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“No, I think everything you suggested is fine,” Viv agreed. “We could ask the other neighbours some things too, if they’re around. We don’t have to give specifics or anything, just say you got jumped and see if they have heard anything. We could ask about the janitor too. He was… weird. Creepy.”

“I’d say he’s more than creepy,” Thys said, a little confused.

Viv’s brows raised. “Wait, you know him?”

“Not really. I’m sorry if it sounds rude, but I haven’t really talked to the janitor, just…” Thys shrugged. “You said he was there right after the incident. And then the garbage room was cleaned out. So what happened to the body of whoever was attacked?”

Suddenly nervous, Viv bit her thumbnail. “Are you sure that person died? You interrupted the attack and the attacker chased you. I know you asked the flies, but could they be wrong? There was a lot of rotting this-and-that in the garbage room when I went down.”

“It’s possible,” Thys admitted, though they didn’t seem convinced. “But even so, the garbage all being taken out overnight? Even if the janitor worked in the evening, most garbage pickup is early in the morning. Unless the janitor called it in especially to happen then, or had a way of getting rid of it himself…?”

“Ugh, point,” Viv said. “So right now, he’s suspect number one. I guess we find out as much as we can about him.”

After Viv popped next door and changed quickly into a clean outfit of a knit halloween sweater and cozy leggings, the two of them headed upstairs to the fourth floor, where Thysania lead the way to one of the doors and knocked.

“A minute!!” It was Varsha’s voice, and she answered it shortly, peeking out, then blinking at them in surprise and opening the door wider. “Thyssania! You are all right? We were worried when you didn’t show up.”

“I got attacked,” Thys said, wide-eyed. “You should ask the bar. It was a huge thing last night.”

“Attacked?!” Varsha recoiled briefly, her hair puffing up behind her—was it actually part of a snake’s hood, or over top of one? “Are you okay? What happened?”

“It was here, in this building,” Viv said. “They didn’t see much of their attacker, so we’re asking around to see if anyone’s noticed anything weird.”

“Ah—the new girl from the bar,” Varsha said, a little surprised to notice her by Thysania. “You’re friendsss?”

“We are now,” Viv said wryly. “I was there when they burst into the pub in a panic.”

Thys bobbed their head. “She’s helping me, Varsha. She’s a witch, and giving me medical help.”

“Wild,” Varsha said. Her hood was slowly flattening again. “When did thiss happen? I wass at work ssssince three, I don’t know how much good I can be.”

“Around six,” Thys said. “I saw something strange in the garbage room, I thought I saw someone getting attacked by a shadowy figure. It turned on me, and I ran, but it caught me. It did some harm, and I barely survived.” They seemed perfectly calm still, but turned their head up toward Varsha and said, in a lower voice, “I’m very shaken up.”

“Of coursse you are!” Varsha gestured wildly, almost smacking a hand into the doorframe. “Can I get anything for you? Tea? A drink? Do you need to sssit down??”

Thysania shook their head, yawning. “I’m okay. They got a medic in, and Viv is taking good care of me now. But we’re trying to get information.”

“Guessss that explainss why you’re out in the day. What do you need?”

Viv asked, “Have you seen anything weird lately? Any other kind of attacks?”

“Mm, no, not really,” Varsha said. “It’s a pretty ssafe area until you leave the resssidential block. There’ss a group of were-catss that hang out nearby, sso they run off the more unsssavory sortss who would normally hunt here.”

“The power outages, we talked about those,” Viv said. “Have you noticed anything weird during them? Some kind of… call? Are you drawn toward the lights when they flicker or anything? Thys said that happened to them.”

Varsha shook her head. “I really jussst thought it could be a power problem,” she said. “I wasssn’nt putting you off becausse I wass at work, I sssimply haven’t noticced anything weird.” She paused, considering. “The power sssurges are fairly reccent, though? They ssstarted a few weeksss ago. I thought it could be related to the weather.”

“Did anything happen a few weeks ago, around the same time?” Viv asked. It was hard not to feel like a completely amateur detective here; she was asking what she hoped were useful questions, but couldn’t figure out anything relevant from what Varsha had said so far. “Anything that might have triggered it?”

“I don’t think ssso. We got Thyss booked at work around then ssso I was mostly bussy getting thingss worked out there, helping with the possters and sstuff, and I don’t remember any problemsss printing or anything from home then,” Varsha said. “I’ve mosstly paid attention to the power outagess when they interfere with work I bring home.”

“That’s fair,” Thys said. “I didn’t realise you were printing at home.”

“I called you up to look at them!”

“Yes, but,” Thys said, and then sort of shrugged. “Yes, that was silly of me, wasn’t it? I assumed you brought them home, but you could have called me into work if that was the case.”

“You looked at them on my computer,” Varsha said, exasperated. She winked at Viv. “Don’t worry if thisss one iss a ssspace casse. They are like thiss with or without traumatic violencce.”

“That’s fair,” Thys said again.

Viv giggled a little without meaning to. This whole situation was so stressful that it was hard to take it seriously all the time; the tension had to break once in a while. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “One more question. Have you noticed anything weird about the janitor?”

“The janitor?” Varsha kind of shrugged. “I don’t ussually run into him, but ssometimess we bump into each other in the elevator if I go out for lunch, I think he’ss usually vacuuming the hallwayss around noon, if you want to get ahold of him. Why?”

Thys and Viv shared a glance; it seemed significant, if he usually worked during the day, that Viv had run into him apparently still working at night—though there was no way of knowing if that was or wasn’t normal. “Be careful around him,” Viv said. “We don’t know if it has anything to do with him, but he was acting suspicious last night, so better to be careful, yeah?”

“Sssure,” Varsha said, looking a little skittish. Maybe the thought of an evil janitor working for her apartment made it strike closer to home; she worked downtown, where plenty of vampires and likewise were on the hunt, and attacks couldn’t be that uncommon out there. But at home? “I’ll keep an eye out. Can I call if sssomething happenss?”

“Please do, Varsha,” Thys said. “You’re great. As always. Thanks.”

Viv traded her contact info with Varsha as well, a little flustered—this wasn’t the circumstances in which she had hoped to get a cute nagi’s number, but what could you do?—and then they said their goodbyes and began knocking on the other doors.

They didn’t get a whole lot of people answering. Either folks were out at work or, if they were usually out at night, they were sleeping at this hour. In some cases, they probably just didn’t want to answer to someone they didn’t know. Only three or four people in the entire building answered both their doors and Viv’s questions: in all cases, they hadn’t seen anything at the time of the attack, hadn’t noticed any other attacks, they hadn’t been drawn to lighted areas or affected by the power outages magically (though they did find them annoying), and nobody really knew the janitor. With the thought that she didn’t want to get him in trouble if she was just overreacting to a guy who had watched her try to jump into a dumpster, she was careful to not reveal too much of their suspicions about the janitor—just saying that since he worked all over the building, she was hoping to find him and ask him more questions herself.

She couldn’t help but notice that even though they were going around noon, she didn’t see him anywhere as they went door to door.

“No good,” Thysania said finally. “Nobody has seen anything; or if they have, they don’t want to talk.”

“I suppose not,” Viv said. She gave Thys a wry smile. “Shall we go get a coffee, then? Next step in the plan is Beanheadings.”

“I could use a coffee,” Thys said. “I want syrups in mine.”

“What kind?”

“Oh, just.” Thysania waved a hand. “Syrups.”

“Right,” Viv agreed wryly.

They headed out into the dreary fall day. Thysania’s cloak had appeared sometime while Viv’s back was turned, and they huddled into it, looking pale. Viv spared a moment to worry for them—they hadn’t seemed noticeably more energetic yet, and her own energy was still being tangibly drained into Thys. She wondered if something might be wrong, and if it was supposed to take this long for Thys’s energy to stabilize.

Viv almost walked past the entrance into the coffeeshop, which was in the heart of the Valley’s downtown, but Thys nudged her and they headed inside. It was quiet during the day, five or six patrons sitting around, most of whom were nonhuman, tucked in with computers or books or chatting with each other over coffee and a sandwich. It was a lovely, large place with visible rafters and lacquered tables, but the namesake for the shop was obvious and incongruous: there was a head mounted over the menu board, a handsome but rough-looking freckled man with wild braids, a cup of coffee to its mouth.

“Shall we order?” 

“Sure,” Viv said, getting into line. She studied the menu board, then looked at the barista, and startled at the sight of him. 

He was absolutely not wearing a shirt under his uniform apron, a nipple peeking out from where it sat slightly askew. This place must have a lax uniform policy, Viv thought, blushing. The nametag pinned to the apron straps said he was Matthias, but Viv had to assume that wasn’t his real name.

She was pretty sure that wasn’t a traditional demonic name.

And the barista was definitely a demon—an incubus, with jet-black hair tumbling over his shoulders, light glinting off his horns, his tail turning off a switch behind him where a coffee machine had just started beeping. “What can I—oh, hey, new witch! I haven’t seen you around before.” His gaze swept Viv, assessing her with a glint of interest, a knowing look, as if he saw all her broken abilities and weird blockages at just a glance. “How can I help you?”

She was supposed to answer with her coffee order, she knew. Ask him questions, find allies, learn gossip. She wasn’t supposed to suddenly think about how demons could help weak witches, how they could unlock blocked potentials, how they could make them stronger than they could ever be on their own.

“I will have a coffee with syrups,” Thysania said.

“Sure! Which syrups, how many pumps?”

“Syrups,” Thysania said.

“Okay,” Matthias said affably. He turned those inhuman eyes on Viv and grinned again. “And what can I do for you?”

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They were all silent a moment, considering their options. Finally, Viv sighed.

“I think,” she began, “that you might be right and we should go to bed. For one thing, we probably want to talk to a bunch of the neighbours to hear what they think, and… I mean, while some of them are probably night-dwellers, most of them aren’t going to want to be disturbed at midnight.”

“True,” Dandelion said. “Can you trust them?”

He seemed to be asking them both; Thys shrugged. “Some of them, I think so,” they said. “I don’t know everyone beyond seeing them in passing, though.”

“I think we can at least talk to Varsha,” Viv said. “She’s got an alibi, since she was already working at the Good Neighbours at the time. And we can just see what other people think if we run into them, right? We don’t have to directly mention a murder, obviously.”

“True,” Thysania said. And then, a little reluctantly, “And… I am low on energy. And you are actively being drained. Even if it is not the ideal situation for either of us to rest, I imagine we may be able to sleep after all.”

“Sounds good,” Dandelion said. “Then, may I suggest we get away from this murder site and up to your apartments?”

“Yeah. Can you ward both of ours?” Viv asked.

“Mine is already warded!” Thysania exclaimed with mild indignation.

Dandelion put a hand on their arm and squeezed gently as he led the two of them away from the garbage room, back to the elevator room. “I doubt she meant it as an insult, Thys. If I put up a couple of wards inside, perhaps the… can we call them the perp? The perp will not notice until they’re already in, and could get caught in the act.”

“Oh god,” Viv muttered to herself. “The perp.”

“I mean…”

“No, granted, this is a ‘perp’ situation,” Viv said, throwing her hands up. “Valid!”

They headed back upstairs. As Vivian rounded up her cats and Thysania helped her carry their litter boxes and food next door for the evening, Dandelion placed some wards on the inside of her apartment, then in Thysania’s. They felt odd to Vivian’s senses, but she supposed they would; she was used to human magic, not the inherent strange presence of fae through their workings. Fae didn’t really use spells, after all, they had an innate power that they cast out over the things they claimed, their glamours.

And with that done, Dandelion ducked down to kiss Thysania on the brow, and offered a hand to Viv, who shook it only a little awkwardly. “Call me if you need anything,” he said.

“Oh, shit, yes. We should exchange cell numbers,” Viv said, and made sure all three of them did.

When Dandelion had left, Viv lowered herself to sit on Thysania’s couch with a sigh. “Right,” she said. “Do you have spare blankets?”

“Yes, I can dig some up. You want to sleep out here?”

Viv felt herself blush. “That’s probably for the best,” she said quickly. “I mean, I don’t want to put you out. And this way we have someone in both major rooms! To be alerted if anything happens.”

“Oh, that’s true,” Thysania said. They headed to a closet, where they dug out some spare linens, nudging Notch to the side with a foot as he attempted to slip inside.

Viv watched for a moment, strangely happy to see how comfortable Thys seemed to be with just manhandling her cats. They were exploring the apartment and getting themselves underfoot entirely as they did so, but Thys seemed almost to enjoy it. 

After a moment, though, Viv shook herself out of her reverie. It was inappropriate; as she’d already reminded herself, she’d just got out of a relationship and shouldn’t be rebounding, and besides, Thys was a powerful fae and had a million better options.

“I’m going to attempt a divination to see if I can learn more about our enemy,” she announced, as Thys carried over a pile of blankets and a pillow. She’d brought her quote book with her, so she grabbed that from the coffee table where she’d dropped it, and focused on it. It was harder than usual, as Isaac had warned her it would be, like she was walking the wrong way up an escalator. She wondered if she’d worn herself out a little, between the energy she was pouring into Thys and the dowsing she’d done across the entire building.

Still, she gathered what she hoped was enough, and flipped the book open, reading the page where her finger fell.

“The human face is, after all, nothing more nor less than a mask.”
– Agatha Christie 

“Ughh,” she said aloud.

Thys sat next to her, leaning down to look at it themself. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. It sounds spooky though, huh?”

“Oh so spooky,” Thys agreed.

For a moment, they contemplated it in a mutual silence, and then Viv sighed, snapping the book shut. “Well,” she said. “I guess we should get some sleep, huh?”

“I suppose so.” Thys rose, but remained bent over Viv for a long moment, gazing at her. For a moment, heartstoppingly and confusingly, Viv thought they were going to kiss her.

And then they just put a hand on Viv’s head and ruffled her hair. “Goodnight, then,” they said. They snagged their guitar on the way past, and shut the door into their bedroom.

It took Viv a long time to fall asleep, listening to Thys play the guitar through the bedroom wall. Listening to Thys sing along, a haunting contralto tone with words that Viv couldn’t make out, but which made her ache with loneliness nevertheless.

Viv woke around noon the next day, and wandered around getting her cats fed and trying not to make a mess. It looked like a dreary, overcast fall day out there, and the threat of rain and chill of the air were clear from her cats’ uneasy postures and restless bathing.

Not long after Viv started moving around, Thys wandered out of their bedroom. They were wearing a brown and white pants suit this time, and there was no sign of their cloak—making Viv once again question whether they were wings or not.

Then again, selkies were fae too, and they literally carried their skin around as a separate part, so who knew?

“Good morning,” Thys said. It was hard to see how sleepy they were or weren’t with their eyes solid black, but they were rubbing them as if blurry. “Breakfast smoothie?”

“Oh! Yeah, sure, that sounds great.” Viv smiled, watching Thys get down a variety of fruits and pour them into their blender, along with some yogurt and honey. She reached out to that connection between them, trying to test her own energy level and see if she could tell how Thys was doing—and got a distinct sense of strange, alien fondness back.

Startled and flushing, she sat down on the couch, where her lap was immediately occupied with Pebbles. A great distraction, Viv thought, petting her furiously. “So. About plans today.”

“Yes?” Thys asked, then turned the blender on.

When it was done, Viv said. “Uh. Right, so. I was thinking. We need more information, and my ability to do divination is kind of handicapped right now. I was thinking we could go by Beanheadings, get some coffee, see if we could get news from anyone there. Or gossip. Or, you know, any word of allies we might be able to make if we need to… you know. Fight. A supernatural serial killer or something.”

“Sure,” Thys said. “I don’t go there much but it’s fine. I’m sure their baristas will be ready to talk. They always do seem to.”

“Great,” Viv said. “We should see if Varsha’s still home too, I guess maybe we should do that first? If that won’t be weird. You said you knew where she lived.”

“I do. We hang.”

Viv nodded. “Great, okay. And… I ordered food yesterday, and the delivery person, she seemed to know something was weird. I don’t know if she could sense the attack or the body or… something else, but she seemed really nervous. Do you know her? Yasmin? I don’t know her last name, it wasn’t on the receipt.” She was babbling and she knew it, but she didn’t know what to make of that feeling she’d picked up from Thys. 

“I don’t know her, no.” Thys brought over the smoothies and handed one to Viv, who drank deeply before remembering the rules against taking food from the fair folk.

Well, whatever. Hospitality between them was janky right now anyway.

“She mentioned where she hung out,” Viv said. “Some skate park. So we can see if she’s there.”

“It all sounds good,” Thys said. They seemed a little dopey right now, and Viv could only assume it was because their sleep schedule was all thrown off. “What order? Is there anything in particular you plan to ask Varsha, if we’re going there first? And is there anything else we’re not thinking of…?”

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“I think,”  Viv said slowly, “that it’d be best if Thys and I stayed in one apartment, at least for tonight. For one thing, we know the connection is affected by distance, so staying close together while they’re still recovering is probably for the best.”

“And,” Dandelion said grimly, “if something comes for them again, you think you can help fight it off?”

They both looked at her with mild expectation. She blanched. “I mean, I don’t think… I doubt I’d be much good in a fight, but maybe whatever it is would be less likely to make a move while we’re together?”

“I think you’re right,” Thys said. They were pondering the facade of the building, their brow knit tight. Viv realized that sometime during their walk, Thys had wound their antennae around their head like a crown. “I don’t know if it was coming after me specifically, but the call seemed… seemed focused on me. Even if I saw it attacking someone else.”

“Right. Speaking of which…” Viv said, and then couldn’t quite bring herself to finish the sentence.

Dandelion seemed on the same page though, gnawing at his lower lip with a visible display of nerves. “You saw it attacking someone in the garbage room, which Vivian later said smelled awful.”

“I’m sure it’s not a corpse,” Viv began nervously. “A corpse wouldn’t start to smell so soon, right?”

“Oh, no, that’s not true at all,” Thys said. “It wouldn’t start to smell of decomposition right away, if that’s what you mean.”

Pulling a face, Dandelion nodded. “And even so, if certain types of magic were involved, it could start decomposing quite quickly. Anything that would cause the bacteria to act unnaturally fast would cause the smell of putrefaction to begin early. Necromantic magic can do that—so can anything that’s specifically designed not just to kill a person but to dispose of the body faster. And even if it were just a human’s normal decomposition rate, there’d be other smells. Human waste, for example, is pretty common. What did it smell like?”

“I don’t know,” Viv said. “I remember thinking at the time it smelled like rot. Kind of… vomitty also, and…”

“Yeah,” Dandelion said grimly. “Let’s make sure your rooms are both safe first of all. But after that, we should check it out to see if. Well. If there’s been a murder.”

“Uhhhghhh,” Viv said, lacking anything more coherent at that thought, but used her fob to let the other two in with her.

They headed for the elevator room. Thys hummed slightly as they entered it, looking relaxed even though they’d said they’d been attacked there. Reminded of that, Viv glanced down.

“The dead moths are gone,” she said.

The two fae looked as well. “Oh,” Thys said. “I don’t like that.”

No, they wouldn’t, would they? Those moths were part of Thys. “Maybe that’s why your energy was so janked? If you turned into a swarm and a bunch was killed.”

“Maybe,” Thys said. “It feels…. It feels as if they weren’t just killed.”

“What… what does that mean?” Viv asked.

Thysania shrugged. “Destroyed. Eaten?”

“There were bodies when I was here last.”

“My form was energy and flesh. Maybe all that’s left behind was the flesh.”

“That doesn’t explain where the bodies went,” Dandelion muttered. He jabbed the ‘up’ button on the elevator.

“Maybe the janitor mopped them up,” Viv said. “He was obviously doing some cleaning when I left.” A thought occurred to her, her hands abruptly going cold. “Wait… why was he cleaning so late in the evening?”

Dandelion said, “Are you new to a Valley, Vivian?”

She felt something inside her cringe at the disbelief in his voice, and flushed, looking down at the clean floor. “No. No, you’re right. He could be a vampire or some other night-dweller, right, of course. He looked human so I didn’t think about it…”

“Sorry,” Dandelion said. He put a hand to her elbow briefly and squeezed. “I didn’t mean to—look, I’m just on edge.”

“Aren’t we all,” Viv said, managing a weak smile. “It’s fine.”

“Elevator’s here,” Thys said, as if any of them would have missed the doors opening.

They headed up to the second floor. “Let’s check Thys’s room first,” Dandelion suggested. “Make sure there isn’t anything in there now.”

“Fair enough,” Viv said, though she longed to make sure nothing had happened to her cats. No reason to think anything had, though; she was just nervous for them. 

Thysania unlocked the door into their apartment. It was a tidy place, with surreal art prints on the wall, an acoustic guitar in a stand next to an armchair, a sofa, a television. The kitchen was open-concept, attached to the living room, and Thysania appeared to have a collection of brightly colored mugs on display on the counter next to a kettle. 

The apartment was laid out exactly the same as Viv’s new place, which meant the door to the left was to the bedroom, and the one across the hall was to the bathroom. She hung back by the door awkwardly as Dandelion and Thys prowled through Thys’s apartment, checking all the doors, the closets, the nooks and crannies.

“Seems safe,” Thysania said. “My wards haven’t been breached.”

“Honestly, if something could breach your wards uninvited, I’d be worried,” Dandelion muttered. He managed a smile at Viv. “Your turn.”

They headed next door, and Viv let them into her disaster of a place. After seeing Thysania’s tidy home, her own bare walls and stacks of boxes everywhere looked like a nightmare, but there was no helping it. That’s what moving was like.

Dandelion chuckled. “Sorry that this will probably interfere with you unpacking. Maybe we can help?”

“Oh god, maybe,” Viv said weakly as her three cats ran up. “Uh, this is Beano, and these are Pebbles and Notch. …I guess you already know Beano, Thys. Is this okay? I can keep him away from you…”

“I’m not afraid,” Thys said lightly, kneeling down and offering their hands to the cats, who didn’t seem to quite know what to make of the two powerful fae in their presence. All three hesitated, then bowed, stretching with their front legs stuck out in front, before rubbing against Thysania’s hands and Dandelion’s leather-clad legs. “Hello. Hello, friends. Thank you for not eating me.”

“I think you’d be harder to eat now,” Viv said.

“Depends on who is offering,” Thys said. Their expression was deadpan but, as Viv looked at them in surprise, they finger-gunned.

Dandelion laughed. He seemed relieved, his tension lightened, now that he’d confirmed Thys’s apartment was still safe. “Well, let’s explore your place too, Vivian. Make sure there are no murderers hiding in closets.”

“Uh, please!?” Viv squeaked. She picked up Pebbles in a hug; the other two had better chances of surviving a potential murderer, but Pebbles would walk up to Satan himself and beg for pettings and kisses.

Once more, Dandelion and Thys made a circuit of the apartment. “All safe,” Dandelion said. “I’d put up wards if I were you, though.”

“I can’t,” Viv said. “I mean, I’ll buy some when I learn more about the local witches.”

“I can do it,” Thys said. “If we want.”

“Or I can,” Dandelion countered. “If something’s looking for Thys, no reason expanding her signature, huh? I can hook you up with contacts in the Twilight Council if it gets serious, though, and we need to bring in the real heavy-hitting witches.”

Viv made a face and didn’t answer. Depending on what this thing turned out to be, that might be necessary—but she wasn’t sure she wanted to get involved with that strong a group, especially after she’d caused such drama in her own coven.

Dandelion waited for a response, then just kind of shrugged when he didn’t get one. “Are you both going to stay here tonight? I’m not sure there’s enough room.” He gestured at the stacks of boxes.

“Right, yes, I guess not,” Viv said. “I don’t really want to leave the cats alone, though.”

“Bring them to my place tonight,” Thys said. “When we’re ready. But are we ready yet? We aren’t, are we. There’s the garbage room still looming over us.”

Slowly, Viv put Pebbles back down. The young cat had fallen asleep in Viv’s arms, and complained about being woken up and having to use her legs. “Let me grab one of my pendants,” she said. “We can start at the top floor and look for anything that reads as a trap, or as a dangerous place, and work our way down.”

It was really just dowsing—holding a weighted pendant out, and telling it to swing one way for yes and another for no, and then asking a question for it to be able to answer. In this case, as they stood on the fourth floor, the highest area they could access without finding a way to the roof, she asked simply. “Is this place in more danger than others?”

They walked up and down the halls, headed down the stairs to the next floor, and repeated, all with the pendant just swinging no, no, no. When they reached the first floor, she walked through the parking lot, asking the same, and only got a circle, a yes, when they entered the elevator room.

“Not a surprise,” Dandelion said. “Since you were already attacked there, Thys.”

Thys was gazing at the pendant. “I suppose. I wonder if that means everywhere here is equally in danger?”

“Ugh,” Viv said. They continued down again, the pendant still swinging in circles as they took the elevator to the sub-basement. The storage units there also read yes, and Viv jumped as the automatic lights turned on as they approached, and off as they left.

Last but not least, the garbage room. She wished they could just avoid it, but there was no putting it off any longer.

Viv breathed deeply as they approached it, prepared to hold her breath if she had to—but while there was a lingering scent, the place was…

Well, it was cleared out.

It looked as if the bins had been emptied out entirely. The floor had been washed down—the wet puddle around the drains attested to that—and although flies still crawled here and there, especially around the compost, it looked much nicer.

It should be a relief, but all Viv could feel was disappointment. “Damn,” she said. “The janitor had said he was going to get this place cleaned up. I guess I didn’t expect it all to be cleared out so fast. There’s no way to tell what happened now…”

“There is,” Dandelion said, and nodded to Thys.

Thysania stood with their arms outstretched. Their cloak had spread out behind them in a way where it could no longer be denied that it was more winglike than cloth, and flies were crawling out of the dumpsters, out of the recycling bins, out of the compost, toward them.

It was a black, living swarm spreading out over their arms, and Viv shuddered at the thought of how that must feel.

“Yes,” Thys said abruptly. “Someone died here today.”

“So now what?” Viv asked. “Did they say who? Anything?”

“They don’t know that,” Thys said. “They’re just flies. All they know is the smell you described, and what it meant. It was a mortal who died, they know that too. Human, I think.” They lowered their arms and the flies all scattered, heading back to whatever feasts they could get out of the emptied bins. 

Dandelion hissed out a breath. “So. Something killed someone here and then went after you. And you very nearly died too.”

“Oh,” Thysania said. “Yes, I suppose I did.”

“So now what?” Viv asked weakly. “Do we go to… what, the police?” In her experience, they’d never much cared what happened in the Valleys. “Supernatural organisations? We don’t have any proof, we don’t have any leads, but surely everyone would want to… not let this keep happening?”

“It’s a good question,” Dandelion said. “I wish I knew the answer. It might even just be best to go to bed; if whatever it is is using the light and dark to toy with people, the daylight hours may be better to act in.”

Thysania sighed. “I’m not a big day person,” they said. “But of course, I will do what’s necessary.”

“I also only woke up at 6,” Viv said. “I don’t know if I can sleep. I mean, yeah, obviously we’ll do what’s necessary, but what is that?”

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Understanding dawned.

Thysania was the moth that Viv had rescued from her cats this morning. Fae were known to be shapeshifters; they were infamous for it. If Thysania was one of those—no, Viv couldn’t even entertain anything else, not now. Thysania was that moth. It would explain why Thys had recognized her, why they so clearly trusted Viv even when Viv had no idea who they were.

“I already offered to give you energy, didn’t I?” Viv blurted out. “Just, at the time, I thought you needed sugar water.”

Isaac and Dandelion were staring at her like she was crazy—but Thysania grinned, mouth dark on the inside. Viv couldn’t tell if they had any teeth or if their mouth, like their eyes, was just a black hole.

“You did,” Thysania said. “You offered.”

“Holy shit,” Viv said. She felt weak, but tried not to show it. The last thing any of them needed was her passing out. At least a medic was already here if it did happen. “That was just a few hours ago. Shit, wait, the attack on you, that wasn’t Beano, was it?”

“Beano?” all three of them echoed.

“One of my cats—I rescued a moth from my cat this evening,” Viv said. She felt like she was babbling. “I think he’d been batting it, them, around on the other side of my curtain. Was that you? It was you. You can turn into a moth?”

“I can turn into a moth,” Thysania said. “I can turn into many moths.” They hadn’t lowered their hand and were still smiling, cheery and strange. “Yes. It was me.”

Viv did sway this time, but just flopped back against the couch. “Damn. I’m so sorry about Beano, he’s just—”

“Oh. No. The attack wasn’t your cat,” Thysania said. They continued to stand where they were, thin arm outstretched. “I saw something. I saw something, and I got attacked, so I fled. It’s been calling me, and it hurt me, and it almost caught me, but I fled. I tried to get back to my apartment, but I was hurt, and confused, and weak. I found the wrong window. Then Beano found me. Then you found me. Then you held me. Then you offered me sugar water. Then I left.”

“This is not the most coherent retelling,” Dandelion informed them.

“I am not feeling my best,” they retorted, gaze still—apparently—locked on Viv.

Knowing that it wasn’t remotely her own fault that Thys had been so badly hurt made Viv’s racing heart calm a little. She drew a slow breath. “No, I guess you’re not, huh?” She looked at Isaac. “Is the …battery hookup permanent?”

“Not at all. We can set plenty of terms on it,” Isaac said, his brow furrowed. “Were you planning to offer? It will interfere with your ability to do serious magic.”

So he’d detected her magic potential, just as she’d noticed his. Her cheeks flushed but she kept herself steady as she said, “I don’t have the ability to do serious magic. I’ve got enough of it in me but all I can do is minor divination. So I can spare some, and you know, if I offer something in spirit, I’d rather see that through even if it takes a different form than what I meant.”

“I see,” Isaac said. He sighed, then gave her a little smile. “If you need a teacher…?”

He obviously meant it kindly, but it made her feel a little worse anyway. “I’ve had teachers before. Thank you, though. Just hook us up?”

She reached out then, and took Thysania’s hand. It was a little rough, a little dusty-feeling, and their fingers felt slightly frail as they curled their hand around Viv’s.

Thysania didn’t move to the couch, though, which made Viv feel awkward for a few seconds before she just got up instead. “How do you need me?”

“This is fine,” Isaac said. He was tracing shapes in the air in front of them. “I’ll set it so that if your own energy drops too low, it disconnects, and if theirs reaches a healthy stability, it also disconnects. You’ll need to stay relatively near to each other in the meantime or you’ll start to lose the connection—about 100 feet, I’d say.”

Viv tugged Thysania’s hand gently. “Is that okay? You said you wanted to go home.”

“Two-twelve.” 

“What?”

“My apartment.”

Viv’s jaw dropped. “We’re next door neighbours? When you say you picked the wrong window, that was why?”

Thysania bobbed their head. “Literally the wrong window.”

“That’s—” Viv was unable to speak for a moment as the spell caught. She grimaced at the feeling of it, the tug against her energy, the uncomfortable sense of being drawn out of herself. For a moment, adrenaline surged. This could kill her if there were no restrictions or no care taken.

But there were restrictions, and it was being done with care. She let her breath out slowly. “Thanks,” she said awkwardly.

Isaac nodded. He looked equally awkward; presumably, this wasn’t his favorite thing to do.

“Okay,” Dandelion said. He held up both hands. “I understand you want to go home, Thys, and you’ve bound yourself to someone now in a way that enforces that, but can I walk you both home? I want to hear more about what happened to you.” He said it lightly, but there was a weight to it, an anger, that Viv could just distantly make out.

She wondered if it was because Thys knew Dandelion well enough to notice. They were connected now; she wouldn’t be surprised if there were some ways they started to spill over into each other.

Thys bobbed their head at Dandelion, and he grimaced. “All right,” he said. “I just need to talk to the band and the bar. I’m supposed to go on again after this, but I’m obviously not going to.”

He headed away, and Isaac, too, headed over with him; presumably he wanted to let the restaurant staff know all was well. Viv looked down at her own hand in Thys’s, decided she didn’t want to let go just in case the spell was still settling in, and sat on the couch again, tugging Thys down.

“Hi,” Thys said, sitting neatly beside her.

Viv couldn’t help herself; she cracked a smile. “Hi,” she said. “Are you sure you want to go home? If you were attacked there, I mean…”

“I wasn’t attacked in my apartment, just the building,” Thys said. And then, like it was obvious, “I live in my apartment.”

“Okay, yes.” It was fair enough. Even if Viv were attacked at home, it’s not like she’d just leave either—though in her case, it was mostly because of the cats. “You think you’ll be safe there?”

“Mmm. I don’t know.”

Viv looked down at their fingers, still folded together.  “But…”

“I don’t want to be chased off,” Thys said, and some of that manic strangeness had gone away abruptly, replaced by a kind of tiredness. “I want to find what hurt me and get rid of it.”

Viv frowned at their hands. She knew that if Thysania’s apartment building wasn’t safe, and they lived in the same apartment building, that meant her apartment building wasn’t safe either.

Somehow, it didn’t seem like a shock. She’d felt off about it all evening, and she knew she hadn’t been the only one. Yasmin, who had delivered her food, had been visibly on edge and had said the power outages were more frequent in that building specifically. And—

“Thys, do you know Varsha? Does she live in our building too?”

“She lives on the fourth floor.”

Yeah, Viv had started to suspect as much, just from Varsha’s own comments about the power outages in her building. She sighed. “Okay,” she said. “I really want to get to the bottom of this.”

“You and me both.” Dandelion was back now, standing over them. He’d put on a leather jacket and had his hands shoved in his pockets. “Let’s talk as we walk. Isaac’s cleared you to travel now that you’re getting your…transfusion.”

“Mm.” Thysania rose, tugging Viv to her feet with surprising strength. If she hadn’t got up, she was pretty sure Thysania would have lifted her straight up, still in her sitting position. “The night is getting late.”

Viv wasn’t sure that was reassuring, but Thysania seemed determined to get home, and Viv could no longer go too far from them without losing the connection. “Right. So. Let me run this past you.”

As they walked back to their apartment, Viv explained what she’d encountered in her few short hours there. She talked about the things she’d heard about the power outages, she talked about the dead moths she’d seen in the elevator room, and she mentioned the bad smell in the garbage room, her feeling like something was wrong there before she’d been run off by her own embarrassment at the janitor seeing her being weird.

“I don’t understand how it’s connected,” Viv said, “but I feel like it has to be. My only real power is in divination—but that means I’m really good at drawing the right conclusion, you know? So… I want to investigate. If my building isn’t safe, I need to know so I can…” What, run away? “I don’t know. We can’t leave it like this, can we?” And then, tentatively—it seemed like a lot to ask of a pair of powerful fae—”Do you want to help?”

“I have to,” Thysania said. “I think you’re right. I do. You see, the power thing, it sings to me. When the lights are on normally, it’s fine. But sometimes, they flicker, and it calls me. It calls, and it’s so hard not to answer. And when the light goes out, when it’s dark, I’m lost.”

“Thys…” Dandelion murmured, concerned.

“I can answer some of your concerns,” Thys said. “The garbage room, I think you’re right. I brought some trash down and I saw… Someone was hurt? And this dark thing was over them. I didn’t see either well, because I ran. I fled to the safety of the elevator. I like the elevator room; it’s always so bright there. But it stopped at the main floor and the dark thing was there. The lights flickered, and made me freeze as it sang to me, then they went out. It was so dark. Something attacked me, and I shook it off. I fled. I turned into moths and only part of me got away. The rest of me got …hurt. I don’t know what happened. I tried to go home, where I’d put up all my safeties, but…”

“But you got lost.” Viv’s hand was numb in Thys’s, and she didn’t think it was the cold of the night. They were approaching their apartment now; it looked lovely, as good a place as it had in its pictures when Viv’s aunt first picked it out, the lobby well-lit and its light shining out to the sidewalk outside. She found herself slowing, reluctant. “And you found me.”

Thys nodded. “I found you.”

Dandelion let out a rough breath. He, too, had stopped; all three of them stood on the pavement outside, looking up at the building. “Well,” he said, finally. “What do you want to do?”

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“I’m not going to—I’m not going to leave after they asked for me,” Viv said, horrified. Then, hurriedly, when the older witch looked up, “If that’s all right? Just, Thysania seems scared, and if I can help by just being here, I should.”

“Fair enough,” Isaac said, his voice even. “Stay close, then, but just make sure you stay out of the way. I need room.” 

It made sense. He’d started some basic healing magic, but depending on what was going on, he might need to set up a circle. Or just get personal information, honestly; Viv wasn’t sure what was covered under PHIPA in the case of a medical professional gathering private information while giving emergency care in a public space, but even if it wasn’t covered, it was definitely rude to eavesdrop on.

“I’ll be—” She looked around, saw one of the couches nearby and in Thysania’s line of sight, and gestured to it. “I’ll be right there. Okay, Thysania?”

Thysania hummed softly, but otherwise didn’t answer.

Viv headed to the couch, then startled as Dandelion joined her there, slinging himself onto the couch with a squeak of leather pants on pleather cushion. It was such an incongruous sound in the somber moment that she had to bite back an inappropriate giggle.

“My lord,” she said, when she was sure it wasn’t going to slip out. This was one of the high lords of the fae; she had to be more polite than she’d been so far. “I, I apologize for ordering you around, I was just focused…” 

“Oh, don’t bother with that,” Dandelion said lightly. He wasn’t looking at her, instead watching Isaac, bent over Thysania’s form on the ground, his hands moving. “You were busy doing something I couldn’t, so full props there. Anyway, I’m hardly as fancy a lord as all that. Call me Dandelion.”

“Dandelion,” she repeated, a little unsure. “Is it fine?”

“Sure. I’m a rock star, not a lordling ordering folks around in some court somewhere,” he said dismissively, though his silver eyes flickered toward her briefly, and she got the sense there was some kind of story there. “Thys said you knew her?”

“I—sorry, you said ‘they’ before, I just want to be sure I’m addressing them correctly…?” Viv prompted uncertainly.

“Right, of course. Thysania’s bigender; her pronouns are both ‘she’ and ‘they’,” Dandelion said. He gave Viv a small smile. “Since they don’t prefer one over the other, I usually use ‘she’ when I’ve just said their name; otherwise the alliteration can become a mouthful. It’s not private info, it’s on their website and everything. As long as you use one of those, you’re fine. But about my question…?”

It looked as though Dandelion was as desperately curious about what happened to Thysania as Viv was. Probably more so, she had to admit, since they clearly knew each other. “I don’t think I know them,” Viv admitted. “I’m not sure how they know me—it might be a case of mistaken identity?”

“I suppose,” Dandelion said, frowning. “I don’t think they’ve mentioned you before.”

Viv leaned a little closer, glancing over at Thysania. Isaac was looking stressed; he was definitely casting a second spell now, weaving it around them. Viv couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not. “You two are friends?”

“I’d call us friends, yes,” Dandelion said. “I don’t know every detail of their life or anything like that, but we go out for drinks and keep each other up to date on what we’re up to”

“Do you know what they were talking about?” Viv asked. “About the light?”

Dandelion frowned. “Not specifically,” he said. “They’re a powerful fae who is of the moth kind—I don’t know how much you know about the fae? Beyond enough to be polite to me.”

Viv flushed, as if the teasing had been far more pointed than the casual way he’d said it. “Not too much. I see common fae around a lot.”

“Right. Common fae, which we’d call the host, are those like satyrs and women in white—” with this, a nod to his bandmates, who had pulled away likewise to the other side of the room to give Isaac room to work. “As you note, those are around a lot outside of the courts. And then you’ve got those like me, the daoine sidhe, gods yet not gods, the fairy descendants of the old folk’s high rulers from before we were driven to the Otherworld.”

He said it as if there was no vanity in that phrasing at all.

“The Sidhe rule the courts in our lands; that doesn’t mean the courts are only Sidhe, nor are all Sidhe members of the court, just that they hold the highest positions. And even so we might be exiled, or choose to leave, and otherwise become solitary. And a court is made of many positions; plenty of folks from the fairy host may gain power. So calling the host ‘common’ and the Sidhe ‘noble’ may not be entirely accurate. All fae are gentry in their own eyes.” His voice was gentle, but had taken on some kind of sadness.

For a moment, they were both silent. Then, hesitantly, Viv prompted, “And Thysania?”

“Ah. Well, your people have long drawn our folk with butterfly or moth wings, yes? That’s inspired by one of our type, the dealan-dé, who are insect-like. They are often beings of great power, being able to predict misfortune and to carry the souls of the dead where they travel, and as a result a number of them are numbered among our nobility. Many of our so-called leanan sidhe are actually dealan-dé. I don’t know whether Thys is or isn’t of rank in a court somewhere; we avoid talking of such unpleasantries. But someone might target one, assuming they’ve got power.”

“You think that’s what happened?”

“I don’t know,” Dandelion said. “They haven’t said anything other than that they have a bad feeling lately. That they feel like they’re being watched at home, and that the power outages in their apartment feel wrong somehow. And moths are, of course, drawn to the light.”

Viv worried at her lip. The moths in and around her apartment, from the one she rescued to the dead ones in the elevator room, the power outages, meeting Thysania now… it felt like it had to be related.

But before she could say anything more, Isaac sat back with a sigh and Thysania sat up, their black eyes opening wide as they gasped a sharp breath of air. Both Viv and Dandelion’s attention immediately snapped to them.

“All is well?” Dandelion asked.

Isaac bowed his head to Dandelion, acknowledging his presumed rank as Viv had. “I’ll want to follow up tomorrow, but I think they’re stable for now. They had a lot of their life energy…eaten away, from what I could tell. Just drained right out. I’ve stabilized them, but they need rest. Ideally, if we can hook them up to a magical battery until they’ve recovered, that’d be best.”

He said it as if it left a bad taste in his mouth; Viv could understand why. Practitioners of black magic often used weaker witches as magical batteries, draining them to power their spells. It wasn’t very popular in Viv’s circles, where people had to rely on their own power or their leyline alone.

“Why don’t you come with me, Thys?” Dandelion offered gently. “I’m sure we could work something out.”

“I want to go home,” Thysania said in a clear voice, musical and soft. They swayed to their feet, their cloak—wings? It moved like both—falling back around them as they walked over to the couch.

“Well, I could come with you,” Dandelion began.

But Thysania was holding their hand out to Viv instead.

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