An undercurrent of hissing steam was just audible under the sizzle of flesh.

The wind gusted, rattling old windows and racing down the chimney to stoke the flames, sparks and smoke billowing from the fireplace. Lord Voldemort smiled.

Once the fire had ebbed he removed his hand, inspecting the blackened flesh. Before his eyes it began to peel, baring skin that was a fresh and healthy pink. The pain faded so quickly its absence nearly ached.

Cunning, little magic. But it was not the indulgence of weakness that brought me to power.

With a snarl, his hand clenched and the iron that was his will clenched too. A thin blue mist filled with stars formed around his once burnt hand, the magic otherworldly, protesting, furious. Terrified. Once again, the Dark Lord smiled.

The hand was plunged back into the flame. Elusive and sly; beguiling and cruel. The hollow queen must be beside herself with amusement at the thought of him, but it would be to her detriment. The power he had seized was fickle and uncooperative, feigning submission until like a viper it struck, failing him when Potter's curse was but a whisper away and allowing its ferocious cold to gnaw at him, foiling him in his moment of triumph. The queen was clever, yes, he could admit that.

Flesh turned black. Steam hissed. It sounded something like screams. The mist flared desperately, trying to crawl up his arm to safety, but bands of iron clamped around his wrist trapped it. He burned and the agony was unbearable. He laughed and laughed.

Winter's magic would submit in time, as all things would. And when Maeve realized she was not the only one who could lie without untruth, there would be nothing for her to do but lament. After all, he had only let her power into his hand.

She had allowed him into her soul.

~#~

"I know you like to watch," said Violet, leaning with a hand pressed against the wavy glass window. From the seventh floor, the castle's snow-coated enclosed courtyard looked silvered under the moon. Dark shadows cast by spindly trees stretched like spilled blood. "But you should know that the caretaker's cat cannot normally endure a student's presence without hissing incessantly."

A sound like sliding cloth came from behind her, followed by the click of heels on stone—rather like a cat's claws, Violet noted wryly—and a faint sniff. "You know my presence when I wish it to be so; Mrs. Norris, though a fine specimen of feline antipathy to lesser forms of life, is no guise I would wish to wear for long. Alas, my vanity is great and her coat less than sleek."

Finally, Violet turned, leaning back against the window and crossing her arms. "And yet I see you now. Hence, you must want to be seen. Not your usual way of doing things, is it?"

Cat shrugged, an elegant, sinuous motion. "Mayhap I missed you, little huntress. Or else it is repayment I seek."

Violet drew a slow breath, fingers clenching on her arms. Carefully choosing her words she said, "So soon? Thrice over, I acknowledge, but you should know my power is not limitless. Time is not short for either of us, and in the future… greater favors might be possible."

Cat said nothing, staring deeply into Violet's eyes without a hint of expression, long enough that Violet began to suspect she had deeply miscalculated. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, Cat's eyes lit up and she slid near, draping herself over Violet's shoulder with a thin and mischievous smile.

"Oh, debts are fleeting," Cat said, flicking her fingers under Violet's nose as if casting something off them. "The past had its due, and tomorrow is yet to come. I haven't the patience nor the memory to count them, and I don't believe in hooks and chains." She twisted a finger though a strand of Violet's hair and slowly blinked. "But I made you fret, didn't I?"

"But you said—"

"And what would it matter what I said then? Now is now. So tedious, the fae." She perked up, wrinkling her expression. "Don't spend too much time around them. There wouldn't be enough left of you to regret it."

Violet raised an eyebrow. "A cruel jest, then. Maybe you're more like the fae than you think. But I don't think that's why you're here."

Cat blinked languidly. "Were we not meant to meet once more before the end?"

Violet shifted, warm breath ghosting over her neck. "The end?"

"If not the beginning. I rarely remember the difference. Two tales weave as one, soon to be as one. Time is short, and all will change or nothing will. And, if I have watched carefully enough—and I always do—it will be you who decides, in the end." A light gleamed in her eyes without source. "Mostly."

"Oh?"

"Well," Cat said, slowly untangling herself from Violet and stretching, casting a striking image in profile. "Properly, it should be just that and done. My lot is to watch, and watch I do. But in your case… well, any cat ought be obstinate in heart, no? A little interference, the lightest touch, will harm nothing. Or it will. Do I care? No. Let my ilk rot in august tombs. I have yet more lives to live."

She skipped back and pirouetted gaily, her dress flying like fluttering wings. Delicately, she extended a hand for Violet to take and flicked her head over her shoulder. "Let us hunt together, then. I have your prize in sight, well hidden in your own shadow. Such cunning prey. You're lucky I like you more."

Shaking her head, Violet accepted Cat's hand and allowed herself to be carried along as if by fancy alone, in spirit of adventure and daring not yet tainted by reality. There was an in-betweenness to it, to this last night in Hogwarts before… the end began, she supposed. A final game was set to begin, the odds stacked in her enemies' favor, yet it seemed distant now, as if time were holding its breath.

" 'Tis not far," said Cat with sly delight, leading Violet with a grace and effortless certainty beyond even fae. They whipped around thick buttresses and across strips of moonlight. They curved through concealed passages and odd paths, a fresh secret soaring by with every minute. One moment they were crossing the third floor, and then in a haze of laughter and silver-laid marble they were on the sixth; and then they saw the whole castle from above, perched atop a tower so high the wind seemed to almost sing as it blew through narrow slit-windows, and Violet knew she would never again find this place if she spent a thousand years searching for it. And then gnarled trolls glared out from a tapestry, their comical pink skirts fluttering dangerously as they stomped through a distinctly murderous-looking interpretation of ballet.

"Behind you," Cat breathed, tickling Violet's ear. She turned without hurry, still feeling almost weightless from the whirlwind journey across the castle. Her hair had tumbled over her eyes and she now shook it away. The hall was desolate, and clearly the trolls weren't the point of all this. Maybe this was what she really needed. She breathed out softly, eyes fluttering, and—

Cat laughed. "Behind me, little huntress."

Damn it.

Where there had been unbroken stone before, a lone doorway stood open, leading into a yawning chamber so vast she could make out neither the ceiling nor the opposite walls. It was so very busy that her eyes seemed to glide over it without catching. An endless expanse of all imaginable items continued as far as the eye could see, towers of books tempting gravity, furniture haphazardly strewn this way and that, sheets of parchment evenly scattered like a coat of snow, hand mirrors and rolled carpets and wineglasses and inkpots and broomsticks and Merlin knew what else—

"What the fuck is this?" she demanded, twisting around. The corridor was still empty, except for them. "That wasn't—this shouldn't be here."

A shiver ran along her spine. Had Cat… created this, wrought it from nothing and forced reality to find a way to compensate? All this? If so, the power it suggested…

Incalculable.

Cat's lips twitched as if she could hear Violet's thoughts. "It has always been here, even when it wasn't. A place like this is rather easy to find for someone who needs to hide." She half-skipped into the immense room, turning to look back at Violet when she didn't immediately follow. "Don't you want your prize?"

Without waiting for a response, Cat set off into the room, carving a curving path through the rubbish. The Elder Wand slid into Violet's hand and she followed.

It was quiet, eerily so. Though one would imagine that, with enough time, any object imaginable could be found here, there was no sign of life besides them. It was deathly, like bone under the sun. Despite the desolate stillness, Violet could not quite shake the feeling that they were not alone at all.

"I don't suppose you will tell me what we're looking for?"

"Tsk. We can't reveal the twist before the climax, now can we?"

Violet was not sure how long they walked, though she was certain it was longer than their whirlwind journey to this place. With every step the chamber seemed to loom larger, and it was starting to make her head ache. It was clear to the briefest glance that the room exceeded the castle itself in scale, and such was the volume of objects inside it that even an immortal lifespan would not suffice to count them. It was… daunting.

"Where are we?" she asked, knowing no answer would come. "Did we pass through an arch?"

To her surprise, Cat paused, tilting her head thoughtfully. " 'Twould make some sense, no? But you are thinking of the place for lost people, not lost things. Best not to be concerned with such thoughts—a look under this curtain would be a poison, I should think. Ah. The hunt is nigh at its end."

Blurring, Cat took to her feline shape and took off like an arrow, darting backward. Violet spun, but she had already vanished into the sea of metal and fabric and glass. A clatter sounded and she looked in time to see a dozen fine china plates tumble to shatter and a sleek black cat vanish behind a great mound. Cursing, she took off at a run, intent on answers one way or another. The impression of a being was stronger than ever, hanging in the air as an ominous malaise.

"Homenum Revelio," Violet murmured, mostly as formality. Whatever Cat was, she wasn't human. So when the flash of a very much human presence revealed itself in response, she tensed, slowing her pace to a silent glide. Cat was trustworthy—probably—but her idea of favors seemed to be distinctly dangerous.

Not again.

Another fight, with the bones of her arm still set only tentatively and Winter magic too great a risk to consider in any but the very grimmest of moments, was not a prospect she relished. Still, she'd come this far, and it was far too late to turn back. With a quick breath held in anticipation, she stepped out from the great pile into the open, or what sufficed for it.

"Your prize," Cat murmured, a woman once more, her fingers caressing a glinting object. Violet edged closer, eyes narrowing. It was an exquisitely delicate tiara of silver or perhaps white gold, the sort of thing Satria would find delightful and Violet painfully overstated. It was the too-bright gleam of the light off it, too perfect and too stark that gave it away. She knew exactly what it was.

Horcrux.

"Alas… this time, there truly is a price," Cat said, perched on a crooked tower of books that should never have held her weight. She put the diadem on her head crookedly and pouted. "I push, I must pull. You understand, don't you? One such as I must balance her meddlings lest they be balanced for her."

Violet paced laterally around Cat, who craned her neck improbably far to continue to watch her. "Balanced by whom?"

Cat smiled. "Don't ask that."

Violet huffed. "Fine. What's this price, then?"

She could afford a favor; she'd thought she owed multiple before this, so one was acceptable. Besides, it wasn't as if she had a choice.

"Noninterference."

"In what matter?"

Cat did not immediately respond. Her hair swayed like a dancer in motion as she turned her head, as if to an unheard song. Silently, she slid from her perch and alighted on the floor, kneeling.

She set down the diadem on the floor between them, the metal producing the lightest crystalline ring. When she rose, her voice was different than Violet had ever heard it, humorless and bleak. "Your man by vow and thin blood walks a dark forest where left is right and all roads arrive as one. Of all in this world or any other, perhaps you alone stand to guide him; but you will not. If this diadem and its twisted shard are to be by your grasp had, then in the matter of the man Sirius Black, of Summer's distant line and by such claimed, you will content yourself… to watch."

The silence was cold. Violet shifted, rolling her shoulders. "I'm mortal. It is my lot to act as I see fit."

"Aye. But it is mine to watch. So as I push the pieces, you forfeit your turn. Such is the bargain before you."

Violet nodded, looking away, rapping her foot against the stone. The Horcrux gleamed in the lamplight, as if staring at her, just an arm's reach away. Winter twisted within her, but she pushed it away, the memory of the black taint too fresh.

"You do understand the… coincidental nature of this request given that it was your guidance that saw him exposed to Olumnus's blood at all?"

"A dead king cannot rule forever, little huntress."

Violet scoffed. Held words stuck on her tongue, pointless efforts to avoid a repulsive choice filling in her thoughts—a piece of Voldemort's soul, a blow which could never be undone, so near!—but at a cost that could be greater than it at first seemed. Her word was worthless, in principle. She was a mortal, and she should have been able to say whatever it took to placate Cat, then turn and betray her oath without a thought. But… something within her warned otherwise, that this pact would not be so easily broken. One way or another, by her choice or not, she had to choose. Sirius, or the Horcrux.

Her lip curled. Had she not learned her lesson on the cost of sentimentality? She would not repeat her mistakes.

"We are agreed. Fiendfyre!"

Flames, stark black and white, devoured the diadem, polished metal blistering and fraying like old cloth as voiceless screams echoed throughout the endless halls of lost things. Violet watched Cat and Cat watched Violet, cursed flame raging between them.

Cat sighed. "A wise choice."

"Don't mock me." Violet slashed with the Elder Wand and the Fiendfyre sank into the scarred floor. "This was your plan from the start, was it not? Plotted from beginning to end. Masterful. But, a warning: so-called immortals before you have paid a final price for crossing me."

"Crossing you?" If she hadn't known better, Violet would have thought Cat looked startled. "Criss-cross. Such things we do to others. But dear huntress, when you sharpen your claws do not seek more foes than you have. Perhaps…"

She trailed off, contemplative, before laughing, her good cheer returned. "Ah! A sweetener, yes, something for nothing. Then we'll be squared, not crossed at all. Sometimes I forget, you see… Cats are not fond of sugar."

Slowly she began walking backward, into a deep shadow cast by a towering heap of old cauldrons and flasks. "You'll see soon, mayhap. And we'll both see each other, not so soon, but… at the end, I think. Aye. At the end."

The shadows seemed to crawl over her and she faded away, bit by bit, patch by patch, until only her gleaming orange eyes remained. And then they were gone too, leaving only Violet and Ravenclaw's ruined treasure and the bitter suspicion that she would live to regret her restlessness this night.

~#~

With the first hints of dawn creeping over the Forbidden Forest, Violet retired to bed and at last found sleep. As the world drifted away, musical words filled her thoughts.

I push… I pull… I push again. The rules never suited me, my lovely, deathly friend. I'll play both hands and we may have many hunts yet. Recall well the power of choice and, certainly, the beauty of sorrow.

For the last of the night, she rested easily, lulled by wordless song.

A last peace before the storm…

~#~

Seconds had all the feeling of hours under the Dark Lord's baleful contemplation. Snape remained outwardly unaffected, save for the slightest expression of contempt for his companion beside him, who was anything but calm.

"Master, I had her! She was helpless—she was broken—and this, this worthless incompetent—no, this traitor—"

Snape sighed silently. Now he had to respond.

"A fascinating accusation from the witch who chose not to inform our Lord of her plans so as to save the glory for herself. Truly, your mind is something to be marveled at. My Lord, you know as well as I that I would never have participated in this foolishness had I known you were not aware."

Bellatrix wailed. "It should have worked! My Lord, it would have been the ultimate offering, the ultimate victory in your name. My Lord, believe me, you must, it was perfect!"

"I must, Bella?"

She froze, eyes wide, and dropped her gaze. "Master."

The Dark Lord tapped a finger on the desk between them. Outside, a ferocious thunderstorm laced with hail rattled the shoddily constructed muggle home, remotely located and nearly unheard of even among the Inner Circle. Why the Dark Lord had chosen here of all places to retreat to following his most recent duel with Potter, Snape couldn't imagine.

An armchair held the house's previous inhabitant. Desiccated skin clung to pronounced bones, lifeless eyes seeming to stare at them, burning with the anger the Dark Lord concealed. Perhaps there was more to it than illusion; few others had pushed the potential of Inferi so far.

"One of my trusted followers is dead… Potter lives. All this behind my back. I suggest you offer a very convincing explanation. Both of you…"

"My Lord," Snape said before Bellatrix could speak, ignoring her murderous eyes boring into his skull. "I will of course explain, and I don't deny some culpability for what has occurred. But I think you will agree it is comparatively minor once you have heard a reliable account of events."

"Reliable?" The Dark Lord's voice was a hissing scrape, like serpent scales on shattered glass. Snape barely smothered a visible reaction, suddenly very cautious indeed. "I should very much like to hear this reliable account."

Bellatrix laughed, high and mocking, but it was forced. She was a fool; the Dark Lord was in no mood for further interruptions. In a flash his wand was in his hand and thrust at her. A harsh snap sounded and her laughter died in choking pain, her hands clutching at her throat and true surprise in her eyes. It would have been satisfying were it not such an ominous indication of the Dark Lord's wrath. Contrary to rumor and the speculation of drunken idiots, it was a rare thing indeed for failure to be punished so directly as by physical pain.

Rare. Not impossible. And if he believed they had wasted the asset that had brought down the wards of Grimmauld Place from the inside for nothing more than her arrogance, little was beyond imagination.

"It was Bellatrix's mission from the start," Snape said, as if she were not gasping desperately beside him, coughing harshly. "In my opinion it was excessively convoluted, though to her credit, the part that should have failed went unreasonably successfully, thanks in no small part to Potter's foolishness. Bellatrix led her into a trap, and we closed it. Given Potter's past exploits, the sole loss of Avery was far less costly than I predicted. It was only after she was brought down that errors began to accrue."

"It would have been a small price if Potter were dead or if Avery had been acting on my orders."

"My Lord, as you say. Bellatrix failed to control her. She wasted time torturing and taunting her and neglected to account for Potter's insufferable tendency to demonstrate a constitution well beyond the natural. By the time I approached her to perform Legilimency she should have been left helpless but, alas, I regretfully placed too much stock in Bellatrix's work. Potter was not remotely beaten and was able to pluck the an experimental potion from my belt—I believe you know the one, My Lord. There was no chance of stopping her then."

Bellatrix made a sound of desperate fury, no doubt yearning to spit any number of vicious accusations of treason or incompetence. It was her mistake to have provoked the Dark Lord, then, and left Snape free to shape the story favorably to him, or as favorably as was safe. It was a narrow edge to walk since he had acted traitorously, of course. Too honest and he would be punished for incompetence and, worse, lose the Dark Lord's favor; too deceptive, and he would be caught, and that truly would be the end of him. It was an edge he walked well, though, and he was starting to believe he might actually extricate himself from this mess Potter had landed him in. If he could sabotage Bellatrix's standing in the process, all the better.

The Dark Lord gave Bellatrix a baleful look and stood, clasping his hands behind his back. "If it is truly as you say—and I assure you, I will verify your words—then Bella, dear Bella, I am most disappointed in you. Your secrecy I might forgive as ill-directed devotion, but failure at such cost is another matter. You have wasted priceless opportunities… the secret of the Metamorphagus and Potter's arrogance. Neither can be regained." He gestured at her, lifting his earlier curse, and proceeded to ignore her, a blow that would cut Bellatrix more deeply than any other. "It seems I find myself in need of a new lieutenant. Severus, of the Inner Circle, who would you propose is most worthy of taking Bella's place?"

"No!" Bellatrix managed to force out, her voice ragged and creaking. "I cursed her, I crippled her! Snape failed, not I!"

Snape dismissed her with a wave of his hand, willing the Dark Lord to dismiss her before she recovered enough to challenge his story. "Ridiculous. She was well enough to escape, and she'll recover from anything else soon enough. I call that failure."

"No." She coughed again, blood spattering the palm of her hand, but she was smiling now. "Not from this."

Snape's heart sank.

~#~

Violet was gone before the castle awoke, the rising sun threading through the forest like so many grasping fingers to slash across the ground in countless splintered beams. Water trickled; already, the unnatural chill that had gripped Hogwarts well into April was beginning to recede. Whether it was because she had made up her mind to leave and forsake her pledge to protect it or because her forced distancing from Winter had caused its power to slip, she couldn't say. Neither boded well. She only hoped the castle would still stand when she returned, whenever that might be.

Frustration coiled within her, a leaden weight that made her want to scream. She didn't want to leave this way, didn't want to make her word worthless in a way that should be reserved for her enemies, but what other choice did she have? What was her protection worth, anyway?

It had done nothing for Tracey. If she couldn't protect a single person then, what could she possibly hope to do now?

So maybe this was better. If she had already failed in her oath when she allowed herself to be deprived of the ability to carry it out, better to make no pretension about it. At least this way she wouldn't be putting an additional target on the school. Better to tear herself away now, before she tallied another regret. This world was not hers; she understood that now, and that her attempts to pretend otherwise had only damaged everything she touched.

Sirius was waging a hopeless battle because he tried to help her, and she had abandoned him to it to strike a fractional blow against an enemy she was still no closer to defeating in open battle. Ron Weasley was fixated on futile, undirected vengeance. A good Minister was now a tyrant. Dumbledore was without his greatest weapon when he needed it most. Wizarding Britain was soaked in blood, yet Voldemort was stronger than ever thanks to the secrets he had learned from her. Was anyone the better for her triumphant fucking return from the dead?

Heartless certainty returned, the realization she had come to after Tracey's death reaffirmed. Her attempts to indulge in this world, to pretend she was something she was not, were always weakness, always folly. Voldemort would die by her hand, and that would be the last this world knew of Violet Potter. One thing she could do right by them, if nothing else. Destruction always came easily to her, if not its opposite.

A dull pang resonated in her chest at the thought. It had not been so bad here, really.

Her inability to Apparate might as well have been cursed manacles for its debilitating effect. Most Wizard's duels were conducted under anti-Apparition magic, yes, but once it was well known that she was afflicted by Bellatrix's curse it would fall solely on her to sustain the magic while the enemy would need only to break it once to gain a lethal advantage. At least in the Wyld, teleportation was far weaker and her inability to wield it would not leave her fully helpless. But if every time she reached for Winter magic Esrid's corruption began to set in, wasn't that even worse? To suffer one terrible blow to her power was devastating, but she had endured when her wand was lost. But two…

Enough worrying, damn it.

She drew a little straighter, setting her expression like stone for the trees and air to witness. No weakness. She wouldn't forget again.

It didn't take long to find an arch, not in a place so steeped in strange and wild magic as the Forbidden Forest. But, a moment before crossing, she hesitated as a thought occurred to her. If she was to return to Winter, to do battle with the Reviled and perhaps Esrid himself, to join Maeve's madcap expedition to the Distant Lands, the danger would be great. To confront it in her current state seemed… ill-fated. Some edge, some surprise that no one would expect, especially Maeve, was needed. And she thought she knew just the man. Perhaps he would refuse, but she thought not. He had brushed by the Fair Folk once, and few ever forgot such a thing. And she had told him she might need him again someday.

Yes. Winter might be unsafe to touch too closely—for now, for now—but there was still cold and mortal iron.

Black amusement bubbled up into a short laugh. Hadn't she just been bemoaning the damage her actions had caused to those around her, and already she was scheming how to gain an advantage, whatever the cost? Well, it wasn't as if he didn't have a choice, though she knew what his answer would be. Maybe he was like her. Maybe he'd only been blinding himself with peace, always waiting for the next war. Maybe it was only fitting that the first person she really knew in this world be endangered one last time as she left it.

Later in the day, her legs weary after the long walk to Hogsmeade and its Floos and back, the arch awaited. Violet took a breath, held it, and together they crossed.

~#~

"I must be mad."

"Most certainly."

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Jon grumbled, stamping unnecessarily forcefully through the knee-deep snow and kicking large puffs of powdery white behind him. "You know the bloody Dark Lord nearly took my head off at Grimmauld Place?"

"I am pleased you survived, Jon. You know that."

"Yeah, so something even worse can happen to me. I've got it figured out, see. You teased me with just enough hints about your thing that I wouldn't be able to resist satisfying my damned curiosity. You've always been conniving and manipulative like that."

"And your memory of… my thing's gold had nothing to do with it, I'm sure."

He snickered. " 'Course not. Heh. 's not so bad, I suppose. Maybe I'll be able to give all this up for good after this… I'll have done my bit then." He nodded, pulling his layers of cloaks tighter; there was no mercy in Winter's chill. "Faeries. Sure, why not? I can do that. One last devil of a contract. Then I'm done."

Violet nodded, pretending she believed him, and together they carried on. It would take one long day or two short ones to reach Satria's court by her reckoning, their relative location divined by a briefest communication with Winter. That, she hoped, would be safe. Whatever splinter of Esrid's power stood between them surely had limits of its own.

After only a few hours in the Wyld, things already felt simpler. The concerns and regrets of the mortal world slid off her like water. Here there was no kindness or empathy. The strong took, and the weak suffered. This was the world she was meant for.

The black skies and withering storms of her previous visit had relented somewhat, though Winter was never truly calm. She took this as a positive sign or a deeply negative one. Like a body with fever, Winter's discontent had been stirred by the incursion of the new, strange Reviled, surely linked to Esrid. That it had broken now suggested either the Reviled were pushed back or that Winter no longer had the strength to maintain its efforts.

It was not long until the answer was made clear.

Winter was not bereft of life. Despite its cold and barrenness, there were beings which crawled beneath the snow and those that prowled above. The skies teemed with scavengers, and the treetops were populated by heavily furred creatures content in the blistering winds. Higher creatures, the lesser Sidhe, abounded too even if many had fled to the courts in the wake of the recent tumult in Winter. It was this life, this vitality, harsh and predatory as it might be, that she missed now. Sometime in the last hour, Winter had fallen silent.

"Careful," she said, quietly so as not to shatter the eerie still. Her hand fell on the pommel of her blade, tapping rhythmically. Magic was the superior weapon, true, but with Winter's power denied to her the presence of sharpened steel was greatly comforting, and in the Wyld it was a more easily understood statement of power than a mortal wand.

"What?" Jon replied, not so quietly. Violet winced, literally hearing his voice echo across the land. She shook her head.

"I'm not sure. Something feels wrong."

He turned, scanning the horizon, and the motion must have been noticed because a surge of adrenaline shot through Violet, her wand flicking to her hand as her other clenched around her sword. With the necessary distance between her and Winter, her foresight was less sharp, but she had always had a talent for mortal Divination. She was halfway through her wand motion when Jon beat her to it, a thin shell of hazy air forming around them just as a crack ripped through the air and a distant report sounded half a second later.

It was a bullet, of all things. Violet felt a thread of anger stir at the sight of it, dull metal still slowly rotating in place. Mortal small-arms were nearly worthless against a wizard of any standard, but iron bullets were far more resilient to fae magic, and the cursed wounds they wrought were most terrible.

"Warm welcome," Jon muttered without much concern. He squinted at the horizon as a second shot was fired and came to a stop next to the first. "There."

The distance was considerable. Violet rolled her eyes. "Oh, go on."

With a jaunty grin he vanished, reappearing perhaps fifty meters away; he looked around in confusion for a moment before Apparating again, and Violet allowed herself a smirk. She might have informed him of the difficulty of teleporting through the Wyld, but his questions had been incessant enough with what she had told him. It took him almost a minute to reach what she was starting to suspect were Reviled, his short Apparitions distantly reminiscent of a rabbit's hops and more than a little ridiculous looking.

Still, she would have preferred that to nothing.

Where there had been two figures, just barely too long and misshapen to be human or fae, there were now three, silhouetted on a rise. The vantage point was a respectable place to fire from with a clear view of the valley Violet stood in, though of course it counted for nothing. Distant flashes of light heralded Jon completing his work, and she resigned herself to another even lengthier wait as he began his now fatigued return.

A final crack brought him next to her, looking queasy. "Next time," he groaned, "we walk."

"Any problems?"

"Hardly. I thought you said these faeries were supposed to be beautiful?"

"Those weren't fae. I know, I know, I'll explain later. Let's keep moving."

He grunted. "Do I even want you to? Probably not, but to hell with it. Crystal shit looked pretty spectacular, though."

They'd trudged half a dozen steps when Jon's final words sank in. She gave him a look. "Crystal shit?"

"Like the forest? Looks like diamonds? Better than snow, I'll tell you that."

Violet's fingers tensed unconsciously around her sword. "I think I need to have a look at whatever was shooting at us."

~#~

They were Reviled, the newer breed, hideously thin and smooth. But their translucent skin was broken by… gems, they looked like, hard crystalline protuberances that were vibrant beyond words. They could only be natural to these creatures, a smooth congruence of flesh and the inorganic.

And then Violet looked down the other side of the embankment and let out a slow, shaky whistle.

"That's not supposed to be there," she said, realizing her voice sounded parched. "In case you're wondering."

Vast eruptions of crystal crawled across the land, vaguely imitating the shape and form of a forest. The sun shattered into millions of fragments upon it, dazzling the eye in colors that were just wrong, colors that had no name and assaulted the mind and had no place in even the Wyld. It seemed to stretch on forever, meeting with the horizon in a smeared haze of lights. Even beyond its expanse, random bluffs of the eerie material ruptured the snow, like the vanguard of an advancing army. Or the first symptoms of spreading infection.

Drifting down from the sky and covering some of the smaller formations was a fine powder, looking for all the world like snow. But a keen eye revealed it to be dull and gray and more easily cast by the wind than even the coldest flakes. It was not snow that fell from the heavens over this tainted place.

Ash.

It was beautiful in its hideousness, fascinating for its strangeness. There was nothing she could even remotely compare it to. It was alien, from the fae, from muggles, from wizards, and something about it seemed almost—almost—

It is the future.

Fuck you.

The sight lost its luster. It was only ugly now, an invasion in her home, an affront against Winter. She turned away, Jon still looking befuddled. She gestured.

"Come on. We're going around that."