Ravenna Blackthorn needed a familiar before her magic killed something she loved. For three nights now, a shape had circled her manor in the fog. It came because of her. Last week she had tried to still a storm, and the spell had slipped its leash. Raw magic poured off her like heat off a fire. Something in the Heartwood had tasted it. Now it hunted the source. She watched from a tall window. The fog hid the garden, but she heard the thing breathing. Heavy. Wet. Closer than last night. Her power was a gift she had never learned to aim. Every spell she cast might save her or burn the house down. She needed an anchor. A living creature to hold her magic steady, the way a kite needs a hand on the string. The breathing stopped. Then wood splintered below. Ravenna ran down the steep stairs. In the hall she found a weathered horn, old, carved with symbols she couldn't read. Her grandmother had sworn it could drive wild things back into the forest. Ravenna had never dared use it. Tonight she had no choice. The front door hung open. Cold fog rolled across the floor. In the doorway stood the creature. It had a fox's narrow face and a dragon's folded wings. Its body glowed faint and sickly. Beautiful. Starving. It fixed pale eyes on her and stepped inside. Ravenna raised the horn and blew. The sound shook the walls. The creature screamed and reared back. But the horn fed on her magic, and her magic never obeyed. The note twisted. Light burst from the carvings and ripped loose in a wave she could not hold. It struck the beast. It struck the garden. It struck everything. When the light cleared, the fox dragon was gone, flung back toward the trees. Ravenna sagged against the wall, the horn cold in her hands. She had won. The hunter was banished. Then something moved at her feet. A hare sat in the broken doorway. Pale as bone, long-eared, slender. Its fur held a faint shimmer, the same glow her magic gave off when it spilled. It should have bolted. It did not. It looked up at her with one calm blue eye, as if it had been waiting. Ravenna knelt. When she reached out, the hare pressed its head into her palm. Warmth ran up her arm, steady and sure. For the first time, she felt her magic go quiet. Held. Anchored. She understood then. The horn's blast had not just thrown the beast back. It had called something to her. Something small, and strange, and hers. "There you are," she whispered. The hare's ear twitched toward the forest. Far off, past the trees, the fox dragon cried out once in the dark. Ravenna rose with the hare in her arms. The hunter was gone from her door. But it had not gone quietly, and the Heartwood had heard every note she played.

The hare slept in Ravenna's arms when the new smell reached the manor. Rot and ash. She carried the familiar to the garden and stopped at the door. Where the horn's blast had torn the ground, the grass had turned gray. A faint light bled from the dead patch, the same shimmer that spilled off her skin. Wild magic. Her blast had left a scar, and the scar was still awake. Something in the trees had smelled it too. She heard branches snap, far off and getting closer. The hare went stiff against her chest. Its ear turned toward the forest. Ravenna knelt and pressed her palm to the scar. Her magic surged, eager and blind. The ground flared brighter. Worse. She was feeding it, not healing it. "That will call the whole wood down on you." The voice came from the gray grass itself. A small figure stood at the tree line, no taller than a child, with curling ram's horns and eyes like banked coals. He leaned on a staff topped with a red stone. Ravenna had heard the valley folk whisper of the warlock who lived alone in the mountain caves. They said he traded in things better left buried. She had never thought he would come to her. "Fix it, then," she said. "If you know how." He snorted. He walked to the scar and tapped it with his staff. The light hissed. "I don't fix. I teach, badly, and charge too much." He looked at the hare, then at her. "You have an anchor. Use it. The wound is loose magic. Pour it back through something that can hold it." The branches cracked again. Closer. Through the fog Ravenna saw shapes between the trees. Many eyes, low to the ground. Five heads on one black body, wings folded, mouths lit from within like furnaces. It crept toward the glowing scar, drawn the way the fox-dragon had been drawn. Ravenna had no time to doubt him. She set the hare on the dead grass and laid both hands on the scar. The familiar pressed its head against her wrist. Warmth ran up her arm, steady, holding the string. She let her magic flow, but this time it did not spill wide. It ran down through the hare and into the ground, aimed. The gray grass drank it. The shimmer faded. The scar closed. The five-headed beast stopped at the tree line. The lure was gone. It stared at her with ten burning eyes, then turned and melted back into the fog. Ravenna sagged. The warlock watched the hare with open interest. "The anchor held," he said. "But you only aimed one spell. You can't aim your life." He turned toward the mountains. "When you want to learn the rest, climb. I don't make the trip twice." He left. The scar was gone. But now something worse knew her scent, and the only teacher lived a hard climb away.

Ravenna left the manor at dawn with the hare in her coat. The path to the warlock's cave climbed the mountain, and she knew the danger. Her magic still shimmered off her skin. Up here the trees thinned, but the predators had followed her scent from the forest. She had seen tracks since the first mile. Five sets of claws, one body. The thing from the tree line had not forgotten her. Half a day up, the slope narrowed to a ledge. A plant grew across it, roots gripping the stone. Its bloom was wide and bright, ringed with teeth. The petals glowed and leaned toward her. Vines uncurled, hooked with thorns. One lashed at her boot. The hare went stiff against her ribs. Ravenna pressed her hand to the familiar and sent her magic down, aimed and thin. A bolt struck the bloom. The plant shrieked and curled tight. The ledge was clear. Then the ground shook. The five-headed beast came down the slope above her. Black body, twelve tails sweeping stone, wings half-open. Ten eyes burned at her. Fire lit the inside of every mouth. It had been waiting for her climb. Ravenna raised her hand and reached for the hare. The warlock's warning rang in her head. One spell at a time. She could burn one head. The other four would take her. The beast crouched to spring. "Down!" The shout came from above. The warlock stood on a high rock, horns dark against the sky, staff raised. The red stone flared. He flung something small and bright down the slope. It landed at Ravenna's feet. A pendant shaped like a shield, runes bright along its edge. "Put it on, girl. Now." Ravenna snatched it up and dropped the chain over her head. The beast leapt. All five mouths opened. Fire poured down at her. She threw up her arm. A dome of light snapped out from the pendant. The fire broke against it and washed around her like water on glass. The shield held while she stood frozen beneath it. The hare trembled. She did not have to aim. The pendant did its own work. Then she reached for the hare and aimed her own spell through the shield's gap. One bolt, clean, into the center head. The beast screamed and reared back. It beat its wings once and climbed into the clouds, wounded, gone. Ravenna sank against the rock, breathing hard. The warlock climbed down to her. He looked at the pendant, then at the hare, then at her. "You held a spell and a guard at once," he said. "You couldn't do that this morning." "The pendant did the guarding." "For now." He turned toward the cave above. "Keep it. You'll learn to be your own shield. Come. The climb's not done." Ravenna stood. The cave mouth waited above. For the first time, the path up was open.