Seru Blackthorn wanted the hunter to stay. He had wandered into her woods three days ago and never left. Yet he kept twenty paces between them, always. She watched him now from the trees, and she knew the reason. Her woods frightened him. He crouched by a stream, filling his water skin. Behind him, dark trees leaned close. Their leaves shimmered in colors no mortal forest wore. His hand shook when a branch creaked. He glanced up, jaw tight, and reached for his knife. Then he saw her, and his shoulders locked. "You again," he said. He did not come closer. "This place is wrong. The trees move. The light bends. Everything here answers to you." Seru understood. To him her magic was a trap. He wanted her, she could see it in how he watched her mouth. But dread held him back. She could not win a heart that flinched at every shadow. So she chose to give him something the woods could not twist. She walked to the small cottage at the wood's edge, the one she kept for wanderers. Inside, on a peg, hung a hunting knife she had made. Good steel, plain grip, no charm woven through it. A tool for his hands, his trade, nothing of hers. When she returned, she held it out flat on both palms. "This is only steel," she said. "No spell. Test it however you like." He did not take it. His eyes searched her face. So she whistled once. From the trees came a dog, brown and lean, marks like gold curling along its coat. It trotted to the hunter and sat at his boot. The dog looked up at him, calm and patient, and leaned its weight against his leg. The hunter's hand dropped to the dog's head without thinking. His breath slowed. "It's not afraid of me," he said. "He knows a hunter," Seru answered. "So do I." A sound broke the quiet. From the far trees stepped a black unicorn, its mane threaded with violet, a single horn catching the dusk. The hunter tensed and half rose. The unicorn only dipped its head, then lowered itself to drink at the stream, close, unhurried. "It won't touch you unless you wish it," Seru said. "Nothing here will. The woods are strange. They are not cruel." The hunter looked at the drinking unicorn, then the dog at his knee, then the plain knife in her hands. Slowly he reached out and took the blade. He turned it, felt its edge, and let out a long breath. "All right," he said. He rose and closed the distance. Five paces. Then three. Then he stood before her, near enough to touch. "Show me your woods." His dread was gone. But now he stood close, and Seru's own heart raced faster than she had planned. She had wanted him near. She had not thought past it.