Silas Thornwood had hunted this man for a year, and now the man stood ten feet away. The green vest. The wolf-head ring. The same face that had charmed Silas's daughter before she drowned in the creek below Fern Gully. Silas crouched in the dark corner of the abandoned cabin, his hand tight on his knife. He wanted to cut the man's throat. But he made himself wait. The charmer stepped through the broken door. His boots pressed the warped floorboards near the hidden tin box. He had come back for the forty dollars and the stolen locket. He did not know anyone watched him. He did not know a woman knelt behind the shattered window, waiting for Silas's signal. Missy Crawford had come to Fern Gully to find this thief. For weeks Silas had fed her what he knew. She trusted him. She believed he wanted justice. She did not know he wanted blood more. Now her eyes found his through the dark, wide and pleading. She mouthed one word. Wait. Silas's hand shook. The man bent over the floorboards and dug his fingers into the gap. He lifted the loose plank. Silas saw the back of his neck, pale and bare. One step. One cut. It would be done. But a dead man could not talk. This man knew who had driven Silas into hiding. He knew what names Silas did not. Kill him now, and the truth drowned with him. Silas rose from the corner. The floorboard groaned under his boot. The charmer spun, the tin box in his hands. His eyes caught the knife and widened. "Put it down," Silas said. The man smiled, slow and easy. "You look like someone I wronged. There have been so many." The words nearly broke him. Silas crossed the floor in two strides and pressed the blade to the man's throat. The charmer stopped breathing. Behind him, Missy climbed through the window, her boots loud on the broken boards. "Silas." Her voice was steady. "We need him alive. He talks to the sheriff. He names everyone." The man swallowed against the steel. "I can name plenty," he said. "The one who paid me to chase you off. I remember him well." Silas froze. Someone had paid this man. Someone had wanted Silas gone from Fern Gully. He had always believed he fled on his own grief. He had been wrong. He lowered the knife. His whole arm trembled. "Who?" The charmer grinned through his fear. "Keep me breathing, and I'll tell it all." Missy pulled a length of cord from her coat and bound the man's wrists. Silas stood back, the knife loose in his hand. He had the thief. He had Missy's trust, barely. But now he carried a worse question than before. A stranger had paid to break his life. And the only man who knew the name sat smiling, holding it like a card he would not yet play.

They marched the charmer down the road at dusk. Missy Crawford walked beside the bound man, one hand on his cord. Silas Thornwood walked behind, the knife still in his belt. The charmer had a name in his mouth, and Silas meant to hear it before the sheriff locked the cell. But first they had to reach the door. The sheriff's office stood weathered and dark, iron bars behind its windows. A lantern burned inside. Silas felt it the moment they stepped onto the porch. Something was wrong. He stopped and listened. "Keep moving," the charmer said. His voice shook now. "Whoever paid me knows you have me. He won't let me talk." Missy turned to him. "Then talk now." The charmer opened his mouth. A shot cracked from the trees. The bullet struck the post beside his head and split the wood. He dropped to the boards, screaming. Silas spun toward the sound and saw a pale shape move at the tree line. For one breath it looked like a wolf, white and glowing in the dusk. Then a man rose from behind it, a rifle in his hands, and ran. "Inside!" Silas shoved the charmer through the door. Missy dragged him across the floor and behind the desk. Another shot tore through the open doorway and struck the back wall. Silas crouched by the window. His whole plan hung on this man staying alive. A dead witness gave him nothing. He drew the knife, then cursed it. A knife was no answer to a rifle across a yard. He grabbed the lantern and smashed it against the floor near the door. Oil spread and caught. Flames jumped up in the doorway. The fire bought them cover. No clear shot now through the wall of light. Silas pulled the charmer behind the iron bars of the empty cell and slammed the door. The man gripped the bars with white knuckles. "Give me the name," Silas said. "You heard that shot. He wants you dead. I'm the only reason you still breathe." The charmer stared at the burning doorway. His leverage was gone, and he knew it. "Ashford," he gasped. "The one who paid me. He goes by Ashford." Silas went still. The name meant nothing to him yet. But it meant everything. A real name. A thread he could follow. Missy stamped out the last of the flames with her boot. Smoke filled the room. Outside, the yard had gone silent. The shooter had fled into the dark. She looked at Silas across the ruined floor, her face hard. "He's alive," she said. "That's what matters." "He talked," Silas said. "That's what matters." The charmer sat behind the bars, safe and useless now. Silas had his witness. He had a name. But the man who wanted that name buried had come close, and missed by inches. Silas knew he would try again.