Thistledown Shimmerwisp counted the coins in Lysander's pack again while Lysander slept. Four copper bits. Not enough for a night at an inn, and Lysander had given the last silver to the ferryman who carried them across the reed river. Thistledown closed the pack. His wings twitched against his silver shirt, useless as always. He was the reason the silver was gone. He was the reason Lysander walked when he should be home weaving. He had promised himself, the third night lost in the bracken with his shoes filling up with blood, that if anyone found him he would repay them. Fairy law said a hidden treasure waited for whoever saved a lost child. Thistledown meant to lead Lysander to it. There was only one problem. He did not know where it was. Lysander stirred by the fire. "You're awake." "I couldn't sleep." Lysander sat up and rubbed his jaw. "Two more days of walking. Then I take you to the elders and ask which grove is yours." Two days. Thistledown swallowed. "Lysander. The treasure. The one for saving a child. I want you to have it." Lysander looked at him a long moment. "I didn't save you for pay." "I know. But it's owed." Lysander poked the fire. "Then tell me where it is." "I don't know." "Then it isn't owed yet." He lay back down. One quiet detail followed. "My mother said a debt you can't pay is still a debt. Sleep." Thistledown did not sleep. Before dawn he walked to the crooked willow at the edge of the clearing, where an old scholar had made camp the night before. The scholar wore a robe of gossamer and silver thread. Thistledown had watched him pass their fire and had marked where he stopped. Aldric Silverweave knew things other fairies did not. Everyone said so. Aldric was already awake, boiling water in a tin cup. "Sir. Please. The treasure promised to a child's rescuer. Where is it hidden?" Aldric did not look up. "You are the lost one." "Yes, sir." "Silver shirt. Silver breeches. Purple hair." Aldric set the cup down. "There is no map. The child leads the rescuer to it. The path opens under the child's feet when the child walks toward home." Thistledown's stomach dropped. "Toward home." "Yes." "What if the child doesn't want to go home?" Aldric finally looked at him. His brown eyes held for a long count. "Then the path stays shut. And the rescuer walks for nothing." He picked up the cup again. "That is all I will tell you. Go back to your fire, groundbound." Thistledown walked back through the wet grass. Lysander was still asleep, one arm across the empty pack. Four copper bits. Two days to the elders. A treasure that would only open if Thistledown walked toward the place he had been trying not to name. He sat down and watched Lysander breathe, and did not wake him.

Thistledown watched the sky turn grey. Lysander slept on. The fire had burned down to red coals. Thistledown stood up, faced east, and could not move his feet. East was the pine ridge. Past the pine ridge was the stream. Past the stream was the hollow oak where his mother wove and where the other fairy children flew in circles around him and would not land. He knew every step of it. He could not take one. He tried again. He lifted his left foot and set it down in the same print. His wings twitched under his silver shirt. Useless. Groundbound. The word sat in his mouth like a stone. A branch cracked behind him. He turned. Aldric Silverweave stood at the edge of the clearing, robe damp at the hem. Behind Aldric came a woman Thistledown had never seen. She was tall. She wore blue trousers of a rough cloth and a blouse covered in painted flowers. Round glasses sat crooked on her nose. She was staring at Thistledown the way a person stares at something that should not exist. "He's a child," she said. Flat. "You said fairy. I pictured— not a child." "Dr. Whitmore," Aldric said. "Stand there. Do not touch the fire." He looked at Thistledown. "You are still here. Sun is up. Your rescuer sleeps. The path is shut." "I can't," Thistledown said. His voice cracked. "I tried." Aldric set down his walking stick. "Then say it out loud. To me. Not to him." "Say what?" "Why your foot won't move." Thistledown looked at Lysander, still asleep, one arm across the empty pack. Four copper bits inside it. Two days of walking left, and Lysander walking every step of it for him. "They won't play with me," Thistledown said. "At home. They fly and I don't. My mother pretends it doesn't matter. It matters." He wiped his nose on his sleeve. "If I go back I stay groundbound forever. If I don't, he walked for nothing." Dr. Whitmore crouched down to his height. She did it the way someone does who has forgotten they are tall. "Kid," she said. "I got shoved into a place I can't leave. I know the face you're making. Walking toward the thing you're scared of is the only move that works. I didn't make it. Look at me." Thistledown looked at her. "Make it," she said. He lifted his foot. He set it down east of the print. The grass under his heel went warm. Not hot. Warm, the way a stone gets warm in sun. He felt it through the sole of his shoe. Aldric exhaled. "Water seam. Under you. The path knows." Thistledown took a second step. Warm again. A thin silver line brightened in the grass ahead, faint as a spider thread, pointing east. He turned to wake Lysander. Then he stopped. The line pointed home. He had opened it. Now he had to walk the whole way.