At dawn Rylu climbed down from his treehouse and faced the wall of green. For weeks he had walked the same shoreline, turning over the same rocks, finding only picked-clean ground. The real evidence of intelligent life waited inland. But the interior was choked with thorns and tangled roots, and his rope and boots could not carry him through it. He had no machete and no path. The island kept its deep heart locked away. He sat on a root and opened his journal. He sketched the gear he had. A coil of rope. A knife worn thin. Boots split at the toe. None of it would cut a trail through a hundred miles of thorn. He needed something longer, something he could make himself. He pressed the pencil until the tip snapped. Then he started to build. He cut a straight branch and stripped the bark. He carved one end to a point and rubbed it smooth against stone. By midday he held a spear, its shaft weathered and marked by his knife, its tip sharp enough to split a vine. With it he could clear brush, test soft ground, and keep his hands clear of what bit back. He pushed into the interior. The spear worked. He hooked thorns aside and flicked them loose. He probed the mud before each step. The forest let him in, foot by foot, deeper than he had ever gone. The coast fell away behind him. Birds he had no name for crossed the high branches. He filled a page without stopping to breathe. By afternoon he reached a clearing no shore walker could have found. He stopped cold. Leaning against a trunk stood a weapon. A bow. Smooth wood, curved limbs, a cord pulled tight and ready. Rylu touched the string. It hummed. The wood was dry. Someone had set it here, upright, on purpose. He turned in a slow circle. The bow was not his. The spear in his hand was crude beside it. Whoever shaped that bow knew curves and tension and craft. A dodo could not string a cord. No bird could carve a grip. Rylu's heart slammed. This was the proof he had crossed the stars to find. Not a feeding mark. A made thing. A tool. Hands had worked this wood, and those hands were somewhere in this forest. He gripped his spear tighter. The clearing was quiet, but it was not empty. Someone had been here, and the bow stood ready, which meant they would come back for it. He did not take it. He crouched behind a fern, spear across his knees, journal open, and waited for the owner to return.