“Figured you’d come,” she says without looking up.
“I need you too.”
Hazel stands, wipes her hands on her pants. “Told you you had main character energy.”
I smile despite myself. “Hazel, this is serious.”
She shrugs. “I’ve been twelve since forever. No one listens to me anyway. But maybe today they should.”
My chest tightens. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” she says. “Let’s go piss off a council.”
We stand under the old pavilion with a small crowd watching.
Eliorin Vask is already here—clipboard ready, charm lenses reset. His demeanor says “formality,” but his eyes keep darting toward the Grove like it might bite him.
Good.
Julie speaks first, soft but grounded. She talks about restoration, about cycles, about how this place healed her students more than any camp curriculum ever could.
Callie follows, eloquent, precise. She cites integration metrics, hybrid species resilience, soil rejuvenation that exceeds expected timelines. Her voice is clean data wrapped in emotion.
Hazel? She pulls no punches.
“This forest talks back,” she says. “It dances. Itremembers.”
By the time it’s my turn, I’m shaking.
But I step up anyway.
Hold my dad’s notebook against my chest.
And speak.
“This Grove doesn’t need protecting,” I say. “It’s doing that itself now. But itdeservesrecognition. Because it’s not just land. It’s not just flora.”
I look toward the tree line.
“I’ve seen what it can do when someone believes in it.”
And just as I finish, vines bloom behind me.
Petals catch the breeze.
And the Grove speaks.
Not with words.
Withpresence.
And finally, they listen.
The inspector doesn’t speak at first.
He just stares.
At the vines blooming behind me.
