Selune slid down through the murky water of her hollow pond. The vortex at its heart spun slow, blue petals drifting inward like sleepy moths. She had built this place to bloom. One soul, one flower. That was the deal she made with the dark. She surfaced and looked at her garden. The kelp trellis stood empty, its woven vines reaching for a bloom that had not come. At the edge, the toothy flower yawned, hungry and waiting. Selune touched its petals and felt it shiver for a meal. She opened her mouth and sang. Her voice rolled up the hill, sweet and low, the kind of song that pulled feet off paths. She waited. No footsteps came. She sang louder, then louder still, until her throat ached. Then she saw why. On the rise above her shore stood a pavilion wrapped in roses, its lanterns glowing soft and steady. Inside, she knew, sat a book that held souls in place. Her song hit those walls and died. The roses drank the sound. Selune sank to her knees in the shallows. She sang one last note, thin and cracked, just to hear it. No one came. No one would. The trellis stayed bare. The hungry flower closed its mouth and waited for tomorrow. She stared up the hill at the quiet pavilion. Her song could not reach past it. If she wanted a bloom, she would need more than a voice. She would need a new way to pull souls down into her water.

Selune waded to the shore and pulled the dead seaweed up by its black roots. She twisted the strands around a crooked stick and pressed a hollow shell to the top. Her new lure stood at the water's edge, dripping and dark. She leaned close and sang into the shell. Her voice poured out in floating notes that drifted far past the hill. Footsteps came fast this time. The night watch captain stumbled down through the trees, eyes glassy, lantern swinging in his paw. Selune smiled and reached for him. He was almost in the mud when he blinked hard and stopped. He saw her then — the hollow hunger in her face, the bare trellis, the roots waiting like teeth. His lantern slipped from his paw and broke in the mud. He turned and ran without a word. By morning the watch was whispering. Whisper Thornpaw heard it at her stall and tilted her head. She knew that kind of song. She walked the long path to the lake alone, a small green jewel warm in her pocket. She knelt at the muddy edge where the lantern had cracked. She pressed the jewel deep into the soft ground. The mud drank its light. Along the shore, the toothy flower opened. The kelp trellis greened. Every dead vine lifted, alive and humming. Selune stood in the shallows and stared. Her garden bloomed without a single soul. The bargain she had carried for so long sat quiet in her chest. She touched a new petal and did not know what to want next.

Selune stood among the new blooms and felt wrong. The silver crown on her brow, set with ghostly soul-jewels, began to dim. One pale stone went gray. Then another. Her garden was alive, but the jewels that tracked her souls were fading. Something here still hungered. She knelt at the waterline and tried to think. She pulled a handful of dark notes from her throat and laid them at the garden's edge like an offering. The notes drifted, curled, and sank into the mud. Nothing answered. She did not know what her garden wanted now. In despair she opened her mouth and sang. Not a lure. Not a trick. Just the raw, embarrassed sound of her own grief. The song poured low across the soil. A small green stem pushed up beside her knee. A blue moonpetal seedling unfurled, tight and waiting. She stared. The garden did not want a soul. It wanted her voice. Her singing was the tending. One dimmed jewel on her crown flickered back to pale light. She laughed once, sharp and surprised, then pressed a paw to her mouth. If her voice was the water now, she needed more of it. Louder. Farther. She remembered a small microphone she had pulled from a drowned traveler's pack. She climbed the bank and went walking through the trees to think, the crown heavy on her head. Deep in the thicket she found a dark signpost nailed between two trunks. Painted notes curled across it. Band recruitment, it read, in a hand she half knew. Whisper Thornpaw's hand. Selune touched the wood. She would apply as lead singer. She turned back toward the lake with a plan, and the seedling at the shore waited for her return.