27

I’ve been waiting in a cell beneath the Rothenfel Palace of Justice for hours now.

When I dragged Krampus’s bag from an alley up to the courthouse steps, chaos erupted. Guards surrounded me and brought me inside the building, where they checked the bag’s contents and discovered Perchta, bloodstained, wrapped in chains, wearing the goat-skull mask. Someone shouted, “Send for the Fae-hunters!” and they proceeded to hustle Perchta off to a cell with iron bars, one they had prepared for just such an occasion.

I was escorted to a confession room where the constable interviewed me. I told him the false tales—how Perchta kidnapped me years ago, how she forced me to work for her while she murdered innocent folk in various regions, including Visseland. How she sometimes took on a glamoured disguise and became the charming and devious “Lord Brandt.” How I managed to overcome her and trap her with her own magic.

The constable seemed convinced. And yet, when my tale was told, he ordered two men to take me to the prison at the rear of the courthouse and lock me in a cell.

With nothing else to do, I took the time to acquaint myself with the Palace of Justice. It’s a massive, imposing structure, one of the oldest buildings in Rothenfel. With my hands pressed to the stone floor, I can sense the parts of it that were constructed first, and the parts that were added later, like the prison wing at the back. I can feel the building’s stolid, uncompromising personality, entrenched in years of service to the city. But I sense its frustration, too. It was created to facilitate justice, yet too often justice has been twisted or circumvented beneath its roof.

The Palace of Justice despises the constable, the magistrate, and the other officials currently in charge, and when I press for reasons, images float into my mind. The constable groping one of the female guards, who doesn’t speak of it lest she lose her post. The magistrate taking bribes. Guards beating the prisoners. Harsher sentences issued to those who don’t have friends in high places. Brutal rape occurring among prisoners, with no action taken by the prison’s overseer. Sometimes the courthouse longs to collapse on top of them all, to crush them into silence the way they have silenced the innocent and the helpless. That, in its mind, would be true justice.

The longer I stay connected to the Palace of Justice, the more it awakens. It’s interested in me, curious about my abilities and desperate to communicate.

My cell opens onto a covered walkway which forms the perimeter of a large courtyard. I can see a platform in the courtyard’s center, complete with a gallows, a whipping post, a torture rack, and a chopping block. The jailhouse and the courtyard fall within the purview of the courthouse complex, but it’s like a diseased limb that the Palace of Justice would rather be rid of.

“There are things in my past that I’d like to forget, too,” I whisper, running my palm over the stone floor of my cell.

A flood of understanding surges from the building’s consciousness, and it shows me an image of my cell door opening, then a passage leading to a side exit from the prison wing. The courthouse would let me escape. But that isn’t part of the plan.

“I must wait here for my brother,” I reply softly. “But thank you.”

A low vibration rolls through the stone, and I smile, delighted that even here, I’ve formed a connection. I don’t even care that it’s not a human being. Buildings are intriguing, multifaceted entities, with history and personalities all their own. They deserve to be treated with respect.

Another vibration ripples beneath my palms, and I sense the courthouse’s approval of the sentiment.

But a voice shatters the connection. “What are you doing?”

I startle, snatching my hands from the floor like a guilty child. Nikkai stands before my cell, both hands tucked behind his back, surveying me with a slight frown.

“I was… I dropped something. I was looking for it.” I widen my eyes and give him my softest, most innocent look. “Never mind that. Everything will be alright now that you’re here!” I clasp my hands over my heart as if I’m overjoyed. “Did the constable tell you what happened?”

“He told me that the creature in chains is the Fae killer we’ve been looking for, and that she is somehow the redhaired Lord Brandt with whom you attended the mayor’s party.” He quirks an eyebrow .

“Perchta would sometimes glamour herself as male, yes. And she kept me in thrall. I had no choice about what I was doing.” I move toward him, clasping the bars of the cell. “Remember when I felt sick at the party? I had to leave, because you said something that penetrated the fog of my bespelled mind.”

“Is that so?” He’s eyeing me cautiously, suspicion heavy in his gaze.

I let tears well up in my eyes, blinking so the drops will cling to my lashes—a trick I used many times in the cabin. I lower my voice, making it weak, childish, and breathless. “The sister of yours, who was taken at age six… I was stolen from my family at age six. I remember the peddler with the wagon and the owl tattoo on his neck, the one who warned our family in vain. That peddler is another favorite disguise of the Fae who kept me captive.”

His eyes widen, and he steps back.

“I didn’t tell the constable that part,” I whisper. “But on the night of the party, I realized you must be my brother. My family. And that knowledge gave me the strength to finally break free from my captor. I found the recipe for a poison in one of her books, and I managed to cobble it together and put it into her food. Once she was immobilized, I used her own chains to bind her. And here she is, in your hands. You can ensure that the wicked one who has been plaguing this region does no more harm. And maybe, just maybe… you and I can be a family again. I would love to see our parents!”

He takes a step toward the bars. “What’s your name?”

“I don’t remember it.” I let my shoulders droop and my lower lip emerge in a sorrowful pout. “I wish I could, but I was so young, and my captor trained me to forget.”

That part is true. And though I’m a little curious about my original name, I prefer the one Krael gave me .

“Margaret,” says Nikkai, in a haunted tone. “Little Maggie, of the big brown eyes. I can see it now. You look like her.”

“I am her.” I look up at him pleadingly. “Your baby sister. And I need you, brother. I’ve been gone so long. I just want a home. Someone to keep me safe.”

He doesn’t look nearly as overjoyed as I thought he would. Surely, if what I’ve read about families is true, a brother should be ecstatic over the return of his long-lost sister. Yet Nikkai looks conflicted at best.

He glances over his shoulder at his companion, Abil, who is standing some distance away in front of another barred door. Though I can’t see inside that cell, I would guess that Abil is questioning Perchta.

Something isn’t right. Perhaps I overacted my part.

Or what if Perchta lied to us? What if she told a different story than the one Krael gave her to tell? What if she decided to betray us again?

I only saw her briefly when Krael released her from the bag to explain the plan. She seemed willing to go along with it all, eager for a chance to be a ghost again rather than be annihilated completely. In fact, she seemed so subdued, so repentant, that I felt sorry for her. Pity led me to trust her. Maybe that was a mistake.

Now that she’s here, what’s stopping her from telling the humans anything she likes? She’ll be executed and end up as a ghost either way. Why not fuck us over in the process?

“You are my brother,” I say quietly to Nikkai. “What drew us together at that party wasn’t romantic—it was something deeper. We share the same blood, the same family. We’re the same, you and I.”

“But we’re not the same.” When he turns back to face me, his brown eyes are emotionless, his features wooden. “You’ve been contaminated by evil. You were raised by the Fae, infused with their dreadful magic, poisoned by their words from a young age. I can’t take you back to our parents. Who knows what demented ideas have been implanted in your brain, what violent fits you might be prone to? I can’t do that to them. They’ve suffered enough—they don’t need a Fae-cursed daughter to care for in their old age.”

Cold claws of dread pierce my heart. “You’re saying I would be a danger to them. I promise I wouldn’t.”

“A danger, yes. But also a burden. Who will marry you now, after you’ve been corrupted by the Fae? You’ll be a spinster, lingering alone in the shadows, using up the resources our parents worked for their whole lives. When the Fae-cursed do return from their captivity, they are usually violent, lecherous, or mad. It’s not always readily apparent, but judging by the way you tried to seduce me the night of the party, you’re sex-obsessed, and likely mad as well.”

Violent. Lecherous. Mad .

The words hurt because they’re true. I was raised in a household of sudden violence, and I can be unexpectedly violent at times. I’m obsessed with sex, as long as it’s Krael doing the fucking. And my connection with buildings might be considered the result of an unhinged mind.

I certainly feel rather unhinged at the moment. Because I’m standing before my older brother, expecting to be welcomed into the family… and yet I’m being rejected because of the trauma that ripped me away from them. I’ve been soiled, so he doesn’t want me anymore. I’m broken, and he can’t be bothered to fix me.

I lean closer, my fingers tightening on the bars. “Please… I need my family. Where else can I go?”

He avoids my gaze. “Where you can’t do any further harm. Where we send all the Fae and the Fae-cursed.”

“To death,” I whisper. “You put them to death. You’re going to have me killed? ”

“The alternative is too risky. The Fae-cursed attract more Fae. They’re weak and volatile—they’re leeches, not contributing members of society. Our parents and siblings think you’ve been dead for years, and it’s kinder to let them continue believing that. I won’t cause them more pain.”

“But I’m your little sister,” I gasp.

He looks at me then, his gaze hard as stone. “Not the one I wanted.”

Then he turns on his heel and strides across the courtyard to join his fellow hunter.

I stagger backward until I hit the rear wall of my cell and I crumple to the floor. My mind whirls, unable to grasp what just happened.

Until now, my worst fear was that Nikkai might not believe me about our familial bond. But he does believe me. And like my captor in the cabin, he’s going to murder me for not being the perfect Little Sister he envisioned.

I’m ruined. I’m wrong. I’m a risk. I’ll disturb his family’s peace, burden his parents, traumatize everyone afresh. It’s better if I’m gone.

They were better off without me.

I stay frozen in that spot all night. I don’t eat the simple meal they pass through the cell door. I don’t sleep. I barely blink. I don’t respond when Abil and Nikkai come to my cell to tell me that Perchta did, in fact, betray me by telling a wildly different story from the confession she was supposed to make .

Of course she betrayed me. People always do. They’re fickle, self-serving worms. None of them deserve my trust or my affection.

I suppose by remaining in this frozen state I’m feeding the suspicion Nikkai has about me—that I’m a demented wretch corrupted by the Fae. I’m adding fuel to my own pyre. But I can’t bring myself to care. By this point, Krael is gone. Out of reach. He won’t know I’m dead until long after it happens. And even if he knew I was in danger, I doubt he’d defy his orders to save me.

I’m on my own.

At dawn, the gates to the prison yard are opened, and people from the city begin to trickle in, bringing stools, benches, or blankets. They arrange themselves in rows around the central platform. I don’t understand why they’ve come until I overhear a small boy crowing excitedly about the “execution of the Faeries” that he’ll get to see today. He and his mother claim seats right in front of my cell. They’re so close to the bars I could almost reach out and touch them.

A few men climb the platform to remove the chopping block and the whipping post from their stations. Then they coat the boards of the platform with some kind of black substance, and set up a different post instead, near which they pile bundles of sticks.

“That’s the stake where the Faerie will burn,” explains the mother of the boy. “The black stuff is to keep the fire from spreading.”

“I heard they’re burning two of the bastards today,” says a man nearby.

“Two whores ,” an old woman corrects him. “They’re both female. Though they say one used to take male form and fuck the young ladies of the region.” She shakes her bonneted head.

The mother of the boy covers her son’s ears and looks reproachfully at the old woman. “Please watch your language. ”

I stifle a snicker, absurdly amused by a mother who would bring her child to watch living things burn alive, then fuss about him hearing a couple rough words.

The day is gray and cold, and the people shiver under shawls and blankets while they wait for the spectacle they’ve come to see. I’m wearing a simple black dress and a cloak, and I should be chilly, but somehow the Palace of Justice has rerouted warmth from a distant fireplace through the stones of my cell, so I’m quite comfortable. I thank the courthouse by letting it fill my mind with its worst memories of injustice. It needs someone to listen, to understand.

Around mid-morning, a man in a slouchy cap winds his way through the crowd. A shallow box hangs around his neck by a thick strap, and in that box he carries steaming mugs of tea and cider which he sells to the chilled citizens. The aroma of cinnamon, hot herbal tea, and musky pipe smoke fills the air, but there’s an unshakeable stink of excrement, too, since each cell has no toilet, only a bucket in the corner. Perchta and I aren’t the only prisoners, by any means. I see faces pressed to the bars of almost every other cell along the outskirts of the courtyard. The other inmates are just as eager to watch us burn as the citizens are.

They take Perchta first. She still has corporeal form, though she’s looking a bit translucent around the edges. She’s no longer wearing the pendant with the green sand—they must have taken it from her. Its magic was nearly spent, anyway.

Except for her height and the pointed tips of her ears, she looks vulnerably human as they lead her up to the stake. Her long golden hair falls in wavy sheets, nearly touching her bare feet, and her blood-streaked white gown flutters in the icy wind.

Perhaps some of the children she killed did awful things. I can believe it, judging by what I’ve seen of their parents. But the evil wasn’t necessarily their fault. With time they could have learned better, done better… yet she didn’t give them a chance. Sh e had the power to end them, so she did. And they were helpless, because power is rarely given to the ones who truly need it.

I watch the hunters bind Perchta with chains of iron that make her scream. I watch them pile sticks around her. I watch the hunter Abil step forward, carrying a purple flame on a silver torch, and light the kindling.

I watch Perchta burn, knowing I will be next. And perhaps that is best, after all. Perhaps I should go where I can’t harm anyone else and where no one can hurt me. I can’t have Krael, or the house, or my monsters… and I can’t have my birth family. What else is there?

The purple fire set by the Fae-hunters must be magical, because Perchta’s execution is over within seconds. Her body turns gray, then explodes into ashes that drift down onto the crowd. Some of the women scream in disgust. The boy in front of my cell leaps to catch the falling flakes.

It’s over too quickly, and the crowd isn’t pleased. They wanted to watch skin blacken, eyes melt, flesh roast. They wanted more screams.

“Let’s have the next one!” bellows a man.

The courthouse workers appear again to set the stage for the next execution: mine.

“Are you just going to sit there?” whispers a voice by my ear.

Startled, I whip around and see the faintest wispy outline of Perchta, all golden and white, drifting in the shadowy corner of my cell. Glancing around, I determine that I must be the only one who can perceive her, at least for the moment.

“So you’re back,” I murmur. “That was quick.”

“Rebellious women never really die.” She gives me a ghostly smile. “In this universe of realms and magic and dimensions, there are countless possibilities. The real power, my darling, is the indomitable soul inside you. The will that simply refuses to yield. You and I both have that reckless, indestructible spirit.”

“And I should listen to you, after you betrayed me?”

She titters softly. “The story I told to these fools was never the important part. I knew, once I saw those two hunters, that they would have your life either way, by death or imprisonment. What I said to them didn’t matter.”

She’s right, though I detest admitting it, even to myself. “Still… I hate you for what you did to those children, and for cracking the Nexus, and for breaking my trust.”

“And I hate you for not being the friend I hoped you would be,” she retorts.

“Then why are you here at all?”

“It’s self-serving, really,” Perchta says. “I’d rather not be stuck haunting this one building for eternity. I have other plans. So if you don’t mind, it’s time for you to reach down into that rebellious little heart of yours, and do it .”

“Do what?”

She smiles. “Everything.”

And with that word, she fades into the stone.

Her voice rings in my mind even after she’s gone, like a Krampus bell reverberating through veils of death and time, growing ever louder.

I watched Perchta burn, just like I watched Mother and Wife die. Back then I sat still and quiet. I did not try to escape.

But this time…

This fucking time…

This time, I am done yielding to the will of men.

A low pulse of power throbs through my heart… echoes of the energy I felt when I touched the Nexus. I remember the way the hourglass necklace seared my chest, the way it seemed to melt inside me. In this moment, I’m more convinced than ever that its magic lies at my core, fueling and amplifying what I’ve always been able to do—which is everything .

The stone floor trembles beneath my hands.

And suddenly, I know what to do.

I fix one goal in my mind—to get out. To free myself of them all, forever. To crush anyone or anything in my way.

You were built for justice. I speak to the courthouse in my mind. And they used you for greed, for gain, for lust, for evil. This is the end of it all.

The Palace of Justice responds with an exultant groan and a shuddering quake that spurs cries of alarm from the crowd in the courtyard.

When I rise from the floor, the walls of my cell explode.

Stone and mortar and splintered wood fly outward as the prison self-destructs, cell after cell bursting apart, all around the perimeter of the courtyard. The stone floor beneath my feet lurches upward, buoying me higher, carrying me aloft on a gliding platform supported by the whirling shards and broken stone of the destroyed prison wing.

I have never soared so high in my life.

Below me, people are screaming, crouching in the debris or scrambling to get out of the courtyard. I glide through anyway, bruising and breaking them with the rumbling force of my passage.

Shrieks of “witch” and “Fae-cursed” pierce the air, but I am not the hungry, half-frozen girl who stumbled barefoot into a tavern, hoping for a welcome that never came. I do not care what they think of me.

Rising higher, I face the bulk of the courthouse. I’m still connected to it, linked by the whirlwind of rubble that uplifts the piece of stone floor on which I ride. I drop to one knee, slamming my palm to the chunk of stone, and with a thunderous implosion, the Palace of Justice crumbles, folding in on itself. Giant slabs of roof, great columns, thick walls, arched windows—everything tumbles inward as the oldest building in Rothenfel finds its justice at last. Clouds of smoke and dust billow upward into the gray sky.

As the courthouse collapses, my link to it falters. I ride the last wave of its energy over the rubble, down to the street.

“Thank you,” I whisper as its consciousness fades from mine.

As my feet touch the cobblestones, I shiver with the fresh burst of power that engulfs my body. I’m not sensing just one building now—I can feel all the structures flanking this street. Law offices, lenders, money-changers, counting houses, the mansions of the rich and the wicked, their places of business. I think of the Mayor’s mansion, of its gibbering hunger for the pain of living things.

A volcanic hatred erupts through my heart, and with it a surge of energy, like lava outflowing in rivulets, seeking out each structure. I pull the buildings to me, and they crack wide open, disgorging desks and carpets and paintings. Fireplaces collapse and set curtains aflame, windows burst into shimmering shards, and pieces of each destroyed structure rush to me, assembling themselves beneath me, lifting me even higher, forming a makeshift throne perched on long, jointed legs fashioned from debris.

I sink onto my new chair, three stories above the tiny people running along the street. They look so absurdly helpless that I want to laugh and cry at the same time. I feel no pity for them—all the people of this region ever did was reject me. Perhaps now they will learn some respect.

I’m not Little Sister anymore, nor am I the maid to Krampus. I’m the Queen of this city, gifted with the glorious power to crush everything they’ve ever built.

My long-legged throne strides down the street, and I summon more buildings, tearing pieces out of them to build my seat higher, larger, more secure, more imposing. I have two destinations in mind—first, the Mayor’s house, and then, the quarry where Krampus’s house resided. Krael has probably left already, but it’s the only place I want to go. My last point of connection to him.

By the time I reach the Mayor’s mansion, I’m riding a gigantic monster built from the debris of his city’s wealthiest district. The beast I’ve made is tall like Wolpertinger, hunched like the Bahkauv, with the Imp’s long, writhing tail and tentacled arms like Meerwunder. I ride on its head, my throne flanked by two gigantic, curved spikes of black metal, like Krampus’s horns. I grip them, using them to steer my monster.

The city’s guard is assembling now, emerging from side streets, trying to get their horses to approach my beast, to no avail. I have to laugh, because their little swords and axes are no match for me. Nor is their fire. If they set part of my monster alight, I discard the burning bit of wood or plaster and summon another piece to take its place. If they fire crossbows, I block the incoming missiles with bits of broken doors or pieces of wall.

For once in my life, I feel invincible. Strong as a queen. Powerful as a goddess.

I bring my monster to a halt before the Mayor’s mansion. It knows me. It remembers the taste of my pain, and what Krael and I did within its walls. It isn’t bonded to me like Krampus’s house, nor is it self-sacrificial like the courthouse. It wants to survive, and it trembles, trying to resist the pull of my will.

But this place feels like a locus of cruelty and greed, like the dark Nexus of Rothenfel, and I’m determined to bring it down. I focus all my mental powers on undoing its very foundations—but in that moment of intense focus, I forget to be aware of my surroundings.

I hear the singing whine of the arrow a second before it sinks into my left side, below my breast.

It didn’t touch my heart, but I know instantly that it sliced something vital. With a shriek I turn, glaring down, seeking the face of the one who shot me .

I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s my brother. He’s standing at the peak of a half-collapsed building, on a mountain of debris, bow in hand.

I suppose I proved him right, after all. Violent, twisted, mad. Too great a risk. Although if he’d been glad to see me, if he had accepted me and loved me, this would never have happened. He is the wicked one, not me.

Warm blood spills from the wound, soaking the side of my dress, and I think of Perchta in her tattered, bloodstained garments. I never did get to hear her whole story, how she came to be part of the Wild Hunt.

The power inside me quivers, flickering as my body begins to react to the wound—a mortal wound. My monster shudders beneath me, and its legs wobble. My heart throbs violently in my chest, a frantic series of beats before it slows down… slower… slower.

Everything I’ve collected, each column and shutter and floorboard, each door and brick and window-frame—it all collapses beneath me, and I’m left prone and gasping on top of a pile of rubble, with an arrow jutting from beneath my breast. The feather on the arrow is white, pure and pretty.

“Feather,” I whisper.

My left lung feels oddly heavy, and a trickle of salty blood runs from the corner of my mouth.

I’ve been ready to die for a long time. Ever since my first bleeding. I did everything I could to avoid it, but I don’t fear it now, especially since I got the chance to wreck this city first. I didn’t burn at the stake—I destroyed whole buildings, crafted a monster of my own, and rode it all the way to the Mayor’s mansion. It’s not exactly a victory, but it was glorious.

Rebellious women never truly die.

A snowflake touches my cheek, melting instantly, and I smile a little as I close my eyes .

A horrible, earsplitting, bone-cracking howl splits the air, and my eyes flash open again.

I know that dreadful howl.

Wolpertinger.

The screams of the citizens, which quieted when I fell, start afresh, and beneath their shrill notes I recognize the bawling cry of the Bahkauv, and then the sound of something with huge, heavy appendages, flopping and slithering and slurping. Meerwunder. The city guards yell, their voices rising high with terror.

I want to see what’s happening, but I can’t move. I stare up at the drifting snowflakes, pretending that each one that touches my skin is keeping me alive. I can stay awake for one more snowflake . And then one more after that. I can hold out a little longer, because unless I’m going mad and imagining it all, the monsters of the house have come to save me, and that means he is here too.

Steps crunch somewhere nearby, and a timber groans under a sudden weight. Something is climbing the pile of debris, working its way toward me. I think I hear the muffled tinkle of a sleigh bell.

Gritting my teeth, I manage to turn my head.

A hulking, horned shape is mounting the heap of rubble, dressed in a huge black cape whose ragged edges stream like dark smoke on the wind. He’s wearing another goat-skull mask and using a long, sturdy stick to help him climb higher on the mountain of broken buildings.

I try to speak. Blood bubbles from my mouth instead.

Krampus bends over me. “Don’t try to talk,” he says, low and tender. “Had a little fun without me, did you?”

I smile through the blood.

“Fucking humans,” he growls. “They deserve everything the beasts will do to them. ”

A few garbled words crawl from my lips. “You… didn’t leave.”

“I tried. The house wouldn’t budge. I went to check on the Nexus, and it was dead. All the light gone, the sand motionless. That’s when I realized the truth.” He leans closer, his long red hair brushing my cheek. “All its magic went into you. You are the Nexus. The new soul of the house. And I need to get you home, so you can heal.”

He bends to lift me, but a voice cries out, “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot her!”

My brother stands several paces away, having climbed the rubble from the opposite side. His dark eyes are wild, his teeth bared and clenched. He holds an arrow in place with his tattooed fingers, ready to fire at me.

Krampus straightens, a growl rumbling in his chest. “Nikkai Richter. We meet again.”

“I knew the killer wasn’t that golden-haired woman,” my brother says. “It was you .”

“She killed the children,” Krampus corrects him. “I did the rest. Well… most of it.”

“You stole our equipment.”

“We did. Your sister helped me. I take it your reunion did not go well?”

“She’s tainted. Ruined,” spits Nikkai. “Corrupted by Fae magic and madness. I wish she had died as a child, rather than becoming this… thing .”

“Turn your arrow on me, boy,” says Krampus darkly. “She’s dying anyway. Not much use threatening her. I supposed the arrowhead is made of iron, or at least iron-clad?”

“That’s right.” My brother narrows his eyes. “But you have some means to protect yourself against iron, do you not?”

“I did.” Krampus casts a sheepish glance down at me. “Unfortunately I lost the amulet somewhere. I had to leave my house quickly and didn’t have time to search for it. Your sister has tried to teach me to put things back where they belong… but I haven’t yet learned my lesson.”

“Let’s find out if you’re lying,” Nikkai grits out. But as he adjusts his aim, angling the bow toward Krampus, a storm of spiked chains burst from both of Krampus’s clawed hands, winding around my brother’s torso. The arrow flies, striking Krampus in the shoulder, and he roars with pain—yet he manages to keep a grip on the chains and constrict them around Nikkai’s body. My brother screams as the spikes bite deep into his flesh. He crashes onto the debris, flailing, struggling to break free.

Dizzily I drag myself halfway up, propped on my arms, so I can look him in the face. “Nikkai!” I shriek.

He stills for a moment, his eyes meeting mine.

“You didn’t look for me,” I rasp. “You let your hatred of the Fae cloud your mind until you couldn’t see the human evil that visited you every year and slept under your roof. All those years, I needed my family. And when you finally found me, you despised me for things beyond my control. How is that fair?”

There’s no flicker of guilt in his eyes, only rage and desperation. His arm twists in the chains, fingers reaching for his pocket—perhaps for some amulet or charm to defend himself.

Krampus looks over at me, and though he’s masked, I sense the question.

“Yes,” I whisper. “You can kill him now.”

But before Krampus can move, a tiny streak of fur flies through the air. The Imp’s rows of razor teeth gleam as he bounces all around Nikkai, slicing and dicing as he goes. Even though I turn away quickly, my brother’s blood still spatters my cheek. Large snowflakes drift into the slick wetness across my face.

Nikkai’s death feels like the end of a nightmare. I search for sadness within myself and find only vestiges of it. My real family was always a nebulous dream, anyway, and I’m not sorry to restore them to that state of vague non-existence. I have a new family now.

Krampus sways and falls beside me, grunting with pain, his claws fumbling with the arrow in his shoulder. Somehow he manages to produce one more chain and swing it in a circle around both of us. The geistfyre leaps up, and suddenly we’re back in the house, in the gray room. The transition has never felt more jarring, or more welcome.

The house greets us with a groan—half pleasure at our return, half agony when it realizes how injured we are. Strangely, the moment I’m within its walls, I feel stronger. Strong enough to seize the arrow between my ribs and yank it out. More blood gushes from the wound, and I hold my hand over it, pressing firmly.

“The monsters,” I say. “You set them free. They’ll kill so many people…”

“Serves them right,” he chokes out. “But don’t worry… our housemates will come back to the quarry soon. They are bound to the house. Can’t survive long outside it.”

I drag myself nearer to him and close my blood-slick fingers around the iron-tipped arrow in his shoulder. It’s lodged tighter than mine was, but with a scream of effort, I manage to pull it out. I roll onto my back, panting. “You fucking lost the amulet?”

“I’ll look for it later,” he promises, with a pained, rueful chuckle.

I can’t help a small laugh too, and it hurts. “What was that you once said, about Fae essences helping humans heal faster?”

“It’s a primal sort of magic, most effective when distilled in the form of consumable potions—which is beyond my skill,” he says. “But it can work in raw form, too, especially if there’s a strong connection between the human and the Fae.”

“So if I’m your mate…”

“Yes. It should work. Sex helps the Fae heal, and my cum, sweat, blood, and tears will help you heal. ”

“A messy business, and painful,” I breathe. “But perhaps we should get on with it, before we both die.”

“It’s only logical,” he replies.

I struggle out of my cloak and drag my skirts up to my waist, but it’s all I have strength to do before I fall back onto the floor, weak and panting. Debilitating as iron can be for him, his exposure was short-lived this time, so despite the pain, he can move. Without being asked, he takes the lead in our dance of survival.

He hasn’t transformed back into his Fae aspect yet, and watching his great cloaked form descend on top of me is a little terrifying. But I’m so elated to be back in the house that I scarcely mind the bulk and weight of him, or the ponderous heft of his huge Krampus cock as it settles between my legs. He growls when he encounters my underwear, and he rips them apart with his claws.

“No one touches this little cunt but me,” he rumbles, tracing a claw along the seam of my pussy.

“This is your little cunt,” I echo softly.

He doesn’t enter me right away, but braces himself on his good arm and rubs his giant cock over my pussy, again and again, while he grows thicker and harder. Wetness seeps from my body with each glide of his length, until I’m helplessly slick for him. With a violent groan of bliss and agony, he comes, spurting thick streams of cum across my bare skin.

He doesn’t wait to recover from his orgasm. He sweeps some of the cum into the arrow wound below my left breast, then spits into the wound as well. Finally, he slicks his fingers with his own blood and mixes that into the strange poultice he’s made for me.

“A three-fold application of Fae essence,” he says. “A powerful remedy.”

“Disgusting,” I whisper.

“I wish I knew a better way. ”

“Krael. I’m teasing.” I reach up and stroke the line of his jaw beneath the mask.

At my touch, he transforms, reverting back to his lithe, handsome self, and the first thing he does is slide his cock deep inside me. He’s still bleeding, crimson drops falling from his shoulder onto my breast, but I don’t care. I lie on the floor of my house, drawing strength from it and from him, watching his silky red hair sway and his beautiful face tighten with anguished bliss as he fucks me. When he comes again, I reach down and cup his perfect ass, drawing him deeper.

We lie tangled on the floor afterward, healing slowly, half-insensible, only conscious of each other, until a distant yowl stirs me out of my daze.

“That sounds like Wolpertinger,” I murmur, trying to figure out which limbs are Krael’s and which are mine.

“I’ll go and fetch him, and the others.” He gets to his feet, still a bit unsteady, but to my delight, the wound in his shoulder has nearly closed.

Without bothering to clothe himself, he summons a chain, draws a circle, and vanishes. I decide it’s best if I’m out of the way when they return, so I climb shakily to my feet and stumble over to a faded couch. In the moment, it’s the most comfortable piece of furniture I’ve ever collapsed on.

I peer down at the wound under my breast. From what I can see, it’s healing more rapidly than I dreamed it would.

“So I’m not going to die, after all,” I say aloud, and the house sends a pulse of joy from its being into mine.

I can’t help smiling. It’s a delicious feeling, being wanted—and strange, too, coming on the heels of my brother’s rejection, the bloodthirsty eagerness of the crowd in the prison, and the violent magic I tapped into at Perchta’s prompting. Too much has happened in the past few hours. My brain can scarcely contain it, or cope with it .

For now, all I need to know is that I am safe. I am quiet. I am lying in the gray room I know so well, on a couch with deep cushions, in peaceful silence. The house is with me, part of me. And my lover has gone to retrieve our monstrous housemates, of whom I’ve grown unexpectedly fond.

I won’t think about the future right now, about where we’ll have to move, and what the Wild Hunt will do to us, and how we’ll manage to stay together and stay alive. I will simply close my eyes, and rest.

For all of ten seconds. And then Krael reappears with a very irate Wolpertinger, who delivers an earsplitting howl before loping off to find one of his favorite passages to hide in.

Meerwunder comes next, and requires much persuasion to go back downstairs. Then the Bahkauv, who nuzzles up to me briefly before Krael shoos him off into the house.

The Imp is the last to return, riding on Krael’s shoulder. He leaps to the floor the moment they arrive and races over to me. His terrible little teeth are scarlet with blood, and his tail is drenched with it.

“I’ll boil some water so you can bathe,” I tell him, and he chitters with delight at the prospect.

But Krael says, “His bath can wait. I’m preparing yours first.”