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Viv drew a deep breath. She couldn’t second guess this. From everything she’d heard, she was the only one who could change what these fae lords might do to her friends.

“Hey! Excuse me, hello!” Her voice only trembled a little as she shouted, drawing everyone’s attention to where she was floating. “Can someone help pull me down there, I’m stuck, but I think I can help clear things up?”

For a long moment, the group—fae and demon alike—just stared at her. Varsha let out a soft, mortified wheeze on the branch next to her and slithered a bit more under cover.

“Very well, miss,” the fae lady said finally, and beckoned with one crooked finger. Viv felt something seize her. It wrapped around her carefully but firmly—there was no escaping this invisible grasp—and pulled her down to everyone else’s height. “Why were you floating?”

“We all float down here? I don’t know, I was just, it sort of happened. Side effect,” Viv babbled. She drew a deep breath and tried to center herself. “So, hey, yes, I’m Thysania’s wife. Hi. That happened, and I have seen everything here, and you were saying that humans couldn’t lie to you?”

“Oh, humans could lie to us,” the fae lord said dryly. “Humans lie to us frequently. It seems to be part of the human condition. What I was saying was that we could bypass the lies and misdirections if I could see everything through a human’s eyes instead. It cuts through the babble of what he, she, or they said, and instead we are allowed to see it unfold ourselves.”

Thys stepped closer, putting herself beside Viv while glaring at the fae lady, presumably for her magical grip on Viv. Though, given how angry Thys seemed at this woman’s desire to bring them back home, it probably wouldn’t have taken much to earn that glower. “You will not hurt her,” Thys said, voice low. “Or I swear on all the powers above and below and between, I will destroy you myself.”

The fae lord sighed. Viv was getting the impression that he was desperately hoping to be anywhere but here and could hardly wait until he could get free from this entire situation. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about potential war being treated as just a nuisance, but… well, if he wanted to get the investigation over with as soon as possible, hopefully they’d all benefit from it. “It will not hurt her to do this. Miss, tell me how you understand things to be, and then I will watch the matching memories from your eyes to confirm it.”

Viv drew a deep breath again, trying to focus. “This shadow woman is… we’ve been calling her the lanternfish. She has the ability to hypnotize or lure people with flickering lights, and then pulls the light away and attacks them in the shadows. Once she’s attacked them, she can take their form and see enough of their memories to mimic their personality and behaviors.”

“I don’t know why we’re bothering with this whole farce,” Ferthur said sulkily. The fae lady hushed him absently.

“I met Thysania after they were attacked by the lanternfish and had just managed to escape,” Viv said evenly. “I bonded to Thys in order to help save their life, and the two of us, with the help of the others you see here, tried to protect ourselves from the lanternfish and figure out what it, what she, wanted, so that we could keep ourselves safe. It turned out what she wanted was to kill Thysania to get rid of loose ends and then take their form, return to Thysania’s realm, reclaim their title and army, and then use that army to start a war between the fae and the demons.”

Dandelion let out a soft hiss of breath. He didn’t sound surprised, not exactly, and Viv supposed he’d put most of that together by the end—but he didn’t sound pleased, either, to have her spell it out in such detail when they’d kept the specifics from him in the past. 

But she supposed he’d understand. They could explain later, when they were all safely out of this.

“I see,” the fae lord said, still in that serious, mildly-aggravated voice. “Then, you won’t mind me reviewing those memories?”

“All except one,” Viv said. She felt everyone around her tense more than seeing it, but she had to be honest. She looked that lord in his eyes—which glittered like diamonds and silver—and said, “One person gave me information that helped us track down and deal with the lanternfish, but I promised that person I wouldn’t get them involved at all. So if we can skip that memory, that would be great. You will be able to see everything you need to know from the rest of it, ’cause it’s literally nothing but some tips. Is that okay?”

Ferthur spat again. “She’s obviously trying to trick you! That memory has to be the key to all of it.”

“I have my doubts as well,” the fae lady said mildly. “When we need to know the truth, is there anything that we can afford to leave out?”

“She is not lying,” Thys said fiercely. “She is not a liar. I was there as well, and I tell you, we gave our word. Would you have us break that word simply so that you can assure yourselves, when the rest of what happened will prove the truth otherwise?”

The fae lord lifted a hand as if to wave away everyone’s protests. “I will look at the rest of it. If those other memories clearly, beyond any shadow of doubt, show what you have told me, then I don’t think we need to worry about prying open doors you promised would remain closed.”

“Thank you,” Viv said, weakly. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold onto the cage I’ve made while you do this, so if one of you could be ready with some way of trapping the shadow woman, that would be great, please.”

The fae lady nodded seriously, and even Ferthur nodded along, though with a sneering frown. Viv could only hope that between those two powers, they’d have it covered. 

“Then, if you don’t mind,” the fae lord said politely. He put his hands on both sides of Viv’s face, leaned his forehead against hers, and— 

Viv remembered. She saw it all like her life flashing before her eyes, a sped-up version of everything that had recently happened. She saw herself waking, saw Beano stalking the moth behind the curtain, saw herself free it and head downstairs and get that sense that something was wrong with the garbage room. She saw herself interrupted by the janitor, and flee in embarrassment, and head out to go to the pub, and then Thysania’s arrival and collapse.

On and on it went, slowing for some details such as Thys’s description of their attack, then speeding up again through parts that seemed irrelevant. When they went to Lithway’s, she tried to interject, screaming at the fae lord in her mind: This is it! This is what I made the promise about! and, although she had doubted him, he sped through that so fast that it was barely a flicker on the overall timeline of her memories.

She hoped that was enough, hoped that he hadn’t seen it and only mislead her into thinking otherwise. But it was the best she could do.

It continued on: she and Thys growing closer, she and Thys trembling on the edge of going further in their relationship, but the second attack happening before they could do anything. The fae lord slowed completely for the attack, played through it in what felt like real time, leaving Viv shaking and terrified and elated all over again. 

It seemed as though he was mostly focusing his attention on to the things they talked about: their theories about what the lanternfish wanted, their worries that Dandelion would risk death to try to save the fae realm and Thys alike if he knew that it wanted to take over Thys’s old life. Their conclusion that they had to try to stop the lanternfish, even if it put Thys at risk of returning to a home they hated. And then the entire fight: everything they’d done to stop the lanternfish from reaching its goals.

Everything the lanternfish had said to them to convince them to let her go, her insistence on wanting to cause a war.

The fae lord released Viv.

She reeled, stumbling to try to keep her footing as reality slammed in around her again. The world seemed to spin, and if Thys wasn’t already there, holding her tight and supporting her, she suspected she would have fallen.

“Well?” Ferthur asked.

“My lord?” the fae lady prompted.

Viv looked around, making sure everyone was still okay—it was impossible to tell how much time had passed when she’d just relived several days at variable speeds—but nothing had changed much. Dandelion was still kneeling; Thys was still at Viv’s side; the others were still there and bowing; Varsha was still in the trees, and…

The lanternfish was still captive in Viv’s own bubble.

She looked back to the fae lord, pleading with him silently with her gaze, and he gazed back at her impassively, evenly.

And then he knelt to her.

The reaction sent a shock through everyone watching, demon and fae lady and gathered troops and her own friends alike. Viv froze, unsure of what she should do with this, but before she could say anything wrong, the fae lord spoke.

“We owe you a great debt today, you and Thysania and… Dandelion, and all your friends gathered here,” he said. He rose then, unwilling to kneel to her any longer, but kept his head slightly inclined. “What I saw proves beyond any measure of doubt that this creature wished to impersonate Thysania to gain access to a fae army and use it to start a war with the demons.”

“Are you serious,” Ferthur said, taken aback. “But this whole thing is—”

The fae lord turned back to his own crew. “Both Thysania and the exile Dandelion have put themselves at great risk to try to stop this shadow person from infiltrating our kind and starting a war. We owe them a grave debt, and, as such, will not persecute them any longer.”

The fae lady hmmed but didn’t protest. She looked at Thysania a long moment, as though she had many things to say and no idea of how to say them—and then she just shrugged and turned away.

“I cannot end your exile on my own,” the fae lord added to Dandelion, “but I will bring your actions up at court in your defense.”

“I have no intention to return, so it does not matter if you do or don’t,” Dandelion said, but he rose, finally.

The fae lord sighed. “But I will regardless, child. Now—” he turned back to Viv. “This creature you have fought has worked hard to enter our realm. Out of deference to that, I ask that you hand her custody over to me so that I may take her to court for us to decide her fate. She has impersonated one of our own, and did so in order to undo millennia of our hard work at maintaining peace. I believe that we deserve the right to handle her case from here.”

“Oh, please, yes,” Viv said fervently. She was only too willing to not be the one responsible for this shadow woman’s fate, especially since the two options left to her were ‘kill her’ or ‘let her go’, neither of which seemed particularly great. The fae police putting her on fae trial in the fae courts sounded fantastically like absolutely none of her business. 

She willed the ownership of the cage over to the fae lord, and watched electricity spark from his hand, connecting to the cage and turning it into a large sack that he could use to drag the shadow woman away with.

“Fantastic,” he said flatly, and, Viv had to admit, dragging a giant bag of prisoner away wasn’t the most dignified, but he seemed to accept it, turning away and pulling at the bag. “Thank you all again for your service. It will not be forgotten.”

And with that he, the fae lady, and the gathered troops turned to head back down the passage to the fae realms.

The shadow woman said nothing. Her dark eyes, shadows within shadows, watched Viv through the bars of the cage until she was lost from sight through the gate, and Viv couldn’t quite resist a shiver.

Ferthur was the last to go, seeming ready to protest one last time—and then he just scowled, pointed to his eyes and then to all of them in a sulky threat, and slouched after the fae soldiers.

Viv, Thys, and their friends were finally left alone.

For a moment, none of them moved, silent and unsure of what would happen next.

And then Varsha plopped out of the tree, landing with a thud next to them, and pushed herself upright with a huff. “Issss it over?” she said.

“I… I think it is,” Dandelion said, and let out the softest sniffle.

Adrien hollered, as if to cover up the sound of Dandelion’s threatened tears, and wrapped Dandelion in a fierce hug, burying Dandelion’s face in his chest. Caoimhe hugged him as well, and then Star, in human form once again, grabbed Thys, Viv, and Varsha, and smushed them all into Dandelion too.

Giggling, Viv twisted her head to look at Thys, saw them smiling gently and gazing back with eyes only for Viv. 

In the midst of the chaos of laughter and tears and hugs, Viv leaned forward and stole a quick kiss.

This time, nobody interrupted their celebrations.

[An epilogue will go up tomorrow sometime,
along with an author Q&A!

Feel free to mention anything you especially want to see covered in the epilogue ;)]

[Previous Day: Day Twenty-nine | Next Day: Epilogue]

[Please read the instructions before jumping in!]

Viv closed her eyes briefly, screwing her courage to the sticking point. She didn’t want to kill someone, but a war would only cause more suffering and death. Even if she actually believed that it would only be between the fae and demons, lots of people would still die, and be tortured, and who knew what.

And she didn’t believe war would just impact those two groups. Wars had a way of growing, and when it was between realms—and between people known to make deals and settle debts with all kinds of other creatures—it would only grow bigger, wider, worse.

She opened her eyes and finished the incantation for her lightning spell. 

Electricity rained down from her fingers, sparking through her almost painfully, and hit that darkest shadow square on. 

The shadow woman screamed, the sound high and thin and surprised—she had been caught totally off guard in this moment, not expecting a counter-attack from above from someone who had been drowned in her darkness. The shadows that she was casting over them, that sticky, inky blackness that had blinded Viv—all were banished, and the area once more flooded entirely with light.

They had her. Viv knew that. The shadow woman had been flung to the ground, was twisting, nearly dissolving under the rain of electricity on her. Electricity might have been the best thing she could pick, she thought, almost floaty in her own shock; it was made of light, but it was also the form of light that humans like Viv had best learned how to harness, the tool they had worked with for so long to effectively banish the night.

And the shadow woman was screaming and crying and begging and Viv knew she had nowhere to run, no chance to run.

For a moment, Viv’s will trembled, because she didn’t want to kill. She didn’t want to be someone who struck down someone else, even if that person absolutely deserved it— 

And she thought about the way the shadow woman had coated her with that darkness, had stuck it to her body to blind her and trap her.

And she thought again about the symbolism of electricity.

And she thought about divination and how important it was to trust her instincts. 

And then Viv wove the spell, shaped it, drawing on reserves that shouldn’t have been possible, abilities that shouldn’t have been possible, not when she had just barely learned the spell a few hours earlier—and formed an orb of crackling light around the shadow woman, leaving her injured, trapped, and helpless.

The shadow woman curled into a tighter ball, unable to find a way through that orb that Viv had made, unable to to find freedom, unable to even let herself touch the walls of light.

Viv felt the shadow woman’s last attempts to struggle—felt that lure try to form in her electric prison as the shadow woman tried to change that glowing spell into that light of command that the lanternfish had been so good at using—but she was unable to, not with Viv controlling the electricity so directly. 

For a moment, there was silence.

And then there was cheering. Thys burst into a loud half-sob, half-hoot, throwing her arms around Dandelion and squeezing him, Caoimhe sweeping Adrien off his feet in a kiss, Star letting out loud kazoo toots in a victory riff. Even Viv let out a brief relieved sigh, grasping onto the branch she was holding onto and finding Varsha’s hand reaching back to hold onto her. She was still floating—the side effect of the breakfast bar, Viv had to assume, since floating was definitely not part of a light spell normally—but that was fine.

And then Viv remembered what she’d heard approaching. She swore and looked at the passage to the fae realms.

The sound of the approaching group had stopped, but only because they had watched what was happening—had stopped at the wall of shadow at the edge of the gate, had watched that shadow get sucked back into the trapped shadow woman, and were now watching the entire group’s undignified celebrations. There were three people there at the head of a mounted group of what Viv had to assume were fae soldiers, though she couldn’t really see much past them but horses and armour.

One of the people was a tall daoine sidhe man with rich brown skin and long black hair woven into an intricate array of braids. He was wearing a silver and blue outfit of rich material, and was standing with one hand on his hip and another on his sword. 

The second person was a somewhat harried-looking fae woman, pale and twisted and bent, covered in bumps and protrusions that Viv couldn’t identify as warts or bone spurs or something else all together. Her hair was tied up in a bun, and she was dressed in tidy but unremarkable clothes—but the staff she used to bear her weight was made of solid gold with rich jewels drawing out uncanny patterns on its surface.

And the third person was Ferthur. He shuffled forward with a clicking of hooves, blood dripping down his face and spraying the ground in front of him as he jerked his antlered head to toss his hair back from his eyes. 

“See, my lord, my lady? I told you he was sneaking this way, trying to get back into the fae realms as if exile meant nothing to him, and with a whole group to help him,” Ferthur said, showing too many teeth as he grinned. “They seem to have got caught up with fighting someone, sure. Maybe she recognized them and challenged their right of passage? This fight is surely the only reason they haven’t entered already—or perhaps they already have crossed that boundary, hm, and were drawn back by this person. We may have arrived in the nick of time to be heroes and save this poor woman from this terrible gang that attacked her.”

“Hush for a moment,” the fae lord said, holding up a hand. He was eyeing the group in front of him with a stern but somewhat strained gaze—he hadn’t seen Viv or Varsha above, not yet, but Viv didn’t think they’d stay hidden for long. “Asterace, is that true? Did you intend to return despite your exile?”

“I did not,” Dandelion said, stiffly. He had lowered his head, was not looking any of these people in the eye. “Nor have I crossed the territory’s boundary. Rather, I have accepted the terms of my exile to the point that I was actively seeking ways to prevent future war—much as the tithe itself is designed to do.”

“What do you mean by that, exactly?” the fae lady said. She hobbled forward to challenge Dandelion—then frowned when she saw Thys. “Is that… Thysania? The missing noble?”

Thys looked away. “I too have not crossed into fae territory,” they said stiffly. “I do not intend to return, and came here to help Dandelion prevent war as well. This woman we have captive here is one who would cause it. Would you drag me back kicking and screaming, knowing that?”

“Perhaps so. Your people have been managing, and I have for now taken them under my care but you know they deserve a leader who would love them properly,” the fae lady said grimly.

Ferthur spat blood to the side—nearly hitting Star, who hissed an angry kazoo cord in his direction. “What nonsense are they speaking? All I see is a fae traitor who wanted to cause war between us, and a fae runaway who abandoned her people, some innocent they have captured, and some common, solitary fae they have roped into helping them. Surely you don’t believe this absurd tale, his claims that he, a man who would attempt to cause war between us by interfering with the tithe from your people to mine, would now try to stop it?”

“Ferthur, enough, be quiet,” the fae lord said. He drew a breath. “I do not know what to make of this, no, but I do not like that he is encroaching on our territory. We cannot see the truth through his eyes as we could from a human’s, since he is still a lord even in exile, but perhaps we could find more inventive ways to get it from his companions. We can deal with this situation once we’ve taken them all prisoner.”

Viv had to do something. She could hide here and not be seen—but who knew what would happen to her friends below, to her love below, if she did that? Would Dandelion be accused of breaking exile and punished or killed? Would Thysania be kidnapped and returned to the fate they’d once escaped? Would the Merry Gentry band get tortured in the name of truth? 

She couldn’t sit by and let it happen.

Besides which, she knew she couldn’t hold onto this cage forever. She had to decide what to do with the captive shadow woman soon—and if she had to chase after the fae to try to help her friends, she wouldn’t be able to hold the shadow woman as well. Whatever she said or did to convince these fae nobles, she had to do it now, and she had to do it quick, before everything fell apart entirely.

[Please suggest an action in the Comments.
Have your comments in by 4 pm PST Oct 31

This is your last chance to influence the story’s outcome with your comments!
Depending on the time I have available to write tomorrow, I will either post the full
ending Oct 31, or the conclusion of this situation tomorrow & an epilogue on Nov 1st.
Either way, make sure you say what you want Viv to do! …and also, let me know
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[Previous Day: Day Twenty-eight | Next Day: Day Thirty]

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Dandelion and Thys immediately leaped into their role as distractions, trying to keep the fake Thys occupied. “We’re a bit busy here,” Dandelion sighed, draping his arm around Thys and drawing them in. “Can’t you take another way?”

“The fastest way is in front of me, my lords,” the fake Thys said with exaggerated patience. “I hardly wish to push you aside, or through, but I will do so if I must.”

“How rude!” the real Thys sniffed, in a much snottier voice than they were generally given to. “Who gave you the right to barge up to us like this?”

It was a perfectly good pretense that they were just rich assholes, but Viv knew it would only work so long before the lanternfish would get suspicious at the delay. She made eye contact with Caoihme and held up three fingers, two fingers— 

The lanternfish sighed and said, “My lords, I assure you, it’s fine. If you’d just move aside—” and the area flickered. The shadows in which their motley team were hidden grew deeper, and a light appeared in front of the lanternfish, pulsing, a soft, uncanny blue.

Both Dandelion and Thys stiffened, staring at the light, and the illusion over Thys flickered and vanished as the hypnotism hit Dandelion, undoing his focus.

Viv flipped her last finger down in a hurry and crammed the breakfast bar into her mouth. It was pretty good—mostly honey, cranberry, and nuts—and she could only pray that it worked. After all, the guy had said there might be some side effects.

The area lit up in a bright light, completely illuminating what felt like the nearest half-mile, the ground itself glowing so that shadows weren’t cast anywhere. It also removed the cover for all their allies except Varsha, who was hiding in the leaves overhead, but Viv had to hope they’d be able to do their parts on their own now.

Viv couldn’t do too much more herself, not yet; her feet had lifted off the ground and she was floating, she was glowing, light emanating from her skin, the focal point that was creating the light in the area. The energy rushing through her made it nearly impossible to focus. She saw Caoihme’s hands moving and the lanternfish’s blue light flicker, then go violet briefly, sputtering back and forth between the two colors as they wrestled for control of the lure. Dandelion and Thys were released, and Thys braced themself, wings opening to their full width as if they could block the lanternfish from going forward with their body alone.

“You’re alive,” the lanternfish said, voice going vague and quiet. Their black eyes widened, then widened further, impossibly large as they began to dissolve into tendrils of void-black traveling through their face, the skin peeling away. “Are you a moth or a cockroach?”

“I am whatever I must be to remain myself,” Thys spat.

A loud kazoo song started up from across the clearing—it sounded like Megalovania, which was almost as wild by itself as trying to figure out where Star had gotten that kazoo from, considering—and Viv felt a rush of energy run through her, helping to pull herself back to herself. She saw Dandelion and Thys straighten as well. 

The lanternfish began some kind of attack, their arms rising, shadows gathering at their palms—and then Adrien let out a loud cry and headbutted the lanternfish hard, ram-horns slamming into their back and causing it to stagger forward. 

Viv could hardly focus for the light pouring through her body, but the music helped, and besides, she knew she had to. She’d studied attack magic just for this; she tried to remember the incantation for lightning, the forms to spell out in gesture and power. Thys was looking up at her, and she nodded at them. Just hold the gate. Don’t let it through.

Thys nodded back, arms wide, wings wide, feet planted.

Dandelion pulled a sword out of thin air; it sparkled into being with a flash as the silver of the blade abruptly began reflecting the light that glowed from all around, making it look like the blade, too, was light. The kazoo tune was circling now and she saw a green horse tearing around the clearing; Dandelion reached out without looking, snagging Star’s mane and swinging himself up, a mounted combatant now.

The light felt like it was getting brighter inside her, stronger. She was at the final lines now, her hands drawing it out, as Dandelion wheeled Star around and began to bear down on the lanternfish.

Skin and wings peeled off entirely, Thys’s body melting away from the lanternfish’s form and leaving only shadow behind. The person who was there looked exactly like Lithway—it wasn’t them, she realized a moment later, was a distinct female silhouette instead of that masculine beauty that Lithway favored, and her features were less defined than Lithway’s were.

But whatever the lanternfish was, it was the same thing that Lithway was. Not something separate at all. One of the shadowfolk, a monster’s monster, universally feared, whose origin and powers were drenched in mystery. 

Hopelessness seized Viv, briefly.

“Enough,” the shadow person said, her voice soft and bored and melodious. Shadow slammed off her in a tidal wave; Adrien stumbled back, and Star was brought to his knees, nearly throwing Dandelion. Viv felt the shadow pouring over her own spell and thought that it was trying to block her off, to dampen her light. The light spell was still there in the broader area, still preventing shadows that would permit escape—but this clearing itself was darkening with the shadow woman’s own amorphous body. “Please. You must understand the good I’m doing.”

“Ah, I must have missed it in the two times you attempted to murder me?” Thys spat.

A grin split the shadow woman’s face like ink spilling. “You were a convenient excuse. Your living or dying means nothing to me except that you’re a loose end. If you’re willing to keep hiding, we could come to an agreement. The fae and demons deserve each other, and yet they have held themselves at arms’ length for millennia of careful alliances. And for what? Do you care for the fae realms so much? You know what they do to people. The tithes, the command over the commoners, the casting out of anyone who does not fit with their courts, the suffering. And you certainly don’t care for the abyssal realms and the things the demons do, which is far worse, far darker. Let me rule in your place, let me direct a war. Do you think either of these people deserve more than that?”

“I know what they are,” Thys said. “But war will benefit no one. Those who suffer under harsh rulers will suffer more if they are commanded to the front to die.”

“Do they do better, left leaderless? You abandoned them, so how can you care about what they do? Let me go.”

Viv felt the power inside her, knew she had to do something, but didn’t know what. It wasn’t that she bought into the shadow woman’s argument, but could she attack someone who was trying to parlay, even with such a horrible goal? Just strike someone down who wasn’t actively fighting?

It was hard to see, darkness coating her eyes. She strained around, pulling at the power in herself, and heard Varsha hiss next to her ear, “She’sss right below uss.“ 

Relieved, Viv reached out and squeezed Varsha’s shoulder in thanks. She focused again, trying to find that darkest patch of shadow, straining to hear what the shadow woman was saying to the others to convince them or lie to them or take them off guard—and in doing so, she heard the sound of distant footsteps and hooves coming from the direction of the gate.

People were coming this way up the path from the fae realms. A lot of them, from the sounds of it. They weren’t here yet, but they’d be here any moment. Viv didn’t know if any of the others had noticed, or if they were too focused on what the shadow woman was saying. After all, they were all fae, all had some investment in a potential war.

Whatever she wanted to do about this, she had to make the decision on her own and had to do it now.

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[Previous Day: Day Twenty-seven | Next Day: Day Twenty-nine]

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“C’mon, don’t be shy,” Ferthur said, coming closer with a twisted grin. A fetid stench rolled off him, reeking of rotting, exposed blood.

“I’m not shy,” Viv said. Probably the best bet was to not lie, but not give too much detail on any part of it, name included. “My name’s Viv. Dandelion’s just guiding us to the border because we’re planning on intercepting someone there. None of us plan to enter the fae realms—” not untrue, since ideally they’d stop the lanternfish before it got there. “It’s a shapeshifter that’s killed before, and wanted to kill one of us. It’s much more dangerous than us and all we want is to stop it.”

Dandelion seemed to twitch at that last comment, but didn’t argue. 

Ferthur let out a disgruntled sound. “I can smell the truth on you; you’re not lying. But are you sure the Exile isn’t just misleading you to get what he surely wants?”

Better to let Dandelion do the talking where possible, Viv decided, and looked at him. “Are you?”

“Of course not,” Dandelion snapped. “I don’t even want to go back. I’ve made a good life for myself in the human world and I don’t intend to give it up.”

“How could you lose your home and not want to return?” Ferthur asked, the smile wiped from his face.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dandelion said, throwing his hands up. “It could have been centuries ago that I left, so it isn’t my home any more. And the fae lords could regularly send humans to your sort so you don’t start a war with us, couldn’t they? Not the nicest of homes to return to, even if it tends to spoil those of us on top so we don’t think of such things.”

Viv was starting to get an idea of what sort of war the lanternfish might view as possible to start, though she tried not to think about it. It’d be harder to tell half-truths to this demon when pressed if she knew too much.

Ferthur spat blood to the side. “Well, pass if you want, cross if you want, do what you want. I suppose it has nothing to do with me, then,” he said, and began sliding back into the shadows.

Although Viv wanted to feel good about this—it was a success, right? They’d gotten past, hadn’t they, and without any violence?—she couldn’t help but feel nervous. Ferthur hadn’t seemed to be appeased, and now he was at their backs instead.

But she didn’t think they’d made enemies, anyway, and demons were practically impossible to appease if you didn’t offer them anything. She wasn’t sure they could have done much better than this.

“Let’sss go,” Varsha muttered. “Before he changesss hiss mind.”

“Agreed,” Dandelion said. He, at least, seemed faintly relieved, or at least, less stiff. What he’d feared had come to pass, Viv supposed, and hadn’t turned out so terribly. “Are you all okay?”

“No problems here,” Adrien said, with agreeable nods from the other two.

Thys had stayed silent through all of that—perhaps for the best. Since Thys was ultimately the lanternfish’s target, if they’d spoken up, Ferthur might have been able to glean too much of what was going on, and god knew what he’d do with it. Still, Thys was trembling slightly, and Viv wasn’t sure if it was fear or strain or anger, even though she was able to feel some of their emotions. It all seemed to be blending together.

“Thys?” she asked softly.

“I’m fine.” Thys leaned on her, pressing a kiss to her ear.

“When this is over,” Viv asked softly, “can we make a better promise to each other? Some sort of… maybe I can know your name? Maybe I can give you something? I want to be closer, I want to help, I want…” She wasn’t sure what she was saying, not really, just that she knew that this was terrifying for Thys, coming so close to a home that wanted to pull them back in and reclaim them for its own.

Thys smiled and seemed to relax a little. Viv felt a rush of warmth, an emotional touch through their connection that felt almost physical. “I would like that,” Thys said.

Viv’s heart lifted, and for a moment, she thought it was entirely because of Thys’s response.

And then she realized that the ash was gone, as was the red light and hot air filtering through the trees. They’d returned from the abyssal realm to the in-between transit of the Otherworld, and thus the air of oppression was gone too.

“The passage to the fae realms is just ahead,” Dandelion said, indicating a place where the trees met overhead, forming an enclosed passage. “If it hasn’t beaten us here, it’ll be coming towards this place. And I can’t see how it would have beaten us here, Ferthur didn’t keep us there that long.”

Viv drew a breath, pulling away. “Okay, great. Can you disguise Thys? If it sees them here it’ll know the jig is up and we’ll lose the advantage of surprise.”

Dandelion gave Viv and Thys both a tremulous smile. “I can do that,” he said gently. “If Thys would permit it.”

“I don’t mind,” Thys said. “Everyone here knows my face and who I am, so I don’t lose myself even if I don’t look the same.”

“True.” Dandelion leaned over and kissed the air in front of Thys’s face. They seemed to shift, the air hazy around them, limbs shortening, hair lengthening, face becoming more angular and whites filling out the blackness of their eyes—until they looked much like Dandelion, a proper daoine sidhe. “If there’s one of us anyway, nobody will be surprised to see two, yes?” 

Thys raised their hands and looked at them. “I could be your sibling. Or your lover.”

“I’d be willing to play either role,” Dandelion said lightly, mostly teasing.

It was weird. Thys normally didn’t look like anything that Viv had ever seen before, but they looked like Thys. Seeing them look like Dandelion instead just felt strange. Viv seized their hand to squeeze it extra hard, drawing a look of surprise.

“What about the rest of us? Positions?”

“Let’s try to…get some kind of ambush set up,” Viv suggested. “Varsha, you go somewhere you’ll be safe but can still scent and call to us.”

“That’d be up,” Varsha said, pointing up a tree. She wound her way up there, tucking herself away in the branches, almost invisible except for the yellow parts of her sweater. “I’ve got a good view, ssso I’ll just keep quiet until needed.”

“Great,” Viv said. She glanced at Dandelion and Thys to see if they were on board, but quickly realized she might have to do the rest of the direction herself; Dandelion kept glancing behind them, down the tunnel to the fae realms, while Thys was staring into the gloom ahead of them to where the lanternfish would likely come from: the edge of a darkened city where it began to dissolve into forest. “Uhh, the rest of you, can you spread out around the clearing? Caoimhe, stick nearby so that you can interfere with its hypnosis if it tries.”

Obligingly, she placed herself a little to the left and slightly withdrawn from the clearing, though to Viv’s eyes she still stood out like a sore thumb in her white dress. No helping that, though. 

“Adrien, we want someone who can try to stop it if it tries to run, so go closer to the entry of this clearing, maybe between those buildings?” She gestured at the run-down houses. “It’ll either have to go through the three of us or back the way it came, so we want someone who can step out and cold-clock it if necessary.”

Adrien seemed to want to make a joke, but bit his lip on his helpless grin and just gave her a thumb’s up as he headed that way, stepping back a little.

“And Star, can you improve our powers now or does it have to be live?”

Star waggled a hand. “In combat is better. Like, after initiative starts. Basically, I could do it, but I might have to keep up the music to keep the power flowing, which might alert this guy that something’s up.”

“In that case, go across from Adrien on the other side of the clearing? When the fighting starts, you can step up and sing at us or… Or turn into a sticky horse depending on how things go, either way.”

“Can we not say sticky horse? It’s ‘brook horse’.”

“Adhesive horse,” Viv said with a nervous giggle. Her anxiety was rising and it was hard not to ramble. “Adhorsive.”

“Adhorsive,” Star said with delight, instantly and visibly changing his stance on nicknames. “I’ll take that.” But he did go across from Adrien.

That made nearly a full circle. A little reluctant, Viv pulled her hand out of Thys’s. “I’ll go across from Caoimhe so we’ve got it surrounded once it walks into the clearing, okay?” She gestured to the shadows of the trees on the other side of the clearing from the elverpigen. “You two, stay in front of the gate and act like, uh, snotty nobles? So that the lanternfish is focused on you guys when it walks up.”

“It’s been a while, but I think I can manage,” Dandelion said.

Thys considered, then stuck her chin out. “What a fine evening to go for a stroll, my lord,” they said snootily.

“Oh, but I was hoping to get you alone,” Dandelion purred, putting fingers under Thys’s chin.

“Good, great,” Viv said with another nervous giggle, as she too stepped out of the line of sight. “And now we wait.” She unwrapped the breakfast bar that Isaac had got from his neighbour and held it in her hand, ready to pop into her mouth the moment a fight started—after all, as with Star’s music, if they lit up the area too soon, the lanternfish could just take a long way around to avoid them.

But they didn’t have to wait long—Ferthur had delayed them just enough that they’d barely got in place when Viv saw a figure walking up the path toward them.

The lanternfish, again, looked exactly like Thys—certainly more than Thys did right now—and was calm, aloof, self-possessed. They walked up to Dandelion and the real Thys, who were exaggeratedly fawning on each other in front of the pass to the fae realms, and gave a stiff bow.

“Great daoine lords,” ‘Thys’ murmured. “May I pass? I wish to go home. I have been away too long already.”

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“I don’t super want to go to Hell and, you know, prove all of my worst relatives right,” Viv said, joking weakly, “but I think that’s the best choice. Ideally, we want to stop it from getting to the fae realms so that—so that whatever it’s planning, it doesn’t get its way, right?” 

Thys nodded. “It should be fine. The fae realm pays a regular tithe to the abyssal planes as a promise of neutrality. They don’t mess with us, and we don’t mess with them. Humans are, naturally, at greater risk, but I have claimed you and so it shouldn’t be an issue. I can’t imagine Varsha being in much trouble either; they’re much more concerned with humans than with fellow monsters.”

Dandelion was smiling humorlessly through all this, but he just nodded at the end. “No time to waste, then. I know the way well—hurry.”

A little nervous about Thys’s comment that it shouldn’t be an issue—lots of things that shouldn’t be problems were, after all—Viv just took their hand. Thys squeezed it tight immediately, casting a gentle look aside at her as they tugged her close in against their side, cuddling slightly. 

Varsha gave them both a kind of fond eye-roll—clearly just the reaction of someone whose friend had recently hooked up—but stuck close as well, clearly nervous.

The group followed quickly after Dandelion, who was striding ahead with his band close behind him. He led the way through the bazaar, tilting uphill through ramshackle shops that closely resembled those on the human side. Less witchery-focused, perhaps, more antique shops and diableries and contract law shops, but still, remarkably similar.

And then he headed down a side street with a twisted iron gate at the end of it. He and the other fae pulled in close to the center of the road to avoid coming too close to the iron—Viv remembered abruptly that fairy folk tended to hate the touch of cold iron—and, before they passed through it, Dandelion turned.

“Have you been through the other realms before, Viv?”

Vivian shook her head. “I only recently have been able to handle the Otherworld at all, honestly. So I’ve only used the portals that connect the main travel areas between different valleys.”

Dandelion nodded. “The equivalent to the Valleys are called different things in different realms. It’s ‘the pit’ in the abyss, ‘underhill’ in our realm, but they connect the same way: through gates. You shouldn’t feel too many ill effects just travelling through them, but be prepared for a jolt as we pass between realms.”

“It issssn’t very fun,” Varsha agreed. “But it’sss largely harmlesss.”

“Thanks for the head’s up,” Viv said. 

They trickled through as a group, and Viv braced herself as she passed through, prepared for a sense of dropping, perhaps, of falling, something.

Which was sort of accurate, except it wasn’t physical. It felt like her heart had dropped instead, depression hitting her with a powerful force. She wanted to cry but, in the moment, she felt too tired to do so, as if even just shedding tears would be more effort than she had in her.

It hardly seemed worth it to go through all this. Maybe she’d been the one who was out of line with all of this. Thys hadn’t even wanted to go, and for good reason. They were free if someone else was filling their role. And what about the others? Varsha would probably be safe, but would she really? Dandelion was an exile; if he went too far because Viv had insisted on this, who knew what would happen to him? And even the others weren’t powerful compared to the forces they were tangling with—they could get hurt, they could die, all because Viv was too idealistic, too stupid—

“It’s called oppression,” Caoimhe told Viv in a slightly strained voice, staring straight ahead into the twisted blackened forest they were walking through. Red light filtered through the trees in the distance and ash floated through the air; it felt like they were in a place that had only recently burned, still suffering for it, and still at threat of whatever inferno raged in the difference. 

“Oh, are you feeling that?” Varsha said. “I wasssn’t sure if it was jusst me. It’s a nasssty one, isn’t it?”

Adrien wiped an eye and held out a teardrop on a finger. “It even got me, and sadness isn’t natural to me.”

“It’ll be worse for her, though,” Star said lightly. He at least seemed cheery, unaffected by whatever was going on, or was at least pretending to be. “Because it’s something demons make for humans.”

Thys pulled Viv in closer still, wings flaring protectively with a flash of white. They seemed much, much larger with their wings open, and Viv sheltered in that. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m fine. This is a thing demons do to us?”

“It’s not made for humans,” Thys corrected Star. “It’s something they carry with them at all times that they can project on humans. It’s one of the ways certain types of demons influence certain types of humans. Not all, of course, just as not all fae cast exotic glamours as a habit, but…”

Viv leaned into Thys’s side and let herself feel Thys’s feelings instead of her own for a moment, pulling hard on their connection, surrounding herself in Thys’s adoration and strangeness and determination. “I’m all right,” she said. “I could use a distraction, though. Can we talk about what we can do? Varsha’s here to try to help us use scent to figure out what this shapeshifter is, if needed, and I have a light spell and some attack magic in my pocket, but what about the rest of you? I heard that Adrien was just a brawler?”

“Aye, no magic here that isn’t done in the bedroom,” Adrien said. “But I can pack a wallop, and even if it’s not enough to take something like this down, I’m sure it can be a distraction. Caoimhe, now, she’s no fighter, but…”

“I have similar abilities to what I’ve heard this thing can do,” she said softly. “Most of what I do is simply in merriment; if someone chooses to dance with me, I can control them as I wish. But I don’t expect to use that one—rather, I can create lights that hypnotize others, lead them astray. I don’t know how useful it will be in this circumstance, either, but I may be able to seize control of its lights, or at least interfere with its own powers in some way.”

Star didn’t seem inclined to contribute, so Varsha hissed a sigh and said, “Sssstar?”

“Oh! Me too, huh? Yeah, I’m a shapeshifter and like, do you play D&D?”

“What,” Thys said in confusion.

Simultaneously, both Varsha and Viv said, in unison, “I play D&D,” then looked at each other in some excitement. “I’m looking for group,” Viv added. 

“We can totally—”

“Okay, we can make Saturday night plans after we’re done fighting a form-stealing monster,” Star said with annoyed cheer. “But the point is, I’m a bard, I can improve other people’s powers by singing or playing music. Basically buffs or debuffs. I can also turn into a horse and stick it to me and run around wildly until I find somewhere to drown it. That plan usually works for me, but I’m not sure if it’ll work here?”

Viv giggled, relaxing a little despite the oppressive atmosphere. “And Dandelion?”

Dandelion didn’t answer. He was leading the way with a quick, grim intensity, picking each fork in the path with consideration but haste, so the others were left hurrying through the ash after him, seeing only his back.

“Dandelion can command other fae,” Thys said. “He can create great illusions and glamours. He is a master of swordsplay and of riding and his music can enchant humans however he wishes. He can grant immortality to humans, or—”

“Dandelion can do a lot of things, but mostly to humans or other fae,” Dandelion interrupted from ahead. “Just ask Dandelion what you want him to do and he’ll try his best to do it.”

A new voice, rough and grating, cut in: “Oh, well, and if what we want is for Dandelion to stop?”

The demon who stepped out in front of their path was a huge creature, some twisted and horrific combination of man and antelope, twisted hooves and hands and antlers and a human face. A crown hung off one of its antlers, dripping blood down into its hair. 

Dandelion stopped short, bringing the others to a halt. “Hello, Ferthur.”

“Hello, Exile,” Ferthur said, his voice as cheery as could be expected from a sound like teeth being ground to dust. “How have things been since you tried to interrupt the tithe?”

Dandelion gave him a smile, flashing teeth. “As you clearly know, I was punished, and all is well. May we pass? We only intend to step back into the between-realms of the Otherworld a little further on.”

“Is that so, is it? State your purpose for travelling and so on. While there is an exit to the between-realms, we both know that the fae lands lie that way as well…” The demon grinned. “Wouldn’t want to have to tell them you’re sneaking back in, do we? And oh, you’re bringing a human. This should be interesting. What’s your name, human?”

“I…” Viv hesitated, unsure what to say or do to convince this demon to let them pass harmlessly.

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