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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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Viv opened her mouth—then hesitated. 

On the one hand, she did want to meet the band. They seemed cool, and she’d never met a sidhe before, and there had to be some kind of bragging rights in getting to meet what was obviously a popular local band. And it sounded as if someone was hurt back there—if so, maybe she could help. She didn’t have magical healing skills, but she was first aid certified.   

On the other hand, she wasn’t sure she should be intruding in other people’s business, and it might be nice to use her win to make herself popular in the neighbourhood. Earn some friends, soothe anyone’s hurt feelings at her win. Plus, it would distract the pub crowd from whatever was going on backstage. But when she’d been told the prize level, it was things like ‘a gift card’ or ‘A free night of food and drinks’. Would a round of drinks on a fairly busy night be too big an ask anyway?

“Well?” Susan glanced over her shoulder again, then beamed at Viv. “Hurry, hurry! What’s your boon?”

Maybe she could just explain her train of thought. She didn’t want the crowd to think she was sucking up, or get them hyped up only to be told they weren’t getting their drinks after all, but…

“Do I have to say it aloud?” Viv asked. “Can I whisper it to you?”

“Oooh, scandalous!” Susan chirped. “That’s fine, secret boons are hella fun and everyone likes the mystery! Come on up here!”

Several people patted Viv’s back as she headed up from the bar to the stage, congratulations and teasing jokes following her. She had to duck down to Susan, despite her own short height; Susan was no taller than 4’5″. She smelled of fall leaves, and, up close, Viv could see that her hair curled like fern leaves as she tucked it behind one pointed ear.

Viv mumbled an explanation. She wasn’t sure how coherent it was; she felt like she was tripping over her want to meet them and her want to help with the situation and her not sure if the value is too high, but Susan just nodded along as Vivian laid out both her thoughts and her uncertainties about them.

“So selfless,” Susan said teasingly, pitched just for her, and then spun to face the pub crowd, spreading her arms. “Guess what? Our new friend and yours, Miss Pumpkinhair, has bought you all a round on the house!”

The cheer that went up was deafening as the crowd turned to swarm the bar, nearly as one. Viv tried not to feel disappointed; it was something she’d wanted to do, and really, whatever was going on backstage was none of her business— 

Susan’s bark-rough hand slid into hers. “Come on,” she whispered. “While they’re busy.”

For a moment, Viv was actually confused. It shouldn’t be possible that she got both—they seemed like such different wishes. But perhaps they were one and the same; in both cases, her desire had been to help with the situation, whether by distraction or by offering up her skills. If helping was just the boon, both outcomes would actually apply.

Led by Susan, Viv was tugged into the back room. It was, as she’d suspected, distinct from the kitchen; a backstage area with exposed beams, full of equipment and some couches that appeared to have been salvaged from street corners. There were doors off into the kitchen, employee bathrooms, and what she supposed was a dressing room—as well as a back door into the alley behind the pub, which she could identify clearly because it stood open.

The Merry Gentry band was gathered around someone on the floor; all Viv could make out was what looked like a heavy ashy gray cloak covering whoever it was.

“Hey, this patron says she’s first aid certified!” Susan said. “Have you called the ambulance?!”

“They say they don’t want one,” Dandelion said, looking up. “The kitchen’s called for a healer, should we cancel—”

Viv’s heart was pounding, the vagueness of someone else’s problem abruptly resolved into wait, this is my responsibility now. “No, definitely you want to send a healer, I’m not a professional. Certification just lets us help until the real healers show up…!” She let go of Susan’s hand as the pounding of her blood through her body drove her forward to the fallen person’s side.

In any other circumstances, she’d have never dared just shove in next to one of the sidhe, but here she was doing just that, sliding on her knees to where Dandelion held the person’s hand, equally gray where it showed under the cloak. The haze of the cider was gone now, either adrenaline or her own natural magic pushing it away out of necessity.

Viv ran through first aid steps in her mind. Check the scene and the person. Whatever had caused this person to collapse didn’t seem to have happened here; judging from what she’d heard and from the still-open back door, they’d made it in here after fleeing something else, and had collapsed on reaching safety. There was no visible blood, though she’d have to pull their cloak back to confirm that there weren’t other visible injuries. 

She still didn’t see blood, but there was no point in taking risks. “Get me gloves and a first aid kit,” Viv told the closest person, who turned out to still be Dandelion. He put the injured person’s hand down, and simply went over to the kitchen to do so.

The moment the gloves were handed to her, she snapped them on, then gently picked the cloak up and pushed it back; it felt slightly dusty to the touch in a way that seemed somewhat familiar, but which she couldn’t quite place.

The person underneath was androgynous and beautiful; feminine at first glance, but with a lean, angular form. They had long, feathery white hair with zigzags of brown running through, like a chocolate design on vanilla icing; on closer look, their hair matched their cloak, which also had those streaks, though half their cloak was darker than the other half. Their face was pale, almost pure white, and quite round; ashen lashes half-covered eyes that appeared to be solid black. Thin brown antennae sprouted from their brow. They were wearing what was either a gray gown or a robe; Viv wasn’t sure which, not with them on the floor tangled up in it, their long limbs akimbo. There was no visible bruising, despite how they had clearly collapsed.

The injured person’s eyes were open enough that the next thing she should do was check if they were responsive. “Hi,” Viv said gently. “My name’s Vivian Dormer. I’m first aid certified, level one. I just want to make sure you’re doing okay, all right?”

“Is there anything we should do?” the satyr drummer asked.

“Give us some space,” Viv said. “Don’t move anything.” She turned back to the fallen person. “Can you understand me?”

A tubelike tongue wet their lips. “Uh… huh-huh.”

“Okay, good, that’s great. I’m just going to check you over while we wait for the healer to get here,” Viv said. She put her fingers to their neck. “What’s your name?”

“Thy… Thysa—”

“That’s Thysania,” Dandelion said. “The White Witch. They were supposed to be our opening act.”

“Thanks,” Viv said. She kept her eyes focused on Thysania. Their pulse felt fine. There was no way to check if they had diluted pupils, so she just focused her magic to try to sense Thysania’s magic, what kind of life force was moving through them. It felt weakened—wrong. Like something had drained half of it away. “What happened, Thysania?”

Their voice was soft and high. “Attacked. At home. The light… the light.”

“The light?” Viv focused on her own magic, pushing it gently out of her and into Thysania. She couldn’t heal them with it, but she could at least replenish their magical stores and help keep them from running out.

Thysania sucked a breath in. “I know you,” they said abruptly, eyes widening.

“What—”

A new person entered the room—an older-looking and worried witch, carrying an old-fashioned medical bag. He felt powerful, even just from looking at him. “Let me through, I’m the healer,” he said, coming over and kneeling beside Viv. “Thanks for your help.”

“No problem,” Viv said. “Their energy is really low. I tried to transfer but I’m not very strong.”

The healer gave her a quick smile, though his gaze was focused on the fallen figure. “I’m sure it helped. Thysania, right?”

“Uh-huh,” Thysania said. They seemed to be staring at Viv still, and she got a small, uncomfortable chill.

“Okay,” Viv said. She rose abruptly, rubbing her gloved fingers against each other. “I’ll get out of your way.”

“Thanks, that’d be best—”

“No,” Thysania said. Their voice hiccuped. “Stay. Stay.”

“Thys, you have to let Isaac have the space he needs to work,” Dandelion said. He gave Viv a rueful, elegant smile. “Come, let’s give them room. I’d be happy to talk with you while we wait?”

Isaac had taken Thysania’s hand; a glow was passing between them, a strong and powerful will guiding his healing spell in.

“But—” Thysania groaned. Their eyes closed.

This was right, Viv knew. She’d done her part; any more was just interfering with the healer’s work.

But still she hesitated, Thysania’s plea echoing in her ears.

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No, Viv decided, she was being silly, thinking about chasing after Varsha. Varsha worked here, so she’d definitely be back later. There wasn’t anything urgent in Viv’s life right now anyway; no point in leaving now to get information about… what? Power outages? The neighbourhood? 

Nothing important.

In fact, every other place she could go tonight could wait too. The neighbourhood would be around later. She might as well have a second drink and enjoy her night.

Thus decided, she ordered another cider from the gargoyle bartender, and turned back to the stage, watching the dryad Susan working up the crowd.

“So,” Susan chirped, “here’s how it works! We pick a category, and the first person with their hand up gets to answer! We tally it as we go and by the end of trivia time, the person with the most right answers gets a reasonable boon from the Good Neighbours pub. Perhaps it’s free drinks or meals for a night! A gift card! Some of our merch! A chance to meet some of the performers backstage! Some fairy gold! Or something else of similar value—you get to pick the boon, and as long as it is a reasonable exchange for one night’s win, we will give it to you. However, the player with the highest number of wrong answers? Well, you’ll owe us a boon of equal value, and that boon will be our choice. So if you play once, you’d better keep playing—at least until someone gets more wrong answers than you. Keep in mind that one right answer cancels out one wrong answer, and vice versa—it’s all checks and balances. High risk, high reward, am I right?”

The crowd cheered. Viv took the drink that was handed to her and sipped, watching thoughtfully. Behind Susan, the Merry Gentry band had put their instruments down and were heading into the back room next to the kitchen, and even though she’d never heard of them before today, she was tempted to see if she could win to meet the band, because—why not? Bragging rights, maybe?

On the one hand, it was dangerous. Losing would mean owing a boon to the fair folk, and, she had to remind herself, for all their sweet talk, they could be as dangerous to bargain with as demons were.

But on the other hand, according to the rules, it was all checks and balances. She could listen and only answer if she was sure she was right. Just listening might get her more information, and playing a little, if she was careful, would mean she just didn’t win, not that she’d lose.

She put her glass on the bar and doodled in the condensation, drawing a line across the top. It wasn’t exactly cheating to use divination—it couldn’t give her any actual answers. But it could help her decide between two answers she was torn on.

“Our theme this week is… Halloween Media! Horror movies, spooky stories, local legends!”

Viv perked up even more. She loved spooky stories, and was a huge nerd for horror movies. Maybe she had a chance here. Sure, she couldn’t answer any questions about local legends—but sitting those questions out would still let her learn more about the city. Win-win. 

“First question… At the Theatre of Dreams, Lithway is currently performing a play they said was inspired by some secret shadowfolk lore. What’s it called?”

Oh! Viv’s eyes widened. She’d just been googling the Theatre of Dreams this evening, and had seen it on her search. What was it again, The Anglerfish’s Light or…

The condensation was dripping down the right side of the line a little faster than the left. Her hand shot up.

“Lil miss pumpkinhair at the bar! Yeah, you, the human!”

Susan was looking right at Viv. Her face went red and she squeaked out, suddenly unsure of herself, “The Lanternfish’s Lure?”

“Bingo bingo! Lithway stars in The Lanternfish’s Lure! One point to Pumpkinhair! Hey, has anyone seen it yet?”

To fill out the hour, Susan was clearly going to do little bits between each question. Viv’s heart was racing, and she took another sip of her cider, the warmth of both the drink and of the right answer spreading through her. Susan was talking with a patron about the play, about how Lithway used their insubstantial shadow body and stage lights to play with the viewers’ perceptions as the Lanternfish stalked its prey (who was also Lithway; apparently Lithway ran a one-shadow show).

“Anyway, anyway. Let’s move on! In the classic 1968 horror film Night of the Living Dead, what is arguably the real monster of the film?”

Oh, she didn’t even need to debate this one, she knew classic horror inside out and backward. Her hand shot up.

“Why, we have a brave one tonight, folks! Pumpkinhair?”

She drew a breath. “Racism?”

“It’s hard to argue that one, isn’t it? All right, let’s give you another point there! Hey, who’d be up for a showing of Night of the Living Dead this week? We could project it onto the menu board!”

The next half hour or so went on like that—Viv didn’t know a good half of the questions, but she only answered the ones she already had a good idea of, and racked points up quickly. Even the ones she sat out for taught her a lot—where the highest level of reputed hexeries were in the city (Hazy Green, an area in the southwest of the valley very near the gate), the names of the two local vampire lords (Ranier Dupré and Angelica Roth), and much more. As she downed the last of her cider, waiting for the next question, she found she was much more confident that if she needed something from the city, she’d know where to find it.

“Next up, we—”

Suddenly, there was a commotion from the back room. Several people were shouting—she could recognize the voices of both the bassist from the Merry Gentry and the lead, Dandelion—and could make out just a couple of words before the buzz of the pub’s reaction drowned them out: Are you okay? and What happened?

Susan looked around nervously, craning her head toward the back room’s door, then gave a perky wave at the pub floor, tapping the mic to get attention and be heard over the crowd again. “Wow! Sounds like something’s up, huh? Well, let’s bring this trivia to a close a little early so I can go check on that, shall we? Shall we? And you can all enjoy your drinks and mind your business while we get that all sorted! Our loser for today is… Unlucky Frank Walters, yet again. Frank, I’m starting to think this is your fetish. We’ll get back to you with what we want.”

The crowd tittered. A young man, deeply drunk, let out a horrified groan. “It’s not,” he said, barely heard over everything else.

Susan’s joke had worked to distract the patrons, Viv thought, who were now laughing, watching Frank and muttering to each other.

“And our winner… Well, its wee miss pumpkinhair! What do you want for your boon? Hurry, hurry, answer us now or give your reward up for good!”

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