24

Two uneventful days pass. I keep an eye on the wards I’ve placed around the house. Since I can’t touch the Fae-hunters’ equipment and Feather lacks the skill to use it, we can’t test the wards, so I can’t be sure they’re actually concealing the house’s energy signature as well as its visual presence. But I hope that our theft of the hunters’ tools will set them back weeks, if not longer.

The incident with the men who possessed iron weapons still disturbs me. I still haven’t learned why those men were so well-supplied and organized, waiting for me, prepared to strike me down. I’ve encountered no such traps since then. It’s possible it was an isolated incident, separate from the Mayor and the hunters, and that the instigator was one of the men I brought back that night. In which case he was devoured weeks ago.

Perchta hasn’t returned to the house. I don’t mention her bloodstained aspect to Feather, and I tell myself it’s not exactly a secret I’m keeping—simply an omission so she doesn’t have yet another thing to worry about.

Feather and I have found many delightful ways to distract ourselves from worries. We clean together, we cook together, and we fuck everywhere—in the hallways, on the kitchen table, in the bath, against the wall, on the bed.

I’ve heard that when mates first seal their connection, they experience an all-consuming sexual frenzy for a period of time. It’s one more piece of proof that what we have is an inexplicable, impossible version of the mate bond.

Feather seems to have taken it in stride, as she usually does. But I sense that something else is nagging at her, especially toward the evening of the second day. She’s slicing bread when I come up behind her, intending to lift her skirt and sheath my cock in her opening. But when she turns her head and smiles faintly, her wistful expression makes me change my approach, and I kiss the curve of her neck instead.

“What are you thinking about?” I whisper against her soft skin.

“My brother.”

Ah. Not a good time to fuck her, then.

“Do you want to see him?” I ask.

“No. Yes? I’m not sure.” She sighs. “I don’t like what he does, or the danger he poses to you, but he’s my blood. Isn’t that supposed to mean something?” She twists around and looks up at me with huge, tortured dark eyes. “Shouldn’t I want to connect with him, to learn more about my parents and my past? Shouldn’t I be pleased and excited about it, rather than terrified? ”

“Your feelings on this matter need no justification,” I tell her. “As you well know, my memories of my blood relatives are anything but pleasant. Perhaps it’s more important to create a new family for yourself.”

“Can a family be just two people?”

“Fuck if I know. But as long as we’re making up the rules… yes, a family can be two.”

Feather turns to me and lays both palms on my chest. “Will you be my family?” she asks softly.

The question feels more intimate than anything we’ve yet shared. It weighs my heart, because I can’t promise her forever. I can’t promise her more than a day or two.

Gently I take her hands in mine. “No matter the parting that may come, or the distance that may divide us, I will be your family forever, and you will be mine.”

She bounces up on her toes to kiss me, a soft seal of the promise. Then I pull her close, wrapping my hand around her head and pinning it against my heart. Praying to the god-stars that I will never have to let go.

“I’ve been thinking,” I tell her. “We should go out, you and I. Purchase some food. Get some news about the Fae-hunters, if we can. Take the pulse of the region, as it were. See if a Fae-hunting frenzy has begun, as it sometimes does.”

She looks up and pushes out her lower lip, an unconscious pout, or perhaps a habit leftover from the cabin. “But it’s so peaceful here, just you and me.”

“It won’t be if the house is discovered.”

“I know.” She disengages herself from my arms and moves away. “I suppose an outing could be fun. I’ll go and change.”

Once we’re both ready, I take her to Tanndorf, a village we haven’t yet visited together. It’s located slightly east of Rothenfel, within half a day’s journey by coach. The best pub there is the Twitchy Toad, nestled in the heart of the village between maze-like rows of crooked buildings and twisted streets. An ancient temple looms over it all, jagged spires of black stone reaching toward heaven.

Feather spots the temple at once. “I’ve never seen such a building,” she exclaims, clutching my arm.

“A temple of Lugh, the trickster god,” I explain. “A rarity for a village this size—an abandoned relic of days gone by, when the folk of Visseland worshiped the god-stars. At some point they conflated the god-stars with the Fae, and began to revile both. The temple was looted and burned, and it became a hollow shell, superstitiously avoided by most of the townspeople. They hate it, but it’s too well-built and too monumental to tear down.” I glance down at Feather’s eager face and bright eyes, still fixed on the edifice. “Would you like to go see it?”

“Can we?”

“We can do anything you want.”

She squeezes my arm in a spasm of excitement and I grin, drawing her with me down a street that will take us by the temple.

We’ve arrived during the lull of late afternoon, just before businesses close for the day and the workers and shop owners head home. Above the snowy slate rooftops and brick chimneys, the sky is a clear, pale yellow tinged with pink, a hint of the coming sunset. The pungent scent of wood smoke fills the cold air. I inhale deeply, listening to the clop of horses’ hooves, the occasional squeak of a door or a wheel, the ringing of a blacksmith’s hammer down a side street, and the barking of a dog.

The town seems quieter than usual, even for late afternoon. There’s a tense hush in the streets, many windows are shuttered, and some of the shops have closed early.

As we approach the temple, a group of children run past us, chasing a rolling hoop down the street. One boy keeps hitting the hoop with a stick to make it go .

My body tightens involuntarily. No matter how many children I rescue from their abusers, I have never been able to purge the memory of the ones I killed. In the shrill laughter of these boys, I hear the dying cries of the orphans from so long ago.

A woman rushes out of a building and yells frantically to the children, “Be off home, all of you! The Krampus walks the night, and he’s bound to catch you if you’re out past sunset! He’ll slit open your bellies and stuff them with straw!”

Feather vents a disbelieving huff, clearly perturbed, but I can’t summon the will to be piqued by the woman’s misconception of me. Memories are sliding up out of the bog of my past, grasping my brain with long, slimy fingers, overwhelming my living sight with visions of death. I can taste the disease and the rot in the moldering halls of the orphanage. I can see the sick children piled on one another in narrow beds, their eyes so huge in their small, wasted faces. I can smell the iron in their spilled blood as I end the torment for each of them.

We turn a corner, and the shadow of the temple falls over us, deep as misery, dark as my future.

“Krael.” Feather murmurs. “Are you alright?”

When I look at her, my stomach drops at the sight of her small, pale face and her huge dark eyes. My limbs each feel as heavy as a sack full of bodies, and dread pools like black ichor in my stomach.

“You can’t die,” I croak. “You can’t.”

“I’m not going to die.” She pulls me to the side of the street, beneath the eaves of the temple. I bend over and struggle to drag air through my sodden lungs.

“Breathe slowly, Krael,” she says quietly, her hand on my shoulder. “I’ve seen this before—one of the Mothers used to call it a ‘fear spasm.’ Draw breath through your nose, and let it out through your mouth. Think about what is real, not what you see in your mind. Here—touch me. ”

She grabs my hand and places it on her breast, over the cloak she wears. Then she holds my other hand to her warm, soft cheek. “I’m right here, Krael. Look at me.”

“You’re here,” I repeat, trying to grasp it.

“I’m not going anywhere, even if you have to move the anchor. I think I could survive it, Krael. I’m linked to the house.”

I blink, and the memories recede to the back of my mind where they belong. Feather’s sweet face clarifies before me, and I can breathe easier.

“I won’t risk your life on a guess,” I tell her.

Desperation flashes through her eyes, but she only tightens her lips briefly, then says, “We’ll talk about it later. Let’s go into the temple.”

The massive double doors at the front are crisscrossed with chains and coated with posters whose corners curl and flutter in the wind. Along the broad top step of the entrance, unlit candles sit in tall clusters, wax pooled around their bases. Between them nestle children’s toys and possessions—a couple of rag dolls, carved boats, flutes, wooden puppets, music boxes. Sprigs of evergreen and winterbloom decorate the clutter.

Feather steps closer, peering at the posters on the door.

“Krael,” she says faintly. “Look.”

Stepping nearer, I spot what has affected her so deeply. Sketches of children, all of them recent, within a couple of days, I would guess. But these children aren’t missing—they’re dead. Murdered, apparently. And interspersed with the commemorative drawings are notices declaring Krampus responsible.

As I scan the faces, I notice two familiar ones. Mine and Feather’s. Above our sketched portraits are the words, “Wanted for questioning regarding suspected Fae sympathies or activities: Lady Laurelai Montaine and Lord Felix Brandt. If you have any information, send a message to Abil Amindi and Nikkai Richter at the Palace of Justice in Rothenfel. ”

“Feather,” I manage through dread-stiffened lips, but she has already spotted it. She covers her mouth with both hands.

“I thought we were careful enough,” I say. “Someone must have seen or heard something.”

“Maybe after the theft, the hunters investigated the guests and realized we had holes in our story,” Feather says. “What do we do?”

“We must leave immediately,” I tell her. “It’s not safe here. We’ll go inside the temple and use geistfyre to return to the house. We can’t get in the front door, but there’s a side entrance. Come.”

The haunting memories jarred me to my core, and a frenzied apprehension vibrates through my veins as I lead Feather around the side of the building. Between two buttresses, a narrow door stands partly ajar, snow drifted against the frame. I slip through first, and Feather follows.

“This way.” I keep my voice low, because even though it has been abandoned for decades, this place gives me the odd sensation of being watched by the god-stars themselves.

We hurry along a shadowed hall and into the central sanctuary, a cavernous room studded with broken stone benches, with a gigantic marble altar at the front.

“This will do.” I’m about to summon a chain and draw the geistfyre circle when Feather seizes my wrist.

“We have to talk about this,” she says. “What if these posters are in other towns and villages? What will we do? Who will sell us food and supplies?”

I hesitate, grieved by the anxiety in her eyes. “When alarm among the humans rises to this level, I move to a new area and start my work afresh. But here I’ve been accused of more than just the disappearance of adults—I’ve been blamed for a rash of child murders. It isn’t just my Krampus identity being hunted—my false identity has been jeopardized as well. And this time… I have you to consider. ”

“You’ll take me with you,” she says stoutly. “I know I can survive the transfer. As I said, I’m linked to the house. It will protect me.”

“You don’t know that for certain. I won’t take the risk. As soon as I figure out how I can safely do so, I’m leaving you behind.”

I say it with gruff, almost brutal finality, hoping she’ll yield. But the hot fire that leaps into her gaze tells me that this argument is far from over.