My feet dragged through the tall grass and along the dirt road, each step heavier than the last. The sun had been climbing and falling in slow, indifferent arcs since we left Willow Hollow, and the road ahead showed no sign of shortening. My legs ached in the particular way they did after a full day of drills in Vildora's courtyard — a familiar ache, at least. One I knew how to carry. Beside me, Mousikí played softly on his flute, spinning on his heel every few steps with an ease that was almost irritating. Hours of walking and he still moved like someone who had just woken from a comfortable sleep — loose-limbed, unhurried, occasionally drifting a half-step off the path just to weave back again. His fingers moved over the instrument with a kind of careless precision, nimble and automatic, the way breathing was automatic. He wasn't even looking at his hands. I watched him for a moment longer than I meant to. "So how did you learn to play?" I asked, pulling my gaze back to the road. "Surely the magic didn't just come naturally — there must have been some kind of training. A teacher, at least." Mousikí let the last note drift away on the breeze before he grinned, tilting his head toward me with the expression of someone who had just been handed a very easy question. "Learn?" He repeated the word like it amused him. "No, darling. It's in my veins — quite literally. I was born from the first sound, after all." He raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth curling. "It would be rather embarrassing if the god of music had to be taught how to play, don't you think?" I considered that. Born from the first sound. I wasn't entirely sure what that meant until I remembered most gods and goddesses were born from what they control later on, not everyone was born mortal. It’s a rare case. Instead, I thought of the barkeep. Of the men who had croaked like frogs for a week. Of the way the whole tavern had gone sideways the moment Mousikí's music had touched it — unintentionally, he'd said. An accident. I turned the memory over carefully, the way you turned a stone to check what lived underneath it. Ying had told me once, when I was younger and too trusting for my own good, that a sheep could always be a wolf. That kindness was easy to perform and harder to mean. I had nodded along at the time, not really believing her. I was starting to understand what she meant. "You won't enchant me, will you?" I asked, keeping my voice light — making it sound like a joke, in case it wasn't. "I'd rather not spend the next several days ribbiting at passing travelers." Mousikí stopped playing. It was brief — just a flicker, just a beat — but his expression broke open in a way I hadn't seen before. The easy charm fell away, and what was underneath it was quieter. More careful. Something that looked, unexpectedly, like it had been hurt before and hadn't quite finished healing. When he spoke again, his voice had lost its usual lilt entirely. "I would never." A pause. His jaw worked slightly, like he was deciding how much to give. "What happened at the tavern was an accident. I lost control of it — that's not something I'm proud of." He exhaled slowly through his nose. "I would never use it on someone deliberately. Not unless I had no other choice and every other option was already gone." His gaze dropped to the road. I almost missed what came next — a murmur, low and unguarded, not quite meant for me: "I won't dare hurt you." The words landed somewhere soft. I stared at the dirt path and said nothing, guilt settling quietly in my chest. It was an unfair question, maybe. Or a necessary one. I still wasn't sure which. Then the grin came back. It slid into place like a mask buckled tight — practiced, effortless, the kind of smile that had probably talked its way out of a hundred impossible situations. He reached over without warning and pressed the back of his hand lightly to my forehead, as if checking for a fever. "Besides," he said, mismatched eyes bright with mischief, "it wouldn't work on you anyway. You're already thoroughly charmed by my wit and my devastating good looks. There's simply nothing left to enchant." His hand lingered a beat longer than it needed to before he pulled it away. Heat flooded my face so fast I felt it in my ears. I swatted at him — a weak, poorly-aimed attempt that he dodged without even trying — and he laughed, bright and entirely too pleased with himself. Something in my chest pulled toward the sound before I could catch it. I laughed too, softer, and turned my face away so he wouldn't see the color in my cheeks. We're here to stop Forá. I reminded myself, carefully and firmly. Ying and Yang are in a cage somewhere. Chrysós is hunting us. There is no room for this. I tucked the feeling down into some quiet corner of myself and kept walking.
The road narrowed as it wound into a stretch of dense tree cover, the canopy closing overhead and dimming the afternoon light to something cooler and green. Mousikí had started playing again — something slower now, more wandering, like a song that hadn't decided where it was going yet. I had almost settled back into the rhythm of walking when it happened. A twig snapped. I had the dagger out before the thought fully formed, every muscle pulling taut at once. Beside me, Mousikí raised the flute to his lips in a single smooth motion, fingers already positioned — not to play a melody, but to cast. I could feel the faint charge in the air around him, the way magic gathered at the edges of things when he was ready to use it. Neither of us spoke. Neither of us moved. A growl rolled out from between the trees. Low and unhurried, the kind that didn't need to rush because it already knew it had found what it was looking for. Then it stepped into the open. The fox was enormous — its shoulder nearly level with my waist, its body dense and fluid, moving with the particular quiet of something that had been built to hunt. Its fur was a rich, impossible gold that caught the fractured light through the canopy and threw it back like hammered metal. Its eyes were fully black, not the bright animal black of a natural creature but something deeper and deliberate, like holes cut through to somewhere else entirely. A collar circled its thick neck. The gold of its fur darkened at the tips — burnt and wrong, like something had scorched it from the inside out. As it stepped fully clear of the shadows, its jaws stretched wide, slowly, almost lazily, and the teeth that emerged were not a fox's teeth. They lengthened and curved into points that had no business belonging to anything living. My blood went cold in a single, sudden drop. I knew this animal. The vision came back in a rush — Forá kneeling, pressing torn fabric beneath the creature's nose, her voice low and intimate and terrible. Track the scent, boy. Find the little princess. Make sure her time runs out. Chrysós. It didn't circle us. It didn't posture or pace the way animals did when they were uncertain. It had already decided. It lunged — not at me, but directly at Mousikí — and hit him with the full weight of its body, jaws closing around his forearm before he could bring the flute to bear. He made a sharp, bitten-off sound, more surprise than pain, and golden blood welled up dark and vivid against his skin, dripping onto the dirt road in slow, heavy drops. "Mousikí—!" I threw myself forward, grabbing at the fox's collar, its scruff, anything I could reach — and it was like trying to move a wall. The beast didn't even shift its weight. It held Mousikí's arm with a patience that was more frightening than frenzy, black eyes sliding sideways to look at me with something that felt almost like recognition. Of course it recognized me. It had been sent for me. I released it and stepped back, forcing myself to breathe, forcing myself to think instead of panic. The dream. Every detail of the dream — I had watched Forá send this creature out, watched it tear through obstacles, watched it move. There had to be something. Some weakness. Some moment I had seen and stored away without knowing I would need it. My grip tightened on the dagger. Mousikí was still on his feet, jaw set, trying to angle the flute with his free hand. Golden blood ran down his wrist and dripped from his fingers. Think, Laelynn. Think faster. Just as the beast coiled and lunged again — jaws wide, aimed directly for my face — three sharp, clear notes rang out through the trees. F. A. C. The sound hit the air like a physical thing. I felt it in my chest, in the soles of my feet, in the space behind my teeth. The fox froze mid-lunge — and then it was lifted, wrenched upward by nothing visible, suspended in the air above the road with its legs churning uselessly against empty space. It snarled and snapped, twisting against the force, but whatever Mousikí had cast held it firm. I was already running. "Mousikí—" He was on one knee in the dirt, his flute still raised, his free arm braced against his thigh. The wound was worse than I'd realized. His sleeve was soaked through, golden blood spreading dark and fast across the fabric, dripping steadily from his elbow onto the ground. His face was pale beneath its usual warmth, jaw clenched tight, and the hand holding the flute had a faint tremor in it that I didn't think he was aware of. "Bag," he managed, the word clipped and strained. "Side pocket — grab the potion. Small vial, blue stopper." He swallowed, exhaling carefully through his nose. "Healing potion. It — it should close it." I was already pulling the bag from his shoulder, fingers working through the pocket until they closed around glass.
