I folded the roof like a bad dream and kept sleeping. The leak had been there since last autumn—one cracked tile near the eaves that dripped in a rhythm I could have hummed in my sleep. I woke to the sound of it skipping, then stopping. The air tasted of rain and old stone. The little world of my cottage felt thin, like paper left in the rain. For a full blink I let myself be small. I counted the cracks in the ceiling by the light of my bedside mortar. Three. Then I sat up and the room leaned away. The window was open. Outside, the forest had gone hard grey, the usual suffused green of the Faewild edge washed out to pewter. The trees stood like drowned things, trunks black with rain. No birds. No wind. The whole wood was holding its breath as if someone had told it a secret and asked it not to laugh. "What the—?" I said. The sound was mine without ownership. The words left my mouth like a borrowed coin. There were two hands on my throat before my heart managed to hammer. They were not human. Not anymore. Muscle and skin, yes, but arranged wrong—pale as if plucked from moonlight and then stained with something like old ink. Fingers too long, knuckles like knotted roots. The nails blackened in a clean, artless way. The palms carried stray threads of moss and a single torn scrap of parchment. A faint