Scarsgaurd knelt before the splintered wooden altar at the edge of her garden. Bone fragments and carved symbols stared back at her. None of it had worked. The gem on her forehead stayed cold, like a stone pulled from a river. She wanted its power. She had wanted it for years. Beside her leaned a staff covered in blue butterflies and pale crystals. It had been her mother's. Scarsgaurd never looked at it straight on. She only touched its base when she needed to remember why she kept trying. She pressed her fingers to the gem. Heat bloomed, then sharpened into something worse. Her mother's face rose behind her eyes. Grief cracked open in her chest. The gem flared, then snapped cold again. Scarsgaurd hissed and stumbled back. She fled to the small mushroom-shaped house near the koi pond. A bright toad with a rainbow cap watched her from a lily pad. She sat on the stones and breathed. The toad blinked, patient. Slowly, her shaking hands stilled. Scarsgaurd touched the gem again. This time she let her mother in. The warmth held. Not long. But longer. She understood now. The lock was grief. The key was facing it.