Sylvana Silverleaf pressed her silver-barked hand to a dead oak and felt nothing. No pulse. No sap. The forest of Vetchhollow was dying, and only the heart-tree could wake it again. But Sylvana had never seen the heart-tree. She did not know where it slept. She had spent three days walking the gray woods, and every trail ended in more brittle branches. Her silver leaves hung like long hair down the back of her lavender dress. Once those leaves had glowed. Now they were dull, like everything else here. She stopped at a strange sight: a willow-shaped tree house draped in feathers of green, blue, and gold. The feathers still shone. Something living lingered there. "Halt, invader!" A skinny sapling burst from the door. He wore a bark mask shaped like a dragon's face, and small red wings flapped at his back. He pointed a stick at her. "This is my lair. Dragons burn trespassers." Sylvana knew this sprout. Twig Emberleaf, the youngest sapling in the hollow, whose leaves had barely budded. He played dragon so no one would see how scared he was of the dying woods. She lowered herself to his height. "I'm not an invader, Twig. I'm looking for the heart-tree. Do you know where it sleeps?" His stick drooped. "Nobody knows. The old roots forgot." He looked at his own bare twigs. "My leaves won't grow. Mother says the magic ran out." Sylvana's chest tightened. This child would wither before he ever grew tall. "Then help me find it. A dragon knows every corner of his lair, doesn't he?" Twig straightened. His wings twitched. "A dragon knows everything." He climbed his feathered tree house and pointed past the highest branch. "When I fly-hunt at night, one part of the woods stays warm. Down where the ground drops. I feel it in my roots." Sylvana's leaves lifted. Warmth meant life. Life meant the heart-tree. "Show me the direction. Exactly." Twig traced a line with his stick, from the sinking sun toward a shadowed dip in the land. "There. But it's far, and the ground gets soft and dark. I don't go there." Sylvana looked where he pointed. The gray trees thinned, then dropped into a low hollow she had never crossed. She had walked past it three times, thinking it empty. She had been wrong. She touched Twig's bare shoulder. "You found what nobody else could. Real dragons should be proud." He puffed out his thin chest, then chewed his lip. "You'll come back? Before my leaves fall off?" "I'll wake the heart-tree, and your leaves will grow." She said it like a promise, though she did not know if she could keep it. Sylvana turned toward the sinking hollow. She finally had a direction. But the ground there was soft and dark, and no one who entered spoke of what waited below.