25

He can’t leave me behind. I can’t bear the thought of floating untethered in this huge, terrifying world.

I won’t deny that I got cold chills when I saw our “Wanted” posters. But the terror that fills my heart now is a hundred times worse. And it isn’t just a horror of being alone, but a horror of being without him . He taught me that sex doesn’t have to be something frightening—it can be special, and inexpressibly beautiful. He has been with many women, and yet he prefers me above all others, despite my strangeness, my inexperience, and my insecurity. Even when he’s fucking me in a frenzy, like a besotted demon, I feel cherished. I feel safe. I feel wildly, wonderfully free .

Almost as satisfying is another habit he’s begun—joining me in my efforts as I do the chores and clean the house. Sometimes he’s terrible at it, and I get frustrated and send him away on some invented errand, but he’s learning. And I love that he’s trying to do better, for my sake.

He has told me about his collections, the things he claims from the worst and wealthiest of his victims. On some level, piling objects in the rooms of the house helps him feel safe, gives him a sense of ownership. Deep inside, he’s still a rejected Fae child, sold to trolls, suffering everything and owning nothing.

I understand him. I’m happier with him than I ever thought I could be—so happy that sometimes I wonder if I’m dreaming it all. Dreaming him . If he leaves me here, and goes away, I’m afraid all the happiness and pleasure will fade like a dream, never to return.

I want to scream at him, but the words come out in a desperate, stricken rasp. “You can’t abandon me. I love you.”

Pain tightens his features. “But I don’t have the freedom to give you the life you want, or the future you deserve. I was obtusely foolish to let it get this far, to place you in such peril. Grant me this one chance to do the right thing.”

“How is it the right thing to save yourself and run off, leaving me homeless?”

“You can go to your brother and seek his protection,” Krael says. “Tell him I’ve been holding you captive, that I forced you to attend the party with me and to do my bidding. Tell him I’m guilty of everything, and that you barely escaped with your life. He’s your brother—he’ll protect you. You can get to know him better, meet your parents—”

“But I don’t want them!” I practically scream at him, my voice finally unleashed. I’ve never yelled this loudly at anyone.

Krael doesn’t move, or retreat, or look shocked, even though right now I’m the complete opposite of the meek, frightened girl he agreed to shelter. And it hurts beautifully, even in this moment, that he accepts both sides of me so completely.

“I don’t want a brother who’s here to kill you,” I shout. “I don’t want parents who were friends with my kidnapper. I only want you , you damned fucking idiot!”

“I can’t fix this, don’t you see?” He’s louder now. Angry, but not in a way that frightens me. “The house is doing something to you that neither of us understand, something you didn’t ask for. What if it hurts you? You can’t run with me, and if we stay, we’ll both be caught and killed. My magic is limited, and though I could fight off a decent number of humans, I’m useless once I’m bitten by iron or restrained by Fae-hunter traps. I can’t protect you, except in this way—by making you go to your brother.”

“No.” I say it more calmly this time as an idea takes shape in my head. “No, there’s another way to do this. Think about it… the child killings are recent. They’ve taken place over the past few days. Yet you haven’t been summoned to judge any murderers. Which means the thing killing the children isn’t your usual prey. It isn’t human . Maybe there’s another Fae creature in the region, committing these murders. What if we could find out who or what it is and turn them over to the Fae-hunters? They would believe their mission fulfilled, and they’d stop looking for you.”

His eyes widen with realization, and then he glances aside, almost guiltily.

“Krael,” I say warily. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “She… she wouldn’t.”

He doesn’t have to say her name. We both know, with sudden certainty, who it is. A ghost who hates her duties, who despises the children she’s sent to rebuke, who craves freedom from her role.

Perchta.

“Is it even possible?” I say in a cracked whisper .

“When she appeared to me a few days ago, her aspect was stained with blood,” Krael answers slowly.

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I thought you had enough on your mind.”

“No more secrets,” I say tightly. “We both know what it is to be controlled and limited. Secrets are limits. Withholding knowledge is control.”

He nods. It’s an admission, if not quite an apology.

“We have to find Perchta and stop her,” I say. “How can we do that?”

“She and I have a long history, and we’re both members of the Wild Hunt, occupying the same world. If I’m at the house, I can contact her through the Void.”

“Then we’ll go back to the house. Both of us.” I hold his gaze. “We need a way to hold her there, and a way to give her to the Fae-hunters.”

“If I ignite my chains with geistfyre, they will hold her for a while,” he replies. “I can confine her in my bag. But she’d still be in ghost form, so the Fae-hunters wouldn’t be able to contain or destroy her. That’s the purview of the Wild Hunt. Our overseers usually bring down swift judgment when one of us breaks the rules, especially in such an egregious manner. And yet they’ve done nothing. Fuck!” He kicks a broken piece of stone, and it clatters across the dust-glazed tiles of the sanctuary. The echoes rattle from the floor all the way up to the blackened arch of the ceiling.

He’s upset because, despite what he claims, Perchta is his friend. I suppose she was beginning to be mine as well. But I’ve learned not to trust female friendships or rely on them. I tend to be suspicious of other women, cautious about allying with them or becoming attached to them. With a male, I’m more eager to become invested and entwined, to seek protection and stability. It’s because of my captor. It stems from the twisted relationship I had with him .

Sometimes I fear I’m clinging to Krael simply because I’ve been conditioned to adore and serve the dominant male in my sphere of existence. And perhaps that’s partly true. Yet in my relationship with Krael, there is a key difference.

With my kidnapper, I was always afraid of not being enough, of being rejected when I failed to perform flawlessly. I knew that my failure would lead to cruelty or death.

Krael sees my flaws and embraces them. He understands me in a way few people ever could. He wants what is truly best for me, even if it hurts him.

He was already in pain at the thought of our parting, and he’s hurting even more because of Perchta’s actions. Meanwhile the only feeling I can summon about Perchta is a faint regret that I let myself like her.

“I’m wrong inside,” I say quietly.

Krael doesn’t turn around, only scuffs his boot again. “So am I.”

“No, I mean… the way I see other women is twisted. The way I view men, too. I think it will take me some time to unravel it all and remake my mind as it should be.”

His shoulders stiffen beneath the heavy blue coat he’s wearing. “Yes. You need time on your own, with other humans. With your true family.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” I release a frustrated sigh. “Let’s get back to the house and deal with one problem at a time.”

“Very well.” His tone is dark and morose, with a hollow note of reckless despair. “Come here, then.”

A black chain snakes from his hand, coiling around my limbs and torso like a lithe snake. Krael yanks the chain, jerking me right up against his body.

“Your chains look like they’re made of iron,” I tell him, breathless .

“They’re made with a similar metal, but it’s from Faerie, and it’s safe for my kind.” He produces another chain and draws the geistfyre circle around us.

As the circle forms, a jarring pain grips my heart—a wretched, howling brokenness that doesn’t come from me, and yet belongs to me all the same.

It’s the house . The house is screaming.

As the gray room appears around us, a mighty gale of wind nearly slams us both flat. The house quakes violently, as if it’s being shaken by a giant. Its boards and beams are groaning, doors flapping and slamming, furniture tilting and tumbling across the floor. And the noise—it nearly deafens me. A great howling, wailing, groaning sound fills every chamber and corridor. The place feels as if it’s about to collapse.

“What the fuck?” roars Krael through the storm of dust and crashing furniture.

I’m already leaping over obstacles, making for the hallway. The Bahkauv is there, lending his bawls to the cacophony. I push past him and stagger down the corridor.

But it’s no use trying to get anywhere, not with walls shifting and floors tilting and boards heaving beneath my feet. I slide across a skewed hallway and slam into the wall so hard my head rings. I can taste coppery blood in the back of my throat.

Dropping to my knees, I splay both hands on the floor. “Enough,” I cry out. “I’m here. It’s alright.”

I sink into the part of my mind that I share with the house, where I can see a mental map of the whole place. What was once structured is now chaos, and the house can’t stand it. It’s in agony, and all the pain centers on one specific location—the library. Something is broken—something is very, very wrong.

“The Nexus,” I gasp out, as Krael crouches beside me. “I think Perchta was watching when I found it. She knows where it is…”

“Did she take it?” he asks .

“I’m not sure. But she did something terrible to it.” I stretch out to my full length on the undulating floor, with my cheek against the boards and my arms spread wide. “Hush,” I plead with the house. “I will help you, but you have to be calm. You have to breathe.”

Krael raises an eyebrow.

“Houses are people too,” I tell him.

He seems about to reply, but then he looks up, wonder flooding his expression. The rattling boards of the ceiling settle back into place, and the floor beneath us smooths out. The walls take on the proper angles. Though the wind still gusts through the corridors, it’s less violent.

“That’s it,” I murmur. “You’re going to be just fine.”

I close my eyes and imagine my heartbeat synchronizing with the house, my lungs carrying its air, my mind blending with its consciousness. I picture its doors closing, walls straightening, floors settling. A pulse of power booms through one of my heartbeats and spreads outward, an ever-widening ring of soothing energy.

“Fuck!” exclaims Krael in a low, strangled tone.

Curious, I lift my head just in time to see one of the gaps in the wall, which has existed since my first day in this house, seal itself over, like a wound being closed. Plaster and paint cover the bare wooden slats, rendering the wall perfectly seamless. Farther along the hallway, the same thing is happening in more places.

“Feather,” Krael murmurs, in a tone of cautious wonder. “You’re healing the house.”

“How?” I whisper.

“I have no fucking idea.”

Since the house seems stable for the moment, I climb cautiously to my feet and we continue on toward the library. When we enter it, I head straight for the shadowed aisle where I found the Nexus. The curtains of vines that covered it have been torn down, and there’s a hole in the lower globe of the hourglass. Green sand is leaking out of it, floating in a trail of luminescent crystals through the air.

“There’s no doubt now,” Krael mutters. “She murdered the children, and she used their blood and their souls to fuel herself for this one great effort—accessing the Nexus.”

“But she failed.” I inspect one of the cracks branching from the hole in the hourglass. “She wasn’t able to steal it.”

“She stole some of its sand, which gives her a way to siphon its power. She may have achieved her goal and gained corporeal form, at least for a time.”

I’m half-listening, because my focus is on the sand draining from the Nexus like blood from a wound. I have the strangest impulse to cup that drifting sand in my palm and seal my hand over the hole in the hourglass.

So I do it. I sweep my cupped palm through the air, collecting the sand, and I press it back into the hole. Another soft pulse of energy leaves my body, and when I withdraw my fingers, the glass is smooth again—unbroken, as if no one ever disturbed it.

I look at Krael, unable to hold back a huge smile. “I think it’s fair to say that this house is mine now.”

But the voice that replies isn’t his. It’s deeper, more sonorous. “It seems so, indeed. And what, pray tell, is a human girl doing in the lair of the Krampus and his monsters?”

I turn to see an impossibly tall man in golden armor striding along the library aisle toward us. His skin is pale green, and the locks of hair emerging from beneath his golden helmet are the rich color of emeralds. Muscles swell against the bands and bracers decorating his arms. His striking silver eyes send a chill through my body that’s both terror and admiration. I thought Krampus was frightening, but this Fae radiates a blazing power far beyond anything I’ve ever felt. This must be Nocturis, Krael's overseer .

“You two have been extremely naughty.” He looks at each of us, then points to Krael. “You took in a human woman and let her live in this house. Do you know how dangerous that is? Of course you do, and yet you did it anyway, because it pleased your fucking cock.”

He takes two more threatening steps forward, and Krael backs up, the whites of his eyes darkening as his pupils spark red. It’s unsettling to see the mighty Krampus shrink before another being. I want to defend him, but I sense that my interference might make things worse, so I remain still and quiet, my shoulders rounded, my head bowed. Making myself as small as I can. Preparing to flee if necessary—though running from this emissary of the Wild Hunt would probably be the last and the stupidest thing I ever did.

“She begged for sanctuary, Nocturis,” Krael says. “And I didn’t fuck her… not for weeks. Not until she—”

“Begged?” Nocturis arches a dark green eyebrow. “Do you think I care about her desires? I only care about your selfish behavior, your inability to see clearly, and your refusal to focus solely on your task. You’re a disgrace to the Hunt, a rebel against the god-star, and a disappointment to me. Your punishment will be swift and sure—”

“No!” The cry leaps from my mouth.

Slowly Nocturis turns and looks at me. His silver eyes are like swords, slicing into my very thoughts.

I swallow hard and manage to say, “Everything Krael says is true. I pleaded for sanctuary, I bonded with the house, I begged him to fuck me. I’m the one who showed Perchta how to find the Nexus. I’m responsible for all of it.”

“Perchta?” His eyes narrow.

“She damaged the Nexus, but I repaired it.” Words stumble over my tongue. “Krael thinks she’s been killing children, using their blood to fuel her power so she would be able to interact with the Nexus. ”

Nocturis’s stare is unreadable, so intense that sweat films the back of my neck. “Have you any proof of this?”

“Not yet. But it all fits. There’s no one else who could have entered here and damaged the Nexus. She’s been asking Krael to let her use its power so she could have corporeal form—”

Krael groans quietly and presses a hand to his forehead.

Nocturis whips his gaze back to Krael. “You did not report any of this.”

“Perchta is— was —a friend,” Krael says. “She already lost her chance at a Final Task, and I didn’t want her to be annihilated, simply because she was frustrated with her existence.”

“How kind of you,” sneers Nocturis, stalking closer. “And now, because of your foolish kindness, human children are dead. How do you feel about that? Perhaps it pleases you. Perhaps you aren’t so different from the heartless Krael of centuries ago, when you first took your place with the Hunt. Perhaps you have learned nothing .”

Krael has his back to a bookshelf and he remains there, his eyes sparkling with angry tears, while Nocturis looms over him.

“Would it give you pleasure to know how Perchta’s victims suffered?” Nocturis grabs Krael’s jaw and wrenches his face around so they’re nose to nose. “How she crept into each child’s bedroom, stuffed their mouths with their own socks so they couldn’t scream, then slit open their bellies, pulled out their entrails, and crammed handfuls of straw into the cavity? She sewed them up afterward. Big, clumsy stitches. Does that pleasure your murderous heart?”

I can’t bear the agony on Krael’s face. Scarlet fury explodes in my mind—not a red haze this time, but a murderous bonfire. With a guttural shriek, I leap at Nocturis, clawing at him, tugging at his armor, striking any part of him I can reach.

Calmly he turns, picks me up by the throat, and pins me to the bookshelves .

Krael roars, “Put her the fuck down!” and his body convulses, seams ripping as he transforms into his huge, muscled Krampus form.

“There you are.” Nocturis throws him a grin. “You can finally transform at will. Excellent.”

“Put. Her. Down,” snarls Krampus. “Or I’ll tear you apart, even if I go to the Void for it.”

Nocturis sets me down. I suck in a ragged breath and use it to exclaim, “You knew .”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nocturis replies.

“You knew about Perchta,” I challenge him. “You knew what she was doing. And you didn’t stop her.”

“You’re nearly correct. I didn’t know, at first. I’ve been rather occupied elsewhere and I failed to keep a close enough watch on her. When she damaged the Nexus, I was alerted, and then I saw it all—the murders and her rebellion. Unfortunately I didn’t catch it early enough to keep her from stealing the power—a problem that could have been avoided had you told me what she was asking of you.” He frowns at Krampus.

“I thought you could see the future,” Krampus growls, his tongue lashing out. “I remember you boasting of that once.”

“Only the possible futures related to a rider’s final task,” Nocturis answers. “I could not have foreseen Perchta becoming a torturer and murderer of children, or finding a way to take corporeal form. But those events have now transpired, which means you have your orders, Krampus. You will capture and destroy Perchta. After that, you will leave this region and go elsewhere.”

“I’m bonded to the house now,” I venture. “I can go with him.”

“Absolutely not,” Nocturis replies. “This place is for monsters, and you are human. You’ll return to your own kind, and Krampus will continue playing his role for the Wild Hunt.”

“But—the house— ”

“—will soon forget you,” Nocturis interrupts. “Distance will sever any flimsy ties that may have formed between you and this place. And if Krampus tries to defy this order and take you along, he will be annihilated, and we will find a more amenable monster to assume his role.”

My heart thunders violently in my chest, the hectic beat vibrating through my hot blood until I feel like I’m going to explode. I clench my fists, and the entire house shudders in a paroxysm of shared rage. “Fuck you.”

“Feather,” Krampus hisses warningly.

Nocturis glares down at me. “I beg your pardon?”

“ Fuck. You . You think you’re a purveyor of justice, but you’re a wicked tormentor, a power-hungry tyrant, and a cruel oppressor. I fucking despise you. I’ll only say this once—get out of my fucking house!”

The library quakes, every wall groaning, and with a ferocious boom like thunder, a hole appears in midair at the end of the aisle. Wind rushes into it with sucking force, and yet the only person affected is the tall overseer of the Wild Hunt. His silver eyes widen as he’s drawn toward the streaming void of the portal, dragged into it, and finally sucked through. His final cry of shock is cut off as the hole closes inward and disappears.

I’m not sure where the bastard went. He’s not in the house, though.

When I look at Krampus, he’s standing there, face hidden by the skull-mask, his jaw dropped in utter astonishment.

“Put your tongue away,” I tell him.

“What have you done?” he gasps.

“I made him leave.”

“You expelled a leader of the Wild Hunt from this house. He won’t forgive that.”

“Serves him right, I say.”

“There will be hell to pay, Feather. ”

“We’re going to pay either way,” I exclaim, my voice shrill with tears. “You heard what he said. I’m not allowed to come with you. They’ll kill you if I do. So I have to stay, because I would risk my life to join you, but I won’t risk yours . I’ll be miserable until the day I die, but at least you’ll be alive, and… fuck this…”

I sink down onto the floor and lose myself in a storm of sobs.

The great, caped form of Krampus kneels beside me, and his huge arms close around my shoulders. He holds me for only a moment before he says, low and reluctant, “Perchta has physical form now, and I can see her location. She’s going to kill another child, Feather. I have to go.”

“Go then,” I say petulantly.

He doesn’t respond, only tightens his embrace briefly before letting me go and moving away. With my face buried in my knees, I listen to the clank of his chains and the rush of igniting geistfyre.

And afterward, silence.