The search party assembled in the gray pre-dawn light, their breath misting in the cold mountain air. Jane counted heads as she stepped outside. There was Allen, Brit, Frank, and two other men she didn't immediately recognize. One was a wiry older man with weathered skin and sharp eyes. The other was younger, broad-shouldered, and carrying an enormous pack that looked like it might weigh more than Jane did.

  "This is Otto," Allen said, gesturing to the wiry man. "He's a hunter. Knows these mountains better than anyone."

  Otto gave Jane a curt nod. His eyes had already moved past her, scanning the street, the sky, and the distant treeline as if trying to get a bead on the weather conditions. She was immediately glad to have him there.

  "And this is Hugh." Allen indicated the young man with the pack. "He's agreed to carry supplies. Water, rope, medical things, food.”

  Hugh shifted the weight on his shoulders and offered a shy wave. "Happy to help, miss."

  Jane felt something loosen slightly in her chest. These weren't just people who had shown up because Allen asked. These were people with skills, knowledge, and reasons to be here beyond simple kindness.

  "Thank you," she said. "All of you. I don't know how to make this up to you."

  "Don't." Frank's voice was gruff, but not unkind. "This is what neighbors do."

  Something was pressed into her hands. Jane looked down to find a cloth-wrapped bundle, still warm. Breathing in, she recognized the smell of bread and cheese.

  She looked up to see Bella standing at the edge of the group, her hair mussed from sleep and her expression fierce.

  "Eat," Bella commanded. "You're not going anywhere on an empty stomach."

  "I didn't know you were coming."

  "I'm not. I’ll slow you down." Bella's voice cracked slightly on the last word. "But I can make sure you don't starve before you get started. Now eat."

  Jane ate. The bread was fresh, clearly baked in the small hours of the morning, and the cheese was sharp and good. She hadn't realized how hungry she was until the first bite hit her stomach.

  "We should move," Otto said. Though quiet, his voice carried in the still morning air. "Light's coming. We want to be at the lift before full dawn."

  The group set off through the empty streets. They reached the lift platform as the sky was just beginning to show hints of color at the edges. The iron cage sat waiting, patient and still.

  Otto eyed the group. "Two trips. The lift won't take all of us safely. Not with Hugh's pack."

  "I'll go first with Otto, Jane, and Brit," Allen said. "Frank and Hugh can follow."

  Nobody argued. Jane stepped into the cage, feeling the familiar lurch of unease in her stomach. The wrongness in the air was still there, that sour magical residue that made her skin prickle. She breathed through it, focusing on the task ahead rather than the discomfort of the present.

  The descent seemed to take forever. Jane watched the rock face slide past, counting the layers of stone as they dropped lower and lower. When they finally reached the bottom, she stepped out onto solid ground with relief that had nothing to do with magic.

  They waited in tense silence for the second group. Jane used the time to study Otto, who had moved a few paces away and was examining the ground with an intensity that suggested he was reading a story written in dirt and stone.

  "What do you see?" she asked.

  "Nothing yet. Not here." Otto straightened and looked downstream, where the river churned toward the distant lowlands. "The real story starts past the first bend. That's where the paths get interesting. Fewer footprints muddling things."

  The lift returned. Frank, Brit, and Hugh emerged, Hugh's pack somehow looking even larger now that he was standing on uneven ground. The young man didn't seem troubled by the weight. If anything, he looked eager.

  Otto gathered them with a gesture, waiting until everyone's attention was on him before speaking.

  "We need to establish some rules before we go any further." His tone was calm but brooked no argument. "I'm going to walk first. I'll be reading signs. Tracks, broken branches, disturbed earth. Anything that might tell us which way Lady Cecelia went, and what shape she was in when she went there."

  The implication of that last phrase hung in the air. Jane felt her throat tighten.

  "Everyone else follows in a line. You step where I step, as much as possible. You don't wander off to look at something interesting. You don't rush ahead." Otto's eyes swept the group. "Hugh walks last. Between his weight and that pack, he'll destroy any faint signs I might have missed. Better to have him behind us than in the middle."

  Frank and Brit nodded. This was apparently sensible.

  Otto turned to Jane. "If you sense something magical that I can't see, something that needs an immediate response, you tell me. But unless it's that kind of emergency, you follow my lead like everyone else. Even if it feels slow. Even if it feels wrong. I know these mountains. I know how to find people who are lost in them. Can you promise me that?"

  Jane wanted to argue. Every instinct in her screamed that her aunt was out there, and that every moment they spent planning was a moment wasted. But she tried to remember what Allen had said the night before. She thought of stumbling in the dark, of making things worse, and of being the kind of problem that couldn't be solved.

  "I promise," she said.

  "Good." Otto turned to the rest of the group. "Same question for everyone else. I need your word that you'll follow my commands. This isn't about authority. It's about efficiency. A search party that trips over itself is worse than no search party at all."

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  One by one, they agreed.

  "Then let's move."

  Otto set off along the riverbank, moving at a pace that seemed almost leisurely. Jane had to fight the urge to push past him and run ahead. She forced herself to breathe, to watch, to trust.

  The path Otto chose wasn't always the most obvious one. Sometimes he led them away from the river's edge, around a tangle of roots or a stretch of unstable-looking ground. Sometimes he stopped entirely, crouching to examine something Jane couldn't see.

  The terrain grew rougher as they moved downstream. The ground here was wet from the constant spray of the falls, and moss covered everything in a slippery green coat. Jane's new boots handled it well enough, but she was grateful for Otto's careful path-picking. Without him, she would have fallen a dozen times already.

  "Here.” Otto stopped at a place where the path split. One route followed the river closely, hugging the bank. The other curved away, climbing slightly before disappearing into a stand of thick brush. "Someone came through here. Recently. See the way this branch is bent? And here." He pointed to a scuff mark on a rock. “That's from a boot. Good quality stuff, newly cured. Not a woodsman's."

  Jane's heart lurched. "My aunt?"

  “Can't say for certain. But whoever it was, they took the higher path.” Otto straightened and looked at Jane. “They knew what they were doing. The lower path looks easier, but it floods when the river's high. The upper path is harder walking, but safer.”

  Otto started up the higher path. The going immediately became more difficult. Branches caught at their clothes, and the ground was uneven, riddled with hidden roots and rocks.

  Jane found herself grateful for every hour she had spent walking the streets of Glenfall. A month ago, this would have exhausted her within minutes. Now she settled into a rhythm, following Otto's footsteps and trying not to think too hard about what they might find.

  The sun was fully up now, filtering through the canopy in patches of gold and green. Birds called to each other in the branches, seemingly unconcerned by the humans trudging through their territory. The river’s noise faded as they climbed, replaced by the sound of wind filtering through leaves and the occasional crack of a branch under someone's foot.

  Otto stopped again at a small clearing, holding up a hand for silence. Everyone froze.

  "What is it?" Jane whispered.

  Otto didn't answer immediately. He was staring at the ground, his expression unreadable. Then he crouched and picked something up, turning it over in his hands before holding it out for Jane to take.

  It was a button, the kind you might find on any traveling cloak. But Jane recognized the slight iridescence that caught the morning light. She had been there when her aunt bought it.

  "That's my aunt's,” she said. “That's from her coat.”

  The button felt cold in Jane's palm, and heavier than something so small had any right to be. She looked up at Otto and tried to keep the panic out of her voice.

  "This is good, right? It means we're going the right way?"

  "It does." Otto took the button back and resumed his examination of the ground. "And it fell recently. The weather hasn’t covered the disturbed earth from these footprints yet. She was here within the last few days."

  Allen's hand found Jane's shoulder, a steady presence. "See? We're on the right track. Otto knows what he's doing."

  Jane wanted to believe that. She wanted to feel relieved. Instead, all she could think about was why the button had come off in the first place. Had her aunt been moving carelessly? Had she snagged it on a branch? Or had something tore it loose?

  "Keep moving," Otto said. "Trail's still fresh. We're gaining ground."

  They pressed on. The path grew steeper, and Jane found her breath coming harder. Behind her, she could hear Hugh's steady footfalls, the young man apparently unbothered by his enormous pack. Brit was breathing heavily but keeping pace. Frank moved with the efficiency of someone used to physical labor, in good enough shape from rowing and pulling nets to do just about anything.

  Just keep walking. One foot in front of the other. Don't think about what might have happened. Don't think about finding her hurt. Don't think at all.

  But thinking was all Jane could do. Every step carried her closer to answers she wasn't sure she wanted, while the weight of not knowing pressed down on her shoulders like a physical thing. Allen dropped back to walk beside her.

  "Talk to me," he said quietly. "Tell me what you're thinking."

  "I'm thinking I should have gone with her." The words came out before Jane could stop them. "She asked me to focus on the bakery, on having fun, and I did. I just let her walk off into danger alone."

  "She's the Grand Archmage, Jane. She walked into her job."

  "That doesn't make it better."

  "No." Allen's voice was gentle. "But it does mean this isn't your fault. Whatever happened, it's not because you spent a day at a festival."

  Jane wanted to argue, but Otto chose that moment to stop again, crouching near a fallen log. He spent a long time examining something Jane couldn't see, his weathered face unreadable.

  "What is it?" Frank called from the middle of the line.

  Otto stood and turned to face them. For the first time since they'd started, Jane saw something like concern cross his features.

  "The trail splits here. She went this way.” He pointed to the left, where the path continued along what looked like a natural ridge. “But something else went that way.” His finger shifted to the right, where the undergrowth was thicker and more tangled. "Something big. Multiple somethings, maybe."

  "What kind of something?" Brit asked, his hand moving unconsciously to the knife at his belt.

  "Can't say for certain. Could be wild boar, but those don't usually travel in groups this large." Otto shook his head. "Either way, they were moving perpendicular to your aunt's path. Doesn't look like they crossed. She probably didn't even know they were there."

  "Probably," Jane echoed. The word sat uncomfortably in her mouth.

  "It's good news," Allen said, though his voice was less certain than before. "It means she wasn't being chased or followed."

  "It means she wasn't being followed then." Jane started forward again, unable to stand still any longer. "It doesn't tell us anything about after."

  Otto fell back into the lead without comment, following the left-hand path. The ridge narrowed as they went. Jane found herself acutely aware of the drop-off to her right. It wasn't a sheer cliff, but it was steep enough that a fall would be painful.

  The morning stretched on. Otto stopped frequently now, sometimes to examine the ground, sometimes to study a broken branch or a disturbance in the moss. He said less and less as time went by. Jane couldn't decide if this was because there was less to say, or because what he was seeing worried him.

  They came to a stream, narrow but moving fast over smooth stones. Otto crouched at its edge. After studying both banks carefully, he stood and addressed the group.

  "She stopped here. Filled a water skin, probably. See how the moss is compressed on this stone? That's where someone knelt. And there.” He pointed to a faint impression in the soft earth. “Boot print. Same as the others we've been following."

  "How long ago?" Jane asked.

  "Day and a half, maybe two days. Hard to say exactly. The stream keeps things wet. Makes it harder to read the age of signs." Otto looked downstream, then upstream, then back at the path they'd been following. "She continued straight across. Didn't follow the water either direction."

  They waded through the stream, the water rolling just high enough to invade Jane’s boots. Her feet went numb almost immediately, but she pushed on, scrambling up the far bank and waiting as the others crossed.

  The vegetation changed after the stream. The trees grew larger here, and the canopy overhead was denser. It was beautiful in a quiet, eerie way that made Jane uneasy.

  "Are we still going the right direction?" Brit asked after another hour of walking. "Seems like we should have found something by now."

  "Trail's still clear," Otto said without turning around. "Your aunt knew where she was going. This isn't random wandering. She had a destination in mind."

  "How can you tell?" Jane asked.

  "The way she moved. No backtracking. Question is, what was she heading toward?"

  Jane had been wondering that herself. Her aunt had said she was going to follow the river downstream to check for more contamination. But this path had taken them away from the water, climbing higher into the mountains. Either her aunt had changed her plans, or something had changed them for her.

  She pushed the thought away and focused on walking. One foot in front of the other. That was all she could control right now.

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