Del had barely made it out of sight before Elara felt a pang of misgiving settle in her gut. She trusted her instincts, and they were warning her of potential hostility in his absence. The village had already shown hints of discomfort towards her kind, and while Del’s presence had acted as a buffer, she would now have to face them alone. But another part of her bristled at the thought of relying on him for that. She had a role to play in this investigation, and she intended to prove her worth.

Her plan was simple—start at the market. If this place was anything like the ones back in her Hometree, it would be a hub of information, gossip, and rumour.

The market was already thick with talk, and it didn’t take long for Elara to pick up on the thread of conversation winding through the traders and customers alike. Emily’s disappearance had shaken the village—her absence felt even more keenly because she had lived and worked in the elder’s house, just behind the market itself.

Yet alongside the concern, there was fear.

“Gone, just like the others.”

“She wouldn’t have run off. Not Emily.”

“There was no scream, no sound at all…”

Elara let the voices wash over her, filing away snippets of rumour as she wandered through the bustling rows of stalls.

Her presence alone stirred further whispers—some subtle, others far more brazen. She had expected this. Elves were rare in this part of the land, and few from her kind strayed from the main trade routes. As far as the villagers knew, she was the first to have crossed the mountains and descended into Stonebridge in living memory. It wasn’t surprising, then, that she became the subject of speculation.

A pair of older women near a vegetable cart eyed her as she passed, their hushed conversation not quite hushed enough.

"It’s not natural, them coming here. First the boy, now her."

"Mark my words, trouble follows their kind."

Elara fought the urge to sigh. She had heard it all before.

‘Fair enough,’ she thought, forcing an easy expression as she moved from stall to stall. ‘We did arrive in the middle of a crisis, and history between our peoples has never been… smooth.’

The market itself was a sensory feast. The scent of freshly baked bread, steaming meat pies, and the sharp tang of citrus fruits mingled in the air. Stalls brimmed with neatly cut linens, well-crafted tools, and everyday goods, each a reflection of the village’s quiet industry.

She slowed as she approached a herbalist’s stall, eyeing the neat bundles of dried plants. A middle-aged woman, her apron dusted with leaves and flower fragments, looked up as Elara stepped closer.

The briefest hesitation.

Then the woman gave a polite smile, though her fingers remained curled protectively around the scales she had just been using.

“Good morning,” Elara greeted, keeping her tone light.

The herbalist gave a small nod. “Morning.”

Elara plucked up a bundle of dried feverfew, rolling the stems between her fingers. “This is well preserved. You grow it yourself?”

The woman relaxed—just a little. “Aye. Some of it. The rest comes from traders passing through. Feverfew grows well here, but our winters can be harsh.”

Elara nodded thoughtfully, setting down the herbs. “I take it your other stock comes from Vita?”

The woman’s mouth pulled into a thin line, the tension snapping back into place. “Used to.”

Elara stilled. “Used to?”

The herbalist exhaled sharply, lowering her voice. “She’s gone. Didn’t show up at the stall yesterday, nor today. And she’s never missed a trade day before, not once.”

Something cold settled in Elara’s stomach. Another one.

She kept her expression neutral, giving a slow nod. “That’s troubling.”

The woman huffed, adjusting the baskets on her stall. “Everything’s troubling these days.”

Before Elara could press further, another customer pushed forward, eager to make a purchase. The conversation was over.

She moved on.

Elara took her time, knowing that browsing was an excellent excuse for conversation. Each exchange started the same way—polite small talk from the traders, often laced with cautious curiosity.

"Where’d you come from, then?"

"You finding Stonebridge to your liking?"

Most interactions were cordial enough, but she didn’t miss the moments of distrust.

The subtle tension in shoulders. The way certain traders locked their coin boxes as she approached. The quick glances, the barely veiled suspicion.

A butcher lowered his cleaver mid-chop, eyes tracking her as she passed. A cloth merchant tucked her wares behind her counter, a habit so deeply ingrained it almost seemed unconscious.

Elara kept her expression neutral, though inwardly, it stung.

She had done nothing to warrant such suspicion, yet experience had taught her that for some, difference alone was enough.

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She pressed on, drawing in fragments of rumour. Theories ranged wildly—a rogue witch or warlock, wild animals, or something far worse lurking in the dark.

One particularly outlandish claim even suggested that Paolo himself wasn’t as innocent as he seemed, though most of the village held him in high esteem.

Elara glanced toward the elder’s house in the distance, watching as Paolo moved between his duties, face creased with worry.

‘No. Not him.’

She had seen true grief before. And Paolo’s was not an act.

Elara dismissed most of it outright.

Wild animals? Unlikely. There had been no signs of struggle, no bodies, no blood. If wolves had taken anyone, there would be evidence. Magic? Perhaps—but no trace of spells had been found.

She entertained the Paolo theory for a moment before discarding it. His raw grief and exhaustion that morning had been too visceral to be an act. More than that, she trusted her instincts, and she was usually a good judge of character. Paolo felt like a good man.

Not unlike Del, really.

A small smile flickered across her lips as she thought of him—of his earnestness, his quiet kindness, and his frankly baffling lack of knowledge about the wider world. A puzzle of a man, really. Hopefully, he was making better progress with Vita than she was here.

What she did find, however, was confirmation of something else.

Listwort.

The scent of it clung to the market like an invisible thread, weaving through the stalls, carried in the pouches and baskets of villagers. The more she listened, the clearer it became—nearly everyone used it.

If she hadn’t known better, she might have worried that the town was caught in the grip of some addiction. But Listwort had no such properties. So why was it so widely used? And more importantly—why now?

That was a question worth answering.

Elara eventually moved on from the market, her frustration mounting. There were only so many half-truths and baseless rumours she could sift through before realising that none of it was leading anywhere useful. If there were real answers to be found, they wouldn’t be lurking between bartering vendors and gossiping shoppers.

So she turned her attention elsewhere.

The workshops held a different kind of energy—less idle chatter, more purposeful work. Here, hands were busy, voices quieter, focused. The carpenter’s shop, in particular, was a world unto itself. The heady scent of fresh-cut timber filled the air, thick and rich, mingling with the sharper tang of wood varnish. Afternoon sunlight streamed through high, dust-flecked windows, setting fine sawdust adrift like golden motes, suspended mid-air as if time itself had slowed.

The rhythmic rasp of a saw cut steadily through the quiet, punctuated by the occasional thud of a mallet or the low murmur of craftsmen at work. It was a place of creation and restoration, yet the weight of loss lingered between the planks and beams.

It was here that she learned about Will.

“My nephew, he was,” Joe, the village joiner, said, his voice thick with something restrained.

He was a broad-shouldered man, his hands rough and calloused from decades of labour, his face lined not just with age but with worry. Yet as he spoke of the missing young man, something fragile surfaced in his expression, a tension in his jaw, a grief carried without words.

“He worked as a baker’s hand,” Joe continued. “Good lad, strong. Last time anyone saw him, he’d just finished his shift. Said he was going to gather firewood for the night.”

Elara nodded, listening intently as he recounted the days of searching—how he and a few others had combed the woods, turning over every rock, pressing through tangled undergrowth, hoping for any sign of the boy they’d lost.

“Nothing.”

Joe’s grip on his chisel tightened, his fingers flexing around the worn wooden handle. “Not even a scuff of dirt to say where he went. All we found was his billeting axe, lying there on the ground like he’d just… put it down.”

Elara felt a cold ripple down her spine.

Another disappearance with no trace, no struggle, no explanation. It was as though the earth itself had simply opened and swallowed him whole.

Joe exhaled, the sound weary. “Lucky thing, I suppose.”

Elara frowned. “Lucky?”

Joe sighed, his eyes distant. “That he had no wife. No sprouts.”

The words landed heavily, their meaning clear—no one left behind to suffer his loss.

Elara studied him for a moment, the way his fingers hovered too long over his chisel, the way his gaze drifted towards the unfinished work in front of him. A man who had lost something, but could not afford to stop working.

She said nothing.

There was nothing to say.

She turned this over in her mind as she continued gathering information throughout the village, speaking to anyone willing to talk.

The pattern emerged slowly but surely.

Every missing person was alone. No spouse. No children. No one wholly dependent on them.

Coincidence? Maybe. But something about it itched at the back of her mind, like a puzzle piece that refused to slot into place.

By the time she drifted further into the village, she had no solid answers—only more unanswered questions.

And then—

“Quick, hide!”

The loud whisper came from up ahead.

Elara’s gaze focussed on a group of children scattering into the bushes, their giggles muffled behind hands and rustling leaves. A small boy stood in the middle of the path, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, his hands clamped over them.

He began counting, calling out numbers in a loud voice packed with excited energy

The boy continued counting, his voice high and determined.

As he got to the end of his count he whipped his hands from his eyes with a triumphant cry of “Dix! Coming ready or not.” Scattered laughter rippled through the bushes as the hunt began.

Elara’s steps slowed.

A strange, bittersweet feeling curled in her chest.

For just a moment, she was somewhere else entirely.

Not in this troubled village. Not surrounded by whispers of disappearances and distrust.

But in a sun-dappled clearing, deep in the forests of her Hometree, where childhood had been carefree and unburdened. When life had been nothing but laughter, breathless chases through ancient branches, and the simple certainty that tomorrow would be just as bright as today.

She remembered Skybound, a favourite game among the younglings, played high in the canopy where the branches wove a labyrinth of paths. One child would be the Seeker, eyes shut tight, counting softly while the others scattered, scrambling into the dense foliage. The goal was simple—remain unseen, leaping between boughs, blending with the shadows cast by thick leaves. The only rule: feet must never touch the ground.

Elara had been quick, nimble, able to balance on the slimmest of branches without a whisper of movement. But she hadn’t always been the best at hiding—her excitement too great, her breath too loud. She could still hear the teasing call of her brother, his voice echoing through the trees as he spotted her, laughter spilling between the trunks.

"Elara! I see you! Skybound is not played by standing still!"

She had shrieked with laughter, launching herself to the next branch, fingers grazing bark as she narrowly escaped being caught. The game had felt endless, like the sky itself stretched just for them, and the wind in her hair had whispered of nothing but freedom.

Those were the days before responsibilities.

Before duty.

Before she had been forced to make choices she could never take back.

Elara’s lips pressed together, the moment slipping from her grasp. Running from the past never made it disappear.

She forced her focus back to the present.

The boy had found most of his giggling friends, their hiding places giving them away one by one. Only one remained, perched on the slanted roof of a shed, grinning triumphantly.

Elara barely had time to take it in before a small whirlwind of movement surrounded her.

They had spotted her.

She was immediately engulfed by a half-dozen children, chattering and pulling at her sleeves as they bombarded her with an unfiltered flurry of questions.

“You came in the other day!”

“You have pretty eyes.”

“Can I play with your bow?”

“Why are your ears pointy?”

“Do you know the night man?”

The last question sent an unexpected shiver down Elara’s spine.

She crouched slightly, levelling her gaze with the child who had spoken.

“…The night man?”