Darro had never stood under a tree. At seventeen, he knew trees from pictures: trunks thick as people, leaves that moved without wheels, shade you didn’t have to build.
So when a small creature climbed out of the dead orchard stump, Darro asked it a stupid question.
“Can you grow one?”
“Can you grow a person?” the creature asked.
Darro took a step back. It was no taller than his knee. Its skin looked like wet bark, and its ears opened like curled leaves.
“You’re a fae.”
“And you’re standing on my foot.”
Darro moved. The fae pulled its long toes from beneath his boot.
“Nix,” it said. “And no. I can’t make a tree. I can keep a seed alive while you carry it somewhere fit to grow.”
Darro had crossed the dry hills looking for things his village could use. He carried wire, a broken hinge, and a fine branch from the old orchard. The branch was smooth and hard. He’d hoped to make something from it that people would admire.
Nix told him about the seed vault across the salt flats. The fae court kept the last living seeds there. They meant to move them deeper underground because nobody had managed to keep a new forest alive.
“They won’t talk to humans,” Nix said. “But you have wells. We don’t.”
Darro brought Nix home inside his empty cooking pot. It objected to the lid, so he left it off.
Ul, the village scientist, studied Nix while eating a cold potato. She wore three pairs of glasses around her neck and could never find the pair she wanted.
“Seeds need water,” she said. “So do we. How many?”
“Forty, if the keeper agrees.”
“And will he?”
“He doesn’t know I’ve come here.”
Ul put down the potato.
Two more fae arrived that night. They had followed Nix’s tracks, frightened that the court would close the vault before anyone tried growing seeds outside it. They could guide a wagon over the old road. Nix could smell living seeds through stone. None of them could make rain.
Ul agreed to go. The village already had a narrow garden fed by a well. She would offer the keeper a place for a trial planting, with spare seeds kept cool and dry if the first failed.
They left before dawn: Darro, Ul, and three fae, with a covered wagon carrying water, food, and empty boxes. Darro tied his fine branch along the side. It seemed light enough.
The first day, the wagon rolled easily over the hard flats. Salt shone on the ground. By afternoon, wind blew white dust against the cover. Darro could not see the stones ahead.
Ul stopped the wagon. “We wait.”
Nix climbed the front board. “The vault moves tomorrow.”
“Then find a road we can see.”
The fae vanished into the dust. Darro hated waiting. He hated the way Ul could sit still when something mattered. She tied cloth over the water barrels and asked him to check the knots.
Nix returned at sunset with its ears folded tight.
“A ridge above the dust. No wheels. Wide enough for feet.”
They could leave the wagon in the shelter of a rock wall and carry one day’s food and water. The ridge led to caves near the vault. Ul had marked those caves on their route before they left; she meant to use them for shade on the return.
Darro untied his branch.
“Really?” Ul asked.
“It’s good wood.”
“So is a forest.”
He left the branch beneath the wagon, angry enough to tuck it carefully out of the wind.
They climbed by lantern light. The ridge was firm, but narrow. One fae walked ahead, one behind. Nix rode in Darro’s open pot and complained whenever he tilted it.
At sunrise, they reached a stone door. Nix put its small hand against it. Something knocked back.
The keeper opened the door only a crack. His skin was gray as the salt. He looked at the humans and then at Nix.
“You were told not to bring them.”
“You were told to keep the seeds alive,” Nix said.
Ul sat down outside the door. She took out the village well plan. The keeper would not touch it, so she spread it on the stone.
“We aren’t asking for all your seeds. We’re asking to grow forty.”
“And if you fail?”
“Twenty will be planted. Twenty held back. You can come and see. We will give water every day.”
“Humans have promised that before.”
“Then don’t trust the promise alone. Come.”
The keeper stared at the little blue well on her drawing. Nix was trembling, from anger or fear, Darro couldn’t tell.
“Let him choose the place,” Darro said. “Not you. Not us.”
Ul nodded. The keeper opened the door farther.
There were hundreds of seeds in the cool room. Darro wanted to touch every box. Instead he stood still while the keeper counted forty into a small stone case.
“Nix can keep them living until tomorrow morning,” the keeper said. “After that they must be planted or stored properly. I will travel with you.”
They took the ridge back. By noon Darro’s shoulders ached. The stone case was much heavier than his branch had been. He carried it against his chest while Ul carried his pot and extra water.
At the caves, Nix asked to hurry across the open flats. The dust had fallen. The wagon was visible far away.
Ul looked at the sky. “It’s too hot. We rest until evening. We have enough time.”
Darro sat in the shade with the case between his feet. For once he was glad she could wait.
They reached the wagon after sunset and the village before dawn. The keeper walked the garden, tested the wet soil with one long finger, and chose a strip beside the water trench.
Everyone wanted to watch the planting. Ul let them come in groups. Darro helped carry water; he did not get to plant the first seed. The keeper did.
For weeks, nothing happened above the ground. Darro began to fear they’d brought home forty stones. Then one morning a green hook pushed out of the soil.
There were fourteen shoots by the next month. Six planted seeds had failed. The other twenty remained safe in the cool store, where the keeper could inspect them. The new plants needed fences, water, and somebody to keep curious goats away.
Darro never went back for his branch.
Months later, he stood beside the tallest seedling and found a narrow shadow across his bare ankle. He moved his foot away, then into it again. Above him, three leaves stirred in the wind.
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