Night had settled, but the glow of fairy-lanterns and drifting motes lit the path well enough for human eyes to see. Ahead, eight dwarven bandits were loading a cart with a cage. In that cage was a bloody body.

  Even from this distance, Gretta thought she recognized that pulp. The set of the shoulders, the slackness of the limbs—Rowan.

  If he were mortal, she might have grieved already. But he wasn’t. He was a god.

  And that terrified her more.

  If his body died here, his soul would be flung back into the Void—adrift, vulnerable. He might never find his way to Fairy again. Might never find her. Not after all this time.

  She clenched her jaw.

  But they’d caged him. That meant something. If he were truly dead, they wouldn’t have bothered. That was enough reassurance.

  She sauntered forward, not hiding or hurrying. Her cloak fluttered behind her, leaving the hilt of her dagger exposed.

  “It’s Dew,” one of the dwarves whispered.

  Weapons scraped free of their sheaths. Gretta smiled.

  “We don’t want no trouble,” the only dwarf with a lick of sense said. “We kept clear of your property, like we said we would.”

  Gretta kept walking, slow and measured.

  “We’re just making a living,” said a dwarf on the left, bow shaking in his grip.

  She didn’t slow. Didn’t blink. Her smile stayed put, but her eyes were hard.

  “We’ll be on our way now,” said the lead dwarf. “Come on, lads.”

  They scrambled to load the wagon. One jumped into the driver’s seat.

  “Stop,” Gretta said.

  “Take another step and there’ll be an arrow with your name on it,” the lead dwarf warned.

  Gretta didn’t pause. “Who do you have there, Bingstal?”

  “Human,” Bingstal said nervously. “He’s ours. The queen pays well for humans.”

  That’s when she saw it—a silver necklace in his hand. Not just any silver. It had once been part of her—still was, in some way. A thread of her goddess’s soul. Her eyes flashed. Bingstal flinched.

  “Release him,” she said, voice low. “And return my necklace.”

  Bingstal squared his shoulders. “They say you’re not the fighter you used to be. That you’re slowing down.”

  Gretta drew her dagger.

  “You can’t take eight of us alone,” he added. “Not anymore.”

  Gretta’s smile returned. “You mean we can’t take the three of you?”

  Bingstal’s brow furrowed. He glanced around—

  Five dwarves were simply gone.

  And a massive green troll stood behind him, holding the last two dwarves by the collars. Meg grinned, tusks bared.

  Bingstal dropped the necklace and bolted.

  “Let ’em go,” Gretta muttered, bending to pick up the necklace.

  She felt it instantly—faint, but real. Magic. Still alive, working its way through her veins like old fire reigniting.

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  Meg tossed the two dwarves onto the road. “Get.”

  They didn’t argue.

  “They’ll be back,” Meg said. “Caught them off guard. Next time, they’ll bring friends.”

  Gretta shrugged, still studying the necklace. One of the links was broken, but her fingers moved on instinct. She slipped it around her neck—and it vanished, reappearing as a faint tattoo against her skin. Part of her again.

  For a heartbeat, something stirred.

  Not just the necklace’s magic—but her goddess.

  A whisper, too far to hear clearly. A rush of warmth, like sunlight through trees. Then static, like overlapping memories. The Wild Mother moved through time differently—slower, older, deeper. Twenty-five years for Gretta might have been seconds or centuries for her.

  Still, something touched back. A pulse of recognition.

  Gretta blinked hard and steadied her breath.

  “Little help here,” Rowan croaked. “Pretty sure the last guy with the key ran off.”

  Meg didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the wooden bars and gave a single, sharp tug. The cage cracked open.

  She lifted Rowan’s limp form. His head lolled, but his eyes blinked blearily.

  “Wait,” he mumbled, staring at her face—stooped posture, gray hair, skin weathered by decades. “You’re not Gretta.”

  His gaze drifted, unfocused. “You sounded like her.”

  “Shh,” Gretta said gently. “We’ll talk. You’ve been hit on the head.”

  Rowan spat blood. “Can’t let you take the necklace. Belongs to my friend.”

  Gretta smiled. “I know, you idiot. Hush now and rest. You’ll be okay.”

  A massive boulder—easily the size of the wagon—slammed into the ground nearby in a plume of dust and flying debris.

  The horses panicked and bolted, dragging the cart behind them deeper into the heart of Fairy.

  “Hill giant,” Meg muttered, watching a hulking form stomp through the trees. Eight tiny figures trailed behind it. “Big one.”

  “Take Rowan to my room,” Gretta said. “Do what you can. If Bool can spare a healing draft, I’ll make a fair trade.”

  “Bold, not specifying the trade.”

  Gretta shrugged. “I have you to make sure it’s fair.”

  Meg eyed the giant and the dwarves. “You sure? That thing looks like a handful.”

  Gretta smiled. “Nah. I got this.”

  She turned back toward the looming trees, already feeling the shift in the air.

  For the first time in twenty-five years, she reached for her magic.

  And it didn’t come.

  Not right away.

  The flow was slower now—distant, like trying to summon a dream from behind a wall of fog. Time didn’t move the same here. Magic didn’t, either. It slipped sideways, like trying to grab water in a current.

  Gretta gritted her teeth and reached harder.

  The necklace around her throat pulsed with heat, grounding her. A tether. A path.

  She pulled again—and this time, the connection held.

  Her astral self, waiting just out of reach all this time, came surging back. Gretta shifted smoothly into a massive griffin—lion’s hindquarters coiled with strength, eagle’s wings outstretched, and hooked beak gleaming in the moonlight. Her talons flexed, each curved like a scythe.

  Rowan had let her keep it.

  She let out a shriek, part roar, part eagle’s cry—raw and wild and free—exultant at the return of a part of herself she thought she’d lost forever.

  Meg laughed. “I’ll see you at home.”

  Gretta’s vision sharpened—night was no different from day now. The dwarves had stopped in stunned silence. The hill giant bent to lift another boulder.

  Behind her, Gretta heard Meg jogging away. The troll moved quiet as shadow, but now—just this once—Gretta heard her footfalls. It made her smile.

  The boulder came flying. Gretta crouched, then launched herself straight up, wings hammering the air.

  One. Two. Three beats.

  She soared over the boulder, claws out, diving toward her enemies.

  “Dew is a monster,” one of the dwarves whispered, awestruck.

  Hill giants were massive and strong, sure—but greedy, stupid, and cruel. This one had made a very bad bargain.

  Gretta hit the giant’s chest like a cannonball, claws first. The impact drove him down. The ground trembled with the crash.

  She drove her beak into his shoulder, piercing deep with enough force to crack bone. The giant screamed, swinging wildly. One lucky blow sent her flying.

  She crashed into a tree. Bone snapped in one wing. She landed hard, talons skidding across the dirt, wings twisted, pain blazing through her body. She folded them in tight and let out another roar—angry, defiant, alive.

  The dwarves and the giant fled.

  Her beak still dripped with the giant’s blood, and her talons carved furrows in the earth as she turned.

  She shifted into a striped tabby—finally her old favorite, not some cursed owl. The pain vanished with the change, replaced by the sudden, overwhelming joy of being herself again.

  She purred and trotted back toward the road home.