Once Upon a Time

by LA Knight

Wolves in human skin. A Beast and a lost maiden. A sanctuary in a storm. A prince of Elven blood. Sacrifices, debts, honor, & oaths. Ten long, beautiful years, and all the stories that fall within. A collected fic series; currently on book 13. Updates when I can because hey it's a pandemic. Early access available on Patreon.

141. Clever Fairytale Girl

Author's Note: sorry this is so late. Life has been not good. Hello, 2020. But I hope you all enjoy this chapter. I'll try to get another up for December.

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Chapter One-Hundred-Forty-One

Clever Fairytale Girl (Counterfeit to Hardness All You Will)

that is

A Short Tale of Blood, Names, Clarity, Disney Princes, Changelings, a Phlebotomist Moonlighting as a Monster, Jenny Smith, Riddles, Pumpkins, Monsters, Bandages, Bloodlines, Harp Strings, Leashes, a Thin Red Line, the Garden Tower, Horse Girls, Clever Girls, Glue, an Oops, Ladies-in-Waiting, Talk of Gates and Cypress Trees, How He Met Liam's Mother, a Friend Returns, a Monster Daylighting as a Phlebotomist, a Bossy Troll, Petra's Daughter, Too Many Secrets, a Glimpse of Warren, the Skeleton War, a Necklace, a Lookout, Promising Not to Tell, Petty Revenge, Vandalism, Calling the Cops, Swamps, Golden Fire, the Sea, a Stallion, a Hawk, a Reminder, and a Warning

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Dylan sat at the little table in Nuada's temporary bedroom in the tavern and stared at the courtship dirk she'd thought she'd lost forever. If this wasn't a sign that her plan was a good one, she didn't know what was. She'd assumed the dirk was lost, but she'd found it with a note from Zhenjin saying it had been found and brought back just that night. Okay, then.

This will hurt a lot. You know that, the voice of her self-preservation hissed in the back of her mind.

"I don't care," Dylan snarled aloud. She rolled back the sleeves of her black, wool-silk gown. Picked up the courtship knife.

On the table in front of her sat four bowls, which she'd asked Ailbho to bring to her after getting off the phone. One, of polished red maple wood, held hot soapy water lightly scented with lemon. One, of pale abalone shell, held whiskey, kept at a low simmer through a spell requested from the tavern cook. The third was polished copper, and it held hot clean water with the same spell on it.

The fourth bowl, of polished black stone that gleamed like glass, was empty.

Her phone, which sat on the table beside the bowls, showed that it was three in the morning. The hour of the wolf, some said.

This will hurt, that voice hissed again.

"I don't give a damn."

Dylan swirled the dirk through the hot, soapy water, activating the cleansing spell that would purify the Elven silver. Wink hadn't questioned why she'd needed such a spell from him. Neither had Ailbho. They'd only looked into her pale face, her blazing eyes like blue fire, and obeyed her.

Now she counted to three-hundred-sixty-six aloud, her voice barely audible in the darkness. Then she swiped the dirk through the hot, bubbling alcohol, counting aloud once more. Then again, through the steaming water.

"I'm not afraid of pain," she muttered. After her leg, after the subway, after Sreng…no, she wasn't going to be frightened off by a little pain and blood.

Nuada was in danger. Something had happened to make that dream possible. Something bad enough that she'd been able to smell his blood through the dream, even though he hadn't been bleeding.

I would crawl over broken glass and shards of iron for you. I would walk barefoot through Hell. He'd promised her this. He'd said he would become the shadow of her footsteps, that he would find her in this life or the next, if she was ever taken from him. And she would do the same.

I'm not scared of pain, she reminded herself. And she wasn't. But she was terrified of the trap of her own mind. How closely could she flirt with addiction, with the things that turned her own mind against her, before she lost the ability to walk away?

The dirk parted the flesh of her exposed forearm. At first, there was only a familiar, empty numbness, an absence of feeling. Then the searing heat spread along the cut as blood welled. Dylan held her arm over the black stone bowl and let the blood drip over her skin.

"From least to greatest, I call you to me with the lure of blood and grief," she whispered. The cut on her arm throbbed in time with her pulse. "Azrhiaz, un-kin. Called Soveh, Night's Daughter, Delirium's Mistress, Princess of Love. Heed me."

She made another cut along an old scar, letting the pain chew through her arm. Dylan had two kinds of scars: ones that barely registered any sensation at all, like the mounds of deathly-white tissue at the bends of her elbows and on her inner thighs, and the few scars that practically burned with hypersensitive nerves, where the lightest pinprick seemed to stab to the bone. She chose the second kind of scar to make these cuts, because she needed the pain as well as the blood for this to work.

Nothing from the fae comes free, she thought.

Dangerous. So very dangerous for someone like her to do a summoning like this. So easy for this necessary wounding to remind her of old, very bad habits. She'd been sober since she was twenty-two, nearly a decade now. And clean from cutting since she was twenty-five.

That long, agonizing night in Findias in November had nearly broken her, when she'd scraped her knuckles against the rough stone walls and bruised her fists trying to beat away the agony of Branwen's Tears. If her hands hadn't shaken so badly, if she hadn't been terrified of cutting too deep and nicking a vein, she'd have carved herself open to force the pain to spill from her body. But this was different. This was the sharp burn of the cut, the heat clearing the fog of terror and grief from her brain while the blood trickled over her skin.

This was perfect crystal clarity, but at what cost?

"Tamberlane," she said softly, "Lord of Artistry, Prince of Beauty, Pleasure's Master, and un-brother."

Dylan sliced across another scar with her dirk and shuddered as the tension slipped from her body, replaced by the relaxed calm of a serpent sunning itself on a rock. This hot pain could burn away everything and leave her calm and collected as a monk in meditation. It was one way she'd survived the institutions.

Why do you do this to yourself? All it does is tell people you're miserable. One of the therapists when she'd been younger, before Patrick and Xander had raped her in the basement that first time. A nice enough woman, but ignorant. All? All it did? If it broadcasted that she hated being locked up like an animal for trying to be a good person, then so what? But that wasn't all.

"Kheshmet, Lord of Fortune, Prince of Greed, Fate's Master, and un-brother."

To summon the help she'd need, to make sure someone answered in the formal, proper way, Dylan had to start with the lowest of the royals of Samhain and Weir and work her way up. If she called upon all of them – all of them – at least one would take pity on her and listen. Surely one of them would respond, if not more than one.

So she made a fourth cut.

"Uhlume, Death's Master, Prince of the Grave, Lord of Death, and un-brother."

On the fifth cut, she named Chuz the Mad, Prince of Breaking; on the sixth, she named Dunizel, Love's Mistress, Lady of Light, Princess of the Sun, and un-sister.

When she made the seventh cut, she called on Azrharn, and because she was likely pestering him, because out of them all his wrath was easiest to bring down like doom, she used all of his titles to soften him a little: Azhrarn the Beautiful, Azrharn the Wicked, Azrharn the Clever, Prince of Demons, Lord of Darkness, Night's Master, Son of the Sepulcher, Favored of the Queen of Ghosts, Sire to the Midnight Star, Beloved of the Sun, Eagle-Winged, Bringer of Anguish, and un-brother.

Suddenly she remembered a conversation she'd had with Nuada about Azrharn when he'd first appeared in Lallybroch…

"How many times have you met him?" Nuada whispered. His voice came out oddly rough and hoarse. "How can you call him…?"

"Az?" She ventured. He nodded mutely. "Never speak his name unless you want his attention. Try not to even think it, or think of him, unless you want his attention. And if you ever think you want his attention, you better make sure you have a really good reason…"

She did. She had a good reason. For Nuada. For 'Sa'ti.

With three cuts, she called on Moundshroud; and though it frightened her to do it, with another three she called on Ligeia, his wife, who had never liked mortals but who understood the hate and rage that came when something precious was stolen, who was murderously protective of her children.

For the last cut, the fourteenth, she said only one name, thirteen times, as the blood collecting in the stone bowl began to ripple and sparkle and shimmer with power.

"Shamhna."

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"I want a gay Disney prince!"

Peri tucked sidhe-scarlet hair behind her delicately pointed ears and poked her head around the corner of her apartment hallway to peek into the kitchen. Ah. That explained everything.

A small boy maybe three feet tall had climbed into her pantry and now crouched like a tiny gargoyle on the biggest shelf. His wild tufts of carrot-bright hair stuck up every which way and his unusually large eyes shifted between silver-sheened green and vivid violet. When he laughed, he flashed extremely sharp teeth.

Bean kept singing. "With footwork so thrilling, I slay without killing!"

Legs splayed out on the floor, Kate Fierch and Tiana Connelly caught the snacks Peri's son Bean tossed down to them. The little blond half-Elf and the Japanese girl with the changeling eyes threw up their hands and yelled, "A rich boy who still loves to work!"

"A man who spills tea!" Bean scream-sang, tossing a miniature bag of pretzels at the other human child in their quartet.

"Not the blood of enemies!"

Peri raised an eyebrow. Dylan's nephew Russell had a really good voice, especially for a child. A lot of human kids tended to hit sharp or flat when they sang, but Russell's voice was a sweet, clear soprano. But what in the world were they singing? It sounded sort of like that Disney song, "Part of Your World," from The Little Mermaid, but Peri knew for a fact there was nothing in that song about gay princes.

Russell sat tailor-fashion on the kitchen floor next to Tiana and Kate. Once he had his bag of pretzels and a bottle of warm juice from the pantry, he saluted Bean, who scrambled down the shelves and slithered onto the floor with all the grace of a weasel to eat his own snack.

Well. Peri had said the children could have a snack. But she'd expected them to stand on a stool or something like normal children in order to reach the pretzels, not climb the shelves.

Then again, her son was supposed to be a changeling. Kate had been taken and raised by faeries for almost twenty years, fed on morning dew and flower petals and sweet venom. Tiana was half-Elven. And Russell adored all three of them. So of course they'd done things the changeling way.

"Disney don't shoot so straight," Kate mumble-sang through a mouthful of yogurt-covered pretzels. "You're in the musical scene!"

"Time to toss out the princess," Tiana sang, "and bring in a–"

All four children yelled, "Queen!"

Well, Dylan had been right about sending her Sight-blessed nephew here instead of leaving him with Dylan's sister Simone. Peri hadn't been sure the dynamic duo of Kate and Bean would allow for two new children, but after a few rounds of insults, riddles, and biting, all four children had practically glued themselves to each other. And the cold-eyed mortal who'd dropped the child on the doorstep with a scowl had clearly been glad to be rid of the little boy.

Grinning now as the children continued to sing about Twinkerbell, Peri crept away to grab her phone. She had to get this on video to show Dylan and Russell's mom when they got back from Bethmoora. They'd love it.

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Rin Ocampo detested the cold. So it showed the level of both personal and professional respect she afforded Dr. Dylan Myers, that the preternatural predator endured the cold for the mortal woman. Even with the extra sweater under her puffy parka and her heavy woolen scarf the color of old blood wrapped snugly around the lower half of her thin face, the January chill gnawed at her exposed guts and burned along her jaw. Her talons ached in her fleece-lined gloves.

She kept her gaze locked straight ahead as she trudged through dirty snow toward the mortal cottage just inside the Park boundaries. One of these days, Rin would ask Dylan who she'd bribed – and how she'd afforded those kinds of bribes – or blackmailed in order to swing a home built on Park land.

Approaching the cottage, she caught sight of a chubby young woman in a pea coat the color of nightshade flowers with buttons like bleached bone. Twin braids dark as sable fur in the sun hung down her back. Freckles peppered across her face. When Rin got closer, she saw the girl's eyes shone the color of candle flame through the thinnest of jack-o-lantern shell. In her arms she carried a massive, perfectly orange pumpkin.

Rin hopped nimbly over Dylan's garden gate. Unlike many faeries, her kind didn't need an invitation to anywhere.

"You Jenny Smith?"

The girl, who might've been just old enough to graduate college, flashed a bright smile.

"That's me. Are you Rin Ocampo?"

"Yep."

This girl was human, Rin thought, and yet…something about her made Rin's guts crawl inside her sweater, made her back itch to split and unfurl her huge, membranous wings. And it wasn't just the strange, amber-orange eyes. Not evil, though. Not a threat…right now. But not normal, either.

And what did Jenny see when she looked at the other woman with those jack-o-lantern eyes? A tall, oddly thin Filipino woman with a curtain of thick, shiny black hair falling down her back past her waist? Did she notice the awkward hang of Rin's arms as she stood with hands in her pockets, watching? Did she understand the significance of Rin's long, elegant neck and small, lumpy bulge at her waist inside the poof of the light blue parka?

When Jenny didn't say anything, Rin cocked her head. "Are you scared of me, human?" The mortal hadn't moved. Only stared at Rin with wide eyes.

But now she threw back her head and laughed, a harsh cackle like ice splintering, like the screech of autumn night wind. It was a laugh seemingly wholly at odds with the young woman who made it. Jenny clutched the huge pumpkin and just laughed and laughed and laughed until Rin's canines began to thin and lengthen into white needles and her tongue cramped with the effort to keep it caged in her mouth.

"I'm sorry," Jenny gasped at last, wiping her eyes. "I'm so sorry, it's just…such a ridiculous question. Me. Afraid of something like you."

She blinked. "You…you know what I am?"

The…human? snorted. "Please. Filipino, extremely long hair, lumpy tummy but rail-thin, sharp jaw, and I can see your fangs–"

Rin automatically sucked in her lips to hide the ivory points.

"–you keep rolling your shoulder, you swallow a lot, and your hands look way too big for your pockets. Oh, and there's smears of blood on your parka at waist level. Just a few, though," she added kindly. "I have a friend who says cling-wrap under the shirt can help with that, at least when it's cold."

Rin bit back a snarl. She'd tried cling-wrap before. It made the smooth parts of her hips and stomach sweat.

"And just who exactly are you supposed to be?"

Jenny grinned, resting her chin on the pumpkin's rough, orange rind. Delight sparkled in her eyes.

"I am nightshade's delight and autumn's savior. Death holds a fragment of my skull and I know the lethal taste of sugar melting away like stolen years. I'm the one with the wits and the besom-riding bramble cat. I'm the twelve on a clock that chimes thirteen. Night tolerates me, starlight loves me, and death's child calls my heart."

Rin stared at her, oddly disturbed. It all sounded like silly nonsense words strung together in some kind of joke, but…but…

"Now," Jenny added, "Dr. Dylan needs what I've got and you're supposed to deliver it, yes?"

Swallowing annoyance and confusion, Rin took the huge– it was big enough that a Great Dane could've curled up and slept inside; how had this Jenny girl managed to drag it all the way out here? – pumpkin from the…whatever the girl was, hefted it, and resolutely turned her back. She wouldn't see this strange, not-human girl again, so it didn't matter what sort of whatever she was.

"Is the monster with you?" Jenny asked suddenly.

Against her will, Rin half-turned. "The what?" But she'd already glimpsed the long, serpentine creature coming out of Dylan's cottage even as the question popped out. The thick, sinuous body was as thick around as Rin's upper arm. Striped ebony and ivory, the only color to it came from a pair of lambent yellow eyes and a pair of huge, vividly scarlet lips framing sharp, yellowed teeth.

"Ah, you're going to see Dylan, I presume?" The monster had a lush, plummy sort of voice with a British accent. "Good, I need to speak to the girl myself, and I don't want to travel under any beds. It can be tediously life-threatening. I'll come with you."

"Um…" Rin mumbled. "Who are…?"

"Oh, of course," the striped creature said, and offered a curtsy despite not actually wearing any skirts. "I'm Oblina. I'm Dylan's monster and I have a bad feeling the chit's gotten herself into even more trouble since last I saw her."

Jenny and Rin exchanged a look, and despite Rin's wariness, they both said in unison, "Yeah, that sounds like Dylan."

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Wrapping the cuts was easy for Dylan; her left arm bled, and she was right-handed. She'd bandaged enough of her own (often self-inflicted) wounds in the past, as well.

Just like riding a bike, Dylan thought. Now stop grinding your teeth. An old mantra from before getting therapy in her mid-twenties, back when the constant low simmer of rage and hate and fear had kept her every muscle taut as a bowstring except when something sharp ripped into her skin.

Pain throbbed dully in her temples as she unclenched her jaw and pressed the ointment-slathered gauze pad to the top of her forearm. Perhaps cutting the underside would've been considered more of a tribute, but it was also riskier, with the big vein that ran under the skin like a river of shadow. The top of the forearm was safer.

"What have you done, un-sister?"

The voice that crackled out of the shadows at the edges of the room held neither censure nor horror. If anything, it sounded intrigued. Maybe…a little encouraging?

This wasn't the fruits of her summoning. Not yet. The ritual wasn't finished. She had the blood, and she would send some of the village children to scrounge up the other things she would need. Once Rin arrived with her pumpkin, then things could really get underway. But that would be midnight tonight, almost a full twenty-four hours from now. So what was he doing here now?

"You don't know?" She asked with a carefree toss of her head. It was easier to pretend now, with the pain pulsing through her, keeping the panic at bay. Her arm burned, that familiar comforting fire. She had to keep reminding herself that her current cut-glass clarity was a side effect of the cutting, not a reason to do it again. She would need the blood she'd spilled later tonight but she didn't need any more. "Can't you feel the thread?" Dylan added.

"Bloodline," said the voice with a low laugh. "Like a scarlet string around my heart and magic and madness. Pluck me like a harp string, why don't you?"

From out of the shadows stepped Chuz, Moundshroud's third eldest son. Dylan knew it should've scared her, that he approached her now with the hood of his dust-violet cloak down instead of covering his terrible face…but fear didn't touch her. The burn of the cuts numbed her to fear and grief.

Chuz cocked his head and studied her. One side of his face was a beautiful coppery brown, full-lipped, with a sharp cheekbone, a broad nose, and a single eye as bright and blue-violet as a newborn star. The other side was a black husk, lipless, with a gaping hole where his nose should have been, and a single crimson ember in an otherwise empty socket. From his delicately pointed ears hung chips of blood-spattered bone dangling from delicate iron chains. His manicured black nails each came to a triple point. If he'd wanted to, he could've easily ripped her throat out.

She shouldn't have been able to look at him like this. It should have broken her mind completely. The fact that she could look into that face without flinching meant her already fragile sanity had begun to splinter. The brain-weasels of depression, addiction, paranoia, rage, and anxiety had chewed their way deep inside her without her realizing.

"I haven't seen this version of you in a long, long time, Dylan," Chuz said, shattering her thoughts.

"And?" The word was a knife flung between them, tipped in venom.

Old habits, Dylan thought when Chuz said nothing, and swallowed the next verbal knife with effort instead of spitting it at him. The pain kept her centered, like standing inside of a bubble made of ice and diamond that drove back fear and sorrow…but rage prowled like a shadow cat just inside that sharp, cold perimeter. The cutting did nothing for rage except feed it.

Addiction. Paranoia. Fury. She had to leash them all.

Clearing her throat, she added softly, "It's only temporary. Did you come to check on me or something? Because you felt the tug?"

Chuz canted his head. The spikes of bone dangling from his ears clicked together.

"Whatever you're planning to ask me for, I cannot give you," he said very gently. "I do not take sides between the mad."

Dylan taped the bandage on her arm in place and shrugged. "You don't even know what I want."

"For me to come with you on your next foray into the forest. To help you rescue your beloved prince, as he is mad and so is your enemy. Because I can help track him. But I cannot hel–"

"Nope."

She smirked at the quick flash of shock on his bisected face. The smirk sat sharp and cold against her skin, an alien expression that still felt oddly comfortable despite the strangeness. Her teeth felt too sharp in her mouth. Copper danced on the back of her tongue, the metallic taste of blood.

In her nostrils, the sweet scent of fae blood, Elven blood, taunted her, feeding her fury.

"Well," Chuz said at last. "Now I am intrigued. I can't wait to see what tricks you have up your blood-soaked sleeves, little un-sister."

And then he was gone, between one blink and the next. Dylan folded her arms and let her head drop.

This is only temporary, she told herself, swallowing the too-familiar blood taste. Just a couple of days. Five at the most. Enough time to get where we need to go, get advice, get help, and then we'll get Nuada and 'Sa'ti and I'll be able to stop. I'm not a kid anymore. This is just temporary. And then I can stop.

Two tears dripped from her eyes to fall to the table.

Please, Heavenly Father, she prayed, please let me be able to stop.

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There were eleven great Towers in the October Palace, the Citadel of All Hallows' in the kingdom of Samhain. The Garden Tower, tallest of them all, equal in height only to the Carnelian Tower of the Samhain heir, jutted up from the nest of spikes and shadows atop the palace, an obelisk of ravenglass.

The tower's glass roof could open (with a few crooned words of power) to the moonlight white as bones and the starlight cold and scarlet as blood in winter. It stood open now, two huge obsidian doors flung back to reveal the garden for which the tower had been named.

And in the midst of the riot of flowers and trees and other plants stood an oddly tall, skeletally thin man in black velvet, staring up at the sky with furrowed brow and eyes glowing an otherworldly green like St. Elmo's fire.

*Problem, Sire?* The question held the faintest mocking edge.

Moundshroud's long black cape snapped and flapped in the chill autumn wind. The old king didn't hiss at his visitor…but he wanted to. Instead, he kept his gaze fixed on the huge, bloody orb of the moon.

The first moon was always full in Samhain, round and autumn orange or bloody crimson or harvest gold, until it wasn't. Full, or dark as a witch's heart, but never any of the phases in between. And the other two moons, the twin crescents, were only visible to most eyes in their corpse-blue and venom-green glory, when the first moon was dark.

Most, but not Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud. He could always see the three moons of his kingdom. He could see a great deal that others, even other monarchs, couldn't see. But he couldn't even glimpse what might be going on in Dylan's mind.

"Coral coaxes, red commands," he muttered, stroking his pointy chin with long, thin fingers. "Green for daring and blue for bargains fell." Blue had always been Dylan's favorite color. "What are you planning to ask me for, my dear, when the laws of the Twilight Realm forbid my interference?"

*Bet you she wants a pony,* the voice drawled. There was a sound, like flint on steel. A massive shadow drew abreast of him, and the rail-thin fae turned to the wraith-unicorn looming like a literal nightmare with eerie, green-glowing eyes.

"She doesn't want a blasted pony," he grumbled back. "She wouldn't pester me for something so insignificant."

*Are you sure?*

He was. Besides, "She has her own pony," he added, thinking of the pair of mounts Nuada had given to Dylan.

Unable to push aside the uneasy energy chewing through his old bones, Moundshroud began to pace back and forth along the garden path of crushed bone, his cape flapping like bat wings behind him. It was an affectation Dylan had often teased him about.

She was one of the few people in his life who dared tease him, and one of fewer who did so without malice. Pipkin teased him, and so did his Small Court. Azrhiaz, the old king's granddaughter, and Chuz, his son. Ligeia, his wife, but her jibes rarely landed gently. She reveled in lashing him with her tongue, trying to provoke him. It was a vicious game they played, had played for over two million years.

He didn't want to lose Dylan's teasing. He didn't want to lose her affection or friendship. He was willing to risk a great deal for her…but he was not willing to break a treaty as old as this for Prince Nuada. For Dylan herself, yes. But not for that feckless dunce of a prince.

The unicorn tossed its silky black mane and snorted. *I heard human girls can never have enough ponies. It's like an addiction to them. Have you never heard of 'horse girls'?*

Moundshroud rolled his eyes. "My girl has more sense. Dogs, yes. Cats, yes. Bloodthirsty nightmare creatures that feast on mortal terror, absolutely," thinking with a smile of her fondness for Ickis, Oblina, Krum, and Maurice. "But nothing so saccharine as a pony." The old fae slipped his long, bony hands into the pockets of his black velvet trousers. Ran his slightly forked tongue over his jagged teeth. "She knows I cannot interfere, so what does she want of me?"

*Isn't she supposed to be clever?*

He grinned, flashing those sharp teeth. "Oh, my girl is absolutely clever. Clever enough to wind a murderous, heartbroken prince around her little finger. Clever enough to send the Prince of Demons after her enemies while making it seem like a compliment. She–"

*Yes, yes, the moon shines out of her bum, I understand,* the wraith-unicorn grumbled. *I've never understood this obsession you have with humans. Wouldn't you rather just eat them?*

Moundshroud's grin turned vicious. "Try to eat my girl when she gets here and I'll hack you into pieces and boil you down for glue."

*Any glue you make out of me will be full of sparkles,* the unicorn replied with an equine shrug. *I'll have my revenge even in death by covering you and your entire palace in glitter. Won't be very intimidating then.*

"You'll still be dead."

Those strange, eldritch eyes glinted wickedly. *Perhaps. But you'll still be sparkly.*

Against his will, the Keeper of the Samhain Tree found himself laughing, a cold and empty sound like dead leaves scraping against old tombstones.

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She should've expected it, but it honestly hadn't occurred to her that her twin would notice or care about the bandage on her arm. She'd feared her own reaction to the kiss of the metal, the burn of cutting that seared away her panic and helplessness and left her mind clear and cold as a blade of ice. But Dylan hadn't once considered John.

Oops, she thought dully when he walked in and stopped dead, mouth hanging open.

"What…" He stared at her arm, baby-blue eyes horrified. One hand came up to swipe over his face just once, a rabbit-fast move. "D, what the Hell did you do to yourself?"

She should get up, she realized in a vague sort of way. Should go to him. Hug him. But she was tired. She needed to conserve her energy. The summoning…she had the blood, the leaves, the fur, the earth, the feathers, the sweetness, and the poison. But she hadn't gotten that pumpkin yet and there were still things left to do, steps to take if she was going to save Nuada and 'Sa'ti.

"It's nothing, John. It's all right."

"Nothing?" He spluttered. "You…what the fu…nothing? What the Hell? What did you do? If you were that close to a relapse, you should've–"

"Relapse?" Oh. She blinked slowly. "Oh, that's what you're worried about. No, Johnny. I didn't. It's for the summoning."

He stared at her. "The what?"

"Balor won't help us get Nuada and 'Sa'ti back. The others here, their monarchs can't get involved unless something major happens, like…like if…" Her stomach twisted viciously, splintering that icy crust of calm. Dylan swallowed hard and gripped her left forearm with her right hand, digging her fingertips into the bandage directly over the cuts. Pain exploded under her fingertips. The nausea and urge to cry vanished.

Careful, she cautioned herself. Have to be careful how often I rely on that kind of pain.

"Like if Nuada is actually killed," John hazarded, and she nodded. "If the other monarchs won't help, who are you summoning?"

"An ambassador, I hope," Dylan said. "One or more who will take me to the dark seat of a fell king, where I can beg a favor of him. Maybe play to his pride, I'm not sure. I've never had to actually ask him for anything before. I won't know how this will all go down until I finish the call."

"Well…" John rubbed the back of his neck. He looked, Dylan realized, exhausted and worried, and not just worried about her. Maybe he and Nuada were finally starting to become friends? Or more than barely tolerated enemies, at least. And 'Sa'ti…John didn't particularly like the cubs, since they didn't really like him, but he didn't want them hurt, and he knew she adored them. "Well, why did you have to cut?"

Oh. Right. He didn't understand how bargains like this worked. He had the Sight, but she'd always taken the lead as children when it came to dealing with the Fair Folk.

"Because to get the attention of any emissary I might need to talk to, I have to entice them."

"Entice?" He sounded uneasy.

"Catch their attention," she clarified, letting her head fall back. "Blood and pain are effective ways to make any dark fae, any death fae, take notice of you."

John sank into the chair on the opposite side of the table, dejected. "I'm just really scared for you, D. You know how you can get when you're stressed, and you have every right to be stressed right now–"

"I'm being careful," she mumbled. "Honest, Johnny. I'm being as careful as I can."

It wasn't a lie. She was being as wary and careful and particular as she could be while also making sure everything went the way she wanted. He just didn't realize how dangerous it would be to get the things she was hoping to gain.

John opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, there came a soft scratch and whine at the door. Sétanta, who'd lain with his head on his paws by the door, pushed to his feet, tail wagging. The lack of teeth and raised hackles told Dylan that Eímh had come to fetch her for something.

"Come in," she called softly.

The white hound-pup nosed the door open and padded inside, nails clicking lightly on the wooden floor. She'd have to see about trimming them or something, Dylan thought, and suddenly realized – she had no idea how to take care of her dogs. Nuada had been teaching her basic things, like brushing and feeding and how to play with them, but what if they got sick? What if they got hurt? She knew basic first aid for cats because of Bat but not for dogs. What if…

Eímh's cold, pink nose pressed against her knee and she jumped. Scrunched her toes and flexed her left arm. The discomfort helped pull her thoughts back to the current situation. It was just stress, trying to make her spiral about everything and nothing.

"What's up, Eímh?"

"The woman is here, Mistress. You said to tell you when the woman who smells of blood and bone and whelping waters comes, and that she would have a pumpkin and long hair. She is downstairs waiting for you."

Rin Ocampo, the aswang who daylighted as a phlebotomist. She was here.

"Thanks, Eímh. All right, you two," at this, Sétanta came over to her. "Let's go talk to my guest and get this show on the road, hmmm?"

They left the room, John trailing behind. His unease pulsed through their twin-link like a rotten tooth.

.

Iúile Ui Niall and Polunochnaya iz Lisaya Gora walked through the gardens of Renvyle, enjoying a quiet moment to rest and enjoy the day. Although winter still raged on the Bethmooran island that had once been the capitol of their kingdom, the sea kept the weather mild enough. Both Elves stayed wrapped in warm furs and reveled in the golden glow of the winter sun on their faces.

It was the first time in her life that Iúile had ever seen the sea. She'd lived in Lallybroch all her centuries, and never dreamed of setting foot beyond the forest immediately surrounding it. She had Prince Nuada and Lady Dylan to thank. Without them, she would have never been able to escape her father, the crushing weight of the village's disapproval, the confining strictures that demanded she give up the one person she'd loved most.

Naya had been to the ocean before. She'd gone with Nuala and Nuada and Na'ko'ma when they were all children. But, she realized with a pang of melancholy, she hadn't been in centuries. Hadn't been to Renvyle in even longer than that. Not since the death of Queen Cethlenn.

When Nuada had said he was exiling her here instead of executing her for her treason, she'd been too ill to realize she would be going back to her first home in Bethmoora. Now she was better, healing, able to be out and about for a few brief stretches a day, and she found her feet taking her along familiar paths through orchards and gardens she hadn't wandered since she was a little girl.

She'd thought it would hurt to be here, to be apart from her sisters and Nuada and King Balor and her rare true friends at court, like Lady Jocasta of Reedus. But while she missed her family, being on the island didn't pain her as much as she'd expected, and Iuile was proving to be a true friend, despite the two-thousand-plus years between them. Lady Dylan couldn't do better for a lady-in-waiting, despite her common-born origins.

"Look," Iúile said with a little laugh, breaking into Naya's thoughts. The Zwezdan Elf blinked and looked where her young friend pointed.

A group of children were gathered near the small pond – a trio of dullahan, a young bean sídhe girl, a horned youth with skin the color of blueberries, and a few servant children. The dullahan youth, a young boy with an arm strapped to his chest who walked with a crutch, gestured grandly with one hand as he spoke to the assembled children. He was clearly telling them a story of some kind.

"I haven't seen Finbar smile like that since…since the bandit attack," Iúile murmured. "His sister was my friend…before."

Naya glanced at the girl. Slipped an arm out of her warm fur cloak to give Iúile a quick squeeze. She didn't know everything the girl had been through, but she knew Iúile's village had suffered horribly at the hands of the bandits. That Iúile's mother had been killed. The dullahan children were orphans, as was the bean sídhe. The dullahans, children of the acting steward, had lost two siblings as well.

Master, how can you ally yourself with such beasts? She wondered, not for the first time. If this is what Nuada fights against, how can he be wrong? How can you be in the right?

As they drew nearer, Naya heard what Finbar said to the others.

"…towering cypress trees, dark as shadows at midnight with no moon. The grass grows in shades of violet and gray, and lilies and narcissus blossoms glow under the stars like bleached bones. Three moons burn in the sky, red as blood and blue as drowning and green as poison. If you can make it past the four demon gates – the gate of lava, the gate of blue steel, the gate of black agate, and the gate of obsidian fire – and make it beyond the cypress trees to the Prince's gardens, it's said the eshva will welcome you to Druhim Vanashta, the City of Demons, where dwells Night's Master and all his kin."

Naya glanced at Iúile, who looked surprised. Softly, the older Elf asked, "Druhim Vanashta?" It wasn't a Gaelic name. She didn't recognize it as hailing from any language she knew.

Iúile nodded. "I've heard some of my friends talk of it. Bean sídhe, dullahan, the lads of the bone hills, slag heap girls, the like."

She hesitated. Liam had told her about the city of Druhim Vanashta. He had never been there, but his mother had once. She'd had an…encounter, Liam had said, with an eshva man. A positive one, but unusual. Mistress Ui Niall, Liam's mother, had rarely spoken of it, although Liam's father had never seemed upset by the story.

"It's the capitol of Samhain, the October Country," Iúile said at last. "It's nearly impossible to get there. You start near Menehune, but you're not allowed to set foot upon the sands of their islands or fish their waters, or the way will not welcome you. There's a trio of volcanoes, and one is the way through to the next portal.

"There's four gates total, counting the volcano. The next one is blue steel, and it's so tall it can't be flown over by hawk or dragon or firebird. The next is black agate, and when the moon shines on it, it glitters with sparks of gold and violet and blue light. The last is a gate forged of black fire that burns so cold it can freeze your heart. If you can get past all of them, you'll end up in a forest of cypress trees and grave flowers. If you can make it past those trees, and the hunters and their beasts, you're supposed to get to the gardens belonging to the royal family of Samhain, and then you're safe."

Naya raised her eyebrows. "Do you know anyone who's ever completed such a journey?"

Another hesitation. Then, "Yes. But I cannot say who. I promised."

She nodded. "I see. Don't worry, then. How are you supposed to get past the…the hunters?"

Iúile shook her head. "I don't know. But I know if you don't, if you can't avoid them and can't outrun them, they usually kill you or drive you mad, though sometimes they may invite you to join them instead." That had happened to Liam's mother, and the eshva lord leading the hunt had found her 'fierce, elegant, and glorious,' as Mistress Ui Niall had always put it.

Naya considered this. At last she said, "I hope I never end up in that place. Especially not anytime soon. I've never been much of a runner, but certainly not now." As if mentioning her weak condition had reminded her body, a wracking cough suddenly gripped her, squeezing her chest and throat. Iúile grabbed her as she started to double over.

"We've been out too long," Iúile murmured. "We should go in. Baby Dylan will be missing me soon enough, anyway."

Knowing the younger woman was right, Naya nodded and let Iúile lead her back inside the great estate house.

.

She'd been expecting Rin, but Dylan couldn't stop the swift, burning urge to break into wild sobs when she saw Oblina draped like a scaly shawl around the aswang's shoulders. Only swiftly biting her tongue until blood flooded her mouth in a wash of iron and salt kept the tears at bay.

"Oblina? What are you doing here?" John asked. Although he didn't have the strong connection to the monster that his twin did, Oblina had been his monster too, once upon a time.

The squamous, serpentine creature slithered down from Rin's shoulders and scuttled over to the two humans.

"I was stopping by to see if you'd returned to your cottage, darling - I was hoping for more of that delicious cheese you tempted us with before. But instead, imagine my shock when I caught sight of an aswang making a deal with a witch in your front garden."

Rin, the aswang in question, hefted the massive pumpkin she'd gotten from Jenny. Dylan immediately relaxed. Not only had Jenny come through with the perfect autumn pumpkin, but now her summons would be expected. It was fifty-fifty whether Chuz would mention the tug of summoning he'd already felt, but Jenny would tell her liege lord what Dylan meant to do.

"I suppose you need help carving the thing," Oblina muttered. The human raised an eyebrow, and the monster flashed a grin filled with serrated, yellowed teeth. "I rather like pumpkin slime, truth be told."

It took her a long moment to swallow the urge to cry again, but finally Dylan managed to whisper, "Thank you, Oblina."

"Of course, darling."

But first, Rin had a job to do. Dylan knew most aswangs hated the cold. Rin coming here was a huge favor for very little return, since the monstrous otherworldly woman could only have a taste of what Dylan needed her to get.

Oblina went with John to the tavern kitchens to gut and carve the pumpkin; nobody carved a jack-o-lantern better than her brother. And Dylan, Eímh, and Rin went upstairs to Nuada's room, where Wink and Sétanta waited for them. Dylan felt a quick flash of uncertainty - these weren't her rooms - but pushed it aside when Wink rumbled a low welcome. She couldn't understand him as well as she wanted to, but she was beginning to learn his tones and quirks. The silver cave troll pulled out a chair for her, but hesitated when Rin gave him a look.

"No, thank you," the aswang said softly. Wink offered a truncated bow and curled his bronze fingers. Rin smiled. Her smile was oddly...blobby. As if she had a mouth full of M&Ms or Skittles.

"You can relax here," Dylan added as Sétanta, best of dogs, picked up a log in his teeth and tossed it onto the fire. "My guards are outside, but nobody will disturb us unless I call."

Rin looked around the room. Nodded. Her voice, still soft but thicker, rougher than before, rumbled out of her mouth. "Doing well for yourself."

"It's not mine," Dylan muttered.

The other woman shot her a look, then unzipped her parka and tossed it to Wink. The troll caught it with his hand of flesh. With a groan of utmost appreciation, Rin slipped a pair of folded, black wings through slits in her thick, burgundy sweater. The membranous wings unfurled, stretching high overhead. The very tips of the thumb-claws brushed the ceiling beams. The other claws scraped lightly against the walls.

The wings flexed, muscle straining. There was an odd, wet sucking noise.

Rin's legs separated from her torso above the waist and walked to a chair. They sank down gracefully and crossed at the knee. Her torso shivered and shuddered as she stretched arms and wings. Dylan heard the pop of her spine as she cracked her back.

"Try not to drip on the rugs, okay?" The mortal asked nonchalantly. Rin froze mid-stretch and glanced down at her exposed intestines. She gave a little hop backward on her wings to make sure if anything dripped, it would land on wood and not expensive textiles. Dylan scooted her chair closer to the other woman.

"Okay," Rin said, and gestured to the bowl of steaming, soapy water laced with hot whiskey on the table. "Pick an arm and wash up."

Dylan didn't let her fingers shake as she washed the bend of her right elbow and the upper arm a few inches above the joint. This was going to hurt. But she wouldn't let it matter.

Wink held the ravenglass vial Rin would use. Dylan had explained after she'd called the aswang what would happen so that when the time came, Wink wouldn't attack her.

Once she'd patted her arm dry with a clean towel, she held it out to Rin. The aswang inclined her head at the incredible compliment the human was paying her - a compliment of trust, that the otherworldly monster wouldn't hurt her more than necessary. Wouldn't feed on her.

"Try not to tense up," Rin said. "Hurts worse that way."

Then she opened her strange mouth wide. Wider. The skin split, hinged like a snake's mouth, and something black writhed inside. When it flashed out, a whip of thick muscle the color of gangrene, Dylan couldn't help flinching. Rin's tongue, as long and thick as a ball python, whipped toward her.

In the split-second before the tip made contact with Dylan's arm, a nearly translucent spike shot out of the tongue and bit deep into Dylan's skin.

She swallowed a scream, but had to bite down on her other fist as the spike drilled through skin and muscle and fat, hit bone, and kept drilling. She tasted blood and realized she'd bitten down hard enough to break skin. Her right arm was shaking, the hand twitching wildly as pain seared through it.

Ohmigawd, she gasped silently. It was all she could think as Rin's tongue pierced to the bone and then began to suck marrow from her body. She could feel it slipping out of her, bit by bit by bit. Dylan's head swam and nausea clamped down on her stomach as she tried to ignore the feeling. It was impossible. Every pull of that tongue, every tiny sucking mouthful of her bone marrow, sent a fresh wave of fire through her body.

And then suddenly it was done and Rin was spitting the marrow into the ravenglass vial and Sétanta was pressing his body against Dylan's legs, whimpering. Dylan managed to push the prepared white gauze against the puncture - it was so impossibly small for so much pain. There was very little blood. The smallest of bandages would suffice.

"You taste great," Rin said with obvious, sincere delight. "What have you been eating?"

Dylan didn't answer. She just dropped her head to the table, shuddering, arm still twitching, and closed her eyes.

Everything was collected. Now she just had to put it all together and then pack. If she was right - and she was pretty sure she was - once the ambassador appeared, he'd send her to a place where she'd need supplies and possibly even a weapon if she was going to make it until her message went through and she received an answer.

But couldn't she wait a little bit? Everything hurt so bad. She was so tired. Couldn't she rest just for a bit?

She didn't hear what Rin said to Wink. Only felt a brush of leathery wing against the back of her neck, and then Rin was gone. Wink set the stoppered vial on the table. Beside it, he set a cup of something that steamed gently.

"What is it?" She mumbled.

Wink growled something. She didn't understand the words, but she knew what he meant. If she'd been Nuada, doubtless he'd have been saying, Drink it before I thump you.

So she did, and then put her head back down.

.

This was probably the worst idea, but…well, Ariana was about this close to ripping out her own hair and needed an outlet. Being locked up in her Aunt Simone's apartment like Rapunzel in her tower had left the almost-fourteen-year-old with a restless buzzing under her skin.

It had been over a month since her mom had left her and her brothers with their aunt and cousins. Over two weeks since Ari's mom, Petra Myers, had called up Simone and ordered her to hand Ari's younger brother Russell over to a woman Ari had never met for a reason none of the children understood – except Russell, who'd disappeared for a couple hours one day, only to show up with a note from his mom for his aunt, demanding Simone call her.

And then they'd all driven out to an apartment very near their Aunt Dylan's cottage in Central Park – the apartment had only been a couple blocks from the Park entrance – and a strange, thin woman with odd gray eyes and brilliantly red hair had come out and taken Russell away.

Ari would've been worried except…well, Russell had a good nose for trouble, and could usually tell when someone wanted to hurt him. But he hadn't been afraid of the redheaded woman at all. And he'd been grinning and waving at them all as he walked away with her.

Ariana wasn't surprised that nobody would tell her what was happening. Most adults didn't tell kids anything. That's why she'd had to learn to figure things out herself from an early age. The only adults who'd always listened to the kids in the Myers family had been their Aunt Francesca and their Aunt Dylan, and they weren't really supposed to talk to Aunt Dylan, according to their mothers. Aunt Dylan was weird, not quite…not quite right, although neither Ari's mom nor the other Myers mom of the assorted cousins, Ari's Aunt Pauline, had been willing to explain why like, ever. Just that she was weird and said weird things and believed weird things, apparently.

It was Aunt Dylan who'd shown Ariana that if she wanted information, most of the time she'd have to get it herself. And that's what the teenager was doing now. Luckily for her, her brother and their cousins were all so terrified of the strangers at the door, none of them would've dared try to rat her out, even if they'd liked Aunt Simone – and none of them did, so they weren't telling her crap.

In her favorite pair of socks, thick white wool with rubber grips to prevent slipping on tile and hardwood floors, Ari crept down the short hallway of her aunt's apartment and stopped just outside the kitchen archway. The kitchen was about the size of a postage stamp, but the acoustics were perfect for an enterprising young woman who wanted to eavesdrop on conversations happening in the foyer.

"…get off my porch or I'm calling the cops."

That was Aunt Simone. She didn't sound angry, per se, but she sounded…something. Cold. The same icy, snarling fury that didn't feel like anger or look like anger unless you were directly on the receiving end. Ari had experienced that cold anger very rarely. She'd mostly seen Aunt Simone reserve it for homeless people, dogs, Russell, and Aunt Dylan.

Who was at the door? Not Aunt Dylan, because Aunt Dylan was with Mom…wherever Mom was. And not Russell, because he was with that red-haired woman.

"No need to be rude, now."

Ariana's stomach twisted sharply. Her gorge rose and she had to shove herself hard against the kitchen wall, pressing her face into the not-quite-smooth white plaster, and breathe fast and shallow through her mouth in order to keep from hurling everywhere. She knew that voice. She remembered the howling laughter, the gloating hoots even over the sound of gunshots, the shattering of glass, the crackling of fire. Her mom and Aunt Dylan had warned all three of her siblings to watch out for the owner of that voice and run far, far away anytime they ever saw this man or his brother or his father.

Xander Blackwood. One of the two men who'd hurt Aunt Dylan. One of the two men who'd attacked their house and started the fire Ariana still sometimes had nightmares about. The monsters who'd murdered Rowan, her baby sister. What was he doing here? Where was his brother, Patrick?

"Yeah, don't be mean to us. We just want to know where your crazy bitch sister is, that's all."

Oh. There he was. Great. And they wanted Aunt Dylan. Or maybe Ari's mom? They'd come after all of Ari's aunts at one point or another, since before Ari had even been born.

"If you go near my sister," Aunt Simone said with deadly calm, "I won't bother calling the cops. I'll break your kneecaps and then slit you from anus to clavicle so I can make your guts into sausage."

Swallowing hard, mouth practically flooded with saliva – a sure warning sign that she was in danger of barfing if she didn't get away – Ari tiptoed back down the hallway and into the guest room she currently shared with her brother and four cousins.

David lay on the bed, flipping through The Vampire's Assistant, looking bored. Wendy and Maggie were busy drawing flowers on their arms with gel pens, and Remy was carefully slicing up a block of cheese and laying the squares on a paper plate in a random pattern only she could understand, trying to put together a fake cheese board. Ariana smiled fleetingly when she saw that Remy's black sleep shirt sported a skull and the words No dysphoria, only Skeleton War.

Collette, Remy's twin, stared out the window. She was pale as paper and her fingertips pressed so hard into the glass that her knuckles looked white as bones and her fingernails were pink and purple from the pressure. Ari moved over to see what she was staring at so intently.

Curbside, just beyond the stairs leading down from Aunt Simone's apartment level, hunched a gorgeous, blood red BMW. A sporty little coup convertible with the top down. Nobody was in it. There was no anti-theft block or wheel-club to keep it from being stolen. It just sat there.

It was the Blackwoods' car. She remembered it from the brief glimpse she'd caught right after stumbling out of her burning house into the cold night. She'd been the first one out, holding tight to Russell, and they'd glimpsed the car careening around the bend.

Without even realizing she'd decided to do it, Ariana stuffed her feet into her shoes and grabbed her favorite necklace – a set of silver and gold spikes on a chain, a gift from her girlfriend Enna – off the nightstand by the narrow twin bed she shared with Remy and Collette, and flipped the latch on the bedroom window.

"What're you doing?" Collette hissed as Ari quickly shoved the window open. "It's freezing–"

"So close it after me, then," she said, clambering over Collette and out onto the fire escape. "Just let me in when I tap on the window again."

"But where are you going?"

By this time, the other four kids were all staring at her, but didn't say anything. They knew sneaking out was something she did occasionally. She had to, if she ever wanted to see Enna when Ari's dad was around. He didn't know Ari liked girls and would've been pissed as hell if he ever found out. She'd seen the way her dad had reacted when he'd learned her mom had dated girls in the past. She didn't want to risk her dad doing to her what she'd seen him do, just once, to her mom.

But Collette was like Russell – sometimes she just knew when someone bad was around. Ari had a feeling Collette sensed the Blackwood brothers by the front door. She didn't have time to reassure the eight-year-old though. She had a very limited window to enact her minor revenge on those two monsters.

"Just down to the sidewalk. I'll be back."

"But you don't have a coat," her brother David pointed out matter-of-factly.

"That's how you know I'll be back soon. Now shut up and keep an ear out for Aunt Simone."

She crept down the fire escape, practically holding her breath as every step touched softly down on the frosty steel grating. She pulled her sleeves down over her hands so her fingers didn't stick to the railing. The Mission Impossible theme played on nervous repeat in her head as she made it to the sidewalk.

She looked up. The front door of her aunt's apartment was open, glowing golden with the light from inside. The Blackwoods stood half in the doorway, still badgering her aunt. She had time, although not a lot of it.

A hand grabbed the back of her shirt. A scream tried to leap out of her mouth, but Ari clapped it back in and whipped around, fist up, ready to make some creepo eat his teeth.

Collette flinched back from her. Ari's arms dropped to her sides.

"Ohmigawd, what the crap?"

"I want to help," Collette hissed.

Ari shook her head, black curls bouncing. "You don't even know what I'm planning."

Collette shrugged. "Something important. Hurting the Blackwoods." The younger girl glanced over at the front door of the apartment, then at the sleek, shiny red car. "You need a lookout."

Ariana was about to say no, the frack she did not need a lookout, then reconsidered. Maybe she did. She knew from other instances of revenge she'd taken – mostly against the older kids who liked to pick on Russell – that when she got really deep in the I Will Kill You and Make It Look Like an Accident Zone, she often tuned out the rest of the world. With a situation like this, someone like the Blackwoods…she didn't dare do anything careless. They'd already murdered her baby sister. Burned down their old house. Even her mom, as strong and good at fighting as Petra Myers was, was afraid of them.

But she had to make sure Collette stayed safe, too. So she said, "Fine. Keep an eye out, but hide behind the hedges."

"But there's bugs back there!"

"You either hide, or we're going back inside."

Collette glared at her, then sighed. "Fiiine."

Hugging herself, she went over and huddled beside the hedges that bordered the sidewalk and marked the edge of the apartment complex property. With a little wiggling, the kid ended up almost completely hidden, but she could still see the apartment door where the Blackwoods refused to leave her Aunt Simone alone.

Ari gripped her favorite necklace with its sharp points, swallowed. Took one last nervous glance at the door herself to make sure those monsters were still mid-harassment. Then she went to the car on catlike steps and set to work.

.

Collette kept darting glances between her cousin and the door, shivering in the cold. Why was it warmer by the bushes than out by Ari? She didn't know. And it was still so cold she couldn't really feel her fingers. She wished Ariana would hurry up. But she also understood why Ari was doing this.

Collette's mother, Pauline, had warned her children about the Blackwood brothers, too. If Collette had been Ariana, she wouldn't have done this. But Collette was a timid child. She didn't like confronting people, especially outside in the cold and the dark. The only time she felt confident about yelling at someone doing something bad was in the kitchen or the grocery store. She knew what she was doing there. Knew she knew better than other people what to do and how to behave.

But Ari was bigger, and braver, and stronger. She was a big kid and she knew how to get back at people, even if she wasn't good at fighting. Aunt Simone said Ari was a troublemaker and a punk. Collette kind of wanted to be a troublemaker and a punk, too, if it meant she could be like Ari.

The little girl glanced away from the door to see what her cousin was doing. Drawing something…Collette gasped when she realized what it was her cousin had carved into the hood of the shiny red BMW.

"Ari!"

"What?" Ariana muttered, digging the spike in her hand deeper into the scarlet paint. "Aren't you supposed to be keeping an eye out?"

Poop! Collette glanced again at the apartment door. No change. She snapped her head back around to stare at the awful thing her cousin was drawing on the car. "Ari…is that a…" She couldn't help but look around for any grownups before hunching her shoulders, lowering her voice, and whispering nervously, "a penis?"

Ariana made a weird noise that sort of sounded like a cat horking a hairball combined with a dog grumbling. She coughed. Snapped, "Don't say 'penis' like that."

The little girl glared at her cousin. "Fine. Boy stuff."

That was a silly way to say it, but those were the only terms she knew – penis and boy stuff. And Aunt Simone had already yelled at her once for using the word penis, even though she wasn't trying to be bad or saying anything gross. They'd been talking about cats, for crying out loud. But Aunt Francesca said Aunt Simone had a stick up her butt and that it made her grouchy. Collette figured if she had a stick up her butt, she'd be grouchy too, so…oh, well.

Ariana laughed softly as she finished her drawing and started slicing words into the paint job.

"Not boy stuff. There are people who have that kind of junk and aren't boys, just like there are boys with different junk."

Collette eyed her cousin. "Really?"

Ari nodded. "Yeah. Like my girlfriend…" She suddenly froze and she whipped around to stare at Collette. "Don't you tell anyone I said that, do you hear me?"

Suddenly uneasy, Collette nodded. "O-Okay."

"I mean it, Collie," Ariana growled. "I'm dead serious. If you ever tell anybody I just said that, I'll never talk to you again as long as I live. Understand? I'm serious."

Scared now, she nodded. "I promise. I won't tell anyone." Remembering what she was supposed to be doing, she looked at the door again. What were the grownups talking about up there? Aunt Simone didn't want them around; why wouldn't they leave? Quietly, Collette asked, "Why don't you want me to tell anyone?"

Their family had secrets. Collette was barely eight, but she knew that well enough. Russell could see things nobody else could see. Remy, Collette's twin, had made Collette promise never to tell anyone that Remy wasn't actually a girl, even though everyone thought Remy was a girl. When she'd asked her twin if Remy was a boy, Remy had just shrugged and said, "I don't know." And Collette could tell as soon as she met someone if they were a good guy or a bad guy who wanted to hurt them.

And the grownups had the secret about Aunt Dylan, whatever that was. So this was just another secret.

But Ariana was the coolest. She would never do anything bad. And yeah, sometimes she could be really mean and spiteful to people who made her angry, but that wasn't a secret. Everybody knew that. So why was this such a big deal?

"Would you get in trouble?" Collette asked.

Ari shot her a quick, almost angry look, then shrugged. "My dad wouldn't like it. And anyone but you might blab to him without thinking about it."

Anyone but you. Collette squared her shoulders. Ari wasn't mad. She was trusting her. Awesome.

"Okay," Ariana said, straightening up. A quick twist made her back crackle and pop. She looked up at the door, nodded. "All right, time to go. Come on. Move it."

"You're all done?" Relief flooded through her at the thought. She'd be warm soon, and they hadn't gotten caught.

"Yep. Let's get out of here." Grabbing Collette's icy hand, she pulled her cousin away from the street and back toward the fire escape.

They managed to get inside and get the window almost completely down again before the front door of the apartment slammed and the Blackwood brothers tromped down the stairs to the ground. Collette slumped against the window and sighed. She didn't even care about the tiny wisp of chill creeping in from the last open inch of window.

"Close the window," David hissed.

Ari rolled her eyes at her brother. "Shut up. It'll thump. I don't want them to hear. Wait until they're gone, then I'll close it. You won't die."

"I might. It's freezing."

"Don't be a baby," Collette said, sticking up for Ari. David gave her a sneering look and went back to his book. Collette looked at Ariana, whose silver-gray gaze was fixed on the silhouettes of the Blackwood brothers moving along the short path to the street.

Ariana sucked in a breath. Her lips spread into an almost Grinchy grin and a low laugh thrummed in her throat.

"They noticed," she muttered.

Collette looked out the window. The shadows of the grownups had stopped moving. They just stood a few feet away, staring at what Ari had done to their car.

The little girl didn't understand the entire message scrawled into the paint. There had been the picture – she knew what that was – and a bunch of words. Ari had nice handwriting, even when using a spike instead of a pencil, so Collette had been able to read the words. She just didn't understand what Chad was here meant, or You suck in bed, or Go down to the local pharmacy, ask for something called Viagra, and it'll help you go screw yourself.

Why would you go to a pharmacy for that? Obviously Viagra was a special kind of screwdriver for screwing screws into people – Collette knew what screws were, she'd helped her mom put a bookcase together once – but pharmacies were for medicine. And how could somebody suck in bed? Sleeping was easy. How could someone suck at it? And she had no idea who Chad was. A friend of Ari's, maybe? Although that didn't seem very safe or nice, blaming the vandalism on her friend. Maybe it was somebody who'd done something bad to her.

Collette poked Ari in the ribs. "Who's Chad?"

"Google it," Ari mumbled, avidly watching the scene below.

Collette opened her mouth to protest – she wasn't allowed on the computer without supervision – but before she could say anything, a monster roared out in the darkness. She squeaked and clutched Ari. Behind them, Collette's sisters and Ari's brother stopped what they were doing and rushed to the window.

Below, the Blackwood brothers were screaming in fury. Ari hugged Collette when she began to shake, but didn't look away from them racing around below like chickens with their heads cut off, roaring, raging, demanding to know who'd done that to their fancy car.

"Eat that," Ari muttered, then said a bad grownup word Collette had never heard her say before. "There's more where that came from. Stay away from my family."

"What if they figure out it was you?" David demanded.

Ari shrugged. "Mom and Dad won't let them hurt me. Hurt any of us. But also, they're not going to figure out it was me, so whatever."

Collette stared up at her cousin, unsure. The Blackwoods had already killed Ari's sister Rowan. How did she know that her mommy and daddy could protect her and David and Russell from them? Especially since Ari's daddy always gave Collette the same scary feeling she got around bad guys?

But Ari was never wrong about anything, so Collette tried to relax. Ari was a big kid. Of course she was right. The Blackwoods couldn't hurt them. Even Aunt Simone, mean as she was, wouldn't let them get hurt. Everything would be fine.

From the apartment stoop, Aunt Simone yelled, "That's it, I'm calling the cops!"

.

The stink hit Dylan first. Bog weed. Swamp water. Rot, but the healthy rot of a swamp, not the rot of dark, unnatural things. The creek-creek of frogs and toads singing to each other came next, and the plip-plop of things jumping into the murky water.

The only thing weird about it all, Dylan reflected, was that she hadn't ever been in a swamp in her life. So where was this? Because it certainly wasn't the winter-frozen village of Lallybroch in northern Bethmoora. It was too warm, too humid. Too green for winter, and the wrong kind of green. Yellow-green, green-brown, but not the rich dark greens of pine and fir so common in northern Bethmoora.

Where is this? She should've been concerned. Probably even terrified, since last she could recall, she'd been tucked up in her bed in the Drunken Dwarf, with a massive silver cave troll telling her to close her eyes and get some rest. But Dylan wasn't scared. Not even really all that curious. Her biggest focus was…a sense of waiting. She was waiting for someone in this swamp.

Nobody fancy, she decided, glancing down at herself. These were the kinds of clothes her and John had always called "questing clothes" when they were kids, back when they'd been allowed to read and watch old-fashioned fantasy books and movies. Leather breeches, leather jerkin, thick leather boots with…she wiggled her foot. Metal ribbing? Maybe to keep her from losing any limbs if a gator bit her.

The thought of gators should've made her nervous, too, but she just stared around at the gnarled trees with their jutting roots that seemed to float above the water, their twisted branches twining like lovers' knots and dripping with gray and green moss. She needed a place to wait. So she made her way carefully along the bumpy path of thick tree roots to more solid ground and a moss-covered stone. Checking for bugs and finding none, she sat down. Waiting. She was supposed to wait for…for someone. But…but who? She should know, but for some reason she couldn't quite get a hold of a name.

It was getting dark. That should've worried her, on top of not knowing how she'd gotten here and being nabbed by gators, but her only concern when she noticed the light slowly dimming from a greenish-blue to a greenish-yellow was that, if it got too dark, she wouldn't be able to see the person she was supposed to be waiting for. She wouldn't know how to find them if they didn't come.

Her mind jerked away from the thought of him not coming. Of course he would come. He would never leave her in a place like this, some lonely wild place with no people, no shelter. But…something might prevent him. There was something in the way, Dylan remembered. Someone in the way. She couldn't remember that name, either. Only remember that a person existed that wanted to keep her from meeting up with…

It grew darker. The frogs sang louder, a symphony that soothed her slowly growing nerves. Nobody came. It was just her, one lone mortal woman with a bad knee and no weapons, not even her courtship dirk, in a swamp where the day was beginning to bleed away into sticky, humid night.

At least I'm not cold? She thought. The frigid temperatures in Bethmoora had been playing havoc with her bad knee, even with Shaohao's healing and taking her full doses of Vicodin. It was far colder in the Elven kingdom than in New York City right now. But the thought was only a weak attempt to distract herself because it was getting even darker, and despite the warmth, she was starting to shiver.

A golden light exploded into being like a burst from a firework less than ten feet away. Dylan jerked, staring at the bobbing wisp of amber fire. It hovered over the water, dancing on the air. It looked like…like a tiny flame just hovering there, waiting for her attention. The moment she looked at it, it zipped away into the dark.

"Wait a minute!" Her sudden shout sent toads scrabbling into their burrows and frogs into the swamp. She flinched at the sudden explosion of sound. Shoved hard to get onto her feet. Maybe she could catch a glimpse of the wisp of fire.

Wisp of fire…of course. It had to be a will-o-the-wisp. They lived in bogs and swamps, usually playing tricks on travelers, sometimes even leading them to their death by drowning in sucking mud and impossibly deep water, or death by devouring among alligators and other carnivores hiding in the water and waiting for easy prey.

But will-o-the-wisps were blue. Sometimes green, and even more rarely the color of mortal flame, but appearing in places mortal flame should not have been able to burn, like fire on stagnant water. But usually – almost always – wisps were the blue of drowned corpses. Gray-blue, death-blue. Not golden. Not a warm, rich amber like…so very much like…

In her mind's eye, Dylan suddenly saw a flash of gold: a pair of eyes circled by shadows, but almost glowing with firegold warmth, flecked with bits of sunfire and carnelian. Her heart knifed sideways in her chest. Something sharp and salty and hot lodged in her throat. She tried to swallow.

A blink of yellow light caught her eye. The wisp was back, bobbing only a few feet away. It flickered, dipping and wobbling. Dylan frowned. Was it…was it hurt, maybe?

"Follow you," she whispered. "If I do, will you drown me?"

The wisp only flickered and weaved into intricate circles in the air. Dylan reached down, rubbing her bad knee. It didn't hurt – yet. But it would hurt after a run through a swamp full of limby trees. She could fall and break something. Could wreck her bad leg and make it even worse.

She should've been worried about all of these things, but after rubbing her knee and feeling the lack of swelling, she only straightened and nodded at the wisp. The ball of golden fire bobbed as if nodding back, then zipped away. Sucking in a breath, Dylan took off running.

.

It should've been difficult, keeping up with the zooming ball of amber flame. But it almost seemed to keep doubling back on its course, popping up every time she thought for just a moment that she might have lost sight of it. It ducked and wove beside her, keeping her in its own sight as she jumped across channels of scummy water from one thick tree root to the next. Sometimes she had to hug the thick trunks of willow and cypress in order to keep from falling into the swamp as she tried to keep up.

Thankfully, she wore riding gloves. Otherwise she probably would've screamed, let go, and fallen off her perch the first time a swamp insect crawled across her fingers. Instead she'd jerked, slipped, and had to flail for a tree limb. The whole time, the wisp had hovered nearby, flickering almost anxiously.

As she stumbled along, pain began threading through her leg. Dylan gritted her teeth and kept going, knowing she'd regret it later. It didn't matter. She had to keep up. If she didn't, if she didn't get to where the wisp wanted her to go, then…then what? She didn't know, but it would be bad. And the wisp's aurulent glow was beginning to flicker more and more, like it was tiring.

Or like it was hurt.

Dylan's breath stuttered and her heart banged hard enough to bruise her sternum. It was hurt. She didn't know how she knew that, but it was true.

The sting of salt hit her nose as she trudged on through the swamp. Could swamps be salty? She knew saltwater lakes were a thing, and she'd heard of freshwater pools and things in caverns under the ocean where, due to the more bizarre laws of physics interacting in equally bizarre ways, air pockets existed. If she hadn't been running for her life, lungs aching, she'd have stopped to Google it.

And then suddenly the swamp was gone. No more brackish water, no more twisty trees, no more frogs and mosquitoes, no more sticky air threatening to choke her. Instead she stood on a beach of white sand so fine it could've been powdered sugar. It smushed gently under her bare foot. It wasn't even hot.

Dylan glanced down and for some reason didn't find it strange that her boots had disappeared, along with her leather shirt and pants and gloves. Instead, now she wore no shoes, and a loose shift-dress the color of gentle twilight. And standing perhaps three hundred paces away, so glorious and striking against the snow-white sand, stood a magnificent, moon-white stallion with a golden mane and tail and hooves that shone like hammered gold…except one, like polished Elven silver. The left forehoof was silver, not gold.

But its eyes were strange. Solid black, not gentle amber. They should've been gold, she thought. The eyes were always supposed to be gold. Not black.

Something yanked on her heart, like an iron hook piercing right through her breast. She took a single step. The stallion didn't acknowledge her. It only stared at the rolling, storm-gray sea sighing against the sand.

A hurt will-o-the-wisp the color of a familiar aurulent gaze…

A white stallion with one silver hoof and black eyes instead of gold…

Dylan took off running toward the stallion, heart in her throat. She had to reach him. Had to help him. Had to set him free from…from what? There wasn't anything there. He stood alone on the beach, unencumbered.

Except when she got closer, less than a hundred paces away, she saw that something did hold him. Thin, wire-like, whippy brambles poked up from the sand, glittering as translucent as glass. Their thorns stabbed deep into the stallion's lower legs. If he tried to get away, they would cut him viciously. But even holding as still as he could, she still glimpsed trickles of blood the color of freshly-minted golden coins rolling down his legs to stain the white sand.

Two tears rolled down her cheeks. She kept running until suddenly the stallion, ignoring the thorns, pivoted in her direction and screamed at her.

She skidded to a halt, baffled. Fear throbbed just under her confusion. He wasn't supposed to yell at her. He was supposed to be happy to see her.

But the huge ivory horse reared up, pawing the air. Metallic hooves shone bright as polished swords. He didn't seem to care at all that the thorns, most of them longer than her fingers, ripped at the sleek pearly hide. More blood spattered the sand.

"Calm down," Dylan cried, taking a step forward. She kept her eyes on those murderous hooves. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you!"

The stallion screamed. Kicked at her, demanding she step back. Dylan staggered backward, confused, ready to break down into sobs. Why was he attacking her?

She stepped back further and yelped when a line of white-hot pain lashed the side of her heel. Jerking back, she managed to balance on her left foot while grabbing her bad leg and forcing it up so she could see what had happened. Fire throbbed through her leg, pulsing in her knee. One arm waved ridiculously as she struggled not to tip over and face-plant into the ground.

A single, glassy thorn – only about an inch long, but still sharp as barbed razor-wire – was lodged in the side of her foot, just beneath the first layer of skin. Just deep enough to bring the tiniest bit of blood to the puncture.

Muttering bad words she wasn't supposed to say under her breath, Dylan grabbed the thorn between her nails and carefully wiggled it out. Two tiny drops of scarlet fell to the sand. Glaring at the thing, she snapped it in her fist and chucked the pieces into the ocean. Then Dylan turned back to the stallion.

He watched her with those eyes like twin onyx. Wrong color. Why were they the wrong color?

He'd bugled that challenge so she wouldn't just run right into the thorns pushing up through the sand and slice up her bare feet. Protecting her, she was sure.

Message received, Dylan thought, and took a single, careful step forward.

The stallion didn't challenge. Only watched her with those eyes. His breath steamed in the chilly air, clouds of white vapor.

She took another step.

The stallion shifted as if he meant to step toward her, but the thorns bit deeper. He stilled. His sides heaved. Lines of bleeding gold crisscrossed the sleek, white flanks and withers. Steam wisped off his hide. Had he been whipped?

Slowly, she crept between jutting spikes of crystalline thorn, careful as she could be of her bare feet. Even holding her breath, eyes flicking between the horse and the danger, she still caught the sides of her feet against the sharp shards. When she at last stood beside the stallion, so close she could smell the sweat and the blood, her feet and ankles were smeared with red.

The stallion shied when she reached for him. He tossed his head, golden mane and tail gleaming in the early morning light. His eyes blazed a violent, bloody crimson and he shifted and sidled, stamping the silver hoof.

"It's all right," she crooned to him. He tossed his head. Nickered softly to her. Her fingertips drew closer to him. Entreaty and offered comfort, both. "I'm here now," Dylan breathed. The stallion stretched out his neck and pressed his face into Dylan's chest. He shuddered all over. Blew a soft, warm breath against her twilight-colored dress. Carefully, Dylan slipped her arms around the thick, muscular neck. The fae horse shuddered again and then sighed. The tension leaked out of him, water from a tipped cup.

"I'm here," she murmured to him. She stroked along his neck with careful, gentle hands. There were no whip marks here on the thin, delicate hide. A small mercy. As she petted him, the black bled away from his eyes to be replaced with a xanthous gray like old, dingy gold. "I'm here now." Tension bled out of her and her shoulders slumped. She dropped her head to touch her brow to the flat length of the horse's muzzle. "I'm here now. It's all right. I'm here."

The stallion blew softly against her throat. She continued to stroke the poor thing as its shudders slowly decreased. A soft wind kicked up, sprinkling them both with the salt-spray of the gray sea. A tremor shivered through the mortal woman and tears burned behind her closed eyelids.

"Where are you?" She breathed. "Where are you?"

Above her, an avian scream broke through the soft roar of the waves and wind. Dylan jerked her head up; she stared above her, hands slipping away from the bleeding fae horse, scanning the skies for the bird that had screamed as if in agony.

When she looked back, the black stallion was gone. So were the crystalline thorns. Dylan spun around, scanning the powder-soft sand. A freshet of tears spilled down her cheeks as she realized he was gone somehow. Vanished away. The thorns were gone, the stallion, even the sea had disappeared from view. There was only sand. Gasping for air, legs buckling, she sank to the sand. Doubled over, arms pressed to her belly. What was happening? First the wisp, now the stallion?

Another pained scream overhead. Dylan heard the beating of wings and looked up, ducking instinctively when a massive hawk swooped toward her. The huge spread of wings beat so hard, its wind kicked up a spray of fine sand. Dylan covered her head with her hands and tried to duck to shield her face. Bits of grit stung her wrists and hands.

When the wind died again, she swallowed and risked a glance up. Perched on a bit of dead wood sticking up out of the sand – maybe a desiccated bit of cactus or acacia tree? – was a hawk the color of sunlight on ivory when it shone through a sheet of amber. Not quite gold, not quite yellow, not quite orange. Bits of copper and even crimson glinted on the edges of the aurulent feathers as the hawk shifted its weight. Fierce, predatory eyes stared at her from beneath hooded brows.

The hot bronze color of that gaze, tinged around the edges with scarlet and threaded through with silver like despair, pulled at something in her. She recognized those eyes somehow. Just like she'd recognized the black-eyed stallion and the golden will-o-the-wisp. But the name that beat against the inside of her skull shouted too loud for her to understand it. She couldn't form the name, even though she could practically taste it, like quicksilver and stardust.

It was practically suicidal to shift onto hands and knees and crawl toward the hawk. Her dress was gone, replaced by loose white pants and a tunic and lightweight boots. Easier to move across a desert that way. And she knew better, a distant part of her mind said, then to move toward a very large bird of prey, especially one she didn't know. Hawks were not dogs to be coaxed or cats to be wooed. They were wild animals. And yet…

When she stretched out her hand, that same distant part of her screamed that the hawk would slash her fingers to the bone. Would attack, ripping with its dangerous, hooked beak. A single swipe of its wings could no doubt break her fingers or even her wrist. If a swan could snap bone that way, a much larger bird definitely could.

But she reached for him anyway and the hawk did not attack.

A hawk came to me, trembling afraid.
It broke the pieces of my heart.
I knew its strength, loved its soul,
And embraced ev'rything it was.

The words to the song came flooding back to her. She'd sung those words to her prince, she remembered. Late at night, after the agony of a nightmare, beneath the earth of a faerie sithen, she'd cuddled close and sung of a crow, an owl, a dove, a swan, and a hawk.

Dylan stared at the hawk. Trembling afraid…trembling afraid…Was it afraid? She couldn't tell. She'd never really had much experience with birds in general, much less raptors. And yet, staring at the creature, she didn't think it was going to attack her. She didn't think…it was even wild. It seemed too docile, too…

But then it shrieked, mantling its wings. Dylan snatched back her hand with a gasp. Those wicked talons barely missed ripping her wrist open to the bone.

"It's all right," she murmured inanely. What was she doing? She had no idea. But something about this creature told her that it was hurt. Just like the wisp, just like the stallion. Hurt, nearly wild with pain, waiting for more pain from every quarter. She tried to keep her voice from shaking as she said, "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. Let me help. I won't hurt you."

The hawk bristled, fluffing out its feathers, but when she reached out again, it didn't try to slash or bite. It merely closed its eyes as if resigned. When her knuckles brushed the warm, feathery chest, those hot copper eyes snapped open and a harsh scream tangled in the hawk's throat…but it still didn't attack. It only submitted warily to the caress of her knuckles against its breast.

"How are you hurt?" She whispered, crawling closer. Her bad knee twinged. She ignored it. "How are you hurt? What are they doing to you?"

But of course the bird didn't answer. It only slowly relaxed as she stroked its chest, making forlorn little chirruping noises at her. After a few minutes, she'd crawled close enough that if it chose, it could've ripped out her eye, but nothing catastrophic happened. She just kept gently petting the raptor. After a few more minutes, wondering at her own daring, Dylan reached up and touched careful, petting fingertips to the hawk's magnificent head.

It could've reached out and ripped open the big veins in her arm easily. Could've broken her fingers or, possibly, even bitten them off. Instead it startled, wings flapping just a little as if for balance, then settled. She stared into the hawk's gorgeous, scarlet-bronze eyes and tried to swallow sobs. She didn't know why. She couldn't remember.

"What are they doing to you?" She asked, trying not to cry. Trying to keep strong for him because she had to, that was their pact, wasn't it? They were supposed to protect each other. The mortal couldn't remember when she'd made that promise, why she would've made it to a hawk. When she would've even seen a hawk like this. They didn't exist in the human world. And she'd never been to a desert this large. Actually, she didn't think she'd been to a desert ever. Not that she knew of it. But she had promised. She knew she had. "Are you…is it bad? Are you all right?"

I swear I will endure until I see your face again. The words dropped into her mind like a stone into a pond, sending out ripples of sorrow and hope that threatened by turns to drown her. A memory of a promise made…when? Recently. By who? She couldn't remember. But someone had promised her. Someone precious.

"Where are you?" She whispered. The hawk pressed the curve of its beak into her palm and chirped sadly at her. Its eyes burned into hers. Something stretched between them, a thin molten wire of promise and connection and need that threatened to pierce her to the quick, to cut the legs out from under her if she wasn't careful.

While a distant part of her shrieked and flailed in panicked warning, Dylan leaned forward until her forehead touched the bird's. The curve of that lethal beak pressed lightly against the crooked, flat place on the bridge of her nose that set it off-center from when last she'd broken it. Those great wings swept out, slowly. Enfolded her. Warm feathers and a strange, spicy scent enveloped her.

The hawk made an odd, screechy croon and Dylan asked again, "Where are you, Nuada?"

This wasn't right. She was missing something. Doing something wrong. She just didn't know what it was.

The hawk nibbled ever so gently on her fingertips. Not a warning of impending attack. A loving, tender gesture. He wouldn't harm her. That first strained moment had been before he'd recognized her, realized who she was, why she was there. He wouldn't do anything to hurt her now. Not ever.

But there was something wrong about this. She just couldn't…couldn't think beyond the need to comfort the trembling, frightened, hurting hawk.

*Fire, water, air,* a voice breathed in her mind. Familiar. A woman's voice, soft as the brush of lavender stalks against her skin. Not the hawk's voice. Not Nuada. But she knew it, it meant comfort, help. *Flame, sea, wind, mortal child. Star Kindler's beloved. Have you forgotten my promise? Have you forgotten I am here?*

Dylan twisted around, trying to see who was speaking. As soon as she did, the memory of the stallion's disappearance flashed through her mind. She jerked back around…but the hawk was gone.

Pain bloomed like a cancerous flower in her chest. Dylan hunched over, swallowing sobs. Every time she got close, he was taken from her. Why did this have to keep happening? What was she doing wrong?

A warm breath puffed against the back of her neck. The mortal looked up, silent tears rolling down her cheeks, and stared into a pair of crystalline violet eyes, like perfect twin amethysts. A horse the soft color of lilac blossoms stood near. Its hooves were the same glittering amethyst as the eyes. And spearing up from the broad violet brow, a spiraling horn of purple-tinted ivory gleamed like a spike of perfect pearl.

Dylan gazed up at the unicorn, and her sobs stormed through her. She couldn't keep them silent any longer. Like water smashing through a flimsy dam, her pain flooded through her.

With utmost care, the unicorn mare knelt on the sand beside her and nuzzled her face with its velvety nose. Her tears soaked into the warm, lavender hair and violet mane, but the unicorn didn't seem to mind the salt of them. She only crooned softly to the human. Finally Dylan sagged against the warmth of the unicorn and pressed her tear-stained face into the warm neck. Her arms crept around the unicorn's neck and she let out a long, slow sigh.

*Little mortal girl,* the unicorn murmured, with the gentle croon she would likely have used for a young foal. *You must not forget what I have promised. I cannot help you yet, but the means to bring my help will come soon enough. I know what you mean to do. The whispers of what you plan to do have winged their way through the glories.*

"H-How?" Dylan whispered.

*One of our allies,* she murmured to the human. *He is fond of you, as he is fond of us. We are the gentler side of what he commands, and he was worried for you. He wanted me to speak to you. To remind you of what help you have.*

The mortal shook her head, shoving at her hair.

"I don't understand. One of your allies? Nuada?" A thought leapt to the forefront of her mind and for just a moment, she felt a warm wash of hope. "King Balor? Did he call you? Ask you to help me?" If Balor couldn't be seen to officially break the treaty, what if he'd tried to do something to help? Nuada was his son; surely he wouldn't just leave him to die under Sréng's hands, even if he and Sréng had been friends once, thousands of years ago.

But the unicorn sighed with true regret, and perhaps…a little anger? Dylan had never seen a unicorn angry before. She'd only seen a few unicorns in her life, all in the last four months, but none of them angry. Yet the unicorn was. Dylan didn't know what told her the truth of the mare's feelings, but there was something…a shadow in the amethyst eyes, a wrinkling of the delicate skin of the equine face. The unicorn was angry she'd mentioned the king.

*No,* she said. *No, not the former king of Bethmoora. He did not call to us. He did not dare. Even if he did, he would have to have a very great need, a desperation and justice we could taste on the wind, before we would come to him again.*

Despite her own rage against Balor, Dylan winced in sympathy. She had no idea what she would do if something as wonderful, as near to the divine as a unicorn, ever spoke of her that way.

"Then who?"

*You do not know?* The unicorn's voice gentled again. The lines of anger smoothed away. She nuzzled the human woman again. *He comes to you in your dreams, at times. He is what we are, but darker. Stronger. Wilder. We can be tamed, captured, if one is ruthless and cruel enough. We can even be killed, as you have seen. But he cannot. He cannot be tamed or captured, only mollified. He cannot be thwarted, or coerced. Surely you know him.*

Dylan tried to think of all the fae she knew who could have any connection to unicorns, who would also have a soft spot for her. Not Moundshroud, surely. He was a death fae. The unicorns were beings of life. And her head was starting to ache, the pulse pounding in her temples. She shook her head helplessly.

*You hold a leash of blood and pain around his heart,* the unicorn said. *Just as your prince does, and at least two of your sisters. Can you not guess? Do you not taste the truth of him, the ineffable eventuality of his hold on you, whenever you fight the lure of steel kissing fragile, mortal flesh?*

Dylan stared at the unicorn. "You…you can't possibly mean Chuz."

And yet, it made an odd sort of sense. He is what we are, but darker, stronger, wilder. Unicorns were pure, raw, wild magic given form. And hadn't both Moundshroud and Nuada and even Kaye and Roiben said before that raw, wild, pure magic could drive someone mad? That that sort of power was like trying to grasp lightning in your bare hands? Chuz was Delusion's Master, Prince of Madness. And wouldn't someone wild, someone insane and drunk with it, be able to touch and to bathe in the sort of sheer, impossible power present in creatures like unicorns?

He had said he would take no sides between the mad. He wouldn't help her against Sréng, because both of them were insane, although in different ways. Yet he had sought out the unicorns for her. Told them she needed help. Had he created this dream for her? He could do that. All of Moundshroud's sons could conjure dreams. Had he done this so she could speak to the unicorn?

*This is a warning, and a reminder,* the unicorn said softly, nuzzling her again. *The reminder is, that once you have trusted your enemy to draw his sword at your back in defense of you and your heart, you and the Tuathan prince must come to my grove and speak to me. The warning is in the dream, and it is from Delusion's Master. Do you see it?*

She shook her head. Her skull was splitting now. She'd never known pain this sharp, this icy and vicious, in a dream before.

*Thrice, you sought something. Like a child in a faerie tale, thrice you saw, thrice you ran, thrice you mourned. If you would not mourn in waking, you must remember what you are. You are the princess in the tale, the walker in iron shoes, the maiden weaving shirts of thorns and blood. You will be tested. You must not fail. He will do what he can for you, but he cannot gift you what you ask of him. You must earn it.*

"He?" Dylan echoed. The mare had called Chuz Delusion's Master before, so why not now? Because she didn't mean Moundshroud's third son. She meant someone else. Someone who couldn't give as a gift what she had to win from him. Which meant not Balor, either. He would give her nothing. And if it were any of Chuz's brothers, the unicorn would've simply called them Death's Master or Night's Master or Fate's Master.

She swallowed as understanding crystallized in her mind. "Moundshroud."

The unicorn only blew softly against her temple. Some of the throbbing eased. Sighing, Dylan closed her eyes and slumped against the warm, velvet-soft body of the unicorn, exhausted.

Tests, she thought. Trials. Like in faerie tales. Well, she could do that. Her entire life had been one long faerie tale, full of blood and riddles and friendships and favors. She'd met her beast of a prince on a full moon night, dressed in red and running from wolves in human skin. She could handle the challenges of a faerie tale quest.

She would handle them. For her prince. For her husband. For Nuada.