Renlina Fernil crossed the third mire at dusk, hunting the swamp spirit that had taken her right arm and the fae prince who had handed her to it. She carried a knife in her good hand and a promise in her teeth. The stump below her right shoulder wept yellow. Green threads crawled up from the wrapping, thin as hair, pulsing when she breathed. The rot was fae work, and fae work did not stop. She walked until her knees quit. The forest tilted. Renlina caught a birch, missed it, and went down in the wet leaves. Somewhere above her a frog began to glow, small and cold and blue. She watched it drift closer. She tried to lift the knife and could not remember where her hand had gone. Then the light went out. She woke on a low bed inside a room that smelled of yeast and cut pine. The ceiling curved above her like the inside of a bowl. A round window let in grey morning. A boy stood at her right side, sleeves pushed to the elbow, forearms streaked with her blood. His hair was white and his ears were long. He was not tall enough to be a man and not soft enough to be a child. "You slept through the cutting," he said. "That was mercy. The rot had reached the bone." He set down a bone saw and wiped it on a rag. "I am Silvain Thornweave. You are in my house. Do not sit up yet." Renlina looked down. The stump ended clean now, bound in moss, below where it had ended before. She had lost another hand's width of herself to him. He brought the arm in both hands. It was woven from living roots, wrapped tight as rope, small green leaves budding along the wrist. He fit the cup of it against her shoulder and spoke three words she did not catch. The roots moved. They found her skin and sank in. The pain was white and short. When it passed, she flexed fingers that were not hers and watched them close. "It will answer you," Silvain said. "It will also remember it was a tree. Do not ask it to kill for you today." Renlina sat up against the curved wall. She made the wooden hand into a fist. "Tomorrow, then," she said. Silvain did not smile. He turned back to his workbench and began cleaning the saw, and Renlina understood she owed him something she had not yet counted.