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"I'm fine."

"Okay." Diana didn't push. She topped off Steph's coffee instead. "The site's about a mile past the eastern tree line, right? Near the old stone ridge?"

"Just beyond it. There's a clearing where the wards are thinnest. Or at least, where they were thinnest last time I surveyed. Could've shifted." Steph wrapped her hands around the mug. "The ground out there remembers things. I could feel it during my last visit. Something buried deep and deliberate."

"Deliberately buried, or deliberately forgotten?"

Steph looked up. That was a sharper question than she'd expected from an innkeeper. But Diana had been in Hollow Oak for a while now, married to a wolf shifter, woven into the fabric of a town that kept its secrets close. She'd learned to ask the right questions.

"I'm not sure yet," Steph said. "That's what I'm here to find out."

A gust of wind rattled the kitchen window, and the string lights on the porch swung hard enough to throw shadows across the ceiling. The rain picked up again, drumming against the roof in steady waves.

"Storm's settling in," Diana said. "Supposed to rain through the weekend. Spring's been moody this year. Three big systems already and we're barely into April."

"Good for the dig, actually. Rain loosens topsoil, exposes what's underneath."

"Spoken like someone who actually enjoys being muddy."

Steph almost smiled. "Occupational hazard."

Diana set her mug in the sink and turned back with the kind of look that said she'd been holding something back. "I should tell you—Miriam asked about you last week when she heard you were coming. She still checks in, even from the cottage. She wanted to make sure you had everything you needed."

"Miriam Caldwell worrying about me? That's either sweet or terrifying."

"Little of both, honestly." Diana grinned. "She said to remind you that Hollow Oak's roots go deeper than any shovel can reach, and to be careful what you wake up."

"Noted."

"Also, Twyla's been asking when you're coming in. She's already got opinions about your love life, your diet, and whether you're sleeping enough. Fair warning."

Steph groaned. "I've been in town fifteen minutes."

"Twyla's network is faster than Wi-Fi." Diana squeezed her arm as she passed. "Get some rest tonight. The ruins aren't going anywhere."

Steph carried her coffee upstairs to the room at the back of the inn, the one with the window overlooking Diana's garden and, beyond it, the dark tree line where the eastern woods pressed close. She set her mug on the nightstand and unzipped her field pack, pulling out her survey maps, her soil testing kit, and the leather-bound field journal she'd kept since graduate school.

She spread the maps across the quilt and traced the dig site with her finger—the ridge, the clearing, the estimated perimeter of the old wards. Her notes from the preliminary survey were meticulous, every anomaly catalogued, every energy signature mapped. This was what she was good at. This was what she could control.

The rain hammered the window glass, and somewhere out in the dark, the land hummed.

Steph pulled her phone from her jacket pocket. Two missed calls, both from the same number. She deleted them without listening to the voicemails, then set the phone face-down on the nightstand.

She unbraided her damp curls, kicked off her boots, and sat cross-legged on the bed with her journal open on her lap. The first blank page waited.

Field Notes — Hollow Oak Excavation, Day 1.

Arrived 6:47 PM. Rain. Veil crossing smooth. Inn secured. Site assessment begins tomorrow at first light.

She paused, pen hovering.

Ground is already talking. I can feel it through the floorboards.

She closed the journal and finished her coffee, listening to the storm move across Moonmirror Lake and the woods beyond. Tomorrow she'd be ankle-deep in mud and magic, exactly where she belonged.

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CRISS