Sandra Moonpetal marked the dance floor with chalk and knew the pattern was wrong. She meant to bind the fairy, elf, and nymph courts with one dance, the first shared step in centuries. But her feet stumbled on a gap. Somewhere in the middle, the old steps were missing. Without them the binding fell apart before the first turn. She had begged three courts to send their finest dancers. They would arrive in two days. If she failed, no court would ever trust another again. Sandra dropped the chalk. She pressed her charm to her chest, a hand-me-down thing hung with tiny bottles and painted leaves. Her mother had promised it once held the memory of every dancer who came before. Sandra had never made it work. "You strangle it," a voice said behind her. Sandra spun. The old witch stood in the grotto doorway, leaning on a plain wooden cane. Crystal light struck her white hair and her eyes glowed like two small lamps. Power moved off her the way heat moves off a stove. Sandra had heard the courts whisper about her. The one who remembered the forbidden dance. The one who would not teach it. "You know the steps," Sandra said. "Teach me." The witch crossed the floor slowly. "The steps are not learned. They are shown." She tapped the charm with one finger. "You grip this like a coin. Open your hand." Sandra let her fingers loosen. The witch closed her own hand over Sandra's. The bottles warmed. The painted leaves trembled. The grotto walls faded. Sandra saw them then, the dancers who came before. A fairy, an elf, and a nymph turned together on old stone. Their feet drew a shape she had never guessed. Cross, dip, and a slow spin that folded all three lines into one knot. Sandra watched it twice. She felt the missing steps land in her body like a key sliding home. The vision broke. Sandra staggered. Her feet already wanted to move. "Now you know," the witch said. She stepped back and gripped her cane. "But knowing is the small part." Sandra danced the whole pattern alone, start to finish. Every step held. The chalk lines no longer lied. Then the floor shook. A crack ran through the crystal beneath her feet. Blue light leaked up from the split and hummed against her ankles. "The dance is a lock," the witch said. "You just turned it. The moment three courts move on this ground, something older wakes underneath." She started for the door. "I would not have shown you if I thought you could stop." Sandra looked at the crack, then at the two days she had left. The dancers were still coming. She finally had the steps. And now the ground itself was against her.

The witch was gone, and the crack in the grotto floor kept spreading. Sandra knelt beside it. Blue light had turned to something darker now. The split widened as she watched. Cold air breathed up from below. She had one day left, three courts on the road, and a hole in the ground that would swallow them all if they danced. She had to know what she woke before she could stop it. A small sound made her turn. A hummingbird hovered near her shoulder. It had too many wings, and its colors looked bruised, as if something had drained them. It had followed her since the night she danced. Sandra held out her hand. The bird did not land. It darted toward the chasm, then back, then toward the chasm again. "You want me to look," she said. She crept to the edge and peered down. Far below, in the dark, two great yellow eyes opened. An owl sat on a ledge inside the rift. Moss hung from its wings like wet rope, pinning it in place. It watched her the way a witness watches, patient and sad. It had seen what lived down there. It could not leave. "What is it?" Sandra whispered. The owl spread one heavy wing. Below its perch, the darkness moved. It was not empty. Something breathed in it, slow and vast, and each breath pushed the crack wider. Sandra understood then. She had not opened a door. She had loosened a lid. Three courts dancing would tear it off. The bruised hummingbird landed on her charm. The tiny bottles warmed. A picture pressed into her mind, sharp and quick. She saw the dancers who came before, but not dancing to wake the thing. They danced to feed it, over and over, keeping it drowsy. The forbidden dance was never a key. It was a leash. Sandra pulled back from the edge, shaking. She could not let the courts perform it. Not until she learned how to hold the leash without pulling it loose. She needed to seal the crack now, tonight, before dawn brought the dancers. Her hand found the woven chain looped at her waist. Her mother had given it to her, a rope of moonflowers gathered from many worlds, each bloom a different living color. Sandra had thought it only pretty. Now the flowers glowed against the blue light, answering it. She laid the chain across the crack, bloom by bloom. She spoke no words. She only pressed each flower to the stone and asked it to hold. The moonflowers sank roots into the split. The darkness below hissed and sank back. The eerie glow dimmed. The floor stopped spreading. The crack was sealed, but only sealed. Sandra sat back on the cold stone. She knew what slept beneath her now. Tomorrow the courts would arrive to dance a leash no one had taught her to hold.