Pipwick Thornwhistle finished the last brass hinge on his greenhouse door and realized he had built a beautiful cage for nothing. The panes caught the afternoon light. The copper pipes hummed with warm water from the kettle line he'd rigged himself. Every gear turned. Every shutter opened on command. But the raised bed in the center sat empty, and the seed he needed had not grown in Nettlevale for a hundred years. He was a gnome barely taller than the watering can. He had spent two winters in his stone-walled cottage drawing plans for a machine that could coax the moonbloom back into the world. His grandmother had sworn it once grew along the ridges above the village. She had also sworn it was gone. Pipwick had chosen to believe only the first half. He climbed onto his workbench and pulled down the ornate book his grandmother left him. The bronze latch stuck. He worked it open with a butter knife. Inside, hollowed pages held pressed leaves, a folded map, and a slip of paper in her handwriting: "Where the bell still rings, the moon still blooms." He read it three times. He knew one bell in the valley that no one rang anymore. The old chapel in the cliffs, abandoned since the landslide closed the goat path. He packed a satchel with trowel, jar, and lantern, and set out before he could talk himself down. His small dragon, no bigger than a loaf of bread, trotted after him with wings half-open. Pipwick did not tell the creature to stay. He was glad for the company. The climb took the rest of the afternoon. He squeezed between two fallen slabs and found the chapel door swollen shut. He braced his shoulder and shoved until the hinges gave. Inside smelled of cold stone and rain. There was no moonbloom on the altar. No moonbloom in the cracked font. Pipwick's chest tightened. He turned in a slow circle and saw only a low green mound in the corner where the roof had opened to the sky. He knelt. The mound was glowmoss, thick and damp, studded with tiny bright flowers that caught the last light and threw it back in flecks. Pretty. Common. Wrong. He sat down hard on the stone floor. The dragon nosed the moss, then looked at him and made a small worried sound. "I built the whole thing," Pipwick said. "I built it before I had the seed." He pressed his palm into the moss to push himself up, and his fingers closed on something hard beneath it. He lifted the green mat like a blanket. Underneath, half sunk in the dirt, lay a clay pot, cracked but sealed with wax. A faded label read: MOONBLOOM — CUTTINGS — KEEP DARK. Pipwick lifted the pot with both hands. It was heavier than it should have been. Something inside shifted, alive.