River Moonstone had one seed packet of the sacred crop and no ground to plant it in. He stood on the island's only open field at dawn and pushed his shovel into the earth. The blade stopped hard. Under a thin layer of dirt lay flat gray rock. He tried three more spots. Rock every time. The summer festival was six weeks away, and the whole commune expected a harvest that would lift them to enlightenment together. Without a fertile plot, the seeds would rot in the packet and the season would pass with nothing planted. Willow Meadows found him there, dirt on his knees, jaw tight. She had given up her old life to help build this place, and she read his face fast. "The field's dead," River said. "It's all stone underneath." Willow crouched and dug her fingers into the shallow soil. "Then we don't plant in the field," she said. "We plant somewhere we control." She stood and pointed toward the glass building at the edge of the clearing. River shook his head. "The greenhouse is full. Every shelf. We keep our whole stock in there." As if summoned, the greenhouse door swung open. Oliver Greenwood walked out, a boy who ran the greenhouse like a grown man ran a company. He had come to the island with nothing but a plan for that glass house, and he guarded it fiercely. "You want my racks," Oliver said, before anyone spoke. "I could hear you two arguing from inside." "We need the space," River said. "Real beds, not the field. The ground betrayed us." Oliver crossed his arms. "Those shelves hold forty plants I raised from cuttings. You want me to throw them out for a maybe." River knelt to his eye level. "It's not a maybe. It's the sacred crop. Everything we've worked for. I can't grow it in rock." Oliver looked at the seed packet in River's hand for a long moment. "Not throw out," Oliver said finally. "Move." He led them inside. The air was warm and green. Layered wooden racks lined one wall, pots catching the light through the glass. In the center stood a single huge plant, broad leaves spread like open hands. "We clear the back beds," Oliver said. "I move the small pots up to the sunlit racks. That frees soil for your seeds. But the beds are shallow. The sacred crop roots deep." They worked until midday. Willow carried pots. River broke up the packed soil in the emptied beds. Oliver arranged every rescued plant on the bright shelves. When the last bed lay open and ready, River pressed the sacred seeds into the dark earth and covered them. He had his plot at last. Then he saw Oliver's face. The boy was staring at the shallow bed, then at the deep taproots drawn on the packet. "That soil's only a hand deep," Oliver said. "When those roots hit the bottom, they'll drown or choke. You have maybe two weeks before they need more."

The sacred seeds lay under the soil now, but River Moonstone knew soil alone would not save them. That night he walked to the greenhouse and felt the cold press through the glass. The seedlings had broken ground three days ago, thin green threads no taller than his thumb. He pressed a hand flat to the pane. It was like touching ice. One hard frost would end everything. Oliver Greenwood was already inside, kneeling by the beds with a thermometer. The boy ran the greenhouse the way a banker ran a vault, and he did not look up when River entered. "Forty degrees and dropping," Oliver said. "They need sixty. They won't last the night." He set the thermometer down hard. River heard the fear under the flat words. River looked at the glass walls, the dark clearing, the seedlings shivering in their shallow beds. "Then we bring heat in," he said. He thought of the commune houses across the clearing, each one built with a small stone fireplace. "We move a hearth. Tonight." Oliver stared at him. "You can't carry a fireplace." "We can carry stone and coal and a grate," River said. "We build one here." They worked in the dark. River pulled loose fieldstones from a garden wall and stacked them in a corner of the greenhouse. Oliver hauled buckets of coal and dry wood from the nearest house. Willow Meadows came when she saw the lantern light. She said nothing, only picked up a bucket and joined the line. "Vent's too tight," Willow said after one glance at the roof. "Smoke will choke them faster than frost." She climbed the racks and cracked two panels near the peak. River felt cold air slip in, but the smoke found its way out. River lit the fire near midnight. The stones caught the heat and held it. Warmth spread low across the beds. Oliver knelt by the thermometer and watched the red line climb. Forty-four. Fifty. Fifty-eight. The seedlings stopped their shivering. Their thin leaves lifted. "Sixty-one," Oliver whispered. He sat back on his heels. For the first time River saw the boy smile. By dawn the frost had come and gone. White rime coated the grass outside. Inside the glass the seedlings stood green and alive, warm above the low fire. River had beaten the cold. Then Oliver frowned at the coal bucket. It held maybe two nights' worth. He looked at the stack of wood, then out at the clearing. "We burned through half the fuel in one night," he said. "The houses share this coal. We take it all, people freeze in their beds." Willow crouched and turned an empty bucket over in her hands. "Six weeks of cold nights," she said. "And one pile of coal for the whole island." River looked at the fire that had saved the crop. It would burn every night now, and it would burn through everything the commune had to keep itself warm.