Vivienne sat on the stone bench beneath the rose-covered iron roof, her red eyes fixed on nothing. She wanted what she had always wanted: a mortal who would look at her face and stay. But the grove was all she knew, and she could not picture a single mortal worth the risk. She rose and walked to the edge of the grove, where the black river ran bright under the trees. The water shimmered like cold stars. It had always been her wall. Beyond it, the mortal world stayed blurry, a shape she could not name. Then she saw it. A narrow dirt trail cut through the undergrowth on the far bank, half-hidden by leaves. It had not been there before. Or she had never let herself see it. The path bent away into green light, toward somewhere she had never walked. Vivienne stepped to the river's edge. For the first time, her longing had a direction. She would cross. She would follow the trail until it ended at a face she could finally picture.

Vivienne crossed the black river and followed the trail into the green light. The woods felt new and strange. She had not gone far when she saw the cart, tipped on the path with its canvas torn and its sacks spilled across the moss. A man lay beside it. He was young, with blonde curls matted at the temple. Blood streaked his face from a wound above his brow. Vivienne knelt. His mouth was soft in sleep, his lashes pale. It was a kind face. It was, she realized with a small cold shock, a face very close to the one she carried in her pocket. Then she saw the stake. It lay half under his open palm, carved and bright with red enamel, made for killing things like her. A hunter. Her hands went still. Voices drifted up the trail behind her, faint but coming closer. Someone would round the bend soon. She could leave him. She could end him. Instead Vivienne slid her arms under his shoulders and lifted. The stake she left where it fell. She carried him off the path into the trees, toward the river, toward the grove — and toward whatever came next when he opened his eyes and saw hers.

Vivienne carried him across the shallow stones of the black river, his head heavy against her shoulder, the carved stake still bright in her memory. The grove rose around her in gray half-light. She could already feel the warning under her skin — a tightening, a hum. The sky behind the trees was no longer black. It was bleeding pale. She stumbled into the clearing and saw it happen. The first ray struck the tall line of trees at the grove's edge, and their leaves burned gold and orange and red, a sudden blaze of color where moments ago there had been shadow. The light was coming for her next. The hunter sagged in her arms, his blonde curls damp against her throat, and she swore under her breath. She ran. Her boots tore moss as she crossed the open ground, his weight pulling at her shoulders. Ahead, half-swallowed by ivy, stood the old chapel — its cross tilted, its door warped, its stained glass cracked. A holy place. She did not care. She slammed her shoulder into the wood and the door gave. She dragged him inside as the light raced across the grass behind her heels. Vivienne dropped to her knees on the cold stone floor. The hunter breathed beside her, alive, hidden. Her hands were shaking. Outside, the grove burned with morning. Inside, in the dim, she looked at his face — that face — and understood she had just saved the one person made to kill her.

Inside the chapel, the air was cold and still. Vivienne knelt beside the hunter on the stone floor. His linen wrappings had darkened from white to deep red. The blood crept out in slow petals, soaking through the cloth and pooling beneath him. She could smell it. She could taste it on the back of her tongue. She pressed her palms flat to the floor and tried not to breathe. Above them, the weathered altar stood crooked, its melted candles dribbled down old stone, its wilted flowers brown at the edges. She stared at it. She would not look at his throat. She would not look at the bandage. Her teeth ached. Her hands began to tremble against the cold floor. Vivienne turned her face away and caught her own reflection in the dark stained glass behind the altar. Pale skin. Wet red eyes. The problem, looking back at her. She thought of the face she carried, and how he was bleeding to death three feet away, and how she was the danger now. She closed her eyes. She pictured her brothers' tired faces. Then she tore a strip from her own coat. She crawled to him without breathing. She pressed the fresh cloth hard against the wound and held it there until the bleeding slowed. She did not bite. She did not taste. When his breath steadied under her hand, she sat back against the cold wall and shook. She had won this round. But her restraint had a limit, and now she knew exactly where it was.

The hunter's breath grew steady, but the sky outside did not stay kind. Pale light crept through the broken window above the altar and stretched toward his face. Vivienne stood quickly. She pulled a heavy black wool tapestry from the chapel wall, branches and a pale moon woven into it, and pinned it across the broken glass. The room sank back into safe, gray dark. She turned to him and emptied his belt. A short sword. A coil of rope. A small bottle marked holy water. A second dark bottle she did not open. She stacked them in the far corner, behind a tipped pew, where his weak arm could not reach. Her hands shook only a little now. Then she faced the harder thing. He would wake. He would open his eyes and see hers, and that would end everything before it began. She found a brown hooded cloak folded in a dusty chest beside the altar. The fabric was old and frayed, but the hood was deep. She pulled it low over her brow. In the dark glass behind the altar, her red eyes disappeared into shadow. She knelt beside him and waited. When his lashes finally moved, he saw only a hooded stranger who had not killed him. He whispered a thank you and slept again. Vivienne did not move. The problem was hidden. For now, she was only a woman in a cloak, and that was enough to begin.

The hunter's color faded by the hour. Vivienne pulled back the cloth on his side and saw the wound had darkened at the edges. Heat rose from it. She needed clean water, salve, bandages, and the small purple berries from the vine she had grown outside. The vine sat three steps past the heavy wooden door, where dried blood from last night still stained the wood. Three steps into open daylight. Three steps that would kill her. She turned from the door and searched the chapel instead. Behind the altar stood a tall carved cabinet she had not opened. She pulled the doors wide. Folded white linens. Small clay jars. A bottle of pale wine. Not the berries, but enough. Her hands moved fast. She tore the linen into strips. She poured wine over the wound to clean it. The hunter groaned but did not wake. The darkening edge did not fade. The wine was not enough. She returned to the stained door and pressed her palm against the wood. Outside, the healing vine waited in full sun. She could send no one. Her brothers were far across the grove and would not come in time. She thought of the face she carried in her pocket and looked down at the real face on the floor. Then she did the only thing left. She wrapped her hand in the brown cloak, cracked the door an inch, and reached. Sunlight bit her wrist like fire. She screamed into her teeth and tore three vines free before falling back inside. Skin blistered black to the elbow. But the berries were in her fist. She crushed them into the wound and bound it tight with linen. By dusk, the dark edges had pulled back. The hunter's breathing eased. Vivienne sat against the cabinet, cradling her ruined arm, and watched him live. He would live now. And she had a burned arm she could not hide, and a face beneath a hood she could not keep hidden forever.