Elsewhere—far from the city, the noise, and the fires—two figures walked beneath the crooked canopy of the Parklands Forest.
The trees here didn't rise—they loomed. Thick, old things with bark dark enough to drown the moonlight. Their trunks stretched high, disappearing into a canopy dense with oversized leaves, their swaying movement slow, almost sluggish, like something breathing just a bit too deep.
Moonlight struggled to make it down in full. Thin beams filtered through gaps in the leaves, falling in scattered lines that cut across the forest floor like pale scars.
Crickets creaked somewhere in the distance. Owls called to each other overhead, their low hoots moving from branch to branch like warnings passed between sentries.
The grass underfoot was damp and dark green—short in most places, stubborn in others. The air was cold in a way that wasn't about temperature. It felt off. The kind of cold that didn't touch the skin, but coiled around the spine.
Elle led the way.
