Radeon wanted her to remember. Wanted it enough to risk her temper, so he started asking anyway.

"Where is your notebook?"

Fay's mouth twisted like she had bitten into grit.

"The river took it." The words came out as a hiss. "They ran me down again, twice, then more times than I could count. By then my hands wouldn't listen. I tied the bag wrong. When I looked up, it was already bobbing away."

Radeon did not ask how many times, not really. He could see it in her clenched hands and the way her shoulders stayed half raised, ready to bolt.

It could have been a dozen chases or more. He was not about to open that wound. Not now.

But one thing was certain. After that battle, Radeon knew the news would spread fast and far, running ahead of the survivors, leaping from mouth to mouth.

If it were him, he would have hunted scraps that could be hammered back into swords.

A broken sliver off a gilded core. A chip of high ore. Anything that could be carried under a shirt and sold for more than a winter's food.

It would not be one or two fools sniffing around. It would be packs. Men with hunger in their eyes and luck as their god.

Radeon knew this was no time for either of them to sit idle. He forced himself to be honest, at least this once.

"Fay. I acquired the power to transform."

Her head snapped toward him. For a heartbeat the fog in her gaze thinned, surprise pushing through.

"You... did?" Fay blinked. "If it isn't improper, may I see?"

Radeon let it happen. His bones folded and warped under a pressure that reached all the way into his teeth. Skin tightened, thickened, then hardened into rough bark.

The world stretched strangely as his body shortened and narrowed, until he was no longer a man at all but a stick.

Half a meter at most, charred dark along one side like something pulled from a cook fire.

Fay lifted him by one end and swung him once, testing the weight.

"Fay." Radeon pitched his voice so only she could hear.

Her hand paused mid-swing. He listened again, counting without looking.

"Footsteps. Three of them."

The sound was there, soft at first, then louder, three sets of soles scraping stone and dry grass.

The shuffle of men trying to be quiet and failing because they did not have to be better than the desperate.

Fay's smile faltered. Her eyes went wide.

Three men came into view along the path, dust on their boots and sweat on their backs, the kind of men who watched the ground more than the sky

They took one look at Fay, hair a mess, clothes hanging wrong, and scoffed like she was a stain on the road.

"Beggar," one muttered.

Another laughed, low and ugly. he third, leaner, breathing hard like he had run far or had fought recently.

He stared at Fay with a slow, appraising calm that made Radeon's bark feel cold.

"Doesn't matter," he snapped, his temper rasping. "We'll wash her off, put her in a clean shift, and sell her."

Fay's fingers tightened on Radeon's body.

"Swing me," Radeon said. "Like you mean it."

Her grip shifted, uncertain. Radeon lengthened, wood drawing out as if pulled by an invisible hand, his body stretching into a long, flexible whip.

He could feel the strain in himself, a thin ache along his grain, but he kept growing until he had reach.

Fay swung. The men's eyes lit, greed flaring quick as sparks.

To them it was not a man turned to wood. It was an enchanted artifact dropped into a beggar's hands by blind fortune.

"Take it," one hissed.

They rushed her all at once. Fay swung again, desperate and clumsy, and the staff whistled through the air.

The lean man stepped in close and caught Radeon with bare hands.

His fingers closed around bark. Radeon let the power bite.

The man's hands went first. Skin puckered, veins rose, knuckles swelling as joints stiffened. The color leached out like water through sand.

In the space of a breath the hands that had grabbed him looked like they belonged to someone thrice the man's age.

He cursed and yanked away. When he let go, he stared at his fingers, trembling.

They looked rickety now, old wood under thin skin, the kind of hands that dropped cups and shook over bowls.

The other two saw it and stopped so hard their boots skidded.

For a heartbeat, nobody moved. Then all three went down. Knees hit dirt. Heads bowed.

Their fear came fast and complete, the way it always did when greed walked into something it could not name.

"We were blind, madam," his voice cracked on the last word.

"Honorable gilded core, please," another breathed, and it came out shaking. "Let us off. You will never see us again. We will crawl away if you tell us to."

Most people only expected powers like that at that stage.

Belief was enough to break a man's spine if it came with the right kind of terror.

Fay stood frozen, whip in her hands, mouth slightly open.

Radeon did not let her look dumb. He reached into her face and took hold, forcing the small muscles to obey.

Her jaw set. Her eyes narrowed. Her expression settled into a coldness she had never owned before.

A look fit for someone who had killed and would do it again.

Fay tried to nod, tried to ask what was happening, but her neck would not obey her.

"'Trust what I do," Radeon said, his voice silenced, riding his qi.

Radeon took over what she could not. He straightened her spine, set her feet, and pulled her into an authoritative stance before turning her gaze on the three men.

"You want your friend's hand returned?" Fay said, calm as stone. "Then earn it. I've a task that needs doing. I do not cheat the young, when they do as they're told. You will carry my luggage, and you will be even be paid fair. Now, do you accept?"

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