Dax's POV
The charm's residue leaves a trace even after it's gone dark, a faint signature only Thessaly can properly read, something like a scent that lingers in the air long after the source has burned out. She walks the eastern tree line with us for the better part of a morning, head tilted, following whatever thread only she can sense, until she finally stops at a stretch of ground that looks, to my eyes, exactly like every other stretch of ground around it.
"Here," she says. "Whoever planted it stood here to do it. Recently. Days, not weeks."
Ren crouches, running his fingers over the packed earth, and I watch him go still the way trackers go still when they've found something worth reading carefully.
"Boot prints," he says. "Two sets. Neither of them is from Hollow," he looks up
