Old growth, dark and twisting — trees run cathedral-sized, older than any calendar, bark ridged and Bone-like in a world where the gods grew into the ground instead of retreating to the sky. Fanewick can't leave its own spring: days of birdsong and sun-rose vines climbing visibly toward the canopy, then a week of night, when patches of night-bloom light the canopy and the air turns sweet-burnt with something rotting just beneath it.
Out past the tree line sit the border ruins — the destination of a research sabbatical Serendel had been putting off for a year, and the last place he stood before he crossed over.