William did not leave.
This was important.
The goblin noticed immediately and made the very reasonable decision to panic.
She flattened herself against the back of the cage, chains clinking as though they, too, were attempting to escape. Her earlier confidence had evaporated entirely, replaced by the wide-eyed stare of someone who had just realized they were not the funniest person in the room.
Hovering between them, perfectly still, was the quill.
It waited.
Menacingly.
"Nope," the goblin said quickly. "Nope nope nope. We're done. I surrender. I yield. I tap out. Whatever the surface folk phrase is."
William clasped his hands behind his back, posture relaxed, like a man about to enjoy a very educational conversation.
"Excellent," he said pleasantly. "Because now we begin the useful part."
Her eye twitched.
The quill drifted an inch closer.
She hissed. "Don't you dare."
William ignored that entirely.
"You didn't trip the grove wards," he continued conversationally. "You didn't alert the druids. You didn't get turned into fertilizer, which tells me you didn't enter through any approved method."
He tilted his head.
"So let's skip the guessing game. How did you sneak in?"
She folded her arms defensively. "I ain't tellin' you any—"
The quill moved.
Just barely.
The goblin shriek-laughed, jerking sideways as if struck by lightning powered entirely by humiliation.
"NOPE—HAHA—WAIT—STOP—WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?"
William raised a finger.
The quill froze.
Instantly.
Silence.
She sagged against the bars, panting, skin flushed a darker green than before, eyes glassy with the thousand-yard stare of someone who had seen horrors beyond comprehension.
"…Okay," she croaked. "Okay. Ask again. Slowly."
William nodded approvingly. "Progress."
"How," he repeated, "did you bypass the grove's wards?"
She swallowed. Hard. "Old path. Ancient. Roots remember it even if the druids don't."
The male tiefling blinked. "That route was sealed."
"Yeah," she shot back. "Sealed like a door with a chair in front of it. Still a door."
William's fingers twitched.
The quill dipped ominously.
"Details," he said.
"Collapsed burrow," she rushed out. "South ridge. Fault in the stone. Wards thin there. Magic's old. Tired. Like a curse that forgot why it exists."
William hummed thoughtfully.
"And who showed you?"
"No one!" she said quickly.
The quill vibrated.
"OKAY, SOMEONE," she squeaked. "Trader! Elf! Smelled like iron and bad intentions! Wore bark charms like he was auditioning for a druid play!"
The female tiefling's jaw tightened. "So an infiltrator."
"Or a very committed liar," the goblin said miserably.
William lifted his hand.
The quill floated back toward the table, casual now, like it hadn't just committed crimes against dignity.
"See?" William said mildly. "That wasn't so difficult."
The goblin slid down the bars until she was sitting, utterly defeated. "I hate magic," she muttered. "I hate feathers. I hate you."
William turned toward the exit.
"For the record," he said, glancing back once, "this was the nice method."
The quill twitched.
The goblin yelped and scrambled backward again.
Outside, somewhere deep in the grove, children laughed and an owlbear hooted triumphantly.
The goblin stared at the ceiling, breathing shallow.
"…Next time," she whispered, "I'm robbing a haunted crypt like a normal criminal."
William stepped back into the grove just in time to witness something genuinely miraculous.
Owlbert was no longer fleeing for his life.
He had stopped running.
This alone would have warranted a footnote in the annals of reality.
The owlbear cub crouched low in a clearing, wings half-spread, tail feathers flicking with barely contained excitement as a semicircle of Tiefling children faced him like brave, woefully underqualified challengers. One child bounced on their heels, wooden stick raised like a heroic blade.
"Okay!" the kid shouted. "This time we get you!"
Owlbert responded by pouncing forward exactly three feet, skidding dramatically to a halt, then rolling onto his back with a theatrical hoot.
The children screamed with delight.
One tackled his fluff. Another grabbed a wing. A third dramatically "defended" against a gently flailing paw that moved at the speed of mercy. Owlbert chirped, nipped harmlessly at the air, and kicked his back legs like a cat who had fully accepted their fate as a communal pillow.
William stopped walking.
He stared.
"…He's playing," William murmured, as though saying it too loudly might shatter the moment.
Owlbert glanced up, spotted him, and hooted proudly, chest puffing out as if to say Behold. I have mastered social interaction.
William snorted softly. "Show-off."
As he continued left, letting the joyful chaos handle itself, a new sound reached him.
Clang.
Steel met steel.
Not clumsy. Not wild. Measured.
William slowed.
Clang.
A sharper strike this time, followed by a strained grunt and the scuff of boots on packed earth.
Turning the corner, he found another clearing, this one trampled flat and marked with shallow grooves from repeated footwork. A group of young Tieflings stood in a loose formation, sweat on their brows, wooden swords and dulled blades clutched in determined hands.
At their center stood a man with a confident stance, rapier resting casually against his shoulder.
Wyll.
The Blade of Frontiers himself, sleeves rolled up, devilish charm fully intact even while correcting foot placement with the seriousness of a battlefield veteran.
"No, no," Wyll said patiently, tapping a student's ankle with the flat of his blade. "If your feet cross, you're not dancing. You're volunteering to fall over."
A few of the kids laughed nervously.
One raised a hand. "But what if the enemy's really fast?"
Wyll grinned. "Then you thank the gods you learned balance first."
He stepped back and gestured. "Again. Guard up. Eyes forward. Confidence first, fear later."
They moved together this time. Sloppy, uneven, but earnest.
Steel rang out again.
William leaned against a tree, arms folding as he watched. No dramatics. No speeches about destiny. Just fundamentals. How to stand. How to breathe. How not to die immediately.
Wyll finally noticed him, pausing mid-correction.
His eyes flicked to the white hair. The dagger. The relaxed posture of someone who had survived things these kids hadn't even learned to fear yet.
He smiled, easy and sharp. "Well," Wyll said, planting his rapier tip into the ground. "If it isn't trouble with good timing."
William tilted his head. "Didn't mean to interrupt."
"You didn't," Wyll replied. "You're just in time to see the next generation learn how not to get stabbed."
One of the kids whispered loudly, "Is he famous?"
Wyll chuckled. "Different kind of dangerous."
From behind them, Owlbert hooted triumphantly as a child rode past on his back like a conquering hero.
Wyll glanced over his shoulder, blinked once, then looked back at William.
"…Is that an owlbear?"
William nodded. "Yes."
"And it's friendly."
"Mostly."
"And it's letting children ride it."
"Temporarily."
Wyll laughed, shaking his head. "I leave the grove for one crisis."
Somewhere between laughter, steel, and the soft magic of the trees, the grove felt less like a refuge under siege and more like something stubbornly alive.
And for the first time since entering it, William felt like it might actually hold.
Wyll dismissed the children with a sharp clap and a grin, sending them scattering toward water skins and shade. As they went, he turned fully toward William and stepped closer, boots crunching softly against the grove floor.
Up close, the smile stayed. The eyes sharpened.
"Well met," Wyll said, extending his hand. "Wyll Ravengard. Blade of Frontiers."
William regarded the offered hand for half a heartbeat, then took it.
The moment their palms met, reality politely pretended nothing strange was happening.
Psionic violet flared beneath William's skin, a quiet, coiled intelligence blooming outward like ink in water. At the same time, eldritch shadows curled from Wyll's fingers, dark and velvety, whispering promises to no one in particular. The two energies collided mid-handshake, crackling softly like static trapped between storms.
There was no explosion.
No dramatic blast.
Just a sharp, breath-catching tension, followed by a clean, decisive null.
The magic canceled itself out with a sound like a candle being snuffed.
The handshake remained. Perfectly normal. Entirely polite.
To the children, it looked like two men greeting each other.
To anyone without magical sensitivity, it was nothing at all.
To every druid in the grove, it was a minor spiritual heart attack.
Heads snapped up in unison.
Chanting faltered. Leaves shuddered. A bird abandoned its perch mid-hop.
One druid narrowed her eyes like she'd just smelled smoke where there should not be fire. Another's staff thudded sharply against the earth. A third stared in outright offense, as if someone had tracked mud across a sacred altar.
A ripple of confusion, suspicion, and deeply offended nature magic surged through the grove.
Then, just as abruptly, it passed.
The druids returned to their rituals, expressions tight, movements sharper, the collective body language screaming, We will discuss this later.
William and Wyll released hands.
Both men blinked.
Wyll's grin returned slowly, this time edged with something impressed and wary. "Well," he said lightly, flexing his fingers. "That was new."
William glanced at his own hand, then back up. "You felt that too."
"Oh, very much," Wyll replied. "Usually my handshake doesn't attempt to negotiate dominance with someone else's magic."
William exhaled through his nose. "Mine doesn't either."
They shared a brief look of mutual understanding, the kind forged by people who had survived explosions that technically should have killed them.
Wyll glanced around as a druid shot them a glare sharp enough to peel bark. "Judging by the audience," he added, lowering his voice, "I suspect we just committed some sort of unintentional sacrilege."
William shrugged. "They'll live."
Wyll laughed quietly. "Bold of you to say that in a grove."
From across the clearing, Owlbert hooted triumphantly as a child slid off his back and bowed like a victorious knight.
Wyll shook his head, smiling. "Between your magic and your pet, you're going to give these druids ulcers."
William's lips twitched. "That implies this wasn't already happening."
The grove breathed around them, ancient and watchful, pretending very hard that it had not just flinched.
But it had noticed.
And it would remember.
Wyll fell into step beside William as naturally as if they'd been walking together for miles instead of minutes. The grove seemed to give them a little space, branches leaning back just enough to pretend this was allowed.
"I'll be blunt," Wyll said, adjusting the strap on his blade. "I'm hunting a devil. Nasty one. Clever. Likes contracts written in the margins of desperation."
William glanced sideways. "You make that sound like a hobby."
"Community service," Wyll replied cheerfully. "Now. I'd be willing to join you on your road, wherever it bends, provided you help me finish that hunt."
William didn't answer immediately. He watched Owlbert in the distance, now fully engaged in a game that appeared to involve three children, a fallen log, and rules invented entirely on the spot.
"A devil," William said at last. "You're sure."
Wyll's smile didn't waver, but something iron settled behind his eyes. "Certain enough that it's keeping me awake."
William nodded once. "Then we help each other."
The agreement landed between them with the quiet finality of a blade sliding into its sheath.
They turned together and began descending toward the lower reaches of the grove.
The air changed with each step down. Thicker. Sharper. The smell of sap and old magic deepened, threaded with ozone and crushed leaves. Below, the most gifted druids had gathered, forming a wide ring around a statue of Silvanus carved from living oak and stone, roots coiling through its limbs like veins.
The Rite of Thorns was already underway.
Magic pressed against William's senses like a held breath.
Then the shouting began.
A woman's voice cut through the ritual space, raw and cracking with panic.
"Give him back!" a female tiefling screamed, clutching at the air as if her child might reappear through sheer will. "You can't just take him! He didn't do anything!"
Several druids turned as one, expressions carved from patience stretched thin. One stepped forward, staff planted firmly.
"The child crossed the inner boundary," the druid said, voice cool as river stone. "The rite cannot be disrupted."
"He's six!" the tiefling shouted, tears streaking down her cheeks. "He chased a bird!"
Another druid sighed, the sound heavy with finality. "Then he will be returned when the grove is sealed."
"When?" she demanded.
Silence.
Her fear curdled into anger. "If you don't bring him back right now, I swear by every hell that ever burned, I'll—"
She didn't get to finish.
The druid closest to her rolled his shoulders once.
Bones shifted. Fur exploded outward. In the space of a breath, where a man had stood now loomed a massive brown bear, towering and broad, its shadow swallowing the ground.
It reared up and roared.
The sound slammed into the clearing like a physical force. Tieflings staggered back, horns scraping bark, threats dissolving into shrill gasps. The woman stumbled, terror replacing fury as the bear dropped back to all fours, huffing, unimpressed, and very much done with this conversation.
That was when William and Wyll reached the bottom of the stairs.
Wyll stopped short, eyes flicking from the bear to the weeping mother to the tense ring of druids. "Well," he muttered. "That escalated efficiently."
William stepped forward before anyone could decide whether they were offended by his presence.
"Easy," he said, voice calm, carrying just enough weight to slip between fear and authority. "No one's helping anyone by turning into furniture-sized predators."
The bear snorted.
Several druids turned toward him sharply, annoyance flaring at the interruption.
Wyll followed at William's shoulder, hands open, posture relaxed in that very deliberate way that suggested he could be anything but if required. "We're not here to disrupt the rite," he added smoothly. "But you're about to turn a frightened crowd into a problem."
The tiefling woman looked at them like drowning sailors spotting driftwood. "They took my son," she sobbed. "Please."
William met her gaze, then looked to the druids. "Where is he."
A tense beat.
Then one of the elder druids exhaled slowly. "Safe," she said. "Inside the inner ring. He wandered into a ward corridor. He's frightened, not harmed."
William nodded. "Bring him out. Quickly."
"That would weaken the rite," another snapped.
William's eyes flicked to the statue of Silvanus, the thorns of magic tightening around it. "Barely. And if your ritual can't survive one child being returned to his mother, then maybe it deserves the interruption."
The grove seemed to listen.
Wyll glanced at him, lips twitching. "You have a way with sacred institutions."
A long pause followed.
Then, reluctantly, the elder druid lifted her staff and struck it once against the stone.
Moments later, a small tiefling boy emerged from between the roots, eyes red, clutching a carved wooden bird. He broke into a run the instant he saw his mother.
She dropped to her knees as he collided with her, sobbing into her chest.
The tension drained from the clearing like water through cracked stone.
The bear shifted back into a man, rolling his neck as if this had all been a mild inconvenience.
Wyll released a quiet breath. "See?" he said lightly. "Heroics without property damage."
William watched the reunited pair, expression unreadable.
The Rite of Thorns resumed, slower now, more cautious.
Somewhere above, Owlbert hooted, victorious.
The grove closed its many unseen eyes, pretending once again that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
But it remembered.
It always did.