koot shook. "I couldn't reach her. The smoke—" She pressed her small hands over her face. "I told myself she died. It was easier than knowing she lived and I flew off." "She lives," Taio said. "She guards for me. She waits for one word." Phoryne crouched close to the branch. "Then give it to her. Not for me. For you both." She held out her open palm. "I'll carry you there. You don't have to touch the water. Just speak." Koot looked at the hand. She looked at the trees. For a long moment she said nothing. Then she flew to Phoryne's shoulder and gripped a lock of her hair. "If she screams at me, I'm biting your ear," she muttered. They walked to the lake together. The mermaid rose from the shallows, purple eyes sharp, then still. Koot's wings drooped. "I'm sorry," the fairy whispered. "I should have come back for you. I'm sorry." The mermaid's face broke. She reached out one wet hand. Koot flew into it. For the first time, the guardian smiled. "Cross," the mermaid said to Phoryne. "The bloom waits past the far shore." She sank low and cleared the water. The path across lay open at last.

Taio stiffened before Phoryne heard anything. His red leaves went gray. He pressed a hand flat to the nearest trunk, and the whole forest seemed to hold still. "Something changed," he said, low. "The rose. The one at your old home." He turned to her. "It died just now. I felt the pull it made." Phoryne's throat went dry. The cutting she had planted. The last thing keeping Alaric's hunter magic guessing. "It's dead," she said. "So he knows exactly where to look." "He waits at my treeline," Taio said. "Right where I turned the other woman out. He cannot come in. But the moment you step past my cover, he takes you." His jaw worked. He would not lose another this way. Koot shot up from the moss, wings buzzing hard. The tiny fairy had guided Phoryne to this forest and stayed near ever since. Her pink eyes were furious, which was how they always looked. "Then she doesn't step out, tree-man," Koot snapped. "Simple. She stays. We keep her safe from in here." "My forest is your safety," Taio said. He looked at Phoryne. "Stay inside my domain. Do not let him bait you out." But Phoryne was already walking toward the edge. She had run so long. She wanted to see the thing that hunted her with her own eyes, once, while a wall of trees still held it back. Taio caught her arm. "No," he said. "I'll stop at the last tree," she said. "I promise." She stopped where the trunks thinned. Alaric stood on the open grass beyond, dark coat still, runes black on his hands. His blue eyes found her at once. "Phoryne," he said. His voice was soft and flat, the way it had always been. "Your rose is dead. That means you come home." "I'm not yours," she said. "One step," Alaric said. "That is all the binding needs." He held out a gloved hand and waited, patient as stone. He knew she could not stay in a forest forever. Taio stepped in front of her. His voice dropped to a bass growl that shook the ground. "She walks my path now. You get nothing here." Roots lifted from the soil and knit into a wall between the trees, thick and black with earth. Alaric did not flinch. He simply looked past the roots at Phoryne, marking that she was here, that she was real, that the wall would not last her whole life. "I can wait," Alaric said. The roots sealed shut. Phoryne could not see him anymore. But she felt the change settle in her chest like a stone. The cutting was gone. Her hiding place had a clock on it now. She turned to Taio and Koot. "Then we don't wait," she said. "You give me the the bloom. Today." Taio's leaves flushed red again. "Today," he agreed.