WhisperBell counted the wounded again. Nine faeries huddled in her crystal grotto, and three more had limped in since dawn. The hunters had burned another grove. She pressed a cold shard against a young faerie's scorched wing and made her promise out loud. "I will find us the wild heart of the forest. No hunter will ever reach us there." She believed it. She also had no idea where that place was. The grotto's dew-bright walls threw back her reflection. Beautiful, useless light. WhisperBell knew four groves and a hundred stories. None of the stories held a map. If she wandered alone, she could search whole seasons while faeries died behind her. She needed someone who remembered the deep forest, the parts no living faerie had walked. So she flew to the ridge where the elf lived. Aurora Moonwhisper had been cast out of the forest before WhisperBell was born. The trees themselves had refused her, or so the old faeries whispered. WhisperBell found her stacking firewood outside a leaning hut, silver hair tied back, hands raw from work no one helped her do. Aurora did not turn around. "Faeries come to me only when they are desperate," she said. "How many are dead?" "Two groves burned. Nine wounded in my grotto." WhisperBell landed on the woodpile. "You know the hidden groves. I need the wild heart of the forest. A place hunters can't find." Aurora set down her log. Her blue eyes were steady, but her jaw tightened. "The forest exiled me. You want me to lead you into the one place it guards most closely." She almost laughed. "They took my home. Now a faerie wants me to give hers back." "I'm not asking you to walk in for me," WhisperBell said. "I'm asking you to show me the way. You remember what no one else does." For a long moment the elf said nothing. Then she pulled a folded hide from inside her cloak. She spread it on the woodpile. Lines crossed it, drawn by hand, faded but clear. Rivers. Ridges. A dark spiral near the center marked with no name. "I drew this the year they cast me out," Aurora said. "So I would not forget." Her finger touched the spiral. "The wild heart is here. But the way is guarded. Thorn walls that move. Groves that turn you in circles. You cannot read them. I can." WhisperBell's chest lifted. "Then come with me." Aurora rolled the hide and held it against her chest. "I will guide you. But understand this. The forest knows my scent. If I walk toward its heart, it will wake against us both." She met WhisperBell's eyes. "You wanted an ally who knows the deep forest. You just found one the forest wants dead." WhisperBell took the map anyway. Behind her, the wounded waited. Ahead, the spiral waited too, and now something in the forest knew they were coming.