Corin went still. "Your blood."
"I have druidic ancestry. At least, that's what my sister says. I don't fully understand it myself." Her laugh was thin, humorless. "I can feel things in the soil that other people can't. Sense when plants are stressed or thriving. But I can't control it, and I can't explain it, and people find that suspicious."
"So they blame you when things go wrong."
"It's not the first time." She finally looked at him, and something defensive flickered in those green eyes. "I'm not asking you to believe me. I'm just telling you because you deserve to know. If working with me is making things worse..."
"It's not."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do."
She blinked. "How?"
Corin didn't have a good answer. He just knew, the same way he knew when a hive was healthy or when rain was coming. His bear knew. Something in his gut recognized the wrongnessin the land and recognized, just as clearly, that Chloe wasn't the source.
He couldn't explain that without sounding crazy.
"The first hive started struggling before you ever came to help," he said instead. "Before I even saw you at Freya's that morning. I noticed it during the cold snap, four days before you and I talked."
"That doesn't prove anything. I've been in Hollow Oak for a year. Maybe it's cumulative."
"Chloe." He waited until she met his gaze. "It's not you."
"How can you be so sure?"
Because the land doesn't react to you like it reacts to whatever's poisoning it. Because when you're here, everything feels calmer, not worse.
He didn't say any of that.
"I've been tending this land my whole life," he said. "Four generations of Vanes have worked this soil. I know what natural problems look like, and I know what this is. It's not natural. And it's not you."
She stared at him, something unreadable moving behind her eyes.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"I'm choosing to believe you." A small, wry smile. "For now."
He nodded, satisfied. Then he turned back to the hives, scanning the rows, thinking.
"Come with me."
He led her past the apiaries toward the north edge of the orchard, where the land sloped gently downward toward the tree line. The snow had melted here faster than elsewhere, leaving patches of bare earth interspersed with muddy slush.
"What are we looking at?" Chloe asked.
"Water runoff." He crouched, studying the faint channels carved into the soil. "When the snow melts, it flows downhill. Picks up whatever's in the ground and carries it."
She crouched beside him, following his gaze. "You think something's contaminating the runoff?"
"Maybe." He traced one of the channels with his finger, following its path toward the trees. "These all flow in the same direction. Toward the old well I mentioned."
"Or away from it."
He looked at her sharply.
