Rowan Birch spread six ripped trail sketches across the flat rock and saw the problem plainly. He wanted to chart every ancient path that once linked Brightleaf into one lost map. But each fragment measured distance from a different fallen marker, and no two agreed. The stone bridge sat north on one sheet and south on another. Without one fixed starting point, every map he drew would lie about the next. He had spent three days pacing the wood for a landmark old enough to trust. He found none. Instead he found rune-carved stones, and a man reading them. Thorne Willowshade knelt at a green-veined boulder, tracing grooves with two fingers. He did not look up. "You walk like someone lost," he said. "Lost men break my quiet." "I need an origin point," Rowan said. "One marker the old trails all measured from. You read this stone. Does it name one?" Thorne stood. His leaf-cloak dripped from the morning damp. "It names the Heart Stone. Every path in this forest was walked outward from it." He studied Rowan the way a buyer studies a horse. "I trade answers for favors. Where it stands, I will tell you. But first you fetch me a serrated emerald leaf from the plant that grows only at the ravine's lip. The runes need its sap." Rowan went. The ravine dropped sharp and wet. The lush green plant clung to the crumbling edge, leaves cut like saw teeth. He gripped a root, leaned out, and stripped one leaf clean. The soil gave under his boot. He caught the root and hauled himself back, breath ragged. He carried the leaf up. A small voice stopped him. "Hold there." A baby lemur stood on the trail in overalls and cowboy boots, a rope loop spinning at his side. Deputy Ringtail. His star-marked chest came up to Rowan's knee. "You took a leaf," the deputy said. "That plant is watched. Explain." "The loremaster needs its sap," Rowan said. "For the Heart Stone runes." The deputy let the loop fall. "Heart Stone is real. I have seen it." He pointed his rope down a narrow cut. "That way. Half a mile. Big gray stone, sun carved on its face." Rowan turned to Thorne, who had followed. Thorne took the leaf and crushed it. Sap wet his fingers. He pressed them to the boulder, and fresh runes glowed pale green. "The boy speaks true," Thorne said, reading. "Heart Stone. Origin of every trail. But hear this. The stone is cracked. Half of it slid into the ravine an age ago. The distances it once held are split between two halves now." Rowan understood. He had his fixed point at last. Every map could measure from the Heart Stone. But the marker itself was broken in two, and he would have to find the fallen half before a single trail could be charted true.

Rowan stood at the ravine's edge and stared down. Half the Heart Stone lay somewhere below, in shadow and wet rock. He needed that half to chart the trails true. But the slope dropped sheer, loose, and slick. One wrong step and he would follow the stone down. He was still measuring the drop when a calm voice spoke behind him. "You'll die trying that with bare hands." Rowan turned. A druid stood among the ferns, a mushroom-crowned staff in one fist, vines trailing from his shoulders. Eirin Mossward. Rowan had heard of them from travelers. They fixed quarrels between villages and wild things, and never worked for free. "I need what's at the bottom," Rowan said. "A piece of gray stone." Eirin studied the ravine, then Rowan. "I can send roots down the wall. They'll hold your weight, if you hold your nerve. But roots cost me. You'll plant me a grove of oaks come spring. Promise it." "I promise," Rowan said. A small brown-and-white gremlin crept from behind the druid, ears wide, a satchel bouncing at his hip. Gizmo. He held out a granola bar with both paws. "Eat first," he chirped softly. "Falling is easier on a full belly." Rowan took it and chewed. His hands steadied. Eirin knelt and pressed the staff to the soil. Roots woke and crawled over the ravine's lip, weaving into a thick living ladder. "Down," the druid said. "Slow." Rowan climbed into the cut. The roots held. Mist soaked his shirt. Below him, wedged in a crack, he saw it—the sun-carved face, split clean. The lost half of the Heart Stone. Then a wild laugh echoed off the walls. A honey badger in a tattered monk's robe clung to a root three feet away, honey smeared on his snout, eyes bright with joy. Brother Ratel. "Ohhh, the sweet kiss of the drop!" Ratel cried. "Come, brother, taste the fall with me!" He shook the roots for pure delight. The living ladder swayed. Rowan's boot slipped. He caught the stone half instead of the root, and his weight tore it loose from the crack. He fell two feet, slammed the wall, and clung. The stone half was in his arms. Ratel cackled and scrambled off after some hidden hive. "Up!" Eirin called. The roots drew back, hauling Rowan and his prize toward the light. Gizmo reached down and gripped his collar. Together they dragged him over the edge. Rowan lay on the grass, gasping, the lost half against his chest. He turned it over. The two halves would match. He had them both now. But the break was old, and the faces did not meet clean. Whole lines of carved distance were rubbed to nothing along the crack. The marks he needed to measure the trails were gone. Rowan sat up slowly. He had the whole stone at last, and half its answers had worn away.