Tobias turns in a slow circle, studying every shadow between the lanterns. "Hello?" he breathes. He checks behind the crumbling wall where ivy fills the gaps, crouches to peer along the ground — the warm cobblestones are smooth, no tiny footprint, no shed leaf from the fairy's woven dress. Then a copper lantern above him flickers, and he sees a smear of violet light clinging to the iron hook that holds it — the same colour as her eyes. He reaches up and touches it; the metal is warm even against the already-warm night, and when he lowers his hand a single thread of spider silk trails from his fingertip, catching the lamplight. She was here. She is not here now. The wooden door breathes another gust of bread-smell toward him, and somewhere in the murmur of voices beyond it he thinks he catches — just for a moment — a sound that might be a soundless laugh.