The wind shifted.

  Willow froze by her window, staring into the night. She hadn’t moved since Whisk’s third eye had cracked open. His tiny body sat tense beside her, tail curled tight like a spring ready to snap.

  Something had changed.

  The trees beyond the Grove rustled—not with the familiar dance of the Feywild, but with a sickly, dragging shudder. The glow from the moonpetal vines dimmed as if a cloud passed, yet when Willow looked up, the stars still shone clear and cold.

  The corruption had moved.

  She snatched Whisk into her arms and bolted from her home, ivy parting at her whispered command. She flew low across the clearing, her wings barely brushing the ground, heart hammering against her ribs.

  Sprites darted overhead in confused spirals. Some fled into the trees; others simply froze in midair, their tiny glowing bodies flickering erratically.

  Willow followed the scent first—the metallic tang of broken earth—and then the sound: the faint, sickly crackle of dying things.

  The trail led her past the Whispering Pond. Past the honeyblossom thicket. Toward the Court’s heart. Toward where the Verdant Glade itself slept under Lady Thalendra’s protection.

  Her feet touched down near the first tree.

  And she stared.

  A blackened line curled through the clover like a burned vein. The roots of the nearest trees were shriveled and gray, their leaves limp and ashen. Flowers along the path wilted, drooping in unnatural patterns—as if recoiling from some unseen sickness.

  Whisk trembled in her arms, and when Willow looked down, she realized he wasn’t shaking from fear alone.

  The air itself was wrong. Heavy. Every breath felt like inhaling smoke that wasn’t there.

  Ahead, a figure stumbled into view: Maren.

  The other fairy clutched her side, wings sagging, skin pale. Behind her, the moss seemed to curl inward, recoiling from where her feet touched it.

  "Willow," Maren gasped, voice thin and breaking. "The... roots. They’re bleeding."

  "What happened?" Willow rushed forward, but Maren flinched as she drew near.

  "I don't know," Maren whispered. "It started so fast—one breath, the Grove was whole. The next..." She shuddered. "Something opened. Something old."

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  Maren looked past Willow then, her eyes going wide.

  Whisk.

  Willow stepped instinctively between them.

  "Go back to your home," Willow said, voice sharper than she intended. "Stay high in the trees. Stay out of the soil."

  "But—"

  "Go!"

  Maren stumbled back, taking to the air in a weak spiral.

  Willow turned, clutching Whisk close. The little creature nuzzled her chest with a plaintive whimper.

  "I know," Willow whispered. "I know you're not the cause."

  But she couldn’t ignore it anymore. His arrival. The falling star. The awakening corruption. They were all threads from the same tangle.

  And now the Verdant Glade was unraveling.

  She followed the black trail deeper toward the Grove’s heart.

  At the very center stood the Great Tree—the seat of Lady Thalendra’s power, its massive roots holding the Grove together, both physically and magically. Its trunk rose into the sky like a mountain, thick enough that a dozen fairies linking hands couldn’t encircle it.

  Tonight, the Great Tree was weeping.

  Sap ran down its bark in thick, amber streams, and its leaves had dulled to a pale sickly yellow. Worse, thin cracks spiraled outward from the base—faint lines glowing with a sickly green light, like veins of poison working their way into the wood.

  Willow staggered a step closer, overwhelmed.

  A cluster of Court elders stood nearby, cloaked in silver and green, their faces grim. Thalanil was among them, gesturing sharply as he spoke.

  She caught fragments of his words:

  "—not natural—"

  "—seeping from the bindings—"

  "—must find the seed—"

  Lady Thalendra stood with her hand pressed flat against the Great Tree’s bark, her eyes closed in fierce concentration. A web of living vines writhed around her arms, feeding her magic into the tree in desperate, pulsing waves.

  Willow knew instinctively: it wasn't enough. The tree was too vast. The corruption too deep.

  "We're losing it," someone whispered nearby.

  "No," Willow whispered back, clutching Whisk tighter. "We can't lose it."

  Because if the Verdant Glade fell—if the Great Tree withered—the delicate balance of the entire Feywild would shift. The protections binding the older, darker things would crack.

  Things would awaken.

  Things that even the Courts feared.

  She turned sharply away, wings snapping open.

  She couldn't stay here, waiting for the inevitable.

  She had to find the source. Now.

  And deep inside her heart, something told her that Whisk—sweet, innocent Whisk—was the key. Whether he remembered it or not.

  Willow set her jaw and flew into the deep woods, following the faint, unseen pull that had been tugging at her soul ever since the clearing.

  Toward the forgotten places.

  Toward the sleeping darkness.

  Toward the truth.