Cress had just come from visiting Mr. Thollin's shop. She'd gone to buy the paints her father needed for the new set of dolls he was making. The nobleman who'd placed the order this time had asked for a wooden collection plain faces and stiff limbs, to be painted rather than dressed.
It was a shame. Cress loved making the costumes most of all.
Still, she skipped happily down the cobbled street, clutching the wrapped vials of paint to her chest, already imagining the fine brushwork her father would let her try. Maybe he'd let her design the patterns on the hems the ones that curled like ivy or danced like fire.
But the moment she turned onto their street, something shifted.
The air felt… off.
Not cold. Not hot. Just wrong.
Her footsteps slowed. She reached their door and hesitated, heart thudding faster. The windows were dark. No oil lamp glowed inside. No quiet clatter of wood shavings or low hum of her father's work.
She pressed her ear to the door.
Voices.
Rough. Angry.
Not her father's.
She held her breath.
"Where is it, old man?" one voice snarled. "You think we don't know what you charge them nobles?"
"I told you," her father said, voice hoarse but calm, "there's nothing more to take. You've already..."
A sharp crack. Wood? No something breaking. Her father grunted in pain.
Cress stepped back from the door, heart clawing at her ribs. She didn't understand. Who were they? Why were they doing this.
"You should've known your place" another voice spat. "You and your little brat playing merchant."
"Leave her out of this," her father said, louder now. "She's just a child."
Thud and then silence.
Cress's hand slipped. The paint vials rattled against the stone.
Inside, someone swore.
"Check outside!"
She had seen what had happened to her father and she ran.
Down the alley, over the side wall barely remembering the rope her father had hung when they played hide-and-seek in the spring. Her legs burned, her breath came in ragged gasps, but she didn't stop. Not even when the voices faded behind her.
She didn't stop because she knew.
She knew her father wasn't coming after her.
Cress ran. She didn't dare look back.
She knew it was dangerous to stop, even for a breath. She would find somewhere to hide, wait until it was safe. Then she'd come back. She'd come back for him.
Her lungs burned as she darted between alley walls and under archways. The town blurred around her, the smell of smoke, damp stone thick in her nose and the footsteps behind her. Her father's voice echoed in her memory She's just a child and the way he said it made her want to scream.
Then it happened.
A sudden gust of wind whipped past her, so strong it nearly knocked her off her feet. It came from nowhere, warm and wrong and sharp, like it had teeth. It lasted only a second.
But everything had changed.
The cobbled street was gone. So were the houses, the carts, the laundry lines and muddy alleys. In their place stood trees tall, strange trees with glassy leaves that shimmered faintly in the half-light. The ground beneath her feet was mossy, soft, and unfamiliar.
She staggered, blinking, heart hammering in her chest.
"What...?"
Before she could make sense of it, her foot caught on a thick root jutting from the earth. Her body pitched forward and she slammed hard into the ground, the breath punched from her lungs.
She lay there, stunned, the forest spinning around her. Then she pushed herself up, coughing, dirt clinging to her palms.
Cress stayed still for a long moment, chest heaving, ear pressed to the earth. The ground wasn't cold like stone or hard-packed dirt it was soft and warm, almost like it was breathing.
She slowly sat up, wincing as pain bloomed in her ankle where the root had caught her. Her dress was torn at the hem, streaked with mud.
Her eyes darted around, trying to understand.
Where were the shops? The neighbors? The smoke-stained rooftops and narrow streets she'd grown up threading like a maze? Where were the angry voices? The blood?
Gone. All of it.
The trees overhead swayed without wind. Their leaves shimmered faintly not quite green, not quite silver and the sky beyond them held no sun, just a soft, pale light that hovered like the inside of a dream. She heard birdsong, but it was nothing like the sparrows or crows of home. It chirped in odd intervals, like laughter in a language she couldn't understand.
She hugged her knees to her chest.
Her father was gone. She had seen it. The flash of steel, the shout, the silence. That final moment pressed against her like a bruise inside her ribs.
And now she was here.
Her hands trembled. Her paint-stained fingers curled tightly, pressing into the fabric of her skirt like she could hold herself together if she just gripped hard enough.
"I was supposed to help him," she whispered. Her voice cracked.
Something rustled behind her, and she stiffened. Her breath caught.
But it was only a falling leaf, slow and golden, drifting like it was too lazy to hit the ground.
Still, she stayed frozen.
She heard footsteps soft, steady, drawing closer from somewhere beyond the trees.
"…Help me," Cress called out, her voice cracking as the first tear spilled down her cheek. "Someone, please…"
She knew it could be a stranger. A bad person. Someone worse than those she had run from. But she had to try. She couldn't stay here alone. Not in this place that smelled like honey and earth and dreams.
The footsteps stopped just beyond the foliage.
Then a figure stepped through an older girl, but older than her buy much, with a tired but kind face and ash-dark hair that hung around her shoulders. She looked worn, like she had weathered storms, but there was something gentle in the way her eyes softened when she saw Cress.
"My word… are you alright?" the girl asked, dropping to her knees beside her.
Cress didn't answer. Her vision was blurred with tears. Everything hurt her ankle, her chest, her heart.
The girl reached out, brushing a strand of hair from Cress's forehead with fingers that were rough but careful. "Are you alright?" she asked again, more softly this time.
Cress looked up, blinking through the tears.
"I... I was running… and then I was just here… and I fell." She sniffled. "It hurts."
The girl nodded, not asking anything more just yet. "What's your name?" she asked gently. "Mine is Sollene."
Cress hugged her arms tightly around her legs. Her voice came out quiet, like it barely wanted to exist, but it rang in the quiet of the forest all the same.
"I… I'm Cress."
"Alright, Cress," Sollene said, her voice steady like a lullaby. "I'll carry you on my back. We'll follow the stream. Maybe we'll find a town or someone who can help."