Sick of Losing Soulmates

by mt-musings (Stillmarauding), Stillmarauding

Summary:

All Rosalind wanted was to escape her captors.

She hadn't meant to stumble upon Alucard's castle, nor infringe on his markedly thin hospitality. Still, she had little choice once he decided to take her in, set on nursing her back to health even though he seemed to find the very sight of her contemptible.

Are the castle walls enough to keep her past at bay? Or will she become yet another ghost wandering the crumbling halls?

Chapter 1: Prologue: To Dust

The woman knelt by the river in the shadow of a great willow, the wheat of her hair tied back with a red kerchief. Her tears had yet to subside, though they came silently now, the only sound her ragged breathing. In her arms she clutched a bundle, the small pale face of a babe peaking out from beneath the meticulously woven blanket. Its lips were blue, eyes firmly shut. It was small, even for a babe, small enough that it had never managed a breath.

There were a ring of stones surrounding the willow, each carefully chosen and maintained. Seven, all together, if you counted the the fresh hollow carved into the dirt. All stillborn babes, wrapped in shrouds meant to be their cradle blankets.

She had been sure that this time would mean joy, that finally they would be blessed with a living child, that the house would be full of gurgling laughter and sleepless nights, that she would finally know the joy of motherhood, instead of merely its cutting sorrow.

She brushed her fingers over the cheek of the child, biting her lip. It was better that Henrik was away, that he was spared yet another burial that should have been a christening.

She lay the child tenderly in the grave, hesitating a moment more to memorize the tiny face before pulling the blankets closed so the soil wouldn’t so readily spoil its face. The babe had been blonde, like their father, their round eyes the blue of newborns before their true color could take hold. She pushed the earth back into the hole gently, tucking it around as if it were nothing more that blankets on a winters night until there was no more pretending, just a mound of freshly pressed earth. She placed a stone at its head, this one white and veined and smoothed by centuries spent in the river not a hundred feet away. She tried to pray, but there were no words left, only the raw ache of her heart.

It was a while before she noticed the man, though he’d stood watching her grief for near a half hour. He stood just behind the willow itself, disguised more than was right by its shadow. He was tall and unnaturally thin, the lines of his jaw and cheekbones as sharp as the blade she kept hidden in her skirts. His black hair was overlong, tied back with a ribbon that matched the silk of his vest.  Still, he only stood and stared as if frozen to the spot, expression unreadable.

“How many have you thus planted?”

His voice wasn’t unkind. It was soft and carried the weight of sorrow in its deep baritone. She started, scrambling backwards, eyes wide. The man stepped forward, crouching next to the grave, long fingers sifting through the dirt. There was a wistfulness as he did so, a grief that somehow mirrored her own. Her scream caught in her throat as his eyes caught hers, eyes that were far too old for the face in which they were set. He seemed to search her face for something, his intensity freezing her in place before he turned back to the little grave, hand still sunk in the earth.

He murmured something, so low she couldn’t hear, before he stood, eyes still locked on the little plot of earth. She blinked and he was gone, a frigid wind whipping suddenly at her face from the east. She might’ve convinced herself that she’d imagined the whole thing, driven briefly mad by grief, if it hadn’t been for the muffled cries emanating from the soft earth below the white river stone.

She shook herself, darting forward as the cries stuttered, plunging her hands into the grave to tear away the dirt. She found the bundle, blankets covered in black earth and pulled them aside, away from the face she’d seared into her memory with the rest, the face that had been blue and lifeless when she’d buried it. Instead she found a squalling babe, pink-cheeked and covered in earth as if it’d had been bathed in it, its hair black as night.

The man watched from the other side of the river as the woman sobbed, clutching the screaming babe to her chest before darting back off towards the village, tearfully wiping away dirt from the little girl's face as she ran. His eyes trailed back to the open grave, his still dirt covered hand curling into a fist.

Chapter 2: Overture

Her shoes had torn through.

They were impractical things, silk slippers meant for little more than puttering about the shop, perhaps a stroll through the city gardens. Not that any of that mattered now.

Rosalind kept running, glancing back over her shoulder to catch sight of her pursuers, only to miss the sharp drop off in front of her. She tumbled down, her bound hands unable to brace against the impact, crying out as she landed in a heap, one leg splayed unnaturally to the side.

She swore, fighting the urge to vomit as she caught sight of her leg, of the sickening jut of the bone underneath her dirt-covered skin. There wasn’t pain yet and for that she was grateful—it meant that she could tear her eyes away from her broken leg, towards a sapling strong enough for her to use to drag herself back to her feet, to stumble forward until the pain made it impossible.

She only had to make it to the next village. Just far enough to find someone willing to help her, to hide her. She knew better than to hope they’d given up their search.

She had to keep moving.

She cried out as she forced herself to take a step forward and then another. Even in her shock the pain was beginning to seep in, great nauseating spikes of it with ever other step. Still, it was good, or at least she tried to convince herself. It meant that she was no longer lingered in that stinking caravan, that she’d finally pulled herself from the drug induced stupor they’d kept her trapped in the past fortnight. That she was free of the hands that struck her, that groped her in the night.

“This way! I think I heard the bitch.”

The voice sent her stumbling forward in renewed panic, ice flooding her veins. There was no room for anything but fear, primal gut-wrenching fear as she tore through the forest, branches and bramble tearing at her skin while she ran.

They were closer than she’d expected. She could hear them pushing through the underbrush, their voices carrying over the otherwise silent forest. They were gaining on her—how could they not with the way her leg had begun to refuse to bear weight? When the only reason she still managed to push forward was through pure force of will?

She tumbled to the ground, tripping as she reached a sudden clearing of trees that gave way to a soaring, gothic castle, its architecture impossible. It towered higher than any cathedral she’d ever seen, towers suspended in the air as if by thought alone.

This was it, her salvation. If she could only secure sanctuary inside, if only long enough for the thugs after her to pass along—

“There! I see her!”

She whipped around at the shout, only to see the leader of the group pointing a grubby finger her way, face ruddy with anger. She clawed forward, pushing herself up only to balk at the sight of two figures impaled in front of either side of the castle door. Even at a distance she could see the rot and corruption that had overtaken the bodies, left them barely recognizable as human.

Still, there were dead and could do her no harm, very much unlike the men that she knew were imagining the extent of harm they could manage to inflict. She forced herself forward, staggering up the steps and more-so falling against the door than anything else.

“Please! Please help me!” she cried, hands scrabbling across the wood of the door, in search of a latch, a handle—anything to put its wood between her and her captors.

She was ripped away, the cry torn from her lips as the leader grabbed her by the hair, his other arm locking around her waist. She clawed at his hands, trying to pull away only for him to pull her closer under she felt the sickening heat of his breath on her neck.

“There you are, pretty. You’ll be payin’ for that little stunt. Do you think the Master would mind you missing a couple o’ toes? Might stop you running.”

She howled, the sound feral and broken, her escape all for naught.

“Let me go! Let me—”

“Not a chance, what with the coin we’re getting’ for you.”

She screamed, trying desperately to tear free of his grip, fingers clawing at his face only to be crushed in his grip. She could hear the other catch up, the heaviness of their breath as they paused, whooping as she was through over their leader’s shoulder like nothing more than a sack of grain.

“Fuckin’ finally! I’m getting’ sick of this one’s shit.”

“You’re the one who didn’t think the bitch could run. High born ladies have soft feet my ass! I told you we should have tied her feet after the last time!”

She glared at the two lackeys, one of whom looked barely out of his teens, the other hunched and pock-marked. The younger one seemed to enjoy the sight of her pain, grinning as her arm was twisted behind her back until she yelped, immobilized by the pain. He laughed as her arm way pulled harder still, until she felt something pop. She screamed in agony, tears streaming down her face.

“They said we had to get you there alive. Ain’t nobody said you had to be in one piece.”

She choked back a sob of terror as the younger one pulled a knife from his belt, grinning as he proffered it to the man holding her.

There was a flash of silver and the blade fell, followed by the man, his tunic splashed with crimson. A second flash and the second fell, a pool of red spreading beneath his still form.

A man walked slowly out from the wood, golden waves gleaming in the sunlight. He carried a simple woven basket of freshly gathered food, his face twisted into an expression of extreme dislike. Next to him hovered a longsword, its tip pointed toward the last man who pulled her in front of him like a shield.

“I’ll have you know that I do not suffer trespassers,” the blond man said in a voice that sounded more bored than anything.

“Stay back! You wouldn’t want me to hurt the girl, would you?” The man edged to the side of the blond man, careful to keep himself shielded by her. The blond man only raised an eyebrow, stepping forward with a predator-like intensity.

“Oh? And what’s to stop me from simply running the pair of you through?”

The thug floundered, eyes wide as he stammered. The girl merely stared down the stranger, eyes blazing even as she still fought off the man’s grasp.

“Do it then. It would be a kindness, if only it ensures he rots.”

“Shut up you little bi—”

She gasped as crimson splattered the side of her face, at the sudden loosening of the arms that held her captive, off-balance and contorted against his body. She fell to the stone, pinned by the bleeding corpse of her tormentor.

She watched the blond man sigh before shifting his gaze to her. Her was beautiful—pale and golden-eyed, wearing but a simple white shirt and dark trousers, hardly what she’d have expected of someone so expertly wielding an enchanted blade.

“Th-thank you,” she stammered, words marred by panic. The man’s harsh expression faltered and he stepped forward, shoving the corpse off her. He stared a moment, taking in the cuts and bruises that marred her skin, the awkward angle of her tibia. She recoiled as he stooped to examine it more closely, as much as she could with her hands still bound.

He swore, pinching his eyes shut for just a moment before scooping her into her arms as if she weighed no more than the basket he still carried.

“Sir? What are you—I thank you but please—”

“Your leg needs to be reset and I’ll wager your shoulder as well. I have some knowledge in the area.”

He pushed into the castle with ease, as if it had simply been left unlatched, as if her entire body weight hadn’t failed to move it an inch. She began to hyperventilate as they entered the soaring entrance hall of the castle. She looked up at the man, his profile looking as if cut from the finest marble, eyes golden like the sweetest honey, and she fixated on the blood on his cheek, still a bright, garish red.

Rosalind couldn’t help but wonder if he was, in fact, her savior, or if she’d merely found a gilded cage against which to beat her wings.

 

---

 

Alucard glanced down at the woman in his arms as her head lolled to his shoulder, eyes fluttering shut. He wasn’t surprised to see her faint, rather that she had held on as long as she had. She was covered in blood, more than could simply be from the man who had held her. Her dress was torn, hem gone, one arm torn partially free, revealing deep bruising.

He wondered what had happened to her, what abject cruelty had left her to beg for death by his hand at his door. He pushed into one of the guest rooms, lying her on top of the bed. She looked like a crumpled doll, broken and forgotten.

He tore through her restraints with one hand, swearing under his breath.

This was the last thing he needed right now, another wayward human taken into his halls. How long before this one was to betray him, just as Taka and Sumi? Of course, he couldn’t just toss her out, not with her leg broken to the point that it was visible under the skin of her slender calf.

He shook his head, disgusted with himself. What would his mother say if she knew he was considering leaving a helpless, injured woman to her fate? Would she be shocked at the cruelty that had taken root in his heart? He ducked out of the room as if he could leave the thoughts behind, gathering the supplies he would need from his mother’s study.

 The woman hadn’t moved by the time he returned. She looked smaller, somehow, even though she was taller than most women he’d met. Much taller than Sypha. Much thinner as well. He wondered if those men had been starving her. It would certainly account for her fragility.

She woke only once as he cleaned and dressed her wounds, and only for a moment. She bolted upright as he set her leg, swearing colorfully in at least two languages other than the one she’d begged for death in before falling, once more, limp to the pillows.

A mystery then. Clearly an educated woman wearing the torn rags of what used to have been a simple, but well-constructed silk dress. Perhaps of merchant class then. What ‘master’ had the brigands been bringing her to? What price did she carry to warrant such harsh treatment?

It was hours before he’d finished treating her wounds, binding them as his mother had taught him. Most would heal with only faint scarring, though the rest—he wasn’t sure he’d be able to prevent lasting remnants. Perhaps with diligent rehabilitation she’d manage to avoid a limp, but he wouldn’t even know the scope of the damage to her shoulder until she woke up. In the meantime he could only ensure that she was propped up in bed in a way that kept her from further aggravating her injuries.

He sat back, surveying her properly for the first time since rushing her inside. He couldn’t deny, now that she was clean and lying peacefully in bed, changed out for her bloodied clothes for a simple nightgown he’d found in one of the other abandoned rooms, that she was pretty. Odd, in her coloring for sure, but her features were soft under her bruises, her eyes large and thick lashed. Still there was something nearly unsettling about the color of her hair, the color of spun silver under the dirt and the mud he’d been able to wipe free. Silver, and not white or blonde.

He tucked her into the bed, careful of her leg and the pillows he had stacked underneath to raise it. He took a step back warily. He couldn’t let his pity for the poor creature make him drop his guard. As soon as she was able to leave, he’d send her on her way.

At least he was fairly sure she was incapable of trying to murder him in the night.

Chapter 3: First Impressions, Second Meetings

Rosalind awoke slowly, blearily, her head pounding dully. Her mouth felt as if it had been filled with sand and every inch of her body ached with a demanding intensity, though none perhaps as much as her leg. She sat up, tearing away the blankets to reveal the splint that had been fastened to the break, wrapped tightly in place with clean linen strips. She prodded it lightly, only to recoil and hiss at the flare of pain, enough that she only took a cursory stock of the rest of her injuries. They too had been treated and her blood and dirt stained clothes removed in favor of a linen nightgown. She pushed back the thoughts of a stranger touching her, unbidden—it wasn’t the worst thing to happen to her in the past weeks, not by a long shot. After all, modesty meant nothing if she were dead.

She sat back, surveying the room. There was little more than the grey stone walls, crimson curtains in a rich velvet, and four poster bed.

Still in the castle then. Unless of course the bishops had lied to her and pain truly did exist in heaven.

Or she was in a particularly cozy corner of hell.

She swung herself gingerly out of bed, balancing on her good foot as she looked for shoes—sure, hers had been worn through and filthy, but they were far superior to wandering the wilderness barefoot. They were missing, along with the rest of her ruined clothes, no doubt disposed of while she lay unconscious.

She’d be a fool to trust the hospitality of a stranger, much less a stranger with a magical blade, living in a mysterious, physics-defying castle in the middle of a ruined manor. A stranger who staked rotting corpses on either side of his door.

There was no telling how such a stranger would expect to be repaid. No, it was better to escape back into the wood, to run and keep running until she was worlds away from the nightmare that had overtaken her life.

She tried to take a step forward on her broken leg, only to cry out as it gave way beneath her, the pain of the action leaving black spots behind her eyes. She crumpled in a heap on the cool stone, striking it with her uninjured hand for good measure.

“Damnit! Damnit all!” she hissed, pressing back so that she slumped against the bed post. She could feel the sting of tears threatening to overflow and the injustice of it all, the nauseating pain—

What was it that they said about the best laid plans?

“You’re awake.”

She started at the sound of the man’s voice from the door, wondering how she’d missed the sound of his approach. He looked much the same as he had striding out of the forest, though he carried a tray instead of his basket. He looked rather surprised, though she was unsure if it was due to her place on the stone floor or that she’d regained consciousness.

The man set the tray atop the small bedside table and stooped, lifting her gingerly so that she once more perched on the bed. She stiffened at his touch, every fiber of her being screaming at her to push him away, to run, run fast and run far. That he was too close, that it would be too easy for him to hurt her.

“I do not intend you harm. It would render my work of the last four days rather useless.”

Four days. She’d been unconscious four whole days? She wondered if it had been her injuries that had kept her asleep or if he’d done so through chemical means, like the men had in the caravan. She bit her lip, fighting back the words that wished to tumble past her lips, brash and accusatory. It would be stupid to invoke his ire, even stupider when she had no idea the swiftness of his temper, nor his intentions in keeping her.

“Can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up?” he asked, splaying his slender hand.

“Fingers or digits?”

She immediately looked down, making a face. Why had she not simply just said five? Why did she feel the need to be so blisteringly precise all the time?

The man cocked his eyebrow. “Pardon?”

“Five,” she replied, too quickly, as she dropped her eyes to the linen of the bedding. “F-five. Four and the thumb. I’m not sure if it’s counted as a finger in Wallachia.”

He gave her an odd, nearly bemused look.

“Technically it’s not. I take it you’re not native to Wallachia then.”

“N-no. My mother was.”

He nodded to himself, crossing to where he’d left the tray. She watched him like a hawk, trying desperately to calm the racing of her heart. So far he’d given her no sign that he wished her harm, no indication that he was plotting to lop off her toes and sell her to the highest bidder. Still, that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t and she knew from her limited experience that men liked her conscious for their torment. She couldn’t stop herself from wondering if the two staked out front had been alive for their fate, if he had reveled in their slow, agonizing deaths—

“I have to change your bandages and see how you’re healing.”

“I thought you didn’t suffer trespassers.” She blurted out the words before she could stop herself, curling away as she awaited the blow that was sure to follow such insolence.

He froze, a frown drawing across his pale features.

“I’m sorry! I mean to say thank you, a thousand thanks, I just—surely I’ve imposed on your hospitality long enough. If you would only point me north—”

“You would not survive the night beyond the castle walls. I’d wager you didn’t make it a step before you fell.”

She was silent, avoiding his gaze. He was right, after all. She’d be forced to reman bed-bound in his castle. His strangely empty castle.

“Will you allow me to treat your injuries?”

She froze, eyeing him warily. He’d asked her, not told, as if she were a person and not the wretched thing she’d grown used to being in the weeks spent in the filthy caravan. She wanted to think it kindness, decency, but she thought it might just as soon be a trick, something to lull her into a sense of security, of familiarity, to put her off her guard, to make it that much easier to cage and torment her. 

She wanted to believe it was kindness. 

She took a shuddering breath and nodded, staring up at the ceiling rather than meeting his piercing gaze. She knew that he was right, that her injuries needed careful treatment, but part of her would rather have let it all fester, let the fever take her rather than be made even more vulnerable in front of this man.

She jumped as his fingertips prodded gently at her shoulder, swallowing back her whimper. She hadn’t realized he’d gotten that close.

“Did that hurt?”

She shook her head. “Not much. It’s just tender.”

“I’m sorry for frightening you.”

“I—” she began, but broke off, unsure of what to say. She felt guilty lying after he had apologized, offered her some small kindness. The sort of kindness that nearly made her feel human again.

“I’m easily frightened,” she settled on, daring to meet his gaze as he swept a wet cloth over the cut on her cheek. He huffed, something that might have been a laugh had it contained any humor.

They remained in silence while he worked, broken only by her occasional hisses of pain as he prodded bruises and checked the state of their healing. She hadn’t realized the extent of them all, not with the adrenaline that had been coursing through her veins.

He took particular time with the lacerations on her wrists from the ropes that bound them. They’d grown infected over the weeks spent in the caravan, the skin surrounding the wounds red and hot to the touch. He applied a poultice to each before wrapping them in clean linen strips, careful not to wind too tightly.

“Could—may I know your name?”

He paused a moment before answering.

“Alucard.”

“Alucard,” she repeated, wondering if it were some sort of traditional Wallachian name. Somehow she doubted it.

“And yours?”

“Rosalind.” She gave it freely, the syllables almost bitter on her tongue. When was the last time she had been called by her name, called something other than ‘bitch’ or ‘girl’?

She fell back into silence as she watched Alucard’s hands as he meticulously adjusted the dressings on her wrists, making sure the tension was just so, that the poultice wasn’t leaking through the cloth. They were long and delicate and cool to the touch, cool enough to make her wonder if she was still feverish.

She wondered how he’d mastered so much of the art of healing, what with those soft, delicate hands. Working hands weren’t soft—she’d only have to look at her own to know that. She too had long fingers, but the were lithe and calloused from years of stitching and binding, marred by silvered scars of cuts and burns. He had the hands of a scholar, hands like the university men that she’d see studying at the oaken tables of the libraries or placing frenzied orders from her father.

He finally finished, scooping up the pile of soiled bandages and tossing them onto the tray before standing and disappearing out of the bedroom without another word.

She didn’t think that he liked her very much. Of course, she supposed there wasn’t much for him to like, what with her dropping into his peaceful, corpse-guarded life unannounced.

She settled back against the pillows he’d propped her up against, eyelids already feeling far heavier than they had any right. She wondered when she would wake up next, if it would be after normal amount of time or in several more days, or indeed if she’d wake up at all.

She still knew nothing of this man—Alucard—nor of this castle or the wood, or indeed the magic that he possessed. Magic that days ago you would have scoffed at, called superstition and fear mongering of the Church. But then again, if there truly was magic in the world, perhaps it would explain the peculiar occurrences the last few months, perhaps even the motivation for her kidnapping.

She started at the reentry of Alucard, this time carrying a steaming bowl.

“It’s not much, but I’m not sure what your stomach can handle at the moment.” He set it on the bedside table, eyeing her as if biting back questions. Then he simply nodded to himself, clasping his hands behind his back.

“Call out if you are in need of anything.”

He disappeared once more before she could so much as thank him.

 

---

 

Rosalind. An odd name for an even odder young woman.

No, the last thing he needed was to find her interesting. He needed her to heal so she could leave. There was no point in opening up to humans, not after last time—

He’d wager she’d agree.

If he hadn’t already killed those men he’d be out hunting them right now, would never have graced them with such swift, merciful deaths. She had weeks of injuries, bruises of all different colors, some from beatings, some...not. The way she flinched at his slightest movement, the way she tensed at even his lightest touch—how long had it been since she’d know the touch of a kind hand?

Then again, how long had it been since he?

He still didn’t know why they’d even been holding her. He’d heard them speak of delivering her to someone, but to whom he had no idea. Who would pay for a beaten, terrified girl?

It would be easy to despise humans, what with their seemingly limitless cruelty. Terribly easy, but—it wasn’t what his mother would have wanted. He knew that. Knew that she would have urged him to find the good, to stay firm in his idealism.

But where had that gotten them? Both betrayed, both alone. No, it was better to keep a safe distance.

Chapter 4: Stubborn

The next time she awoke to dawn’s light just beginning to filter through her window. The empty bowl she’d left on the bedside table was gone. Alucard must have taken it while she’d been asleep.

Rosalind glanced about the room. It looked much the same as before—just the bed and the small table beside it, a carved wardrobe pushed against the wall opposite. She listened for footsteps before pulling open the drawer of the bedside table, searching for something, anything, to occupy her mind.

She wasn’t used to sitting idle. There had always been so much to do, whether it was helping fulfill orders at the shop or pouring over her studies, she’d always been doing something. And now she had nothing else to do but lay back against the pillows and try to force back the memories of her captivity.

She turned listlessly over, swearing when it tore at her injured shoulder.

Days passed in much the same manner. She lay in bed, unable to take even a step, though she’d tried again since her disastrous first attempt. Each time the man, Alucard, found her sprawled upon the floor ad each time he lifted her back into bed, chastising her for being so foolish.

She’d grown so lonely that these fleeting visits had become the highlight of her day, even if they only traded barbs. She guessed that perhaps he was lonely too, something in those golden eyes that told her that, maybe, they weren’t all that different.

Still, it did little good to ruminate on how to cure the loneliness of a man who seemed to despise the sight of her, especially with more pressing matters at hand.

Like getting out of the castle and as far from Wallachia as she could manage.

Something terrible was coming, something she could feel in the marrow of her bones. Something dark and reeking of decay, something that sought only ruination—starting with her.

She wondered if she should tell Alucard of her suspicions, or at least of the circumstances that had led to her bloodied and beaten on his doorstep. Perhaps he was her best chance at making sense of it all for herself—after all, it wasn’t as if she’d met many trained in blade telekinesis. Not in Gresit, anyway. Nor Vienna.

Perhaps he was more skilled in magic than he let on. Perhaps he could tell her whatever it was that was happening to her. But then again, it was just as likely that he’d simply view her as an asset, a weapon, just as whatever Master of the men who had captured her.

She threw off the blankets, careful to avoid looking at the mottled bruising covering her skin or the cumbersome brace that was currently all that was holding her leg together in one piece.

She couldn’t stay.

Not with the creeping dread taking hold of her heart. Alucard might have been convinced that he hated her for the accident of her arrival, but she’d rather not drag whatever malice was tracking her onto his doorstep.

He deserved at least that for saving her.

 

---

 

Hell, she was stubborn.

He put his book down as he heard her swear under her breath, followed by the distinct sound of her landing in a heap in the hall.  The only other person that he’d met that cursed so colorfully was Trevor.

Perhaps she too was an idiot.

He stood, taking his time. If she wanted to leave so badly perhaps he should just open the door and let the night creatures have their way with her. Of course, his mother would berate him for even voicing such a thought.

‘If she wants to leave so badly than it because you have been such a poor host, my son. Have you no compassion to her plight?’

He made a face, crossing to the door. His mother was so selflessly compassionate—how she could ever expect him to live up to her example was beyond him.

He rounded the corner, spotting her in a tangled heap on the stone floor, broken leg cocked to the side at what had to be an uncomfortable angle. She’d gotten farther than he’d first guessed, far enough that she had her face pressed between the bars of the railing that surrounded the hall. She looked down over the entranceway, her eyes cataloguing the patterns of the tiles, the patterns of dust swirling lightly over their surface.

“Have you finally convinced yourself of your limitations?”

She didn’t look up at him, merely sighed in resignation.

“Could you just leave me here, just for a while?”

“You’ll catch your death—”

“Then so be it, as long as it is not in that room.” Her voice was sharp, sharp in the way of someone who meant exactly what they had said. He gave her a look before turning on his heel. He heard her murmur to herself as he turned the corner. Something about being too daft to watch her tongue.

He pulled open one of the many linen closets, pulling several blankets from inside before ducking into one of the bedrooms he knew had been occupied by one of his father’s generals. He dug through the wardrobe, looking for a dressing gown. If she truly wished to try his patience, she could at least be dressed for it.

Besides, there was a part of him that realized how terribly bored she had to be, staring at the same ceiling for over a week. Perhaps he could see if there was anything in the library she might enjoy. His parents had been rather fond of novels on occasion.

That was the sort of thing young ladies enjoyed, wasn’t it?

It wouldn’t be so hard if he had a base understanding of how other humans his age behaved. Truly he could look only to his friendship with Trevor and Sypha, both of whom—

Perhaps all humans were inherently stubborn.

He pulled a dressing gown and thick woolen socks from the wardrobe, tossing them atop the blankets. Even if it was only his own guilt voiced by the ghost of his mother, she was right. He had been a poor host. There were ways to remedy that while still keeping her at arm’s length. At least while she posed no threat.

Perhaps then she would stop begging him for death.

 

---

 

Rosalind looked up to see Alucard once more approaching, this time with his arms laden with blankets. He looked away as he offered her a dressing gown, a thick woolen thing with such intricate embroidery that she merely stared at it, a finger tracing absently over the thread.

“It’ll do you no good like that,” he said, taking it back only to place it over her shoulders before stooping to smooth out one of the thicker blankets across the stone floor. Her eyes flickered to his after a moment, almost in a daze.

“It reminded me of my mother.”

“Oh? Was she also prone to lying about in her nightwear?”

She gave him a dirty look, though the effect was marred by the shock of his hands gently scooping her onto the blanket.

“Not quite. She embroidered many pieces for fine ladies and gentlemen. She was rather well known for it.”

“Was?”

“She’s dead, as is my father.”

“Oh. I’m very sorry.”

She was surprised she believed him. She watched him settle next to her on the blanket, on the opposite side so it left nearly a foot between them. He toyed with the corner of one of the other blankets that lay in a neat stack on the ground, lips pursed, before finally handing it to her, eyes glued to the floor below.

“That is a pain we share.”

She stared down at the blanket, unsure of what to say. It was such a visceral pain that they shared and yet—they were hardly more than strangers.

She knew there were no words that could comfort such a loss, no platitude to ease the raggedness of the wound left. There was only moving forward and learning how to live with the pieces missing.

“You speak with wisdom beyond your years.”

She froze, cheeks coloring. She hadn’t realized she’d begun to speak out loud. She must be going mad from lack of human contact.

“It is merely the bitterness of experience.”

He laughed at that, a short, sudden burst that almost made her smile. She hesitated a long time before continuing.

“I lost my mother when I was ten. I’ve had plenty of it. I—I’m sorry that you’ve lost your own mother. Fathers try their best but can never quite compare. Not when a piece of them dies with her.”

They sat in silence for a long time. She wondered if she’d made a grave mistake, pressing the issue. She turned back to staring out at the half destroyed entrance hall, at the neat piles of crushed stone and tile, the obvious paths that had been cleaned of whatever destruction had laid waste. She pretended to catch sight of far off lands in way the dust motes swirled in the shafts of light pouring from the narrow windows.

“Why did they take you?”

She bit her lip, unsure if she wanted to answer, never mind what she would say. If she shared her suspicions perhaps he could help her sort out exactly what was happening to her, maybe even how to stop it. Or he could just think her mad or dangerous or worst of all valuable.

Still, part of her believed the risk was worth it, if only to stop her from being forced to lament in deafening silence in that room once more.

“I—I don’t know exactly. They kept me drugged for much of the journey, but—someone had paid them for me. They’d tell me just how much, more than you could make in five years.”

She broke off, dropping her gaze. It was as if she was back in the caravan with those men, like she could smell the stink of their sweat and the ale on their breath, feel the rough callouses of their hands digging into her skin.

“They like to remind me that he’d only specified they bring me alive, that intact and in one piece was just a bonus.”

She felt a sob rising in her throat and laughed, trying to force it back before she broke down in front of Alucard. She’d made sure that none of those men had seen her cry. The last thing she needed was him to think her weaker than he already did, for him to pity her more. She knew that was what was keeping her alive, what had moved him to intervene in the first place.

Damnable pity, the last thing she wished from anybody.

Pity wouldn’t bring back what she had lost, neither her mother or father, nor would it bring back the virtue or innocence stolen from her. It wouldn’t unbreak her bones or un-bruise her skin, wouldn’t knit back the lacerations that crisscrossed her emaciated form. It wouldn’t prevent the scars that were to come or protect her from the Master or the reaches of his ilk.

There was no use in pity, even if she was worthy of it.

 

---

 

She’d fallen asleep with her head propped up on one of the banisters. As if looking down at the entranceway was worth the discomfort.

He’d sighed as he’d picked her up, wondering how long it would take him to get her back to a reasonable weight. She was far too light.

He wasn’t sure how long they had sat in silence. She seemed perfectly content to stare listlessly at the tile below, even if her racing heart gave away her anxiety. Part of him wondered if she knew who he was, if her tales of orphaned woe were merely to lull him into a sense of comradery, of security at her presence. Wondered what she could hope to gain from his broken husk of the man he had been.

Part of him wanted to lie and reassure her than it would all be alright.

Because he knew the pain she had spoken of during her capture, the pain she had trying so desperately to hide behind humorless laughter—that pain was all too real and something he understood all too well.

Perhaps he’d be just as stubborn if he’d been left at the utter mercy of a stranger after having any agency torn from his grasp. Perhaps he too would tremble at the slightest brush of skin against skin, waiting for the next blow.

He wondered absently what he would have been like, had she arrived on his doorstep before Taka and Sumi. Had she not arrived at the home of a man freshly broken and betrayed. Would they have been friends, perhaps? Would she still have shuddered away from his touch?

Would it have bothered him more?

He laid her gently atop the bed, tucking the blankets securely around her. Perhaps if he wasn’t so standoffish she’d simply ask for his help about the castle, instead of tormenting herself.

He brushed aside a strand of hair that had fallen in her face, tucking it behind her ear as he watched her sleep, hand curling around the border of the dressing gown, clutching it closer to herself.

It reminded her of her mother.

He turned on his heel, closing the door to her room with a click. What would be the point of letting her in, even if it was only a little bit? She would leave as soon as she was able, sooner, if she knew what he really was.

What must she think him, anyway? Some sort of magician? Was she familiar with such people, was that the reason she didn’t question him about it, didn’t flinch at the sight of him wielding his blade? Or was she simply afraid to upset him, to anger him?

She had told him she was easily frightened, but he didn’t think that was quite it. At least not the whole story. He didn’t want to be another source of fear for her, even if she was only to be here as long as it took to heal.

Chapter 5: Darkened Memory

It had not been uncommon for Rosalind to travel with her father after her mother died. He was, after all, an extremely well-respected bookmaker, in between the time he spent lecturing at the University. It also wasn’t unusual for her to come downstairs for breakfast only to find him in the midst of frenzied packing for his newest adventure. 

She’d been lucky enough to visit many of the great courts of Europe, from that of Bohemia and Kalmar to Lithuania and her sometimes-childhood home of Wallachia. She was always eager to accompany him on these trips, to see all that the growing world had to offer. It was seldom that she was able to come along when her mother was still alive—she’d always kept such a close eye on her, never wanting her to stray far from their townhouse in Vienna, unless it was for the frequent family trips back to Gresit, the city of her mother’s birth. There she’d always had a modicum more freedom, even under the oppressive umbrella of the Church there. 

She couldn’t remember her family ever being all that religious, but she did remember spending every Sunday morning in Gresit packed into the cathedral with everyone else. Her mother would often tell her off for sneaking small treatises inside her bible to keep herself entertained while the priest droned on about all the reasons the lot of them were to be damned to hell. She’d always figured that should her fate be so certain, she might as well be well-informed before she went. Besides, she had often argued, how was she to know precisely which infernal circle to aim for if she was not permitted to finish Inferno ? 

She and her father had moved back the Gresit after her mother’s passing. Sentiment, her father said it was, but she always wondered if it were something more. He spent his days searching the city and the surrounding towns for old friends, sometimes gone for days at a time, leaving her alone to run the small shop they kept. Sometimes he would take her with him, introducing her to great scholars or important leaders, letting her sit beside him as they discussed politics and philosophy, neither of which held much interest for her. She’d taken an interest into the natural sciences, one that was roundly discouraged by most in the principality. 

Science, in Gresit, was the work of the devil. And women who perused any such knowledge were as soon to be burned as witches as they were to be laughed away.

It took her nearly three years of begging before her father finally agreed to return to Vienna. She was quite certain it was less her tired pleas than that of her near demise that prompted the move. Had she not fallen ill outside of Targovishte and had her father not found the good lady-doctor in his panic she doubted she’d have made it through the winter.

She remembered only flashes of being ill. Of waking up, feverish, to the feeling of a wet cloth being replaced over her forehead and a soothing female voice telling her to sleep. Of her father, hunched over her bedside, begging her not to follow her mother before him. Of an unfamiliar man’s voice speaking of iron and ley-lines as she felt as though she was being torn apart. Of voices in her head, telling her to follow, of deep grey eyes and clawed hands. Of black earth and the clinging chill of underground, of the way it made her bones ache. Of catching sight of herself in a glass only to find her reflection unfamiliar, her hair gone bright silver, her eyes more vibrant than she remembered. She remembered glaring at the scars left on her arms from her sickness, the scars from which she had been bled somehow thicker and more raised than any she had seen before.

Still, for months even after she returned home to Vienna she awoke in terror, convinced that she was once more locked in the dark horror of her strange illness. Her father took her to yet another doctor, though this one merely prescribed enough valerian root, thyme, and juniper to stop her dreaming all together.

It was only since she’d been taken that the dreams had started once again.

Dreams of darkness and muddled voices, dreams that she’d awake from bloodied and aching. Dreams that she could never quite remember, no matter who hard she tried.

 

---

 

Rosalind awoke the next day with a hacking cough, doubling over in bed. She could feel something splatter against the palm she held against her mouth. She flipped her hand over, eyes wide as she spotted the speckled crimson.

It wasn’t the blood that worried her.

No, it was the clumps of soil that lay in it.

She collapsed in another fit of coughing, her body not allowing any time for her panic. She heard the door open and turned away, wiping what she could onto the lining of the dressing gown she still wore. She didn’t want to have to explain to Alucard that this wasn’t something new, or that it wasn’t the soil that worried her any longer, but the ever-increasing amount. She didn’t want to have to explain that it had begun the third night in the caravan, that she’d been so hysterical that the young man in charge of her had simply knocked her out with the pommel of his blade rather than listen.

She had thought, just maybe, that it would have all stopped, now that they were dead.

“Easy. Easy there, lets get you sat up.” She felt Alucard’s slender hands pulling her into a sitting position, pushing the curtain of her hair away from her face so he could get a better look at her.

She didn’t realize he’d been rubbing soothing circles into her back until her coughing finally subsided, leaving her heaving ragged breaths, and only then by his absence when he disappeared from the room. He returned carrying a large steaming bowl, a tea towel thrown over one shoulder. He set it on the beside table, dipping the towel into the water and wringing it out before turning back to look at her.

“Is this the first time you’ve coughed up blood?” he asked, voice softer than what she was used to. She shook her head, the room swimming nauseatingly around her.

“First time…here,” she wheezed, too weak to refuse him as he cleaned the crimson from her lips, her chin, her hands. His brow furrowed as he stared at the cloth.

“It’s darker than it should be. Have you been treated for any sort of clotting disorder in the past?”

“I don’t…I’m not sure.”

Her voice sounded like gravel, even to her own ears. She closed her eyes, curling in on herself as much as she was able to. She was suddenly so tired, too tired to even hold her head aloft. She heard footsteps retreating once more and for the first time she was glad to hear them go. She just wanted to sleep, to give in to the blackened nothingness.

It would be so easy to give in.

To give in to the lichen and the loam, give in to the whispers of the dark and damp.

She felt slender hands forcing her to sit up once more, a cup placed to her lips, tipping back something somehow both astringent and sickly sweet. She choked and the cup disappeared, only to be brought back once she’d settled.

“It’ll help. Just try and drink it.”

She gave a half-hearted hum of acknowledgement, doing her best not to choke again. It soothed the burn in her throat, enough that drawing breath was no longer an agony.

Enough to let her slip into blissful unconsciousness.

 

---

 

Alucard found himself hesitant to leave her bedside. While her breathing had evened out, it was still labored. He’d awoken to the hacking of her cough, something he’d first passed off as a simply human imposition. But when it hadn’t ceased he’d crossed to her room, still wrapping a robe around himself. Even now the first light of dawn was only just beginning to crest over the treetops.

He left only to plunder his mother’s study, looking for answers. He knew blood in the lungs should be bright, luridly red. For it to be a burgundy near-black was troubling, as was the consistency. It was thick, sluggishly so.

He thought a moment before dumping the stack of tomes into one of the armchairs by the fire and lugging it down to the woman’s room. It would be best to be close, he decided, should something else happen.

 

---

 

Rosalind awoke to the light sound of flipping pages.

For a moment she could almost believe that she had just fallen asleep in her father’s study, that the last few months were nothing more than a terrible, terrible dream. That when she opened her eyes she would find herself sprawled on the green sofa by the window, book still in hand as her father read at his mahogany desk. That he would turn and smile at her and chide her for sleeping through dinner, that he’d tell her he’d known cats that spent less time napping in the afternoon sun.

Instead she opened her eyes to find Alucard’s golden ones fixed on her, legs propped up on the side of the bed. He’d dragged an armchair into the room, a stack of leather-bound tomes sat next to it. He marked his place, moving to perch on the edge of the bed as he pressed the back of his hand to her forehead.

“Your temperature dropped while you were sleeping. It’s finally rising again.”

It was only then that she noticed the mounds of blankets that she’d been buried under, the dark pelts that were built up like a mountain atop her. She ran a hand over one absently.

“Thank you. You—you didn’t have to stay.”

“Think nothing of it. Are you hungry?”

She shook her head, the very thought of trying to choke anything down her throat repulsive. Alucard nodded.

“Later then. I brought a book I thought you might enjoy in the meantime. Something to amuse yourself with.”

“A book?” she repeated, feeling the whole of her face light up. How long had it last been since she’d been able to lose herself in paper and ink?

“You are aware of what they are, yes?”

“If I don’t say anything rude back could I please read it now?”

She could have sworn Alucard nearly smiled at that, passing her the narrow volume. She wasted no time in cracking into it, feeling almost as if a weight had been lifted from her chest. She was still bed-bound and had spent the better part of the early morning coughing up grave dirt from her lungs, but now, at least, she held a book.

She expected Alucard to slip out of the room, grateful that the time necessitated by her side was blissfully over. Instead he merely sat back in his chair, once more propping his feet up on the end of the bed and went back to reading. He only looked back up when she finished, watching her with a bemused expression as she paused a moment before flipping back to the beginning once more.

“Have you finished already?”

“It’s alright, I’ll just read it again if you don’t mind.”

“I—I can fetch you another volume, if you’d prefer. I hadn’t thought you’d finish nearly as quickly as you did.”

“I’d be a poor bookmaker if I wasn’t a fast reader.”

“A bookmaker?”

“My father ran a few small shops. One in Vienna, beneath our apartments and one in Gresit. He taught me. I was trying to keep the shop going after he passed. Who’s to say what’s become of it now.”

She looked down under the guise of flipping through pages only to hide the way she swallowed thickly, lip trembling. It was funny how something as simple as a book made her miss her father so much her heart felt as if it were trying to pull itself from her ribs.

“He was a good man, my father. He’d always wanted lots of children but him and my mother only ever could have me. But he never acted disappointed though. Never wished I’d been born a son—he used to tell me if I had I wouldn’t have been half so good at sewing the signatures together. Said it took clever hands to make books. And clever hands took a clever mind.”

She looked up to find Alucard staring at her and blushed. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be blabbering your ear off. I just get a bit…sentimental about books.”

“Don’t apologize. My—my father too valued knowledge, nearly above all.”

“Do you think they would have gotten along?”

Alucard laughed, taking her by surprise. “That I cannot say. My father was never the fondest of humans—”

“Humans?” she asked, brows furrowed. “What do you mean by that?”

Alucard sighed, pursing his lips. “My father was not human.”

“What else could he possibly be?” she asked, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. If this was Alucard’s way of trying to scare her, he was going about it the wrong way. 

“A vampire.”

She laughed.

“Are you trying to frighten me with crib tales?”

Alucard stared at her, looking rather dumbfounded. “So magic, you don’t bat an eye, but vampires—”

“Magic is but science not yet understood.”

“Magic is intent and it does act in a systematic fashion. And vampires, I can assure you, are very real.”

She stared at him a long moment. “If your father was a vampire, that would make you one as well and it would seem very counter intuitive to nurse back to health an annoying human when you could simply eat them without moral reservation.”

“You posit that there could be no moral repercussions in a vampire taking a human life?”

“If they were to exist than what would be the difference in their taking a human life than a wolf taking that of a deer?”

“Would not the ability to reason and empathize create a moral quandary?”

“By that right, wouldn’t it be a flawed system, since it holds a human code of ethics as paramount over other reasoning creatures? Especially if by introducing a more supreme apex predator it would then be by their system of morality that the so-called lesser beings would be judged?”

Alucard sighed, shaking his head. “My father would have liked you.”

“Your father, the vampire?”

“Yes, my father the vam—” he hissed at her, bearing his teeth. She leaned forward, taking notice of his unusually long incisors. Still, overlarge teeth could be accounted for in any number of ways ranging from birth defects to a climate-based adaptation. Couldn’t they?

Because if vampires were to exist than who was to say that demons didn’t, or werewolves, or strigas or any other type of dark creatures. Who was to say that there weren’t creatures that could drown her in dirt as she slept?

“Alucard, tell me now if you are lying to try and frighten me,” she said, doing her best to glare at him even though she knew her apprehension was clear. 

“I am not.”

“An—and you really are a vampire?”

“A dhampir, but for our purposes now, yes.”

She paused a moment as her mind whirred. “Well, I suppose if you were looking for a moral argument justifying your eating me, I’ve given you several.”

He just stared at her for a long moment, brows furrowed  

“I can assure you I’m not planning on eating you.”

“Well, don’t ruin the surprise. Besides, best to keep your options open,” she quipped.

It wasn’t exactly as if she could stop him—and from her experience, it seemed dhampirs were quite a bit more agreeable than wretched human men. He hadn’t pawed at her, or hit her, or ripped her clothes. He hadn’t drugged her, or beat her, or tied her up. No, he’d treated her wounds and fed her, offered her the occasional well-meaning verbal sparring match.

He stared at her for a long moment.

“You’re really not afraid of me?”

“I—I don’t think so. You’ve given me no reason to. Without you I am sure that death would have been the kindest thing bestowed on me.”

She kept her eyes downcast as she heard him stand, sigh and stretch before leaving the room. Only when she was sure that he was well away from the room did she reach up, brushing back the tears that had welled with the heel of her hand.

Would she ever see her home again? It would be weeks, perhaps months before she could walk properly and then—she had no coin, no map. Could she simply walk back to Vienna, avoiding the highwaymen and beasts as much as she was capable? What prospects did she have? She was an orphaned, unmarried woman in a strange land with no one to protect her. It wasn’t as if she could fight or even secure a job with another bookmaker.

It was a man’s trade, after all.

And that was only if she managed to evade the man who had purchased her, if she didn’t suffocate on grave dirt first.

Perhaps Alucard’s kindness—his pity—was only prolonging the inevitable. That she would be dragged before the man who’d bought her to face whatever torment he had in store before she’d blessedly expire. That this was just the briefest of intermissions before the true agony began, when she was alone with no ornery magicians to come to her aid.

Would it have been better to die at his blade? She’d meant her words, sure, but she didn’t want to die.

She only wanted the pain to stop.

She looked up at the sound of a cleared throat, finding Alucard looking almost nervous in the doorway. She furrowed her brows.

“I realized that I have no idea what sort of books you favor and that, perhaps, you might wish to have a change of scenery. I could carry you to the library and you could choose a few things, if you are amenable.”

She searched his face before nodding, moving to shove aside the stacks of furs.

“One caveat—just, please stop trying to walk about on your own, at least until your leg has properly set. I can carry you to the library or the sitting room, make sure you have enough to entertain yourself with. You need only ask.”

 

---

 

Rosalind was silent as he carried her through the halls, though she took everything in with wide eyes. He realized this was the first she was seeing of the castle beyond her room and the entranceway since she’d collapsed on his doorstep over a week ago.

“Is—is it just you here? In the castle, I mean?” she asked, voice still rough.

“And you.”

She nodded, almost to herself. Alucard pushed open the doors to the library, making his way to the couch he’d brought up for her to lie on.

He’d spent most of his time repairing the library over other parts of the castle. The rubble had been long been carted away, the books that had fallen arranged in piles to be re-shelved, once he’d finished making the new ones, but that required time and a trip to one of the nearby towns. A trip he’d been putting off ever since his unexpected guest.

She gasped, mouth agape. For a moment he thought he’d hurt, twinged her leg or her arm, but her face was that of wonder.

“This—this is yours?”

“It was my father’s.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it. It dwarfs the university’s collection, dwarfs any collection I’ve ever seen.”

He found a smile tugging at his lips as he placed her on the couch, her eyes still as wide as saucers. She stared, unblinking, as if she were scared it wouldn’t be there if she did. He’d never met someone so entranced by books, not even Sypha.

“Can I find you something on a particular subject?”

She turned to him, the barest hint of a smile on her face. Her eyes, which had remained dull, despondent since her arrival sparkled with barely contained curiosity.

With life.

“What would you like me to pull for you first?”

“Oh—where to start? Do you have anything detailing the natural sciences?”

“What sort of natural sciences?”

“Perhaps herbalism or botany?”

“Let me see what I can track down.”

 

---

 

Rosalind spent the next few days buried under blankets in the library, combing through whatever books Alucard could find for her. She learned about maladies of the blood, of the lungs, herbs that could lead to long term poisoning. She read of the folklore of Wallachia, of dreams, of anything she could ask for that might contain answers without alerting Alucard to the true nature of her search. She read until her eyes were dry and she could scarcely keep them open, when Alucard would insist on bringing her back to bed.

“Do you believe in curses?” she asked as he climbed the stairs, eyes half-focused on the darkness surrounding them.

He laughed, the sound humorless as it echoed through the empty castle.

“Yes.”

“Are they real? Real like the magic of your sword?”

“That depends on the curse, I suppose,” he replied after a moment of thought. “Not all curses are magic, not in that way.”

“But can they be broken?”

“Perhaps, if one knows the nature of the enchantment.”

“How would one find that out?”

“What is your interest in the matter?”

She faltered, biting her lip. Would he think her mad? Would he throw her out to fend for herself? Would he simply laugh at her foolish ramblings? Could she find the words to tell him of her suspicions when she couldn’t even articulate them to herself?

“Idle curiosity,” she lied instead. “After all, if magic is real, or at least some form of telekinesis, then it only seemed probable.”

He hummed in response, setting her in bed, golden eyes piercing her own. She glanced down, knotting her fingers in the bedsheets. He lingered at her bedside for a moment, gaze still fixed on her before leaving wordlessly, his silent movement somehow less unsettling than it had been a fortnight ago.

 

---

 

There was something horribly wrong with her.

There had to be. For her to know nothing of vampires and then to accept his being one so simply—even Sypha and Trevor had tried to kill him upon finding out. Was she merely biding her time?

But then there were the questions—not the usual stakes and holy water sort of questions, but her own brand of oddity. The first thing she’d wanted to know was the difference between a vampire and a dhampir. Then was the wave of existentialism of what it meant then to truly be a vampire. 

Still, the fact that she wasn’t scared of him, that she seemed somehow less so was…comforting. 

He told himself that it would be much harder for him to care for her if she was terrified of him. That it would be quite easy for her to allow her condition to worsen for fear that he might be trying to cast some sort of vampiric spell over her with her morning oats. 

No, if he was being honest, he rather liked having someone to talk to. 

“So you’re telling me that you heard nothing of the invasion of night creatures upon Wallachia?” he asked over breakfast, which they’d taken to sharing together in the kitchen. She’d been more inclined to allow him to help her get about the castle in the days since his revelation.

Or perhaps because it was the only way she could make it to the library.

“Not a word. I’d been in Vienna up until those horrid men dragged me out of my bed.”

“Do you keep your heads buried under rocks in Vienna?”

“Under fashionable hats, actually. And we had plenty enough to be dealing with what with that idiot child Maximillian on the throne and the Hungarians salivating at our southern borders.”

“And you think this idiot child-king is comparable to the hosts of hell?”

“I can’t make a fair assessment, I’m only personally familiar with the idiot,” she retorted, tossing her hair over her shoulder. He fought a smile, more amused than he'd like to admit by her cheek.

“I’m sure you could wager a guess, seeing as it’s all of hell —”

“Alucard, I didn’t even believe in hell before a few days ago. And now I know it definitely exists and I’m definitely going there—”

“Why on earth would you believe you’d end up in hell?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Have you been committing atrocities that I’m not aware of?”

“Oh loads, I’ve become Overlord over all the mites and beetles and we leave naught but destruction in our paths,” she said primly, voice oozing with sarcasm as she turned back to her breakfast.

“Humor me. Why do you think you’ll go to hell?”

She sighed, staring down at the grain of the table. “Because I have a hateful heart. Because sometimes I lie awake at night and I am forced to relive all that those men did to me, all that they took from me and I seethe over the fact that their deaths were easy. And I know, if given the opportunity I would not have been as merciful as you.”

“Rosalind, that doesn’t mean—”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“What they did, it’s not—”

“Please, Alucard.”

He sighed, frowning. “As you wish.”

He grabbed the dishes from the table and crossed to the sink, more out of something to do than the need for them to be cleaned right then. He listened to the sound of her shifting in her chair, the slight squeal of the legs against the stone as she turned to face him.

“Explain to me again how the castle draws water up into the sinks.”

He smiled. She was truly full of endless curiosity.

They weren’t friends, no—he thought perhaps they were both too broken for that. But whatever they were, it was enough.

 

---

 

The nightmares were growing worse.

Hardly a night passed by that she hadn’t spent at least part of it retching bloody earth, though she’d learned to hide it from Alucard better. She didn’t know how she would explain the dirt or the scratches that had begun appearing across her skin. She didn’t know how she’d explain the voices calling to her in that frightening tongue she nearly understood or the dark eyes that watched her from the shadows.

How could she explain any of it without sounding insane? Perhaps she was. Perhaps it was all nothing more than a construct of her own madness.

Part of her longed to ask Alucard for help, knew that, perhaps, if he didn’t know what was happening to her that one of the books in his vast collection might. That he might be able to explain the magic taking hold of her in the night.

It was as if something was unraveling, as if with each passing day it became easier for whoever it was to take hold of her mind and torment her.

It was always the same face, half lost in shadow. The same frigid blue eyes telling her to come to him, to give in.

That it would all be over soon enough anyway.

Chapter 6: Shifting

Rosalind was already awake when he pushed open the door to her bedchamber. She stared at him with bloodshot eyes, bruise-like shadows pressed underneath.

“Morning already?” she asked, her voice still rough from sleep.

“Did you sleep at all?” he asked, settling on the edge of the bed to examine her injuries. She didn’t flinch away as she had before, instead just doing her best to lift her arm so he could undo the bandages.

“Probably about as much as you,” she replied, dropping her head back into the pillows as he examined the fading bruises on her arm, the gash that was nearly healed beyond dressing. She swore as he manipulated her shoulder, testing its mobility. Still, it was healing well—she’d probably be free of the sling in another week or two.

“Are you always this presumptuous in the morning?” he asked, though the corner of his lip twitched into the faintest hint of a smile.

“Am I wrong?”

“You’re impertinent.”

“You already knew that.”

His eyes flicked up to her face, expecting a teasing expression to match her words. Instead she stared up at the ceiling, eyes dull and listless. Her good hand fisted in the sheets, knuckles white.

“Are you in pain?”

“No more than I should be.”

“Perhaps I can mix a tincture to ease—”

“No. Thank you, no.”

“You need to sleep in order to heal.”

She ignored him, pushing herself up to a sitting position. She stared at the wall behind him as if she wasn’t really seeing it, as if she were looking through it, to some far-off memory. He shook his head, gathering up the soiled bandages. It was as if her melancholy was settling more firmly with each passing day. At first, he’d thought he’d found the solution in the library, and, though she was undoubtedly more at ease surrounded by tomes, it wasn’t enough to drive away the demons plaguing her. 

He left the room, tossing the bloodied bandages into a fireplace on his way to the kitchen to retrieve breakfast.

The life that had sparkled behind her eyes at her first trip to the library was not so slowly being crushed by melancholy, by the weight of whatever she couldn’t seem to find. She still search voraciously, reading more tomes in a day than he’d thought possible for a human, perhaps for anyone. There seemed to be no pattern to her subjects that he could discern, not even with the previous night’s revelation.

He found it hard to wrap his head around the daughter of a bookmaker being cursed in the arcane sense that she proposed. It was true, she’d certainly been suffering from worse luck than most. And while a curse wasn’t wholly impossible, in was wildly improbable.

Still, he didn’t fault her for trying to give reason to the traumas that had been inflicted on her. Perhaps it made it easier for her to bear.

He returned a little while later with a fresh stack of books and a steaming cup of tea which he’d liberally plied with honey and dried lemon. She took the cup with a furrowed brow, bringing it to her nose with a wary sort of curiosity. 

“What is it?”

“Tea. My father brought it from the Far East from one of his travels. It should soothe your throat.”

“Is it some sort of spirit?”

“It’s an herbal infusion, with honey and lemon.”

She took a tentative sip, brows still furrowed. She paused, considering a moment before taking a second, the corner of her mouth twitching up into the barest hint of a smile.

“Thank you, it is delightful.”

“I’m glad you like it. I shall bring the pot next time.”

“Don’t waste such treasures on me. You have already done much more than I deserve.”

“And what is it that you deserve?” he asked, caught somewhere between curiosity and annoyance. Her eyes widened at his words, shock and fear flashing behind them before she dropped them to the covers, shoulders curving inward, as if she could make herself small enough to disappear. She didn’t answer, keeping her head bowed until he stalked out, letting the door swing shut too loud behind him. 

 

---

 

Why did it bother him, that she thought so little of herself? That she thought herself unworthy of a pot of hot water and some dried leaves?

He’d promised himself that he would keep her at arm’s length, that he wouldn’t get attached—he’d so thoroughly learned his lessen the last time he’d let humans into his castle. Was it because he guessed they’d suffered similar abuse that he found it so hard not to feel sorry for her? Was it simple projection? 

Or was it that he’d unconsciously grown fond of her laughter, infrequent though it was, that he’d gladly brew all the tea leaves in the castle to see her smile?

When had she become more than an injured wayward human?

He pushed open the door to her room several hours later, finding her sleeping, a book propped open on her chest as if she’d been trying to keep herself awake. He gently pulled it from her grasp, marking her page before setting in on the bedside table, a pot of freshly brewed tea set on top. 

 

---

 

Alucard gently steadied her as she took her first wobbling steps in weeks, leaning heavily into his side. Her fingers were fisted in the fabric of his shirt, a bead of sweat dripping down her temple. He’d fashioned a sort of walking brace to start allowing her some mild exercise, less both her legs atrophy for lack of movement. 

“Oh, tell me we’re nearly done,” she said, brows furrowed.

“Does it hurt too much? Perhaps we should wait a bit longer—”

“No, not terribly. Just—it’s much harder than it was before. Just to take a dozen steps feels like I’ve run miles and miles.”

“It will get easier if we keep exercising.”

Rosalind nodded, holding her breath as she stepped forward on her broken foot. They walked in silence for a few more moments, until she looked up at him, perplexed.

“Why are you doing all of this for me?”

“So you’ll get better. What kind of idiot question is that?”

“I mean in the broader sense. Why save me at all? It would have been much easier to have just let them take me back.”

“They were talking of cutting off your toes when I arrived, if I remember correctly.”

“That didn’t mean you had to do anything about it. It wasn’t the first time I’d run, you know. I’d managed to slip away just after we’d gotten into Wallachia, waited for the first half-decent sized town. I didn’t get far before the biggest one caught up to me. He beat me bloody in the square, in the middle of the market and no one said a word. They figured I’d done something to deserve it.”

“There are very few people that deserve to have their toes cut off.”

“Then how did you know I wasn’t one of them?”

“I didn’t.”

“But what if I am one of them?”

“What are you talking about? Surely you’re not going to try and convince me to cut off your toes?” he replied, his tone playful even if it didn’t match the steel in his eyes.

“What if there’s something wrong with me? What if that’s why I was taken? What if they come looking for me and they find you here and they hurt you—”

“You’re worrying over nothing. No harm will come to you while you’re in the castle.”

“But what about you? If they—I’d never forgive myself.”

“Are you forgetting who you’re speaking to? I believe I’ve demonstrated how capable I am of taking care of myself.”

She looked down at the floor, the arm looped around his waist tightening slightly. “If someone comes to take me, you must promise me that you’ll not fight them. It would not be worth you getting hurt, not for someone like me. Promise me, Alucard.”

“Why would I do that? Who do you think is coming for you?”

“I don’t know, I just—I have terrible nightmares and sometimes they seem so real—”

“They’re just dreams. Bad ones, but dreams still.”

Chapter 7: Growing Dread

Rosalind stared at the open book without really seeing it. Instead she listened to the sounds of Alucard bustling around the kitchen as he fixed breakfast, humming lightly under his breath. He seemed…almost happy today. Lighter somehow. She wondered what had prompted the change and hoped that it continued. He deserved to be happy, she knew that for sure.

“You haven’t turned a page in ten minutes,” he said, placing a steaming plate at her elbow. She looked up, pink dusting her cheeks.

“What was the song you were humming? It sounded familiar.”

“Something my mother used to sing to me. I’ve had it stuck in my head.”

“Did she like to sing?”

“On occasion. Mostly to help me fall asleep.”

She smiled down at her plate before digging in. She wondered what Alucard had looked like as a child. Probably like the cherubs she’d seen painted in Italy when she’d gone with her father. 

She wondered if he’d been a smartass then as well.

There was something rather endearing about the thought of a cherubic child informing grown adults that he wouldn’t suffer trespassers. 

“What are you smirking about?”

“Nothing. Just thinking.”

“That’s rarely a good thing.”

“Ooh, good one. Gold star,” she said with a mocking smile. He rolled his eyes.

“You’re an infuriating creature.”

“I do try.” He smiled at that. 

“I was actually thinking myself, perhaps it would do you some good to get a bit of sunshine.”

“Leave the castle?”

“No, I thought I’d bring it to you,” he replied, his mocking tone laden with amusement. 

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. It’s been nearly a month and a half since you’ve been here. Some fresh air and sunlight will do you good.”

She nodded, trying to push down the bubble of anxiety rising in her. She didn’t know why the thought of leaving the safety of the castle made her want to refuse, to hide behind its grey stone. Perhaps it was the thought of passing over the threshold where she had come so close to dying, or the figures staked outside, or maybe it was just the thought of the forest itself. 

She’d lived in cities all her life, were comfortable with their bustle and noise. There were parks in Vienna that she’d sometimes take a stroll through if the urge hit her, but they were manicured things, as man-made as the buildings that surrounded them.

The forest though, it was wild, untamed. It was unknown.

And for some reason, it frightened her.

 

---

 

Alucard waited outside her door as she changed into a dress he’d found in one of the other guest rooms, probably something that had belonged to one of his father’s generals. It would be too large for her thin frame, but at least it would do better at keeping away the chill that the dressing gown she usually wore.

He entered at the sound of his name to see her pulling on a pair of his own woolen socks over her bare feet, the one not pulled over her brace slouching down her narrow ankle.

“Is the dress to your liking?”

“Yes, thank you,” she replied, dropping her gaze as he stooped to pick her up. Her foot was still no where near healed enough to attempt walking any sort of distances, never mind stairs or the uneven forest floor.

Her grip around his neck tightened as they crossed the threshold of the castle and she pressed her face into the crook of his neck, holding her breath.

“Ah, yes, I forgot to warn you about the smell,” he said, walking faster past the rotting corpses of Taka and Sumi. His stomach twisted in a way that had nothing to do with the nauseating smell.

What had happened the last time he had allowed people in? Had he forgotten so readily? A few weeks with this woman and he could feel the cracks in his carefully constructed walls.

How long would it be before she betrayed him too?

He pushed the thought away angrily. It was unfair to her, when she’d giving him no reason. When she seemed intent to protect him, even from the evils of her dreams.

“It’s safe to breathe now,” he said, and he felt her exhale against his neck, though she didn’t pull away.

“Are they gone?” she asked, voice trembling slightly.

“They are. There’s nothing to be frightened of.”

“There’s plenty to be frightened of.”

“Oh?”

“There’s wolves, bears—”

“Do you really think that a stray wolf will pose much of a challenge for me?”

“—overconfident dhampirs, lynx—”

“Oh, you’re funny, aren’t you?”

They walked in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of birds singing in the branches above. After a few minutes she looked up, taking in the forest around them. There was a sense of wonder mixed with her fear.

Had she never explored a forest before? There had to be wilderness between Vienna and Gresit, had she never stopped to see the sights?

He finally stopped in a clearing that had been overtaken by wildflowers, a stream gurgling somewhere off in the distance.

“I have to put you down to set up, hold onto me to steady yourself.”

He set her and the basket he’d packed down, spreading out the blanket before helping her to the ground. She reached towards the flowers surrounding them only to draw back her hand as if burned.

“It’s alright to touch them. I promise they will not bite.”

“I know!” she replied, giving him a dirty look. Her outrage made him laugh. He unpacked the basket onto the blanket, placing a stack of books at her side. He’d noticed she’d taken an interest in the natural sciences and had picked a few volumes he’d thought she’d enjoy. Then he stood, meaning to forage what he could for dinner.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I thought it might be nice to have fish for dinner, perhaps with some turnips and greens?”

“You’re leaving me here?”

“Only for a little while. I won’t be far.”

“I thought—” she broke off looking away.

“You thought what?”

“Nothing, I’m being silly.”

He surveyed her another moment before nodding and heading towards the stream. For anyone else a few hours in the midst of an idyllic clearing would be a most diverting morning. But the prospect seemed to terrify her. Part of him knew he should stay, ease her fears as much as he was able, but part of him knew that would only be letting her in further.

He couldn’t make the same foolish errors again.

 

---

 

She watched Alucard go, half wanting to call out and beg him not to leave her alone in the middle of the damnable forest. She could rationalize that she was simply being stupid, paranoid due to her lack of sleep, but it did little to temper the dread in her heart.

Neither did the sight of those corpses staked outside the entranceway, flesh sloughing off from their bones, nightshirt blowing raggedly in the breeze. She was resigned to seeing the rotting dead in her dreams but somehow seeing them in the gentle golden light of midmorning was worse.

Alucard had never told her who the corpses had been in life, or what had earned them their fate. Of course, he rarely told her anything of importance, and even less about himself.

Should it bother her more, that she was at the whim of a man who displayed the dead as a warning on his doorstep?

Why had he spared her? Why did he bother to nurse one wayward girl when he so clearly wished to be left in utter isolation?

At least he let her read now. She was quite sure it was the only thing that was staving off the madness threatening to take her over. She reached out once more to touch one of the wildflowers, running her fingertips over the velvet of its petals. It seemed to shiver under her touch and she pulled back, brows furrowing. It was only a flower—it shouldn’t feel so alive. It shouldn’t leave her hand tingling as if electricity were pulsing through it.

She turned to the stack of books Alucard had brought, hoping to distract herself. Biology, chemistry, and physiology today. There wasn’t much that he missed, even if it was only the books she liked to steal after he’d finished reading them.

She hated how fond of Alucard she’d grown. He was insufferably clever and quick witted, sarcasm coming as easy to him as breathing. He was selflessly kind, to the point of his own detriment, though he did what he could to disguise it behind surliness. A part of her wished that she could simply stay, even after she’d healed, reading and pushing each other’s buttons and doing her best to restore the castle to its former glory. That she could call him her friend, that she’d finally have someone who took her thirst for knowledge seriously, that encouraged it.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it, after her father passed.

She buried herself in the physiology text, looking less for answers than a distraction from her own thoughts. She didn’t notice the creeping tendril wrapping itself around her wrist, not until she tried to reach for the chemistry tome to cross reference something.

She cried out, trying to tug away from the vine but it was too strong. Instead it wrapped itself higher up her arm, tightening its vice-like grip. She scrabbled back towards the other side of the blanket and grabbed the knife Alucard had packed with the lunch things. She slashed at it best she could, the strength not yet restored to her injured arm, ripping off the tendrils and flinging them into the brush in her terror.

“What’s wrong? Are you—” Alucard broke off as he burst back into the clearing, golden eyes cataloguing her for injury. Instead he found her cowering at the edge of the blanket, chest heaving as she clutched her forearm. She turned to him, eyes shining.

“Please, I want to go back. I don’t want to be out here anymore.”

“What happened?”

“I—I don’t know. I must be going mad.” She glanced down at her arm, which she cradled against her chest, eyes widening at the vivid red lacerations left by the vine. She clenched her fist, drawing her knees to her chest she buried her head in her arms.

She hoped she was going mad.

The alternative was so much worse.

 

---

 

She had trembled in his arms the whole way back, simply curling in around herself as much as she was able when he’d placed her back in her bed. She didn’t say what had happened, despite his inquiries. His only clues were that of the fresh contusions around her arm.

He’d doubled back to the clearing, if only to satisfy his curiosity.

Rosalind had never struck him as a fearful person. Not without reason. How could she be, when the first words she spoke to him were to beg for death, if only it also ensured her captors?

What about the forest left her locked in terror?

He did a double-take when he reached the meadow—it was nearly unrecognizable. The wildflowers had doubled in size, their blooms twice as vibrant. All but for the circle where he’d placed the blanket, where he’d come back to her cowering in its center. There, the plants had withered and died, leaving nothing more than brown husks.

He stooped, pulling at one of the withered flowers only to have it turn to dust in his hand.

 

---

 

She must had been five or six. She had been in Gresit for the fall, playing in the back room while her father saw customers. She could hear his booming voice as he laughed and joked with patrons, always so perfectly at ease. She smiled, climbing up onto one of the chairs, doll in hand, to play at the open window. She dragged her doll through the window box, making her dance through the flowers that should have long since begun to wilt.

“What a pretty dolly you have there, dear.”

She looked up to find a man casting the window box in shadow, his raven hair overlong and tied with a silk ribbon. He was beautiful in a way she never though men could be. He smiled, a sharpness to his features that denoted danger, though wasn’t all together off-putting.

“Did you make her yourself?”

She shook her head. “My mama did.”

“She must love you very much.”

She nodded vehemently, looking up at him with wide eyes. He reached out, gently trailing the back of his hand along her face as he smoothed back a tendril of hair behind her ear. She stared back at him as if frozen, heart hammering in her ears.

“Are you happy here, Moonbeam? Is it yet time?”

“Time?” she stuttered as if in a daze. It was as if there were tiny electric currents springing forth from his touch, as if she could suddenly feel the thrum of all the life around her.

“Rosie, darling, you would not believe how far Master Bisset has traveled, just for a copy of our—oh! Can I help you with something?”

Her father crossed to her side, wrapping an arm protectively around her shoulders. Still, the man only laughed.

“If only, but I am afraid I’m only passing by. Your lovely daughter dropped her doll and I merely stopped to retrieve it for her,” he said, handing her back her doll. She didn’t remember dropping it, but—she must have, otherwise how else would the kind man have been able to give it back to her?

“Many thanks,” her father replied, giving her a wide smile. “We do ask that she doesn’t play in the window, but she loves the flowers so, I tend to let her when her mother is out.”

“A little soil and flowers never hurt anyone.”

“Quite right!”

“Well, I’d best be off. Pleasure meeting both of you.”

She looked down at the doll in her hands, brow furrowed. It looked like her doll—it had the same black hair and blue dress—but its hair was tied back with the same silk ribbon the man had worn and there was a forelock of silver in her hair.

“Did you get some flour in your hair, darling?” her father asked, swiping at the same piece of hair the man had tucked behind her ear. She wasn’t surprised later to find that it had gone silver too.

Nor was she surprised to find the window box had exploded with fresh blooms.

 

---

 

He watched the dhampir go, sharp eyes noting the path he favored.

He’d been foolish to bring the girl outside, foolish to give him an even greater hold over her than he already had. Before he’d been working with a memory—now he had her blood.

It would only be a matter of time now, before she was in his grasp.

She had been right to be afraid, even if he doubted she knew why—her time of freedom was coming to an end. Now it would be the time for her to play her part, that part she’d been born for.

Chapter 8: Nightmares

She was drowning.

She could feel herself being dragged further under the surface, thick, viscous fluid filling her lungs as she gasped for air. Her eyes stung, seeing nothing but crimson around her. She kicked out, trying desperately to claw her way back to the surface, but it was no use.

Tendrils of vines wrapped around her ankles, dragging her further down, until there was nothing but cold and darkness and a set of eyes the color of ice chips. 

“ It’s time.”

She struggled, tearing at her binds. She wouldn’t give in, she couldn’t—She were too stubborn, had made it too far to give in now.

“ It would be easy. Just let go. It’s not as if I won’t find you. He won’t protect you. What’s the point of putting it off? You already know you can’t win.”

Black spots overtook her vision as she took a final, stuttering breath, one handle still trying to claw free of the vines.

 

---

 

Rosalind slept for two days, her skin mottled, pale, and clammy. He’d wrapped her arm in bandages soaked in a salve to reduce inflammation, which helped some, but not as much as it should. In the meantime he just sat in the chair next to her bed, scowering books he’d pulled from the Belmont Hold to try and come up with any reason for what he’d found in the clearing. 

Clearly, he’d missed something.

Though, whether it was her own magical nature or simply the magical nature of something very much hunting her, he was uncertain. Had she been lying to him? Had she been hiding these abilities? What had changed?

He wanted to be angry. He wanted to be furious. 

She had obviously tricked him, lied to him. Another wayward human wandering into his life, only to deceive him, to drag with them evil hidden behind pretty features. 

But then again, had she? Hadn’t he been the one to scoff at the idea of her being hunted, of something coming after her, following her into the forest around the castle?

He looked up at the sound of her hacking cough, abandoning his book to turn her to her side, cradling her head carefully as her chest spasmed and she coughed black blood onto the sheets. Her eyes fluttered but didn’t open, her whole form trembling in his arms.

What if she died like this, leaving him with another corpse to bury, another ghost to haunt his dreams? 

Holding her like this, he could feel how frail she’d become, how skeletal, even after nearly two months of proper meals. Had he really not noticed her withering? 

She drew a shuttering breath, her voice a barely audible rasp.

“Al—Alucard?”

“I’m here.”

“You h-have to let me go. Send me away.”

“What are you talking about? You can’t even walk.”

“He’s coming for me. I know it.”

“Who?”

“The man who bought me, I don’t know who exactly. But—” she broke off in a violent coughing fit, blood splattering the pillow, the front of her nightshirt, “Oh god.”

“It’s going to be alright,” he found himself saying, rubbing gentle circles into her back. “You’re safe here. Nothing will be able to harm you—”

She laughed, the sound tortured and broken. “It already has. What’s to stop it now?”

 

---

 

She sat in the living room of the Vienna house, pretending to read as she strained to hear the muffled argument in her parent’s bedroom. They never argued—she couldn’t even remember a time she’d heard her father raise his voice. The sound left the sick taste of fear in her throat.

“How could you not tell me? That she’s—she’s—” he broke off, and sat heavily on the bed. 

“You—We wanted a child so badly, and I couldn’t—”

“I just don’t understand why you lied. About everything, all these years. That you knew and never told me. Never were going to.”

“Just—I never thought he'd come back.”

He laughed without humor. “What—what does all this mean for her, then?”

“What does what mean?”

They hadn’t heard her rise from her place on the sofa or push open the door. She watched their eyes grow round with surprise, the way that her mother’s eyes darted away from her own, as if she couldn’t bear to look at her.

The arguments had started after the strange man had appeared at the window, after the gifts had started to appear. Bright flowers and hair ribbons, a beautiful doll with silver hair and bright green eyes. She stared at the pair of them, tears welling up in her eyes.

“What’s wrong with me?” she asked, staring up at her parents, her whole world suddenly uncertain. Her father was the first to move, scooping her up into his arms and burying his face in her hair as he squeezed her almost too tight.

“Nothing, my darling. Nothing is wrong with you.”

She held on tight, the pit in her stomach not allowing her to believe him. 

 

---

 

Alucard waited until she’d fallen back asleep for the night to slip back into his chambers. He was exhausted, exhausted from nursing her back to health once more, exhausted from the dozens of tomes he’d spent scouring, looking for any kind of answer. 

Had his mother or father been here, they’d have been able to help her, at least provide answers—there was something distinctly supernatural to her condition, but he still wasn’t able to curb its physical effects. What if she simply grew weaker and more susceptible to whatever was tormenting her?

When had he begun to care?

He was supposed to be done with humans, done with the whole lying, cheating, murderous lot of them. And yet here he was, nursing one back to health, losing sleep over her condition.

He couldn’t fall into the same trap that he had with Taka and Sumi, give her an ounce of trust only for her to slit his throat with it.

Though she hardly seemed capable…

He threw himself angrily down onto the bed. He wished he could ask his mother what to do, how to move forward after, well, everything. Somehow she always seemed to know what to do, made it seem as if it had been obvious all along—

Maybe it was and he was just horribly obtuse.

There had to be something he could do. He wasn’t sure he could be rid of this new ache in his heart if there wasn’t. No, he thought, turning over and burying his head in his pillow, if that were to happen she’d become yet another ghost haunting the halls of his childhood home, another reminder of his many failings. 

 

---

Alucard woke in the dead of night to the sound of a panicked scream.

He was out of bed before he fully registered the noise, down the hall before he’d registered the voices as the girl’s. Rosalind's . 

Had someone broken into the castle? Had she somehow injured herself further? He wouldn’t put it past her, she was nearly as stubborn as Trevor—

 He threw open the door, eyes darting about the room only to find it empty, Rosalind still in her bed.

Still, she whimpered, thrashing wildly, her arms bent back at an unnatural angle, her sling torn free. He took a step forward, only to freeze.

Her hands were restrained by black briars, her eyes open and vacant, a sheen of sweat glistening on her brow. The briars crept over her chest, around her neck, encircling her as if they wished to pull her down into the mattress and below, into the very ground.

“No…I won’t. You can’t—” she wheezed, her voice like a death rattle, hands grasping at nothing.  Alucard darted forward, tearing at the briars. As soon as he freed one of her hands she reached up to the ones encircling her neck and tugged, ignoring the how they tore into her skin. They seemed the shiver before turning to brittle charcoal and shattering. 

She turned onto her side, still sucking in pained gasps of air, her eyes glinting in the darkness. He made quick work of the briars still encircling her chest and her other hand, sending a wave of intent at the light switch, bathing them in light. 

She was covered in blood from where the briars had dug in, bleeding far more than she would have, had it been ordinary bramble. Her face was a shock of white, the silver of her hair spattered with blood. Tears flooded her eyes as she finally focused on his face.

“Alucard…he—he found me.”

“Who—hang on, I need bandages, I’ve got to stop this bleeding—”

“No!” she cried, catching his wrist with surprising strength as he turned to go. “Please, I—if he comes back—” she broke off, looking so terrified that he didn’t think. He just scooped her up and carried her to his room, placing her on his bed where he could gather supplies and still keep an eye on her. 

“What happened?”

“He found me.”

“Who? Who was that?”

“I don’t—I don’t—”

“It’s going to be alright—”

“It burns! Alucard—” He grabbed hold of her hands as she began to tear into her wounds with a kind of frenzied madness, her fingers stained crimson. She fought to free herself from his hold, thrashing as if being lashed by hot iron.

“Rosalind—!” She froze at his shout, eyes wide and fearful. She fell limp, though he could see the effort it took her to do so. She trembled as he cleaned away the blood, the wounds red and inflamed like burns. He paused, looking closer, something glimmering in the slash catching his attention. A bit of wire, impossibly thin, wrapped into her flesh where the briars had been. He pulled it out, finding it present in all the wounds but those on her neck. He stared at it a long moment before setting it aside and wrapping her wounds with a practiced hand.

What sort of magic left physical traces like this? Or could reach through such great distances? Did the caster have a distance mirror, where they able to spy on her? But then again, if they knew enough about her to know her face, to know where to find her, then how likely was it really that she didn’t know them?

Was that why she was so keen to leave the castle, even when she couldn’t walk? Was she running from more than just kidnappers in the forest?

He thought back to the way that her eyes had gazed over, how they’d turned stark white as she’d struggled. Wracking his brain he couldn’t think of a single spell that had those types of effects, at least not with everything else that had happened. Maybe something in the Belmont Hold would have answers, some old and forgotten magic. 

 She stayed unnaturally still even after he finished, as if she were frightened to even breathe. She was deathly pale, the specks of blood on the side of her face standing out all the more for it. He wiped them away with his thumb almost absently, his eyes still locked on her own. 

“I—I heard you scream,” he said, the hair on the back of his neck still standing on end. 

“I was having a nightmare. I thought—I thought I was being pulled into a grave. But—it felt so real and I was being dragged down until—until you were there, you cut me free.”

“That was powerful magic, powerful enough to break through the Castle’s wards. Do you know who could’ve done it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t—I just saw a man, with these dark, empty eyes and he was calling to me, telling me that it was time, that I came to him, that I belonged to him and, and—” she broke off with a sob, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face into his chest. 

“Don’t let him take me, Alucard—please. Please .”

It took him a moment before he wrapped a tentative arm around her, smoothing back the hair from her face as his mind raced. 

“I won’t. I won’t.”

He glanced down at her fingers only to spy the earth still lodged under her nails, black and stained with her own blood. 

 

---

Alucard didn’t sleep for a moment. 

Not after her sobs subsided or her breathing steadied. Not after she finally succumbed to sleep, still clinging to him as if he alone could protect her from the ills of the world.

Half of him knew it was because he couldn’t sleep with another in his bed, not after Taka and Sumi. Not even with this broken husk of a girl.

The other half could not even hope to guess what he had to defend her from. She seemed to be being attacked from the inside out, as if whoever was tormenting her need only to find purchase in her dreams to harm her.

He glanced down at her as she took a shuddering breath, her grip tightening on the collar of his shirt. He smoothed a hand over her hair, trying to soothe her as she trembled. 

How long had she been fighting this demon in her nightmares? Alone? Why hadn’t she just come to him, they could have searched the Belmont Hold, he could have placed wards on her to protect her—

But then again, hadn’t he told her they were nothing to worry about, that the nightmares couldn’t hurt her? If only he’d known how very wrong he’d been.

The memory of her being restrained, being torn apart by those briars would haunt him, likely for all his years. The way she had clung to him, as if she trusted him and him alone to save her—he didn’t even know where to start. 

But he wanted to.

He wanted to save her, the broken, infuriating girl that had been chased to his door, that begged him for death, that doubted the existence of vampires and night creatures but didn’t doubt that she would be damned herself. He wanted to argue with her about philosophy and discuss books and share meals in the kitchen.

He didn’t want to be alone anymore. 

Chapter 9: The Light of Dawn

He spent most of the morning searching for answers in the Belmont’s Hold. He’d fallen asleep sometime in the night, lulled by Rosalind’s rhythmic breathing and warmth curled against him, only to jerk awake in a panic. She hadn’t woken, which was a mixed blessing, and he’d checked her vitals carefully before leaving.

There was the distance mirror in the hold after all, he’d be able to check on her as he searched. 

He found himself wishing for Sypha’s help as he wound through the shelves. Not only was she a wonderful research partner, but the Speakers knew a wealth of oral traditions, perhaps she would been able to even point him in the right direction. As it was, he was having a difficult idea of where to even begin. 

He sighed, adding another tome to the ever-growing pile. Perhaps it had something to do with Chaldean elemental magic, he’d thought he’d heard his father mentioning how some people might have an innate predisposition towards it. That was, of course, if it wasn’t some kind of hex or curse that needed to be undone. 

Perhaps she had been right about that. 

He wasn’t even sure if it was tied to sleep or if the sleep simply allowed something dormant to manifest. Perhaps he should think about tracking down Sypha, if only to see if she’d ever heard of something similar…

He crossed back to the distance mirror, pulling his bedroom to the forefront of his mind. He’d originally been checking on her every fifteen minutes, but it had been close to an hour since he’d first located the Chaldean tome—

The sheets were rumpled and vacant. He swore, crossing back to the table where he’d stacked his finds and shoved them into a bag. 

 

---

 

Rosalind awoke alone in an unfamiliar room. Alucard’s room, she remembered, recalling the night before. Had it only been the night? How long had she slept? 

One hand reached up to hold her bandaged throat and her eyes roved over Alucard’s careful bandaging of her arms. They still burned dully, like when she’d burned herself with lye attempting to make soap. The skin felt hot to the touch and she flinched, pulling a face. 

She spotted the wire on the bedside table, hastily coiled and still bloodied. She reached out to examine it further only to wrench her hand back as it burned to the touch. Could it have been coated in some sort of acid? Was it part of the magic of the thing?

There were too many questions and not nearly enough answers. 

Swallowing hurt. She was sure there were bruises underneath the bandages. That ruled out calling for Alucard. She pushed off the covers and swung her legs gingerly out of bed, eyeing the splint fastened to her left leg. It had held up to walking before, granted, not for long distances and not without her leaning heavily onto Alucard’s arm for support. 

Still—she was tired of seeing specks of her own blood on Alucard’s sheets. 

Perhaps she were especially lucky he was only a dhampir. She doubted a full-fledged vampire would put up with her bleeding all over his house as much as she did. Or perhaps they found the scent enticing, like she found the baker’s shop.

She contemplated asking Alucard, half out of curiosity, half out of the twisted desire to annoy him, just a little. She could use a little of the levity created by one of their play arguments.

She swore as she took her first step, leg nearly buckling on her. Still, if she braced herself against the bed, and then the wall, it wasn’t unmanageable. She’d gotten used to pain, she could push past it, banish it to the back of her mind. 

She turned towards where she remembered her room being, though she hesitated. So much of the castle looked the same.

Still, if there were clues to be found in the library, there were at least half as many to be found at the scene of the attack. Perhaps strange sigils or glyphs that could be traced back to the practitioner. Or perhaps the briars that had been used to attack her were unique in some way—she had always been rather good at identifying what flora grew around her Vienna home. 

Yes, perhaps if she could simply bury herself in the investigation she could stave off the creeping terror that filled her, overwhelmed only by her guilt—

She should leave, run far, far away from the castle.

After all, what sort of repayment was this, after the kindness Alucard had shown her? If she weren’t such a dreadful coward—she’d have set off long ago, leg be damned, to meet her fate with her head held high. 

What if it wasn’t only her that was hurt the next time?

What if it was Alucard?

The thought made her heart hammer erratically. She couldn’t bear the thought of it—he was her friend, perhaps her only friend. It wasn’t as if she’d spent much time playing with other children her age as a child, and it hadn’t helped that she'd bounced between Vienna and Gresit so frequently. And even the friends she did make—well, no one took women very seriously, especially on any subject of note. And she wasn’t good at talking about the latest fashion, or embroidery, or who had danced with whom at the last ball. 

But Alucard didn’t care if her tongue was sharp or her wit biting, in fact he seemed to revel in it, giving just as good as he got. He was more than happy to discuss anatomy or philosophy or to simply read in shared silence.  

It would be poor thanks indeed to drag him into her mess. Whatever it ended up being.

 

---

 

She couldn’t get far.

She didn’t have shoes, for heaven’s sake, never mind the fact that her leg was weeks away from being able to support her for any real length of time. Still he listened intently for the sound of her fluttering heart, a sound that had become so familiar in the past weeks. 

Perhaps even comforting.

He caught the faintest of beating from upstairs and made for the noise, only pausing to deposit his stack of books at the base of a staircase to retrieve later. 

He found her on one of the landings, sat in a heap, eyes wide and breaths short and shallow. He was so relieved it took him a moment to notice the polished wood of the banister, which had somehow begun to sprout a thin filigree of branches, tiny green buds at their tips. She stared at it white-faced, clutching her hands to her chest.

“I didn’t mean to,” she stammered without looking away, voice barely above a whisper. “I—I was falling and I grabbed the railing and—”

She devolved into panicked hyperventilating, trembling, curling in on herself as he stood frozen, staring at the branches that had begun to bloom. Instilling life—it was far from easy magic, never mind something he’d ever heard of someone doing accidentally. He wasn’t even sure how he would go about bringing long-dead wood back to life. Had the Speakers heard of magic such as this? Could he even track Sypha down with her in such a state? She was hardly fit for travel, never mind to be left alone in the castle. The stairs alone would be the death of her. 

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, breaking him out of his revelry. He knelt down, reaching out a hand only to have her recoil. “Don’t! I don’t know how I did it, I could hurt you—”

“You won’t,” he said, and he meant it, but she curled further away.

“You don’t know that. You can’t, because I don’t know how I did it or how to stop it. I thought I was just going mad but—you have to let me go. Something horrible is wrong with me and I don’t—I won’t have you dragged into it, not when you’ve shown me such kindness—”

“Rosalind, you can’t even walk yet—”

“It doesn’t matter! If they can reach into my dreams, death will come to me regardless. I—Alucard, you are my friend and I won’t see you needlessly bloodied on my account.”

 Alucard looked away biting his lip. How could she call him a friend when he’d spent so much of her time here ignoring her, pushing her away? When she didn’t even know who he truly was, or the blood that already stained his hands? When she didn’t even know his name.

“It’s Adrian.”

“What?”

“My name—my real name.”

“Adrian—” he hated the way it sounded coming from her lips, like a melody, like a breeze on a warm day, like the spring sun after a hard winter. He hated the twinge it brought in his chest, the ache that begged him to ask her to repeat it.

“Stay. At least until you’re properly healed. Then I’ll hire a carriage to take you back to Vienna, to wherever you want, just—you won’t last a night in the wilderness, not as you are. It’ll give us time to search the library, to figure out what might be happening—”

“I can't—”

“Please. Just give me time to get everything sorted.” He could hear the desperation in his voice but he didn’t care, wouldn’t, as long as she stayed. She stared at him a long time, eyes glossy, still clutching her hands to her chest as if she were afraid of what they were capable. 

She took a deep breath and nodded, curling back in on herself. 

Chapter 10: Fresh Starts

Rosalind let Alucard— Adrian— lead her away from the bannister, from the branches she’d conjured, branches that still seemed to be growing even if their rate had slowed. He led her to an unfamiliar room, larger than her own, though they merely crossed through to a second door that, in turn, led to a tiled room, a pair of sinks against one wall, a large clawfoot tub dominating the other. She didn’t react as he set her down on a stool pushed against the wall, nor when he began fiddling with the taps. She could still feel the tingling in her hands, the residue of magic—was it magic? How could it be when you had no idea it had even existed months before?

She was just a bookmaker’s daughter, for Christ’s sake! All she had wanted was to run the bindery and live upstairs, surrounded by her books. Live a quiet, solitary life watching Vienna bustle around her. And now?

Now she was some sort of witch, crippled and bound to the castle, torn apart by her own nightmares. Hunted for reasons beyond her. 

Well, perhaps not beyond her anymore.

“I’m going to undo your bandages, alright?”

It took her a moment to process his words, to turn and find his face, golden eyes filled with worry. She nodded, closing her eyes as she felt his hands at her neck, gently unwinding his earlier handiwork. She held completely still, even as hot tears trailed down her cheeks. He said nothing, just continued his gentle removal of her bandages, of the splint that held her leg together. She only realized he’d finished when she felt his thumb swipe away the tears on her cheek, only for them to be quickly replaced. He sighed, picking her up once more and carrying her to the tub, the water covered with a thick layer of steam and smelling of lavender. 

He averted his eyes as he helped her pull the bloodstained nightshirt over her head, dropping it to the tile before lowering her into the bath. The water was hot, and she sunk down to her chin, eyes still fixed on nothing.

Alucard— Adrian said something of disposing of the gown, slipping out of the bathroom with near-silent steps. She sighed, waiting a moment before sliding down until she was fully immersed, the weight of the water muffling the world around her.

She stayed that way until her lungs ached, until she was forced to break the surface, gasping a breath. 

She heard Adrian return, footfalls purposely audible. She thought of sinking back below the sweet-smelling water, only to turn when she heard him drag the stool from the corner so he could perch behind her, a bar of soap and a cloth clutched in his free hand. 

“Sit up a bit, your hair is a mess of dried blood.”

She listened, wrapping her arms around herself as she did. She felt him lather her hair, working from it the mats of blood, the traces of last night’s torment. It was a moment before she realized he was humming, the same song he had days earlier as he puttered around the kitchen. 

A song his mother had sung him to help him fall asleep. 

She bit her lip, squeezing her eyes shut. Her heart ached, lodged in her throat. She sat in silence as he rinsed her hair, wiped the remains of the blood he’d missed the night before from her skin, as he helped her stand and wrapped a towel around her, eyes glued to the wall. 

It was a long time before she spoke, letting him rub a salve into the wounds of the night before, wounds that were feverish and blistered, wounds that screamed at the faintest touch. 

She took a deep breath, dropping her eyes to the tiled floor. 

“I lied, before. Or omitted, but I supposed it amounts to the same.” When he didn’t say anything she continued. 

“It’s not the first time I’ve made something grow. At least, I think. Never something like that but—our window boxes always had the largest blooms, and they’d be the last to die. I used to play in them as a girl, and my mother would always scold me, pull me away and forbid me from doing so. I think she knew there was something wrong with me, even then. I’m sorry, I know I should have said something before I—I just didn’t believe it myself. Or perhaps I just didn’t want to.”

Rosalind hung her head, biting her lip as she felt another hot wave of tears. She brushed them away, angry that she’d managed to cry more in the past two days than in the half year before. She took a shuddering breath, trying to compose herself. She felt Alucard— Adrian —cup her chin, gently, but with enough insistence to make her look up at him.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just different.”

“Then it truly is a curse,” she said, making a face. To her surprise, he laughed.

“Perhaps. But there are worse ones to bear.”

 

---

 

After Adrian had finished wrapping her wounds he helped her to the bed in the other room, disappearing with a promise to return in a moment. Rosalind perched on its edge, wrapped in at least three towels, her arms still burning with the lingering antiseptic. She knew by the way his face had darkened upon examining them that there was something wrong with the wounds, something beyond what she could articulate. 

They would scar, she guessed. She wondered for a moment why the thought bothered her—it wasn’t as if she was particularly vain, or had ever cared much about her looks before. Perhaps it was simply the visceral reminder, the reminder that she wasn't safe, even in sleep. 

That she would be forever marked as cursed, as other. 

Adrian returned, drawing her from her thoughts. He carried a bundle of fabric over one arm, looking sheepish.

“I wasn’t able to find much in the way of spare clothing. I will admit that some of it is plundered from my own wardrobe, but it will be warm, at least, until we can get you something proper.”

She gave him a smile, taking the clothes from him with a quiet thanks. He stepped outside to allow her the façade of privacy, which she appreciated, even if he had already dressed her in her convalescence. 

He’d managed to track down a shift and a skirt, the latter of which she might of tripped over if she were able to walk. Then there was a thick pair of woolen socks and a sweater that dwarfed her frame. Still, it was well-worn and soft and kept the chill of the castle at bay. 

“Are you decent?”

“I have clothes on, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Rosalind heard him snort, the sound faint beyond the oak of the door, before he pushed it open, carrying a bone comb and a ribbon. He handed them both to her, surveying her with an odd expression. 

She ripped the brush through her hair harshly, matted as it was from weeks of being near-bedbound. When was the last time she’d brushed it? Before she’d been taken no doubt. Perhaps it would be worth it just to lop the lot of it off at her shoulders and be done with it. 

She looked up as the brush was snagged from her hands, Adrian looking at her with distain.

“You’ll ruin your hair if you keep at it like a wolverine.”

“What’s a wolverine?” she asked despite herself as he settled behind her on the bed, working through the ends of her hair, carefully removing the tangles. 

“Keep your head forward. They’re vicious little things resembling small bears.”

“Are they native to Wallachia?”

“No, they live in the far north. We have a book that tells of them somewhere in the library.”

She sat in silence for a while, the only sound that of the brush as he worked free the knots from her hair. The rhythm was soothing and she found her eyes slipping shut. When she finally did speak, her voice was soft, barely above a whisper. 

“Thank you, for being my friend. I never really had one before.”

“You don’t have to thank me—”

“I do. For saving me, for taking me in, for taking care of me—”

“You’re—you’re my friend too.”

He finished plaiting her hair back, tying it off with the ribbon.

“Perhaps that’ll stop it from getting so tangled again.”

Rosalind gave him a tentative smile, biting her lip. She hated the warmth in her chest from his words, the way it almost made her feel whole.

Chapter 11: Searching

 

They spent the next few days buried in the library, hardly able to see each other over the mass of tomes that lay stacked around them on the table. He was growing frustrated—he couldn’t seem to find a single tome that made the way her magic acted make sense, nor that explained how she had been attacked. 

 

Rosalind pulled him from his thoughts, fixing him with a piercing stare.

 

“Why do you call yourself Alucard, if your name is truly Adrian?”

 

“It was more of a title really—the opposite of my father.”

 

“The opposite?”

 

“My father was Vlad Tepes. More commonly known as Dracula.”

 

“Oh,” she said, eyes widening a moment before she dropped her gaze. “I believe I read about him, back in Vienna.” 

 

They sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment before she spoke again.

 

“Was that—the stakes outside, was that him? He was rather known for, well, that , up north.”

 

“Ah, umm—no, actually.”

 

“Oh,” she said again, looking back down at the book before her. There was a long pause before—

 

“Did—did you put them there?” She looked up, eyes searching. She seemed to find the answer on his face, in the uncomfortable set of his shoulders. She just nodded, turning back to her reading. He stared at her a moment, dumbfounded. 

 

“Are you not frightened?”

 

“Would you prefer it if I was?”

 

“What sort of question is that?”

 

“An honest one. I have not known you to be needlessly cruel—quite the opposite. Having been saved by your hospitality, I am sure they earned their fate.”

 

“You hardly know me.”

 

“Tell me then, that you did it for your own cruel joy, and I will agree with you. I shall cower and curse my own naiveté. Go on, tell me you took pleasure in draining the life from them, that you did so without provocation.” 

 

He stared at her, eyes narrowed. She glared back, mouth in a hard line. 

 

“I did not.”

 

“I have known cruelty, Adrian. I do not believe you have the stomach for it.” The words fell bitterly from her lips, a sneer twisting her features as she dropped her gaze back down to the page. 

 

“I am sorry.”

 

“Why?”

 

“That you have known such cruelty. You didn’t deserve it.”

 

“Neither did you.”

Rosalind flipped to the next page, eyes already skimming the text. He turned back to his own, only to glance to his hand, which she had taken hold of with her own. She gave it the gentlest of squeezes. He returned the gesture, dwarfing her hand in his own. 

 

They continued their research in that way for the next several hours, until the sun set outside the library windows and the fire grew low in the grate. 

 

He glanced over the table to where she sat hunched over a thick, yellowed tome, head propped up by her hand. Her hair was falling loose from the braid she’d taken to wearing, her eyelids fluttering with the effort to stay open. 

 

“Rosalind,” he said, marking his page, “perhaps you should take a break. Rest.”

 

She sighed, not looking up from her book. “I’m fine, really. There’s too much to go through.”

 

“It’ll be here when you wake, I can assure you.”

 

“I—I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want him to come back.”

 

He frowned, brow furrowed before standing. There was a divan in the upstairs sitting room, he was sure it could be made comfortable enough. He returned carrying it, as well as a comforter he’d stolen from one of the guest rooms and an array of down pillows. He set it to the side of the table where they had been working, making it up into a bed.

 

“Sleep. I will remain right here and awaken you at the slightest sign of distress.”

 

She surveyed him a moment, face hollow-looking with bruise-like shadows smudged under her eyes. She sighed and nodded, biting her lip.

 

He helped her to the sofa, propping her injured leg on a pile of pillows as she settled back, twisting the fabric of the blanket nervously as she watched him. 

 

“Are you comfortable?”

 

“Yes, thank you.”

 

“Sleep well. I’ll be here.”

 

He gave her a small smile, turning back to his book. When had it stopped feeling odd to smile? He shook his head. He was being stupid. He’d smiled at Sypha before, hell, even at Trevor.

 

Somehow it just didn’t feel the same. 

 

Perhaps there was sense in tracking down the pair of them. There was a chance that Sypha had heard of something similar, that she might know of some solution. She and Rosalind would probably get along well enough, they were both learned and insatiably curious. And he’d never known Trevor to turn down the chance at a verbal sparring match, though he’d make sure to warn him to toe the line—

 

“Alu—Adrian?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Could you read aloud to me? Just until I fall asleep?” she flushed, avoiding his gaze. 

 

“This tome is in Chaldaic, do you speak it? I could find another more pleasing—”

 

“I do not mind, I only wish to know that I’m not alone when I close my eyes.”

 

He hated the edge of desperation in her voice, the loneliness that soaked her words—he was far too familiar with the feeling.

 

“Of course,” he replied, turning so he faced her, propping his feet up on the edge of the divan. He continued in sometimes stilted Chaldean, sometimes pausing a moment to mark a page or jot down a series of notes. He’d not gotten through more than twenty pages before her breathing evened out, her features finally relaxing. 

 

He wondered if he might had been able to rest those first few weeks after being attacked by Taka and Sumi, if he’d had someone to make sure no harm would befall him if he closed his eyes. 

 

What might he have been like, had they not broken him so thoroughly? What would she?

 

Two terribly broken things, tossed aside in the Wallachian wilderness. Perhaps it was fate then, that they’d become friends. 

 

He put the book down for a moment, watching as her hand tightened around the edge of the blanket. She looked younger like this, without the weight of the world slung over her shoulders. He realized he had no idea how old she even was—perhaps twenty? 

 

She stirred slightly, drawing his attention as a lock of her hair fell in front of her face. He stooped, tucking it behind her ear, pausing when she leaned into his touch. 

 

Had his heart always beat quite so loud?

 

He turned back to his book, finding the words harder to focus on than they were before.

 

---

 

 

Alucard looked up at the sound of a gasp, a heavy tome tumbling from Rosalind’s frozen fingers.

 

He’d moved her couch from the middle of the library to where it overlooked one of the large windows that lined the room’s western edge, looking out over the rolling hills behind the castle and the forest beyond. He’d thought the view might offer a soothing distraction from her otherwise voracious reading. 

 

Instead he found her frozen in horror, eyes wide and mouth agape as she stared out towards the wood. 

 

“Adrian, what—what is that thing ?” she asked, voice low and trembling. He crossed to the window, eyes scanning the dusk-painted landscape until—

 

The thing was grotesque, its skin stretched and blue, great tusks protruding from its distended jaw. It ambled on clawed hands and feet, a pair of misshapen and useless wings protruding crooked from its shoulder blades. He sighed, his own shoulders relaxing. 

 

“It’s just a night creature. You’re perfectly safe in the castle.”

 

“But—that can’t be an ordinary beast!”

 

“It’s not. “

 

“I don’t—I don’t understand,” she spluttered, staring up at him with eyes welling with unshed tears. She looked so small in that moment, so terrified that he almost wanted to pull her into his arms in that moment, to comfort her and assure her that it would all be alright. 

 

“You’re familiar with the concept of demons, yes?”

 

Rosalind nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. 

 

“They are much the same. Though, these are created through dark magics.”

 

She curled in on herself, murmuring something that was nearly lost in the crook of her arm as she turned to stare back out at the night creature.

 

“I can’t tell if I’ve gone mad anymore.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I thought—I thought it was all just nightmares. But now there’s magic and demons and—and—” she broke off, rocking herself back and forth as she hyperventilated, her breaths barely more than shaking gasps. 

 

Alucard took her hands in his own, moving so he blocked sight of the night creature. 

 

He supposed he didn't have to wonder any longer if she'd been lying about not knowing anything of the army of night creatures or his father's attempted purge of Wallachia. 

 

He wondered if she'd ever really believed him before then when he'd spoken of vampires and night creatures and demons, or if she'd finally just realized it was real. 

 

---

 

 

“Where are we going?” Rosalind asked as Adrian wrapped a thick woolen cloak around her shoulders.

 

“There’s another library on the grounds. The remains of the old Belmont Hold. I’m starting to think we might have a bit more luck down there. Their collection is somewhat…specialized.”

 

“What do you mean by that?”

 

“The Belmonts were a family of monster hunters. Though their favored prey has always been vampires.”

 

“And your father built his castle atop their hold? That’s rather bold.”

 

“Not quite. The castle used to be able to move before—well it can’t any longer.”

 

Rosalind stared at him with wide eyes. “The castle could move? How?”

 

“I’m still trying to figure that out myself, though I’m not sure it will do me any good. I think the mechanism is broken beyond repair.”

 

“How was it broken?”

 

“A friend of mine melted it.”

 

“Melted it?!”

 

“She’s a very accomplished sorceress. Though it does remain an inconvenience.”

 

She shook your head, still trying to process the information. How was none of this spoken of back in Vienna? That there were moving castles and monster hunters and proper sorceresses—not just the poor, unlucky women murdered by the church. 

 

Adrian handed her a stack of blankets before sweeping her up into his arms.

 

“The hold is still open to the elements, so I’m afraid it will be rather chilly.”

 

She cradled them close to her chest as he crossed to the front doors of the castle, remembering at the very last moment to hold her breath. She buried her face in Adrian’s neck rather than look up at the rotting corpses that stood mounted to either side of the door. The thought of them alone was enough to turn her stomach. 

 

“Here we are. I’m afraid I have to put you down in order to operate the lift.”

 

He set her down on a freshly hewn wooden platform, attached to which was a series of pulleys. She started as the whole thing began to descend, letting out a shriek before she could stop herself and grabbing onto Adrian to steady herself.

 

He laughed. “It’s alright. It’s meant to do that.”

 

She gave him a dirty look, though she didn’t let go. She could hear her heart hammering in her ears, feel the uncomfortable swooping of her stomach as she descended further into the earth.

 

It wasn’t long before that sensation was overtaken by wonder. There were levels of books, shelves filled to the brim with them. There had to be thousands, hundreds of thousands, just lying under the earth. She turned to look up at Adrian as he tied off the lift, face alight.

 

“This is even larger than your father’s collection!. I’ve never seen so many books gathered in one place before!”

 

“It took the Belmont clan more than four hundred years to amass the collection.”

 

“It’ll all be destroyed, if left open like this."

 

"I know. It's why I had been working on sealing it to the elements."

 

"Oh," she said, guilt flooding her stomach at the half he'd left unsaid--before she'd ended up on his doorstep and he'd been forced to spend all his time making sure the fragile little human didn't die.

 

"I hope to find more tomes on elemental magic to see if we can make sense of your affinity for nature, but I thought purhaps you'd enjoy seeing the hold."

 

"Oh yes, thank you," she said quickly, smiling up at him. "I rather think it might even be worth the misery of the lift."

 

He snorted, shaking his head before he picked her up and began showing her around.

 

Chapter 12: Call for Aid

She was growing sicker.

He doubted Rosalind slept much at all at night, plagued by her hacking cough, by the strangely dark blood in her lungs, and now by the fever he couldn’t seem to break. Even if she hadn’t been, he doubted she would have slept—he could hardly convince her to as he watched over her in the library, now.

She wouldn’t tell him what she saw in her dreams, what haunted her. She’d only curl up as small as she could manage, trying to hide her tears from him. She was too tired to make it through her piles of books most days, too tired to do much of anything, though she still forced herself to.

It made his chest hurt, seeing her like that.

After three days he made up his mind—he would write to Sypha and see if she knew of some ailment like this, if the Speakers might know of a cure. Otherwise he was starting to worry he’d bury her before autumn even properly arrived, a thought that now made him feel ill.

“Adrian?” Rosalind called, her voice ragged.

“Yes?” he replied, immediately crossing to her side.

“Could this be something?” She asked, showing him a page in one of the tomes he’d dragged up from the Hold to parse through. He scanned it quickly before shaking his head.

“Perhaps, though it would be unlikely. It would be a very unusual, but then again,” he said, trailing off. He could tell that even just drawing breath now was becoming difficult, though she was far better at attempting to mask her pain and discomfort than she had any right to be. He reached out without thinking to smooth back a tendril of hair that had fallen in her face. He froze when she leaned into his touch.

“I—I’m going to make another pot of tea,” he said, striding from the library and to the kitchen before she could protest. He’d see the letter sent today—tonight, at the latest.

His fingers still tingled from where she’d leaned her cheek against them, as if his touch was a comfort. She was such an odd young woman, had to be, to find comfort in a creature like him.

What would it have been like, if she’d stumbled into his life before Taka and Sumi? She so readily called him a friend when in truth he’d been hardly anything but cold to her for the majority of her stay, when in the beginning he’d been very nearly cruel, leaving her alone for weeks on end. What would it have been like if he hadn’t wasted his kindness on them, if he’d never met them, never have been betrayed by them, never been violated and nearly killed? If he hadn’t met her expecting betrayal and hurt?

Might he have known what to call this feeling then? Might he have been able to trust it?

Not that it mattered. Unless Sypha arrived quickly and knew something about what was plaguing her he doubted she’d remain much longer as anything but another ghost in these halls, haunting him.

He shook is head. He wouldn’t allow her to die, for whoever it was tormenting her to win. She was too precious to be allowed to be snuffed out like that.

When had she become so precious? Especially when he still knew so little about her. Did that make him a fool, after everything—surely he’d learned his lesson, hadn’t he?

He sighed, pouring a liberal amount of honey into the teapot, hoping it did something to soothe her throat, to make he feel just the slightest bit better.

She wasn’t the same as Taka and Sumi. Rosalind wasn’t afraid of him, wasn’t looking for anything from him, except, perhaps, company. She enjoyed the library, sure, but she seemed to enjoy talking to him more, when she was able.

He’d never asked her how long, exactly, she’d been alone before. Had it been long enough for her to grow achingly lonely too? It must have, for her to favor his company.

He could hear her coughing again upstairs. She did so more when he’s out of the room, when she thought he couldn’t hear, as if she didn’t want to worry him, didn’t wish him to know the extent of her suffering. He hadn’t told her of his heightened senses, hadn’t told her that he could hear her in the night trying to muffle her ragged coughing, or the sobs that sometimes followed. Originally it had been simple, self-preservation—to tell her as little as possible about himself to make it all the more difficult for her to stay him with that knowledge. Though, looking back, even before she’d fallen so dreadfully ill, she’d hardly been a threat, not with a broken leg and half the ligaments in her shoulder torn.

Now though, it seemed cruel to tell her, to tell her all those small moments she’d assumed were private were not, that he’d heard her suffering and done nothing, worried it was a ruse.

He returned to the library and set the pot of tea down quickly on the table he’d been working at, crossing to where she was she was doubled over on the window seat, her head pressed to her knees as she coughed.

“Rose—just try to breathe,” he said, pushing away the silver curtain of her hair from her face as he absently traced circles over her back. He could tell she was trying, tell that she was desperately trying to calm herself, even as tears streaked down her face. When she finally settled enough to pull the handkerchief from her lips Alucard couldn’t help but snatch it from her.

The blood was black, or so nearly black there was hardly a difference, but this time he could tell why it was so dark, at least in part why it was so thick—

She was coughing up earth, coughing up thick black dirt from her lungs, as if she was being buried alive horrifyingly slowly.

Rosalind stared up at him through her tears, still struggling to breathe. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”

“No—no you’re not—“

“I can’t stop it, Adrian. I’m going to be buried alive right here, unless—unless they managed to take me first.”

“You won’t, we’re going to find a solution—“

“I’m sorry. I hadn’t intended to leave you with another body to deal with—“

“You’re not, Rose, you not, because we’re going to figure it out. We’re going to, I promise.”

She didn’t answer, but her face told him all he needed to know—she didn’t believe him.

He just couldn’t let her be right.

 

---

 

He left as soon as Rosalind had settled into an uneasy sleep, buried under two comforters and half a dozen blankets to try and keep her shivering at bay, climbing the tallest spire to his father’s old study where he kept the Carpathian mirror. It was harder to use by far than the transmission mirror in the Belmont Hold, but far more powerful, too, for it could act as a portal.

The only problem was holding it for long enough.

He hadn’t had much practice with it—he’d never been particularly interested in magic when he was younger, had only really bothered with the basics, something that that was currently coming back to haunt him. He bet his father would have known what—or who—what plaguing her. He’d bet he could have healed her already.

Still, at the very least, he should be able to hold the connection long enough to toss in the letter he’d written—then, at least if he was lucky, which of course he rarely was—they might be able to travel back to the castle in a week or so.

Which would be fine, as long as she could hold on that long, as long as he could keep her from drowning in dirt in his halls.

He didn’t know he could bear the thought of actually having to bury her.

His father had always made using the mirror look effortless, somehow, despite the herculean concentration it took to operate. Alucard stared at the shards on the floor, willing them back into place as he murmured the old Carpathian incantation his father had taught him—an incantation he’d never seemed to need himself. It was slow going, the shards ranging themselves shakily. By the time he’d managed to put them together a bead of sweat ran down his brow.

“Show me Sypha Belnades,” he said, watching as the reflection of the study gave way to a little camp off a dusty road somewhere, a rabbit roasting over a fire. Sypha and Trevor were both leaned against a log, though even more so leaned against each other, something that made his heart ache more than he’d like to admit. They sat up, though at the sight of the portal, eyes going wide.

“Alucard?” Sypha said, mouth falling open—perhaps she hadn’t heard of Carpathian mirrors before. They were exceedingly rare, after all.

“I can’t hold the connection for long. I need—my…friend has fallen ill and I hoped to borrow your knowledge. It’s something—something supernatural and malevolent and I can’t—I was hoping you’d be willing to lend me your aid again. I fear I need it, to save them.”

“Fucking hell—how are you doing that?” Trevor asked. Alucard ignored him, tossing the letter through towards Sypha. His head was threatening to split open with the effort of holding the connection.

“That has—what I know so far. I—I can’t hold it any more.”

“We’ll come,” Sypha said quickly, snatching the parchment from the air. He gave her a weak smile before allowing the connection to sputter out, sinking to his knees as black spots danced over his vision. His stomach threatened to expel its contents as his head pounded.

Still, it was worth it, if Sypha came and could figure out what he could not. If they could finally nurse Rosalind back to health. If they could figure out the curse haunting her, if she’d no longer be bound to the castle.

He paused, staring at the carpet.

She’d leave, then. He’d have to help her, he’d promised to, promised to help her return to Vienna, to her bookshop that may or may not even exist any longer.

She’d be alive, though. And maybe—maybe she wouldn’t wish to stay in Vienna, not all the time. Perhaps she’d visit, on occasion, come and argue with him about vampire philosophy and pester him about the castle’s engineering and tell him all about the books she was reading and the ones she was making, perhaps she’d come and tell him exactly what she thought of what was happening at the Viennese Court and go on one of her rants about the national tragedy of the Holy Roman Empire being the ever-compounding inbreeding of its royal family.

That would be enough, he thought—brief, shining intermissions in his self-imposed exile, brief recesses of of laughter and spirited conversation. Perhaps it would be even easier if he could master the Carpathian mirror properly—

But he was getting ahead of himself.

He still had to cure her, to rid her of whatever foul curse had been set upon her. Maybe now with Sypha’s help they’d have a better chance at lifting it before it caused permanent damage.

 

---

 

“What the fuck was that?” Trevor asked, staring at the spot where the portal appeared. Sypha ignored him, tearing into the envelope Alucard had tossed through. It was clear enough it had caused him significant physical pain to hold the connection, that it had to be important, whatever he needed help with.

A friend. A sick friend.

“I don’t know which is more shocking—the portal thing, or the fact that the pale bastard has friends.”

“Other than us, you mean?”

“I—“ Trevor started but broke off and swore, no doubt realizing that he and Alucard were, in fact, friends of some sort. Sypha scanned the letter, chewing on her lip.

It wasn’t good news. She hadn’t expected it to be considering how he’d gone out of his way to track them down, but it was far worse than what she’d expected. She hardly knew what to make of what he’d written—coughing up blood and dirt, being bound by briars in the middle of a bed, hunted in one’s dreams? She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard of something like that, not all together, though maybe not even in pieces.

She wondered who his poor friend was, if they’d be able to hold out the week or so it would take for them to return to the castle.

“So what is it?” Trevor asked, craning his head to take a look over her shoulder. He whistled. “They must have pissed off someone pretty bad for that sort of curse, shit.”

“I haven’t heard anything like it, not all together.”

Trevor made a face rather than voicing his thoughts, though they were easy enough for her to gage—whoever Alucard’s mysterious friend was, their chances didn’t look very good.

Chapter 13: Old Friends

Alucard stared at her across the little kitchen table, eyes cataloguing the new bandages across her skin. She had woken screaming again, not long after he’d found the strength to scrape himself up from the floor and make his way back down the tower. There had been more briars this time, and more earth to be hacked out of her lungs. She’d sobbed herself to sleep again in his arms, only to jerk awake in terror. He’d done his best to clumsily soothe her, but she hadn’t gone back to sleep, hadn’t tried despite how exhausted she was, despite how necessary it was to her healing. 

“Did you have these sort of dreams before?” he asked, getting up to retrieve the kettle as it screamed. It was a moment before she answered, long enough that he was able to fix them both a cup of tea.

“When I was younger, after my mother died. I was thirteen, I think. I saw him then—he looked the same as now. I don’t—I don’t think I was coughing up dirt then, just—I was just horribly feverish and I don’t remember much. It took two weeks, I think, for the good lady doctor to break the fever and even then, I don’t remember the journey back to Vienna, or much of anything after we returned for a week or more.”

“You fell ill in Wallachia?” He asked, furrowing his brow. She nodded.

“Where?”

“Outside Targoviste.”

“And a lady doctor healed you?”

She nodded again.

“What did she look like?”

Rosalind shook her head, making a face. “I think—I think she was blonde. She was tall, I remember that, and very kind. I—it is all rather jumbled up. It doesn’t—it doesn’t quite make sense in my head. My father told me there was only ever the lady doctor there, but there was another voice I remember talking to her, after my father would leave for the night. Not—not the voice from the dream. He was—he was there, but he was talking nonsense, or at least I was hearing nonsense.”

Alucard just stared—could it have been his mother that had healed her as a girl? There was certainly not an abundance of doctors, lady or otherwise around Targoviste. And if she hadn’t hallucinated the other voice—had that been his father? It would make sense, seeing as he very much doubted her condition had been natural that time either.

If the Church hadn’t burnt down his mother’s house, he was sure he could have found record of her treatment there—his mother had always been meticulous in her notes.

Of course, if the Church hadn’t burnt down his mother’s house, he no doubt could have simply asked his mother.

But if she had been treated by his parents—that meant she could be treated. That he needn’t watch her die, watch her drown in grave dirt from the inside out.

“Do you remember any of what they did?”

“No, just snippets. Voices, bits of conversation, never enough to make sense.”

Alucard deflated slightly. Another dead end, then, at least until he figured out what it was plaguing her. She shivered, despite the blanket wrapped around her, drawing his attention.

“You should drink your tea, it will help to warm you.”

She nodded, avoiding his gaze as she took a sip. It was a moment before he realized there were tears running down her cheeks.

“Rose?” he asked, something in his chest tightening uncomfortably. “What’s the matter?”

“I—nothing, nothing. I’m—I’m being stupid,” she said quickly, brushing the tears away, but they were quickly replaced.

“You’re not, I’m sure you’re not.”

“I don’t—I don’t want to die in Wallachia,” she said, her voice little more than a rasp.

“You’re not going to die, we’re going to figure it out.”

“No, I don’t—all my siblings died here, they’re all buried outside Gresit. I don’t—I just don’t—“ she broke off, overcome by a wave of coughing. Alucard’s brow pinched.

“I thought you were an only child?”

“The only one who lived. The rest—I have six older siblings, all stillborn.”

“I—I’m very sorry,” he said, and she shook her head.

“I just don’t want to be buried here. I just—I don’t.”

“You won’t. I promise you won’t,” he said, before he could stop himself, before he realized what he was promising. Another tear ran down her cheek in response, though she didn’t speak.

“You should sleep, or at least try.”

“I don’t—“

“I’ll stay. I’ll make sure nothing happens. But you need to rest, or you’ll only get worse.”

“I—I don’t want to go back to that room,” she said, so quietly he might not have heard her without his heightened hearing.

“Would the library be more agreeable?” He asked. She nodded. He stooped to carefully pick her up, keeping the blankets wrapped around her. She’d never been heavy, but she was approaching worryingly light. How could she not, when she hardly ate, regardless of what he made?

“Will you—will you read to me? I know I shouldn’t ask more of you when you’ve already done so much—“

“Of course,” he said quickly, cutting her off. When did she ever ask for anything? And when she did, when wasn’t the barest request? “What would you like me to read?”

“Whatever you like,” she said quickly, and he wondered if she thought he’d change his mind if she asked for too much. The thought sent a pang through his chest.

He settled her on the divan before starting the fire, making sure there was enough wood to keep it roaring. He hesitated when it came to picking a book, before picking one on myths of the near East, something informative but narrative, unlike the technical books she usually read.

He sat next to her on the divan without thinking, the narrowness of the cushions allowing for little space between then, though he found himself strangely okay with that.

If anything, he found himself wanting to feel her pressed to his side, to assure himself that she was there, that she was unharmed, as best as he could manage. She fell asleep as he read, despite her valiant effort to stay awake, her head falling onto his shoulder. The contact should have made his skin crawl, but it came with only relief that she was resting, at least until her panic woke her again. He reached up to feel her forehead, her fever still raging.

She leaned into his touch in her sleep and he didn’t pull away.

 

---

 

“What the fuck,” Trevor said, eyes widening as he saw the rotting corpses hanging off pikes set into the earth by the entrance to the castle. “He’s fucking lost the plot.”

Sypha stared next to him, though, as always, she was more forgiving. “I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

“What, that he’s decided to follow in Daddy Dearest’s footsteps? That was kinda his thing after all.”

“It’s Alucard. It’s not—“ she broke off, just shaking her head. There weren’t exactly a lot of innocuous reasons for him to have started staking humans outside his door.

It only made him less enthused to meet whoever Alucard’s friend was. Surely they had walked passed the bodies too, but they couldn’t have bothered them all to much if they’d stayed. His hand went unconsciously to the handle of his whip at his hip. Sypha smacked him.

“We owe him at least to listen to his explanation.”

Trevor rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything as Sypha stepped forward to knock on the door. Even he had to admit is seem out of character for the pale bastard.

It took a long time for Alucard to answer the door, longer than it should have, with his dhamphiric speed. When he finally opened the door he looked rather bedraggled, his hair mussed and great shadows under his eyes, his shirt wrinkled and stained with what Trevor suspected to be blood, though the color was wrong. Still, His face split into a relieved smile as he saw them, until his eyes flicked to the corpses on the spikes.

“Ah—yes, I had forgotten about that,” he said, jaw tight. Trevor made a face.

“You forgot about the impaled rotting corpses on your stoop?”

“Trevor—“

“I have been a bit preoccupied. It was warranted if it makes you feel better.”

“And what warranted that? Taking a page out of your father’s book—“

“That had been the idea at the time,” he said, stepping aside to allow them inside. He stepped in, if only to get away from the smell.

“Alucard—what happened?" Sypha asked, her tone much more sympathetic. Still, Trevor made sure to keep himself between her and the dhampir.

“I—they came after you left. They were from Cho’s Court in Japan and they—I took them in, was teaching them how to hunt vampires and Night Creatures and—I’d thought them my friends, perhaps more in a moment of…weakness. A moment they took to bind me with sanctified silver and attempt to murder me in my own bed. The staking, that was—I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking logically, just—just that I wanted no more guests. Though it hardly worked.”

Trevor stared at him, unsure of what to say. The implication was particularly horrible, enough so that he didn’t feel the need to follow his story with a scathing comment of his own.

“How—how long ago?” Sypha asked finally, voice tight.

“They’ve been there four months, maybe.”

They’d only been gone six.

“I’m so sorry, Alucard, I—“ Sypha began. Alucard cut her off.

“It is—it’s not important right now. If you could, just follow me—“ he broke off, turning back to the stairs. Trevor noted the tension in his muscles, the tight curl of his right hand into a fist—he clearly was not comfortable talking about what had happened.

“So this friend of yours—“

“Yes, they’re upstairs.”

“Have they gotten any better since we spoke?” Sypha asked. Alucard shook his head.

“Worse, if anything. I’ve just been trying to break the fever, though nothing I’ve tried has worked.”

Trevor froze as they reached one of the upper landings, eyes locked on the banister, which had sprouted a branch about to bloom. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, the air practically swimming with magic. He made a face.

“What are you doing, mucking around with fae magic? Don’t you know how dangerous—”

“What did you say?” Alucard asked, cutting him off as he turned towards him, wide-eyed.

“Well if you would have let me finish—”

“Shut up. What about fae magic?”

“You have a fucking tree growing out of your banister, reeking of the stuff.”

“Fuck!” he cried, taking off towards the library.

“What are you on about?” Trevor asked, reluctantly following.

“Of course, I don’t know why I didn’t see, it was so plain!”

“What was? Or are you just going to keep monologuing?”

“She’s a changeling.”

“Who?”

“Rosalind! The girl!”

“What girl?”

“The girl I wrote to you about. My friend—“

“You’re friends with a changeling? Have you gone quite mad?” Trevor said in disbelief. Vampires were quite bad enough, but the fae—they were truly ruthless and had never even been human to begin with. They we often so alien it was hard for mortals to even grasp the games they played, though it always ended poorly for anyone entangled in them.

And Alucard had brought one of their discarded spawn into his house.

“I didn’t know she was one. She didn’t know anything, she thought she was cursed.”

“She might as well be! Goddamn it, Alucard! You should know not to get mixed up in fae politics.”

“It’s hardly fae politics—“

“It is if there’s one of them involved! It’s all politics to them, all nasty little games!”

“Well—she’s dying. Fae or not she’s dying and I promised I’d help her—“

“You idiot—“

“Trevor, that’s not helpful—“

“He’s the one making deals with some faery girl!”

“I’m not making deals—“

“That’s not how they see it. You’re fucked.”

“Trevor. Just—let me see her. I don’t have experience with any sort of fae, but perhaps there’s something I can figure out,” Sypha said, shooting Trevor a look that was half scathing, half apprehensive.

Alucard pushed into the library and led them to the sitting area in front of the fireplace, which was pushing out far too much heat for the season. Still, the young woman on the divan in front of it shivered, slightly, despite the heat of the fire and the half dozen blankets piled on top of her.

Her hair was long and silver—not grey, but silver—and her skin was pallid, as if she was already dead. She was frail, her face too thin, cheeks sharp underneath. Alucard crossed to her side and sat on the edge of the couch, gently brushing back a stray bit of hair from her face, fondness clear on his face.

They were fucked. They were more than fucked.

“Rose, can you wake?”

“A-Adrian?” She asked as she stirred, voice little more than a rasp.

“Who the fuck is Adrian?” Trevor asked, making a face.

“He’s Adrian,” Sypha shot pack, pointing at Alucard.

“Oh yeah. I forgot you had a normal name,” he said, shaking his head. The woman’s eyes flew open at the sound of unfamiliar voices, fear flashing on her face as she pushed herself up, something in her shoulder twinging enough to make her make a face.

“It’s alright, they’re my friends, they’re here to help,” Alucard said, trying to soothe her panic, hands automatically smoothing over her injured shoulder. She stared between Trevor and Sypha doubtfully with too-bright eyes.

“Oh, um—hello,” she said politely, though she still looked wary.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Sypha said with one of her wide smiles. “We haven’t met many of Alucard’s friends.”

“I doubt there are that many,” Trevor added under his breath. The girl shot him a dirty look.

“Sypha is a very accomplished Speaker Magician, I called her here to help me search for something to help with your condition," Alucard said. Recognition lit up behind the girl’s eyes.

“You’re the one that melted it! The thing that made the castle move,” she said, eyes wide. Alucard laughed, harder when he saw Sypha’s disgruntled expression.

“Yes, she is particularly gifted with elemental magics. And this,” he said, making a face as he turned to face Trevor. “Is Trevor Belmont. It’s his family’s Hold we visited, with the elevator you hated.”

“Hello,” he said when she looked at him, with something of a wave.

“Your family collected all those books?” She asked, something strange in her expression.

“Not all at once.”

“Well—Sypha, if you wouldn’t mind helping me to look for anything that might be relevant, I can fill you in on what I’ve already tried,” Alucard said and Sypha followed as he filled her in on everything that hadn’t fit in his letter. The woman watched them go, brows furrowed.

Alucard and Sypha disappeared amongst the stacks to search for relevant books. Trevor just surveyed the woman, looking for signs of what she truly was, signs that she knew, that it all was a ruse of some sort. She just stared back at him, face pinched. He dug into one of his pockets and pulled out a small, palm-sized throwing knife.

“Here, hold onto this for a second for me,” Trevor said, handing her a blessed iron blade. She gave him an odd look but took it, staring at it in confusion. She held it for hardly a second before she tossed it aside, scalded from the metal. She cried out, clutching her hand to her chest as she swore much more colorfully than he would have expected.

“What was that? What did you do?” She asked, shrinking away from him, eyes sharp and frightened.

“I was proving a point,” he said as Alucard reappeared, too fast, looking murderous.

“What did you do, Belmont?”

“He burned me with something, he put it on that blade,” she said, showing him the angry red burn on her palm, the edges already beginning to blister.

“I didn’t put anything on it. It’s iron.”

“You absolute bastard—“ Alucard spat.

“I thought we should be sure,” Trevor said, hands up in surrender.

“What is he talking about, Adrian? I don’t understand, I thought he was your friend, why does he want to hurt me?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“You did, that was your point,” Alucard said, examining her palm. “It couldn’t have just been iron, for this bad a reaction.”

“Blessed iron.”

Alucard glared at him. He’d bet he had a theory, too, why the blessing might have made the reaction worse.

“Adrian?” The woman asked, voice wavering, though it was enough to draw his attention back to her, for his face to soften.

“It’s okay. Everything is okay, I can make a poultice to help with the blistering."

“Adrian, I don't understand—“

“You’re a changeling. It was pure iron, that’s why it hurt you, why you couldn’t hold it,” Trevor said, watching her face. She just stared back at him in utter incomprehension, the sort you couldn't fake. 

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re some fae-bastard’s cast-off—“

“Trevor!” Alucard snapped. 

“What! That’s what they do! They have a kid that’s too sick or ugly or whatever and they dump it on some human parents to raise, assuming it’ll die.”

“You’re—you’re saying I’m some kind of faery? An ugly, unwanted faery, so you burned me with a knife?” she asked, anger slipping into her voice. 

“Well, not exactly—“

“You’re mentally deficient,” she spat at him. He supposed it all sounded rather insane. 

“She’s got you there, Belmont,” Alucard sniped.

“I’m telling her the truth!”

“Adrian, help me up,” she said, glowering at him. It was only after she stood that Trevor realized that her leg had been broken, and badly, if the splint holding it in place was anything to go by. Still, the moment she was stable, she hauled back and punched him in the jaw, harder than he’d have guessed her capable.

Judging by the look on Alucard’s face, if he hadn’t been in love with her before, he certainly was after that lovely display of violence.

“Alright, are we even now?” Trevor asked, rubbing his jaw. She looked like she was considering hitting him again so he took a step back out of range.

“No,” she spat back, and he felt maybe a little bad after catching sight of her hand, which was still blistering.

“What did you do?” Sypha asked, brow creased, coming to an abrupt halt as she surveyed the scene, eyes wide over her stack of books.

“Come on,” Alucard said to the woman, stooping to sweep her up into his arms. “I’m sure I can mix something to help with the blistering at least.”

Trevor watched as Alucard carried her from the room without even a glance back before he stooped and picked up the blade from the ground.

“What did you do?” Sypha asked again.

“I wanted to be sure what she was,” he said, staring at the blade which sat cool and unobtrusive in his palm. “And I wanted to see how he’d react. This is bad, Syph. Either way, if she lives or dies, this is bad.”

Notes:

Thank you so much for reading and for your comments! Please let me know what you think!

Chapter 14: Harsh Realities

“You did what?” Sypha asked, smacking him across the shoulder. Trevor stepped back, making a face.

“I just made sure we knew what we’re dealing with! It’s not like we could leave that to Alucard, he’s clearly in love with the little monster.”

“You can’t know that from knowing her five minutes—“

“That she’s a little monster, or that Alucard’s fucking moonstruck? Because I just proved both.”

“By burning her?”

“Yeah. Fae hate iron, it’s one of the few full-proof ways to kill them.”

“You were trying to kill her?”

“No, I’d have to stab her in the heart with it to kill her. They’re hard to kill bastards, harder than most vampires, which is why we’re lucky they mostly keep to themselves. You don’t mess around with them.”

“Wouldn’t that mean it was stupid of you to immediately piss her off and hurt her?”

“I—I might not have thought that all the way through. Though I doubt she has the strength to kill me. Alucard had to steady her just so she could punch me.”

“Yes, well, I suppose its good that they aren’t known for holding grudges or anything.”

“It’ll be fine. Chances are she won’t make it through the month, anyway. You saw her.”

“We’re here to help Alucard save her.”

Trevor didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure that would be in anyone’s best interest, but then again, neither would leaving Alucard all alone to grieve the girl he’d managed to find and fall in love with in the middle of the goddamn Carpathian forest.

God really did like to shit in his dinner.

“She didn’t know what she was. She’s just a girl and sick and scared. It can’t be as bad as you’re making it out to be.”

“No, you’re right, it could be totally worse, considering she has no handle on her powers and she’s apparently important enough to be hunted in her dreams while within the protection of Dracula’s wards. That’s going to go great, I’m sure.”

“Or, we figure out a cure and she’s fine and Alucard’s not left alone. I mean—he’s hurting, Trev. You know what he meant, when he said those people outside the castle took advantage. He can’t just stay here, alone. Maybe it’s not a bad thing.”

“It doesn’t matter, unless you and Alucard figure something out. It’s a miracle she hasn’t died yet.”

“Then start looking. If you’re such an authority on the fae, then find something useful,” Sypha said, stalking back between the stacks. Trevor let out a heavy sigh before following her.

 

---

 

Alucard had rarely found himself so furious. He should have known better than to leave Trevor unattended, to trust that he would have some sort of tact—

And he’d hurt her. Hurt her to prove his point and what she was, told her in the crudest possible way that everything she’d known in her life had been a lie.

He set Rosalind down on one of the infirmary cots before flitting around to find what he needed to make a poultice to reduce the pain and inflammation of the burn.

“Can you—can you please explain what’s going on, Adrian? Your friend—he was talking nonsense. He was, right? I’m not—I couldn’t be—“ she broke off, shaking her head, her face scrunched up like she was trying to cry.

God, he hated when she cried. He hated more that he couldn't stop it, couldn't shield her from the hurt.

“It’s—it’s more complicated than what he was saying. He—he shouldn’t have said anything, never mind like that—“

“Then I am…a changeling? Some discarded fae child that took too long to die?”

“It’s not—he was being an ass. He’s usually being an ass. You—you are a changeling, they have their own innate sort of magic, magic that would make it very easy for them to help something grow, like the bannister, or your childhood window boxes, something that would be extremely difficult if not nearly impossible for either Sypha or I. But we don’t know why you were given to your parents, that was just…cruel speculation.”

Rosalind stared back at him, tears dripping down her cheeks. Alucard set aside the mortar and pestle and crossed to her side, hesitating before gently brushing her hair out of her face.

“Please don’t cry. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner, I wouldn’t have—this wasn’t how you should have learned—“

“Am I like those things out in the forest? The Night Creatures?” she asked, her voice breaking. 

“No! No, of course not! You’re just—you’re different, that’s all.”

“I don’t want to be different,” she said, voice barely more than a whisper.

That knocked the wind out him for a moment--he knew all too well what it felt like to be other, to not belong in seemingly any world, not really. 

“Neither do I. It’s a lonely thing,” he said, stopping himself before he could say any more, say what had nearly poured out after—that it was less so, with her.

“I don’t know what any of this means.”

“We’ll find some books, we’ll figure it out. I meant it, when I said it’s a lot more complicated than Trevor made it seem, but it’s a place to start.”

She didn’t answer, turning back to stare at the wound on her hand. Alucard ground his teeth at the sight of it, at the look of devastation on her face.

“All of my father’s tools were bronze,” she said finally as he finished the poultice and grabbed fresh linen for bandages. “I never questioned it. Everything in the house was bronze or copper, if it was metal. Do you think they knew?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly, spreading the poultice over the burn before wrapping it carefully in linen.

“Is that why they took me, those men? Why I was bought, because—because I’m not human?”

“I—if I had to guess, it would be the reason.”

“How could they know?”

“I couldn’t be sure.”

“If you had to guess?”

“I—I would wager the person who paid them is fae, or at least isn’t human themself.”

She nodded, her face still horribly crumpled. He wished he knew what to say to make it better, wished Trevor could have simply left telling her to him, let him figure out how to best gently break it to her. But nooo, he had to burn her with a blessed iron blade and tell her she was abandoned and unwanted.

Worse yet, the fact that it was a blessed blade, the fact that it had hurt her so badly in a manner of seconds only hinted at a darker truth—that she wasn’t just fae, but of the Dark Court, the Under Court, known for its cruelty and malevolence. Trevor, he knew, would consider this to be some strike against her, some proof that she was dangerous or evil or something ridiculous after knowing her for all of ten minutes. And he, for all his distrust and cautiousness, knew that to be wrong. In fact, he knew better than anyone that one’s parentage didn’t define oneself or one’s path.

Not wholly, at least.

“Does that feel alright?” He asked as he secured the bandage around her hand. She nodded.

“Do you feel up to returning to the library? I’ll speak to Trevor, ensure he does not anything like this again, it was completely out of line.”

“If you’re there too. I can—I can help go through the books,” she said, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket just in time as she was overtaken by coughing. He could smell the blood, didn’t need to look at the cloth to know it contained more earth. He crossed to the water spout and poured her a glass, handing it to her once the fit had passed.

He only hoped that with Sypha’s help they’d be able to find something fast.

 

---

 

She made it a point not to look at Trevor.

Her hand still burned, despite the poultice Adrian had made her. She stared down blankly as he finished cooking and placed everything on the table, her jaw tight. She didn’t listen to whatever he and Sypha were talking about, something about ley lines and spell casting or something that made no sense to her. She was too caught up in turning over her new reality in her head.

She wasn’t human.

Her parents weren’t her parents, and though she might have known she wasn’t normal, she'd had no idea that she was some sort of creature. Her real parents hadn’t wanted her because she’d been wrong or sick or something equally unforgivable.

She’d felt strange her whole life, never quite felt that she fit in, and she’d been right. She wasn’t supposed to be there, was some sort of supernatural cuckoo inflicted on her poor, unsuspecting parents. Even now, she was only a danger to her friend, to the only person who’d ever taken the time to get to know her, to treat her kindly despite her strangeness.

She was a disgrace, and a coward.

She didn’t want to leave, even though she should. Clearly, she should, if her mere presence was worth the sort of hostility his friend had leveled at her so far. He was a Belmont, his family had amassed more books than she’d ever seen in one place, all about killing monsters.

Killing things like her.

Would he try and kill her? Would he do it when she fell asleep?

Would he at least do it quickly?

She doubted whoever was hunting her would do her any such kindness.

“Alucard said you were very fond of books,” Sypha said kindly, breaking the leaden silence that had fallen over the table.

“I—yes, I suppose I am,” she replied quietly.

“And he said you’re not from Wallachia?”

“I don’t know where I’m from,” she said darkly, staring at her food. Then she shook her head. Sypha was Adrian’s friend and she’d done nothing to earn her attitude. “I—My…parents said I was born in Gresit. We spent most of our time in Vienna, though. We’d go back and forth when I was a child, but—this is the first time I’ve been back since I was thirteen.”

“And how old are you now?”

“I don’t—what is the date?” She asked, careful to keep her eyes glued on the table. She hadn’t asked Adrian before, hadn’t wanted to know how long she’d spent in that horrid cart, bound and beaten, trying to ignore the feeling of wandering hands and cruel torment. There was a pause before Sypha answered.

“It is the 13th of July 1477.”

She let out a breath. It had hardly been January when she’d been taken. She hadn’t realized how much of the year had already gone by, how long it had been since her life had fallen apart.

It had been nearly a year since her father had died. A year in October.

“Um, twenty, then,” she replied, throat tight. She hadn’t even noticed her birthday pass. Of course, it hardly mattered. She doubted she’d see another.

“Why did you come back? Especially now, shit,” Trevor asked, mouth full.

“She was kidnapped. She had no choice in the matter,” Adrian said quickly, sharply.

“Kidnapping little faery girls in your retirement—?” Trevor retorted, obviously trying to needle him.

“Adrian saved me. He’s never done a thing to harm me,” she shot back, hands curling into fists under the table. It was deplorable for him to insinuate Adrian was anything like the monsters that had taken her, had drugged her and beaten her and worse. He’d been the first person since her father died to actually help her, to show her an ounce of actual kindness and not just empty words of sympathy.

Her father.

He hadn’t been her father. The man who’d so lovingly raised her—had he knew what she was? Had he loved her anyway? Or had he simply been deceived?

She didn’t speak for the rest of the meal, if anything, she tried not to listen. She’d had enough revelations for one day, had enough uncomfortable truths. She wished she could just go to bed and sleep for a week and not have to deal with any of it, but there would be no peace in sleep for her, no respite. No, she was just coming apart at the seams, would continue to fray until there was nothing left or she was too weak to prevent the dream-voice from taking her.

It wouldn’t be long now. She’d never been very strong to begin with and now—

She supposed it was just stubbornness. She’d always been too stubborn for her own good.

She hadn’t realized dinner had finished, or that Adrian’s friends had left. She hadn’t realized they’d stopped talking or that the leftovers had been cleared from the table. She hadn’t noticed anything since she’d retreated into her thoughts, not until she felt slender hands delicately take her own.

“Rosalind? Are you alright? You’ve been very quiet,” Adrian said, and she looked up to meet his gaze. She hated the worried pinch of his brow, hated that it was her fault, hated that she didn’t know what to do to fix it, that she didn’t have the grace or fortitude to just brush everything off like she should have.

“Yes of course,” she lied quickly, looking away. She started when she felt Adrian’s hand cradle her jaw, gently turning her back to face him. She didn’t know what to call the look on his face, the intensity of it, didn’t know what to make of how it made her heart beat against she chest. He stared at her for a long moment before nodding, though she knew he didn’t believe her.

“You should rest. It has been a difficult day and you hardly slept last night.”

“I want to keep looking for something.”

“In the morning. You can hardly keep your eyes open.”

“I don’t—I don’t want to sleep. I want to figure it out—”

“As do I, but—I don’t want you to grow sicker, while we do. Please just—I’ll read to you, from what we’ve found so far. Until you fall asleep.”

“I—I suppose,” she said, dropping her gaze before she asked him to stay after, to not leave her alone. He’d already done enough, was doing far more than she deserved. She pressed her face to the crook of his neck when he picked her up, rather than let him see just how close she was to unraveling, the contact steadying.

Sometimes she wished there was a world where it would be enough, that they would figure out whatever horrible curse she languished under and after—

And after she could stay. That they could just talk about books and science and magic, and she could help him repair the castle, help him fix the books that lay damaged, that he wouldn’t want her to leave.

She was a thing, though. A creature unwanted even by her own.

She doubted there would be a place for her anywhere.

 

---

 

Alucard stayed, long after she’d fallen asleep. He didn’t move from her side to the chair by the bed where he usually kept watch either. He placed his book to the side, instead staring at her sleeping form next to him. He leaned back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling as he idly wished he'd brought a blanket for himself to combat the draft. He'd thought it fine to sit on the bed next to her, so long as he remained atop the covers. He'd told himself it was because she found his presence reassuring, but it was really to reassure himself. 

How had he missed all the signs? He should have realized the moment he’d seen the clearing after she’d been attacked, should have known the moment he’d seen the bannister, but he hadn’t even considered it.

Of course he hadn’t—changelings so rarely made it out of childhood, weren’t meant to. They died, either from whatever had ailed them enough to be passed off or simply from the inhospitable environment that was the human world.

Dhampirs, too, rarely made it to adulthood. Here they were, two anomalies, two creatures left in the chasm of in-between.

What would it mean, for either of them? When she was no longer sick and her bones healed and she was no longer bound to this place—where would she go? Back to Vienna, to the world of her surrogate family? Or would she seek out the Fair Folk and the people of her birth? Or would she forge her own path, somewhere in between?

Why did the thought of her leaving make his chest ache nearly as much as the thought of burying her?

 

---

 

Valion stared at the child in his arms, trying to ignore the pain blooming in his chest. Orlaith had hardly lingered long enough to hold their babe, her eyes dulling as the child nestled closer, automatically seeking her mother’s warmth and affection. Now the poor thing was left only with him and his melancholic darkness, his coldness, his grief.

She was a beautiful babe, her hair a shock of silver curls, her eyes brighter than the richest emeralds. He’d hoped she’d have taken after her mother in every way, but even now he could note the traces of himself woven into her features, the Unseelie traits that seemed to have taken dominance, though they had been softened by her mother’s Court, by that of the sun and surface and warmth of growing things.

If he was darkness and Orlaith the sun, then she was a little moonbeam, was night-blooming jasmine, was silver and lovely and good. There was so little that remained good when left bathed eternal in the dark, especially when it was half born of light.

The little girl gurgled in his arms—his little girl, small and perfect and beautiful and yet aware of the tragedy that already was her life. A motherless babe of two Courts, a little princess set to be reviled and tormented for little more than being his, seen as little more than a pawn and leverage against him.

“What am I to do with you, my love?” he said, gently stroking his finger up the bridge of her nose. “How can I protect you from your birthright? From the foul gift I have given you?”

She cooed back, blinking up at him from beneath silver lashes. His heart clenched, his throat tightening as he leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead, squeezing his eyes shut. He knew what he should do, knew what was best, he just wasn’t sure he could repress his own selfishness long enough to do it.

He had to, though. Orlaith was gone, and with it her path to the sun, to the protection offered by her mother’s Court, away from the scheming of his own, of the constant, bloody power struggles that stained the marble floors of the palace. She was too small, too helpless, too innocent to be relegated to its halls before she’d cut her teeth, before she was old enough to hold her own.

“It will not be forever, Moonbeam,” he said, smoothing his hand over her face, watching as her features dulled, eyes turning a muddy color, hair blackening like his own, but without the luster, turning the simple, dull black of mortals, the tiny tips of her ears rounding. It was a strong glamour, one that would last years without maintenance, even as she grew, would hide any fae traits even as they manifested, would hide what she was, suppress as much of her innate magic as was possible. Not all of it, he knew. Orlaith had been particularly gifted and he—

Perhaps he’d have to check on the glamour. He wouldn’t be surprised if she unconsciously worked to unweave it, as she grew. It would be a stifling thing, uncomfortable and and unnatural.

But it wouldn’t be for forever. Just long enough to ensure her safety, long enough for him to ensure he could cement his standing, make sure no one would dare to hurt her, that she would be untouchable. It would be a few years, a few decades, perhaps. A blink of the eye, in the scheme of things.

Why then, did it leave him feeling so very wretched?

Notes:

Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you think!

Chapter 15: Undoings

She dreamed of choking black earth and thorns cutting into her skin, of yellow sharpened teeth and the familiar voice that made her skin crawl as it dragged her deeper and deeper into the earth.

“He won’t save you. Give up. It will be so much easier if you just give up.”

He called to her and her mouth tasted of dirt and iron, her lungs seizing with it, her fingers bloodied to the bone as she tried desperately to claw herself back up to the surface.

She was too frightened to give up, even if her body begged her to, too stubborn to relax her fingers and allow herself to be dragged deeper into the loam. She knew—she knew—if she did it would mean the end for her, a wretched, screaming end that she would regret far more than her bloody fingers or the dirt in her lungs.

She knew the voice promised ruin, knew it would be absolute—

She wasn’t ready.

 

---

 

“Wake up—wake up!” Alucard cried, sending a bolt of intent at the light switch as he shook her, fear like a shard of ice in his chest. Every muscle in her body was pulled taught, her fingers bloodied as if from clawing her way through something. Her eyes had that same strange milkiness they had the last time and her breath rattled in her lungs as she choked on grave dirt.

He panicked when she didn’t react and shook her harder, though that did little more.

“Rose, please! Please wake up!” He shouted, but she didn’t react.

The door burst open and Sypha appeared, followed by Trevor who had a blade drawn, eyes combing about the room for enemies. Sypha, though, darted to his side, hands already twisting into the base for an unfamiliar spell.

A silvery-blue light washed over Rosalind and something shifted in the air, something almost electric and powerful. He didn’t have long to consider it, though, because she sat straight up, hacking up blood and earth, tears pouring down her cheeks as she returned to herself.

“What did you do?” He asked Sypha as he sat up, tracing soothing patterns on the back of her nightshirt as she coughed.

“It was a spell I found in your father’s library. It’s meant to dispel other magicians’ magic. I thought it might be enough to break the caster’s hold.”

When she finally stopped coughing enough to sit up, Alucard froze, eyes widening. Sypha’s spell had don more than just break the caster’s connection, it had unraveled something he hadn’t realized had been woven around her.

He’d thought her pretty before, with her silver hair and bright eyes, but now it was as if her features had come into focus for the first time. Her hair wasn’t just silver, if was like liquid moonlight running down her back. He realized her eyes hadn’t really registered as any color before, just bright, but they were green, green like emeralds glimmering in firelight.

Her features were more delicate than they’d seemed, eyes bigger, lashes longer, everything somehow sharper and more delicate at the same time. Everything that had been human had slipped away, leaving something ethereal and other in its place, something so striking he wondered how it could have ever been disguised to appear ordinary.

She was something more than beautiful, something so lovely it nearly hurt to look at her. It was Rosalind’s familiar expressions, though, her mannerisms. He reached over to grab her a cup of water from the nightstand, helping her to hold in a shaky hand, her fingers longer and more slender than what he remembered.

“Oh, fuck, this is bad,” Trevor said, eyes locked on Rosalind. Alucard shot him a dirty look.

“Get out,” he snapped at him. Trevor shot him a rude hand gesture but complied, though he only stepped outside the door and out of sight, though Alucard could still hear his heart hammering in the hall.

He was frightened.

“Adrian?” Rosalind rasped, tears still pouring down her cheeks. “I feel strange.”

“There must have been a glamour the spell undid too,” Sypha said, staring at her, wide-eyed. “I hadn’t thought of that, only of breaking the connection.”

“That is all that matters. We’ll figure the rest out.”

“A glamour?”

“It’s—it’s a type of fae magic,” he said, unable to pull his eyes from her. Sypha cleared her throat and stepped away.

“I—I am going to head back to bed. Just—holler if you need anything, okay?” She said, eyes still wide. Alucard just nodded as she left, closing the door behind herself. He didn’t look up, gently examining Rosalind’s torn fingers, the earth that stained her skin along with her blood. It didn’t make sense—she’d been right here, next to him the entire time. He’d—hell, he’d had his arm wrapped around her, knew she hadn’t left the bed, never mind the castle.

“What—what sort of glamour did she undo, Adrian?” she asked raggedly.

“I—I daresay she undid whatever glamour was placed on you as a child to let you blend in with your human parents,” he said, still struck by the difference.

“You mean I’m not—I don’t look human any more?” She asked, voice barely more than a whisper as she reached up to feel her face. She shoved the blankets off herself and  stood shakily, balancing herself with the edge of the bed to make her way towards the door. He was out of bed a second later to steady her, stomach swooping as she looked up at him with those unfamiliar eyes, the expression the same as the girl he’d known.

“I—I need to see,” she said and he nodded, helping her to one of the bathrooms with a mirror. She just stared, face ashen and eyes wide.

“Are you alright?” He asked after nearly fifteen minutes. She shook her head. To his surprise she turned and pressed her face to his chest, arms wrapping tightly around his waist. He hesitated a moment before hugging her back, pressing his nose to her hair.

“I really am a monster,” she said, voice muffled by his shirt.

“You’re not. Not even close.”

“I kept hoping you were all wrong, that it was a mistake. I wanted it to be a mistake.”

The last word was torn from her throat in a sob, her shoulders shaking. He held her tighter, one hand running soothingly over her hair—it even felt different, finer and softer, like silk from the East.

“We’re going to figure it out. It’s all going to be okay—“

“How can it be okay, Adrian? I look—I look wrong. There’s not a thing remaining of the girl I was, just—just whatever the creature is that I really am.”

“There is, Rose. All the important bits are the same, it’s just the outside that’s a little different. Everything that’s you is the same.”

She stared up at him like she was trying so desperately to believe him, like she wanted him to be right but couldn’t wrap her head around it.

“It’ll seem better in the morning. Everything always does,” he said, thumbing away the tear tracks across her cheeks. She nodded, even as her lip wobbled, nodded because she wanted him to be right, trusted him to be.

He just had to make sure her trust wasn’t misplaced.

 

---

 

Sypha was quite sure Trevor was right, which in and of itself was most irritating. He was right about the way Alucard looked at Rosalind, about the way his face softened, about the way he looked at her as if she were the only person in the room. He was clearly fond of her, fonder even, she thought than he realized himself. And she—

It was clear she cared for Alucard, clear he made her feel safe. More than that, though, it was clear she liked him, or rather, perhaps it was truer that she liked Adrian, the young man Sypha wasn’t sure her or Trevor ever really got to know. He was just different around her, different than the man they’d known, though she wasn’t sure she could put her finger on it.

Of course, part of that could just have been when they’d met. She doubted the Alucard she’d met after he’d killed his father was the same they’d met before. She doubted the man who’d staked the bodies outside for seducing and trying to murder him was the same they’d left behind.

Honestly, she wondered why he’d ever let her in, after that.

“How—how did you and Alucard meet?” She asked the girl, trying not to stare at the new face she wore—or rather, her true face.

It was hard not to. It was entrancing in an odd sort of way. Beautiful but alien in a way she struggled to put her finger on. 

She looked up from the book she’d been scouring and swallowed hard. “He—saved me. I’d been kidnapped by these horrible men from my house in Vienna and I managed to get away and run into the forest. He killed them, rather than let them drag me back and he took care of me. I daresay I’ve been a rather poor houseguest.”

“Do you know why they took you?”

She shook her head, making a face. “Not then. Now, I’d guess it was because of what I am. I don’t know how they knew, though. I—I never had a clue. Of course, I never thought such things real, so…” she trailed off, looking away, tears welling along her lash lines. It was clear enough she was replaying horrible memories behind her eyes, no doubt of whatever had been done to her between Alucard’s castle and Vienna. Sypha reached out a hand and took hers gently.

“I’m sorry, for what they did. I’m very glad Alucard was able to save you.”

“Me too,” she said quietly.

“Will you stay, after?”

“What?”

“After you’re better? Are you going to stay?”

“I—I couldn’t. I’ve already imposed enough—“

“I think he rather likes your company. And he mentioned you were a book-maker. I’m sure he could use the help repairing everything here. I mean, unless, of course you have things to get back to.”

“I—I don't know. I’m quite sure Adrian will prefer some peace and quiet once this is all over and I’ve certainly overstayed my welcome.”

Sypha made a face, but didn’t press. It seemed, perhaps, she was the only one who didn’t realize how he felt. She was quite sure Alucard would be miserable if left alone again in the big empty castle, more miserable for her, specifically, leaving.

She wondered how Rosalind didn’t see how fond he was of her, how he oriented himself to her when she was in the room. Hell—she doubted he had left her room at all the night before. He’d had to have been there, to have heard her nightmare, and he’d been cradling her in his arms as she and Trevor burst in, begging her to wake.

She’d rarely seen him look so frightened.

“Have you tried magic before?” Sypha asked out of sudden curiosity. She shook her head.

“Never on purpose. It always just—it just happened.”

“I could teach you something. Something simple.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. If you could make the bannister grow then I bet it would be very easy for you.”

“I—al-alright,” she said, looking dubious, but excited. Sypha grinned back at her.

 

---

 

“Do you really think you’re going to find anything that’s going to fix any of this?” Trevor asked, glaring at the back of Alucard’s head. He didn’t turn, grabbing another book.

“With your family’s cataloguing system? Not without divining its location from the entrails of a goat or something. It will take decades to put this mess into workable order.”

“Very funny. But really, do you understand what you’re playing at? You know why that blade burned her so badly—“

“Because you’re a despicable excuse for a man with no sense of compassion for a woman already tormented and in pain?”

Trevor ignored him. “Because you know the blessing would hurt an Unseelie way more than if she was Seelie. And by the way, no woman who’s as innocent as you’re making her out to be has that good of a right cross.

“Maybe she’s had the unfortunate luck of meeting quite a few people like you.”

“Or maybe there’s more to her than this fragile damsel in distress act. Maybe she’s setting you up for some trap.”

“Then it would be a truly poor trap since she’s begged me to just let her walk off into the woods to die, rather than chancing my safety by having whoever is hunting her coming here and hurting me in their bid to steal her away. Even more poor since the first thing she asked me was not to save her from the beasts brutalizing her and threatening to cut off her toes, but to kill her too, if only it meant they would rot. Somehow, I think her cleverer than that.”

Trevor stared at him. He hadn’t expected either of those things from the fragile thing that cowered behind Alucard, but then, maybe he should have, he thought, absently rubbing his jaw. Maybe she’d been a different sort of girl before she was mostly dead.

“What are you going to do, then? If you cure her and fix her—what then? What’s you plan?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes you do, you’re not that thick. What do you plan to do about her? Just sit here and pine for a few centuries? Normally I’d concil against it, but you both have the time considering you’re both nigh-immortal. Have you told her that bit yet? Have you told her anything important?”

“Why should I make this even harder on her?”

“Maybe because some of it’s important? Like, really important?”

“She’s overwhelmed enough.”

“Yeah, and Sypha just unwove the glamour that had been protecting her. It’s not like she can just pretend to be an ordinary human anymore.”

“I’m going to do it over time. There’s no point in dumping it all on her at once.”

“So then you’re planning on keeping her around?” He asked raising his brow. Alucard gave him a dirty look before turning back to the stacks.

“Have you told her you want her to stay? Or that you’re in love with her, or any of it?”

“I’m not—I’m not in love with her,” he spluttered, refusing to turn around, no doubt because he was bright red. 

“Yeah, okay. So then you’re fine with her leaving.”

“She’s free to do whatever she likes.”

“So if she decides to go find her real parents in the Under Court expecting a happy reunion, you’re just going to let her?”

Alucard didn’t reply.

“Thought so.”

“That doesn’t prove anything other than the fact I don’t want her dead.”

“I think you want more than that.”

“I don’t care what you think.”

“You do, or you wouldn’t have called us here.”

“I called Sypha here. You’re an unfortunate side effect.”

“You should be more grateful, I’m the one who figured out she was fae to begin with.”

“By chance.”

“Not by chance. It’s what I bloody do!”

“And you’ve yet to have one helpful thing to say on the matter.”

“I’ve said plenty helpful, the most being that you need to fucking tell her how you feel and what’s actually going on. It doesn’t help either of you to lie, and it never helps anyone to lie to the bloody fae. You shouldn’t need a book to tell you that, you dhamphiric asshole.”

Alucard walked away without another word, the still set of his shoulders telling Trevor that he was highly unlikely to listen.

 

---

 

Alucard paused as he heard a crash as he and Trevor returned to the castle laden with books from the Hold—not from the library, but from the direction of the ballroom.

He paused for a moment before he heard Sypha swear. Belmont must be rubbing off on her.

He sighed, setting aside his pile of books before striding towards the ballroom. Trevor followed after a moment, confusion clear on his face.

“Where are we going?”

“The ballroom, I think.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure yet.

Alucard froze in the doorway as he spotted Rosalind and Sypha, a great scorch mark across the marble floor, in the midst of the debris from the battle. Rosalind was perched in a wooden chair, her hands outstretched as she held out a globe of silvery light, her eyes wide. Sypha, too, looked rather surprised, which only made him wonder what it was she’d intended to teach her.

“Seeing what else around here you can melt, Syph?” Trevor called and she shot him a dirty look.

“I didn’t melt it.”

“You definitely did.”

“I did not.”

“You did,” Alucard said, almost as a reflex, eyes locked on the mote of light in Rosalind’s hands. It wasn’t anything like Sypha’s elemental fire or lightening, in fact, he very much wanted to know if it even burned hot. It looked much closer to moonlight, than anything else.

Fae magic was strange and incomprehensible. Was this the result of Sypha teaching her an arcane invocation?

Rosalind looked up and met his gaze, the mote of light flickering out. She smiled sheepishly at him. He crossed to her side, gently taking her hands in his and turning them over, looking for any burns.

Any fresh burns, he thought acidly, thinking of how to best pay Trevor back for his little stunt. 

Trevor conspicuously cleared his throat behind him, which he ignored.

“She did everything right, but she can’t make flame,” Sypha said, brows furrowed. “No matter how much we try it.”

“That’s because it’s fae magic. It doesn’t matter what words you say, it follows different rules,” Trevor said as he walked over.

“What rules?” Rosalind asked. Trevor laughed, pointing at her.

“That’s the big question, isn’t it? No one knows, not really. It’s tied to nature, maybe, or whatever Court they’re from, or it’s something else entirely. It’s just not human.”

Her face fell at that. Alucard fought the urge to kick Trevor in the ankle. Sypha felt no such compunctions and smacked him on the back of his head.

“You do not have to be so rude all the time, Trevor Belmont.”

“I’m not being rude.”

“You are.”

“Since when is it rude to tell the truth? Faery magic is incomprehensible. That’s why it’s more dangerous than most, because we don’t understand how it works. Do you know how you made the bannister grow?” he asked Rosalind.

She shook her head. “No.”

“See. Even she doesn’t get it. Magic is something you bastards learned,” he said, nodding to Alucard and Sypha. “It’s something she has. Something she is. That’s the difference.”

“Who made you the authority on magic?” Sypha shot back at him. Alucard, though, offered Rosalind his arm, tired of the argument, of the way it made her wilt.

“How about some tea? I can show you what we found in the Hold.”

She nodded and took his arm He helped her to her feet, serving as stabilization as she slowly made her way to the door with him. He should go about finding her a walking stick, soon. He hadn’t been pressing her to practice walking as he should have been, what with everything else, but she’d need to, to avoid a limp or any permanent harm. It had been a truly awful break.

He picked her up when they reached the stairs and carried her to the kitchen, disappearing briefly only to retrieve his pile of books, which he set beside her before busying himself at the stove.

“Sypha is very nice,” she said quietly as he filled the kettle. He found himself smiling as he lit the stove.

“She is, isn’t she?”

“I like her very much.”

“What was she trying to teach you?” He asked, turning to lean on the counter as he waited for it to boil.

“Well, she made a little ball of flame. And she could make them fly across the room.”

“I was wondering what happened to the floor.”

She laughed, ducking her head. “She’s very good at it. I think it must have been very easy for her to melt the castle.”

“Far easier than I would have thought. So then, what did you do?” He asked, amusement plain.

“Well, I—I tried, but, this is all I could manage,” she said, curling her fingers into one of Sypha’s familiar casting positions. He watched as another mote of silver light appeared, growing brighter as she furrowed her brow. After a moment she gave it a little push up and it hung in the air above them like a miniature star.

“That is quite impressive, especially for someone who didn’t believe in magic a few months ago.”

“It makes me think—“ she broke off, shaking her head.

“What?”

“It just—maybe it’s not all bad. Maybe some of it’s good. I hope some of it’s good.”

“It is. It will be, once we deal with whoever it doing all this.”

“I—I suppose,” she said, though she sounded unsure.

“What—what will you do after?” He asked, turning to pour the boiling water into the teapot. She didn’t answer for a long second.

“I—I don’t know. I suppose first on the list would be finding shoes,” she said seriously, and he found himself laughing. Sometimes she had such a odd way of organizing the world around her--of course she'd need shoes, before she did anything else. Of course, then, that would be the first thing on her mind, before deciding to return to Vienna or to set out somewhere new. She looked up, brows furrowed and he smiled at her.

“I think I could help with that. Depending on how you’re feeling I could probably help even before we get everything sorted, if you wanted. I’d forgotten I’d had to throw yours out. There was hardly any sole left to them.”

“Yes, well, they were meant for cobbled streets, not sprinting through the wilderness. Had I known I was to be kidnapped, I would have dressed more practically.”

He huffed a laugh. “We’ll find you good, sturdy boots. Boots you can do anything in and some proper dresses, what do you say?”

“You’ve already done more than enough for me. More than I could ever repay.”

“I was never looking to be repaid.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t owe you, and owe you tremendously.”

He furrowed his brow. “You don’t. You never will.”

She stared at him, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to make of his words.

“You’re my friend. Do you think at the end of this I’m going to tally up all the beer Belmont has drunk and tell him to cough up?”

“If it would annoy him, probably,” she said seriously and he snorted despite himself. 

“Perhaps that was a bad example,” he said, fighting a smile. “But I mean it. You don’t owe me a thing. I am happy enough with your company.”

She gave him a look. 

“Oh yes, the hacking up bloody earth and being woken by screams in the night are fine selling points, I’m sure. Or is it the way in which I require your aid to move more than ten feet about this place?”

“No, I’d rather say it’s your scathing wit and rampant curiosity. The fact that you are still utterly stymied by stairs is only a nice little bonus.”

He smiled at her and she smiled back despite herself, though her brow remained pinched. He reached out without thinking to smooth the furrow between her brows. She moved away quickly, anxiety twisting her expression.

“Is Trevor right? Am I dangerous? I—don’t want to hurt anyone, and he is right, about the magic, I don’t have any idea what I’m doing, I just wanted to try. I just—I don’t want to put anyone in danger.”

“You’re not,” he said quickly, and he knew it was a lie. Of course she was dangerous—could be dangerous. “Not like Trevor says. Not on purpose.”

“But I could?”

“So could I, if I was careless, or Sypha. Trevor regularly gets himself into trouble, so he’s hardly one to talk.”

“Adrian—“

“You needn’t worry. Not now, at least. Perhaps after you’re well, you can go back to it.”

“Do you think that Sypha’s spell will make it so they can’t come again?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think it just disrupted their spell, I don’t think it will prevent them from recasting it.”

“Oh,” she said, and it was clear she’d hoped it might. Of course she’d hoped.

“I could stay again tonight, if you wanted. I’ll learn the spell from Sypha, that way I can wake you up, no matter what.”

She stared at him, those unfamiliar green eyes wide and round.

“Really?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

“Of course. I want you to feel safe—I want you to be safe.”

“You make me feel safe.”

He froze, then, something warm blooming in his chest. “I do?”

She nodded, color rising in her cheeks before she dropped her gaze to the stack of books to hide it.

“I—I am glad,” he said finally, the words stilted, not conveying what he really meant, what that sort of trust meant. What those words meant to him, after what had been done to him, what had been taken, what they meant coming from her after he’d seen the cruelty she’d suffered from the men who had taken her—the remnants of their cruelty.

He could only guess at the extent over the months she’d spent in their capture.

“Are these all the books about fae magic from the Hold?” she asked, color still high in her cheeks. He shook his head, glad for the change in subject before he could say something foolish.

“No, I don’t think so. It’s nearly impossible to know, though, with how everything down there is organized. Or rather, not organized. It’ll be a nightmare to put it to rights.”

“Does Trevor have no insight into how it’s arranged?”

“There is something of an index, but everything got rather jumbled up after the Night Creatures tore through it. It will be something of a marvel, though, once it’s in order. I don’t think there’s a collection that could rival it.”

“All about hunting monsters,” she said darkly, fingers trailing up the spines of the books he’d brought up. Books about the fae, about her, about killing things like her. He rather remembered his own revulsion at seeing the Belmont collection of vampire skulls, accented with that of a little dhampir that couldn't have been more than five. 

“The irony is not lost on me that I have become its caretaker. Especially since it is mostly devoted to killing vampires.”

“I wonder what Trevor’s ancestors would think about a dhampir and a faery girl getting their grubby little hands all over their precious monster-killing manuals.”

“Oh, no doubt they’re rolling in their graves. The thought does make its management more palatable, actually.”

She smiled at him, and it was the same smile he’d grown so fond of, even if it was on the lips of the painfully ethereal creature she’d become. There were no more imperfections of humanity, just an alien sort of perfection. It nearly reminded him of the beauty of vampires, of the predatory, practical nature of it, but it was something more wild and untamed.

He wondered how long it would take him to become used to her face, her real face. It suited her, more than the glamour. He’d thought her very pretty before and now—

He shook his head, trying to get rid of such foolish thoughts.

He hated how his eyes lingered on the tendril of hair that had fallen in front of her ear, the way it shone like spun silver, curling to rest in the hollow of her throat. He hated how his eyes flicked to her lips, the bottom one red from all the time she spent worrying it with her teeth. 

She was his friend. 

He shouldn’t be looking at her in such a way, shouldn’t be thinking of the way it felt to have her curl into his chest, to have her pressed against his side, the way it felt to hear the honey of her voice saying his name.

He was being absurd. 

He sat at the table across from her, pouring them each a cup of tea before grabbing the top book. They should return to the library, he knew, but he was rather content with the little bubble they’d created down in the kitchen, knew that as soon as they returned it would pop.

No—for now this was enough, sitting here in comfortable silence as they poured through books. He was quite sure it might have been enough forever, if only it was an option.

Notes:

Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you think, your comments literally mean so much to me and really help to keep me motivated. Love you all!

Chapter 16: Drowning

It had been a while since Valion had made the trip to the Mortal Realm, since he’d seen her, nearly a year, for them. Longer than he liked, ordinarily, but things had been unstable Below, unstable enough to warrant his undivided attention. As far as he was concerned, the whole lot could go stick their heads in an oven, could rot and he'd be glad for it.

Still, he wouldn’t let it ruin his trip. It was already bad enough he was late, and for an important birthday, a new decade. He hoped the necklace he’d had made for her would make up for it, just a little. It was a powerful thing, woven with a blessing of protection—she’d need it, if she was to join him, and it was very nearly time.

Perhaps a few more years, if he could manage them. She was happy here, with her surrogate father and he was a good man, better than most. He’d raised her no different from a son, forced no suitors on her, ensured she was better educated than some princes. He was older, too, so it would be better to allow her the years she had left with him. It was the least he could do, for how he’d raised her.

Still—his heart ached at the thought of all he’d missed, Two decades wasn’t even the blink of an eye in the span of an immortal life, but it had been perhaps the most important of them. Children were rare, in the Faewild, rare enough that he’d probably never have another and he’d missed all the tottering milestones. He hadn’t seen her first steps or heard her first word, hadn’t been there to see the first wild blip of her magic. He’d been shorn of all the joys of her childhood, forced to watch in minute moments from the outside, as a stranger.

No matter how many times he visited, she never guessed who he was. She knew in her bones—it had been clear enough in the way she’d unwoven the glamour around the hair he’d touched when she was small, hardly five, already a deft hand. But there was never that sort of recognition in her eyes.

One day she would know, one day she would understand why, understand the sacrifice it had been, the wound it left, the wound he would happily bear a thousand times to ensure her safety, her happiness.

Not today, though. Today would be a normal visit, a perusal of the shop, a quick invisible jaunt upstairs to leave her present—

And perhaps he’d linger like that for a while. He liked to watch her work in the back, so clever and precise, liked the satisfaction it brought her, the pride. He hoped she’d keep it up, when he finally brought her home. She was already quite good, he could hardly guess how skilled she’d be after a century or two.

He froze when he turned the corner and saw the door to his daughter’s shop boarded up, the windows dark. He strode to the front door, nose wrinkling as he smelt blood—old and stale, but definitely blood. Familiar blood.

His daughter’s blood.

It was easy enough to step though to the other side of the door and he froze when he saw the chaos. The little shop was in near ruins, everything knocked over and broken, papers strewn about and smeared with ink and blood. Upstairs was hardly any better, the little apartment tossed about. He crossed to his daughter’s room and stood in the doorway, his throat tight.

Her bed was unmade, her things tossed around as if they’d been looking for something. He stooped as he saw a familiar little doll on the ground, its hair made from strands of silver, its face made to mirror hers.

She’d kept it, all these years, ferried it back from her house in Gresit. It had been well taken care of too, even though she was long past the age human girls played with dolls. He tucked it into his pocket, searching for more signs of his daughter, of his precious Moonbeam.

He’d been foolish to leave her so long in the human world, foolish and sentimental. He hadn’t thought a few more years with her foster parents would pose much issue, especially when it was clear how much she loved them, how much they adored her—

Of course they did, how could they not?

But they had been good to her, and she had been happy and safe and he’d taken that for granted, and now she was gone, long gone, by the scent of her blood.

Someone had hurt her. They’d stolen her away and they’d hurt and frightened her and he would see them flayed, pull apart their muscles strand by strand while they screamed for daring to lay a hand on her. His first duty as her father was to protect her and he’d failed, failed so absolutely that he wasn’t even sure precisely when he had.

He’d find her, though, find her and make it right.

Even if he had to burn the world to do it.

 

---

 

Rosalind dropped her head in her hands, her head pounding. She didn’t know if it was from lack of sleep, or stress, or simply how much more everything seemed—brighter and louder and more intense, ever since her glamour had been torn away. She could hear Adrian and Sypha murmuring quietly to one another on one of the upper floors of the library, could hear Trevor rifling through drawers a few shelves over. She felt raw, as if her skin had been removed and everything was directly in contact with her nerves.

She wished she knew how to put the glamour back on. They all looked at her so strangely now, and she couldn’t blame them—the face she wore now was unsettling and wrong. She’d be happy enough, too, to have everything dulled once more, to have it once more bearable—it was hard even to think with the amount of information assaulting her constantly.

That and the pain had taken on a new, uniquely sharp quality. She was much more aware of it and it was so much harder to ignore, especially because Adrian had been right, Sypha’s spell had done nothing to prevent the man from coming back, from trying to bury her once more. He’d been able to disrupt the connection again, but she’d spent the rest of the wee hours of the morning coughing up dirt until her throat was so raw it was mostly blood for a change.

All she wanted was to curl up and sleep for weeks, but she was too frightened to even try. She could feel herself getting sicker, growing more and more frail. She could no longer stop her hands from shaking, and it made her light-headed simply to stand.

She was just so tired. If she could only sleep for a few hours, maybe the words on the pages would begin to make sense again, maybe they’d stop swimming across the pages. What she wouldn’t do to fall asleep on her father’s green sofa in front of the window, to sleep in the warmth of the afternoon sun with a book on her chest, to wake with a blanket tucked around her, her father pouring over books at his desk.

What wouldn’t she give for him to be here with her now, to curl up in his arms and know that it would all be okay, that he’d take care of her, just like he always had?

A pang of loneliness his her so hard it knocked the breath from her chest.

Would he and her mother have wanted her, if they’d known what she was? Would anyone have?

Why had she been given away? What about her had been so wrong and wretched that her parents had left her with strangers?

“You look like shit,” Trevor said, flopping down onto one of the couches across from her.

“I’m being buried alive in my sleep, what’s your excuse?” she shot back, turning back to her book even if she couldn’t make sense of the words. To her surprise, Trevor laughed.

“You getting anywhere with all those books?” He asked, laying back on the couch.

“Not really,” she admitted. He nodded, closing his eyes.

“I never met one of you before,” he said, cushioning his head with his hands.

“An Austrian?”

“A faery. I had an uncle who did though. He offended it and they took his voice. Completely mute, until a Night Creature ripped him apart ten years later.”

“I’ll have to learn that one,” she quipped, pretending to read the tome in her lap. Her head pounded, enough to make her nauseous.

“I have a feeling that’ll be bad news for me.”

“And good news for polite society?”

Trevor flipped her a very impolite hand gesture and she snorted despite herself, letting her eyes slip shut. The firelight hurt, too bright against her eyes. She felt sick, her blood pounding too loud in her ears, like drumming beckoning her. If only she could rest, just for a bit, if she could just have a break from it all—

“Oh dear—you’re burning up.”

Her eyes fluttered open and she blinked up blearily at Adrian, who swam in and out of focus. Was he always so bright? He looked like sunlight, all gold and warm…

“Rosalind!” She startled awake again, unsure of when she’d fallen asleep. Surely she’d just closed her eyes? She must have, she could still hear the drumming.

“You must—you must stay awake. Sypha is looking for a way to break the connection. Please,” Adrian said, and he looked distraught—he looked underwater, or rather, she was under water and he was above, peering at her.

That was it, she was underwater, that was why it was so hard to breathe, explained the weight on her chest, the chill in her bones.

Her eyes slipped shut, too heavy to hold open any longer.

 

---

 

Alucard set aside his pile of books on the coffee table as he approached the fire. Trevor was snoring loudly on one of the couches and usually he’d rudely awaken him on principle, but Rosalind too had managed to fall asleep and he was loathe to disturb her.

She’d been far too frightened to try again after he’d broken her free of her wretched dream the night before.

Still—she was too flushed. He knelt down to check her temperature, eyes going wide at the heat radiating off her. He’d thought he’d broken the fever, but here it was back and worse than before.

“Oh—dear, you’re burning up,” he said, pulling the blankets from her. She was soaked in sweat, enough that he should have noticed she was doing worse sooner, should have checked before now. Her eyes fluttered open, exhaustion and pain clear enough on her face. She blinked back at him, head lolling back as if he hadn’t the strength to hold it up, even a few inches.

She was supposed to be getting better, not worse. He’d broken her tormentor’s hold in minutes, hardly three, not long enough for him to hurt her as he had been, to leave fresh, dirt-covered wounds.

But she was still so sick.

He watched as her eyes took on the tell-tale haziness that denoted an attack and shook her, snapping her back awake.

He’d never taken her from waking before, never even from near-sleep. It had only ever been from deep in her dreams.

Was his hold growing?

“Rosalind!” He cried as she began to slip off again, starling her—perhaps the adrenaline would help her to fight him. Alucard quickly stuttered out the banishing spell he’d used the night before, but it did nothing. He tried again—he’d stumbled over some of the Chaldean, that was it—

But her eyes remained white.

“Sypha! A little help here!” He shouted, returning to shaking her when the spell failed again. Sypha appeared at his shoulder, out of breath, eyes wide.

"What's going on?"

“It won’t dispel. The connection must be stronger, she was—she was awake when he started to take her.”

“Well that’s—that not good. We have to disrupt the connection somehow.”

“What’s going on—oh that’s freaky,” Trevor said as he sat up and took in the scene, Rosalind's blank eyes. Alucard and Sypha both ignored him, trying anything to break the connection.

He shook her again, harder than he ever wanted, but when her eyes opened they were green.

“You must—you must stay awake. Sypha is looking for a way to break the connection. Please,” he said, his heart hammering in his chest as she stared up at him. He didn’t know what to make of her expression. It was almost dreamy, somehow, even with the panic surrounding her, as if she couldn't see it.

He pulled her into his lap, hoping, perhaps, that the contact would be grounding, maybe it would be enough for her to focus on, to fight whatever was drawing her into sleep, drawing her away where he couldn’t drag her back.

“Please Rose, please stay awake. Don’t go, please don’t go,” he said, combing her hair back from her face, trying to ignore the pain in his chest as she tried—he knew she was trying. She was always such a fighter, he just needed her to for a little while longer, until Sypha broke the connection, until she’d be safe.

Her eyes slipped shut, despite his yelling, despite how he shook her, despite the dozens of times he recited the spell that should have worked, should have brought her back, but she just lay limp in his arms. Sypha had located some book and was chanting from it, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything either.

He pulled her to his chest, tears pricking at his eyes at the ragged way she breathed, as if each one was an agony, as if there was hardly any space left in them at all.

She was dying. She was dying in his arms and there was nothing he could do. He’d promised he’d help—and what help had he been? He’d hardly even managed to make her comfortable.

She couldn’t die, he couldn’t bear her haunting him too, couldn’t bear the silent halls, the silence that should have been filled with her heartbeat, or laughter, or witty observations. She couldn’t haunt him when he’d hardly even gotten to know her, when there was so much left to discover, when for once in the face of the eons stretching before him he’d met someone who be around to see what they brought.

Who he’d like to perhaps see them with. Who he shouldn't have to mourn. 

“Please wake,” he begged, voice little more than a whisper. “You must, please.”

He hardly looked up at Trevor’s shout, hardly cared that the wood of the divan had been brought back to life, that it grew into a sort of canopy around them bursting through the cushioned back, that it bloomed in a matter of minutes.

He only cared that she lay limp and unresponsive in his arms, that her shallow breathes were growing further apart but no deeper, that he couldn’t even remember the last thing he’d said to her this morning before he started combing the library with Sypha. It didn’t matter what it had been, it hadn’t been right, hadn’t been any of the things he should have said if it was the last time he’d speak to her. He hadn’t told her how dear she’d become to him, or that he didn’t want her to go back to Vienna, or even that he wanted her to stay, that she was welcome to. 

That he'd miss her, desperately. 

He held her tighter, begging her to wake, because this couldn’t be the end. He wasn’t ready.

 

---

 

The water was black, and oh so deep. It didn’t hurt, though, it was just cold and dark. If she could breathe properly she might not even mind it, it might have been relaxing, a relief. It was so quiet—quiet like the castle before Sypha and Trevor arrived, quiet like her townhouse in Vienna never was. She let her head roll back, basking in the cool water.

She forced another breath, the water rushing down her throat, unafraid that she would drown—shouldn’t she be afraid? No, the water was so cool, so soothing to her ragged lungs.

“Breathe, just breathe, my darling.”

Why was the voice familiar? It rattled around in the shreds of her chest, pulling on heartstrings. She took another breath and her lungs didn’t feel so raw, so full of blood and earth.

“I’m tired,” she murmured, her eyes slipping shut.

“I know.”

She felt slender hands on her cheeks, pleasantly cool against her burning skin, thumbs tracing her cheekbones. She leaned into the sensation—why? Why did she trust it?

“I’m so tired,” she whined, and she could feel tears slipping down her cheeks, if only for their warmth.

“Sleep, sweetling. You have nothing to fear while I’m here.”

She believed him—why did she believe him? Was she simply too exhausted not to? Was his voice too sweet to deny him?

She wanted to believe him, wanted to sleep without fear of choking on the earth in her lungs. She felt fingers carding in her hair, felt herself being cradled in strong arms, held close.

“Breathe, just breathe. The water will help. It will be better when you wake.”

She felt herself drifting, her head lolling back onto an unknown shoulder, fingers still gently combing through her hair, a cheek pressed to the top of her head.

“It will be alright. I am coming for you, Moonbeam. It won’t be long,” the voice murmured, almost lost to the haze of sleep. When it did take her, though, it was dreamless and deep, everything fading away to nothing.

Notes:

Thank you thank you thank you for reading and for all of your kind words! They mean so much to me and really help me to stay motivated knowing that I'm writing for you all.

I hope you enjoy this chapter! Let me know what you think!

Chapter 17: A Tangled Web

Vranos’s chest heaved as he was shoved back into his body, pain blooming at his temples. He hadn’t even been able to reach her, this time, even with her blood as a tether. 

Someone was helping the little wretch, however flat-footed and clumsy the attempt. They had to be, there was no way she could have forced him out like that without any education in magic.

Did the dhampir suspect? He hadn’t brought her outside the castle wards again since the last time. Perhaps he knew he’d gotten her blood. Or was it idiot luck that kept her from his grasp?

Even if she did mean to stay inside the damn castle forever, it would only be time before he broke her, time before she gave in or grew too weak to fight him any longer. 

Of course he hadn’t expected her to be able to hold out this long, not an ignorant little changeling without an ounce of understanding or training in their magics. It only made it that much more important to break her, if their blood ran that strongly through her veins, even as a babe. 

Valion had been foolish to try and spare her the politics of Court, to shield her from its cruel games until she was old enough. Foolish because he left her vulnerable and unprepared, because it left her unprotected and free for the taking. 

Well, not free. He’d promised five thousand gold pieces to the mouth breathers he’d sent to retrieve her. Perhaps if he’d offered ten he’d have found someone competent enough to complete the job, rather than getting outwitted by a little girl who hadn’t even the sense to run away from a damn dhampir. 

It wasn’t as if he’d meant to pay the fee either way. 

But now—now he had to contend with the fumblings of Dracula’s half-breed son on top of his niece’s wretched stubbornness. Of course she had to take after Valion in every way that mattered. Surely their father would favor her too, if given the chance. 

Which wouldn’t be allowed. It was rather the point after all. 

He almost hoped Valion would live long enough to see what he’d do to her, to know he’d sown his destruction with the blood of his only child. To know that she would suffer still, after he died, suffer because she was his and because Vranos wanted her to. It didn’t matter that she was innocent in all of it, only mattered that it would be another way to torture him, to punish him for the mere fourteen minutes that had relegated him to the title of second son, of Spare, of being stripped of everything that should have been his, that he wanted. 

That he deserved.

Valion had never wanted it, had never tried to be worthy. He was indolent and soft, spent more time whoring than he did tending to any of his duties as Crown Prince. If he cared in the first place he wouldn’t have sent his heir away to be raised by ignorant humans, he would have raised her in their ways, would have prepared her for her role in Court, would have taught her to bear her fangs and sharpen her claws, would have used her to further cement his own standing. 

But she wasn’t worthy either, didn’t know a thing about their people, about herself. So she would die too, once she’d served her purpose. She would die screaming and he’d make sure she knew it was her father’s fault, that he hadn’t cared enough to protect her. 

Maybe he’d make her watch him kill her pretty little dhampir before she went, just for being such a nuisance. 

He’d break her. Even if he had to drag her right to the edge of death, he’d do it and keep her there as punishment for the effort. And then once her had her—

He’d crush them all and finally take what was rightfully his. 

 

---

 

Alucard tried to ignore the tendrils of dawn’s light as they crept through the window, bathing the room in golden light. It felt wrong for the sun to rise as if nothing had changed, as if she didn’t still lie still as death in his arms.

Her fever had broken, at least, and her breathing had leveled, had lost the ragged edge he’d grown used to.

But still she wouldn’t wake. Not even Sypha had been able to wrench her back, and she’d tried, for nearly four hours.

She and Trevor had left him to his misery, unsure, no doubt, of what to do, if they should wait with him for her breaths to stop, her heart to fall still and silent. He was glad for the privacy they’d given him. He preferred his grief to be a private thing, borne alone. 

It was partially why he’d carried her to his room, to ensure his solitude. Here, at least, he didn’t have to worry about hiding the tears that dripped down his nose, that he’d long given up on trying to wipe away.

It was ridiculous, really—he’d known her all of three months. He shouldn’t find the idea of losing her so devastating, it shouldn’t have stolen the breath from his lungs. It shouldn’t have hurt as badly as it did.

Of course three months was more than he’d spent with Trevor and Sypha before they’d left on their grand adventure, longer than Taka and Sumi had been guests before they’d tried to murder him. It was perhaps the longest someone had stuck around, besides his parents.

And now he’d bury her just like them.

Would she perhaps forgive him, if he interred her on the grounds? He knew she said she didn’t want to be buried in Wallachia, but he thought he’d like to visit her, if he could.

He traced a finger softly over her cheekbone, along the curve of her jaw, memorizing her face, the features that were so different from the girl who’d arrived. They fit her better, fit her sharp tongue and fearlessness, fit the way her mind whirred constantly, fit her expressions far better than the glamour ever had. It had made her features overly soft and average, had tried to make her seem plain and uninteresting.

As if anyone could think her so.

He sniffled, running his fingers through her hair, something about either the feeling or the motion soothing. He remembered brushing it for her, after the first dream-attack, remembered methodically untangling all the knots rather than letting her rip it out at the root in her impatient attempt, remembered how she’d thanked him for being her friend.

He’d hardly even deserved the title, then. He hadn’t gotten the feeling she’d had many before, or she wouldn’t have offered the title so freely to someone who’d scarcely been nice to her for most of her stay.

The light dimmed outside, clouds overtaking the morning sun. It wasn’t long before he heard the pitter-patter of rain against the windows, the rumblings of distant thunder. It felt better than the sunshine, felt right.

He took a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment as he fought the tightness in his chest. He froze, though, as he felt the slightest of stirrings against his chest.

“Rose?” he asked, voice hardly more that a whisper. She hummed in response, the sound hardly audible and pained, but a sound. He sat up carefully, making sure to keep her steady.

“Rosalind, can you hear me?” he asked, the words hardly more than a breath. She nodded faintly, struggling to force her eyes open and look up at him blearily. She took a breath—a full breath—as she stared at him, the green of her eyes somehow more saturated, brows drawn together. 

He let out a choked laugh, hugging her tight.

“Why are you crying?” she asked, her voice soft and ragged, but not the rasp he would have expected, the rasp he’d come to expect after she was wrenched away in her dreams.

He shook his head, smiling at her. “I’m not.”

“You’re a bad liar.”

He laughed, reaching up to brush away the tears from his cheeks. “No, I think you’re seeing things.”

“Seeing you destroy the evidence.”

He shook his head, unable to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “How—how are you feeling? We—we couldn’t wake you, we tried everything.”

“I—I think I feel better. A little better. My lungs don’t hurt so much.”

“Really?”

She nodded.

“Even though he took you again—”

“It—it wasn’t a grave, I wasn’t being pulled into the earth. It was just—it was like I was underwater. There was a voice, it told me to sleep, told me they would look after me. I—I don’t know why I listened, why I believed them. Maybe I just couldn’t fight it anymore, but—I didn’t dream. Not at all.”

Alucard tried to make sense of the revelation, of the fact that it was either an awful sort of ruse to make her comfortable enough to give in to the person plaguing her dreams, or there were more players on the board than they knew. They could be allies—or they could be a new sort of enemy, craftier than the last.

Who was she, really? Who had she been before she’d been given away to draw such relentless attacks? Trevor was probably right, loathe as he was to admit it—she had to be very important to someone for them to go about the ordeal of trying to circumvent his father’s wards.

Her magic was powerful, if inscrutable—it hadn’t just been a branch she’d grown from dead wood in the library, but a full, small tree, all while unconscious. Could someone be looking to harness it for themselves? Or was this ordinary magic among the fae, simply wild and unchecked?

Or was she important some other way, related to some powerful fae? Were they looking for leverage? Or perhaps misguided vengeance against her family?

It didn’t matter, regardless of their reasoning, they wouldn’t have her, he wouldn’t let them. He’d felt just an ounce of the grief it would bring to lose her, to bury her, and he wouldn’t, he couldn’t—

“How—how long has it been since the library?” she asked, drawing him from his thoughts.

“Perhaps—perhaps sixteen hours.”

“Sixteen?!”

“I—I was not sure you would wake. Sypha and I tried everything to rouse you.”

She stared at him, mouth slightly open for a moment before she shut it, shaking her head. “I—I’m sorry—”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m only glad I was wrong. The castle would be dreadfully boring without you,” he said, trying to force some humor into his voice.

“I don’t think you could ever be bored in this place,” she said, the words woven with a bit of wonder and he knew she was thinking of the library, of the thousands of books waiting to be read.

“I’m quite sure I could manage it,” he said, thinking of the empty halls before she’d come. He’d kept busy, but he’d found little enjoyment in it.

“That is talent, Adrian. Dour talent, but talent nonetheless.”

“A talent I do not plan on having to utilize any time soon. Not with you around to fill the halls with chatter.”

“Are you saying I talk too much?”

“Not at all,” he said, and he meant it. She smiled shyly back at him and he suddenly remembered how closely he held her with hardly a space between them. He quickly untangled himself, putting space between them as he climbed out of bed. It was hardly proper how he’d held her, or indeed that he’d brought her alone to his room, which somehow felt different than when he stayed in hers.

Maybe because he always made sure they were separated by the covers, or because he’d been the one clinging to her, the one holding desperately on. Perhaps because he’d spent the hours tracing her face, carding his fingers through her hair, not as a friend would, but as a lover might.

And he wasn’t, wouldn’t ever be, couldn’t—

She was his friend and a proper lady and he didn’t want her to think he was taking liberties while she was weak and ill, not like those monsters had done when they’d kept her drugged. He’d let his worry and melancholy consume him completely and entirely forgotten any sense of propriety.

“I—I’ll draw you a bath and make something for breakfast.”

“Oh—thank you, um, I-I don’t doubt I could use a wash,” she said with a huff of laughter, though there was something odd to the pitch of her voice. Still he turned to go start the tub, to find what piecemeal clothing he cold for her to change into after.

He really did need to get her some proper clothes. He doubted she was used to wearing random cast-offs—the dress she’d arrived in had once been quite fine, if simple and practical.

When he returned she’d perched herself on the edge of the bed, staring out one of the rain-flecked windows at the storm outside. Thunder crashed, and he was surprised at the faint smile it brought to her lips.

“Are you fond of storms?” he asked and she nodded, a pensive expression taking over her face.

“I liked to watch them as a child. There was something wild about them I liked. There’s not much wildness, growing up in cities.”

“I daresay it looks as if it will storm all day.”

“I hope so. I’ve not seen a storm since I left Vienna. None that I remember, anyway.”

He hoped so too, if only it would make her happy. He helped to steady her on the way to the bathroom, but she indeed seemed to be feeling better, a bit of her strength returned.

He hoped whatever voice she’d heard, whoever had dragged her into her unwakable slumber had good intentions. Perhaps they’d be able to help where he’d failed.

He couldn’t quite bring himself to consider the alternative, not yet.

 

---

 

“You look...better,” Trevor said dubiously over lunch. Alucard wondered if this was his attempt at being nice.

“Yes, I bathed, Belmont, perhaps you should try it,” she replied primly. He shot Sypha a dirty look for laughing.

“What? She is not wrong.”

“Oh, but Sypha, it might ruin his patina,” Alucard quipped. Rosalind snorted, trying to hide her smile. Alucard didn’t bother. Annoying Trevor would be twice as fun if it made her laugh like that.

“Oh, I see how it is,” Trevor shot back, jabbing his fork in Alucard’s direction. “I’m here trying to figure out whatever weird dark magic brought her from comatose to irritating and you’ve got jokes.”

“It’s not a joke, you do smell,” Rosalind said, completely undermining her point by laughing through it. Trevor shot her a dirty look.

“I liked you better unconscious.”

“You just wait, Belmont, the minute I figure out these fae powers I’m going to curse your whole bloodline to be as stupid as you look.”

“You’re real cocky for someone who’s only stopped coughing up dirt for a day.”

Alucard opened his mouth to tell Trevor off for being an insensitive prick but stopped when she snorted, inexplicably finding the comment amusing.

“It is good to see you feeling better,” Sypha said kindly, though uncertainty and worry where clear enough on her face. “It is still troubling that we were unable to wake you though. It had to be very powerful magic indeed to resist the sort of spells Alucard and I tried.”

“Or it’s some weird fae bullshit. Doubt normal magic has much of a hold on it,” Trevor said, mouth full. 

“I don’t know. I don’t think they meant to harm me, though,” she said quietly.

“Or they want you to think that and let your guard down,” Trevor retorted.

“Maybe,” she replied, furrowing her brow. Alucard wondered what about this dream visitor was different, made them seem worthy of trust.

“Might as well go digging in the Hold again for some more books on faery magic, not that we’ve been able to make heads or tails of it,” Trevor said, throwing down his fork.

“Trevor and I can go and see what we can find while you two try to make sense of the books we haven’t gotten to,” Sypha said, kind as always.

“Yeah, you kids have fun,” Trevor said, winking at Alucard obnoxiously behind Rosalind's back so she couldn’t see. Alucard flipped him off before he could think better of it and Rosalind held up her own middle finger at him without turning when she saw what he was doing.

“You don’t even know why you’re flipping me off!”

“I just assume you deserve it,” she shot back.

Trevor stomped out of the kitchen muttering something about ‘fucking two of them now’ and Sypha followed giving a little wave as she left. Alucard just sipped his tea, enjoying the satisfied expression on Rosalind’s face.

“Shall we retire to the library, then? We have quite a few books to come through.”

She nodded, allowing him to help her to her feet. He hesitated a moment at the foot of the stairs before picking her up and carrying her to the library landing, where he offered her his arm so she could walk.

Like a gentleman, like he’d been taught. She deserved to be treated only with his utmost respect. Especially if he wanted her to stay.

And he wanted her to stay, wanted her to feel safe and at home in the castle.

With him.

He wouldn’t chance that for anything that might have bloomed in his chest, wouldn’t risk her friendship by selfishly asking for more. No, he just—he’d be more than content with just her presence in his life, more than happy to simply be able to call her his friend.

She froze as he opened the library door, eyes locked on the tree. It had grown since he’d last seen it, standing well over fifteen feet tall but oddly curved around, as if protecting those that sat on the divan.

“W-what—?” she stammered, eyes wide.

“You did it, somehow. It grew around you.”

“I—I couldn’t, h-how would I even—?”

“Perhaps it was like the bannister, when you were falling. You seem to have an affinity for it, though. I think it brightens up the place, adds some charm.”

“How can I do something like that and not know? I wasn’t even awake.”

“It’s beyond my understanding of magic. We’ll figure it out, though. I’m sure between the two of us and two massive libraries we can piece something together”

She stared up at him for a long moment, brow furrowed and lips tight.

“Is something the matter?”

“I—I am very lucky to have you as my friend. I have brought naught but misery and trouble to your door and you have been more gracious then anyone could ever ask. I—I know that you said I don’t owe you, but I need you to know I don’t take your kindness for granted. I—I am so grateful and I promise I will find a way to show you. I just—I needed you to know,” she said, voice tight. She almost looked as though she wanted to cry, which was the last thing he wanted.

“Whatever trouble you feel you’ve brought is far outweighed by your friendship. I just hope we figure everything out quickly, I hate seeing you suffer so.”

She stared at him for another moment as if she wanted to say something else but settled on nodding before he helped her over to the divan, which she examined with equal parts wonder and apprehension, and retrieved the books he and Sypha had gathered before it had all gone to hell.

It would be enough, he thought as he combed through tomes sat next to her on the divan, arms not quite touching. It would be enough to simply be able to stand at her side, to have moments like this of comfortable silence as they worked, to make her laugh when he was able. He would be foolish to ask for more, to hope, especially when she felt she owed him.

It would be enough if he could only convince her to stay.

 

---

 

She was alive. He knew now for certain.

She was sick, though, and hurting. Not a natural sickness, not by a long shot, the sort of sickness one got when dirt from the Muckmire was forced into their lungs. He hoped it was the Muckmire and not something worse like the Undercrypts, with their lingering, foul magics.

He’d done what he could Dreamwalking, dispelled the earth that remained and soothed what he was able.

It had broken the fever, at least. Perhaps it would be enough to keep the infection at bay. 

He didn’t know where she was, though, and until he found her he could only hope to fend off the symptoms while she remained wretchedly vulnerable. She’d never learned to shield her mind, hardly had any natural defenses at all—it had been easy for him to slip in, far easier than in should have been, even with her blood and the fact she was his.

Still, he’d imposed his own shield for as long as he could hold the connection, buffeting any that tried to reach her, as long as he could grant her relief. It wasn’t enough, he knew, but even he had his limits.

He breathed hard, his head swimming. He needed to sleep. He needed to recover his strength so he could slip into her dreams again, find some clue as to where she was, where to find her.

She’d trusted him, the last time. That would at least make it easier.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have, though. After all, he was the one who’d left her completely vulnerable, who’d lost her, who didn’t even know how long she’d been gone.

He thought he’d been careful—so careful. No one should have known she even existed, much less that she was his. But some miserable waste of blood had thought themselves clever, thought they could use her against him.

He’d kill them, slowly.

Or better yet, he’d let her do it, under his careful supervision, of course. That would certainly cement her place in Court and let all the other conniving, fetid puss sacks know exactly what to expect should they try the same.

He wondered who it was, who dared. Lord Kaldar was an accomplished Dreamwalker himself, but he hardly left his own keep nowadays to even attend Court. Lady Eryndor, too, was gifted in dream magic, but this was too heavy-handed for her schemes. Sir Maelros had been looking to unseat for more than a century, but he was a piddling mage.

Of course, there was always his wretch of a brother. He usually favored a more direct and militant approach to trying to kill him or force him from their father’s favor. Usually he’d write him off as too stupid for even a ham-fisted attempt at manipulation as this, but it was vile enough to be the sort of thing he’d do, the sort of thing he’d relish.

He’d tolerated his brothers clumsy plots, his misguided rage and rampant jealousy for over six thousand years. He’d tolerated it, because he was his brother, because they’d shared a womb, because some idiot part of him had hoped he might simply grow up and decide to cut his own path rather than lamenting the one he thought should have been his.

If he was behind this, though, if he’d stooped to hurting his daughter—there would be no mercy. Vranos thought him soft and weak, and that would finally be his undoing. Just because he preferred to play tactician, preferred to play refined, subtle games, didn’t mean that he wouldn’t eviscerate him and see him hanged by his own intestines in the middle of the square.

Whoever it was, he’d make them regret being born. It seemed they’d quite forgotten his last rampage.

This, though, would make it look like a tantrum.

Notes:

Thank you so so much for reading and all your kind words! They literally make my day, I love knowing that people enjoy what I write.

I am going to be going on a bit of a trip on Friday and I love making playlists for the stories I'm working on to listen to while I'm driving and plotting out chapters, so please let me know if there's any songs you think fit the story!

Chapter 18: Grasp

Valion didn’t waste time in taking a scrap of fabric with her blood soaked in it to his Diviner. It didn’t matter that his head was pounding from holding his shield over her for as long as he could manage.

He didn’t know exactly how long it had been for her in the Mortal Realm. It had been longer for him, he knew, in the Gloomveil, been nearly three days, but time was fluid in the forest, keeping no constant rate with the world outside it, never mind realms beyond.

He hoped it gave her enough of a respite, allowed her lungs to recover from the muck forced down them.

He hadn’t minded the strain, not when it let her rest, when it let him protect her, even for a little while as he figured out his next move.

And it had allowed him to hold her, to hold his daughter, even if it was only in the Realm of Dreams. He hadn’t since he’d given her to the woman that had become her mother, hadn’t dared to, even when Dreamwalking.

Hadn’t deserved to.

He’d hardly let himself step into her dreams as she grew, only enough to check on her, to make sure she was happy and never close enough to be seen.

She wore her true face in her dreams, a face that made his heart ache. There was so much of Orlaith in her features—she had her eyes, bright and verdant, had the same bow to her lip, the same narrow nose. And yet so much was his mirror—she had the same pointed chin, the same sharp cheekbones, the same stubborn set of her shoulders.

It was the first opportunity he’d been able to get more than a passing moment to look at her up close, and they’d always been in her shop with the plain features he’d hidden her true face with.

He watched the Diviner, face shrouded by the hood of their cloak, light gleaming from between their fingers as they worked over the scrap of fabric set into the stone water bowl. It was taking longer than it should have, something blocking them from pinning her down.

“She’s warded,” they said in their rasp of a voice, cocking their head in irritation. “Old wards, strong wards, lots of them. Human magics.”

“Human?”

“Much of it, all jumbled. Old means cracks though,” they said, almost to themself. Valion furrowed his brow—had some filthy human mage stolen his daughter? It couldn’t just be a human, though, not with the Dreamwalking. Humans hadn’t the force of will it took to force the waking world into sleep, to manifest physical things through dream alone.

“There!” the Diviner cried in triumph. They pulled an image of the place from the bowl of still water. It shimmered in the light of their hands. “A castle in the Carpathian forest, shadowed by the mountains. An old castle, a clockwork castle.”

“What?”

“I can hear it tick-tick-ticking, hear the whir of the steam. It sits on the ruins of another manor, never cleared away.”

“Who’s castle is it?”

“I don’t know, I can’t see. Its wards shroud everything else. I needed to blood to worm through.”

“Fine,” he said, jaw tight. “I will take it back now.”

The Diviner inclined their head, handing back the fabric, though he could feel their eyes lingering on it. He stashed it away before he turned away.

He had a location, at least, even if he hadn’t a clue what waited for him there. He’d ensure he was prepared to crush whatever resistance he would encounter.

 

---

 

Alucard made a face at the empty jars in the infirmary. Rosalind’s night of relief had been short lived. She’d woken up again coughing up earth the last three days, though there was perhaps less blood in it then there had before.

At least for now. He doubt that would be the case for long.

He’d run out of several of the herbs he used to make the tonic he’d been giving her to fight off infection and soothe the inflammation as was possible. He’d run out of other provisions too in the four months since he’d restocked anything. They had no more flour, no honey—and no more beer.

Trevor had been very vocal about his supply running dry.

He’d been perfectly content to go without, but he couldn’t forgo the tonic—often it was the only thing that helped after a particularly violent fit, the only thing that offered a bit of relief.

She sat on one of the narrow beds, her head in her hands. He could tell she was trying not to cough, that she was fighting the soil in her lungs.

She’d had hardly a day’s break from it.

She felt worse, though, after the respite. Worse because she’d been reminded what it felt like to be well.

“I—this is the last I can make until I go to one of the larger towns nearby to restock. I’ve run out of several of the main components,” he said sheepishly, handing her a glass of it. There was enough left after that for maybe two more.

“It’s fine, Adrian. I don’t need it—”

“You do,” he said, perhaps more sternly than he’d meant to. “You do, your fever will come back worse without it.”

“The fever will come back regardless,” she said without looking up. She just stared at the tonic in her hands, her shoulders curling inwards.

“It won’t. We know it can be stopped, now, we just have to figure out how. It’s scarcely been a week since Sypha arrived, we’ll find something.”

She didn’t reply, simply downing the contents of the glass. She’d begun to grow morose again, as she had before he knew what she was searching for in the library.

“Do you think they’ll come back?” she asked, voice ragged and hardly more than a whisper. “The other one?”

“I don’t know,” he said, hating the longing in her voice. “We don’t know who they are.”

“But they helped. Maybe—maybe if they visit again I can ask what to do—”

“They might be just as dangerous—”

“What choice do I have, Adrian? I’m running out of time,” she said, dissolving into another coughing fit.

“We’ll find something,” he said, refusing to indulge her her fatalism. “We will. We’ll go to the market and get fresh herbs and I’m sure the sunlight will do you good. I do believe I promised you shoes as well.”

“I—I can’t go. I—I can hardly walk and I don’t look right anymore. They’ll know I’m a monster.”

“You’re not a monster.”

“Trevor’s family has an awful lot of books that say otherwise.”

“Trevor’s family killed babes in their cribs and took their skulls as trophies, just for being half-vampire. Anything different to them is a monster.”

“I—I can’t. They’ll know—”

“They won’t. We’ll hide your ears and you’ll just be an abnormally pretty young woman. They won’t know a thing.”

She stared at him oddly, as if trying to make sense of what he’d said.

“It would be good for you to get out of the castle.”

“Last time something tried to take me, in the woods.”

“We’ll stick to the roads. It’s not terribly far and I’ll stay by your side the whole time.”

“I—I don’t want to, Adrian. I can hardly walk. If something happens you’ll get hurt because I’m useless.”

“You’re not useless.”

“I don’t think the sun agrees with me, anyway. I just—I’ll stay. With my luck I’d just manage to re-break my leg or something.”

“I—I will not force you, of course. I just thought perhaps a change of scenery might be agreeable.”

“It would, if I could walk. If I was normal.”

“You’ll have to stay behind with Trevor,” he said, trying to force humor into his voice. It fell flat. “If—if you’re sure you wish to stay behind, I’ll let Sypha and Trevor know of my plans. It shouldn’t take me very long, anyhow.”

“Is the village close?”

“No, but I can walk very fast. Shouldn’t take me more than an hour. Would you like to go back to the library?”

She nodded. He helped her back to the window seat she’d taken to occupying, rather than the divan. He wasn’t sure if it was the product of her magic upsetting her, or if she simply wished to look outside. He’d found her staring out the window nearly as much as he’d seen her reading the past few days.

He made sure she had plenty of books, that she had a cup of tea within reach before he went to go find Trevor and Sypha. They’d taken it upon themselves to scour the Hold, though they’d found little of relevance. He let them know where he was going and they agreed to pack up and move to the library.

He grabbed a basket and a cloak and set off, wondering if he could make the journey in perhaps less than an hour.

 

---

 

“How is she?” Sypha asked. Trevor sighed before standing half up from their place on their couch to check on the little faery girl sat in the window seat, her head against the window.

“Sleeping, looks like,” he said, plopping back down.

“Sleeping normally?”

“I think I would have mentioned if she was getting strangled by bloody briars,” he said, picking up the book he’d been half-reading. Sypha sighed, shaking her head.

“It’s a good sign, if she can sleep,” Sypha said, though she sounded more like she was trying to convince herself. Both she and Alucard seemed determined to ignore the fact that she was getting worse, that she wasn't eating since the attacks started again, that you could practically see her bones under her skin. They didn't want to admit that she was dying, that even if they did find something, it would probably be too late. 

“I’m surprised he left her.”

“She needs medicine.”

“He’s hardly left her side, though, since she nearly kicked it.”

“Trevor!”

“What?!" he said, making a face. "She did, you saw it, same as me. Not even Alucard expected her to wake up.”

Sypha made a face. It had been a truly miserable sight to watch him holding her like a broken doll, begging her to wake, to what his face after spell after spell failed to bring her back. He'd hardly even acknowledged when they'd finally left, Sypha's magic exhausted, wouldn't look away from her face as if he was scared she'd die if he did.

“You don’t have to say it like that.”

“It’s the truth. And if it’s anything to go by, it’s going to be bad.”

“What is?”

“When she dies.”

It would be. Trevor doubted he'd go full Dracula and try to kill all of Wallachia, but he doubted he'd handle it well. He'd probably do something stupid like locking himself away in the castle withering away, at least until he could find out who had killed her. Then he was pretty sure it'd be carnage. 

“She’s not going to die, stop saying that.”

“It’s probably true. And then he’s going to lose it.”

“He’s not going to lose it.”

“He’s halfway there already.”

“That’s not fair, Trevor. He’s dealing with a lot.”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t, I’m just saying it’s going to be bad,” he said, wishing she'd see the reality of the situation. It wasn't as if he wanted the faery girl to die, he just wanted to be prepared for the most likely outcome, which was her dying and Alucard picking a fight with whatever fae bastard had killed her. 

As if they needed to deal with a bunch of Unseelie pricks swarming to the surface in retaliation on top of the Night Creatures and the vampires and everything else. 

“I’m not talking about this, she’s not going to die. Alucard deserves a bit of happiness after everything, and she makes him happy, so we’re going to figure out how to fix this mess. Now get back to reading,” Sypha ordered, face severe. He huffed a sigh, but did as she asked. 

 

---

 

Alucard had ran had run possibly faster then he ever had before. He didn’t want to be away from her, even for an hour in case something happened, but she needed medicine and it would have taken Trevor and Sypha two days to get to the larger village and back if he’d asked them to do it.

He found the apothecary and bought far more than he needed of everything and a few extra herbs that were good for inflammation, handing over the coin without thought. He bought the largest jar of honey he could find and several bundles of fresh mint to dry and make into a tea. He found shoes in what looked to be about her size—not the sturdy boots he’d promised her, but at least it would be something for walking about the castle, combat the chill.

A flash of color caught his eye from a neighboring stall and he turned. It was a dressmaker’s shop, a simple light blue gown hanging for display.

He hesitated a moment before crossing to it, buying what they had that looked to be nearly Rosalind’s size. Even if they didn’t fit quite right they would be leagues better than whatever he’d found around the castle left by his father’s generals or stolen from his own closet.

Surely she’d like having her own things again. When she was feeling better he’d have her pick what she wanted, have them made to fit her. Maybe if he could better figure out the Carpathian mirror she could even retrieve what she wanted from her home.

Though she might simply wish to stay. She had a life back in Vienna, a shop she might still be able to run.

Perhaps it was good, then, that he was hardly competent with it, if only for his own selfishness. It might give him a bit more time with her, after she was better, a bit more time to convince her to perhaps stay.

He grabbed the last of what they’d run out of—sans any beer for Trevor—and turned back towards the road, walking only until he was out of sight from the town before taking off back towards the castle.

 

---

 

There was an awful choking sound from across the library. Sypha turned to Trevor wide-eyed before leaping up.

“Holy shit,” Trevor breathed as they saw the tangle of briars overtaking the window seat. They sprinted over, her hands already glowing with magic as Trevor drew a blade and began hacking at the vines, trying to wrench them from where Rosalind had curled up.

“It’s fighting me,” Sypha said, gritting her teeth as she tried to break the connection. It was like she couldn’t get a proper grip on it, couldn’t quite find the tether.

“How many of these fucking things—fucking fae bullshit,” he spat, trying to tear through enough of them to pull her bodily from their grasp. “You have to break the connection—”

“What do you think I am trying to do!” she shouted back.

“There’s so many—I can’t even see her!”

“Just keep cutting them, it’s helping, I can feel it taking hold—THERE!” she said, and blue white light flashed blindingly for a moment, making her flinch back and shut her eyes. When she opened them the briars were black and brittle, crumbling to dust as Trevor shoved them away.

But there was nothing left in their center, the only hint that there had been anyone there at all a slight indentation in the cushion.

Trevor just stared, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples. Sypha found herself lost for words.

Trevor had been worried about what Alucard would do if she died, but this—this she knew, would be far worse.

 

---

 

She was back in the grave, clinging to the side for any sort of handhold, anything to prevent the briars from dragging her below. There was dirt pouring down, she couldn’t breathe, it was choking her, pouring down her lungs and everything was black and damp and cold and her fingers were screaming and bloody trying to hold on.

She was going to drown in wet earth, she was going to be buried alive—

Her hand slipped and she reached out desperately to grab something else, to keep holding tight, even though it felt like her fingers were breaking. She couldn’t let go, had to hang on, hang on until Adrian broke the connection. She needed him to break the connection.

“You can’t hold on forever, little changeling. What’s the point in putting it off?”

She tried to answer, tried to tell him a whole list of things he could do to himself, but her lungs only filled with more earth.

Was there any room left for air? It didn’t feel like it. No, her head was getting fuzzy, her lungs aching for breath.

She dug her fingers in harder, tears pouring down her cheeks. Where was Adrian? Was the spell not working again? Had the other visitor done something, rendered the spell useless? Had that been why they’d come?

She’d been stupid for trusting them, stupid for giving in so easily.

She was going to die—no, it would be worse. Somehow, it would be worse. Her arms screamed with the effort of holding herself up, shoulders threatening to pop from her sockets.

Where was Adrian? He’d save her, he always saved her—

She couldn’t hold on, her fingers were broken, they must be, all the little bones shattered in her skin, just shards. Still she clung, if she held on just a little bit longer—

“He’s not coming. No one’s coming for you, not yet, and they won’t survive it when they do.”

He was lying, she would wake, she would wake and wretch the earth from her lungs until there was nothing but blood left, she’d wake up—

She felt the briars encircling her tighten, yanking down as her hands slipped and she couldn’t find hold, couldn’t grab anything to stop them pulling her down, even though there was light above now, bright and warm and she watched the dirt around her vanish, the dream extinguish, but she was dragged too fast down, down, down, where it grew even colder, where the darkness was absolute, nearly as choking as the earth she was trying to hack up, trying to draw breath.

She landed hard, every inch of her screaming in pain. She let out a sob as she tried to cough the dirt from her lungs, tried to breath, tried to see through the darkness, but it was absolute. She recalled Sypha’s lesson, tried to force her fingers into the proper position despite the lancing pain at the movement.

She made a faint mote of silver light, looking around wildly for any clue to where she was, to who had stolen her away. She started, scrambling back as she saw a figure standing in the dark, clad in dark armor that made no noise as he strode forward. He had a sharp, cruel face, his hair black and overlong, eyes like chips of ice in his head.

He surveyed her like she was a caged animal, with a detached sort of amusement as he leaned down and grabbed her by the jaw, lifting her up, not concerned in the least with her scrabbling fingers trying to pry him off.

“My, my, my, you are quite the difficult one to get a hold of,” he said, smiling as she struggled.

“Let me go,” she cried, fear lancing down her spine. “Let me go—”

“No,” he said, lips curling into a cruel smile. “The only time you leave this place will be when I finally allow you to die.”

Rosalind let out a sob as he dragged her forward, her little mote of light flickering out.

Notes:

Thank you so much for reading! There won't be a chapter tomorrow because I will be away, but hopefully on Saturday!! Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think!

Chapter 19: Mirror, Mirror

He threw her in an earthen cell with little more than a cot and a bucket. He snapped a shackle around her broken ankle and she screamed, reaching down instinctively to yank it off, but it only burnt her hands too.

“It’s iron. Perhaps you’ll grow used to it,” the man said, smiling. She glared at him, trembling as she noted the thick gloves he wore to protect himself from the metal. He hardly spared her another glance before he turned and left, the door clanging shut behind him.

She picked up the thin blanket from the cot and tried to jam it between the shackle and her skin, but there wasn’t enough room and she was left with with the scorching, putrid burning so sharp it allowed her to focus on little else.

But she had to. She had to figure out where she was, figure out a way out. She couldn’t stay in this awful place with that awful man—she knew he’d hardly done anything to her yet, knew it was going to get so, so, so much worse.

If only she’d been stronger, if she’d only held on another second—

But she wasn’t, and she was scared. She’d fought so hard—tried to fight off the men who had stolen her from her house, tried to run away, tried to resist the briars pulling her into the earth, the loam in her lungs, but it hadn’t been enough.

Was she even in Wallachia anymore?

Would Adrian try to find her? The man had said he’d kill him if he did and she didn’t want him hurt, couldn’t be the cause—

But the idea of being left to the man’s whims made her quite nearly throw up.

She had to figure some way out—she was clever. If she found a way out then he couldn’t hurt Adrian. There had to be a way out, had to be, if only she could think properly without the shrieking bite of the iron shackle.

She needed to get it off, but she couldn’t touch it and she saw no keyhole. No, it was solid around her ankle as if it had been welded there.

Would it stop burning at some point? Would she grow used to it, or her nerves die?

She tentatively touched the chain only to wrench back her hand—it was iron too.

She couldn’t help the sob that tore from her chest and curled up on the narrow cot, pressing the balled-up thin blanket to her face to muffle her scream of frustration.

What was she supposed to do? She was just a bookmaker’s daughter, a silly little Viennese city girl, she didn’t know anything about magic or faeries or anything else. She just wanted to go home. She wanted Adrian, she wanted to hold on to him so tightly no one could ever take her away again.

She wanted him to tell her it would all be alright.

She just wanted it to be alright.

 

---

 

“What do you mean, she’s gone? You said you’d look after her—” Alucard spat, glued to the spot as he stared at the ash and briars that had taken over the window seat where she'd last sat. His hands were balled up into fists, the tendons in his neck taught.

“We did, but she got wrapped up in those briars and the spell wasn’t working and then she was just gone, Alucard. We tried. You have to know we tried,” Trevor said sympathetically, though he made sure to keep himself between the dhampir and Sypha. There was no telling how he’d lash out.

Hell, the remnants of Dracula's rage at losing his love still lay shattered around them.

Alucard just stared at him, eyes wide. Trevor could see his hands shaking slightly, his breath coming too fast.

Then he simply turned on his heel and stalked from the room.

Trevor had expected yelling, or violence, or hell—weeping—but he hadn’t expected him to simply walk away. He’d expected him to rage and declare vengeance on whoever had taken her, swear to the heavens he’d bring her back, smash up a couple of the bookshelves Dracula hadn’t gotten to—

But no, there was almost a sense of calm that had taken him over. A dangerous, deadly sort of calm.

“This is bad,” he said to Sypha as the door slammed shut. She turned to glare at him.

“Nooooo,” she shot back sarcastically. “Really?”

He fought the urge to make a face.

“What are we going to do?”

“What can we do? We don’t even know if it’s possible to bring her back.”

 

---

 

She didn’t know how long it had been—days? A week maybe? They hardly fed her so she couldn’t be sure based on that, and there were no windows to let her count the dawns, but she knew it was a long time. It had to be, with how the lacerations from the briars had scabbed over, how the bruises from them had begun to turn green. Even the burns on her hands were getting incrementally better, though they still ached—though nothing like her ankle.

She could ignore it now, though—almost. Focus on the chill of the room instead, made all the worse since they’d taken her sweater from her for trying to rush at the door, jam something in it before they could shut it, run down the hall even if she had to drag the damn bed frame after her.

It hadn’t worked—it had been a stupid, desperate idea to even begin with.

But she was stupid, and growing more desperate by the day.

She didn’t know what he wanted from her, except pain and fear. He didn’t ask her questions or try and figure anything out—no, he just stared at her every so often. Struck her hard against the face. Smiled at the way she couldn’t stop shivering.

He liked to come when she tried to sleep, to see how long she could force herself to stay awake, see how long before fear wasn’t enough and she couldn’t hold her eyes open anymore.

She didn’t know what he did then.

She didn’t want to know.

He scared her, more than the dreams and the drowning earth, more than the fevers and the blood-splattered handkerchiefs. She didn’t know why, only that he made her blood turn to ice in her veins, that the mere sound of his boots in the earthen hall brought tears to her eyes.

He hadn’t hurt her yet, not really.

But he would.

Every time she looked in his horribly cold eyes, she saw the promise of pain to come, pain beyond her imagination, beyond her comprehension and she knew it wasn’t an idle threat, knew that he’d enjoy every second of it, that for some reason, the fact that it would be hers made it better for him.

A small, scared part of her wished that Adrian had just run her threw with her captor when he’d found her, let her bleed out quickly in the grass and be done with it. She wasn’t a brave person, wasn’t a warrior or a sorceress. She was just a girl who was afraid to die, but just might be afraid of what would come first more, of the agony his cruel eyes promised.

The silly part of her kept wishing to wake up, praying that is was just another nightmare, that any second, now, Adrian would pull her from it and she’d be safe again in his castle.

But Rosalind doubted there would be any waking from this nightmare.

 

---

 

Alucard strode to the Hold, trying to compose himself.

He’d been gone an hour.

One fucking hour.

And she was gone. He’d kept her out of the bastard’s grasp for months, and the minute he left—

He should have sent Trevor and Sypha to town. It would have meant three days without medicine, but she’d have still been safe, been in the castle not—he didn’t even know where. Not yet at least.

But once he did—

Sypha and Trevor could take a turn watching the bloody library. He was getting her back, books be damned. Hell—someone could burn down the whole fucking castle and he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

As long as he got her back, made sure she was safe. It was all that mattered.

He wasn’t sure how long it took him to get to the Hold—it felt like hours, but it could only have been minutes. He crossed directly to the distance mirror, already calling up her face in his mind. It flickered, taking longer than usual before settling on her.

She was in a cold, earthen cell, with little more than a cot that she was chained to. Someone had taken her sweater, left her in nothing but her bloody shift and socks despite how she shivered. He could see fresh bruises on her skin, on her face, deep lacerations from the briars, burns on her hands and—

God. They’d chained her in iron.

He could see her ankle blistering, weeping puss as the burn grew worse and worse. She’d tried to yank herself free, tried to escape and it had only hurt her worse.

He’d promised to protect her. He’d promised.

And someone had hurt her. They’d torn her from his home and hurt her.

He’d kill them. Whoever it was—fae, magician, vampire—he’d hunt them down and kill them slowly.

The shelf he’d been holding onto crunched in his hand, leaving nothing but splinters. He dropped them to the ground, still searching for any hint of where she might be, anything that would give him a starting location.

Rosalind shivered in the mirror, pulling perhaps the thinnest blanket he’d ever seen to wrap around her shoulders—it too, was splattered with drops of blood. She curled into a ball as much as she was able to try and conserve her body heat.

She already looked more tired, more frail—or was his guilt playing tricks on him?

“Show me where she is,” he said, his voice little more than breath. The mirror backed out from the cell to a labyrinth of underground tunnels, wholly unfamiliar.

“In what kingdom is she being held?” he asked, and it showed him a castle of black obsidian, spires like knives cutting into a midnight sky.

“Who is holding her hostage?” he asked, his frustration growing with each unhelpful answer.

This time the mirror showed him a face—a pale face with long black curls and eyes like chips of ice. He had a sharp, pointed jaw, and pointed ears, a scar carved into his lower lip. There was something both regal and cruel about the figure, something that made him bristle at the thought of his hands on her, at the cruelties he’d already inflicted.

And yet he still didn’t even have a direction to go.

He didn’t even know if they were still in this realm, or if he’d be able to reach wherever she’d been taken.

He needed to, though. Whatever it took, he’d get her back.

He climbed out of the hold, fully intending to throw himself back into research in the library, to find what he could on fae kingdoms with castles of black glass, of endless earthen tunnels, but he froze when he felt another presence behind him, felt the tip of a sword press threateningly between the blades of his shoulders.

“Don’t take another step. This is your castle?” a voice asked, masculine and dangerous and somehow almost musical.

“It is,” he said evenly, fighting the urge to turn. If this mystery person was capable of creeping up on him without being seen or heard, Alucard would bet he was faster than any human he’d met.

Much more dangerous, too.

“Then you are the one holding the girl here?” the voice asked, danger dripping from every word. 

“I—I was taking care of her. She came to my door injured and ill.”

“Was?”

“She—someone took her, while I went to get more herbs for her medicine. I am going to get her back.”

Alucard felt the blade lower and he turned to find a man staring at him, ashen-faced, a man with a sharp chin and pointed ears and long black curls, a man with chips of ice for eyes, who held himself with the assured nature of any prince.

Alucard felt his face curl into something feral, the rage he’d been suppressing finally boiling over. How dare he—how dare he take her and then come and taunt him? How dare he lay a finger on her, never mind torture her for months, drown her over and over in earth, burn her with iron wire, and cut her with black briars. How dare he send those monsters to steal her away, to torment and abuse her—

He’d kill him, kill him for hurting her. Kill him for taking her, for tormenting her. Kill him for every moment of pain he’d inflicted on her, every second of fear. He’d only hold off long enough to figure out where she was, to figure out how to save her, then he’d rip him apart, limb from limb—

“You,” he snarled, feeling his nails lengthen into claws. “Where is she? Where did you take her?”

Notes:

Hello! Sorry for the delay, was dealing with some health things after coming back that knocked me on my ass for longer than I expected. I should be getting into more of a routine though now and will be aiming to publish 1-2 new chapters per week with school starting up again.

Please let me know what you think! I'm going to aim to have another new chapter up on Friday! Thank you so much for reading!!

Chapter 20: Colliding Worlds

“What do you want?” she asked the black-haired man as he pushed into her cell, eyes narrowed even as amusement twisted his lips. He was beautiful, in a cruel way, something in the way he looked at her reminding her of a predator.

Rosalind was freezing, and she didn’t know how long it had been since he’d last bothered to feed her. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, but she didn’t know from which. Maybe both.

“It is simple, really. I want what is mine.”

“I have nothing of yours—”

“Oh, but you do, little changeling. You have something I’ve desperately desired,” he said striding forward until he was close enough to touch her. He grabbed her wrist, too hard, and twisted it so they could both see the blue veins running under her skin.

“Right here,” he said, tracing his fingers almost gently along them. “Flowing through your veins, and you’ve never done a thing to earn it.”

“I don’t—I don’t understand—”

“Of course you don’t. Your father left you ignorant, to be raised like all the other idiot humans clawing their way through muck and shit. Left you alone, in the Mortal Realm, stole your birthright—do you even know what you are?”

“I—I’m a faery.”

He laughed at that, the sound cruel and too loud as it echoed in the small earthen cell. “A faery? A silly little faery girl? No, child. You are so much more than a faery. You would know that, had your father not failed you on such a base level.”

“You know my father?”

“Better than anyone. How else could I properly revile him?”

“Is that why you took me? Because you hate him? I don’t—I’ve never even met him. I don’t—I don’t know anything about him. He won’t care that you took me, he left me—”

“Oh, but he will, that’s the funny thing. He left you alone and defenseless, in ignorance and squalor, and it will tear him apart that I’ve taken you.”

“I never lived in squalor—”

“You did. Compared to what would have been yours? What he took from you? Not that it matters now. He could have protected you from this—should have, if he was any sort of real father. But instead he dumped you Above and continued his whoring and indolence, without a thought for his heir. As rare a gift as a full-blooded fae child, and he just threw you away. I suppose he thought you an inconvenience to the lifestyle he does so enjoy.”

“Then just leave me alone, if he doesn’t care about me. Just—bring me back Above and I’ll never bother you. I just want to go back home, I won’t cause you any trouble—”

“You will, should I let you go. You will, simply by breathing. So, I will take what is mine, little changeling, and I will use it to finally destroy the man I loathe most and then when you are both dead—when you are both dead I will have what should have been mine from the very start,” he said, squeezing her wrist hard enough to make her cry out. She yanked it from his grasp as he watched in mild amusement.

“You won’t! You won’t kill me, I won’t let you,” she snarled back, anger rearing its head over her fear, over reason, over every horrible fact of her situation staring her in her face. He laughed.

“You think because you could resist me in your nightmares you stand a chance against me here? Even if you weren’t bound in iron, you would fall before you even worked out how to call upon your magic and soon, your blood will be too thin to do what little you can manage.”

“You’re going to kill me?”

“Not yet. Don’t worry, I plan on dragging it out. Your father always was one for a bit of drama, so I might as well indulge him, wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t want to be part of your game—”

“You’ve been part of the game since the moment you were born. Your father thought he could keep you from it by hiding you away, but all he did was ensure your claws shorn and your teeth dulled, and you will play your part regardless.”

She glared at him, jaw clenched. She refused to show him her terror, refused to let him see her tears.

“Oh, you are a ferocious thing, aren’t you?” he said, voice mocking. “Good. My friend prefers a bit of a fight in his meals.”

He turned on his heel and she stared after him in horror.

“What do you mean? What do you mean?! Are you going to feed me to a beast?” she cried after him, unable to stop the tears springing to her eyes. She’d expected he’d beat her, hurt her but not—not to be eaten alive.

He only laughed, the sound echoing down the hall and fading to the sound of her own blood pounding in her ears.

 

---

 

Valion stared at the furious dhampir in front of him, blond curls wild sclera’s bleeding red, nails lengthening to claws. He could smell his daughter’s blood on him, see it splattered on his shirt under the coat he wore.

Not in the way it would have if he’d been feeding on her, though. No, it looked more likely that he’d been holding her as she coughed up the blood in her lungs, that it had been some sort of kindness.

And he’d know, if he’d drunk her blood. He’d be able to see it, see the wild, drunken power of it under his skin.

What sort of dhampir would take pity on a sick human, would stand to be around her blood without consuming it, even if it was tainted with earth?

“You took her! You stole her away and tormented her for months and you come to taunt me? Where is she? Tell me where you took her and I’ll grant you a swift death.”

“I would never harm her,” he retorted, disgusted. As if he could even bear the thought of her suffering, as if all this hadn’t been a foolish attempt to spare her the pain of her inheritance, of being his.

“I saw you—I saw you in the mirror, don’t lie—” the dhampir said, surging forward to take a swipe at him, one that he easily dodged as his mind whirred.

He said he’d seen him in a mirror—not him, obviously, but Vranos. Vranos had his daughter, had been hurting her for months. Had left her at the mercy of a dhampir in the middle of the forest, had left her choking on muck and mud.

He needed to know where he was so he could rip his limbs off. Slowly, rubbing salt in the whole time.

“A mirror—you have a distance mirror?” he asked. With a distance mirror he could figure out just where the wretch was hiding her, could skip all the time wading through the Muckmire and the earthen Labyrinth.

“Where have you dragged her?” he said, ignoring him as he surged forward to try and grab hold of him. This was harder to dodge—the damn dhampir was faster than he would have guessed, but then, he would have, wouldn’t he, to have made it to maturity?

They so rarely did.

“I haven’t dragged her anywhere, you welp,” he spat back, irritation cresting as the dhampir caught him round the waist and threw him some thirty or so feet. Valion made a face as he was sent crashing into the earth.

He didn’t have time to fight in the dirt with some dhampir who seemed to have far too much of an interest in his daughter—no, he needed to find her, to rest her from Vranos’s clutches and ensure she was safe, that no one would ever harm her again, that he’d protect her.

That he could make up for his failings.

He stood as the dhampir rushed at him again, calling on his magic. Vranos had always favored earth, but Valion had always found water to be far more versatile. He pulled water to the surface he was careening towards, freezing it into a sheet of ice and sending him skidding for just a moment before he could right himself, but a moment was all he needed.

He surged forward and took hold of the dhampir by the throat and slammed him to the ground, holding him there as tendrils of ice hardened and held him still. He glared at him, not moving his hand from his throat, from where it would be oh-so-easy to tear out the damn thing’s throat and be done with it.

But he seemed to care for his daughter, seemed to be caring for her—

If he indeed had been taking care of her, they might be friends, and then he’d wager she’d be rather cross at him for killing the whelp.

That and he might owe him, if he’d been preventing Vranos from getting a hold of her sooner.

“I am not not your enemy, little dhampir. It was not I that you saw in your mirror—tell me, did the beast have a scar on his chin, cutting through his lower lip?” he snarled, letting his nails dig into his neck threateningly.

“I—yes,” he snapped back, bearing his fangs. He had no doubt the dhampir could brute force through his ice binding, but he seemed to be sizing him up.

“You saw my shit-heel of a younger brother. We have the great misfortune of sharing a face, and if he has her—I need to use your mirror. I need to know precisely where he has taken her,” Valion said, trying to quell his rage. He wasn’t Vranos, or his father, he didn’t need to make enemies without reason in some foolish attempt to prove his strength.

“How do I know this isn’t some sort of trick?”

“Why would I bother to trick you? I could kill you most easily right now, there would be no need. But if you truly wish to save her than I do believe we might better serve as allies, rather than wasting precious time forcing me to kill you,” he said evenly. The dhampir glared at him.

“And why should I believe you mean to help her?”

“Because I am her father,” he said, the words hanging heavily in the air. Had he ever spoken them aloud before, ever spoked so plainly the truth in his heart?

The dhampir’s eyes widened for a moment before his face hardened and he broke free of the ice, tossing Valion aside with little care for the claw wounds at his throat. He held out his hand, and the castle door banged open, a silver longsword flying into his grip. He could hear the sound of rushing footsteps too—not enough to be an army by any stretch of the imagination, but enough to be trouble, depending on who they belonged to.

“Why do you suddenly care about her now, if you really are her father?” the dhampir said, leveling the blade in his direction as a pair of humans—one dark-haired man and a copper-haired woman—burst out of the castle, the man wielding a whip while the woman called globules of flames to her.

Valion stood, glaring at the dhampir even as he kept note of the humans who had joined the confrontation.

“I have always cared about her—”

“You abandoned her—”

“I hid her away. I hid her the only place I thought she might still be safe, where she might still have a chance at a childhood, at a life in the sun. Do not think for a moment that I did not want her, that it wasn’t the greatest sacrifice of all my centuries.”

Valion could feel his magic swirling around him, ancient and potent even in the Mortal Realm, could feel it darkening and twisting his form in his anger, his outrage at anyone thinking he’d willingly given her up, that he didn’t want her, that he wouldn’t want his child.

“What the fuck did I tell you about getting mixed up with the fae?” the dark-haired man spat at the dhampir, though his eyes remained locked on Valion. It would have been wise for the dhampir to listen to his human friend, but it was far too late for that now. He’d either help him rescue his daughter, or he’d kill him and make use of his mirror himself.

“Help or don’t, little dhampir, but I won’t waste another moment on this tantrum of yours. You know nothing of what you speak and you know nothing of the lengths I will go to to bring my daughter back home. Your death wouldn’t even make me blink.”

“Rosalind wouldn’t like that,” the woman said, hands steady even in the face of power beyond her comprehension. “Alucard’s her friend. I doubt she’d forgive you if you killed him.”

How strange it was to hear her called by such a foreign, human name. Of course it was the only one she knew, too young to remember her true name when he’d whispered it to her.

“Perhaps,” Valion said, wary to show that the thought of her ire might have some sway over his actions—such a thing would be a weakness to skewer him.

Her very existence was such a thing.

“You will help us get her back? If I show you the mirror, you will help us save her?”

“I swear I will save her,” he replied, the oath hanging in the air. He’d save her with or without the help of these children.

“Fine—if you will help save her, I will show you the mirror. But if you’re lying, if you do a thing to hurt her, I’ll rip you apart,” the dhampir spat at him, chest heaving. Valion stared at him with a sense of almost amusement at his ferocity.

It was the sort of loyalty his daughter deserved, even if he entirely overestimated his abilities.

“You could certainly try, little dhampir. Now where is this mirror?”

 

---

 

Alucard glanced side-long at the man who claimed to be Rosalind’s father, trying to note any other differences in his appearance from the one he’d seen in the mirror. He was missing the scar on his chin, and his hair was longer, more well-kept, his eyes icy, but not lacking any semblance of warmth.

And he looked like Rosalind, the more he stared. They shared the same sharpness to their features, even if hers were softer, they had the same curls, despite the difference in color.

Trevor glared at him from the other side of the elevator as it lowered, hand still on the handle of his whip, even if he kept his arms crossed.

“You’re an idiot,” Trevor spat at him, eyes narrowed as he kept an eye on the fae man on the far side of the platform.

“No one said you had to come,” Alucard snapped back.

“Sypha said you’re our idiot,” Trevor retorted.

“I did not say that!” Sypha said, shoving Trevor as she gave him a dirty look.

“It’s what you meant!”

“I did not say it!”

Alucard watched the the fae man make a face, shaking his head as if to himself. Apparently he was less than impressed with such infantile arguments.

Who would have guessed?

“It’s this way,” Alucard said as the lift came to a stop, leading him through the winding labyrinth of shelves to the mirror. He watched the man step forward, narrowing his eyes as he considered the runes around its edges.

“I can direct it—”

“I know how to use a mirror, boy,” he said sharply, raising his hand to wordlessly wipe across the air in front of it, eyes still narrowed in concentration. Alucard was about to snipe back that clearly, he didn’t, when the mirror rippled, showing once more the cell that Rosalind had been locked in.

How had he done it without words, without the incantation?

His curiosity was quickly stifled, though, by the sight of her on the other side of the glass. She looked frail, frailer than last he saw her only perhaps a half hour before. She shivered, her lips tinged blue as she tried to warm herself with that awful, thin blanket.

“He took her today—how does she look as though she’s been gone weeks?”

“She has,” the man said, expression dark.

“That’s not possible—” Sypha began.

“Not here. Time is very agreeable for you all here. Not in the Wilds. Hours might be days, might be weeks, might be seconds, and he needs the time.”

“She thinks we’ve left her for weeks?” Alucard asked, horrified.

“Yes,” the man said, stepping closer to the mirror for a better view, eyes searching over Rosalind, eyes locking on the iron shackle around her foot, a vein in his neck twitching. Alucard fought the urge to throw up. Sypha, too, looked like she might be sick.

She shifted on the cot to curl tighter around herself, though the motion pulled the blanket from her chin to cover her feet, revealing the pale skin of her neck.

It wasn’t the cold that left her lips blue—her neck was littered with a half-dozen bites and bruises, long dried blood dripping from the wounds. The man swore, his hands curling into fists.

Alucard had a terrible idea of the sort of creature that had left those wounds. By the sound of Trevor's cursing, so did he.

“Of all the vile—” he broke off, taking a deep breath before turning back to the mirror, swiping away the scene to something else, a labyrinth of earthen tunnels, then an ancient, alien sort of necropolis, and then a mire of bramble and thorn like none that he’d even seen. The man swore again, shaking his head.

“I’m going to kill him. Ohhh, I am going to kill him slowly,” he said to himself, almost under his breath, though the threat made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

“I don’t care what you do to him, so long as you help us rescue her,” Alucard said. he couldn't help but think of her cold and bloodless and in pain, thinking that he wasn't coming, that he was going to leave her to her fate. Had she already given up on him rescuing her? Did she think there was anything that could stop him from coming to save her, from bringing her home--

“Have you the slightest idea where she is?” the man asked, almost as if he were speaking to idiot children. Perhaps in his mind he was.

“No,” Alucard said.

“Faerie,” Trevor said at the same time.

“And you wish to go?” the man asked.

“Yes,” Alucard replied just as Trevor replied, “No.”

“No one is making you do anything,” Alucard shot at him.

“And no one’s letting you go alone to Faery-Land with some guy who hasn’t even told us his name.”

The man laughed, the sound void of any humor. 

“You wish to know my name, Belmont? I recognize your crest, I knew ancestors of yours long since rotted. They were all blessed with far more bravery than brains, though I bet you fancy yourself shrewd. I will give you my name. I am Valion Blackthorne, Warden of the Gloomveil, Keeper of the Starless Nights, Protector of the Dreamlands, Crown Prince of the Unseelie Court and Heir to the Umbral Throne, and I will see my daughter returned to me if I must drown the Realms in blood to do so.”

Notes:

Hello, I lied, you get a chapter today. Maybe one tomorrow too, we will see, I am still stupid tired from anesthesia for some reason. But biopsies came back okay! Nothing truly horrible, but still waiting on an answer for why I've been so sick.

Thank you so much for reading and your kind words! Very excited to drag the gang to the Faewilds and have them deal with that. Please let me know what you think, your comments literally make me so happy and keep me motivated 💜

Chapter 21: Across Realms

It had been a long time since Valion had traveled with humans and he was very quickly remembering why. They were just as catty as any fae courtier, but without any sort of subtlety or cleverness, which made them boring at best and irritating at—well, mostly. He wondered how his daughter could stand all the sniping—surely she had better taste in companions.

Better taste than a Belmont, at least.

The last vexatious member he’d had the displeasure of meeting, he’d taken away his voice. He still had it, in a jar somewhere.

Perhaps he’d add another.

“Stop,” he said, coming to a halt in a clearing ringed by a riot of wildflowers. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do well enough. Hell, there was already the beginnings of a ring, a perfect circle of moss set into the grass of the rest of the clearing, a few mushrooms already growing on its edges.

The dhampir—Alucard, he’d called himself—came to an abrupt halt, eyes widening at the sight.

“That—that was where Rose sat when we left the castle. Something—something tried to grab her and when I came back later, everything in that circle had died, but all the flowers had grown.”

Valion paused, looking at him a moment before he stooped.

That would be odd magic for his little Moonbeam. Not the flowers—she’d always had Orlaith’s gift with them—but the death, especially considering how it had regrown. Life and Death were tricky things, dangerous things, things that most fae knew better than to muck about with, but they required decades of study and one had to pick one or the other. You couldn’t instill life with the same hands that stole it away.

Valion’s heart beat too hard in his chest.

It wasn’t the sort of innate talent he’d wish for his only child. It was very hard not to see it as an omen—of what, he wasn’t quite sure.

Still, it was odd it regrew. Usually such magic left scars, made it impossible for anything to grow again for years and years.

Of course it was hardly a practiced casting. Likely it lacked the sort of power to be lasting.

Of course he said none of this to the children watching him. No, he just outstretched a hand as he walked along the perimeter of the moss, drawing up toadstools as he went.

“How are you doing that?” the little mage asked him. She seemed to be the most agreeable of the bunch.

“Doing what?” he asked without looking up from his work. They’d have to cross over to the Gloomveil first where his power was most potent. He was sure it was no accident that Vranos chose to hide away in the earthen tunnels of the Undercrypts—he’d be stronger there.

Not strong enough to hope to defeat him, but strong enough to be irritating.

He was quite sure that was why he had one of his pets feeding on his daughter.

Fae blood was potent, powerful, a drop enough to do considerable harm and his daughter’s magic was stronger than most, even unknown to her and untrained.

No doubt he wanted to set some creature deliriously high on her blood on him in the hopes that in their blind frenzy they’d somehow manage to kill him. He’d bet he dragged some idiot vampire Below with the promise of fae blood to help in their conquest of whatever kingdom they’d decided to set their mind to subjugating.

Vampires were terribly boring in their predicability. Their squabbles were petty and cyclical and hardly any fun to invite to a dinner party.

Still, it was low even for Vranos to sink to such a level. He’d see the thing quartered for laying a hand on her, never mind a fang.

“Growing—growing the mushrooms,” she said, drawing him from his thoughts.

“It’s fairly simple, just ushering the spores already present in the soil to speed it along,” he said, finishing the ring. He took a deep breath. “Once you step into the ring you will be transported to the Gloomveil. Do not touch anything, do not speak to anything, do not eat anything that I do not give you. You will find no good will in the Under Court unless it is by me. If you ignore me,” he said, staring directly at the Belmont, “—and something tries to harm you, or trick you, or curse you, I will let you suffer it, because you are an idiot. If you listen and behave accordingly, you shall remain under my protection. Understood?”

He raised an eyebrow, surveying the trio. The dhampir and the mage nodded quickly, but the Belmont just glared.

How many generations had that look persisted through?

He turned to step through the ring but stopped himself.

“Oh—” he said, turning back to give them all a withering look. “Don’t give anyone your name. You don’t know the trick of it and you’ll end up at the end of some unpleasant faery’s lead.”

“Does that mean you lied to us when you gave us yours?” the Belmont asked. Valion smiled at him and stepped backwards into the faery ring.

 

---

 

Faery was...off-putting. It was strange and dark but terribly beautiful in an alien sort of way. Alucard had a hard time picturing Rosalind at ease there. Perhaps if they’d stumbled into the day-lit Court of the Seelie he could see it, but she’d seem out of place, he thought, in the perpetual twilight of the forest they’d stepped into—the Gloomveil, Valion had called it. The trees were gnarled and thick, everything from their bark to their leave nearly black. They almost seemed to move out of the corner of his eyes, as if they could pick up their roots and shift about in the dark.

Maybe they could. It seemed nothing in Faery followed the same rules as home.

At least Valion lead them down a path—a road, even, cobbled and everything. He didn’t think he’d like to step foot off it, into the trees.

They walked in silence for nearly a quarter hour before he saw a house rise up from the trees. Not a house—a small manor, made of grey stone, towers spiring upwards like grasping fingers, the whole thing choked with ivy.

Valion walked up to the door and threw it open, turning back to them as he raised an eyebrow.

“Come in,” he said simply, sharp eyes cataloging each of them as they went.

He wasn’t sure Rosalind’s father liked anyone, though at least he knew he disliked Trevor the most.

He supposed he was useful to bring around, sometimes.

Valion flicked his wrist and a dozen motes of silver light flew into sconces around them, illuminating a rather unexpected interior.

The manor was cozy, inside, nothing like the imposing exterior, full of rich color and curious trinkets. Valion ushered them to a study where he began digging through an old, ornate desk, though he didn’t say what for.

He didn’t tell them anything he didn’t expressly need to.

Alucard looked around the room, noting the large fireplace and the thick patterned rug, the pair of armchairs by the fire. Mostly, though, he stared at the paintings on the walls. They were crammed with them, of all different sizes, from that of an apple to the length of his arm. Most of them seemed to be odd landscapes—places in Faery, no doubt, though most were light and sun-dappled—or strange creatures and insects.

Did he spend much time in the Seelie Court?

One captured his attention, though, the largest of the bunch, hung directly over the mantle. It was a portrait of a beautiful, smiling faery-lady, her skin rich and golden, hair the color of the palest sunbeam. Her features were familiar, especially the eyes—verdant and soft.

It was Rosalind’s mother. It had to be, though she was very clearly not of the Under Court.

“She died, when our daughter was born. She was going to raise her in the Light Court, until she was old enough to navigate both. That is why I brought her to the Mortal Realm, found a family who desperately wanted a child, who had already lost seven as babes. She was wanted, on this plane and yours, always,” Valion said, his tone growing pointed by the end.

He hadn’t taken kindly to Alucard suggesting he’d abandoned her.

He wouldn’t, if he had been trying to be a good father, in his twisted way. Alucard still couldn’t wrap his head around giving her away, but then Trevor did like to proclaim loudly how little he understood of faery politics.

Valion stuffed a handful of things into a bag, things Alucard couldn’t quite see—and neither could Trevor, by his scowl. Sypha, though, had wandered around the desk, eyes locked on a frame sat facing the leather chair behind it.

“How did you have a portrait done of her without the glamour?” she asked and Alucard expected him to bristle at the question, but he merely sighed.

“She never wore the glamour in her dreams, only her true face. I painted it—she was nearly six,” he said before turning back to his rifling.

“You’d watch her dreams?” Trevor asked, making a face.

“I would visit, on occasion, to make sure she was still happy, when I wasn’t able to go in person.”

“You would visit her?” Sypha asked. Valion furrowed his brow.

“Of course I would visit her, what kind of—? Of course I visited her,” he said, shaking his head, irritation clear enough on his face. Even so, Alucard moved so he could see the picture they were talking about.

It showed a silver-haired faery-girl with her hair tied back by a silk ribbon, a book far too large and complex for her open in her lap. She was grinning upwards, green eyes bright, as if she was looking at someone beyond the frame.

He realized suddenly that Valion must have painted all the pictures in the room.

It was a rather odd thing to think of an Unseelie prince doing. In fact, the whole house seemed odd—it was empty, or seemed to be, for one. He’d expect a prince to have a staff.

“Do you live here alone?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

Valion looked up at him. “Yes.”

“Do you have a staff that looks after it?”

“No,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “This is my private home, I don’t need nor want staff snuffling about. In fact, I’d prefer no one but myself and my daughter step foot in it, but I assumed if I left you in the yard you’d manage to find a púca to eat you.”

Valion buckled his bag shut and stood, sweeping out of the room. They followed, unsure of what else to do. He pulled open a hall closet and dug through it, handing them each a heavy woolen cloak with a hood.

“You will have to wear these—they shall make you appear fae so long as you don't open your mouth. Then I fear the illusion will be shattered.”

“The spell breaks with sound?” Trevor asked. Valion stared at him, dead-faced.

“No, you just say stupid things like that that no faerie in their right mind would utter. In fact—” he reached up and took an empty jar from the top shelf of the closet and jammed it in his bag.

“What’s that for?” Trevor asked, staring at him dubiously. Valion gave him a dirty look.

“Pray you don’t find out, little Belmont. Now it is time we make haste—the Undercrypts are not easy to reach and harder still to traverse. You will need to keep your wits about you, and remember the rules.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Trevor said, turning before he could see the dirty look Valion leveled at him as he strapped an ornate silver sword to his side. Sypha cuffed him about the head.

Alucard just clenched his jaw, remembering Rosalind in the mirror. He hoped she knew he was coming for her, that there hadn’t been a moment he hadn’t considered it. He hoped that not that they were in Faery, time wouldn’t pass so quickly for her any longer, that in a day or so they’d have her back and safe.

Though back where was a question.

Would she wish to stay in Faery? Her father certainly seemed as though he wanted her to. Surely she’d want to stay with her father, especially after being so convinced and distraught that she’d been unwanted. Would she still visit him, at least?

He wasn’t sure he could bear the thought of never seeing her again. Still, none of that mattered until they got her back.

It would only be a little bit longer.

 

---

 

It was hard to keep her eyes open.

He’d taken too much this time, that damn vampire. She was lucky the blood loss seemed to be making whatever magic she had unstable—she’d somehow managed to sprout a ring of wickedly-sharp icicles around her neck to force him off, not just her blood dribbling off his chin.

There was the ivy, too, that had begun to sprout from the walls, to cover the cot. It, at least, made the wretched cell a bit warmer.

She just wished she could work out how to control it, how to make it do something she wanted, when she wanted, like perhaps make giant briars to rip apart the terrible, dark-haired fae, or maybe giant icicles to stab him with. Hell, she even take growing a tree right through him if it killed him, bonus points if it was really, really painful.

She would see him dead, preferably soon and by her hand.

She just needed to work out how.

Notes:

The gang's all here for their Terrible Road Trip with their friend's weird dad and the MC is trying to figure out her magic enough to murder. How very Unseelie.

Thank you so much for reading, please let me know what you think!!!

Chapter 22: Below the Earth

She stared at the tendril of vine, concentrating hard on urging it forward. It curled slowly around her foot before wrapping under the iron cuff, the leaves blooming out to prevent the metal from touching her bare skin. She let out a sigh of relief as she let go of the tendril of magic, flopping back against the wall.

Her hands were shaking, but she swore her blood was singing.

It was such a little thing, a single vine, but it was the beginning—she knew what it felt like to reach in and pull the tether of magic within her, what it felt like to will life into the empty soil.

Maybe that was what made it more difficult too, that the soil was so barren, almost dead—

Not anymore. It didn’t matter how many times that bastard faery man came in and ripped all her vines out again—she just grew them back, sunk her fingers into the dirt and willed life into it, imagined the sun and soil of her window boxes back home and breathed it into the loam, enough for it to sprout again.

He could chain her, starve her, torment her with his awful pet vampire, but try as he might he couldn’t stop her from using her magic, not here. Here—wherever ‘here’ was—it was easy.

She focused on pulling some of the dampness from the air, collecting it on the link of the chain closest to her shackle and froze it, making it as cold as she possibly could. Then she released it, letting it return to water and the link warm. She did it again and again until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer, listening for the faintest sound of footsteps, though it seemed he planned to ignore her today.

That was all the better for her.

She finally gave into her drooping eyelids, a smile curving her lips as she fell asleep, breathing in the scent of jasmine—it always bloomed most beautifully in the dark.

Perhaps after a few more times the iron would be brittle enough to break.

 

---

 

For all the supposed power of the fae, they were spending a lot more time mucking their way through a wretched swamp than Trevor would have guessed they’d need to. Certainly the supposed Prince of the Dark and Shitty Court wouldn’t have to be knee deep in muck as they pushed forward toward wherever it was they were supposed to be going.

The prick wasn’t exactly forthcoming.

He shot another dirty look at Alucard. This was definitely all his fault—he was the idiot who befriended a changeling, who’d fallen for the damn thing, who’d promised to help her, save her—

He didn’t know if breaking an oath to a changeling carried the same consequences as breaking an oath to a regular fae.

Even he didn’t deserve being struck with some nasty fae curse, especially for trying to do something kind.

Not that he’d ever tell him that.

“How likely do you think he’s just dragging us in here to try and kill us,” he said in a carrying whisper to Sypha, who gave him a dirty look.

“I would not have to try, Belmont,” Valion replied without looking back.

“You seem really sure about that,” he shot back, despite the elbow to his ribs.

“I thought I told you to be silent, Belmont.”

“You told me I couldn’t speak to anything, not anyone.”

He watched the fae man take a deep breath, hold it for a moment, and let it out, more visually irritated than he would have guessed, but then his nerves seemed pretty frayed.

He had to admit now that the bastard seemed to care for Alucard’s changeling girl. Cared in a weird, messed up and slightly creepy way, but cared.

Trevor wouldn’t have ever wanted his father mucking about in his dreams. Maybe that was more of a normal thing for faeries. He was supposedly the Prince of Dreamland or some other horseshit.

“Stop irritating him,” Alucard snarled at him, low enough that a normal human couldn’t have heard. He’d bet the faery bastard had no trouble, though.

“Trying to make a good impression with the in laws?”

Trevor grinned as Valion stiffened ahead of them and Alucard curled his hands into fists.

“Do you exclusively speak out your ass?” Alucard shot back. Trevor just grinned at him.

Just because he was helping the fanged bastard not be cursed forever didn’t mean that he wanted to make his day-to-day life any easier.

“Do they ever cease with the inane bickering?” Valion asked, turning to Sypha.

“No,” she said shaking her head. “This—this is actually better than usual.”

“Stars above,” he said like a curse.

“Why couldn’t you have just faery-magicked us where she is? Is it too hard?” Trevor asked, pulling his foot out of particularly deep muck with some difficulty.

“Do you see anything in this filth that would grow a ring?” Valion asked him as if he was stupid. He wasn’t stupid, he just didn’t know how his idiot fae magic worked.

Nobody outside of Faery-Land knew how it worked, his shit kid included.

“You could have in the tunnels we saw. Or the necropolis.”

“I couldn’t. Nothing grows in the Undercrypts and nothing has for centuries.”

“Why?”

“It was cursed.”

“Why?”

“In retaliation to a wrong.”

“Why?”

“Do you want me to use the jar, Belmont?” Valion retorted, turning around to glare at him. That shut him up, at least. Whatever the faery bastard had planned with that jar it was not good.

“What, don’t want to ask him what the jar is for?” Alucard asked, giving him a mean little grin. “Why not, Belmont?”

“Will the two of you not shut up for five minutes? Honestly, it is if you cannot breathe without needling someone!” Sypha snapped, glaring at the pair of them.

Valion glanced at her, searching her face for a moment.

“You are a Speaker Magician, yes?” he asked.

“I am.”

He just nodded to himself, losing himself to thought again.

He seemed prone to it.

“It should not be much further to the Crypt’s entrance. You must keep an eye out there—all will not be so friendly as they have thus far. I have few friends in the Under.”

“What do you mean, friendly? There’s nothing here but slop,” Trevor spat, yanking his foot out of the muck, face curled in disgust.

“Do you not feel the eyes on you, little Belmont? No one has accosted you—that is friendlier a welcome you usually get, I’d wager.”

Trevor glanced around then, searching for whoever it was the prick said was watching them, but saw only endless muck and twisted swamp-trees. Surely he was just saying it to mess with him.

He had to be.

After all, people only said faeries couldn’t lie. It wasn't true.

Probably.

He kept his eyes peeled from then on, just in case he was telling the truth.

 

---

 

The idiot vampire never bothered to shut the cell door behind him when he came to feed. He didn’t think her capable of doing much of anything against him except stabbing him with her little needle icicles, which he hardly even seemed to mind.

In fact, she rather thought he liked when she fought back, in some sick way. Maybe because there was so little he thought she could do other than try and shove away his wandering hands.

But that was only if she was chained to the damn bed, and the broken link to her shackle lay hidden in the jasmine vines that had taken over her cot and the wall behind it. She’d been practicing making the vines, making them bigger and stronger, making them grab and pull.

They were much stronger than she was—she wasn’t sure she would have been able to yank the weakened link apart herself.

Rosalind wasn’t sure they would be strong enough to hold the wretched vampire for long—maybe a few seconds. Adrian was inordinately strong and he was only a half-vampire. But she only needed maybe two seconds, just long enough to leap into the hall and slam the cell door behind her—it would lock automatically, she knew.

Then she could run—run where, she wasn’t sure. Her leg still wasn’t fully healed, but she’d twined more vines all the way up to her knee, their stems closer to branches, strong enough to support her leg like the brace Adrian had made her, even if they were hardly comfortable. It wouldn’t be easy or pleasant, but she’d run on it with the bone shorn through, run far enough to reach Adrian, for him to save her.

Was he looking for her? It had been—she didn’t know how long. Long, though. He must be, he wouldn’t just leave her. Maybe if she could just find her way out of these wretched tunnels he’d be able to find her—he had magic too, strange, powerful magic that could do much more than her little vines or ice.

She hoped he’d be able to find her then, she thought, remembering the awful Night Creatures she’d seen through the library window. She didn’t think she’d stand much of a chance against such a monster.

But that was a problem for later—first she needed to get out of the cell, to get rid of the foul vampire that seemed more and more keen to try and drain her dry, less and less sense remaining to it.

She waited for it to return, waited to run.

It was just like it had been in the cart, she only had to wait for the right moment.

 

---

 

Valion paused as they reached the edge of the Muckmire, right before the entrance to Under. He waved a hand absently, leaving them all dry and free of filth, as he considered their best course of action.

His magic would be dampened, underground, in such dead, desolate soil. Any fae’s would, though the Curse effected those of the Royal line worse, because of their transgression. He was sure that was why Vranos had picked it—he’d never been able to match him in arcane powers, was much happier stumbling about with his damn hammer and had no problem further desecrating the Crypts. It made sense then, too, that he’d rely on non-fae creatures to fight his battles for him in the tunnels—they wouldn’t be effected by them.

Of course, that also brought into question just how blood-drunk his brother’s pet vampire would be, if the magic in his daughter’s blood was dulled.

Enough, he hoped, that he could be dealt with quickly. He wouldn’t mind a knock-down drag-out, would actually prefer to work a bit of the rage in his chest out, but the idea of whipping the beast into a frenzy while his daughter was close and vulnerable made him feel quite ill.

Undoubtedly another aspect of Vranos’s plan.

He knew he would never hurt her, never risk hurting her—

It was leverage. He’d always been so careful to ensure no one had anything close on him, no one but Orlaith, though he’d have given her anything.

Perhaps it was good, then, that the children had insisted on coming. If it came down to it, he could send them to ensure she wasn’t hurt as he dealt with Vranos’s ilk.

Yes, that would be best, off the bat—they were familiar faces, they would be a comfort to her and he was sure she was scared. That would be worth dealing with the Belmont and not sealing his voice into a jar.

Yet. Perhaps he’d gage just how fond his daughter was of the cretin and take it still, at least until he shoved him back through the faery ring and into the Mortal Realm.

He wasn’t sure he could listen to him the whole way back.

Then there was the dhampir, and the Belmont’s insinuation of some sort of infatuation. He certainly seemed fond of her.

He hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be a problem.

The little Speaker, though, he liked. He was quite sure there was sense in her head.

“It is this way, it should take nearly two days. We will have to be careful, from now on. There is far more dangerous creatures Below than my brother and whatever beasties he has amassed to his cause,” he said, hoping that they would heed him now, at least, that they wouldn’t be foolish and draw the needless attention of the wraiths and slithering things and all the other creatures that hid where the light couldn’t hope to touch. It would only make it harder, take longer to get to her, then.

And he knew enough of them would find them perfectly well on their own.

 

---

 

Rosalind glared at the vampire as he sidled into her cell, his watery blue eyes already trained on her neck. His close-cropped brown hair was standing on end as if he’d been running his hands through it over and over. He looked mad—more mad than when he’d first stepped into her cell. Now he seemed unable to hold still, twitching and fidgeting even as he walked. There was something odd about his skin now too—it didn’t look quite dead any longer. In fact, he almost seemed to have a slight flush in his cheeks.

Had he taken to wearing rogue all the sudden?

She pushed back her questions, though, shifting as he crept closer, trying to ensure she’d be in the best possible position to reach the door.

“There you are, pretty,” he cooed at her, almost like he thought this was something she enjoyed, something she wanted. Like it was all a game, between them. She fought making a face, trying to appear as weak and half-lucid as she could manage, though she was quite sure he could hear the hammering of her heart.

“Have you missed me? I have missed you—what a delicious thing you are. In all my years I’ve never tasted something so exquisite,” he purred, moving to sit next to her on the narrow cot.

She let her magic surge out of her, vines grabbing hold of his hands and feet, his elbows, keeping him in a awkward, half-seated position as she leapt from the bed toward the cell door and slammed it shut, hissing at the burn of the iron bars. It didn’t matter though, all that mattered was that she kept moving, that she kept running, that she put as much distance between her and the howling vampire as she could before the horrible fae man could come to see what the noise was about. It didn’t matter that her leg was screaming, or that she didn’t have even socks to guard against the earthen chill of the tunnels, only putting one foot in front of the other and in front of the other again and again until she dug her way out of the earth again.

She glance behind her, searching for any sign of pursuers, but it seemed no one had cared to see why the vampire was shrieking yet. Perhaps they wouldn’t check for minutes, just like when she’d first stabbed him—that might be enough of a head start to disappear.

She came to an abrupt stop as she crashed into something in front of her—not something.

Someone.

The awful raven-haired fae man. His face curled into an expression of hatred as she landed hard on the earth.

He’d punish her for this, punish her severely, cruelly. Would he go back to drowning her in earth as he had on the surface? Would he wrap her in iron wire again and squeeze the breath from her lungs?

Would he do worse?

His lip curled up in a snarl.

“My, my, I suppose you do believe yourself clever, little changeling.”

 

---

 

They’d hardly descended into the tunnels ten minutes before they were met with the sound of horrible skittering and chittering and they were blitzed by dozens of spiders the size of ponies.

Spiders that could flicker and teleport from shadow to shadow.

The sad part was that Alucard was nearly glad for it. There had been too much silence and waiting and walking while Trevor seemed hell bent on irritating the faery prince at all costs—even after all his warnings about the evil, mercurial fae.

It seemed even that wasn’t enough to temper his need to be annoying. Perhaps it was a proper compulsion. 

Alucard tore his blade through one of the beasts, spinning just in time to rip his claws through another as it flickered into existence behind him.

Yes, this was what he needed to cool his blood until he could get his hands on the wretch that had stollen Rosalind away, who had locked her away to hurt her and let some rancid vampire use her as a bloodbag.

As if she hadn’t suffered enough already.

He tore through another of the creatures, wishing it was the man who had taken her—not a man, a monster, a foul, craven monster set on preying on an innocent young woman. On his friend.

And he’d left her alone for weeks in that awful place.

Weeks, and it had hardly been a day for him.

He ripped through the next pair with renewed savagery, skewering a third with his blade and launching himself forward to rip another quite literally in half.

He wished it made him feel better.

He doubted anything would, until he found her, until he ensured she was once more safe.

 

---

 

She really was Valion’s child.

No other could be such a pain in his ass, would spend all her time doing everything to vex him. The vines were easy enough to deal with, even if she shouldn’t have the energy to create them between her reduced rations and the iron on her ankle. Truly she shouldn’t have been able to grow them at all in the Undercrypt, but perhaps it was more legend than truth, or perhaps she could only do it because she rooted them in the straw of her cot. The ice—he had to admit he’d found Rutherford’s wailing and bleeding rather amusing. He hadn’t thought the girl would have the stomach for overt violence, especially when so outmatched.

This though—

She shouldn’t have been able to break the iron of her shackle. She shouldn’t have been able to get past Rutherford either, but he was more fangs than brains and had been particularly dense since he’d started feeding on the girl.

Part of him was almost impressed by her tenacity. Perhaps it was good Valion hadn’t allowed her near Court, she’d have been far more difficult to deal with.

He reached out to yank her up by the arm and drag her back to her cell. He’d have to figure out how she broke her shackle, figure out how to mitigate it from happening again before her father came storming in—

“Get fucked,” she snarled at him, swatting aside his hand with surprising force, just as a riot of briars burst from the ground, tangling around him and yanking him into the side of the tunnel wall. She scrambled up, taking off at a run down the tunnel as he tore them from himself.

“Thanks for teaching me that one, you rat-faced fuck!” she yelled as she sprinted down the tunnel, faster than he could free himself. By the time he turned the tunnel was choked in black briars, thick as tree branches and bearing six-inch thorns along their lengths, so thick that he couldn’t even hope to catch a glimpse of where she’d gone.

It shouldn’t have been possible. Even if the legends were wrong, she shouldn’t have been able to do it, not in such desolate soil and not half-bled and untrained in magic. Even a practiced mage would have found difficulty.

He swore as midnight-colored flowers bloomed amidst the briars that looked much too much like the Eldertrees of the Gloomveil, Eldertrees that hadn’t blossomed in a millennia.

Notes:

Into the endless Cursed tunnels we go...

Please let me know what you think! I am having a very good time writing Old and Immeasurably Powerful Unseelie Prince and his daughter's Twenty Year Old Friends are forced on a road trip together and He Has To Be Nice.

Chapter 23: City of Tombs

Rosalind wondered if the tunnels ever ended.

It would be a nasty faery trick for them to go on and on with no where to climb out of. Still, she ran, letting her adrenaline drive her forward.

She didn’t know how long it would take him to deal with the briars, or to follow her—he probably had some sort of magic that let him travel absurdly fast. That seemed the sort of awful luck she courted.

Though she wasn’t always unlucky. Last time she’d run from her captors, she’d found Adrian.

She only needed to find him again, though she didn’t even know where she was, besides under the earth.

She wanted to be back in the castle, she wanted to be talking to him about books and philosophy and all the strange engineering of the castle—she wanted him to show her how it worked so she could understand. She wanted to wrap her arms around his waist and hold on tight, ear pressed against his chest, wanted to listen to the sound of his heart until hers didn’t feel like it was going to beat out of her chest, until she could convince herself once more that she was safe.

Adrian would make sure she was safe.

The faery bastard hadn’t been able to take her when he was still in the castle, still close.

Would he let her stay close to him, even after all this mess? Of course if he did, there was a chance she might never leave.

What else was there to return to? Her smashed up shop and apartment in Vienna. Adrian had said Gresit had been overrun by Night Creatures—she doubted her family’s little cottage had survived the hosts of Hell. She had no family—no human family—and she was quite sure she’d had more than enough of a taste of faery these last few months. She didn’t want to be a pawn, didn’t want to play their nasty games—

She just wanted to go home. And right now, the closest thing to home just felt like Adrian.

She could make herself useful too—there were many books in both his father’s library and the Belmont Hold that needed repair, and she was excellent at it. And if she could walk then she could help with the cleaning and restoration of the castle, though she thought she’d leave the cooking to him, if he didn’t mind. He was much better at it than her.

Yes, she was sure they could come up with an agreement—she could be useful, she was sure of it.

Unless, of course, he wished to return to his solitude.

She, of course, then wouldn’t impose. She’d done quite a bit of that already and she was probably far fonder of him that he of her. After all, how could she not be? He was kind, and funny, and so interesting and generous. He’d taken her in, saved her from her captors and did his best to nurse her back to health, even staying with her when she was too frightened to close her eyes.

She’d never quite adored anyone like she felt for Adrian. Still, she’d be content as his friend, more than content—

She’d never had one before.

She slowed, urging the little mote of silver light she’d conjured ahead of her. It seemed the tunnel did end, though were it left her off hardly seemed to make any sense.

It was a sprawling underground city, made entirely of deep black stone. Not a city city, she realized as she drew closer.

A necropolis.

A sprawling city of the dead.

Something about it made her shiver in a way that had nothing to do with the thinness of her shift. For a place devoted entirely to the dead, it shouldn’t—

It shouldn’t feel so alive.

 

---

 

Vranos flung the Seeing bowl into one of the earthen walls, shattering it. Valion was well on his way, shadowed by the irritating dhampir and the two humans who’d shown up at the castle, as if they expected to rescue the wretched thing.

As if they could even find her—the briars she’d conjured were impassable, even after hours of hacking at them.

They should have been impossible.

Which meant he’d need to go around the long way to drag her back.

At least she hadn’t run towards Valion. That would have been far trickier.

As it was, Rutherford wasn’t going to be nearly as blood-drunk as he’d planned by the time they arrived, though he only had to be mad enough to overwhelm his brother while his magicks were weakened.

“They’re coming from the east tunnels. I need you to deal with them,” he told the vampire, who’d been sulking since Vranos had dragged him out of the cell. “Drain them all dry, I don’t care, just ensure the vermin is dead.”

“And the girl? You told me I could keep her—”

“If you played your part. I will find the bitch and you will fulfill your end of the agreement. Now, go,” he spat, and watched as the vampire swept out of the room.

He hoped he wouldn’t disappoint him again, though if his brother killed the monster he wouldn’t blink.

He set off down the tunnels in the opposite direction, towards the Wraith City the fool had unwittingly run to. He would prefer her alive, though it would be amusing if she’d gotten herself ripped apart by angry spirits. She didn’t know the rules of the place, after all, was sure to offend.

And if she did die in the ancient, cursed necropolis, she’d never leave, be stuck there for all eternity with the rest of the restless dead.

It was almost the sort of death she deserved.

 

---

 

“What is this place? Or, I suppose—what was it?” Sypha asked Valion quietly as they wove through the seemingly endless tunnels. Alucard had noted that Valion never seemed irritated with Sypha’s questions.

Of course, she wasn't asking them to purposely needle him.

It was strange, though, to watch. He wasn’t nearly as cold or prickly with her. If Alucard didn’t know better, he’d say the faery prince actually liked, her, though judging by every interaction they’d had with him so far, he wasn’t convinced he liked anyone.

Anyone but Rosalind and her mother.

“It’s a tomb. A giant, desolate tomb,” he replied, almost bitterly.

“To who?”

“Those that were once part of the Third Court.”

“There was a third faery court?” Alucard asked, furrowing his brow. Even with all the books he’d dug through in the fae looking for a cure, he’d never heard anything like that even referenced.

“Something like that. It was a long time ago. Longer than memory.”

“What happened to it?” Trevor asked, almost warily.

“It was razed to the ground along with everyone in it.”

“Why?”

“Why else? They feared its power—it was a thing of Inbetween. Not Seelie or Unseelie, not Light or Dark, not Night or Day. Somehow both and something entirely different.”

“Who killed them all?” Trevor asked and Valion just shook his head.

“All you need to know is to not talk to any of the shades you might see. The rest is but tired history,” he said, but it seemed more like a brush off than anything. Was he merely sick of questions—which happened very quickly—or was there something else, something more?

He was dragged out of his thoughts by the sound of boot steps echoing from the hall in front of him. A man approached them, a man with close-cropped brown hair and watery eyes, with skin pale as death and a ringing silence in his chest. He smiled as he saw them.

“Ah—this is turning out to be much easier—I hadn’t thought you’d have made it this far.”

“Where is my daughter?” Valion asked, voice low and dangerous, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

The vampire ignored him.

“Now, this is nothing personal, but I do need to kill you. Otherwise Vranos won’t let me keep my new pet, and she is such a lovely thing—”

“How dare you—” Valion began, but Alucard was already leaping forward, fingers tipped with claws to tear out his throat.

A pet. He wished to keep her as a pet and he’d spent weeks sinking his fangs into her, draining her of her blood, keeping her weak and cold and miserable and he spoke of her like nobles might speak of one of their hunting dogs.

He’d kill him, he’d rip him to shreds. He’d already fought vampires far more powerful than this foppish unknown.

The vampire swept his hand up in a backhand just as Alucard was about to close his hands around his throat, tossing him back and against one of the earthen walls with far more strength than he had any right to.

“Her blood is quite something,” he said, almost to himself. “I’m looking forward to getting used to it. She will too, sooner or later.”

Valion launched a barrage of icicles at him to spear him in the chest, but he almost seemed to wink out of existence, appearing behind them, grinning as he threw out his hands and sent a wall of flames at them, though instead of being red and blistering, they were blue-white and somehow knocked all the warmth out of him.

The vampire looked at his hands, surprise and delight clear on his face.

Valion swore, shoving the lot of them around a corner just as a second blast hurtled down the hallway.

“Her magic is twisting his, not just amplifying it,” he spat, unsheathing a beautiful silver sword. “The amount of blood it would take—”

“Figure it out when he’s dead,” Trevor shot, leaping out from the corner to take a swipe at him with his whip. It should have been a devastating blow, right across the chest with consecrated steel, but the vampire hardly flinched, advancing as if he’d done nothing.

“What the fuck?” Trevor spat and he darted back behind the corner to dodge another blast of frigid flame.

“Fae blood—it is like a drug to a vampire. Makes them stronger, fills them with magic they have no business having access to, and it drives them mad. Even if he can still feel the pain, it won’t make him falter. Nothing will stop him but death, and it will not come easy,” Valion spat, fury plain on his face.

Alucard didn’t care if it came easy, he only needed to see him dead.

 

---

 

Rosalind stood in the center of the necropolis, staring up at the singular thing not made of black stone. It showed a beautiful faery woman slumped desolately atop a throne, a diadem sat delicately atop her head, carved into pure white marble veined with silver. Next to it was a stone cradle, too high to be able to see anything within. 

She knew she shouldn’t have stopped, that she didn’t have the time, that it was foolish, but she didn’t seem able to stop herself. It was almost at if it were calling to her, its song a terrible sort of melancholy that she hadn’t the words for, but she knew well how it sat in her chest.

“What are you doing here, child?” a voice asked from behind her. She whipped around only to find a woman who looked alarmingly like the one on the plinth, though she wasn’t quite there. Was she a spirit, a spektor?

“I—I am running from the man who took me. I need to get back home,” she said honestly, though it felt strange, almost as if the answers were being pulled from her. The women stepped forward, surveying her from beneath furrowed brows.

“And where is that, child?”

“I—I don’t know. I don’t know if I have one, if I belong anywhere,” she said, a bit of horror rising in her throat. It was the truth—the horrible, awful truth. She wouldn’t have said that, she’d have said the Mortal Realm or Austria or something else, not that. Not such a pathetic kernel of truth, a wretched thing she’d never meant to say out loud, only brood on when she had nothing else for her mind to do.

“Oh child,” the woman said and she smiled, reaching out to place a translucent hand on her cheek. She jumped, the ringing silence of the cavernous space now replaced by a cacophony of city-noises, familiar noises and she looked around wildly.

It was no longer just her and the spirit of the desolate queen. No, the streets were full to bursting with faeries and strange creatures and a whole manner of beings she had no name for. She scrambled back until her back hit marble, eyes wide. None of them looked so translucent anymore either—now they looked nearly solid.

Her heart hammered in her ribs as if trying to break free.

The queen just smiled wider. “You could belong here, if you wished. In what remains.”

Chapter 24: Ruinous Oaths

Valion had always thought of Orlaith as the sun.

She was warm, and bright, and everything she touched flourished. Sure, there were times she might burn you, but the was worth the risk, worth it a thousand times over.

She’d been overjoyed when she’d discovered she was pregnant.

He’d—he’d been quietly horrified.

Pregnancy was not easy under the best of circumstances, but magic made it all them more difficult, and for the babe to have a different sort than the mother—

It was dangerous. And that was without factoring in the assassins that would come should they know of the child, the outrage at the ‘unnatural union’—

He had damned her. He’d thought the chance so slim, he’d been arrogant and now, no matter what he did, Orlaith was in danger. He could always squirrel her away at the house, where no one was allowed but the two of them, but she’d wither there, without the sun and warmth, without the beautiful, growing things she was always surrounded by.

Nothing truly grew in the Under Court, nothing that wasn’t half-dead.

“You are worrying, Val. It always makes you look terribly ugly,” Orlaith laughed, throwing a grape at his head. He was drawn out of his thoughts and back to the little picnic she’d dragged him on in a particularly deserted part of the High Forest.

He rolled his eyes, picking up the fallen fruit and tossing it in his mouth, savoring its sweetness.

“You must like ugly things then, love,” he replied, raising an eyebrow. She shrugged.

“Someone must care for all the ghastly things too,” she said primly, making him laugh.

“Oh, I’ve gone from ugly to ghastly, have I?”

“You might even be grotesque,” she said, grinning widely at him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a thing more hideous.”

“You are a wretched woman, you know that?” he said, not bothering to hide his smile. She beamed back at him.

“Thank you.”

“Keep it up and I’ll make you cross-eyed in your portrait.”

“I’d still be far more beautiful than you.”

“Well—no one would ever deny that. Not if they had eyes or sense.”

“I hope they take after you,” she said fondly, glancing at the slight bump of her stomach. Valion barked out a laugh.

“You wish for them to be hideous? Are you truly so vain, my love?”

“A few things wouldn’t be so bad. You do have rather nice hair.”

“Oh, well thanks for that, I guess.”

“I think their magic is more like yours than mine. I can feel it now, if only just. Perhaps they’ll be a little Dreamwalker. Then we’ll never know a moment’s peace.”

Valion’s smile fell, though Orlaith didn’t notice, still talking to the babe in her stomach.

“What do you think, little one? Or is it something else entirely? Have you yet decided? You have time still, do not worry.”

“Have you been taking all your draughts?” Valion asked. Orlaith didn’t bother looking up.

“You know I have. You are going to waste the whole pregnancy worrying and not enjoy a day of it. You know they will likely be our only. It is a miracle they’re here at all.”

“I—I know. But that ‘miracle’ brings a host of complications and risks—”

“Nothing is without risk, my love. Nothing worth anything, at least.”

“Your life is not something I’m comfortable risking—”

“I always wanted a child, even when I was small. A little girl—I know I’m supposed to wish for simply a healthy babe, but I hope they’re a girl. Imagine the dresses, Val! And the little shoes and ribbons and jewelry!”

“I fear I may have to pick up another job, should we have a girl. Being the Crown Prince alone may not fund your shopping, my darling.”

“Oh, you are so dramatic. Would it really be so bad, to have a little princess?”

Valion sighed—truly he didn’t mind what they had, so long as Orlaith and the babe were safe, they could have a giraffe for all he cared. A girl though—

He didn’t know anything about little girls. He’d had his brother, who was a miserable brute of a boy, who’s favorite toy was the child-sized war hammer he’d used to try and crush his toes. He doubted that was the way of little girls.

Hell, he doubted it was the way of most little boys. He was quite sure there was something wrong with Vranos in the head.

“Val? Would it really be so bad?”

“I—I just know nothing about little girls. I’m not sure I understand ordinary children in the slightest.”

“Well, she won’t be ordinary. She’ll be ours.”

“Yes, well, if she’s anything like you were as a child I’ll be completely lost. If she tries to stab me in the leg over dinner I’ll be well equipped to deal with it.”

“He didn’t,” she said, disbelieving.

“Oh he did, multiple times. You’ve seen the scars,” he said, pointing to where they were under his pant leg. She raised her eyebrows.

“I thought you were bit by something.”

“No, Vran stabbed me with a fork. Twice. Once with a carving fork.”

“Well, I was a delightful child, so let’s hope she takes after me,” she said, shaking her head. Orlaith might have thought of it as a quip, but he knew it was fully true—they’d known each other since they were small, hade been born just four days apart.

He’d always looked forward to the rare times the Courts mingled, had been fascinated by her since the very first time he’d set eyes on her. It had been worth the flames she’d burned him with when she’d mistaken him for his brother who’d been horribly rude to her, just to get to speak with her while she’d fixed up his hand.

He was quite sure he’d fallen in love with her right then, even though they’d only been fifteen.

Nearly six thousand years later and he’d only discovered the depths to which his love for her would grow.

And now it would all change. For the better he hoped—Orlaith was so excited and he wanted her to have anything at all that made her happy—but he couldn’t be sure, couldn’t be sure something awful wouldn’t happen.

He’d never trade Orlaith for anything, not even the babe she so wanted, would choose her each and every time.

He couldn’t tell her that, though. It’d make her furious, he knew, but it was the truth. There was nothing in the Realms he could ever love more than her, would ever love more than her, that would ever be worth putting her in the slightest danger.

He could only pray that she was right, that he was worrying over nothing, that he’d look back and think himself wretchedly foolish for wasting this whole time worrying.

He’d never wished quite so hard to be made a fool.

 

---

 

Whatever faery blood did to vampires, it made them positively out of their minds. Alucard had sliced three fingers from the beast’s left hand with his last strike and he wasn’t convinced it had even realized.

He was used to the way vampires fought, had been taught by his father the sort of pragmatism that dictated their strategies and in many way made them predictable. It was what had aided them when they’d stormed his father’s castle, what had allowed them to destroy his father’s generals with relative ease.

This bastard, though, fought without a shred of sense or self-preservation. Magic seemed to explode out of him, and he pushed forward, ripping and snapping and clawing, regardless of any blades shoved through him.

He doubted he’d even slow until they put a stake through him.

“On your left!” Sypha cried, sending a barrage of razor sharp icicles at him, aiming for his face. one managed to gouge one of his eyes, which gave him the slightest pause.

“Damn thing is out of his fucking gourd,” Trevor said, leaping out to strike at the thing with his whip. The vampire dodged it, only for something to rush past Alucard, knocking him off-balance for a breath.

Valion surged forward, barely a blur. He leapt in the air, one hand outstretched as he grabbed the vampire’s face as he called forth a winter’s gale, cold enough to freeze the flesh below his fingers solid. He landed, still gripping the vampire’s face and smashed it into the ground, shattering it into a thousand pieces before he ripped a dagger from a sheath at his belt and drove it into his heart.

He watched with absolute loathing as the vampire crumbled to dust, spitting on the pile as he got to his feet.

“That was a mercy he did not deserve,” he snarled, almost to himself. His jaw was tight, his fury clear—he’d been keeping it under control, before, Alucard realized, but he was losing grip on it.

There was something nauseatingly familiar about that sort of anger, so much so that he nearly expected his features to sharpen, his eyes to turn red.

He glanced at Sypha who glanced back, giving him the slightest nod. She saw it too, then.

It could be a problem, in more ways than one.

“Keep going. We have to be close if he’s setting his pets on us,” Valion snapped, turning and walking the direction the vampire had come. Trevor fell into step next to him.

“What sort of thing keeps vampires as pets?” he asked in a whisper so low even Valion might not have heard it.

Alucard gave him a look. They all knew the answer to that question and it was nothing good.

 

---

 

Vranos loathed the necropolis, usually would have avoided it at all costs, but the stupid little changeling had gone barreling into it without a moment’s hesitation.

She didn’t even know the particular danger she’d be in. The bitch Queen could smell Blackthorne blood, would be on her before she had the chance to make her escape.

Unless she’d somehow had the sense to run straight through without stopping and stepping through the Veil.

It would certainly be a kinder death in store for her if she had, even if it was at his hands—Ysolde had millennia longer than he to perfect her cruelties and a particular loathing for their line.

That was the catch of it, wasn’t it—he wanted her to suffer, and if he left her to the bitch Queen, she would, likely in ways no one outside of her nasty little Veil had ever dreamed of, but he wanted to watch, wanted to see the hope leave her eyes, wanted to break her.

He wouldn’t get the chance to with Valion, he’d have to be quick, efficient. No matter how he hated his brother, he knew not to toy with him in a fight.

No, she was his only chance at that sort of satisfaction, at the reparations he was owed.

He sighed. The bitch Queen couldn’t touch him, so long as he followed the accords. That would, at least, let him get the girl back. So long as she hadn’t been stupid enough to make any promises or accept any offers.

Not that Ysolde was likely to make a Blackthorne an offer of anything but a miserable death. It didn’t matter that it was her own line, still persisting despite her best effort. In fact, he was quite sure it only made her more intent on punishing who she could.

He shook his head, maligning the foolishness of Valion’s idiot child—at every opportunity she ran towards more trouble, towards a dhampir or a wraith city or the great bitch Queen herself.

It was a miracle he’d ever managed to get his hands on her, honestly, before Dracula’s little half-breed drained her dry.

 

---

 

“I—I don’t understand,” Rosalind said, voice wavering. The woman surveyed her kindly.

“What don’t you understand, child?”

“Any—any of it. I—I don’t know where I am, I don’t—are you a ghost? Am—am I a ghost now? Is—is—” she broke off, her breath coming too fast. Had she died when the woman touched her cheek, was that why she could see all the busy spirits-but-not-quite flitting around? She stared at her hands and they seemed solid, but she couldn’t be sure.

All the people around her only seemed to grow more solid the longer she looked.

The woman smiled. “You are not a ghost, child, not yet. I am...something between living and dead, as are those that remain, now. It wasn’t always the case, not before we were buried. Not when we’d lived Above in the Gloaming.”

“Above? What is Above? Where—where are we?” she asked, voice small. She had very little hope she was in her world—the Mortal world—any longer.

“You’re in Cryptgarden, sweet child, and Above used to be the Gloaming—the edge of the Day and Night Courts, the Seelie and Unseelie. It is all but drowned now. It was a lovely thing, though, once.”

“I—may I ask what you’d like me to call you, please? I am—I did not grow up her, I pray you will forgive my ignorance in these things—I do not want to be rude, especially when you have been so kind.”

“You may call me Ysolde, child. You do not have to worry about offense—I can smell the decay of the Mortal Realm on you. It is no wonder you are lost, unsure of where you belong. You poor discarded thing,” she said, reaching out to brush her hair back from her face. Her lip trembled.

For some reason it felt different when this faery woman—Ysolde—said it, than when Trevor did.

Perhaps because Trevor was usually trying to be rude.

Or perhaps because there was more truth to it, here—she certainly seemed unable to lie. Or was that less of the place and more that she was now a fae girl lost in faery and was now bound by its rules?

How was she supposed to learn the rules?

“Is there a way out of here, if I keep running?” she asked.

“You do not wish to stay?” Ysolde said, looking hurt. Fear flashed in her stomach

“I don’t know. Right now I just—I want to run far away from the man chasing me, and I want to find my friend.”

“I will show you the tunnel out, if you promise to return,” she said, gaze steely.

“Like, for a visit?”

“To start.”

“But I will be able to leave again if I agree, of my own free will when I wish?”

“Yes,” she said, with a faint smile. “I will show you the tunnel to above if you agree to visit me again. You shall be able to leave of your own steed then, and when you wish.”

“And no one will harm me?”

“No one will harm you.”

“I—I promise, then. I’ll return, when it’s safe.”

“Return soon, little one. There is so much yet to awaken,” she said, and took her hand, leading her through the labyrinth of graves to a narrow tunnel that would be nearly impossible to see if you didn’t know it was there.

"Run, fast and quietly and you will end up Above."

"Thank you," she said, a smile breaking over her face for the first time since she'd been taken. 

"Don't keep me waiting so long this time, Amaris."

"I—I don't, I'm not—"

"Run, before he reaches the edge of the city. He hastens—I can smell his foul blood from here."

Rosalind nodded, chest painfully tight before she turned and ran, conjuring a mote of silver light as she went.

Notes:

Thank you so much for reading, please let me know what you think!

Lots of escalating problems--Valion losing control, Vranos gaining on our heroine, and a perhaps ill-advised deal struck with the mysterious Queen of the Inbetween.

And we get a little snippit of MC's mom dunking on Valion :)

Chapter 25: The Debt Unpaid

Valion stared at the cell that reeked of his daughter’s blood, trembling with barely suppressed rage. He pressed his nails into the meat of his palms, trying to even his breath.

Vranos had tormented her, let a filthy vampire feed from her, touch her, refer to her as a pet. Had promised her to a beast should he manage to kill him. His blood boiled at the salacious way that he had said it, the arrogance, the cruelty.

He wished he could kill the vampire again, wished he could tear him apart piece by piece, crush his miserable hands and knock out his teeth one by one—

Vranos had allowed this—more than allowed he’d arranged it. Gone out of his way to find a vampire to sell her to, like a thing, to use it to torment her. Should he find that he’d done anything worse than drink her blood—

Killing him wouldn’t be enough for the agony he’d inflicted, for the damage he’d done. He didn’t know what would be, but he’d think of something worse, some untenable torture that still wouldn’t be enough.

He doubted anything would even feel enough to pay for the fact that he’d hurt his daughter. The most precious thing in the Realms, the one thing he’d tried to preserve above all things, tried to keep safe from Faery’s cruelty, had sacrificed so much to give her a happy childhood. His sweet girl, hardly twenty and he’d stolen what remained of her childhood, taken away her home and sense of safety, had introduced her to all the wretched cruelties of the world.

And he’d done it simply to hurt him. Vranos had no quarrel with her, she’d never done the slightest wrong against him, and he’d tortured her all the same, an innocent—a child.

His child, the last gift Orlaith had ever given him, their daughter who he’d promised her would grow up happy and safe, would know the sun.

The last piece he had of her left.

He could feel blood running down his palms, though he felt no pain. He felt nothing but fury, rage that burned so hot it turned frigid and icy.

There was not a thing he wouldn’t do to find her, to make sure she was safe again, that she’d never be hurt again, that she’d feel safe again. There was not a single, horrid thing he wouldn’t do, a thing he wouldn’t sacrifice to make it so.

He turned wordlessly from the room and stalked down the hall in the direction of the smell of her blood, faint but enough to follow and further incite his fury.

 

---

 

God—the tunnel Ysolde had sent her down was small, narrow enough that she found her shoulders scraping against the sides of the cavern every so often, but it at least seemed to be empty. She hadn’t had time to think to ask about monsters in the tunnels, or beasts, but at least here nothing could be larger than her.

Though that, or course, didn’t mean that it wouldn’t be able to kill her.

Still, death by some subterranean beastie would be preferable to anything the man that had dragged her here would dream up and those were odds she favored.

Rosalind could feel a slight incline to her path, something that gave her hope that perhaps Ysolde hadn’t been trying to trick her.

Well, even if she had been, she didn’t have much choice other than to believe her. She was all alone in a different Realm that she knew nothing about and she needed to get back to the Mortal Realm, back to Alucard, to the castle, to something normal.

Perhaps if she could only find her way back and figure out a way to stop herself from dreaming, she could stay out of the man’s clutches. She just had to make it there, first.

She tried very hard not to think about the way her leg throbbed or her head swam—it would only make moving forward harder. And she needed to keep moving forward.

She didn’t know how long she walked. Hours, probably, but she just kept forcing one foot in front of the other, the thought of seeing Adrian again driving her forward. She would—she would see him again and then this would be just a story—an interesting anecdote in a few years, nothing more. Just the time she’d been whisked away to Faery in her dreams and had to trick an idiot vampire and learn to control her magic to escape.

She could feel the air shift, feel it become more damp as the tunnel widened oh-so slightly. She hurried forward, heart hammering in her chest. There was light up ahead—dim, but present—and squeezed through a narrow crevasse in the stone to the surface, a faint breeze playing across her skin.

She didn’t care that it seemed she’d climbed out into the edge of a bog, or that nothing about the landscape was the slightest bit familiar—she was free from the earth, another step close to returning back to Adrian’s castle, and that was all that mattered to her.

She only needed to figure out what direction to go, next.

 

---

 

Adrian felt a wave of nausea grip him as they reached the cell, the scent of Rosalind’s blood still heavy in the air. He could see the remnants of crumbling vines running from the wall down to the floor, most already withered into dust.

Had he been restraining her here too, choking her with earth?

How long had it been for her down here, alone? What had that wretched vampire done to her—he’d said she’d been given to him as a pet.

The possibilities made his stomach twist nauseatingly.

Valion, though, just stared, hands curled into fists. He stared and stared until his nails pierced his palms and blood ran down his curled fingers. Then he turned abruptly on his heel.

His eyes looked nearly black in the half-light.

Trevor strode forward as Valion stalked out, picking up the iron chain of the shackle—

Or rather, it had been. A few of the links looked warped, and one lay broken open. Sypha stepped forward, brows furrowed.

“She froze them, over and over, until they were brittle enough to break,” she said as she examined them.

“Maybe magic is easier in Faery?” Alucard suggested.

“Or maybe she’s just getting the hang of it. You saw what Daddy Dearest did,” Trevor said quietly. It certainly seemed to be more potent.

At least that would give her some sort of defense, though if Valion’s brother was as capable with magic—

He leg was still not healed properly. It would be agony to run on it, even if she could manage.

But God—he knew she was stubborn. She was a fighter—they only had to find her first, before her uncle did.

 

---

 

“Blackthorne.” “Blackthorne!” “Betrayer.” “Kin-slayer!” “Blackthorne.” “Usurper.” “Traitor!” “Murderer.” “Blackthorne.” “Blackthorne!” “Betrayer!”

The voices echoed through the empty necropolis, hissing and snapping around him, their masters unseen. Vranos ignored them, even as their volume grew, searching for a sign as to where the girl went.

She hadn’t any shoes, so the smears of blood in the dirt made it all the easier to find her footprints.

He groaned as he saw them run directly through the damn stones, rather than skirting around the edge, as would have been wise. Though he wasn’t sure she had sense enough to be wise. Clever—certainly, enough to be annoying, but not enough for any real wisdom, it seemed.

He only hoped it made finding her again that much easier. Valion had no doubt already dealt with Rutherford. Vranos had never expected him to succeed in killing his brother, after all. He only hoped he’d exhausted him enough to give him the edge he needed.

“Not welcome.” “Betrayer.” “Blackthorne.” “Turn from this place!” “Traitor.” “Kin-slayer.” “Blackthorne.”

“Oh, shut up, won’t you!” Vranos snarled, whipping about and finding nothing but dirt and polished stones. “I never did a thing to you, to any of you!”

“But you would have,” the nearly familiar voice purred in his ear. “You’re a particularly nasty thing, Blackthorne, chasing bleeding girls through graveyards.”

“What do you care? She’s a Blackthorne too. You should be glad to watch us kill each other off.”

“She’s not. Not like you—though if she does manage to rip your throat out, I will only like her more.”

“I nearly pity the thing if you like her,” he snapped back. Ysolde appeared in front of him, leaning against one of the gravestones as she smiled at him, eyes glimmering with loathing.

She had been beautiful once—had the signature black waves of the Blackthorne clan, her eyes a startling deep blue, though even transparent her skin had taken on a greyish hue. Her face, too, had taken on a cruel sharpness—crueler than already ran in the Blackthorne line.

Predatory, almost.

She smiled at him, and Vranos wouldn’t have been surprised to have seen fangs behind her lips. Her eyes bored into him, as if wishing to burn him.

She probably did.

Too bad the Accord prevented her from such an outburst.

“Won’t you ask me where she went?” she asked and he glowered at her. As if he’d be stupid enough to deal with her.

“What sort of a fool do you think me?”

“Oh, you won’t like the answer to that,” she nearly purred back. She watched him, almost cat-like as he stomped along the edge of the necropolis, careful not to step from the path, to place himself at the whims of her hospitality.

He reached the other side and set off through the wide tunnel that lead beneath the Muckmire, eyes peeled for any stray footprints, for any smears of the damn girl’s blood.

She couldn’t have gotten that far ahead of him.

 

---

 

Ysolde knelt on the floor of her bedchamber, not caring that blood was soaking into her nightdress, staining the floorboards. The only thing she cared about was the man she’d pulled into her lap, neck slashed, fast growing cold.

She brushed a lock of his copper hair behind his ears, shutting her eyes hard, wishing that—this time—when she opened them he would be alive, he’d be breathing, he’d be looking up at her, asking why she was crying, why she couldn't stop.

But he was still dead in her arms, still dead, no matter what she did, what she could do.

She was in agony, each breath almost impossible to pull into her lungs. She felt as if a part of her was ripped away, as if the wretched assassin had ripped her heart, too, from her chest.

She almost wished he had.

She’d never enjoy another dawn, another day in the sun without Rowan—what point was there, without him to share it with, without him next to her like a sunbeam himself, without his light to balance her darkness?

There was only darkness now. Wretched, ravenous darkness.

They could have been so much more. They could have been happy—so happy—for years and years and years.

She collapsed forward, pressing her forehead to Rowan’s, tears streaming down her face. She didn’t know how she was supposed to survive this crushing agony, survive losing her heart—

She looked up, icy fear flooding her as she heard a cry down the hall.

 

---

 

“Do not step off the path, whatever you do. Do not make any bargins, do not insult—” he gave Trevor a pointed look “—anyone we run across. The land we cross now is cursed beyond your comprehension, and its guardians are capricious and spiteful and easily insulted.”

“So like, all of Faery?” Trevor deadpanned. Valion whirled on his heel.

“Do you think I give these warnings lightly, Belmont? Disregard them as you wish, but as I said, I will leave you to your consequences—and she will ensure them to be cruel,” he snarled, and Alucard noted that the blackness in his eyes had lessened, but not by much, only enough to tell that they were supposed to be blue, under it.

“What—what if Rosalind stepped off the path?” Sypha asked quietly. “She—she doesn’t know any better.”

“I simply pray she did not,” he said, the anger melting from his voice, shoulders slumping slightly. “There are some things even I cannot shield her from.”

They stepped into a proper necropolis, laid out just like an ordinary city, though where the buildings would have been were just enormous monuments to the dead, carved from shining black stones. A path ran around its edge, a path of cobbled stone that didn't branch between any of the little alleys through the graves. Valion lead them along it, eyes sweeping constantly around the cavern.

Valion paused, staring at a patch of creeping moss growing over the path. Alucard stared at it for a moment before staring at the rest of the moss that grew among the stones—it looked no different. It was sporadic in where it grew, almost creating its own path through the winding alleys of the necropolis, but it looked ordinary enough.

“So many visitors today,” came a voice from further in the stones, a voice like silk and the promise of a sharp knife.

A woman strode out from the depths of the monuments, black hair loose and curling down her back, clad in elegant silk robes. She was beautiful, but her face was sharp, dangerous, the deep blue of her eyes cataloguing each of them.

It wasn’t until she stepped closer, though, that he realized she was transparent—if only just. Some sort of spirit, then, one of the ones perhaps buried in this place.

Valion’s eyes never left hers, tracking her like he might another predator. Hers, though, flicked to him, her expression softening as she stepped towards him, close enough to touch.

“Oh, aren’t you a sweet thing, child,” the woman said, cupping Alucard’s jaw. “Another, so soon.”

“Another what?” he asked, furrowing his brow. He could almost feel the woman’s touch, the weight of her hands, the heat that should have been there.

It was a strange, unsettling feeling.

“A child of two worlds. You could belong here too, you know.”

“Don’t speak to her,” Valion snapped at him. The blood had dried on his palms but his temper, it seemed, had not dulled.

“Another wretched Blackthorne,” she sneered at him, eyes narrowing as her hands fell from Alucard’s cheeks. He stepped back subtly, placing himself out of her immediate reach.

“Have you forgotten, Ysolde, that it is your blood that runs in my veins?”

“Not mine,” she shot back. “Yours is traitor’s blood. Betrayer’s blood. My line died at the hands of yours.”

“Milennia before I was ever born.”

“And yet you bear its curse as surely as if you’d been the one holding the knife.”

“You were very specific,” he said, but he only sounded tired. Ysolde narrowed her eyes.

“You, of any of them, should know why.”

To Alucard’s surprise, Valion just nodded. “I daresay I do.”

She stared at him for a long moment before she spoke again. “Your mirror was here. And an ugly mirror it is.”

Valion didn’t say anything, though he must know she meant his brother—did that mean Rosalind had passed through too? Had she been on her own or had he caught her again? Was she alright?

He opened his mouth to ask and Valion clapped a hand over it, eyes still trained on the spektor woman before them.

“We’ll be going, now, Ysolde,” he said, finality clear in his tone. She just glared at him, though there was some sort of understanding between them, something Alucard couldn’t make sense of.

Valion dragged them along the path, only letting go of him when they reach the other side were the cavernous mouth of another tunnel lay.

“You would have bargined with her, had I allowed you to keep speaking,” he said without looking at him. Alucard furrowed his brows—he wondered why he’d cared enough to stop him, if it was true. He’d made it very clear that he would leave them all to the consequences of their actions not even a quarter hour before.

He strode into the cavernous tunnel without looking back, without a word, without another of his warnings. Alucard glanced at Sypha and Trevor before following.

“She called you a child of two worlds—another child of two worlds, ‘so soon’. She must have spoken to Rosalind before we got here,” Sypha said quietly. Alucard nodded.

“Why does she give a shit? I mean, in the scope of things. Apparently she’s a Blackthorne just like him. Well, deader, but you know what I mean,” Trevor said, nodding in Valion’s direction ahead of him. “Different branch, I guess, but same tree.”

“Because Ysolde was always fond of things inbetween—not Seelie or Unseelie, not light or dark, things that were their own. She wished to be her own,” Valion said, slowing enough for them to catch up. “That was her sin.”

“How is that a sin?” Sypha said, disgruntled. Valion glanced back to flash her a sad sort of smile.

“It shouldn’t be.”

“Is she cursed to stay down there? Is that what you meant about this place?” Sypha asked.

“No—she is the curse, and all the others who cling to that place. It is our punishment—all of the Fae Wildes’ punishment for what was done to her.”

“How is it a punishment for you for her to be stuck down there by herself?” Trevor asked, making a face.

“She is far from alone and because it means there will be even fewer Fae born.”

“I don’t follow,” Sypha said. Alucard couldn’t help but linger on the first part of his statement, though—did they have to worry about more unfriendly spirits here?

“It is not the same as with humans—there are only a finite amount of Fae souls and for a new child to be born, there must be a soul ready to live once more. But Ysolde and her ‘Court’ refuse to move on, refuse to start again.”

“Why?” Sypha asked. Valion took a deep breath.

“Because they did nothing to deserve the death given them,” he said, though it told them little of the reality of the situation, as seemed to be his way.

“How rare is it for a fae child to be born, now?” she asked, furrowing her brow.

“There are perhaps one or two a decade in the Upper Court,” he replied.

“What about down here?” Trevor asked pointedly.

“My daughter is the only one to be born in nearly a century.”

“Does Ysolde have some sway over where the souls go?” Alucard asked in shock.

“There is some debate about that. No one else has lingered in the Veil as long, I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“The Veil—”

“We have spoken enough of such things. We need not alert every beast in the tunnels of our approach with incessant chatter,” he said sharply, a clear order to shut up.

Alucard sighed, the silence ringing in his ears. He’d prefer the beasts over the silence, the weight it left in his chest, prefer it over thinking, imagining every last awful thing that could have happened to her, how frightened she must be, how cold and in pain and alone.

But they were getting close—they had to be.

He needed them to be.

Notes:

A little more Ysolde and a lot more lore about her and the Blackthornes. MC takes an apparent shortcut to the surface while Alucard and the gang follow Vranos further into the tunnels.

Thank you so much for reading and for your comments!! I will probably not update again this week because I have a huge test that I need to pass, but I will update next week!

Let me know what you think!!

Chapter 26: Blood-Soaked Earth

Rosalind stared out over the swamp, trying to guess which direction might be best, but she couldn’t find the slightest hint of civilization, not even a far off plume of chimney smoke.

She swore before she stooped to tie up the hem of her shift above her knees, eyeing the swamp water.

She hoped it wasn’t alive or cursed or some other horrible thing. It could be, for all she knew—Faery made little sense at all.

She strode forward, expecting to wade through knee-deep water and muck, but the water seemed to shiver as she stepped into it. It wasn’t as deep as she’d thought either, hardly up to her ankle and pleasantly cool on her throbbing foot.

She didn’t think she could run anymore, at least not for long. She was quite sure she’d done something to ruin Adrian’s hard work, but she couldn’t worry about that now—no, she’d apologize when she returned to his castle and hope it wasn’t too bad.

She took another tentative step, waiting for something awful to happen. When it didn’t she took off, picking a direction on instinct rather than for any logical reason—she wasn’t sure how much logic existed in Faery.

She glanced back after a few minutes to see if she was being followed and froze.

The swamp behind her had disappeared, or at least along where she’d walked. Instead there were tall, gnarled trees and land covered in grasses and mosses and little bramble plants, all in shades of blue-green. There were colorful toadstools and a whole manner of night-blooming flowers—some that she recognized and others that must only be native to Faery.

She turned back and hurried on, unsettled by how rapidly the landscape changed. Would she step from swamp to frozen tundra next? She could feel the sparks of magic in the air—it was far more plentiful above ground than below, so much so that the air nearly seemed to hum with it.

She reached out, feeling for the magic as she’d taught herself in the cell, calling forth more of the bramble vines she’d conjured in the tunnel. They burst forth almost violently, enormous and still growing. She watched as she urged them twist themselves into a towering arch above her. She smiled as she watched huge, midnight colored flowers bloom from between the briars. They were beautiful but utterly alien—she had the urge to pluck one, though she resisted—who knew if they were poisonous.

She glanced back again, pulling herself from her reverie to force herself forward once more.

She had to keep moving, keep moving until she found a way back to the Mortal Realm—if it wasn’t home, it was certainly closer to it than Faery.

There, at least, she wasn’t so utterly alone.

Her heart twisted painfully in her chest—she missed Adrian terribly. What she wouldn’t do to sit tucked into his side as they read, to feel his arms around her and know that she was safe, know that he wouldn’t let anyone harm her.

How long had it been since she’d felt a kind touch?

Her chest ached at the thought, arms coming up automatically to wrap around herself. She was tired of being made a plaything for vile, lecherous men, tired of being abused—

At least at first, in the wagon with those awful men they’d kept her drugged enough to not remember most of it, until they’d gotten clumsy. This—this she would remember all too well if she made it out alive.

She wouldn’t need the damn Fae bastard to supply her nightmares, she’d have plenty of material to choose from.

But even then, it would mean she’d survived it. She would survive it—she wouldn’t let a shit-heel like that kill her, not if she had anything to say about it. She wasn’t sure if she did, but it was easier to be angry, be furious than to focus on how very impossible it seemed she’d ever get back home.

Of course, she’d have said magic telepathic swords and dhampirs and Night Creatures and faeries where impossible too, before she’d met Adrian.

It was about time something impossible happened in her favor.

 

---

 

Amaris was still breathing in her cradle by the time Ysolde reached the nursery, but only just, crimson blood blooming over her tiny chest.

“No, no, no,” she stammered, stumbling forward to try and stem the bleeding. Why had she never studied healing? She’d taken the palace healers for granted and now—

Now she was losing Amaris, just as surely as she’d lost Rowan.

Not lost—they’d been taken, stolen. She picked up her baby, cradling her to her chest as her breaths grew shallower and further apart until her little chest stopped moving entirely. Ysolde let out a sob, pressing her hand to her tiny cheek. It left a smudge of blood on her golden skin, but she just held it there, while she was still warm.

She’d hardly even seen six months. Her curls had only just begun to come in, just as black as Ysolde’s own.

Someone had taken her whole family, taken everything from her. They hadn’t been harming anyone, had hardly been to either Court since Amaris had been born—she hadn’t wanted to risk the travel, to leave the Gloaming.

She clutched Amaris closer, pressing her forehead to her daughter’s.

Whoever had done this—she’d make them pay, make sure they knew the ragged agony of the grief in her chest, make sure they knew loss.

Not that it would lessen her own—nothing could or would.

How could it?

 

---

 

Alucard glanced around, unease sitting heavily in his gut as he looked around the cavernous tunnel. It wasn’t like the others they’d wound through—it was wide and open, easily the width of the castle’s entrance hall, with other cavernous rooms branching off of it.

He wondered what it had been, before. Surely it hadn’t always been a tomb for a single, sad spektor.

Such question fell out of his head, though, when he spotted a figure up ahead, clad in fine black armor, black hair lank and mussed. He turned at the sound of their footsteps and it was as if Valion stared back at them, identical but for the scar cutting through his lip and the cruelty behind his eyes.

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” Valion said, voice low and dangerous. The man ahead of them just smiled.

“Did you need to bring a half-breed and two human children to manage it?”

“Hey, fuck you,” Trevor spat, scowling at him. “If you’re going to insult us, don’t be so fucking lazy about it.”

“Oh good, this one has a smart mouth too,” he shot back, narrowing his eyes, smile widening. “Maybe I’ll keep it after I scrape you off the floor, boy.”

Valion swore vilely as the sound of skittering and stomping overtook the cavern, the scent of iron thick in the air. Alucard glanced around, looking for the incoming threat.

Because apparently one evil Fae princeling wasn’t enough to deal with.

It looked like God was shitting in their collective dinner tonight.

Vicious-looking goblin creatures poured in, blocking the path forward and back. They were grey-skinned with black, insectoid eyes, razor-sharp talons and splatters of old blood staining their clothes, their long, pointed hats drenched in it. Among them too were horrifying, enormous creatures stood on one leg, a single overlarge eye set in their heads, a single arm protruding from the center of their chests. Some were armed with clubs, others with crude flails—the end of every rope stuck through with a sickly green apple.

There were too many, too many to count.

“Kill them, before they kill you. They have no mercy to offer,” Valion said, cleaving through the nearest little goblin with his sword, eyes black with rage. His eyes, though, never left his brothers, even as he strode forward, even as more of the monsters launched themselves at him.

“I fucking hate Faery,” Trevor snarled, exploding one of the goblin’s heads with his whip. “I didn’t think there was anything fucking uglier than Night Creatures.”

“Apparently Hell lacks imagination,” Alucard quipped back as he sent his sword at the eye of one of the giants—Sypha felled him once blinded with a tower of flame.

“There are so many,” Sypha said, slicing through another with a razor-sharp plane of ice. “Where are they coming from? We need to cut them off.”

“It’s too bloody dark to tell,” Trevor said, kicking one of the goblin creatures hard enough to send it flying back fifteen feet into a horde of its kin.

“There’s tunnels on either side,” Alucard said, glancing around to get his bearings, even as he continued to tear through the swarm. “They’re large—you could try to seal them with ice, but we cant chance anything that would bring the cavern down on us.”

“Fucking tell that Shitty and Shittier over there,” Trevor said as the cavern shook with the force of impact. Valion had somehow thrown his brother hard enough into the cavern wall that it had broken the stone behind where he’d landed. That feral rage had taken over again, making him look more alien and dangerous, something that very nearly frightened him.

He was suddenly struck by the fact that Valion wasn’t human, that he’d never been human, like a vampire, that he was entirely something entirely other.

He was used to how fast vampires could move, but they almost seemed to flicker in and out of the shadows, as if they were stepping in and out of them. Valion, though, was single-minded, utterly focused on his brother, all strategy beyond him, replaced with a frenzied need for primal carnage.

“You dare harm her? My blood, my daughter—you dare,” he snarled, stalking forward to attempt to grab him by the neck, but his twin hefted a battle hammer, swiping far too fast and easily with a weapon of that sort of weight, fast enough that Valion hardly dodged it.

“You left her unprotected—all alone. It was months before you even realized she was gone,” he said, pressing forward, swinging viscously with his hammer, darkness seemingly deepening around him.

“Where is she? What have you done with her?” Valion snarled. He launched a cloud of icicles at him, one of which tore though his cheek.

“Nothing interesting yet,” he taunted. Alucard’s attention, though, was drawn by the giant barreling down on them.

“Is it just me, or are they getting bigger?” Sypha said, killing a wave of goblins with a plume of flame.

“They’re definitely getting bigger,” Trevor said, eyes locked on the incoming giant. There was a crash up ahead as Valion felled one of the giants that had dared get between him and his brother, viscera splattering over him as he picked up the creature’s torn off arm and launched it at his brother with enough force to stagger him.

That moment of distraction was enough for one of the larger, more grotesque of the giants to slam its club into his abdomen, knocking him back a half dozen paces and knocking the wind from him. He knew it had broken ribs, that he was no doubt internally hemorrhaging but he ignored it, straightening back up. It would heal, in a few minutes, and he would be fine—he’d taken worse.

It only made him angrier.

He leapt up, landing on the thing’s shoulder, grabbing his sword as it flew by and cleaving its head fro its neck.

Trevor was right—they needed to find a way to cut off their reinforcements—at this rate there could be thousands. No matter how easily dispatched, their numbers alone could prove overwhelming if uncontrolled.

“Sypha, you need to close off the side caverns,” he called, ripping through another giant.

“I’m too far away, I can’t see—”

“Keep behind me,” he said, and tore a path towards the left chamber, turning to protect her as she raised a sheet of ice to halt their reinforcements. It wouldn’t hold forever, but it was thick enough to give them time to deal with those already in the cavern.

They fought their way back to Trevor, who was facing off with a particularly mean-looking giant. Sypha shot a ball of fire at its foot, knocking it off balance and Trevor used the moment to explode its head with his whip.

The next time he caught a glimpse of the brothers they were both bloodied, both staring down the other with such loathing. The goblins had realized to avoid them, that they hadn’t the slightest chance against either—or maybe it was the darkness gathering around them, the malevolence that hung heavy in the damp cavern air.

“You’ve gone too far, Vranos,” Valion snarled. “You’ve finally gone too far.”

“You have no idea just how far I will go, brother,” he spat.

“The first Unseelie child to be born in a century and you would subject her to your sadism?”

“I wouldn’t care if she was the first child born in a millennia, if she was yours I’d see her die, screaming. Die, knowing it was her father who condemned her, who abandoned her to such a fate.”

Valion lunged forward and grabbed his brother’s throat and squeezed, blood dripping from where his fingers dug in. His brother slammed his forearm down on Valion’s elbow and broke his grip, breathing hard though he just picked up his foot and kicked Valion in the chest hard.

So hard that he flew back and slammed into the back wall of the cavern, behind the giants and goblins and monsters Alucard couldn’t even begin to put names to.

Valion didn’t get up right away and when he did it was clear it took effort. There was blood dripping down his face, blood that was slightly too dark of a red, and he looked dazed—dazed enough to allow one of the mad goblins to leap up and rake its talons across his chest.

The brother, though, turned, smashing a path through the murderous goblins towards the cavern’s exit, towards where he must have been chasing Rosalind.

He couldn’t let him catch up with her.

Alucard glanced at Trevor as Vranos disappeared into the tunnel, no longer harried by the swarm.

“Go, we got it,” he said, giving him a nod before cutting down another of the wretched goblins, though another took a viscous swipe at him, slicing through his sleeve.

Still, Alucard pushed forward, cutting his way through the horde. One of the giants swung at him with their flail, faster than they should have been able to, and he dodged, leaping up to rip the thing’s throat out with his hand alone.

It took him too long to tear his way through the seemingly never-ending monsters, long enough that the exit tunnel was silent and empty by the time he reached it.

Still, he surged ahead. The faery would die for hurting Rosalind, die before he could ever so much as touch her again.

 

---

 

Vranos burst from the tunnels, breathing hard.

Fucking redcaps. He wondered if Ysolde had called them—she’d certainly bathed the land with enough blood to warrant their number, though they usually didn’t work with fachan.

It had to be the Bitch’s influence. They all flourished under her murderous reign.

There was a good chance the girl was already dead—more than a chance. She’d have hardly lasted a minute if she ran across a redcap, never mind a fachan.

It would hardly even need to chew her.

That was...disappointing. All that work, all that planning, and he hadn’t even been able to watch the light leave her eyes.

What a waste.

He straightened up, though, as he looked out over the Muckmire. To the south it remained a swampy wasteland, choking the life from nearly everything that dared enter it. But to the north—

The Muckmire was no more. At least a wide strip of it.

It had turned to forest, risen from the mud and standing water and grown as if it had been standing there centuries. It wasn’t an ordinary forest either—no, moon-motes hung in the gnarled tree branches, their leaves a deep blue-green. Toadstools the color of jewels had sprung up among their roots, blue moss overtaking the path.

Something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

He took off at a jog along the forest path, looking for anything that might give a clue as to what had done it, why—

Instead he spotted the girl, up ahead, limping her way through what should have been the Muckmire, watched as the earth rose to meet her feet, as forest grew around her with every step.

He made a face—surely this had something to do with the curse, with Ysolde. What had she done—what had she used the little brat to do? It couldn’t be the girl’s doing—she was half-dead and had scarcely managed control over some vines.

No, this was Ysolde, her play, somehow, though what her intent was, he couldn’t fathom.

She’s been the one to sink the Gloaming, after all.

The girl glanced back, face curling into a snarl as she spotted him.

“Oh great, it’s you,” she spat, glaring at him like his was shit on her shoe. Her shift was so splattered with blood and grime that he could hardly even tell it had been white, though she’d tied the skirt at her knees to allow for more freedom of movement.

Her silver hair was knotted and stained with blood, her cheek bruised from the last time he’d struck her, her neck and shoulders littered with bites and bruises. He’d guess from the angle of her fingers that several were still very broken, her broken calf reenforced with more of her damned vines in place of a proper splint, and the burns she’d received from her iron shackle were only just beginning to properly heal. And that was without mentioning the shadows under her eyes from forgoing sleep, the sharp way her bones had begun to poke out under her skin as she starved.

And yet she stared at him with cold fury on her face, not the fear that he’d grown used to, that he’d savored. This broken, pitiful child stared at him defiantly, as if she could hope to stand against him.

He was almost impressed by such imbecilic bravery. Stupidity.

“Are you going to make me hurt you, little changeling?” he asked, tone taunting.

“Fucking try it, asshole,” she snarled back, eyes flashing. “I’m getting a hold of this faery shit.”

He laughed at her. “If only your claws were as sharp as your tongue, girl, you might stand a chance.”

“Oh, do everyone a favor and go fuck yourself with a dry cactus,” she spat. He wasn’t sure what a cactus was but the sentiment was clear enough. He reached out to the earth below her feet to drag her down into it, deep enough that he could knock her out without issue, but it resisted him.

What had she done to the land to make it refuse him? He’d never heard of such a thing, never mind felt it, felt his magic strain and sputter and die.

His shock must have shown on his face because her face split into a smile—a mad, vengeful thing, a cruel thing—

A Blackthorne smile.

She raised her hand, calling forth a riot of enormous black briars, the same sort that she’d choked the tunnel with, though these were bigger and moved almost blindingly fast, though that wasn’t all.

No, the entire new forest seemed to awaken, murderous.

“You want to play games, shitdick? Let’s play a fucking game. It’s called I’m going to rip your arms off,” she said, a manic glint in her eyes, even as they began to blacken. He raised his hammer, narrowing his eyes.

As if he’d be bested by a child’s clumsy magic. No matter how strong her natural connection was, she didn’t have the education to wield it properly, never mind with any sort of finesse.

“And what shall I do when I win, little changeling? Shall I take your arms?”

Notes:

WEDNESDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN!!! (Or Thursday morning, I guess)

I got a B on my exam so I got to write tonight before I go back into study-mode for my practical next week. Hopefully I don't mix up any hormone acronyms this time, lmao.

Valion is Losing ItTM, our MC is Fucking DoneTM, and Adrian is on his way! Oh and Sypha and Trevor not only have to deal with a murderous horde of redcaps and fachan, but with a fucked up and furious Fae Dad.

What could go wrong?

Chapter 27: Broken Things

He wouldn’t take her again. No, she’d die first, quicker and cleaner than anything that he’d do to her if he dragged her back to that cell.

She didn’t want to die, though.

Rosalind took a deep breath, urging her briars to swipe at the man, to keep him at bay as she called more from the earth, the feeling of the magic buzzing across her skin.

There was so much of it here, and it was so agreeable—as song as she called for it, it leapt to comply, was ecstatic to. Even still, it was hard to keep up with his whirling attacks, to anticipate what he’d do next.

The forest itself, though, seemed to be on her side. A crushing blow she’d been too slow to block was instead knocked off-path by one of the gnarled tree’s branches, another throwing him back twenty feet. She called forth more briars, more vines, her instructions becoming less specific and more frantic—

She wasn’t a warrior. She was quite sure the only thing sustaining her now was adrenaline and the raw magic in the air itself. She felt panic rising in her chest as he hacked through her briars, a mad glint in his eyes.

“All that running, and for what, little changeling? For me to kill you under the sky rather than the dirt?”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” she snarled, conjuring more briars—thicker, heartier briars with enormous thorns like daggers.

“Or what? You’re tired, aren’t you? What good has all this fighting done for you? Hasn't it simply magnified your suffering?”

“YOU caused all my suffering! You dragged me here, and tried to drown me in my dreams—”

“And imagine all the nights you could have been spared coughing up grave dirt if only you hadn’t been waylaid by that dhampir, if those idiot humans had only brought you to me like they’d been hired to do.”

“You—you hired them?”

“I needed you in Wallachia. You didn’t think I’d stoop to dragging you there myself, did you?” he laughed.

She struck out at him with a newfound fury. She’d suspected he’d been the one to orchestrate her kidnapping, but to hear him admit it, and so smugly—

He’d put her through hell even before the first dream. They’d dragged her from her home, beaten her bloody whenever it suited them, kept her drugged so she never quite knew the extent of their evil.

And he laughed about it, laughed about hiring the men who stole her innocence, who would have mutilated her, had Adrian not killed them. Her skin crawled at the memory of them touching her as she slipped in and out of unconsciousness, of his damn vampire’s wandering hands as he drained her, of how the fae man had sold her to be his pet for whatever he was assisting him with.

She wanted to scrub her skin raw, she wanted to kill him so she could scrub the memories of everything he’d inflicted on her from her skin, so she could find a way back to the Mortal Realm and sleep.

She hadn’t known she could want him any more dead than she had in that cell, but now, with the weight of his crimes against her hitting her full force, she felt a new sort of hatred take hold, the sort that would enjoy his death, would enjoy watching him die, hoped it would hurt, that he’d be scared, that he’d know for even a second the sort of fear she’d been living with since she’d been kidnapped.

He deserved to feel the hell he’d thrown her into.

 

---

 

Trevor glanced at Sypha as they felled another of the giants. Their numbers were finally beginning to taper. She gave him a look before taking out another wave of the goblins with a wall of fire. Valion had hardly moved from where he’d gotten to his feet—Trevor half-wondered if he’d been knocked stupid.

Luckily he and Sypha worked like a well-oiled machine after all these months on the road, adventuring. He knew what she would do almost as if he could read her thoughts and acted accordingly. Slowly but surely they were whittling down their numbers and then they could go after Alucard—

He’d held his own against his father, Trevor was sure he could handle a couple of minutes of the pointy-eared bastard without him.

Alucard, at least, had the sense not to leap right at him head on, unlike their faery-guide.

It was almost disappointing after all the shit he’d talked about his fighting prowess. Of course it wasn’t surprising for a princeling to have an over-inflated view of his abilities.

Valion leapt between them at the approaching giant, hardly more than a blur. There was something different about the way he fought now, something feral, nearly animalistic. He carved through the monsters, not caring to make their deaths clean or quick, only to render them unable to oppose him. He carved through the center of the cavern like a meat grinder, leaving nothing but brutalized flesh in his wake.

It was over hardly two minutes after he’d roused himself from whatever state the blow had knocked him into, his efficiency genuinely terrifying. He’d seen the destruction wrought by Night Creatures and vampires—hell, by Dracula himself—but this was something different, even from Dracula’s bloody rampage.

He didn’t look back at them as the last giant fell, only disappeared down the tunnel after his brother and Alucard. Sypha ran after him, apprehension clear on her face. Trevor followed, hoping the mad look in his eyes would dissipate with the death of his twin.

 

---

 

The tunnel let him out somewhere different from where they’d entered, into a wild forrest of strange, blue-leafed, gnarled trees and creeping moss, the whole of it bursting with alien flora. It was nothing like the forest Valion had lead them through—dark and unnerving and half-dead.

There was a path, though, leading through it, a path and the faintest sounds of—was it voices? He took off, heart accelerating as the noises became clear—it was voices snarling insults at one another and horrible, crashing sounds of impact.

But more importantly, he heard Rosalind’s voice.

He sprinted towards it, skidding to a stop in the dirt as he found them. Vranos was furious, was swinging his hammer with all his might at her as she dodged, throwing up thickets of enormous briars to block the blows, to block him from drawing closer, from striking her.

He leapt into the air, flying high over her vines and landed lightly next to her.

Her eyes widened as she saw him, a smile tugging at her lips as he directed his sword to block Vranos’s strike.

“Oh good, now you can watch your little half-breed die before I kill you,” Vranos snarled and Rosalind threw a hand out in fury, sending a vine at him, its thorns tearing through his thigh.

“What did I tell you about talking, Ugly?” she shot back. Vranos tore the briars separating them away with his bare hand, lifting his hammer to strike. Alucard blocked it with his sword, rushing forward to deliver a crushing blow to his chest which Rosalind used to snake another of her briars around his chest and yank him back and off his feet. She leapt forward but Alucard grabbed her around the middle and darted out of the way just as Vranos ripped them off with far too much ease and launched himself back to his feet, hammer coming down right where she would have landed.

Her eyes were wide as he released her, whipping around to put himself back between her and the murderous fae man.

He wouldn’t touch her again, not as long as he was here.

“Just—stay behind me,” he said, catching his sword in his hand in time to block Vranos’s strike. The force was enough to make his teeth rattle—he hadn’t been struck like that since he’d fought his father.

And this man really wanted to kill him.

Kill them both.

He punched him hard in the face, forcing him back a few steps—it would be better to keep him at a distance, he couldn’t guarentee Rosalind’s safety if he allowed himself to get tossed about, and he was quite sure one of the bastard’s blows would be fatal to her, with how hurt she was already.

He watched a thin, snake-like vine wrap around his leg and yank him into the air only to smash him into the ground, first one direction, then another, until he could wrestle the dagger from his belt and saw through it, though he fell fifteen feet to the ground.

What skin he could see was bruised and bloodied and by the way he rose to his feet, Alucard would guess he had more than a few broken ribs at the very least.

He glared at them, breathing hard. Then, to Alucard’s great surprise he turned and fled.

“COWARD!” she screamed after him, and he watched as the plants he passed took swipes as he passed. He watched until he was sure he wasn’t cutting back around to try and sneak up on them—though he wasn’t sure that was possible with the way the forest itself seemed intent on expelling him.

He turned towards her, taking her in properly for the first time since he’d found her.

She was too thin, clad only in the second-hand shift he’d stolen from the room of one of his father’s former generals, though it was too covered in blood and dirt to tell it had been white. She’d tied it up at her knees to allow for more freedom of movement, revealing the brace she’d growth herself to try and stabilize her calf. There was still the iron cuff around her ankle, though he could she she’d grown something between it and her skin, its leaves providing some protection.

Still, it was the bites at her neck and shoulders that his eyes were drawn to, the remnants of her abuse by that horrible vampire that Vranos had set on them in the tunnels, the one that wanted to keep her as a pet. It wasn’t until she wrapped her arms around herself, suppressing a shiver, that he noticed her bloody hands, more than a few of her fingers crooked—broken.

Alucard quickly shrugged off his jacket from underneath his cloak, wrapping it around her. Her skin was cold to the touch, her lips still faintly blue.

“God—your skin is like ice,” he said as he continued to catalogue what injuries he could see, nausea rising in his throat. He was nearly immediately interrupted, though, when she threw her arms around him, face pressed to his chest as she hugged him tight.

“You really came! I—I—” she said, voice muffled against him. He hugged her back automatically, pressing his cheek to the crown of her head. It felt right, having her in his arms—the first thing that had felt right since she’d been taken. He held on too tight, just convincing himself that she was real.

“Of course—of course I did. You’re—” he broke off, words failing him. He should have just said that she was his friend—she was, but it wasn’t enough, not for the way he felt, for the warmth she stoked in his chest.

It was not all he wanted, though he was loath to admit it.

“I missed you so much,” she said, face still pressed against his chest. “I didn’t—I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again.”

“Don’t be silly, Rose,” he laughed, though his throat was constricted by the tears he refused to shed. “You’d have to go further than Faery for that.”

She looked up at him then, eyes misted with tears even as she gave him the softest, sweetest smile. She rose up on her tiptoes to press the briefest chaste, achingly tender kiss to his lips before she abruptly stepped back, eyes going wide. He stared at her, heart pounding against his ribs.

“I—I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“Did you mean it?” he asked, voice hardly more than a whisper. He had to know if she’d simply acted out of sheer relief, if it was a misguided attempt to thank him that she’d instantly regretted, or if the was the slightest chance that she might feel the same way as him.

She stared at him for a long moment, silver brows pulled together, before she nodded. “I—I shouldn’t have, I wasn’t thinking, I’m s—”

But he didn’t let her apologize, especially not for that. He dipped his head to press his lips back to hers, hands coming up to gently cradle her face. He tried to pour the depth of his adoration into the kiss, hoped, perhaps, that he could better convey his feelings for her than his words that so often failed him around her. She kissed him back fervently, one of her hands resting hesitantly at his waist, the other weaving delicately into his hair.

Kissing her felt different then it had ever felt before. There was a weight to it that he’d never felt before, a sort of gravity to the warmth spreading in his chest. Perhaps it was because he knew she returned at least some portion of the affection he held for her, that he knew it had bloomed knowing the real him, the broken creature he’d been left in the wake of his parents’ deaths, of Taka and Sumi’s assault.

Perhaps it wasn’t too much to wish for, that she might to remain with him, that they might understand each other in a way that only two broken things caught between worlds and staring down centuries could.

“By all the bloody Hells,” a voice cried exasperatedly and they broke apart, whipping around towards the sound. It was Valion striding forward, rage not quite abated, but overshadowed by irritation. Rosalind’s face curled into a snarl.

“What, you’re back for more, you piss-sucking weasel? Lucky for you, I’m introducing drawing and quartering to Faery and I don’t need any horses to fucking do it,” she spat, eyes wild with fury, throwing out a hand lightening-fast.

Black briars burst from the ground and twisted around him, immobilizing him in the middle of the little forest path. Valion took a deep, steadying breath from the midst of the briars, something that had to have been difficult considering how tightly she’d bound him in the vines.

“Rose, stop, that’s—” Alucard began.

“—the fuckwit that’s been tormenting me for months. I’d know his face anywhere.”

“Our face, sweetling. I fear it is a shared visage, one that he has used to deepen your torment—”

“Shut the fuck up! I’m not playing your twisted little games anymore, I told you, we’re playing my games now, the first of which, need I remind you, is called I’m going to rip your fucking arms off—”

“Rose, that’s not the same man who took you, I swear. He—he’s the one that brought us here. They’re twins, they—look at his face. He’s missing the scar, see?” Alucard said, pointing to Valion’s chin. He watched her look, jaw tight, but she didn’t release her hold on the vines.

Sypha and Trevor came skidding to a halt, both covered in no small amount of blood and grime, staring up at Valion with wide eyes before turning to look at Rosalind with mixtures of shock and almost fear.

“I take it the reunion with Daddy Dearest isn’t going well,” Trevor said and Alucard wished he was close enough to smack him, hard. Her head whipped towards him, brows furrowed, before she looked up again at Valion.

“Trevor!” Sypha admonished, and she did smack him, though not nearly hard enough.

Trevor made a face. “You didn’t get that far yet. Shit.”

She turned to Alucard, a riot of emotions on her face. “Is—is he lying?”

“He’s not, Moonbeam,” Valion said. Rosalind ignored him, searching his face. Alucard shook his head.

“He came to the castle looking for you, after you’d been taken. He—he brought us here so we could find you,” Alucard said as gently as he could manage. Her lower lip trembled for a second before she ground her teeth and turned back to Valion.

“You’re my birth father, then?” she asked, voice cold, almost detached. Valion almost seemed to wither a bit under her gaze.

“I—I am.”

“Do you mean my friends or I harm?”

“No—no, of course not. I would never harm you—”

“Swear it, then. Swear you won’t harm me or my friends. Even Trevor,” she said, glaring at him.

“I shall not harm you or your...friends,” he said, eyes flicking to Alucard, narrowing slightly. “Even Trevor.”

“Why do I have to be specified?” Trevor asked, making a face.

“Because I haven’t decided if we’re friends yet,” she replied, eyes still locked on her father. After another moment of staring she twisted her wrist and the briars dumped him unceremoniously back to the earth, shifting to form an arch over the path, strange dark flowers bursting into bloom along their length.

Valion got to his feet, taking a deep, steadying breath. Alucard doubted anyone else would have received such patience. He took a few steps forward, hands raised as if to show he meant no harm. Still, Rosalind stiffened next to him, hands balling into fists.

“Daring—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“My sweet girl—”

“No, you left me,” she said, scowling at him. “You left me in a whole other Realm with strangers to raise me. To be my parents.”

Valion flinched at that. “Only to keep you safe—”

“It worked great,” she shot back.

“I—I admit I was not keeping as close of tabs as I should these last few weeks for you—”

“My father died last October. Your twin paid a bunch of vile men to kidnap me in January. Why do you care now? Why not when I was left all alone in Vienna grieving the man who raised me? Why not do something in the months those monsters kept me drugged in the back of that wagon? Why not do something when your shit-heel brother was drowning me in grave dirt every night—”

“I did. I kept him out so you could rest, removed what damage I could from your dreams—”

“Once. In months of torment. No, it was Adrian and Sypha who kept him out of my head the rest of the time, who searched relentlessly for some cure. It was Adrian that treated my wounds and kept the fevers at bay, Adrian who saved me from those monsters in the woods, who took me in and took care of me. Maybe you did give me away to protect me—my parents were wonderful people and they gave me a beautiful childhood—but you still left me. You left me all alone to fend for myself after Father died,” she spat, fat tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Moonbeam—”

“I have no desire to suffer the mercurial affection of an absent father. I want to go home—”

“Of course, of course we’ll go home,” Valion said, perking up minutely.

“No—after I kill your miserable brother, I want to go home. Back to the Mortal Realm with Adrian and Sypha and Trevor. I hate it here,” she snarled before turning abruptly on her heel and striding off in the opposite direction, the forest springing up to meet her. Alucard spared Valion one last look before he jogged to catch up with Rosalind, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as he caught sight of the tears pouring down her face.

Notes:

AHHHHHHHH!!!!! Vranos got away but they're finally all together again and admitted (or begin admitting) their feelings before Valion rudely interrupted. He's having a Bad TimeTM, but he did fuck up majorly.

Very, very excited to get the gang back together!

Chapter 28: Homecoming

Valion stared at his daughter’s back, chest painfully constricted.

She hadn’t bothered looking back once since she’d strode off into what had been the Muckmire only a day and a half ago. He had a bad feeling about its disappearance, about the forest that rose in its stead, a forest that looked startlingly like descriptions of the Gloaming, before Ysolde had laid it fallow.

And it dampened his magic, much like the twisting caverns of Cryptgarden, though he felt it stronger here. The Muckmire had never had that sort of effect, at least, nowhere near as potent.

It didn’t bode well if she was amassing that sort of physical power so far from Cryptgarden, unless she’d figured out a way to leave, somehow.

But that would mean that she was following them, which was perhaps worse. 

It was clear exhaustion was taking hold of the younglings, particularly his daughter. It wasn’t surprising, given her injuries and how she’d been held captive, the fact that there was something wrong enough with her leg that she’d fashioned a sort of brace out of vines. She leaned on the dhampir, clearly in pain, though when he’d offered to carry her she’d refused.

Adrian.

He was far from pleased about how obviously she was enamored by him, that he’d found them kissing, that she so easily trusted him seemingly implicitly. She clearly saw him as some sort of knight in shining armor, but he’d seen his castle, seen the human bodies staked outside its door, rotting.

He—he’d known perhaps she’d be angry, but he hadn’t prepared himself for the reality of it. She had every right to be furious with him—he just hadn’t expected her to want nothing to do with him.

He was her father—didn’t that count for something? How could she not even wish to speak to him, after all these years.

Hell—the yelling was better, and the tears. At least then she was speaking to him. This—

This silence hung like lead around his neck.

He’d only been trying to do the right thing—he’d cocked it up, but surely his intent counted for something? But then again, she was right—he’d left her alone when her foster father died, left her alone to be abused and brutalized because he’d gotten caught up in squashing a petty rebellion, because he’d been playing politics at Court.

He’d allowed her to be hurt, and terribly.

He—he didn’t even know how to begin to go about fixing it. How could he possibly atone for allowing her to suffer so?

He hadn’t even known the extent of her abuse.

He dropped his head into his hands, fighting the urge to vomit.

He had failed his little girl so absolutely.

All he wanted to do was pull her into his arms, wanted to hold her tight and promise her he’d never let anyone harm her again. He wanted to see to the dozens of bruises and cuts that littered her skin, wanted to heal the whatever Vranos had done to her leg, wanted to get that damn iron cuff off of her. He wanted to begin making up for his failings, wanted to show her he could be trusted, that his love wasn’t mercurial, but a constant, immovable thing.

He just had no idea how to be a father, in the practical sense.

He didn’t speak again until they reached the edge of what had been the Muckmire, where he felt his magic flood back to him. He let out a sigh of relief—he hadn’t realized just how dependent he’d grown on it until he’d hardly had access to it below.

“I’ll create a circle back to the Gloomveil, then it is only a short walk until you can rest,” he said, as he came to a stop. He didn’t want her walking a step more than she had to, never mind on that leg.

She made a face, glancing at Adrian and Sypha.

“It’s how he brought us here,” Sypha said, tone particularly gentle. “We came through another forest, though it was much...different from this one.”

Valion set about coaxing a circle from the earth, a fragile, temporary gate that would only be able to handle one jump. He turned back to the younglings, noting the way his daughter had been watching him weave the connection, face scrunched as her eyes tracked the formation of the toadstools, as if trying to figure out the mechanism behind it from observation alone.

Maybe she was. She’d always been particularly bright.

“After you,” he said, gesturing to the lot of them so he could make sure no tether of connection remained after they stepped through. He watched them go before steeling himself and following.

He doubted bringing her back home was going to go over very well at all, despite the practical necessity of it.

She was staring up at the gnarled trees of the Gloomveil when he stepped through, not bothering to hide the disgusted face she was making.

“It looks evil.”

“It’s not evil,” he said, ignoring the pang in his heart at her pronouncement. Orlaith had said much the same when he’d first brought her, though she’d said so in a far more insulting manner.

“The trees are wrong,” she said, shaking her head. He furrowed his brow, wondering how she’d come to that conclusion—she was right, though he didn’t know how she’d figured it out simply by staring at their fringe.

“They suffered a blight,” he said, carefully dispelling the glamour that hid the path from view and repelled unwanted visitors. He caught her out of the corner of his eye again watching him intently as he rewove it behind them, though she looked away when he tried to catch her eye.

It was only natural she’d be curious about magic, especially with such a natural talent for it. How he longed to teach her all that he knew, longed for her to foster her connection with it.

Foster her connection with Faery. With him.

She didn’t ask any more questions before they began down the cobbled path to the house, though her eyes remained fixed on the trees.

“Some of them move,” Belmont said to her conspiratorially, as they started down the bath. She gave him a dirty look.

“They do not.”

“Oh yeah?” he said, pointing to where one of the treants shifted deeper within the forest. Her eyes went wide.

“Told you.”

“Shut up,” she shot back, eyeing the trees with a newfound wariness. Valion sighed.

“They won’t harm you, unless you mean to harm this place. They’re merely guardians,” he said, hoping to sooth a bit of her worry. Judging from her body language, it didn’t.

Of course she expected them to be monsters, that was all she’d met in Faery.

She eyed the house when they reached it with the same sort of apprehension, eyes cataloging the towers, the grey irregular stone that made up the exterior, the ivy he’d allowed to run wild over its surface. He tried to push down his own—she’d hardly been a day and a half old the last time she’d been here.

Been home.

He crossed to the door and undid the wards, turning to usher the lot of them inside. He made a face at all the dried mud of the Muckmire sloughing off onto the rug in the entranceway. He reached out siphoning the dirt from the lot of them before he opened the door and sent it streaming outside.

“Oh, I need to learn that one,” Sypha said, eyes twinkling with interest.

“I’ll show you to the guest chambers so you can bathe,” Valion said, leading them up the stairs to the second floor. He pointed down the hall to the western wing of the house.

“Guest chambers are around that corner, I do not care which one you pick. I’ll have something prepared for dinner in an hour,” he said. He stopped his Moonbeam before she could follow them. “You have your own chambers this way.”

She stared at him, eyes flicking between him and the dhampir before she turned towards her rooms, pausing so he could lead the way. He offered her his arm to help stabilize her and take some of the weight off her injured leg but she ignored it. He dropped it, taking a deep breath to try and keep at least the facade of calm intact.

Valion stopped outside the door to his daughter’s room, feeling sick. He stared at the flowers he’d so lovingly painted across its surface, the name in ornate, swooping script.

“Who’s Elyra?” she asked, brow furrowed.

“You are,” he said pain lurching in his chest. She gave him a dirty look.

“No I’m not. My name is Rosalind, my father picked it for me,” she said, the words picked to hurt him, to drive home his neglect.

“It is the name your mother gave you. Elyra Amaris Isleen Liora Blackthorn. She spent a long time picking it out,” he said, throat constricting as he remembered Orlaith’s lists and lists and lists of possible names—she’d originally wanted to give her five middle names, as was custom among the nobility of the Seelie Court, but he’d talked her down to three.

He still had the lists locked away somewhere for when he might be able to bear to look at them.

He took a deep breath. “Regardless, these are your chambers, though I hadn’t the time to prepare them properly. The bathroom is off of the bedroom, the door on the right. There are clothes in the wardrobe—they should fit, I think. If they do not I will find something for the interim until I can procure a proper wardrobe.”

She stared at him for a long moment, expression inscrutable.

“Thank you,” she said finally, pushing open the door. She paused, staring at the lilac walls covered in paintings of flowers, of places her mother had favored, at the comfortable velvet sofas arranged by the fireplace for reading, all the little silly things sat about the room he’d gotten in the hopes that she’d like them, his only guidance his fleeting visits to her foster father’s shops.

She shut the door behind herself and he stood frozen, listening to the soft, uneven sound of her footsteps as they retreated towards her bedchamber. He lingered another moment before turning towards his own chambers.

 

---

 

Rosalind sunk lower in the water, relishing the near-scalding heat of it. She didn’t know how long it had been since she’d last been warm. She stared around the bathroom noting the flowered vines painted on the walls, the fixtures formed to look like flowers and leaves. She closed her eyes, sinking fully under the water, unwilling to look at it any longer.

It was all so very pretty, just like everything else in the chambers Valion had told her were hers. Pretty and strange as if they were meant for a baby and a child and an adult all at once. There were unfamiliar stuffed animals and dolls right beside dense tomes on science and magic and history.

She scrubbed herself raw, until she felt as though she’d gotten as clean as she could manage without drawing blood. She climbed out and wrapped herself in a thick, fluffy towel, crossing back to the bedroom. She opened up the wardrobe intent on wearing anything but that dirty, disgusting shift.

She froze. it was full, though the outfits got progressively bigger from left to right until she reached the far end where there were half a dozen dresses in her size.

Or, her size before she’d spent half the year being tormented and starved.

She took out one of the smaller dresses and stared at it, at the iridescent silk and little bows, beads stitched along the neckline. It was meant to fit maybe a seven-year-old. She shoved it back, grabbing one of the dresses in her size without lookin at it.

She pulled it on before digging around for socks and finding a pair of shoes in her size—silk slippers like she’d worn around her shop, around Vienna’s cobbled streets. Pretty shoes her father had bought her in Italy, when they’d gone. These were nearly the same, if a different color.

Had he been watching her, close enough to discern her preference in shoes? Why would he do all this—have all this—if he just left her in the Mortal Realm. If he hadn’t even bothered to check in for at least almost a year?

She raked through the knots in her hair as quickly as she could manage, very much not looking at all the ribbons and pins and ornaments tucked into the vanity. She braided it, tying it off with the plainest ribbon she could find and grabbed Adrian’s jacket to return to him. She got up and crossed back to the little sitting room and out into the hall, almost running right into him. His hair was damp and curlier for it, the blonde slightly darker than when dry.

“Oh—I’m sorry,” she said, heat flooding her cheeks. “I was just going to return your coat.”

“Thank you,” he said, taking it from her, a soft smile on his face before it turned to a serious expression. “You shouldn’t be walking around, though. I—I’m worried about your leg.”

“It’s—it’s tolerable,” she said quickly. She’d gotten used to the constant throbbing of it, used to simply being in pain.

“May I take a look at it?” he asked and she nodded, stepping back into the sitting room. His eyes roved over the room brow furrowing slightly before he helped her to one of the couches and had her sit. He knelt down as she pulled her skirt up above her knee. She’d left her makeshift splint on, afraid that if she took it off she’d really make if worse.

She hadn’t realized just how bruised it was underneath until Adrian began poking and prodding. She could tell, too, from his face that it was probably worse than she thought.

“You can’t keep walking on it, Rose,” he said, looking up at her from beneath furrowed brows. “From the amount of bruising and where—I think you re-fractured it. Not as badly, but it was already healing too slowly. You need to rest.”

“I only need to kill that damn bastard, then I can rest.”

“I promise you, we’ll kill him, but you have to focus on healing. He—god, Rose,” he said, shaking his head, quickly ducking to examine the iron shackle around her ankle, looking for a lock or hinge or some type of closure.

“There isn’t one,” she said dully.

“Perhaps your father has a saw that might be strong enough to get through it.”

Her stomach twisted at the sound of ‘your father’. That was the reality of it, wasn’t it? Just the terrible inbetween-ness, the otherness of it all—not human, but not really fae either, apparently wanted, but not enough to keep, important enough to know her shoe size, but not to know that she was being put through hell, that she'd been left all alone.

And she couldn’t help the fear that rose in her chest at the sight of him, nearly identical to her torturer.

He’d said he knew her father better than anyone. Said that before beating her or sending that vile vampire in to feed on her.

She closed her eyes, trying to quell the fear that gripped her chest at the memories of that cell, of all that happened, of everything before—

“It’s alright, Rose. It’s alright, you’re safe,” Adrian said, sitting next to her on the couch. She leaned into him, almost on instinct, and he wrapped his arms around her.

She hadn't realized she'd been shaking until then.

“I know,” she said in little more than a whisper, throat tight, though she forced a smile. “You’re here.”

He smiled back at her, but there was something else behind his eyes too, something that almost seemed sad. He pressed his lips to her forehead and she couldn’t help but melt a little at the sweet affection, affection she’d never dreamed of receiving from him.

“I won’t let him harm you again—won’t let anyone harm you,” he said, voice solemn. “You are—you are so very dear to me. I can’t bear the thought of losing you.”

“Adrian—”

“You needn’t worry.”

“How do you know I’m worrying?” she asked. He just gave her a look. She huffed a small laugh, though it lacked any real humor. “Yeah, alright. But there is reason to worry. It—Adrian, it’s so strange here. Nothing makes any sense. Magic doesn’t work as you or Sypha described at all and the dead are now—there was a whole city of ghosts underground. Real ghosts.”

“A city of them?” he asked, brow furrowing. She nodded. He opened his mouth to say something else, but a knock came at the door. She stiffened, eyeing it dubiously.

“It’s okay,” Adrian said, smoothing his hands reassuringly over her shoulders as he got up to answer the door. Valion stood on the other side, face sour as he surveyed Adrian, a linen-covered box in one hand.

“What are you doing in my daughter’s chambers?” he asked acidly. She made a face.

“He was checking my leg. He wished to see how badly I’d ruined all his previous work,” she called, drawing his attention to her. She hated how his face softened slightly when he looked at her, like some horrible mockery of the man who had tortured her for weeks.

“What do you mean?” he asked, striding passed Adrian without a word, pointedly ignoring him.

“I—I broke my leg, badly, running from the men who kidnapped me. He reset it and looked after me while it was healing—he made a much better sort of walking brace for it than I managed. But now he suspects it's re-fractured.”

He stared at her for a moment, jaw tight, before nodding. “I’d like to look at it, if you will allow. I have some expertise in the area, and I need to deal with the remainder of the shackle before it causes more harm.”

She hesitated, eyes flicking to Adrian as he returned to her side before she nodded, if only to be free of the iron cuff. Perhaps her skin would heal properly when it was gone.

It still burned terribly, whenever she moved wrong and it touched skin uncovered byt the leaves she'd grown under it.

She pulled up the hem of her dress, revealing the offending leg. He knelt, much as Adrian had done, though he tapped the vine she’d conjured to keep it stable, causing it to unravel and drop to the ground. She couldn’t help but whimper at the sudden lack of support, at the way is made her shin twinge that made her suspect Adrian was right about her re-breaking it. He didn't look up at her noise of pain, though his shoulders stiffened. 

“I’m sorry, this is going to be uncomfortable,” he said, taking hold of her leg. Fear spiked in her chest and she tried to tug away, but he hardly even seemed to notice her try.

“What is? What are you doing?” she asked, but he didn’t answer, his hands glowing with silvery light. It hurt, a bone-deep ache that knocked the wind from her and made stars flash before her eyes, but it was gone in a moment, gone so swiftly and abruptly she almost wondered if she’d felt it at all.

Still her heart raced in her chest, her breaths stilted. 

She looked at her leg, eyes going wide. The bruises were gone, as was the swelling—she hadn’t realized just how swollen it had grown. She glanced back up at him, brows furrowed as she tried to make sense of what he’d done.

“How did you do that?” she asked, curiosity winning out over her fear. 

“It—it was something I picked up after you were born. Something—something I should have bothered to learn far before,” he said bitterly without meeting her gaze. Instead he searched for more injuries across her skin, disappearing bruises and knitting her skin back together. He took hold of each of her hands in turn, despite how she stiffened, and pulled his thumb down each of her broken fingers, healing them with that same flash of deep, breath-taking ache, though not as bad as her leg had been.

"You'll need to be careful, as the bones reset. They're delicate the first day or so."

His attention was then drawn by the cuff. He made strange gestures in the air around it, almost as if he was dissembling something invisible. It took him a couple of minutes, long enough that she was convinced he was mostly mad, but then the cuff unhinged and fell from her ankle.

She felt a strange rush at its removal, and the air around her felt more electric in the way she’d learned meant there was magic about.

Valion, though, just stared at her ankle, at the ivy leaves she’d grown to try and protect herself from the iron. He peeled them away and she tried not to wince. Underneath was just an open, infected wound, the skin burnt and blistered and weeping puss, far worse than her wrists had been from being bound for weeks at a time. He leaned back on his heels, face dark and took the lid off the box.

“Iron—iron prevents any sort of magical intercession. I—I’m afraid I can only clean and dress it,” he said, taking a deep breath before he turned to open the box, revealing a whole host of strange-looking medical supplies.

He looked—sad, maybe. His jaw was tight, his brows furrowed, but if she looked too quickly all she saw was the man who had pulled her into the earth, who had stood by to watch her suffer, a leering smile on his face as he enjoyed her pain, as her taunted her.

She didn’t say anything as she watched him pull out a lurid green liquid and pour some on a square of cotton, tracking him carefully as he used it to clean the wound. She hissed, trying to draw her foot back at the sharp sting of it, though Valion didn’t allow her to.

“I know, I’m sorry, but it must be cleaned. It has begun to fester.”

She watched as he grabbed another of the bottles, pouring out a thicker blue solution onto more cotton before dabbing it onto the wound. It brought some measure of relief, which she was grateful for.

“Why—why did you give me away?” she asked, eyes narrowed as she watched him retrieve a roll of gauze from the box and begin wrapping it meticulously around her ankle. Valion froze for a moment before he continued his work, eyes trained on it rather than meeting her gaze.

“I thought it a way to keep you safe. Court is a dangerous place and people would have tried to harm you to get to me and it would have been nothing but blood and backstabbing and cruel plots. It isn’t the sort of place for a child.”

“What about my birth mother? Did she agree to send me away to?”

“No,” he said stiffly, still staring at her ankle, though he’d finished wrapping it. “She did not.”

“But she didn’t stop you,” she shot back.

“She would have, had she lived—though if she had, there would have never been the need to send you away. She would have raised you in the Light Court and you’d have split your time between this house and there and no one would have known who you truly were until you had at least reached your first century. She—she wanted a child—a daughter—more than anything. She—”

He broke off, staring at the carpet for a long time before he shook his head and tossed the dirtied cotton in the box and stood.

“Dinner should be ready, if you will gather your friends and bring them downstairs to the dining room. Turn left at the bottom of the stairs and it is the second door on the right,” he said stiffly, walking to the door which he held pointedly open for them. She took the hand Adrian offered to help her to her feet and walked out into the hall, trying to make sense of the expression Valion wore, but he turned as soon as they stepped into the hall and hurried down the stairs, disappearing around the corner.

Rosalind stared after him, feeling perhaps more horrible than she had before setting foot in the damned house. She leaned in to Adrian as he drew her into his arms, closing her eyes as she pressed her ear to his chest, focusing on the steady beating of his heart. He was the only thing that made any sense since she'd been dragged into this nightmare. 

Notes:

Wooooo! Hopefully updates will be a bit more frequent for a bit, exams have been kicking my whole butt, but I have a few weeks free of them now!

Thank you so much, as always, for reading!! Let me know what you think!!

Chapter 29: The Scars Left

“Aren’t we not supposed to eat food in Faery?” Trevor asked, staring at the food laid out before them. For someone who claimed not to have a staff, he’d laid out quite the spread.

“I can assure you, Belmont, the last thing on earth I’d want if for you to stay longer than you must,” Valion retorted without looking up from his plate, though it lacked his usual venom.

“Will anything here bind them to Faery or harm them in any way?” Rosalind asked, expression sharp.

“It is venison and vegetables,” he said with hardly restrained irritation. “I have served them no wine, no wild fruits. I swore to you I would not harm your friends.”

“Or Trevor.”

“Yes, yes. It is safe for the humans to eat. Whether or not they choose to is up to them.”

“Did you mean to imply it is not safe for Adrian, then?”

Valion threw down his fork, finally looking up at her. “It is safe for your human friend and maybe-friend, and for the dhampir. It is safe for you to eat, I swear it. Is that enough to ease your mind, Elyra?”

They glared at each other for a moment and Trevor was struck by how similar they looked despite their wildly different features. He glanced over to Sypha, raising a brow at the new and unfamiliar name Valion called Rosalind. After a beat Rosalind just looked down at her plate and picked up her fork without another word.

Valion stared at her for another moment before he got up and strode out of the dining room, letting the door shut hard behind him. Rosalind didn’t acknowledge the fact that he’d left, other than to make a face at her plate.

“The venison is dry,” she said darkly, almost under her breath. Alucard snorted before he could stop himself, dropping his face into his hands. Sypha stared straight ahead, as if the wall was the most interesting thing in the world.

“This is a fucking nightmare,” Trevor said, looking around at all of them.

“Your nightmares are uninspired and pedestrian,” Rosalind shot back, picking up a sprout from her plate to chuck at him just as Valion returned with a bottle of wine. He froze in the doorway as it bounced off Trevor’s forehead and onto the table. He just stared, taking a deep, obvious breath, before returning to his seat and pouring himself a very full glass of red wine. He took a long draft of it before turning back to his meal.

“When will we leave to kill your brother?” Rosalind asked, eyes trained on her father.

“When you have had some time to recover.”

“You’ve already healed my leg.”

He’d done what? That—there wasn’t supposed to be any sort of magic that could heal broken bones. He looked at Sypha, who also looked taken aback.

“That is not all that needs to heal,” Valion said evenly without looking up.

“You want me to sit here because of some stupid burns? And do what? Wait for him to start drowning me in my sleep again? Drag me somewhere worse than last time? Try and feed me to another pervert vampire?”

“He can’t reach you here through the wards.”

“He made it through Dracula’s fucking wards,” Trevor said under his breath. Sypha kicked him under the table.

“Yeah, he made it through Dracula’s wards just fine!” Rosalind said, glaring at him. Valion stiffened, but didn’t look up from his plate.

Trevor was almost impressed with Rosalind’s gall.

“They are entirely different.”

“How?”

“You don’t have the basis to understand the weavings of complex and layered abjurations.”

“I think he just called you dumb,” Trevor shot at her, not bothering to hide his grin. She glared at him, hand reaching toward the sprouts.

“Ignorance and stupidity are vastly different things, Belmont, you being a shining example of the later,” Valion said, voice clipped, before he turned back to Rosalind, who pulled her hand back from the bowl of vegetables. “It is not something that I explain to you without first giving you a base understanding of how magic works in the Wildes, and it is too dense to simply do over dinner. I would be more than happy to teach you, given proper time.”

“Can you teach me how to drown him in grave dirt in his dreams?”

“Yes,” Valion replied without hesitation.

“How long would that take?”

“About thirty years.”

“Never mind. I’ll stick to Plan A.”

“What’s plan A?” Sypha asked, brows furrowed.

“Ripping his arms off,” she said, as if that was a normal thing to say at dinner. Valion just shook his head, taking another draft of his wine.

Maybe it was a normal thing to say at a faerie dinner. Valion had certainly demonstrated a surprising degree of ruthlessness, though it seemed odd coming from Rosalind. Trevor wondered if it was a product of her captivity or of returning to Faerie.

Were all fae that bloodthirsty, or just the Unseelie? Did that mean she’d only be half as bloodthirsty as her father? He doubted Alucard had thought any of that through before he’d become utterly infatuated with the little faerie princess.

It was going to end in blood for the lot of them.

He almost felt bad for Rosalind. Okay, maybe he felt a little bad for her. After being stuck with her father for the last few days trying to rescue her, she seemed very human and almost normal—about as normal as anyone who would voluntarily spend all their time with Alucard could be.

He doubted she’d do well, then, among the scheming and treachery of Faery. He doubted she had much of a choice, though, if Valion hadn’t been lying and she was technically a princess.

He doubted very much she’d simply be allowed to return to Wallachia and shack up with Dracula’s son, which he thought was probably both of their plans, though whether or not they’d bothered to talk about it was a toss up. Probably not, considering the awful pining he and Sypha had arrived to.

No, he’d bet there were all sorts of rules and customs and ridiculous things that would definitely result in getting cursed if done wrong. He had warned Alucard against entangling himself with the Fae, though he hardly seemed inclined to listen to reason.

“So, do faeries do the whole dowry thing too, or does Alucard have to come up with a bride price since she’s a princess?” Trevor asked, half out of genuine curiosity and half to be as utterly annoying as he could manage.

“Trevor, for the love of god,” Sypha said next to him, massaging her temples. He watched Alucard stiffen across from him, looking up to give him a murderous glare. Rosalind threw down her fork loudly on her plate.

“Trevor, if you’ve just revealed another intrinsically important aspect of my life that I had no idea about in order to needle Adrian, I am going to throttle you in the front yard until just before the moment of death. Perhaps twice.”

“That seems fair,” Sypha said next to him, turning back to her dinner.

“Hey! You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I don’t have to be on your side if you’re being an idiot.”

“I just thought it might be important for him to know considering—”

“Belmont, so fucking help me,” Valion snarled, pointing at him with his steak knife. “There are so many horrible things I could do to you without technically harming you.”

“Is one of them inviting me to more family dinners?” he asked before he could stop himself. Valion looked ready to kill him, but Rosalind merely shoved her seat back, threw her napkin over her barely-touched meal, and stalked out of the room, back ramrod-straight.

Alucard shot him an exceedingly dirty look before following after her. Valion finished his glass of wine before doing the same, the door banging shut behind him. Trevor grabbed another dinner roll as muffled shouting filtered in from the door they’d all stormed out of. He could feel Sypha glaring at him but refused to look over at her. He took another bite of his steak, making a face.

“She was right, the venison is a bit dry,” he said thoughtfully, before Sypha cuffed him about the ear.

 

---

 

Alucard jerked awake at the sound of tentative knocking on the bedroom door. He sat up, wondering if he’d imagined it, but then it came again, hardly loud enough to wake an ordinary human. He climbed out of bed and crossed to the door, unlocking and swinging it open, brows furrowed.

Rosalind stood at the door in nothing but a nightgown—much shorter than the ones he’d found for her in the castle, ruffles all round the neck. Ruffles rather like the ones that had adorned Taka and Sumi’s nightshirts—that still did, however frayed, outside his front door.

She said something, he could see her lips move, see the sheepish, almost fearful look on her face, but he couldn’t hear the words she said, not over the hammering of his heart, the volume of the memory threatening to take over.

It was time for his reward.

That was what they’d told him, when they’d burst into his room, clad in nothing but ruffled nightshirts, their hands insistent and seeking. And he’d let them, in his foolishness and loneliness, he’d let them, believing that they might indeed want him.

Just him.

But they’d only wish to harm, to kill—

“Adrian? What’s wrong? Can you hear me?” she asked, eyes searching his face, anxiety overwhelming her features.

It wasn’t Taka and Sumi, it was Rose, and she was not the same. She wasn’t—he knew that, knew it for certain. Then why wouldn’t his body listen, subdue the panic threatening to take over?

She was afraid—afraid for him and he couldn’t tell her why. He—he just couldn't.

“I—yes. Yes, of course, I—I’m sorry. I don’t think I was fully awake,” he said quickly, the lie sitting heavy in his gut, heart still hammering.

“Were you having a nightmare?”

“Something—something like that. I—is everything okay? It’s very late,” he said, trying to calm his racing heart, the physical remnants of terror.

“I—I know I’m being silly, I just—I can’t sleep. I—I know he said that no one could breech the wards, but—” she broke off, gaze dropping to the ground, cheeks crimson. “I always rested easier next to you. I—I wondered if you might indulge me. You don’t—of course, you don’t have to. I—I shouldn’t have woken you, I’m sorry—” she stammered, taking a step back to retreat back down the hall. He reached out and took hold of her wrist, gently stopping her.

He didn’t exactly want to be left alone with his thoughts either, though even if he hadn’t, he couldn’t imagine denying her. She wasn’t Taka or Sumi, she wasn’t here to seduce and try and murder him—she was frightened, and he made her feel safe.

If only his body could understand as his mind did.

“Of course. Of—of course. Come here,” he said, gently pulling her into an embrace. His heart began to slow at the contact, at her familiar scent, the sound of her heart, too, hammering away, too fast. She hugged him back tightly, tight enough that he could feel her trembling.

How long had she sat alone in the darkness of her unfamiliar chambers, terrified to sleep before she sought him out?

He reached out to redo the lock on the door for his own peace of mind and pulled her gently to bed, eyes fixed on her face and not the truly unfortunate nightgown. He pulled back the covers for her to climb under, hesitating a moment before joining her.

It was hardly proper and he had no doubt Valion would want to see him flayed if he found out, and the only other time he’d shared a bed in this sort of manner—

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t the same, because her intent wasn’t to harm him, wasn’t to seduce him. No, she simply wished to sleep and he made her feel safe enough to be able to. And even if she did come seeking that sort of affection, one day, it would be different, because it was her, because she cared for him, because he loved—

He froze, breath stuttering in his lungs.

“Adrian?” she asked, voice pinched with anxiety.

“Yes?”

“Are you sure this is alright? I—I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“It’s okay,” he said, turning over onto his side to look at her in the moonlight, one hand almost automatically reaching out to brush back some of the stay hairs that had fallen in her face. She smiled softly at that, a flush coloring her cheeks as her eyes simply traced his face. He intertwined his fingers with hers, gently tracing his thumb over her knuckles.

“I thought you wanted to sleep,” he teased.

“I will, I just—I didn’t think I’d see you again,” she said softly, the truth of it making his heart ache.

“Rose—”

“It’s okay, I just—I’m glad I was wrong,” she said, so very quietly, the smile on her lips not disguising the sadness in her eyes. He reached out before he could think better of it, pulling her into his embrace, her head on his chest. It was different from all the other times he’d held her, perhaps because he knew, now, his feelings were returned. Perhaps because they’d finally discarded the facade of propriety. She hesitantly wrapped her arm around his chest, returning his embrace.

He could feel how she trembled, still.

He pressed his lips to her hairline, tightening his hold oh-so-slightly.

“It’s alright, dove,” he said, not realizing how easily the endearment slipped off his tongue until he heard the slight hitch in her breath. She tucked her face back against his chest, unaware, he’d guess, that he could still see how she flushed from the tips of her ears.

He never would have expected her to be shy, not after watching her face down her uncle, or needle her father, or even from the way she’d run her mouth from the moment he’d met her. But there was a certain vulnerability to her here, in the tottering first steps of—were they courting? It seemed to pedestrian a thing to account for the feeling in his chest, the devotion he felt.

She looked up at him, lips a hair’s breath from his own, cheeks still flushed. She searched his eyes for permission before she kissed him—sweet and slightly tentative, but with unmistakable tenderness. She broke away again after only a moment, biting back a smile before resting her head against his chest again. He absently traced his fingers up and down her spine, listening to her breaths slow and even out, feeling her melt against him as sleep took her.

It hardly took her any time at all, even after everything.

Did he truly make her feel so safe?

He only wished sleep would so easily find him again.

 

---

 

Valion stared into the fireplace, taking another long draft directly from the crystal decanter. He no longer noticed the burn of the liquor, only waited for it to dull the pain in his chest enough for him to sleep. His eyes flicked up to the portrait of Orlaith above the fireplace—a mistake.

As if his little girl’s ire wasn’t enough, now he was forced to imagine hers.

She’d hate him, if she knew what he’d done, what he’d allowed in his neglect, what their daughter had been put through. She’d hate him, and she’d be right to.

He got up unsteadily and crossed to his desk to grab the portrait of his Moonbeam, not caring about all that he knocked over before he turned and returned to his place on the couch. He held the portrait carefully, staring at the smiling face of his daughter, not yet six.

He stared at her tiny, cherubic face, her gap-toothed smile, stared at the child he no longer had, the child that grew up while he’d been away.

The child that had grown up without him.

She’d always had the most beautiful smile.

Would she smile again, after all she’d been put through, all she’d suffered? Surely not at him. She could hardly look at him, and even when she did, there was only fear and loathing in her eyes. Vranos had been sure to torment her wearing his face, made sure to poison the mere sight of him for her.

He’d missed her whole childhood in the vain attempt to save her from what would have been lesser abuse than she’d suffered alone. He stared at the portrait in his hands, throat unbearably tight.

She’d been such a pretty little girl, curious and fearless and full of life. Now Vranos’s cruelty had left her scarred, left her mistrustful and frightened and furious and he hadn’t the faintest idea how to fix any of it.

He was failing her still.

He dug into the trunk at the end of the couch and pulled out a handful of the dozens of sketchbooks inside, dropping them on the coffee table next to the decanter. He picked up the first one and started flipping through it, fingers tracing the familiar lines that made up Orlaith’s face, her smile, her wild curls, that made up the face of the woman he’d loved more than anything else in the entire world.

Anything else, but perhaps their daughter.

Hells below, she’d asked him who’s name he’d painted on her door. What would Orlaith have said if she knew their daughter hadn’t even known her own name at twenty?

He tossed aside that sketchbook and picked up another, this one filled with sketches of his Moonbeam, of his Elyra, of the scattered moments he’d watched her grow up. Some were of her true face, others—others showed her with the glamour, showed her happy with her human family, showed her beaming at her human mother, showed her carried about on her human father’s shoulders, squealing with laughter. Showed her older and pouring over a book as he pretended to peruse her shop’s wares as her human father worked in the back, showed her carefully setting the cover on a volume, pressing intricate designs into the soft leather.

They became fewer and further apart in age as she grew, as he selfishly struggled with watching her grow as an outsider, as he foolishly placated himself with the fact that she was happy, that she didn’t need him, not yet, that she was content with her human family, that it was fine for him to spend more time at Court, that it was best that he deal with petty uprisings before he brought her home.

He flipped to a blank page, feverishly beginning a new portrait—a portrait of the moment she’d seen him for the first time unglamoured since she was a babe, of the furious, murderous way her face had curled with hatred, like a true Blackthorne.

The very last thing he had ever wanted her to be.

He’d pictured their reuniting thousands of times, but never had he thought she’d look at him with such loathing, that he’d watch her magic burst from her, uncontrolled, with the singular purpose of killing him and making it hurt.

What had she called him? A ‘piss-sucking weasel’?

It had certainly not been on the top-ten things he’d wished to hear from her during their reunion. Orlaith, no doubt, would have thought it funny, thought it well-deserved, even if it had been meant for Vranos. He angrily flipped to the next blank page, this time drawing her as she sat on one of the velvet couches they had picked for her chambers—that Orlaith had picked and he’d agreed to, because of course he had.

He’d agreed to anything that made her happy.

He stared at the expression of wary confusion that took shape on his daughter’s face, the anger that never seemed to leave her eyes anymore. Anger that he had allowed to take hold, anger at the abuse she’d suffered because of him, abuse he hadn’t protected her from, abuse he hadn’t stopped—

He tossed the sketchbook onto the table, grabbing the decanter and taking another deep swig before setting it back, too hard, and grabbing the small painted portrait again.

She’d been smiling at her foster father, in the dream. He’d stolen the moment for himself, so he could pretend she’d been smiling up at him like that, that she felt even an ounce of that sort of adoration for him.

That he’d ever deserved it.

He angrily swiped at the tears pooling under his eyes. All he wanted, more than anything, was to finally be able to be her father, to take care of her, to make sure she was safe and she wanted for nothing. He wanted to hold her tight and make everything better, somehow, wanted to be the sort of father she would trust to.

But she hated him, and she had every right to. It didn’t shatter him any less, though.

He took another swig of liquor, hoping it would be enough to knock him unconscious for a few, blessed hours.

Notes:

Thank you for reading!! I hope you enjoyed!

Hoping to update again soon with exams done for a hot second! Hopefully the results will be good lol!

Let me know what you think!!

Chapter 30: Atlas No More

Alucard didn’t know when he’d finally managed to fall asleep, lulled by Rosalind’s steady heartbeat and soft, slow breaths, the warmth of her curled into his side.

There was a comfort he hadn’t thought he’d ever be able to find, sleeping next to another. Sleeping next to Rosalind, it being a conscious choice and not simply using the excuse of her illness. He hadn’t thought he’d be able to manage it, when she’d first fallen asleep against him, but it couldn’t have been very long after that he’d joined her in slumber.

He woke, unsurprisingly, before her. How long had it been since she’d been able to sleep—felt safe enough to? How long had it been for her, down in that cell, when it had only really been about two and a half days for them?

Even though Valion had healed much of the damage, he knew it lingered, more than just the wounds from iron that couldn’t be coaxed into healing with magic. She got lost in her thoughts, her memories too easily now, was prone to bouts of sudden panic. Everything about Faery seemed to set her on edge—or at least, everything connected to her father.

It didn’t help that he looked so like the man who had tortured her.

He glanced down at where she slept on his chest, one hand curled loosely in the fabric of his nightshirt, as if she was scared he’d slip away, otherwise. There was a furrow between her brows, even in sleep, tension coiled in her muscles. He reached up to comb his fingers through the silver of her hair, hoping to soothe her, just a little.

He wished there was more he could do, some way he could spare her the weight of it.

She looked different, since he’d found her bursting with magic in that strange forest, furiously trying to kill her uncle. More wild, more unfamiliar, more—

More fae.

It suited her, that wildness, the magic that seemed to nearly glow within her.

She jerked awake, almost immediately sitting up and pressing her forehead to her knees, reaching up to weave her fingers behind her neck, block the sides of it with her arms, like she was guarding it, trying to tuck all the vulnerable parts inward.

Alucard just watched her for a few moments, watched as tension knotted itself between her shoulder blades, in the column of her neck. He reached out to trace his fingers in soothing circles across her back and she jumped as soon as he made contact, head snapping to where he still lay against the pillows, eyes wide and terrified before he saw recognition in them.

“S-sorry,” she said quickly, cheeks scarlet. “I didn’t—I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“I was already up,” he said, brows furrowed. He sat up slowly, careful not to touch her. “Did you have a nightmare?”

“I—” she began and nodded, drawing her knees to her chest. His heart clenched as he watched her curl smaller, watched he try and disguise the way she shook, the way her breath came uneven and too fast.

“Will—will it make it worse or better if I touch you?” he asked, thinking of how she’d flinched away, not yet fully awake.

She looked up at him, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—I just didn’t expect it. I—”

“No, no, no, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he said softly, and she turned to press closer to him, press her face into the crook of his neck even as she hesitated to wrap her arms around him, hands trembling. He pulled her close, holding her tight to him, tight enough that she returned the embrace.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry—”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said, pressing his cheek to the top of her head. He felt her tears slip down his neck. It took her several minutes to even out her breathing, for the trembling to subside, a few more before she pulled back, face scarlet, contrition clear on her face. He reached out and swiped away the remaining tears on her face with his thumb, throat tight.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked softly. She made a face.

“I—it was just a nightmare. I know it was just a nightmare.“

“We can still talk about it.”

“I don’t—I don’t want to think about it anymore,” she said, voice hardly more than a breath, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Okay,” he said, not wanting to push her. It had hardly been a day since they’d found her, since she’d been free of her uncle’s torment.

Torment he could only guess the extent of.

“Do you want to try and go back to sleep?” he asked. He didn’t know precisely what time it was, but he knew it was still early. She shook her head.

“I don’t—I don’t think I can. I’m sorry—”

“Don’t, Rose, you have nothing to apologize for. Would you like to read while we wait for the others to wake? There was quite a few books in your chambers.”

She nodded, worrying her lip with her teeth. He wasn’t quite sure she’d fully shaken off the dregs of he nightmare. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, hope she couldn’t see the depths of his worry.

“Okay. Just allow me a moment to dress and I’ll escort you back and we’ll find something of interest, alright?”

 

---

 

They ended up in the library, after Rosalind had dressed. She hadn’t wanted to linger in her chambers, despite the wealth of books in her sitting room.

She'd stared at them almost warily. 

It hadn’t been hard to find the library, tucked away in one of the spiral towers of the manor. She’d simply stared at the collection for a solid minute before striding off without and word, returning twenty minutes later with a stack of books she could hardly see over.

Alucard glanced over his own book, staring at her as she read, scrawling notes as she went.

It was clear enough she wasn’t doing well—of course she wasn’t. How could she, after all she’d been put through, all the the revelations thrown at her in the last day alone? Still, he could see how hard she tried to hold it all together, all the ragged edges, pretend everything was somehow normal.

He remembered that horrible feeling in the beginning, right after his assault, remembered how raw and fragile he’d felt, how he’d wanted nothing more than the comfort of his parents. How he’d drowned himself in wine to dull it all, how he’d only really stopped once she’d run to his door, beaten and half-dead, and only because he couldn’t take care of her drunk.

Then he’d told himself it was only to get rid of her faster, as soon as she was healed.

How very foolish he’d been.

He hated how similar she behaved to those first few days, when she’d flinch if he moved too fast, how she’d search his face as if trying to figure out just when he’d strike her, where the line was. Thank goodness now she knew he’d never do anything of the sort, but it broke his heart to see the fear that had been planted returned to a base instinct, the desolation that hung heavy around her shoulders when the anger faded.

The anger was easier, he knew. It ran hot enough to override the rest, at least for a while, but it never burned them away.

She looked up, catching him staring and furrowed her brow.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly, shaking his head.

“You were staring at me.”

“No I wasn’t,” he lied. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Don’t lie to me, Adrian. I’m tired of people lying to me,” she said and he sighed.

“I was staring at you,” he said, not wanting to be another person that lied to her, even if it was something so trivial.

“I know,” she said, turning back to her book. “It’s this place, isn’t it? It’s making me grow stranger.”

He furrowed his brow. “What?”

“I look more like them. Him. More faery. I swear my ears have grown and my face—” she broke off, shaking her head. “It’s being here, using its magic. It’s all wrong. It’s driving me mad.”

“What do you mean it’s wrong?”

“It just is, I don’t—I don’t know how to describe it. It’s just loud and wrong,” she said, making a face. Alucard tried to make sense of it as she explained it, but what she described was so different from what he’d been taught about magic.

He remembered Trevor saying that the difference was that faeries were magic, that was why their magic was so ephemeral.

“When this is all over, do you think I will have to stay in Faery?” she asked quietly, staring very hard at her book.

“Do you want to stay in Faery?” he asked, brow furrowed. She shook her head hesitantly without looking up, as if she was scared to, scared to look at him as she admitted it.

“I don’t feel like I belong here, but I don’t—I don’t know that I belong anywhere, anymore.”

“You’ll always have a place in the Castle, should you want it,” he said softly, the words not managing to convey what he truly meant, that he wanted her to stay with him, that he wanted her to call it home too, that he wanted her to remain by his side, for as long as she could stand it.

She looked up at him then, searching his face, her own carefully controlled.

“Even if I’m no longer stymied by all your stairs?” she asked, tone teasing, but he could see the real anxiety behind her eyes, the absurd fear that he’d grow tired of her, as if he could.

“As long as you want it. I daresay I would love your expertise in the libraries and I’ve yet to find a more interesting conversational partner.”

She gave him a small smile, a slight flush coloring her cheeks before she dropped her gaze back to her book.

“Do you think he’ll let me leave?” she asked, and he didn’t have to ask who.

“He’ll have to, if that’s what you wish. I won’t let anyone cage you again, not even him. He can’t force you to remain if you don’t wish to.”

“Are you sure? He’s supposedly some sort of faerie prince, or some garbage,” she said bitterly.

“Of course I’m sure.”

She gave him a small appreciative smile, eyes still terribly sad. She turned back to her book, flipping it around to show him what she’d been reading.

“I think I can make us a circle back. I just—I don’t understand everything it’s saying. It keeps talking about weaving, like Valion at dinner, but then I’ve found nothing that explains what they mean. It’s just—it must be something so simple that all ordinary fae just know.”

“I could see if I can find anything else on it.”

“I think I will just ask him. Not all of it, not how to make the circle. I don’t want him to know if I manage it and I don’t want to be dependent on him to return back to the Mortal Realm. I think it would be foolish to.”

 

---

 

Rosalind pushed into the room Adrian had pointed out as her father’s study, head pounding, and wrinkled her nose at the smell of liquor filling the space. Her eyes flicked over to the couch in front of the fire, a decanter that had to have been mostly empty tipped over on the coffee table, the spilt liquor half-dry.

Valion lay sprawled on the couch, hair in disarray, clothes rumpled, reeking of spirits. She closed her eyes, massaging her temples.

Clearly he would be no help for at least several hours. Half of her was furious at him for getting wasted without so much as explaining anything of use in dealing with his brother, for him leaving them all the more vulnerable for it, while the other half—

Well, he looked rather pathetic.

She didn’t want to feel bad for him, though—no, he deserved to feel bad about what he’d allowed to happen to her, if he actually cared about her like he said. It wasn’t anything compared to actually being put through any of it, having the memories haunt her day and night, unbidden.

Still—

She sighed and crossed to the couch, flicking him hard in the temple. He jolted awake, taking a moment to focus on her face.

“...’Lyra?” he asked, voice somehow both slurred and ragged as he blinked up at her. She made a face.

“You’ve drunk yourself stupid.”

“You look like her, when you make that face.”

“You need to go sleep it off.”

“’M fine here.”

“You smell like a fucking tavern. Go upstairs, brush your goddamn teeth and sleep it off.”

“It’s my house, I’ll do as I wish.”

“Which is what? Drink yourself into a stupor and trash your study while your shit-stain of a brother figures out his next plot to kill me?”

“I won’t let him hurt you—”

“You won’t even walk upstairs when I ask. I hardly have high hopes,” she said scathingly.

He stared at her for a long minute before he hauled himself up from the couch, swaying slightly as he got to his feet. She pointed towards the door, glaring at him, and watched as he stumbled out of his study and up the stairs towards his bedroom.

At least that was were she hoped he’d gone.

She sighed and righted the decanter, pausing at the thick, black, hard-bound books that lay strewn across the table’s surface. She flipped one open, surprised to find it full of drawings, rather than words, drawings of the same woman, over and over, a fae woman with wild curls and a slightly crooked smile. The other books were full of her too—all but one.

That one—that one was only half-full and filled with drawings of a little girl, sometimes familiar, though she knew it was the same one that filled all the pages. It was her, sometimes glamoured, sometimes not, though she didn’t know how anyone could have seen her without it, if it had held until Sypha had accidentally unraveled it.

Had he drawn them? How could he have seen her so many times and she’d never known, that he’d never once said anything to her? She kept flipping through the sketchbook, watching herself grow up until it was too much and she flipped it shut, stomach twisting uncomfortably.

She found herself straightening up the space more out of something to do than anything else—she needed to stay busy, because if she didn’t, then she’d start thinking, not about strategy or what she’d been teaching herself of faery magic, but of what had happened, of what would happen if she didn’t deal with her horrible uncle and then she felt like she couldn’t breathe.

She paused as she picked up a small portrait of a small faerie girl—her, she had to remind herself—not with the black hair she should have, but with silver she knew she was too young to have fully grown in and the bright green eyes that were still off-putting and unfamiliar in the mirror.

She looked happy, in the portrait, grinning up from ear to ear, her hair tied back with a silk bow, she vaguely remembered—had her parents argued about it, when she was little? She looked about the age she would have gotten her doll, the one they never knew who’d given it to her, but she’d begged to be allowed to keep it, a strange doll with silver hair and green eyes.

She sighed, the gift-giver painfully obvious now.

She didn’t understand Valion at all. Or maybe she didn’t want to. Maybe it was easier if she didn’t, if she could just be angry at him for giving her away, for leaving her alone to deal with every horrible thing his brother had done to her, or paid someone else to do to her. Maybe it was easier to believe herself simply discarded than it was to try and reconcile all the little ways in this house that showed she was not, and yet the man who owned it was still an utter stranger to her.

Her father was a stranger to her.

Her birth father.

Her father was still the man who’d raised her, even if they’d never shared blood. Who’d tucked her in at night and taught her to read, who’d taken her with him across Europe to meet all sorts of interesting people, who’d always taken time to play with her at the end of the day when she was small, no matter how tired he’d been, who made sure she knew, every single day, that she was loved, even after her mother died and he was left gutted by her loss. Even then he got up every day and tried to play both mother and father to her, tried to make sure nothing fell through the cracks even though he was reeling and had no idea how to raise a small girl alone.

Her birth father—Valion—had told more about himself to Trevor than he had to her. He just stared at her with that hang dog expression of his, offering information only when she pulled it from him. She didn’t know what he expected—what he wanted from her. She wasn’t a child anymore and she knew nothing about her supposed home. He’d done nothing but ensure she fit nowhere, that she grew up ignorant and weak and strange.

She wondered if Adrian had really meant it, when he’d said she could stay with him. She wasn’t sure she wanted anything more than to be allowed to remain at his side. She’d never felt such a connection to another person before, felt so comfortable and safe, felt so warm just looking at them, her stomach full of butterflies.

She was rather sure she adored him.

How could she not, after all he’d done? After he’d taken her in and cared for her, spent hours and hours talking about anything they could think of? After he’d come all the way to Faery to save her, held her so tightly and so gently when it all just became too much?

“Rose?”

She looked up to see Adrian in the doorway, brows pinched. She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile—she hated how she made him worry.

“Yes?”

“I just—I wanted to check on you.”

“I’m fine. I was just about to return to the library. I’m afraid Valion isn’t up for much clarification at the moment.”

“Yes, I, um—I did see him returning to his chambers,” Adrian said diplomatically.

“He’s a fucking mess,” she said, darkly.

What right did he have to fall apart when she had to keep it all together, keep herself together, despite everything, despite the fact that when she wasn’t focussing all her attention on finding and killing his brother that she wanted to do nothing more than curl up as small as she possibly could and sob until she made herself sick or passed out? When she just wanted to sit in the scalding water of the tub and scrub herself bloody until not an inch of skin remained that that vampire or her uncle had touched?

But she couldn’t, because she had fucking work to do, and she sure as hell couldn’t depend on him to step up and help. No, he couldn't handle a shouting match after dinner, couldn't handle a fraction of her anger, couldn't handle seeing what had been done to her, but she had to hold it all and keep fighting, keep swimming in this river of misery because he'd only leave her to drown if she stopped. 

Because she was still alone, even in his stupid house, even in stupid Faeryland, she was alone. 

She shook her head, trying to dispel her venomous thoughts, push away the misery threatening to overwhelm her. 

Adrian crossed to her side and pulled her into a hug, one hand coming up to cradle the back of her head. She felt something in her chest break at being handled so gently, at the simple, steadfast comfort he gave her without hesitation, as if he could read the horrid storm of her thoughts from beneath her skin.

She felt a sob tear from her throat before she could stop it, felt the dam crack and suddenly it was all pouring from her—all those weeks of torment in that cell, of freezing and starving and being beaten, of that awful vampire pinning her down and sinking his fangs into her neck over and over, of the way his hands would wander once he’d drained her enough that she didn’t have the strength to fight back. Of all those miserable nights in that wagon, of the drugged half-memories of months of abuse from her home in Vienna to where she’d run in Wallachia, the extent of which she wasn’t sure she could ever bear to know—

“It’s okay, Rose. Just—just let it out, it’s okay, I’ve got you, I promise,” Adrian said, voice soft, even as she clung to him, too hard, like if she let go she’d shatter into a million pieces, like she’d never, ever be able to put herself back together again. She sobbed into his chest, the force of her grief, her rage, her despair too much for her to form into words. It was just a torrent of misery she’d lost hold on, that she’d kept a hold on for so very, very long.

A hold he’d been able to undo so easily with a mere embrace.

He didn’t pull away, though, or try to quiet her. He just held her, even when it wouldn’t stop, when she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t calm herself, couldn’t push it down like she’d been doing for months.

No, when it was clear her hysterics weren’t abating, he just scooped her up and carried her upstairs, to the chambers that were supposed to be hers, to the four-poster bed she couldn’t bear to sleep in alone the night before, despite the fine sheets and the thick down comforter. He just sat with her, holding her tight, one hand tracing up and down her spine until she could finally—finally—catch her breath.

Even then he held her, so gently it was as if he wouldn’t allow her to break, even under the weight of everything, as if he knew exactly how very close she was to fracturing into something terrible that could never be fixed, something like the monstrous, vicious faeries Trevor’s family wrote about in their books, that they’d hunted down and killed.

She took a few steadying breaths, still clinging to Adrian like a lifeline. She didn’t feel better about any of it, but she felt more settled, at least, enough that she knew the path forward. She sat back, searching Adrian’s face for annoyance or irritation at her sudden, uncontrolled outburst, but there was only concern in his golden eyes, concern and something perhaps like understanding.

“I don’t want to feel like this anymore,” she said, voice hardly more than a whisper. “I’m tired of feeling afraid and helpless. I won’t abide it any longer.”

Adrian smiled at her, his eyes so very, incredibly sad. “It’s not something you abide, dove. I wish it was so simple, but it is something that must be weathered, after what you have suffered, something that lingers far longer than it has any right. You shan’t weather it alone, though.”

“I hate him,” she said, and for the life of her, she couldn’t be sure if she meant simply her uncle, or her father, too. It would be easier to hate him.

She wished she hated him. Wished there wasn’t a stupid, soft part of her that would only allow him to hurt her again, disappoint her again, abandon her again.

That wanted her father. 

“I know,” Adrian said, rubbing soothing circles across her back. She leaned into him for a moment before she gathered her resolve.

“I need to go back to the library. I need to keep working.”

He stared at her for a long moment before he nodded, helping her to her feet.

“Then we will work. Just—you’re not alone, _____, not anymore.”

She looked up at him, giving him what smile she could muster, reaching out her hand toward him. He took it, lacing their fingers together.

“Neither are you,” she said, raising their hands so she could press a kiss to his knuckles. 

Notes:

Thank you for reading!! Please let me know what you think!

Very much thinking of this song during this chapter:
https://open.spotify.com/track/1lSnBlAErRss6asu9Y5HuA?si=4d0f1a0ee92a4cd6

Chapter 31: The Weight of a Name

It wasn’t fair.

It didn’t matter that Ysolde had already thought it a thousand, thousand times, had raged at the injustice of it—she couldn’t change it, couldn’t make any of it any better. She stared at Amaris in her lap, chest still stained with her life-blood, even in this horrid in-between.

That was the wretched irony of it—that in life she’d championed a way of life that was neither Seelie or Unseelie, that such divisions need not be the only way to live, that it needn’t just be one or the other and now her daughter was to be cursed by that very fact.

There was no child for her soul to be re-born into, for she wasn’t Seelie and she wasn’t Unseelie. She was something different, a brand new soul in an world that hadn’t seen such a thing since its own birth. A soul cursed to linger in the Veil and perhaps never have another chance at life, to live.

So she stayed, lingering in the Veil, watching over her daughter. Sometimes she’d see other souls—souls that, like her, had died in the Purge, been murdered for daring to dream of something different, something new.

She wasn’t the only one furious at the injustice of it, not the only one that decided not to pass on, not to be reborn into one of the same Courts that had killed them for the threat they posed to their power.

Ysolde didn’t know exactly when it began to grow crowded, in the Veil, when it began to take on a new shape, a sort of new Gloaming, if only in spirit. That was their true revenge, that even death hadn’t stopped them, that they were still content in their differences, in being undefined by the Court they were born into. She was quick to admit, too, that she was glad for the company, that she intended to linger forever, that she wouldn’t leave Amaris to suffer an eternity trapped alone in the Veil, never able to move on.

An eternity surrounded by friends and loved ones, though, didn’t seem too bad, no matter the form.

 

---

 

“Okay,” Rosalind said, taking a deep, steadying breath. She'd found both Sypha and Trevor and dragged them to the library. “Okay, so here’s how everything stands—I don’t know how to get us back, but I’m working on it. It’s just, it’s complicated, but I’m figuring it out. We can probably get Valion to to get you across, though I don’t want to rely on him.”

“Who would?” Trevor said. She shut her eyes very hard, taking another breath.

“I wanted to thank you for coming and helping me and dealing with...everything,” she said in an attempt to be diplomatic.

“You mean your dad?” Trevor asked, not bothering to hide his amusement. She glared at him.

“I mean the drunk faery asshole upstairs, the man who dumped me in Gresit to be raised by random human strangers, the man that let his brother torment me for seven months before bothering to step in. Is that clear enough for you, Belmont?”

“Yeah,” he said, looking slightly abashed.

“Can I fucking continue?”

“Yeah.”

She sighed, trying to dispel her irritation. She'd already practiced what she needed to say in her head a dozen times, she just hadn't been prepared for Trevor to interrupt her every five seconds.

Maybe she was an idiot.

Still, she had a responsibility to them. 

“This isn’t your problem, and there’s no reason you should feel compelled to stay. You’ve already done more than I could have ever asked. As far as I’m concerned you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want until either Valion makes a circle over, or I figure it out.”

“What are you going to do?” Sypha asked, brows drawn together.

“I—I’m going to kill my uncle. Or, I guess he’ll kill me, either in the attempt, or another of his brilliant schemes, but I’m not going to sit around and wait for that. So, either I get to rip his arms off, which I think would be fair, or he’s going to have to kill me quick, and that’ll at least save some grief.”

She could feel Adrian’s gaze practically boring a hole into the side of her face, but she refused to look at him. If she did her resolve would waver, or she’d lose it like before and turn into a pathetic blubbering mess at the injustice of it.

She needed to be practical, realistic. She was just a girl and Vranos was a centuries-old Unseelie prince. While it was one of the kindest and bravest things anyone had ever done for her, it was foolish for them to come to Faery, even more foolish for them to stay. She didn't want to get them hurt—or worse—didn't want them to suffer for the nightmare that was her family. She knew all sorts of the awful, spiteful things faeries did to people that annoyed them thanks to all her research in the Belmont Hold, and she didn't wish any of them on them, not even Trevor. 

It'd be much better if they'd all go back home and she wouldn't have to worry about what they'd suffer for their kindness. And if she was lucky—which she just might be—she'd make a circle after and join them.

“That’s a terrible plan—if it can even be called a plan,” Adrian said, anger coloring his voice.

“Yeah, well, I can’t count on help from drunk old dad, so I have to figure it out myself.”

“No you don’t, we’ll help,” Sypha said, making a face.

“You don’t have to.”

“Of course we’re going to?! Do you think we’d ever leave you to deal with that monster by yourself?” Adrian asked.

“I don’t even know enough about him to know the extent of the threat he poses. It’s foolish—”

“All the more reason you’ll need help,” Sypha said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Trevor, Alucard, and I have much experience dealing with monsters.”

“We’re not leaving until you’re safe. That’s why we came in the first place,” Adrian said.

“Yes, but you didn’t know what a mess it all was. It’s—I won’t ask anyone that sort of danger for me.”

“Then don’t ask. Just—just go over what you do know and we’ll figure it out from there,” Trevor said. She stared at him for a moment, taken aback that he’d in any capacity agreed to help. She’d expected another rant about evil faeries or a jab about her father or that he’d simply be happy with the out.

She was rather sure he hated her.

She took a deep breath, taking out her stacks of notes, trying to ignore the tightness in her throat. “I, um—this is what I have so far.”

She spread it all out on the table—maps of Faery, lists of weaknesses of the Fae, though she wasn’t sure of the efficacy of all of them. There were descriptions of fae offensive magic, of martial techniques favored by the Unseelie Court, of specific weaknesses of her uncle that might be exploited. She watched them pick through it all, feeling terribly self-conscious.

They were actual warriors, after all. She was just a city girl that had read a treatise or two on military strategy.

“You put all this together today?” Trevor asked. She nodded and she was surprised when he made no biting remark, just nodded to himself and turned back to the rundown of Unseelie martial techniques he’d been going over.

“I need to dig more into faery magic. Valion said the Undercrypts dampened both their magic, so that will be something different we’ll have to contend with,” Sypha said, making a face. “I do not like the idea of him having another weapon at his disposal.”

“I’ll help,” Adrian said, pressing a kiss to her forehead before leading Sypha over to the shelves where they’d found all Valion’s books on magic. Trevor made a gagging noise, which she ignored rather than throwing the nearest paper weight at him, as was her instinct.

She dropped her eyes to the table, heart beating too loud in her chest.

She’d never imagined Sypha and Trevor would wish to help, not with how dangerous it was. They hardly knew her, had already done far more than she’d ever deserve, and yet they hadn’t hesitated, even Trevor, who rarely refrained from needling her at every opportunity.

She swallowed, throat tight, and went to go dig through more books on faery military strategy.

 

---

 

Rosalind stood behind the house, glaring at the gnarled trees behind it. Everything in Faery buzzed with magic, but it was different here, louder, the vibrations enough to set her teeth on edge, left her head pounding. Valion had said that the forest wasn’t evil, that the walking trees in it were perfectly harmless as long as you held no ill will for the forest, but it didn’t feel that way.

She’d told Adrian it felt wrong, but it was more than that, it was something bone deep, something she couldn’t ignore, no matter how she tried.

She’d had to leave the others in the library as they kept going over their plan, had to get a look at it all by herself. She almost wished she was going mad, but she knew she wasn’t, knew deep down that what she was feeling was real, even if she couldn’t put it into words.

Maybe if she’d grown up here she’d know, just like with all the magic they’d found in Valion’s books. She couldn’t answer any of Sypha’s questions—she understood it all less than her. It was something she could do, but not articulate, something she could only sort-of control. She wished she had Sypha’s level of mastery, her understanding of her skills, of what she could do with magic.

Any understanding would be better, though.

She strode to the edge of the forest, reaching out to touch one of the tree trunks. It felt almost warm under her hand, though there was no sun above to warm it.

She wasn’t sure there was a sun in Faery, or at least the Unseelie part of it. She’d yet to see even the hint of a dawn. 

She closed her eyes, trying to focus on the feeling of magic under the bark, of the magic thick as humidity in the air. It was overwhelming, as if she was drowning in static, loud enough to muffle even her heartbeat, but she could feel it flowing through the tree as if in veins, feel it pooling under her feet, swirling dizzyingly in the air around her, settling into something almost like a song—

“ELYRA, STOP!”

Her eyes flew open as she was yanked back from the edge of the forest, her connection with the tree, with the magic in the air abruptly severed, plunging icy fear into her chest, so sharp it was agony. It felt wrong, like she was missing a part of herself, like she’d lost a limb.

Of all the things she’d suffered since she’d been kidnapped, none had been so disconcerting, not the nightmares or the voices, not the dirt in her lungs or the briars seeking to drag her to Faery. No, this was a different sort of fear, something primal and all-consuming and painful. She tried to pull away, to stumble back, but she couldn’t move, her body unresponsive to her demands, locked in the same manner it had been when he’d yelled.

Valion stared at her, eyes wide, face paler than usual.

“What did you do to me?” Rosalind asked, voice barely more than a breath, still unable to take a step back towards the forest or connect with the magic swirling in the air, so thick it felt as though it should be visible. Panic rose in her throat, her breath coming too fast and too shallow.

“You were—you can’t be using that sort of magic, that amount of magic. Hells below, you—you could’ve—” he broke off, shaking his head, eyes fixed on the trees behind her as he knotted his hands in his hair, though she still couldn’t turn back towards them to look, couldn’t do anything but stand frozen. She felt tears spring to her eyes, felt them pour down her face and still, she couldn’t move, couldn’t do a thing, her heart threatening to beat its way through her ribs.

She could still feel the magic around her though, feel it swarming through the air, felt it crawling through the dirt below her feet. She strained, reaching out to it, trying to grasp it, pull it back to her, will it to listen, to return to her, to protect her.

There was a whisper of it against her skin, heard it roaring in her ears, felt her fingers tingling with it, even if she still couldn’t move them. She could see Valion’s lips moving, his eyes still locked on the forest behind her, but she couldn’t hear him, couldn’t hear anything but the deafening buzz of magic, of her own blood pounding in her ears.

She felt it flocking to her, felt it clinging to her skin like dew, felt it responding to her rage and fear—she needed to break whatever chains Valion had wrapped her in, whatever he’d done to cage her—

There was a crash of thunder and magic exploded out of her in a flash of white light, momentarily blinding her. When she blinked, though, she found her muscles no longer locked against her, her connection to the magic around her no longer fractured, once more almost deafeningly present.

Valion, though, lay sprawled about thirty feet away, smoking slightly. He groaned, pushing himself to a seated position as he glanced around as if longing for another body in the grass, his eyes going wide when he found her standing right where he’d left her, glaring at him.

“Elyra—” he began, horror clear on his face. She didn’t care, though, fury too overwhelming.

“What did you do to me?” she snarled, hands curling into fists.

“Moonbeam, you need to calm—”

“If you do that to me again I will kill you,” she growled, shaking with rage. She meant it, would tear him apart with her bare hands if he caged her in her body and tried to rip away her magic, would bash him to a million bloody bits—

“You must breathe, you must calm yourself—”

“I will not! I won’t let you do that to me again—”

“You need to calm before you cause irreparable damage to yourself.”

“The only damage was what you did—”

“What’s going on?” Adrian shouted, opening the back door of the manor with such force that it cracked agains the stone of its wall. Sypha and Trevor poured out behind him, eyes widening.

“He did something to me, he cut me off from my magic, made it so I couldn’t even move—”

“You did what?” Adrian spat, eyes locking on Valion, though her father ignored him.

“I had to, you were conducting a dangerous amount of magic—”

“I wasn’t doing anything—”

“What the fuck happened to the trees?” Trevor asked and she whipped around, eyes going wide. The trees behind the house were no longer gnarled or half-dead looking, their leaves no longer dull and black—no, they stood tall and proud, their leaves still black, but now with an iridescent sheen, midnight-colored flowers unfurling along their branches.

Midnight flowers that looked an awful lot like the ones that grew on her bramble vines.

They weren’t loud, though, in the same way, not in the way that made her head threaten to split open. Now they seemed to hum, the sound joyous and muted, no longer setting her on edge, forcing her to grit her teeth at the dissonance of it. She whipped back around, glaring at Valion once more.

“You shouldn’t be able to channel that amount of magic, not without any instruction. The sort of danger it poses—” he said, shaking his head, eyes still wide.

“How did you take it away, how did you trap me—” she asked, hands curling into fists. He ignored her, though, barreling on as if the trees mattered at all compared to what he’d done to her, what he’d taken.

“—shouldn’t have even been able to have done any of that—”

“Tell me what you did!”

“—you need to listen—”

“—TELL ME!” she shouted, fury exploding from her in another crack of electricity. Trevor swore and she saw him step in front of Sypha out of the corner of her eye, though her attention stayed locked on her father, rage pounding in her ears.

She glared at him, fury burning in her chest at the mere thought of him leashing her, controlling her, having any sort of palpable power over her, that he could cripple her, steal her power away, leave her helpless and utterly vulnerable again, that he’d take what paltry defenses she’d managed to cobble together on her own.

She would never be left so powerless again, never be unable to fight back—

“Dove?”

Adrian drew her attention despite the fact that his voice was hardly louder than a whisper. Anxiety furrowed his brow, his muscles tensed. He reached out a hand, taking a hesitant step forward.

“Alucard—” Sypha hissed, fear on her face, but he just shook his head. Sypha looked scared—why was she scared?

“It’s okay,” he said, cutting her off as he took a few more steps forward. She tried to make sense of the expression on his face, the caution with which he approached her.

“Adrian, I don’t know what he did. I couldn’t move, I was stuck in my body and I couldn’t move—”

“Elyra, I needed to—”

“You should shut the fuck up,” she heard Trevor snap at her father. She tried to ignore them, focus only on Adrian in front of her, on the deep sadness behind his eyes. She took a stuttering breath before closing the distance between them herself and throwing her arms around his waist. He hugged her back tight, though she could still feel the way he trembled.

Why was he frightened?

“It’s okay, dove. It’s okay. We’ll make sure it can’t happen again. It’s okay,” he murmured, voice breaking slightly. She hugged him tighter, squeezing her eyes shut. She took a deep breath and let it out.

“You know, I think I’m with Rosalind on this one. I think she can hold off her dick of an uncle just fine,” Trevor said loudly, and Adrian released her, bristling as he turned.

“We’re not, we’ll think of something better,” he snarled at him, but she turned back towards the trees, eyes going wide.

They still stood tall and proud, but the grass where she’d stood after Valion yanked her back was dead, black and crumbling. A perfect circle of death, ten feet across.

“You shouldn’t have been able to do that.” Valion said, staring blankly at the circle, face pale.

“What did you do to me?” she asked, trying to push down the fury in her gut, though her hands once more curled into fists.

“I needed to stop you, before you hurt yourself. I told you, it was too much magic, magic you shouldn’t be able to do—”

“You took it away.”

“I tried,” he said, still staring blankly. “You shouldn’t have been able to pull it back. Not even a spark.”

“Why?” she snarled

“I—I know your name, your full name, your true name. That has power, here, especially with shared blood.”

“So you took my magic—”

“I am your father—” he retorted, anger flaring. “Of course I took it. You have no idea what you’re doing, no control—it’s a miracle you didn’t kill yourself. I don’t—I don’t even know what you did!”

“You had no right—”

“I had every right. You are my child.”

“The child you abandoned!”

“I DID NOT ABANDON YOU AND I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO HURT YOURSELF BECAUSE OF MY NEGLIGENCE!” he roared and she shrunk back, a sliver of fear settling in her chest. Adrian grabbed her hand and tugged her behind him, other hand splayed in a way that she knew meant he was preparing to call for his sword.

“I know I failed you, Elyra. I know that I have been a miserable excuse for a father, despite my best intentions. I know there’s nothing that I can do to make up for the abuse I allowed, for all that you suffered. I know that. It doesn’t mean that I am going to stand back and allow you free reign to harm yourself. You are utterly ignorant of magic, ignorant of Faery, and that is my fault too, but it is dangerous. You are playing with forces who’s consequences you cannot fathom. So yes, I stopped you, I took away your magic and I would do it again—will do it again—should you do something that would cause you harm, the same as any other parent in Faery. These are toddling lessons that were denied you, and you may rankle under them now, but you will learn them,” he spat, chest heaving as he glared at her. She glared back, blinking away the tears prickling her eyes.

“I hate you,” she snarled, voice hardly more than a whisper.

“I know,” he replied, anger slipping from his face, leaving him looking exhausted. “Unfortunately that doesn’t stop me from being your father.”

She glared at him for another second before she turned on her heel and stormed inside.

 

---

 

Valion remained in the yard as his daughter’s friends poured back into the house after her. They, no doubt, would offer her the comfort he was incapable of giving her.

He stared at the ring of death that had once been grass, stooping to pick up a handful, watching it turn to ash in his hand. His heart still thundered in his chest, panic yet abated, memory of her black-eyed and utterly out of control still playing on repeat behind his eyes. He didn’t know what was worse, the creeping death that had been born of her fear and rage, or the Eldertrees that now stood proud and tall, Eldertrees that had been blighted for centuries, that hadn’t bloomed in a millennia.

She should be dead from channeling the amount of magic it would take to have cured one of them.

Then there was the tether she’d somehow broken—there shouldn’t have been any way for her to do so, no matter how strong her natural magical inclination. The hold of a true name was absolute, regardless of anything. It needed to be—faery children had a volatile connection to magic and control—never mind mastery—took years. It only made it worse that they felt everything so viscerally, without the decades needed to temper their emotions.

And Elyra had less control and more talent than most.

It was a terrible combination, not to mention that his glamour had dulled it all before, made it bearable, at least in the Mortal Realm. Had he awoken from his drunken stupor a few minutes later, had he not looked out the window when he had—

He would have been burying her.

His daughter, his little girl, hardly twenty. He should have been teaching her to control her magic, teaching her the ways of Faery, how to navigate—to survive—it, but instead he’d let his melancholy and guilt run rampant, drowned himself in liquor when he should have been taking care of her, helping her navigate the wake of all that she'd suffered.

He was a weak, miserable thing. Selfish.

He couldn’t afford to be selfish anymore. No, he needed to finally grow up and be the father she needed. Not the one she wanted—he’d never be that. That didn’t matter, though—it mattered she was safe, that she was educated and cared for, that he spent the next eighty years ensuring she mastered her magic, that she could defend herself, that she was prepared to take her place in Court and hold it.

Before that, though, he had to ensure her safety, ensure Vranos never hurt her again, never touched her again. Had to make sure he suffered for what he'd done to his little girl.

He stared at the Eldertrees for a moment before he strode forward and picked one of the low-hanging blooms. It hummed with magic in his hands, practically sang with it.

He took a deep breath before he turned and went back into the house, his nausea having very little to do with his hangover.

Notes:

Thank you for reading!

The gang is going to make sure Vranos gets what's coming to him (finally)...

Please let me know what you think! I love reading all your comments they make my day

Chapter 32: No Turning Back

Valion knocked before opening the door to Elyra’s room. He tried not to make a face at the sight of the dhampir sat far too close to his daughter on the couch in her sitting room, one hand cupping her cheek while the the other held hers.

She turned to glare at him, tear tracks clear on her cheeks. The dhampir dropped his hand from her cheek, but he noted how he subtly shifted, putting himself more between him and Elyra, weight balanced to be able to move quickly.

However ridiculous it was, the intention behind the motion was something he approved of. He at least seemed to hold his daughter’s safety paramount and it was more than clear that she favored him, despite how foolish such a match was.

“If you would please excuse us, so I may have a private conversation with my daughter,” Valion said to Adrian, making an effort to be polite and not curt.

He looked to Elyra, who just nodded ever so slightly. He surveyed her another moment, brows furrowed before he stood, taking a deep breath.

“I’ll be in the library, alright?” he said, voice soft, giving her hand a light squeeze.

“I’ll meet you there,” she replied, offering him a faint smile that fell from her lips the moment the door shut behind him. She glanced at him before turning to instead stare at the wall.

“I don’t want to yell at you, or to argue. It’s not your fault that you don’t know these things and I deserve your anger. I meant it, though, when I said that doesn’t change the fact that I’m your father. You might not like me, and you are perfectly within your rights, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s my job to take care of you. I haven’t done a good job so far, and I will no doubt make more mistakes, but I swear to you that from this moment forward, you will have my best. I will make sure that you know all you need to, that you’re well-versed in magic, that you can navigate Faery and take care of yourself. It is different, here, than where you grew up, entirely different rules of governance. You are a young adult in the Mortal Realm, but you are a child here, not even close to your first century, and you need a guardian and guidance.”

“What if I don’t want to stay here?” she asked, making a face even though she still stared at the wall.

“I’m assuming you wish to return to the Mortal Realm with your friends?” he asked, careful to keep his tone and face neutral, though the thought gutted him. She nodded.

“Then we will have to come to some sort of an agreement. You need to learn, but I won’t lock you in this house.”

“Why do I have to learn if I don’t want to stay?”

“Because you need to learn to control your magic. Because it’s dangerous if you don’t. Because you might have to be prepared.”

“For the next person that wants to kill me for being your daughter?” she asked, eyes trained on the wall.

He hated that there was some truth in it.

“Among other things,” he said, thinking it was better not to go into the politics of Court, not go into the fact that she was second in line to the Umbral Throne, that she wouldn’t be able to run from Faery forever, no matter how much she hated him.

“Why didn’t you come? Why didn’t you come when Father died? Why did you leave me to fend for myself?” she said, voice hardly more than a whisper.

“Because I didn’t know. Because I got caught up putting down a petty rebellion and I didn’t check on you like I should have been. Because I just—I assumed you were fine, that you were happy. I know how you loved him, and I wanted you to have what time you could with him. I—I’m sorry, Elyra. I will never be more sorry for anything than I am for allowing you to suffer as you did. I know it doesn’t change anything—”

“It was months in that wagon. Months. They did h-horrible things to me and your brother would bury me alive every night when I fell asleep until I woke hacking up earth. I spent weeks in that cell being forced to play a vampire’s pet in between the leering and beatings—I freed myself. You just tried to take away the one way I have of defending myself from every awful thing and locked me in my body like those terrible men did with their drugs. Why should I ever trust you?”

She didn’t yell or spit it at him, her voice was quiet, wavered with the emotion she was restraining. It would have been far better had she yelled.

He hadn’t known his heart could break any more than it already had, didn’t know that he could feel any more wretched than he already did.

“I’m so sorry, Elyra—”

“That doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t bring back any of the things stolen from me, it doesn’t fix anything that was broken, and it certainly doesn’t make me feel any better,” she said, lip trembling, as she stood and moved a few paces away, hands balled into fists.

“I will—I will find a way to prove to you that you can trust me. I—I know I can’t make up for any of it, but I’m here now, and I promise I will look after you.”

She just stared at him, mistrust and loathing clear in her narrowed eyes, the stiff set of her shoulders.

“We’re leaving, today. We’re going to go and track the bastard down before he has a chance to come up with his next horrible plot,” she said, not quite looking at him.

“You don’t even know how to find him—”

“I’ll figure it out, just like everything else,” she said sharply. “Besides, I don’t need to find him. He wants me dead, he’ll find me.”

“You are being reckless—”

“I don’t care. Don’t you get that? I don’t care, I just want him dead. I don’t want to be afraid to close my eyes anymore, I don’t want to be afraid to step outside, I don’t want to sit here waiting for the next torment. Either I’ll kill him or he’ll kill me, but either way I won’t have to be afraid anymore.”

She turned on her heel then and stalked out, slamming the door behind her. Valion stared after her, forcing himself to take even, steady breaths, trying to stop himself from trembling.

 

---

 

“You sure you’re set on this?” Adrian said, voice low enough that he knew neither Sypha or Trevor could hear. Rosalind nodded, jaw set.

“I’m tired of being frightened. I have to do something, Adrian.”

He gave her a sad smile, cupping her cheek. He wasn’t sure they were going in with the best plan, but he couldn’t fault her intent. He didn’t want her to be afraid any longer, either.

But he also didn’t want to see her hurt.

He sighed, placating himself by adjusting the straps on her pack. He furrowed hi brow.

“Have you packed rocks in there?”

“Better,” she said with a teasing smile. “I packed books.”

He made a face, rolling his eyes as he dug into her pack and took at least four of the heavy tomes she’d jammed in it and stuffed them in his own bag. When he looked back up she was watching him with such a soft expression.

“We best be getting a move on,” Trevor said, inclining his head towards the door.

“Wait a moment,” Valion said from the top of the stairs. He descended them quickly, a pack already slung over his own shoulders, sword at his hip. He pulled a thick woolen cloak from over his arm and handed it to Rosalind, followed by a sheathed dagger.

“The blade is iron,” he said, gaze intense. “Iron to the heart will kill any faery, no matter how old or powerful. I do not have time to teach you swordcraft, but I do not want your magic to be your only weapon.”

She stared at him for a moment before she took it and strapped it to the belt at her waist.

“We should go,” she said, turning towards the door. Alucard froze as they filed out, eyes going wide.

It wasn’t just the trees in the back of the house that she’d revitalized—the trees in the front and lining the cobbled path too stood tall, and proud, leaves shimmering. The unease that had permeated the air every time he’d walked through the forest was gone too, leaving only something dark and beautiful.

“You did it to all of them?” Trevor asked, aghast. Rosalind surveyed him primly.

“What, like it’s hard?” she said, giving him a look, and set off down the path, not bothering to look back to see if any of them followed. He couldn’t help the smile that curved his lips at the determined set of her shoulders, at the stubborn, foolishly brave and bitingly clever woman who was now, finally, in charge of her own destiny.

He jogged to catch up with her, threading his fingers through hers despite how he knew Valion would bristle. He’d have to get used to it—Alucard wasn’t planning on going anywhere.

She looked up at him and he, in turn, nodded towards the branches above them, at the iridescent leaves and midnight-colored flowers.

“I’d call it a marked improvement,” he said quietly and she huffed a laugh, trying to bite back a smile.

What he wouldn’t do for one of her smiles.

Surely killing some murderous faery uncle was the very least of it.

 

---

 

“Where are you making that to? Why are you making it? How are you making it?” Elyra asked as he went about calling forth a fragile circle. She asked all of it very fast, her voice nearly as sharp as her eyes.

“We are going to visit the Diviner, so we can figure out where Vranos has retreated to. And I am weaving my intent into the earth, into it’s magic.”

“But what does that mean?” she asked, making a face. He paused, trying to figure out how best to explain. Had she grown up in Faery, it would have been easy, instinctual as breathing, but it was an alien thing to explain to someone who grew up without its tether.

“Do you feel the magic in the soil?”

“Yes.”

“Pull the threads to the surface as you concentrate on your destination. You need to have seen it before, and it needs to be somewhere another circle can grow.”

“Why?”

“Because there needs to be enough magic there to finish the connection.”

“Couldn’t you just do it in the air, then?”

“No, the magic is too scattered and distant in the air,” he said, shaking his head. She made a face, but didn’t press further. It was an odd question, but then again, she knew nothing of how their magic worked, how it was a connection, something to be channeled, though that channel could go two ways, if one was reckless or inexperienced, could flood the caster with more magic than their body could handle or instead drain the magic needed from the caster themself instead of the environment, both of which could very easily be deadly.

He still couldn’t figure out how she’d cured the blight in the forest. Without connecting with a powerful source of wild magic she’d have been draining her own stores, and yet—

He could find no signs of ill effects.

That, coupled with the rampant wild magic in Ysolde’s lands, set him on edge. She was doing something strange, misaligning something in a way he couldn’t quite work out, but it frightened him.

He doubted any of the ancients could have removed the blight from the entirety of the forest and Elyra was hardly twenty, with no training whatsoever.

“So this Diviner will tell us where to find Vranos?” Sypha asked, brows furrowed. He nodded. “How?”

“It is complicated, rare magic. Few are born with such gifts. The mechanism is shrouded from me,” he said, which was mostly the truth. It was as much as they needed to know.

“Let’s get it over with,” Elyra said, and stepped through the circle without hesitation, Adrian following only a step behind.

He wondered where this sudden recklessness had grown from as Sypha and the Belmont stepped through. It left him feeling ill, though he didn’t know how to fix it.

He didn’t know how to fix any of it.

He only hoped killing Vranos would help. He didn’t want her to be afraid anymore, didn’t ever want her to be so afraid or feel as helpless as she had the past months.

He stepped through the circle to the other side, ripping the connection as he did to ensure no one could follow. The younglings all stood on the other side, eyes wide as they surveyed the stairs cut into the face of the mountain that lead to the top, obscured by mist, where the Diviner resided.

“Best start climbing,” he said, motioning towards the stairs.

“Do we all have to go?” Belmont asked, looking up at the mountain with disgust.

“Trevor! We are here to help. Now move it,” Sypha said, pushing him towards the stairs.

 

---

 

Valion should have guessed he’d returned to the palace.

It was a bastard move. It meant in order to go after him, he’d have to reveal Elyra to the Court, open her to even more danger, more than she could understand. But if he didn’t, it would only be a matter of time before Vranos tried again, and the only place he could keep her reliably shielded was the house in the Gloomveil, but short of locking her in her chambers, he couldn’t make her stay.

She didn’t want to stay, not with him and not in Faery.

She’d be a less useful pawn for most in the Mortal Realm, but there would always be the danger of another trying to get to him through her. Even if she could stand to be glamoured again, it would only buy her some time.

Vranos was betting that he wouldn’t subject her to that, subject her to Court—not after all he’d done to spare her its games. But he couldn’t spare her forever, and even with the new threats it would bring, it would also offer a certain amount of protection. More would rather unseat him in the line to the throne and leave a young, naive, and easily manipulated princess next in line after his father.

Either way it was a double edged sword.

“Are we going or what?” Elyra asked, glaring at him from the edge of a circle—a circle he had not made, a circle humming with magic, its toadstools far more bright than they should have been.

“How did you do that?”

“How you told me. The Diviner showed us the stupid castle, you said I could make a circle to anywhere I’ve seen that has enough magic to host it,” she replied.

He stared at it, trying to make sense of it—there wasn’t nearly enough magic in the earth here to pull into that strong a gate, never mind that the most difficult thing for novice caster trying to form was was being able to pull enough magic to secure the connection.

“Did I do it wrong or something?” she asked. He stepped forward, closing his eyes as he checked the entirety of the gate.

It was perfect.

“Yes, it should work,” he said, trying to hide the shock from his face, keep his face neutral. There was something strange going on with her magic, something he couldn’t explain—couldn’t begin to explain.

It would be a problem for another day. No need to heap extra worry on her until they’d at least dealt with his swine of a brother.

He watched her step forward without another word, her friends folloing behind. He strode through, trying to make sense of the magic humming across the connection.

“You must close it, too,” he said on the other side, eyes trained on her. “Pull up the threads so the connection is severed and no one can follow.”

She looked at him before reaching towards the circle and giving the air a yank. He watched in horror as the gate between circles not only severed, but the circle itself withered and died, the same as the back lawn in her fury—

It had made sense then, when she’d lost herself to emotion, but from simply pulling the threads—

No one should be able to rob life so easily, have such a natural affinity for death. It was usually a forced thing, required decades of study, of building up the skill and the fortitude to wield it. His heart hammered in his chest as she and her friends turned towards the obsidian castle in the distance, the circle only taking them as far as the edge of the Nightwood.

They were utterly unperturbed by what she’d just done, had no idea they should be. It was unnatural, should be unnatural and yet—

He thought back to the forest that had appeared out of the Muckmire in the time they’d been underground, thought of Ysolde’s curse, of what she’d done to the Gloaming, rather than have the Unseelie Court take it once again.

Had something happened to his daughter down there, more than what his brother had inflicted? Had she spent too long underground, had Ysolde infected her with her rot?

Hadn’t she suffered enough, needlessly, senselessly? Had Ysolde heaped on more pain, simply because she had Blackthorne blood?

He’d force her to undo it, if she had, wouldn’t let another bloody Blackthorne pile on more misery when she hardly even knew anything of their world. He didn’t know how—no one had been able to get her to budge, to banish her, to undo the curse she’d soaked into the very earth itself, but he’d find a way.

He’d already allowed far too much abuse, far too much damage. He wouldn’t stand by and allow more.

He took a deep breath and walked quickly to head off Elyra and her friends, motioning for them to stop.

“I need you to listen to me—the Penumbral City is nothing like anywhere you’ve been in Faery. It is far more dangerous, for you, especially,” he said, looking at her three friends. They’d be eaten alive by the Fae Folk, if left to their own devices. Perhaps literally, depending on the district.

“I mean it when I say, do not speak to anyone. Do not take anything offered. Try—” he said, staring at the Belmont, “—not to offend anyone. You have no leeway here and I cannot put up with your antics. I have a part to play, here, a part I have cultivated over six thousand years. That part keeps all of you as safe as I can manage, especially you,” he said, looking at Elyra.

“When we walk through those gates, I am not the bumbling father who allows you all to be mannerless ingrates at the dinner table. I am the Crown Prince and Heir to the Umbral Throne, and I cannot allow an inch among these wolves. Do as I tell you, do not argue, and if you have an issue with something you will wait to speak of it until I tell you it is safe. Always assume someone is listening to you, always expect a knife in your back. Stay close, and don’t step away on your own, not even for a moment.”

He turned to his daughter, hoping the intensity of his gaze relayed just how important his instructions were. She stared back, though he didn’t know what to make of her expression.

“You are Elyra Blackthorne. As far as anyone in Faery is concerned, you’ve never had another name. No one is to call her, by a different name, or do anything to imply that one exists. I told you—names have power, here, but you have to know it in its entirety. That is why faery names are so long and so closely guarded. Only I know your name in it’s entirety—it is important it stays that way. There is power in partial names—much less than the full, but power nonetheless.

“The way you walk into that city will set the tone for everything after, everything in Faery for centuries and centuries. Keep your head held high, your shoulders back, and don’t give them the benefit of reading your face. You are a Blackthorne and that means something. It is not by luck that our family has held the Throne for nigh on seven millennia. I will not be nice, or warm, within the city walls—it may be frightening. But it is done for a reason, and I need you to trust me to navigate the spiderweb of politics and treachery. Know that everything that I do is to make it disastrous for anyone to even attempt to harm you. Does everyone understand?” he asked, staring at each one of them in turn. They nodded, even Belmont.

He took a deep breath. “Then we’ll make haste. I would like to arrive before the afternoon session is ended.”

Notes:

Thank you for reading!! Very excited to finally interact with some more Fae Folk and see scary Prince Valion and the cut throat Unseelie Court!

Let me know what you think!

Chapter 33: The Great and Shitty Penumbral City

Ysolde stared in bewilderment at the stone cradle, at where her Amaris should have slept, safe, and content as she had century upon century, but she was gone. Her heart thundered in her chest, blood rushing in her ears.

No one could hurt her daughter here—no one would dare.

Where had she gone?

She looked around wildly, knowing that she couldn’t have crawled, couldn’t have pulled herself from the cradle. She heard a tinkling laugh at the mouth of the veil, the laugh of a child, and stumbled to it, heart in her throat.

Usually there wasn’t anything to see through the veil but blinding light, but there was something through the light, a room lit by soft candles, a room with a dead woman tucked into the bed, sunlight colored hair splayed out over the pillow. A raven-haired man sat at her bedside, bent over and shaking with sobs, though she could see the babe in his arms, see the little tuft of silver curls on its head. The babe opened its eyes, round green eyes, almost as if it knew it was being watched. The babe stared at her, so intently that she could’ve sworn it could see her.

The man sat back in his chair, trying to calm himself, to catch his breath as he stared at the babe in his arms, wrapped in fine blankets. She watched as he gently traced the bridge of the babe’s nose, trying desperately to force a smile.

The baby cooed, little hands reaching and grasping—its father clearly didn’t know how to properly swaddle it. He choked back a sob as it gurgled up at him, squeezing his eyes shut as if it would stop the tears pouring down his face.

The baby made a trilling sound—a very familiar trilling sound, a sound Amaris would make in her cradle, sort of singing to herself, as much as she was able.

Ysolde stared though the veil, tears pouring down her face, though she couldn’t help but smile.

 

---

 

Valion glamoured her friends before they even reached the city, turning each one of them invisible.

“It’s safer,” he said, “then to chance someone realizing you’re mortals. “We’re seeing where the players on the board are first, before we make our move.”

“When exactly are we getting to killing the bastard?” Trevor said from somewhere to her left.

“When we know what we’re walking into. To go in blind would be foolish. He might be an idiot bastard, but he’s dangerous and he’s not the only one who is. Now shut up and keep close. I can’t shield you if you wander off,” he spat and strode towards the city wall.

Rosalind wished she could see her friends, could try to read their expressions. She felt a hand take hers and give a gentle squeeze. She force a smile in the direction she thought Adrian was, glad for the reassurance.

Part of her wished he’d glamoured her too

“You must keep up, Elyra,” he called sharply, without turning. She swore rather vilely under her breath and heard Trevor snort and what she assumed was Sypha smacking him upside the head.

She really did smile at that.

She jogged to catch up with Valion, mood souring the closer she got. Part of her was beginning to wonder if he was just jerking them around or if faeries just had to do everything in the most convoluted and inconvenient ways possible.

Either one was irritating.

Valion pulled her along at such a clip that she barely had a chance to look at anything within the city walls, couldn’t get a proper look at any of the faeries that quickly stepped out of his path when they saw him coming. Some were like her and Valion, almost humanish looking, but some seemed to have scales, or feathers. She swore she saw a violet-haired woman with hooves, but Valion kept her moving, hand on her shoulder to prevent her dallying.

He lead them up to the castle itself, guards opening doors as soon as they recognized him. The halls didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason, and they all looked the same, all made out of shining obsidian. The floors, the walls, the fancy columns—all of it. Still, she tried to keep track, anxiety rising with every hall they turned down.

He stopped, though, outside a set of large double doors, both of which were propped open. She could see a long table on a dais at the back of the room, see a dozen and a half or so faeries sat at it—arguing, from the look of it. Or they’d probably call it debating. That’s what nobles always seemed to call it.

She couldn’t force herself to look at them, though, not when she saw who sat reclined in his chair, speaking with a black-haired faery next to him that seemed to have talons for fingers.

She felt herself tremble at the sight of Vranos, fear gripping her more readily without the haze of fury from when she’d escaped. He was right there, sitting amidst a whole slew of important-looking faeries, clad in jewels and fine silks as if he hadn’t spent the last weeks tormenting, her, trying to kill her as slowly and miserably as he could manage and now he was just sitting up there, laughing with other faeries.

He had ruined her, destroyed her life, and he could just sit there, enjoying himself, as if it had never happened, or maybe it had never mattered.

She never mattered.

Rosalind felt a reassuring hand on her shoulder and looked over to see Valion turned toward her, the black curtain of his hair blocking his face from the dias, though no one had seeming noticed them in the hall yet.

“Breathe. I know—I know. Don’t let them see it. You must be a Blackthorne first, my darling.”

She wanted to hit him for that—was he a Blackthorne first when he chose to get hammered in his study rather than helping them with anything? She stared at him, trying to slow her breathing, stop the trembling of her hands. The anger helped, overrode a bit of her fear. He nodded at her, motion so slight she doubted anyone else would have noticed it, though his eyes just looked—

Sad. Desolate. Tired.

How old was her father? She hadn’t asked and he hadn’t told her. Centuries old, she knew, but as far as how many—

She still knew hardly anything about him, and yet, she had to trust him. Had to trust that he’d take care of her, this time, that he wouldn’t allow her friends to be hurt. She took a deep breath and blew it out, setting her face.

She couldn’t make herself a target, couldn’t let any of them think her weak, couldn’t give them anything to use against her. She gave him the slightest of nods and he stood, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

He didn’t drop his hand.

He lead her out into the center of the hall, his gate that of a predator. She tried to match it, tried to resurrect the sort of bravery that had come with her rage, the murderous, bloodthirsty rage that didn’t just want Vranos dead, that wanted him to suffer ten-fold for what he’d done to her for no other reason than who her father was, that wanted her pound of flesh and then more. The all the lanterns flickered and dimmed as they passed, frost trailing from where he walked.

She felt the magic in the room go wild—it was different from the magic at Valion’s house. Darker. Still it buzzed the same as it had in the Gloomveil, in Cryptgarden, and the swamp-forest, though there was less dissonance here. It already knew what it was to be, seemed somehow inflexible compared to everywhere else she’d been in Faery.

She wondered why.

She watched the faeries at the high table look up, saw more than a few raised brows, cruel smirks, sharp eyes following them. She focused on the near-silent sound of Adrian’s footsteps behind her, on the sound of her friends’ boots against the obsidian floor.

They were here, too. They were here and if Valion bungled the whole thing like everything else then they’d fight their way out, return to the Mortal Realm, and regroup. Her briars should give them enough time to run, enough time for her to make another circle and she’d stolen what books she could find on warding from Valion’s library, on preventing anyone from being able to enter their dreams.

She wouldn’t be helpless this time.

The man in the center of the table wore a black metal circlet around his head, black curls only barely accented with grey at his temples. If he was a human she might think him forty or so, so that probably meant in Faery he was like a billion or something absolutely stupid. He looked like Valion, though his features were sharper, crueler, a calculating edge to his gaze even as he sat back and smiled at him, as if he was actually pleased he was there.

“Valion—we weren’t expecting you. I thought you were on a sabbatical, after all that mess with the Heartlands,” he said from the center of the table. Valion glared back not bothering to feign cordiality. Instead he looked up and down the table before turning back to his father, the temperature in the room dropping significantly.

“I rather thought I would be too, Father, but certain events necessitated my attention here.”

“Oh?” he said, raising his brow with a sort of cruel interest. “Does it have something to do with this mysterious girl you’ve dragged into my Court?”

“It does,” he said, simply, though his voice simmered with barely contained rage. His father smiled wider.

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense. Has all your whoring finally paid off? It’s about time.”

Valion glowered at his father, who looked utterly unperturbed. Rosalind glared up at him, disgust curling in her gut, though part of her wondered if there was truth in the question. Vranos too had mentioned his ‘whoring’, citing it as one of the reasons he didn’t deserve his position, but the man who had taken her to the manor house in the Gloomveil seemed nearly hobbled by grief after losing her mother.

Her birth mother, she reminded herself. Her mother was the wonderful human woman who had sewed her dolls and kissed her bruises and told her stories until she fell asleep. Her family was her human family that raised and took care of her, not the awful faery-man on the throne and certainly not Vranos, who’d tortured her the last six months—more than six months, it had been six months when he dragged her from Adrian’s library, and that had been weeks ago.

Judging by the flash of emotion that crossed Valion’s face at his father’s proclamation and the laughter that followed, she guessed he didn’t much care for him. He gripped her tighter, pulling her subtly closer and slightly behind him, gaze never leaving his father’s face as he kept her closest to the door they’d entered through.

“Well, let us share in your joy before the bloodshed,” his father said with no small amount of amusement. “Introduce us to the little creature you’ve been so diligently hiding from us! She must take after her mother, she’s very pretty.”

He laughed, and the courtiers around him followed suit—or rather, some of them did. Some of them eyed Valion warily, and others searched his face as if trying to deduce what was going on, what he planned to do. She saw some subtly move their hands closer to weapons, poised to leap from their places at the table.

She didn’t know if they were Valion’s allies or enemies, though.

Valion stared at him another moment before he spoke, voice ringing out over the room.

“This is Princess Elyra Blackthorne, my daughter and heir.”

The table broke out in whispers, but Valion’s father just smiled somehow wider. His teeth looked almost pointed.

“It’s been so very long since we’ve had a little princess at Court. How old are you, child?” Valion’s father asked.

She refused to think of him as her grandfather.

“She’s twenty,” Valion said before she figured out whether she should answer. His father raised an eyebrow, eyeing his son.

“Is she mute?”

“She is not.”

His father smiled wider, something passing between him and Valion that she didn’t quite understand. Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Vranos made to quietly get up and slip from the room. Rosalind turned to him before she could think better of it, violently throwing out her hand, face curled with loathing.

“Sit down,” she snarled, and briars burst through the obsidian of the floor, winding around him and binding him to the chair, thorns pointed threateningly just into his throat, even as others dug into his skin, drawing blood. “I’ve had enough of your cravenness.”

She couldn’t hear the gasps of the Court over the pounding of the blood in her ears, the noise of the magic in the air and the stone and the earth beneath it singing, crackling with power all around her, clamoring for blood. Valion’s eyes flicked to her, grip tightening, but his father looked practically giddy at the display, despite the fact that it was his other son she had attacked. His eyes locked on her, his smile almost impossibly wide.

She wanted to wipe it off his face.

“My, my, you are a vicious thing aren’t you? Your father raised you right.”

She just stared back at him, trying to keep her face neutral. She didn’t want to be the sort of person that pleased this awful man, but she also wanted to rip Vranos’s arms off and then maybe beat him to death with a rock. After a moment he turned back to Valion.

“I’m assuming you have accusations?”

“You wish to hear them now?” Valion asked. Did that mean it was odd for him to hear him out, or just to hear him out right away?

“I don’t think your little princess has the patience to wait.”

Valion’s hand tightened on her shoulder, jaw tight. “I would prefer they be made privately.”

“Ah, but you have brought this matter to me so very publicly, my son.”

“Father—”

“What did your uncle do to you to make you so furious, child?” Valion’s father asked, face still curved in amusement, though there was a dangerous intensity behind his eyes, something simmering that she didn’t know boded ill for them or Vranos.

Still, she stared him down, holding onto that tendril of rage, rather than the fear that came with admitting what had been done to her.

She didn’t want to be afraid anymore, wouldn’t—

“He had me kidnapped, molested, and abused,” she said, relieved that her voice did not shake. “He paid men to abuse me, to drag me from my home, he drowned me in grave dirt every night for months and tried to strangle me with briars and iron wire until I was nearly dead. Then he dragged me to the Cryptgarden, bound me in iron, and locked me in a cell for weeks, starving me, letting his pet vampire drain and abuse me, telling me all the while how much worse he would torture me before I died. That he was using me to bait my—my father, and kill him. Kill both of us, so he would be made heir to the throne. By default,” she added, just to be petty.

Still, saying it all out loud set her trembling, her hands sweating and her heart beating too fast. She hadn’t said all of it before, hadn’t admitted all of it at once. There was a bit of a weight off of her chest, but more pressing was the urge to vomit all over the polished obsidian floor. Still she stared defiantly, jaw clenched. Valion tightened his hold on her, pulling her closer to his side and she was glad for it, glad for what little reassurance it offered when she felt so raw.

The amusement had left Valion’s father’s face, and he instead surveyed them both in an intense, calculating way.

“Do you have any evidence backing up such a claim?”

“Father, I can tell you exactly where to find the corpse of his vampire associate—”

Rosalind kicked off her shoe and pulled off her sock, unwinding Valion’s careful bandaging around her ankle and revealing the still-infected wound, angry and weeping puss. There was more than a few gasps from the people assembled.

“Father,” she said, feeling very strange addressing Valion in such a way, “Father healed the rest, but he could not heal the damage from the iron he shackled me with for weeks.”

Valion’s father stared at her fetid ankle for a few long moments, jaw tight, before he stood.

“Have Prince Vranos brought to his chambers and ensure he does not leave. Court is dismissed for the afternoon. Valion, if you will attend me,” he said, turning toward the door behind the great table.

“Yes, Father,” he said before turning back to Rosalind.

“Put your shoe back on,” he said softly, stooping to gather up the soiled bandages, which he balled up before he stuffed her sock in his pocket. “We must go talk to my father, no doubt in his study. We will be safe there, as no glamours are able to hold within the Inner Chambers of the palace.”

He said the second part slightly louder, glaring sidelong at where she supposed Adrian and Sypha and Trevor stood. He could still see them, since it was his glamour.

She wished she had a better idea of how any of it worked.

She followed Valion through the door his father had disappeared through the door behind the high table, into a wide, opulent hall of obsidian and marble. Even though his father was no longer within sight, Valion seemed to know where to go. He tugged her forward gently until they reached a door which he opened and ushered her inside.

“Fucking hell, Val!” his father said as the door clicked shut behind them, the heels of his hands pressed into his temples. This man looked very different from the detached, cruel one she’d seen at the high table.

They were in an opulent, but approachable study, a fire crackling in the gate. Valion crossed to it, throwing her bandages into the fire. She wondered why he took them in the first place, or why he didn’t simply chuck them in the bin.

“You haven’t told me a thing about any of this and then you come in and blindside me—” he broke off, turning towards her, brows pulled together as he reached out towards her. She took a step back and he stopped.

“I’m sorry for frightening you, you poor girl. You shouldn’t have been put through that,” he said, glaring at Valion. “She shouldn’t have been put through any of it!”

“Yes, well, we weren’t exactly left with a lot of options. We scarcely rested a day since the whole nightmare—”

“She is twenty years old, Valion! You had no shortage of opportunities—”

“To what? Raise her at Court, among the rot? Give more opportunity for others to try and use her to get to me?”

“There are protections that could have been put in place, had I known there was a new heir in the line. I don’t fault you for hiding her away, I fault you for being stupid about it!”

Rosalind stared between the two of them, trying to make sense of the shift in their behavior.

There was a knock at the door and Valion’s father crossed to open it.

“The supplies you requested, Your Majesty. Can I get you anything else?”

“No,” he said, stepping away and closing the door harder than was polite. He took the basket the page had brought him and shoved it at Valion, face stormy. “You are an idiot. Wait until your mother finds out. You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t kill you.”

His face softened, though, as he turned towards her. “Sit, dear, and let your father see to your ankle.”

He ushered her to one of the couches by the fire and Valion knelt to treat her wound much the same as he had back at the house in the Gloomveil, though now his father paced furiously behind him.

“I did not think you this foolish Val.”

“It will all be settled, this way.”

“This way? Do you know what you have done?”

“Vranos will call for it to be decided by a trial through combat, she will be awarded a champion, as she is a child, and I will make sure that he receives the thrashing he deserves before I kill him, and I don’t want to hear anything about it. This is too far, too fucking far this time. It was fine when he was only going after me, but to go after my fucking daughter—”

“Did you sleep through your fucking law classes? You are the Crown Prince, heir acknowledged officially by the Crown. The Crown, which remains impartial in order to carry out the law. You cannot fight for her, and because you failed to ensure she had the same protections as your heir, I cannot stop him from calling for a trial by combat. Because you decided to make a spectacle of it, I cannot see that it is handled quietly and now she will have to face him and I have very little recourse to help her. Do you understand, you idiot boy? You should have come to me—”

“How was I supposed to know you wouldn’t brush it off like everything else?”

His father glowered at him. “You and Vranos always fought! Always! That is what brothers do!”

“Oh yes, so all the times he attempted to kill me—”

“Clumsy, foolish plots. It was supposed to make you smarter, make you more capable so you could deal with an assassin with actual brains—”

“So you knew, you knew the whole time—”

“Of course I knew! Do you think my brothers were any different? Have you never wondered why you have no living uncles, boy?”

“And you would inflict that on a child after enduring it, on your child?”

“You were never intended to have siblings, Valion. That was going to be my gift to you, but your mother and I could hardly account for twins! You had better not have another child stashed—”

“I don’t. It is only Elyra, it will only ever be Elyra,” he snapped at his father as he finished wrapping her ankle and put her sock back on.

“Who is her mother?” Valion’s father asked sharply. “There’s very few with enough talent to break through obsidian—”

“She’s dead,” Valion shot back, glaring at him. His father raised a brow.

“That’s cold, even for you,” he said before turning back towards his desk. Did he think Valion had killed her mother? Was he the sort of person that made something like that believable?

Valion searched her face, anxiety clear enough on it.

“Are you alright, Moonbeam? It was—that was not how I intended it to go.”

She just stared at him. He sighed, standing and brushing back a stray strand of her hair.

“You didn’t strain anything, you don’t feel light-headed or as if you can’t breath. Do you feel tired—”

“I feel fine. I don’t—the briars are easy,” she said quietly. He stared at her, as if looking for something in her face.

“It’s going to be okay, I promise,” he said quietly. “I will make sure everything is fine.”

“I don’t know what sort of magic you’re teaching that girl—” his father began.

The door slammed open, cracking against the wall as a beautiful faery women strode in, slamming it shut again behind her, so hard the pictures on the walls rattled. She had long hair that was so black it was nearly blue and furious, violet eyes, her face red with anger. She looked like she’d be perhaps forty, if she was human, much like Valion’s father, but she hadn’t the faintest idea how old she really was.

Valion stood quickly, giving the woman a dirty look.

“Valion Fandaravil Blackthorne, you absolute imbecilic shit-heel! Of all the stupid, foolish things you have done, this is the worst. You are given rope and you make a noose to leave lying around with a child to suffer for your idiocy? Finally, a child is born Below, finally you have done your duty and sired an heir, and you don’t even have the sense to take precautions, to shelter her. You’ll be lucky if I don’t throttle you, I have never been more disgusted—”

“Morgana,” Valion’s father said sharply. She turned to glare at him, but he just looked towards the couch where she sat. ‘Morgana’ followed his gaze, fury melting from from her face as she spotted Rosalind sat on the couch. She smiled at her, violet eyes softening as she looked her up and down.

It was enough to nearly give her whiplash.

“Oh, look at you! Such a beautiful girl, and talented too, judging by the floor of the Council Hall. Let’s hope you don’t take after your father’s brains,” she said, turning to glare at Valion again.

“I get it, Mother.”

“I don’t care if you get it now,” she snapped, cuffing him about the ear. “This was all preventable.”

“Um, excuse me?” Rosalind said quietly. “Could someone please explain what is going on? Is he going to try and kill me to prove he’s innocent?”

“It’s a little more complicated—” Valion began. She glared at him.

“No it’s not. A trial by combat can only be called when there’s no witnesses or evidence, and I have both.”

“Moonbeam, the law is different—”

“You sent her to the Mortal Realm? Second in line to the Umbral Throne and you sent her to the Mortal Realm without any safe guards?” his father asked, voice low and dangerous.

“It was safer than risking someone from Court finding out about her—”

“Obviously it wasn’t!” his mother shot back.

Rosalind huffed a sigh and stood, turning to the door. She wasn’t about to sit here and listen to a bunch of strangers argue about just how big an idiot her father—Valion—was, not when she knew nothing of what she’d face in whatever constituted as morning in this wretched place. Valion caught her wrist, furrowing his brow.

“Elyra, where are you going?”

“I left something in the Council Hall,” she said, and he made a face, squeezing his eyes shut as he swore.

“What is it? What else have you done?” his mother asked, eyes sharp and furious.

“I have to deal with something and see that my daughter is safely situated in my apartments. I will avail myself to your scorn once I’ve seen to more pressing matters,” he said, giving the pair a slightly mocking bow. Rosalind just stared at them, brows drawn together.

“Make sure you have dinner sent up—” his mother began.

“—and don’t leave until it’s been delivered. I know how to feed my daughter, Mother and I have not been away from the palace for so long that I have lost all sense.”

He ushered her out before either of his parents could respond, letting the door slam shut behind him.

 

---

 

“They’re crazy,” Rosalind said in a hushed voice. For some reason the four of them had ended up sat on the floor in front of one of the fires, rather than at any of the tables or couches. Maybe it was simply because none of the furniture in Valion’s apartments was comfortable or inviting, all of it cold and opulent and unwelcoming, as if to discourage guests of any kind.

“Apparently Vranos has always been a bastard and has been trying to kill Valion for years, which they knew and didn’t do anything about because it was supposed to make him stronger or something stupid. And then, on top of all the yelling, they were just weirdly nice to me, like a switch flip, and hen they’d go right back to yelling. They’re insane, and apparently they settle everything here by trial by combat like absolute barbarians, which Valion knew, but he thought he could fight Vranos in my place, but he can’t because he’s the Crown Prince and the Crown has to remain neutral or something, so now the whole thing’s a worse mess than before,” she ranted, voice still low, though anger was bleeding into her voice.

“I told you! I told you everything is inexplicable politics with faeries!” Trevor said and she shot him a dirty look.

“Yes, well, it doesn’t matter, because we’re killing him, and then we’re leaving. I know how to make the circles now. It was easy once Valion explained it.”

“Has he told you anything else about the trial, or what will happen tomorrow?” Sypha asked, brow furrowed with worry.

“Of course not,” she said, voice dripping with sarcasm, though she tried to keep the bitterness out of it. “I’m going to ask for him to bring some books back after he’s done getting reamed out.”

“You know, I never really thought about being immortal and having immortal parents—Valion’s like what? Six thousand years old and still getting scolded by Mummy and Daddy? Sounds awful,” Trevor said.

“My parents never once yelled at me. It’s not normal.”

“That’s not normal. Your parents never yelled at you?” Trevor asked, aghast. She shook her head, making a face.

“Of course not. If I did something wrong then they explained why I wasn’t supposed to do it and that I couldn’t do it again and if I did something really bad then my father would make me write an essay on why I did it and why I thought it was a good idea and then we’d have to go over the logical fallacies in my thinking.”

Trevor gawked at her, looking positively disgusted.

“That—that’s insane. Sypha, did you get yelled at?”

“Of course not, I never did anything wrong,” she replied without hesitation.

“Of course you didn’t. I know you got yelled at,” he said, waving his hand towards Adrian, who had remained mostly quiet since they’d retrieved them from the Council Hall.

“My parents didn’t yell at me,” he said, making a face. “Have you considered you were just a bad kid, if you’re the only one of us that got yelled at?”

“I wasn’t a bad kid, I did normal kid things like tramping mud through the house or trying to keep a pet raccoon in my room. And that’s such a lie, we literally saw your losing it screaming when—”

“Yes, well before he was driven insane by grief he never once shouted at me,” Adrian said, sharper than he usually spoke. “Whatever else he did, he was a good father for most of my life, and my mother would have never. It was more important I understand why something I did was wrong or dangerous. I never had to write essays though,” he said, glancing at her sidelong.

She’d never explicitly asked what happened to Adrian’s parents. She knew it was awful, so she didn’t bring it up, not wanting to dig up bad memories. Trevor and Sypha alluded to it sometimes, though never enough for her to put it all together. She just knew that his father had summoned a horde of Night Creatures and tried to kill all of Wallachia and that both his parents had died.

Rosalind moved her hand over, just enough that their fingers barely touched, not enough for Trevor to start dry-heaving. She felt Adrian link his pinky with hers and couldn’t help but smile, though she ducked her face to hide it.

“You know, they were talking when you left, the faeries left,” Sypha said, brows furrowed. “None of them thought you should have been able to conjure those vines. I was trying to figure out why from what they were saying, I think it had something to do with the obsidian.”

“Why?” Rosalind asked, furrowing her brow. The obsidian buzzed with magic, more than the earth had in Cryptgarden.

“I don’t know, they were all just whispering and trying to get a better look at the vines and the shattered stone after you left. Perhaps stone is a harder element for them to work with.”

“Perhaps,” she said, though she thought it might be something more. Valion was always seemingly frantically worried that she was overusing her magic, had thought she was killing herself in the back garden with the trees, but there had been no strain, really, at all. She hadn’t even been trying to really do anything, just figure out the source of the dissonant buzzing magic, figure out if there was a way to make it quiet.

She hadn’t managed to quiet it, but she’d somehow made them sing, sing what they were supposed to, so it wouldn’t drive her mad. She didn’t know how she knew it was what they were supposed to, didn’t even know what type of trees they were, but she knew, in her heart, in her bones, like when she’d stepped into that disgusting swamp and that beautiful blue forest sprung up around her.

It didn’t feel like she was using her magic wrong—if anything most of the time when she wasn’t trying to fight with it, it mostly just felt like she was listening, like she was making sense of the magic around her, not consciously doing anything or trying to change it, or if she wanted it to do something, like make the circle she just—

She just sort of asked, pictured where she wanted to go and asked the threads to connect and take her there.

She looked over at Adrian, trying to make sense of his pensive expression. She might have though him relaxed by the way he sat, but she could see tightness in his jaw, in the set of his shoulders.

Was he regretting allowing her to draw him into her mess? She wouldn’t blame him. Perhaps she’d make them all a circle tomorrow, before whatever happened with Vranos, so they could just go back to the castle.

There was no point in drawing them into more faery politics—Trevor was right, they were inexplicable and dangerous. Faeries were dangerous, at least the ones here, in the Undercourt. They were cruel and frightening and quite nearly incomprehensible.

And part of her—part of her didn’t want them to see her like that, like a real, Unseelie faery, didn’t want to prove to them just how inhuman she was and wicked, why Trevor’s blessed knife had burnt her so bad and she knew—she knew that if she faced down Vranos herself she would.

“There’s dinner in the dining room, if you children would like to stop lounging on the floor like beasts,” Valion said testily, though with the cadence she was used to, not the weird, nightmare version he’d been at Court, or slightly more normal but still caustic version he was with his parents. No, like this he was just grumpy and sarcastic and melodramatically long-suffering.

She liked this version better, even if he was a twit.

They all piled into the dining room, surveying the meal set on the table.

“None of the food here will harm any of you, whether human, half-human, or faery, and none of it will bind you here, I swear,” he said with an exaggerated sigh. “Now, I have things to attend to. Keep the door locked, do not open it for anyone. I will not need the door opened for me, so if you think you hear me telling you to open the door, it’s not me and I don’t feel like having your blood scrubbed off the ceiling.”

“Is it likely someone will try and trick and kill us?” Sypha asked. Valion rolled his eyes.

“Of course, I told you that before we arrived. Assume everything wants you dead unless I tell you otherwise. Now eat, and find some manner to entertain yourselves for the evening that doesn’t involve destroying the apartments or doing anything that will make me wish to kill you when I return,” he said, looking at Adrian when he said the last bit. He gave them all one last sweeping glare before turning on his heel and stalking towards the door.

Rosalind followed, calling after him.

“Valion?”

He flinched slightly at the sound of his name, but turned, face markedly less severe.

“Yes, Elyra?”

It was weird, hearing him call her that, but it almost seemed like it was getting less so. It probably had felt weird to him to hear her called by a different name whenever he’d bothered to drop in and check on her.

“Is there a library here?”

“I already told you, you’re not to leave my apartments. If you wish to find something to read you can take anything that’s in my study, or hell—anything you find, I don’t care. Just don’t open this door,” he said, irritation coloring his words, though she could see that bone-deep tiredness underneath.

“I—I wasn’t asking to go myself. I wanted to ask if you’d bring me back some books on faery trial law.”

He sighed, nodding. “Of course, though chances are I will not return until long after you are asleep, but you’ll have them for the morning.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly. He stared at her another moment before turning again to go.

“I—I get why you spend your time at the other house. I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time here either, or pretend to be something I’m not.”

He smiled at her, expression so miserably sad as he reached up to cup her cheek.

“I like who I am at the other house better, who I can be at the other house, but I am not pretending here, my darling. I am the that man, the terrible, frightening man you saw today—worse. Much worse than what you saw. That was me on my best behavior. I need you to understand, Elyra, that I earned their fear. I hope it is always pretending for you, when you must be frighting and cold and cruel to navigate Court, to survive it, when you must act a Blackthorne. Just know, that I will do anything for you, and if that means breaking the law by making the Crown partial in its ruling, then so be it. If it means bathing this fucking castle in blood, I won’t blink. I will bring you your law books, but you don’t have to worry about tomorrow, because I won’t ever allow him to hurt you again. There is the law in those books, and then there is the true law, the reason the Blackthorne family has held the throne since the very first century when we took it from the Dreadweavers and wiped them from the Wilds.”

“What is it?” she asked, making a face. He huffed a laugh, devoid of any humor.

“That if they can’t kill us, they can’t stop us, no matter what their stupid books say. We might put on a show, follow it when it serves us, when it placates all the nasty little lords and ladies, but at the end of the day who is going to stop me if I choose to break it? None of them can, and they know it, and that is why they will go after you, and why you must master your magic and learn, because the faster you show them what a threat you are, the safer you’ll be. Father can talk about all the ancient laws of succession and procedure and everything else, but it doesn’t really mean anything in the scheme of things. You were safer in the Mortal Realm with a good family, than here with some titles that were supposed to protect you. They taught you important things I couldn’t, things your mother would have taught you.”

“Like what?” she asked. Valion hardly ever talked about her mother, hardly seemed able to. Still, Rosalind hardly knew anything about her, other than how deeply he mourned her.

Valion just shook his head, jaw tight, as if he were unable to get the words out.

If she was sure about anything with Valion, she was sure he’d loved her birth mother. She wouldn’t doubt that part of sending her away had been because she’d caused her death. She doubted he’d wanted to look at her after, be reminded of just why she'd died.

The whole thing—everything that had to do with Faery was such a misery. A misery for everyone it seemed.

It would be better for everyone when she returned to the Mortal Realm.

“Valion?” she asked again. He closed his eyes hard, still facing the wall, almost as if he was in pain.

“Yes?”

She let her hands curl into fists, let that nasty tendril of anger curl in her chest, that hateful, cruel part of her that wanted Vranos to suffer, that wanted to be the one to make him, that wanted to watch as his eyes dulled and the life snuffed out of him.

“What if I want to fight him tomorrow? To kill him myself?”

“Then you are a fool,” he said with a heavy sigh. “And most certainly my daughter.”

He left without another word.

 

---

 

Adrian stared up at the ceiling of the guest room Rosalind had asked him to share, trying to make sense of the storm of emotions in his chest. He didn’t know why it couldn’t just be simple, why they couldn’t just kill him, why Valion was making them go through this whole, awful pageant of a trial if he wasn’t even going to follow the law, if he was still planning on killing Vranos himself, why he would drag Rosalind through any of it.

Was it just like Trevor said, and just some sick sort of faery politics? Was this all games to them, all horrible, cruel games they’d dragged her into?

They’d made her say what that monster had done to her, say it all in a room full of strangers and the man who’d abused her and he could see how she’d trembled by the end of it, even if her voice stayed strong, even if she tensed her muscles so you could hardly see it.

The worst part was, it hardly encompassed the real horror he’d put her through. It wrapped it all up in a few sentences, months and months of torment, of fear, of hopelessness when it grew to be too much to bear. He still remembered the empty look to her eyes as she told him she wouldn’t survive it. He remembered her forced, humorless laugh when she’d told him, but not told him, what those men had put her through in that wagon, at least what she could remember. He remembered the broken way she’d sob when he roused her from a nightmare, lungs filled with earth from being buried alive.

He didn’t want her to have to relive any of it, he just wanted him dead. He didn’t even care if he suffered anymore, only that it eased Rosalind’s pain, that it would let her begin to heal. He cared that she got to go home and feel safe and decide who she wished to be, that she got to make choices not based on survival or fear or some horrible duty these people seemed so eager to drop on her shoulders, even after all she’d endured, all she’d survived.

“Adrian?” she asked, curled into his side, head on his shoulder. She’d mercifully not packed that awful ruffled nightshirt, had instead found something long and plain, nearly like a long-sleeved shift. It helped that it was similar to what he’d found her to wear at home, helped that the neck was plain and high, only barely showing her collarbones.

“Yes?”

“Thank you for staying with me. For holding me, so I know you’re there. I don’t think I’d be able to sleep otherwise.”

“You don’t have to thank me for that.”

“I—I do. I do, because you were so gentle with me and I’m sure it’s the only reason I can stand to be touched at all, now. The reason being close to you makes me feel safe. I was so very frightened in the beginning and I hated being touched, kept waiting for more pain and abuse, because that was all my life had been for the past few months. I couldn’t even fathom at first that you could simply be being kind, that anyone was just kind,” she said softly, voice thick.

“I know,” he said, fighting the sick feeling rising in his throat at the way she’d flinch at the slightest brush of skin, how it left her trembling, how for weeks every time she said something she thought might have upset him in the slightest she’d squeeze her eyes shut instinctively and wait for a blow, that he didn’t even think she realized it.

“I mean, I knew,” he said, hand absently combing through her hair in the way that soothed him, though he didn't know why. “I had to touch you, though, to to take care of you. I tried not to touch you more than I absolutely had to. I—I know what it is like, to have people take advantage. It is a horrible feeling, which I’m sure was only made worse by once more being at the mercy of another.”

There was a long beat of silence and then she sat up slightly, enough to look at him, face utterly distraught. His heart clenched in his chest—he hadn’t meant to make her feel worse, only to tell her that he understood. That he’d been afraid too, in the beginning, even though she could barely stand.

“Dove—”

“I’m sorry,” she said, voice trembling, hardly more than a whisper. “I’m so sorry you know what that feels like. I’m so sorry you had to endure it. I—” She broke off, staring hard at the wall, clearly trying not to cry. Then she sat up fully so they were no longer touching, staring at his face.

“Does it make it worse, being like this? I don’t—I don’t ever want to make you feel like that, don’t ever want you to endure such a torment for my benefit—”

“It doesn’t make it worse. I like being close to you, I like knowing you’re there. I didn’t, at first. Didn’t for a long time. It wasn’t you, really, it was—” he broke off, throat tight. He hadn’t told anyone what had happened, not all of it, hadn’t been able to bear the thought of recounting his foolishness, at how vulnerable he’d been made.

She’d never been able to hide what had been done to her. He could see the sort of abuse she’d endured littered across her skin, been able to see all the weeks of bruises and lacerations, the infection that had taken hold from being bound, the rope constantly rubbing her skin bloody and raw. He’d been able to see it in the way she’d looked at the nightgown he’d changed her into from her filthy, torn dress, at the terror that flashed across her face when he’d told her she’d been unconscious for four days. He hadn’t been able to put it all together then, not when he was so intent on keeping her as distant as possible, but it hadn’t been hard to guess after a few weeks.

He took a deep breath, staring at the ceiling, rather than looking at her, at that heartbroken expression. Heartbroken for him. He should stop talking, he knew, stop talking and change the subject, brush it off, push it back down, but he couldn’t, for some reason, couldn’t stop himself from talking, even though his voice shook.

"They came to the castle seeking my aid. They wanted to learn how to fight vampires, had been enslaved by one far to the east. I—I thought them my friends. I’d been so desperately lonely after Sypha and Trevor left, after I’d lost my parents and I just—I was glad to have guests, people to talk to. I taught them for perhaps a month and I thought it was all going so well. There was so much for them to learn and I knew it would take quite a while before they were prepared. But, they thought—they thought I was holding out on them, manipulating them somehow.

“They—they came to my room in the middle of the night and—god, I was so foolish. Lonely and foolish. I thought perhaps they might wish for more, might—” he closed his mouth, shaking his head, unable to voice the worst of it, acknowledge that he'd wanted so very badly to be wanted that way. To be desired. To perhaps even be loved. He wondered if anyone could love him, now that his parents were gone, truly love him, as he was.

“It was a ploy, to get me too drop my guard, all of it, the whole—they bound me in sanctified silver when I was thoroughly...distracted. Were going to stab me through the heart, but—they didn’t know about my enchanted sword,” he said with a humorless laugh, blinking back the tears threatening to spill over his lashes.

“Adrian,” she said, her voice breaking. He chanced a look up at her and found tears cascading down her cheeks, her face crumpled with devastation. He hated that look on her face, hated that he’d put it there—

“They had no right. No right. That—what horrible, despicable people, and you were helping them. I’m sorry, Adrian. I’m so sorry. You deserved so, so much better than—fuck,” she said, breaking off to stare at the wall as she tried to steady her breathing.

“They’re the ones outside the door, aren’t they?” she asked after a long moment, still staring very hard at the wall, jaw tight.

“They are. I—I don’t know why I did it, really. I didn’t want anyone else wandering up to the castle, didn’t want any more wayward humans— It had worked for my father. I—I don’t know. It felt—it felt deserved.”

“They deserved worse,” she said, voice dark and trembling, her hands balled up into fists against the sheets. “They deserved far worse.”

“So did the men who chased you to my door,” he said softly. “They—you were so hurt when you arrived, weeks and weeks of injuries and I didn’t even want you there, and I wished to kill them again, to make it hurt. I—I was rather awful to you, those first weeks. I was so done with humans, so done with their lies and cruelty and I just—I just left you there, in that room, all alone. I just wanted you to heal so you would leave and I left you there because—because I was afraid you’d only hurt me too. Even though you couldn’t walk, even though you were skin and bones, I was afraid.”

He stared at the bedsheets, too ashamed to look at her. What would it have been like, if Taka and Sumi had never betrayed him, if she'd arrived before he'd been so twisted by hurt and bitterness and fear? If he'd had all the kindness and patience he'd wasted on them, if he'd been able to look at her for what she was—a scared, very hurt young woman—rather than a threat.

“Anyone would have, Adrian,” she said, and he looked up to find her staring at him, brows pinched together. “After what had been done to you? I’m surprised you even intervened.”

“Of course I did, they were going to mutilate you—”

“So? Most people aren’t brave, or they don’t care enough. I told you—I ran before. I found a town, I thought certainly I’d be safe there, they wouldn’t let them drag me back, but—no one did a thing. I begged for help while they gave me a thrashing for running, beat me bloody right in the main square and no one did a thing. They let them drag me back screaming, let it all happen, because they figured I deserved it, or they were too scared to do anything about it. You helped, though. You had every reason not to, and you still helped me. You—you’re so very brave, Adrian. I’m so sorry you’ve had to be.”

He sat up, letting the tears he’d been fighting slip down his cheeks. He hesitated a moment, the words he wanted to say sticking in his throat. He opened and shut his mouth twice before he managed to get them out.

“Would—could you hold me?” he asked, voice sounding small to his own ears. Rosalind surged forward, wrapping him in a tight embrace, as if she’d been restraining herself from doing so before.

She probably had been.

"Of course," she murmured. She held him so tightly and yet her touch was so gentle, so careful with him, as if he was made of glass and not a powerful dhampir, a soldier, as if he was something to be protected. She pressed her face to his shoulder as she held him, and he could feel her tears wetting his nightshirt. Tears for him.

“No one is going to hurt you like that ever again,” she said, voice muffled against his shoulder. “Never. I’m sorry you had to deal with it all on your own, I’m sorry you had to endure it at all.”

He leaned back, tucking them both under the covers again, just wanting her close, needing to know she was there, that they were alright, that they were safe, for now. He couldn't quite remember when her touch had gone from something he tolerated to something he craved, something that grounded him, something that reassured him. He trailed his fingers up and down her spine, lips pressed to her hairline. He didn’t bother trying to stop the tears slipping down his cheeks, knew they’d only quickly be replaced.

“It’s alright, I’ve got you. You’re not alone anymore. You don’t have to carry it all.”

His chest spasmed with silent sobs and he clung to her tighter. There was so much more, so much more he wasn’t sure if he could tell her, about what had been done to his mother, about how it broke his father, ruined his family.

He’d had such a happy family before, a wonderful childhood, and it had all gone up in flames with his mother. He’d lost his father then too, lost the man who’d raised him, who patiently taught him swordcraft and magic, who smiled as he watched him and his mother chase each other around the castle, laughing, who had carried him to bed when he was small and had fallen asleep where he’d been reading or playing. The father he'd adored, had looked up to. 

His father.

There hadn’t been any trace of that man behind his father’s eyes when he’d nearly killed him for trying to prevent him, killing all of Wallachia, killing everything. There hadn’t been the slightest hint that any of that remained, not until the very end, when it was far too late, when Adrian had to kill him, when his father had nearly killed him again, nearly killed his friends.

Only then had he looked at him, not blinded by rage and grief over his mother’s death, only then did he look at him and see his son, recognize his only child.

“I’m killing our boy. The greatest gift you ever gave me, and I’m killing him. I must already be dead.”

He'd had to drive the stake in then, when it was his father, and not Dracula, when he was killing his father and he had to, he knew he had to, but it didn't change the fact in the end that he'd killed his father. He doubted anyone else would have seen the distinction, anyone else could have separated all the evil he'd done from the man who had loved his mother, loved him, but he knew. He carried it with him in that empty, broken castle that had been his childhood home, carried it with him in the dark when sleep evaded him.

His father’s words still haunted him, kept him up at night wondering if there had been any way he could have broken him from his rage sooner, that he could have spared the innocents of Wallachia, that he hadn’t had to kill his father. That he wouldn’t have been left alone in the ruins of his father’s castle, surrounded by all the marvelous things he’d made, by the ghosts of his happy childhood.

He missed his parents, more than he allowed himself. He missed life before it had all gone so horribly wrong.

She tightened her hold on him, as if it might be enough to hold him together, all the carefully stacked, broken pieces that remained. One of her hands came up to thread into his hair as she held him, lightly scratching his scalp in a way that made his breaths slow, his eyes grow heavy, weighed down with his grief.

“You deserve to be held gently too, you know,” Rosalind said softly, though he was more asleep than not. “You deserve comfort. You deserve to be taken care of, to not always be strong, to have to. I promise I’ll take care of you, Adrian, I won't let anyone hurt you if I can stop it.”

Her words felt different, had a sort of gravity that settled in his chest, leaving him feeling warm, feeling—

He wasn’t sure. He slipped into sleep, still clutching her tight. Afraid, now, to let go.

Notes:

This one got away from me, I had really meant for it to be the Vranos beat-down club, but then it turned into a mess of politics and 'faery bullshit,' to quote Trevor. I also just see it highlighting how very strange and incomprehensible Faery seems to outsiders and how much MC/Elyra really feels like an outsider, even though this is supposed to be her 'real home' and 'real family'. She's really starting to agree with Trevor about all the 'Faery bullshit'

Her and Trevor actually have a lot in common, which I find very funny. Like, it'll be bad for Adrian and Sypha if they stop needling each other for ten minutes and become friends. Just two impulsive shitheads with potty mouths who's inner monologues tend to be 'Fuck it, what's the worst thing that could happen?' (God shits in their dinner once again) Like, they can't be trusted on a supply run alone because they'll come back still smoldering with only beer and a very specific type of glue for mending books and somehow more money than they started with.

I really wanted to also just have a quiet moment for Adrian to be able to acknowledge and start processing all the terrible things that have happened to him since his mom died and have someone there for him to to listen and give him space to grieve. I think one of the true tragedies of the show is us watching Adrian go through horrendous trauma—losing his mom, his dad going insane and trying to kill him, having to kill his father to save the world, being assaulted and almost killed by people he trusted and considered friends—and he's always left alone to deal with it and has to keep putting it aside to take care of others.

Next chapter will definitely be Monday Night Smackdown (or whatever day it gets uploaded) I'm really excited to keep working on it and post it, I just also have to study for two exams that are kicking my ever-loving ass, so it'll be written in between screaming and crying about anatomy.

But I also really want to finish our girl going apeshit, black-eyed, crashout city. As a treat.

Thank you so much for reading and for all your comments, it's literally my favorite thing when I see them come through my email. <3

Chapter 34: Hell Hath No Fury

“I have an idea,” Rosalind said, and Adrian, Sypha, and Trevor all jumped as she stepped from a golden circle of light suspended in the air, one that had certainly not been there a second ago.

“What the fuck?!” Trevor near shouted. “I—you were supposed to be going through his study.”

“I was,” she said, grinning as she dropped a pile of books on the table they’d all been working at. “But I figured something out. You know how Valion said the magic in the air was too scattered to make a gate in the air?”

“Yes,” Sypha said, brows furrowed as she watched Rosalind close the gate behind her with a wave of her wrist.

“Well, he was full of shit, ‘cause it’s teaming with it. And when you don’t have to grow the stupid thing, you can make them much faster. Look!” she said, pulling another from the air as a second appeared on the opposite side of the room. She stepped through it and then back.

“Alright, I feel a harebrained scheme coming,” Trevor said in mock seriousness. She ignored him, instead, pulling another gate into existence and grabbing a balled up piece of paper and throwing it through to the pair that appeared right behind Trevor so the paper bounced off the back of his head. She pulled it shut before he could retaliate.

“Can you only create gates between close distances?” Adrian asked, brows furrowed. She smiled wider.

“No,” she said, and turned to open another gate in front of them, this one showing the strange blue forest that had supposed to have been the Muckmire. She felt a wave of relief as she felt its magic tumble in, familiar and natural and malleable in a way that the the magic in the Penumbral City wasn’t. She could feel it swirling around her, filling her with a boost of energy, of that buzzing, crackling feeling along her skin.

“The magic here feels different,” she said, closing the gate with a wave. “It’s—it’s almost like it knows what it’s supposed to be and it’s harder to make it do anything else. I mean it also feels evil and bad, but like,” she gestured to the castle around them.

“So if you open a gate to the forest, or the Gloomveil, you’ll have more magic to work with,” Sypha said, a smile growing on her face. Rosalind nodded very fast.

“And—and, Vranos tried to use his magic when we were in the forest, but it didn’t work. That’s why he got all smashy-smashy. So maybe if there’s enough of it around, his magic won’t work right again.”

“So if this just to make some sort of magic syphon?” Trevor asked, making a face.

“No, that’s part of it, but I thought the short distance gates could actually be really useful. It could give us more movement and unpredictability.”

“Oooh,” Sypha said, flipping back to the diagram of the combat arena they’d found in one of the books Valion had left. “That could give us a defensible position. If I conjured a wall of flame here—”

“—and I put a mess of briars right behind it—”

“—then that puts the distance we were looking for between him and our casters,” Adrian said, nodding. “I don’t know how long it would keep him at bay. How many of those gates can you make at once?”

She conjured one in front of her that lead to the left side of the room, one on the far side of the library that lead right in front of the door and another on top of one of the study tables that lead on top of one of the narrow book cases.

“A lot, I think. It doesn’t seem to be a strain, and if I open another to the blue forest if I need more magic, then I think I could keep it up as long as we need.”

“How fast can you close them?” Trevor asked and she grabbed the tether for each on and snuffed out the connection in quick succession.

“I have an idea,” Trevor said, grinning. Rosalind couldn’t find it in herself to be worried as she usually would at those words coming out of his mouth.

 

---

 

Rosalind assumed it was early when Valion reappeared and dragged them off to some stuffy-looking very formal room where his father sat behind a ridiculously ornate desk in what she assumed to be his formal regalia.

She hoped no one would choose to wear that much fur trim. She kept that to herself, though.

She pretended not to see the side-long dirty looks Valion kept giving the pile of books in her hands. She’d pretended the whole walk to the official office, or wherever they were.

“Has your father explained why you’re here?” Valion’s father asked, a resigned sort of sadness behind his eyes.

“Because—because my uncle has called for a trial by combat and since I am twenty and grew up in the Mortal Realm I am allowed a champion.”

“That’s correct,” he replied, jaw tight.

“I will fight on behalf—” Valion started.

“Val, we went over this,” his father said with a soul-deep sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“You can’t as your representative of the Crown, as per Article 16 of the Royal Charter,” she said without looking at him. “It’s grounds for removal of title.”

“Elyra, I told you to let me handle this,” he said in the measured way that she knew meant he was furious and trying to force patience.

“But you can’t. It says so right—”

“I don’t care, what the book says, Elyra, I told you I would handle it.”

“And how do you expect to handle it without being called before the Council?” his father said, raising a brow.

“I don’t care if I get called in front of the Council, I’ll kill the bloody Council—”

“Valion—" his father snarled, a clear warning.

Rosalind flipped to a marked section of the book, laying it on the desk and turning it towards Valion’s father.

“It says the party must accept their champion in order for them to fight on their behalf, so I’m going to formally not accept my father as my champion.”

“Elyra!” Valion snarled, turning to her.

“She’s right. A champion can’t be forced on her.”

“What in the hell are doing, Elyra? I told you—” Valion said, grabbing her by the bicep to make her look at him.

“I’m being incredibly pedantic and irritating. It’s one of my best skills,” she said, yanking her arm from his grip.

“Top five at least,” Trevor piped up from behind her, and she had to force herself not to smile.

“Are you saying you’d like to forgo a champion? I—I must caution you against—” Valion’s father began but she shook her head and flipped the book to another marked page.

“Not quite. Now here it says ‘the challenged may have an equally matched champion to the challenger or equivalent’, and I think some six thousand year old faerie prince is basically equivalent to four children from the Mortal Realm. There’s also precedent, here, here, and here of mismatches in prowess being compensated by allowing the challenged multiple combatants,” she said, taking another two books from the pile Adrian held and turning them to marked the pages.

She looked up, eyes flicking between Valion and his father. His father looked surprised she’d come prepared at all with any sort of knowledge of faerie law and Valion—

Valion looked like he was going to be sick all over his shoes or kill someone. Possibly both, maybe at the same time.

His father stared at it all for a long moment, mouth set in a thin line. When he looked up he had that same bone-deep tired look Valion got when she asked him too many questions.

“This is what you want, child?” he asked, watching her face. She nodded.

“You’re sure this is what you want? There are others in Court who would fight on your behalf, I have a list—”

“No. This is what I want, I want to fight with my friends—”

“Elyra, this is not some silly story book where the power of good and friendship triumphs over the villain,” Valion spat, anger twisting his face.

“I know, that’s why we’re planning on stabbing him. You know, with a sword? Figured that might work better than friendshipping him to death,” she snapped back, fighting the urge to roll her eyes at him. He must think her very stupid.

“Stars help us, she does take after you,” Valion’s father said, almost to himself as he shook his head. “Alright, well if you’re set on it, it’s within your rights and the Crown accepts your proposition. You will be informed when the time has been set for the trial.”

“What do we get when we win?” Trevor asked from behind her and she couldn’t help the single bark of laughter that escaped her lips at the sheer nerve of it before she could stop herself. She turned so she could elbow him, schooling her face with some difficulty.

“Shut up,” she hissed at him as Valion’s father just stared at the four of them in front of him as if they were particularly dumb monkeys that had been lead into his very fancy office.

“What? Someone has to ask the important questions,” Trevor retorted. “There could be a cash prize, but I’ll take non-faerie beer—”

“Shut the fuck up!” she whisper-yelled at him before turning back to Valion’s father, who looked a little green, jaw tight.

“Thank you, Your Majesty, for your fair consideration,” she said, doing a weird little bow that she knew was not correct, but she also knew he’d think it Valion’s fault for not teaching her, which she found funny.

Valion grabbed her wrist and yanked her to the far back corner of the room before he turned to her, furious.

“What do you think you’re doing? You’re going to get you and your friends killed. Now go back up there and say you changed your mind—”

“But I didn’t.”

“Elyra this is not the moment to be stubborn—!”

“I’m not being stubborn. If you wanted to fight my battles for me, you should have started earlier, when I needed it, but I’m a big girl now, and I don’t need Daddy to step in and save me.”

“You are going to let your anger at me damn you—damn your friends,” he spat, though she could see he was blinking back tears.

She nearly felt bad.

“It’s not because I’m angry at you. I mean, I am, still, it’s only been like four days. You know why, really—other than the fact that I want to kill him myself for what he did to me? It’s because of what you said. Everyone will keep coming after me until I show them that I’m a fucking threat, and so are all my friends in the Mortal Realm.”

“You’re all just idiot children!”

“Maybe. Children like to play games, though, and I never did get to finish mine,” she said before turning on her heel and stalking out of the chamber, her friends’ footsteps echoing behind her.

 

---

 

“He might actually kill you when we win this,” Trevor said, looking up into the Royal Box where Valion was staring daggers at the lot of them. He was one of the few people in the arena—they hadn’t let any spectators in yet.

They were only allowed out of the antechamber they were to wait in to get a look at what would be their battlefield, since none of them had seen it before.

Apparently trials were quite popular in the Undercourt. Of course the whole farce seemed more like a day at the Roman colosseum, but Unseelie apparently had quite the penchant for bloodsport.

The longer Rosalind spent down in the Unseelie Court, the more she found herself agreeing with some of the awful things Trevor had said about the fae. She’d thought him maybe just mean and prejudiced as a monster hunter, but most of them really seemed awful and incomprehensibly strange.

The reality of what they were about to do was starting to sink in, that they’d not only be fighting Vranos, but with an audience of bloodthirsty fae out for carnage. Adrian, Sypha, and Trevor were all seasoned warriors, but she’d only ever really fought once, in the strange forest, and even though she thought their plan was a good one, she wasn’t sure if she could keep up her role.

What if she found out halfway through the fight just what the consequences of overusing her magic were, the ones that Valion kept harping on her? What if he was right and she’d lead her friends right into a slaughter? What if—?

“It’s going to be okay,” Adrian said quietly, squeezing her hands. “It’s just nerves, I promise.”

“I—I know,” she said, hoping that she’d believe it. She didn’t want her foolishness and horrible family to get them hurt, especially when they’d been so kind to her, when they’d come to save her.

When they were really her first friends. Even maybe Trevor.

What a miserable payback that would be for everything they’d done for her.

She watched Trevor stand facing Valion for a long moment, eyes narrowed, before fully flipping him the bird.

“Trevor!” Sypha said, yanking his arm down as Rosalind had to turn to hide her laughter, poorly, from Valion.

Yes, perhaps even Trevor.

“What? I am not taking a chance of dying without flipping that prick off,” he retorted.

“Well, when you put it like that—” Rosalind said, moving to turn, but Adrian grabbed her hand.

“When has Trevor ever had a good idea?” he said.

“Hey!”

“About fifteen seconds ago,” she said, fighting a laugh.

“I have good ideas all the time, thank you!”

“It doesn’t matter, no one here is dying,” Sypha said, glaring at the pair of them. “Now you two need to focus instead of using all of your nervous energy to be juvenile and annoying!”

Rosalind had the sense to look abashed, but Trevor just raised an eyebrow.

“Can I use my regular energy to be juvenile and annoying?” he asked, fighting a smile. Sypha smacked him on the arm, which only made him smile wider.

"Excuse me."

Rosalind turned, only to see a faery page, give them all a shallow bow, very obviously staring at the lot of them like zoo animals.

Did faeries keep humans in zoos? It seemed horrible and deeply depraved, so she wouldn't put it past the murderous bastards. 

"King Veylon requests your presence for the final arbitration," he said, still staring at them strangely. "If you will follow me."

She sighed before nodding and following the man, her friends trailing behind her. Adrian subtly took her hand, settling a little of the rising panic within her.

If it was an arbitration, that meant Vranos would be there, of course, and the thought alone left her nauseous. She wanted him dead, wanted to kill him herself, but the thought of him alone still filled her with fear, even though she wasn't in that cell any longer, even though he couldn't drown her in dirt or torment her for weeks with iron or lecherous vampires.

She shouldn't be afraid, she wasn't alone anymore, she'd escaped and yet, without the burning adrenaline and fear in her chest she felt very much like a foolish, fragile girl. 

She glanced at Adrian and he gave her hand a squeeze, letting go only when they were about to enter the arbitration room. 

Valion's father—Veylon—stared at her as she entered, jaw tight. Vranos was already there, lips curled into a sneer, eyes sparkling with cruel amusement. 

A little of that fury set alight in her chest at the sight of his expression, extinguishing some of the fear. He was a miserable, horrible excuse of a man, and she needed him dead—only then would she be free of this wretched fear, only then could she move on and try to bury the memories of what he'd done to her. She hung onto that anger tightly, focussing on it, rather than the fear in her throat, her heart pounding against her ribs.

Veylon sighed as she situated herself to the opposite side as Vranos, glaring at him, unwilling to look away lest he try something.

“You may still withdraw your accusations—” Veylon said, not quite looking at her. 

“No,” she said, glaring at Vranos, at the horrible little smile on his face. “He did all of it.”

“If you choose to go through with this, it does not end until one or both of you is dead. There is no outside intervention, no changing your mind after this. You should consider the gravity of what it means to step into that arena. What happens generally has little to do with the truth of the matter. That’s often why it’s invoked,” he said, voice hardening at his last statement as he shot a withering look at his son. Vranos ignored him, lips curling into a cruel smile.

“Your grandfather is trying to give you an out, niece. Are you ready to die, little changeling?” Vranos asked mockingly.

”Are you?” she shot back. “Do faeries have gods? If so, you should make peace with yours. Fuckwit.”

Valion’s father cleared his throat, glancing back at the record keeper who was furiously scribbling. “This—this all goes on the official record.”

“Oh,” she said, clapping her hands together as she turned back to Vranos, a mean little smile on her face. “Well, in that case, you’re what happens when they let the afterbirth grow up. It gets into dick-fighting contests with little girls and loses. If there’s enough left of you when we’re done, I’m going to scrape it into a jar and take it back to the Mortal Realm to dump into the trough drunkards piss in after a night out, you stupid, craven little cockwart. You should have saved everyone a lot of grief and shit yourself to death, so you could go out the same way you lived—being a pain in the ass.”

With that she turned on her heel and stalked off before he could say anything back. She heard footsteps behind her and Trevor’s bark of a laugh.

“I’ll be the first one to piss on whatever slime remains of you,” she heard Trevor say, making her mouth twitch up in the smallest of smiles even as her heart pounded in her chest as if trying to escape.

 

---

 

“She—she is horribly rash,” his father said, jaw tight, as he climbed into the Royal Box and warded it against eavesdroppers. “Rash, foul-mouthed, and hot-tempered. She called him a cockwart.”

“Is that all?” Valion asked as his father sat in the seat next to him. She’d been far more creative when she’d thought him to be his brother.

“No, that was rather the least of it. She called him grown-up afterbirth, which I don’t even think you’ve called him, and I’d thought you’d called him everything. So he is...incandescent with rage.”

Valion let out a breath. That no doubt particularly incensed his brother considering his whole hang up was being born the second twin. It was a particularly good insult and an infinitely stupid thing to call him when she was already so outmatched.

“She takes after you. Even after being dumped in the Mortal Realm for two decades—”

“I didn’t dump her!” he snarled back. “I found her a good family, I kept an eye on her. The only reason I was gone so long was because I was dealing with the mess you created in the Heartlands.”

“I tried to council her out of going through with it, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Not that Vranos’s goading helped.”

“Just let me deal with it—”

“No, Valion. There is nothing to do but sit and watch,” his father said, hand curling into a fist. Valion felt his connection to his magic sever, felt his legs lock up, refusing to obey him.

He’d forgotten what it felt like, understood his daughter’s rage at the sensation all too well now—it was utterly untenable.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he snarled at his father. “I will fucking kill you—”

“You won’t,” his father said with a sigh, staring out over the arena, the faeries slowly filling the stands.

“I will. I will if you force me to sit here and do nothing to help her. If you make me sit here and watch her die—”

“Her friends seem very confident,” his father said, cutting him off as if he couldn’t hear him. "The brown-haired one has a mouth nearly as vile as your daughter.”

“Father—”

“I can’t, Valion. I can’t. There is already unrest in the Heartlands, if I allow you to so flagrantly spit on the law—”

“She’s your granddaughter. She’s your granddaughter and she is a child—”

“Valion, there is not a single outcome today that will not devastate me. There might be justice, if the stars are kind, but there is not a single ending to this that will not haunt me.”

“You know what he did to her, I told you, I told you how much worse it was than she said—”

“I do, Val. It was despicable, and I have rarely been filled with such rage. She is a child and an innocent and it is a miracle she survived it. I am not saying that he does not deserve punishment. But despite the abhorrent things he’s done—Valion, he’s still my son. There is no winning for me today. I either watch him kill my granddaughter, an innocent child, the first Unseelie child born in a century, for daring to tell the Court what he did to her, or I watch her kill my youngest son. As despicable as he may be, he is my son of more than six millennia, same as you, and I will mourn him, should she manage her justice. And if she doesn’t, I know you will kill him still and it will be an utter waste. It is a wretched, wretched day and it never had to happen,” his father said, voice constricted.

“You wouldn’t have done a thing if I brought it to you privately, you would have talked your way around it, excused him like always—”

“I would have sent him to the Rift,” his father said, eyes glued on the far side of the arena, though he doubted he was seeing anything. “I would have sent him to the Rift, and he would have stayed there until something foul enough crawled out and killed him. He would have never stepped foot in Court again. He had her defiled, Valion, by mortal scum and a fucking vampire. He buried her alive for months and tortured her with iron. She’s lucky she didn’t lose that foot. There is no excuse for that, there is no discussion. I would have handled it quietly, but I would have handled it. You should have trusted me to handle it.”

Valion stared at him, mind whirring. He’d never once even considered he’d do anything to Vranos if he’d brought it privately, assumed he’d simply dismiss the evidence they had and make excuses as he always had—every time Vranos stabbed him at a State dinner, or tried to poison his wine, or have him strangled in the night, he’d always brushed it off. How could he have known there would ever be a line Vranos could cross that his father wouldn’t stand for?

Valion bit his cheek hard, trying to fight the tears threatening to spill over his lashes.

“I’m sorry, for what it’s worth,” his father said, still staring straight ahead.

“It’s not worth my daughter’s life,” he spat back, hands curling into fists.

 

---

 

“It’s going to be alright,” Alucard said, pulling Rosalind to the far side of the antechamber they’d been made to wait in, far from where Trevor and Sypha could overhear.

She nodded, though he could still see she didn’t quite believe him. The longer they were made to wait, the worse her nerves grew. She’d been furious after they’d met with her grandfather and Vranos, furious enough that he was quite sure she’d try to tear him apart with her bear hands. But then the minutes kept ticking by and he’d noticed her hands begin to tremble, her shoulders curl inward.

He and Sypha and Trevor—they were used to fighting. He and Trevor had been trained for it practically since birth. Sypha was perhaps the most powerful human mage he’d ever met, and she had quickly found a taste for battle, craved the adrenaline of it.

Rosalind had fought because she had to, fought only on instinct and hardly understood any of the mechanisms of her magic. She’d been giddy with her discovery of her conjured portals, was delighted with the strategic advantage it gave them, but it was far different when it came time to step into an arena with the man who’d tortured her, who wanted nothing more than to kill her in front of her father.

“I promise—I promise, Rose. I won’t let him near you. You know I won’t let him hurt you.”

“But—but what if he hurts you, or Sypha, or Trevor—”

“We look after each other, we make a good team. We’ve dealt with worse, Rose. You just need to stay calm, and keep to the back. If you can do that and keep opening those gates and growing walls of your briars, we’ll have it done in no time. Okay?” he said, cupping her jaw, thumb tracing her cheekbone. She leaned into his touch and he stepped forward to pull her into a hug, knowing that, at least, soothed her.

“We’ll be back at the castle before you know it. With those gates of yours we could even go to your house and move in what you’d like. I’m sure you’d like your own things again, rather than what I’ve been able to scavenge.”

She smiled slightly, despite herself. “I could bring my father’s tools back. You have an awful lot of books in need of repair.”

“I do,” he said with a smile. “I daresay it’ll take you an awful long time if you mean to fix them all.”

“An awful long time,” she said, smile widening just a bit, despite her worry. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, holding her just a bit tighter. They’d kill her miserable uncle and she’d be safe and they could return home, finally be free of the whole nightmare of Faery and cursed dream magic. He wouldn’t have to keep himself awake through the night in case she stopped breathing, in case Vranos tried to drown her in dirt, wouldn’t have to worry about fever taking her from the infection in. her lungs, or her withering to nothing, unable to eat a thing.

He only had to make sure her uncle never made it anywhere near her. He would never hurt her again, not if he had anything to say about it.

No one would.

 

---

 

Valion watched, nails pressed into the meat of his palms so hard that it would draw blood, soon enough.

Elyra was standing too far forward in her friend’s loose sort of formation as they waited for the horn to be blown, far to close to where Vranos stood two hundred yards away. She didn’t know just how fast he could be—none of them did, truly. If he surged forward at the start and broke her friends' ranks he’d tear her apart, smash her to a bloody pulp, despite the fact the the obsidian negated his most powerful magic.

He’d never been a strong enough caster to break through it.

Elyra could though, could call forth her briars, hopefully enough to keep him at bay, to defend herself if he got too close—

But she should be further back, It was the only way she’d have the reaction time to rely on them.

The horn sounded, and his heart stopped.

Vranos leapt forward without hesitation—

And the little speaker called up a wall of flame, Elyra bursting a wall of black briars right behind, disguised by the flames. Vranos was far from dissuaded by the flames, leaping through without pause, but he hadn’t been prepared for the six inch thorns all along the bramble on the other side, nor for one of the vines to wrap around his middle and fling him back over to his side of the arena.

“They have brains, at least. Some of them,” he said, no doubt excluding the Belmont.

Valion froze, though, as Elyra moved back, as she threw out a hand towards her dhampir and the Belmont boy and a golden-ringed portal appeared between them, a portal which they leapt through without thought, appearing on the other side of the flames and briars, where Vranos was pushing himself up furiously from the obsidian.

They leapt in, struck him hard while he was disoriented, trying to figure where on earth they’d come from, but by then another of the golden portals appeared and they leapt back through before he could retaliate.

A hush fell over the arena.

“What did she just do, Valion?”

“I—I don’t—” he stuttered, staring at her with wide eyes. “She’d asked me if circles could be made in the air.”

“They can’t,” his father spat back.

“Apparently they can,” he said, nodding at the three that opened in near tandem around his brother, Elyra’s friends once more leaping out, blitzing him, and leaping back through the portals as she pulled them back out of existence.

There was another portal open behind her, though its sister sister was nowhere on the field. He couldn’t quite see where it lead, but next time she conjured those impossible portals and her friends leapt out, Vranos was ready, hand outstretched as he called on his magic to bury them, as he’d killed so many before—

And nothing happened. Rage flashed across his face as he tried to figure it out and fend of the latest barrage of attacks.

Had she done something, figured out, somehow, the mechanism of the Undercrypts, of the forest that rose from the Muckmire to dampen his magic?

How could she? She had no basis in magic, had hardly ever had a lesson unless he couldn’t him telling her how to pull forth a circle.

It didn’t matter, though, didn’t matter as long as it gave them the edge, and so far Vranos seemed unable to make enough sense of their patterning to mitigate their advantage.

Perhaps they had more of a chance than he’d thought.

They just had to finish it it quickly, before he figured out how to counter them.

 

---

 

Rosalind's heart was hammering in her chest as she tried to predict where best to open gates, predict where Adrian and Sypha and Trevor would need them.

Adrian had severely understated how they fought together—they weren’t simply a good team, they were a force of nature, so much so that she wondered if they could read each other’s thoughts.

She did as Adrian had told her, sticking to the back, keeping the gates opening and moving, every so often winding her briars around Vranos if she could manage it and chucking him across the barrier she and Sypha had made. She doubted tossing him around did very much damage, but it did infuriate him, and even she could see he fought worse angry.

And he’d been very, very angry since she’d flooded the arena with magic from the Muckmire that he seemingly couldn’t use. It seemed enough to make it very difficult for him to break through any of the obsidian, even where her vines had smashed through, as if they were blocking his access to the soil.

Good. He’d done enough evil with soil for his whole would-have-been immortal lifespan.

She managed to snake a tendril of vine around his leg, launching him back across the wall of briars and flame. Adrian glanced over his shoulder and smiled at her, his golden eyes sparkling with amusement. It was enough to put butterflies in her stomach, even in the middle of a goddamn Unseelie death arena, even mid-Vranos-beat-down. The sight of him alone filled her with such a comforting warmth, made her heart beat faster, her breath stutter in her chest.

No one had ever made her feel like that before.

She watched Vranos vault through the flames over her wall of briars, hammer raised and ready to smash Adrian, he was coming so fast, there wouldn’t be time for him to move—

She grabbed the knife Valion had given her from her belt and threw out a hand, calling forth a gate right in front of Adrian, directly in Vranos’s path, its other half opening in front of her. She raised her knife above her head, but she’d miscalculated, not conjured it to he side enough and she was too slow to turn in time, his hammer crashing down on her collarbone, her vision whiting out just as she slammed the knife into the unprotected skin at the crook of his neck, a briar shooting out instinctively to wrap around him and throw him back across the wall of flame like a rag doll.

“Rose—god, why did you do that?” Adrian said—how had he gotten to her so fast? He was on the other side of the arena, a hundred yards away—

“He was going to hurt you, you didn’t have time to move—”

“I did, dove, I—fuck, KEEP HIM BUSY!” he called across the field to Trevor and Sypha.

“Got it,” Trevor yelled back without turning as Adrian pulled her back, pulled her far away from the center of the arena.

“Can—can you move you move your fingers?” he asked and she turned to look at the damage, but he gently, but firmly held her jaw so she couldn’t see it.

“Adrian—?”

“Don’t, it—it looks worse than it is. Can you move your fingers for me?”

She couldn’t feel anything, which she knew was probably bad, but she tried. She could see the grim look on Adrian’s face, the way his brows pulled together, knew it was bad and he was trying not to frighten her.

She heard Sypha scream as she tried to drive Vranos back with huge plumes of fire, Trevor moving to flank with his whip, but it was more dangerous now, without the gates, without Adrian helping—

“Go—” she said, calling up a vine to bind her arm in place, to keep from worsening it as much as she was able.

“I’m not leaving you undefended like this—”

“I’ll hang back,” she said quickly. “I’ll keep the gates coming. We can’t do anything about this until he’s dead.”

She fought the urge to look at it, fear curling in her stomach. If Adrian didn’t want her to then it was for a reason, so knew that and she needed to stay focused.

She could see the horror after.

“Rose—”

“Don’t worry,” she said, reaching out to pull a gate from the air. Adrian looked at her for another moment before nodding and leaping through, attacking Vranos with a new sort of ferocity, one she should have found frightening.

She opened a handful of gates around where they fought so Trevor and Sypha could step in and out, keep him turning, trying to guess their next location, though she was slower to weave them, partially because she only had one hand now to cast and partially because the numbness was wearing off, leaving her with a rising nausea at the agony.

She needed this to be over, or she’d pass out from it, or become a liability for her friends. She took a deep, shaking breath, glancing up to where Valion sat in the Royal Box, whiter than death, eyes wide and terrified as they met hers, even if he kept the rest of his face expressionless.

Then it was very bad.

It was very bad and she needed it to be over.

 

---

 

Valion had to fight the urge to vomit as he watched his daughter make a stupid, idiot decision, as he watched terror flash over her face as Vranos leapt at her dhampir, hammer raised, as she threw out a hand and made one of those impossible, flickering golden portals in front of him, its sister appearing right in front of her.

She didn’t know how fast he was, didn’t know that he was clearly using it as a ploy to get Vranos in close where he could do more damage, especially when unbalanced. She didn’t know, and she foolishly fell for her dhampir’s feint, wildly overestimating her own ability to deal with her uncle in any sort of physical fight.

She’d never even had a single lesson, looked so slight and small and fragile standing there in all her foolish, forced bravery, and she’d placed her gate too close, didn’t know how to move as quickly as she needed to, yet.

The crack of Vranos’s hammer breaking her bones nearly made him vomit on the spot.

“Foolish, foolish girl,” his father said next to him, eyes locked on the fight as she conjured another of those bramble vines and flung him hard back over the wall of thorns and her friend’s flames.

Vranos had shattered every bone in her shoulder and probably crushed the top of her humerus and a few ribs. The whole of it was dropped down unnaturally, her arm hanging limb as she fought off the shock of the blow. Her dhampir was at her side so fast he hadn’t seen him move, his face white as he examined the damage, pulled her back, as far as he could from the fighting.

He should be down there, he should be seeing to his daughter, protecting her from his monster of a brother and he would, had his father not tethered him to this fucking box, had he not severed his connection to his magic. Instead, he was bound to this chair, unable to move, unable to do anything to intercede.

“I’m stunned she’s still standing. It must be the shock,” his father said, almost under his breath and Valion hated that it was true, that it was probably the only reason she was still standing, that it would only keep her standing so long as it masked the pain, unless the internal bleeding got her first.

“Father—”

“You know I can’t. You know I can’t,” he retorted, furious, but his voice shook, if only slightly.

“She’s just a girl—”

“I can’t, Valion. You had better hope those friends of hers keep him away from her, that they—” he broke off, unable voice the reality of it all, that for her to live, they’d have to kill Vranos. Murderous, sadistic, wretched Vranos, but his son, Valion’s brother, his twin.

They all knew it was deserved, if the children managed it, but he doubted that made it any easier for his father to watch.

His mother had refused to come. She’d been inconsolable and had thrown a vase at his head when he’d simply asked if she planned to.

Of course, perhaps they wouldn’t have had to if they hadn’t allowed him to become a monster. If they’d curbed any of his sadism, his poisonous envy, his violent outbursts. Maybe if they hadn’t decided to look the other way as some sick sort of way of preparing him for the throne, of preparing him for the danger that accompanied it, the constant threats and uncertainty, perhaps if they’d had any motivation to raise his little brother to be anything but the worst of their Court, a cruel, murderous monster, perhaps then—perhaps then they wouldn’t be faced with the reality that either their ruinous son or their granddaughter would be dead by day’s end. Perhaps then they wouldn’t have to know that they were just as responsible for what she’d suffered, what she was suffering now.

She was an innocent in all of this, a child, and she was good—he’d made sure she was good, had the chance to be, to grow roots before they could be smothered by the politics of Court. Perhaps the only Blackthorne given the chance in living memory. Perhaps longer.

Elyra and the dhampir were still talking—arguing, it looked like. She’d wrapped vines around herself to bind her injured arm to her, to stabilize it—that was clever, at least, would stop it worsening in the short term.

His stomach turned as he saw why, as she convinced him to leave her behind, to join her other friends against his brother. It was—it was the tactical call, he knew it and clearly the dhampir knew it too, but for her to be left alone in such a state, if Vranos got past their line—

She couldn’t withstand another hit.

“Father—”

“Valion, you know—”

“She’s my little girl. She’s my little girl, and this is all my fault, and if you let him kill her I’ll never forgive you,” he said, voice breaking. His father didn’t look at him, eyes locked firmly on the fight below, but he reached out to hold his hand tight, the angle of the box not allowing anyone else in the stands to see.

His father’s hand shook, even as tightly as he held on.

 

---

 

Rosalind opened a gate behind her, to the the beautiful blue-leafed forest that had grown out of the awful swamp, everything in it beautiful and bright as jewels, silvery moon-motes sitting among the branches. The magic had been so thick in the air there, humming and so eager to do as she asked. It was easier to call on than the magic of the arena, than the magic of the Penumbral City. She called it to her, asked it to flood the arena, to help as it had before, branches and trees and vines leaping out to deflect blows that she would have been too slow to block.

She closed the gate behind her, focused on the humming of the magic that had flooded in, the crackle of it in the air, at the feeling of it surging below her feet, swarming in the air, clinging to her skin like dew.

She didn’t think about her arm, didn’t register the pain anymore. No, it was just the lovely, wild magic and its song, her magic, and the man who had meant to kill her as vilely as he could manage. The man who saw her dragged from her home, subjected to the whims of vile, disgusting men that beat and abused her and worse—she didn’t even know how much worse. The man who had spent every night burying her alive, forcing dirt into her lungs until they bled from hacking it all up, that terrorized and spent months trying to drag her to Faery with briars and iron wire, that planned to sell her to that horrid, lecherous vampire to grope and drain her and worse, if he had his way, that wanted to drag out her death as long as he could manage, just because she’d been born.

She felt power rising in her, felt the air crackle and fill with ozone. The ground almost seemed to quake below, the air almost filled with the distant rumblings of a storm.

“Get back,” she called, opening gates behind her friends as she felt it rising still, but she waited until her friends stepped back, and reappeared behind her, gates winking shut, waited until Vranos stood alone and turned to glare at her, face murderous.

“Close your eyes,” she said, just loud enough for her friends to hear, jammed her own shut as she let go of the tether and lightening struck, shaking the whole of the arena, the clap of thunder enough to make her ears ring. Even with her eyes shut she could see the flash of light, but she wasn’t blinded when she opened them. She glanced back to see that her friends had listened, that they were staring at a smoldering Vranos as he tried to get up, trying to blink away the blindness.

“Give us a gate,” Trevor called and she obliged, walking slowly, but steadily forward as Sypha and Trevor leapt through the gate to take advantage of his blindness, the fact that he was clearly stunned. Adrian didn’t need it, simply appearing to blink into existence behind him.

Rosalind just kept walking willing new vines to burst from the obsidian, to wrap around his knees and slam them to the earth, more and more wrapping around like snakes, holding him there no matter how hard he struggled. She thought of the grass Valion had been so upset about, thought about how very easy it had been to pull the very magic from it, to leave it withered and dead without its essence.

She reached out as Vranos raised his hammer to take a swipe at Adrian, focusing on that horrible, horrible arm, focusing on the miserable magic in it, just waiting to be free of such vile flesh—

What was it, Trevor had said?

She found the tethers to and pulled them free, smiling as he screamed, as the hammer fell from his hand, cracking the stone where it landed. It almost seemed to deflate under his chainmail and she knew—she knew it was turning to ash just as the grass had.

Faeries were made of magic, after all.

“What the fuck did you do?” he snarled, fear mixing with anger and pain, and she watched in a detached sort of way as her friends backed up, as they moved away, moved behind where she stood, considering the revolting man in front of her.

“I told you I was going to rip your arms off,” she said, magic coursing through her vibrating against her skin—singing! Oh the singing!

“You black-eyed bitch!” he spat and she smiled, but there was no warmth in it, no amusement.

“You really are pathetic, aren’t you? At the end of the day, you’re a mean, pathetic little man throwing a tantrum,” she said, almost playing with the tethers on his other arm. She pulled them, slower this time, drawing out the magic being torn from his flesh, watching as he screamed.

“The funny part is, if you’d only asked, I’d have given my spot in line, been happy to,” she said, soft enough that she doubted anyone but Vranos and her friends could hear. “I don’t want anything to do with Faery, and I certainly don’t want that fucking throne. But you tortured me for months, you stole things that can never be replaced, and you tried to hurt my friends. How long did you keep me in that cell, Vranos?” she asked, pulling out the iron dagger from its sheath.

“Fuck you.”

“Wrooong answer,” she said in a sick sort of sing-song, pressing the flat of the blade to his cheek. He howled, flinching away.

“Don’t be such a baby, it’s only iron. How long did you keep me chained in iron? You said I’d grow used to it, didn’t you?” she asked, pressing the flat of it to his neck as more vines tore out of the ground and wrapped around him, holding him in place.

“Just kill me, you heinous bitch.”

“Oh, I am what you made me, uncle. You planted this wretched, hateful seed in me and it’s only right you see how it’s grown. Now tell me how many days you kept me in that goddamn cell before I cut your fucking ears off,” she snarled, and the smile was gone, the veneer of cordiality, leaving only hatred and fury.

“Twenty-six days,” he spat, though there was fear in his eyes now, fear like he’d forced in her heart, that left her trembling at the thought of falling asleep, never mind falling asleep alone. Fear at the idea of a wagon, at the scent of hay, at the very thought of the bitter tonic they’d force down her throat to keep her drugged and unable to fight back or run.

“Twenty-six days. Twenty-six days miserable days. Well I suppose that deserves something memorable, doesn’t it?” she asked, closing her eyes as she called the wonderful magic of the blue-green forest to her, heard it singing and felt it curling around her, whispering against her skin like moth wings, thought of how it had all sprung from that disgusting swamp.

Fertilizer was usually ugly and smelled rank, but it grew the most beautiful things.

 

---

 

Valion wasn’t sure he was even breathing any longer.

The arena was still trembling in the aftershock of the lightning Elyra had summoned, lightening even an experienced caster would hesitate to call if they even had the talent for it, never mind a bolt of that strength. He expected her to be motionless on the ground when his vision returned to him, expected her to be dead because he’d never taught her not to over-channel, never taught her how to find her limit, cast safely.

Instead he saw her slowly walking forward, opening another of those impossible portals for her friends to leap through and take advantage of Vranos being stunned. He watched her walk steadily forward as if she hadn’t just called on an impossible amount of magic for a novice, for anyone with any sense, as if her shoulder wasn’t caved in and bleeding, secured to her side with vines. He watched her walk forward with her spine straight and her chin set defiantly as she stared down his brother, pinning him to the ground with more and more of her bramble-vines.

He watched her walk forward, eyes black as the magic overtook her, as her rage overtook her.

The last time she’d lost herself to the magic, she’d killed everything living within ten feet of her without even lifting a finger. The last time she’d over-channeled she’d cured the Gloomveil of the blight it had suffered for longer than his father had been alive. He’d never taught her how to pull herself from a rage, never taught her to use it as a tool, never taught her how to banish the gathering magic before it caused irreparable harm.

“She’s losing herself to it,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

“She’s not even casting, she’s just threatening him with a knife—she does take after you. You always did have to drag it out.”

“Her eyes, Father—”

“I can do nothing until the trial is concluded. I have healers on standby—”

“She doesn’t know how to pull herself from it, she hasn’t learned—I haven’t taught her.”

“That doesn’t change anything, Val. You—you should have. You should have taught her something.”

“She shouldn’t be punished for my negligence—”

“What the fuck,” his father said, eyes going wide. Valion watched the sleeve of his brother’s chain shirt fall limply closed, watched what he knew was black ash pour out onto the cracked obsidian.

“I told you, I told you, I told you,” he snarled fighting his father’s hold over him, trying desperately to figure out how Elyra had slipped his.

“You knew—she’s done this before?”

“Let go of the fucking tether before she fucking kills herself,” he spat, sweat beading on his forehead, even as he failed to move an inch. His father ignored him, face ashen as he watched her do the same to Vranos’s other arm, listened to him howl in agony.

“I will fucking kill you, I will fucking KILL YOU—”

“Shut up, Valion,” his father spat without looking away and his voice left him, forcing him to sit in silence and rage, unable to prevent the harm happening right in front of him, unable to do a thing to help his little girl, even though this was all his fault.

He had to watch in silence as the arena again began to tremble, as she grew more and more incensed by whatever it was Vranos was snarling at her, watched his little girl, the little girl who played with her dolls in the windowboxes, the little girl who had had to stand on a stool to help her foster father at the shop’s counter until she was twelve and could see over it, the little girl who’d sang to herself in the back room of the shop as she worked, until her foster father informed her they had a customer. He had to watch her her face curl in rage and pain, had to watch as she burned his brother with the flat of the iron dagger he’d given her, as she lost another bit of innocence to this horrible place, as it twisted her more and more into a wretched Blackthorne, a miserable, cruel thing like him.

His little girl, who he was sure had never hurt a thing before Vranos had taken her, who would have never have even thought of hurting another thing before he’d abused her, who stood torturing him in an arena of cheering, blood-thirsty Unseelie, who was doing exactly what they’d expect of a damn Blackthorne, who was being poisoned by the rot he’d tried so hard to spare her.

He never should have allowed anyone to hurt her, anyone to sow that kind of rage in her heart, never should have left her alone to face the man who had tortured her and stolen the rest of her childhood, stolen the innocence he’d given up so much to preserve.

He watched as she stared at Vranos breathing hard, nodding at whatever she’d forced out of him, watched as she closed her eyes and stowed her dagger, taking a deep breath—

“What the hell is she doing? Just end it, girl! End it,” his father spat, leaning forward in his seat, though his hands shook where they clutched the arms of his seat, knuckles white. “Fucking—let us be done with this misery.”

Vranos began to scream, scream like Valion had never heard him, scream in agony and fear and he hated the pang in his heart at the sound, hated for a second it was his little brother screaming, even if he was a sadistic, evil, monster of a man, even if he wanted him dead a thousand times over for what he’d done to his poor daughter.

He heard his father suck in a shaking breath as Elyra opened her eyes and they were no longer black with rage, but entirely white—burning white—just as roots burst from his brother, roots and branches, the trunk of a tree widening so fast that it simply tore him apart, sending pieces of viscera flying in every direction. Valion couldn’t hear the deafening roar of the crowd as the screamed at the display of violence, the novelty of it, the brutality, though he’d bet they’d have cheered just as loud if Vranos had torn her apart, torn apart a handful of children. All they cared for was the violence, not the target.

He watched Elyra’s hair begin to glow, as if moonlight itself, dancing around her as if in a breeze, though there was none.

The tree kept growing, larger than it had any right, roots as thick as barrels breaking through the obsidian and burying themselves in the loam below.

Not an ordinary tree either, but a damn Eldertree, and not even a normal Eldertree. No, instead of black bark and leaves it had silver—nearly white. Its leaves were iridescent like those she’d cured in the Gloomveil, thorns growing along its branches just the same except instead of being the color of midnight, as they were meant, they were the color of moonlight, same as the faintly glowing flowers that bloomed amidst the branches. It grew until its boughs hung over the spectator seats of the arena, casting them all in a soft, silvery light.

No, it couldn’t be a normal fucking Eldertree, it had to be the sort that no one had seen in living memory, that existed only in crumbling tomes from the first century, that had died with the stars they’d once had, before the moon had dimmed. It had to be the sort of Eldertree that could only be seen as a portent, more than the fucking Gloaming rising from the Muckmire, more than banishing the blight on the Gloomveil.

Elyra turned, eyes still burning white as she stared up at the spectators, who had stopped screaming for blood, instead tittering amongst themselves, uncertainty and fear rippling through the stands. She found his face in the Royal Box and stared, face devoid of any sort of expression, any sign of his daughter.

Her dhampir approached and she looked away, taking the hand he offered after a moment. Her hair ceased its swirling about her head and he watched her stiffen, curling over slightly as she stared at the ground. When she looked up again her eyes were Orlaith’s again, jaw clenched in obvious pain as she she straightened up as much as she was able and walked defiantly to the obsidian doors that had only reappeared at the death of one of the parties, her head held high.

Like a Blackthorne. Like he’d told her to.

“How in the hell did she do that, Valion?” his father asked, voice low, deadly. “Tell me who her mother was right now.”

He felt the tether release and he stood, face curling into a snarl as he turned on him.

“Fuck you. I’m going to take care of my fucking daughter,” he spat and stormed away, heart hammering so loudly in his ears that he didn’t even know if his father had bothered responding.

Notes:

She did it! Finally she did it!

Of course, now a LOT of people know about her weird magic, though I don't know that anyone will be leaping up to fuck with her after watching her explode her uncle with an extinct tree. You know, a normal way the kill a person.

As you do.

Very much looking forward to some angsty hurt/comfort next and for the gang to finally be able to dip out of Faery, not that Valion is going to handle that well. I honestly feel very bad for Valion. He's got a long way to go, but he really does try. This was probably top nightmare day tied with when she was born and Orlaith died.

Also we will have to see what happens when MC isn't literally dying and her and Adrian are living together. Will be some fun navigation there.

Thank you so much for reading and please let me know what you think!

Chapter jam: https://open.spotify.com/track/0jTwM5U5N6SNSGdpXcd0Cy?si=de7400be64e14415

Chapter 35: A Bitter Farewell

Valion sat next to his daughter’s bed, his head in his hands. The palace healers had given her one of their strongest draughts for pain before trying to reconstruct her shoulder, had assured him it would keep her unconscious for at least a day. It had taken them hours to reconstruct the bones that had been broken, though some were too shattered to simply be put back together. They’d had to urge the growth of new bone there, warned him how very fragile they would be for the first few days.

They’d mitigated the scarring, at least, from the surgery. They’d had to make sure they removed all the bone shards lodged in her muscles, make sure they didn’t miss anything that would cause more damage and pain.

He didn’t want her to have any more scars, and certainly not from Vranos.

He kept hearing the snap of his little girl’s bones, when he’d watched her shoulder be caved in by his wretched brother, kept seeing her grit her teeth through the pain and walk out of the arena with her head held high, like what was expected of a Blackthorne, only to pass out from the pain, the shock, the damage, as soon as she was free of all the vicious eyes of the Court.

His little girl. His beautiful little girl.

He angrily swiped at the tears slipping down his cheeks.

Would it have all been such a nightmare if he’d retrieved her at five, like he’d meant? If her foster father hadn’t stepped into the back room to tell her about how far a customer had traveled, if he hadn’t seen the way she beamed at him, if he hadn’t seen the way the man had looked at her like she was his whole world.

Because of course she was.

He hadn’t been able to take her, when he’d seen how her foster father looked at her, hadn’t because he knew it’d shatter the man, if his little girl just went missing in the night, that he’d never, ever recover.

How could he do that to the man who’d raised his daughter with such kindness and patience, things he hardly knew how to offer, especially in the wake of Orlaith’s death? When he doted on her every chance he got, when even he could see just how much she adored him?

Would she hate him still, if he hadn’t missed her whole childhood, but she’d spent it locked away in the Gloomveil house for her own safety?

Would he have been a good father, if Orlaith had lived? Would he have learned how? Would she have leapt into his arms without fear, followed him about with her endless questions, made him play whatever incomprehensible game of the day with her dolls and little toys?

Could he ever earn her forgiveness?

He reached out, smoothing her hair back, taking a moment to trail his knuckles over her cheek—horribly hollow from Vranos’s abuse. She was so thin, so horribly thin and she’d always been slight. How long would it take for her to be healthy again, for the vestiges of her torment to fade?

Stars above, she looked so very fragile tucked into one of the narrow beds of the private part of the infirmary, reserved only for the royal family. It was glamoured and warded against anyone but a very small, select few people, one of the most well-guarded portions of the entire palace.

He stiffened at the sound of heeled shoes crossing the marble floor, closing his eyes hard for a moment, as if that would make this interaction any more bearable.

“How is she?” his mother asked, and he forced himself to turn, to see her red eyes and ragged cuticles, see the way her shoulders bowed. It was so very different than her fury this morning that had left more than a few of the porcelain pieces in her parlor smashed across the floor.

“She’s sleeping. Some of the bones needed to be regrown, so it will be a rough few days. She’ll have to be very careful until they set.”

He watched as his mother crossed to Elyra’s bed and perched on the side. He almost had the urge to push her away, keep her out of her reach of his daughter. His mother was always volatile when upset.

She reached out and smoothed a piece of Elyra’s hair back, combing her fingers through her hair like she’d done to him when he was small. She sat stiffly, as if she was forcing herself to sit straight.

“She’s such a very pretty girl. I’ve never seen anyone with hair this color. She got your curls though,” she said, voice almost hoarse. Valion could see that she was trying very hard not to cry. “I’ll bet she was a precious little thing. I would have liked to watch her grow. It’s been so very long since we’ve had a child at Court.”

“I—I have some sketches I could bring you,” he said, turning back to watch Elyra sleep, finding some comfort in the rise and fall of her chest, proof that she was still alive, that she’d survived that miserable trial.

“I would like that. I’m glad you kept it up,” she said, reaching out to take his hand without looking away from Elyra’s face. She held it so tight, tight enough that it nearly hurt.

It was only then that he realized she was shaking.

“Mother—?”

“I just—I need to be here right now. I can’t deal with the rest of it. It was an awful day,” she said, voice measured. He sighed, shaking his head.

“I—I’m sorry Mother, for your loss,” he said, even though it felt wrong to offer condolences for the man who had tormented his daughter for months, tried to kill her. Of course he was still his mother’s second-born.

She opened her mouth to say something, but just nodded.

They sat in silence for a long time until his mother broke it.

“You should have her measured, while you’re at the palace. She’ll be needing a proper wardrobe and I have no doubt you plan to whisk her away to your house the moment she’s fit to travel.”

His mother meant the official house, of course, the house everyone thought he resided in when he wasn’t at Court.

“I’ll have to see what she’s up for, Mother. It’s not exactly high on the priority list right now.”

“She needs clothes, Valion.”

“I—I know she needs clothes. There’s no point in taking her measurements before she returns to a healthy weight.”

“Then I’ll send someone to the house in a few weeks. I need to be able to order things for her. She’ll need something for Solstice and I would hardly leave it to your tastes.”

He didn’t say anything, didn’t bring up just how ridiculous it was for her to be fixating on Elyra’s wardrobe, on the Solstice festival that was months away. If she couldn’t rage and scream about something, she’d just fixate on something banal and pretend there had never been a problem in the first place.

He wondered if she’d simply pretend Vranos had never existed.

She’d do whatever she needed, he supposed. Father would mourn and be particularly insufferable and rash at Court until he worked through it and Mother would refuse to talk about it. Fae weren’t good with change or death or mourning.

Perhaps it’d be good if his mother focused on her silly little fashion project, on Elyra, on her granddaughter. Focused on what she had, instead of what she’d lost.

But then of course, Elyra wanted nothing to do with Faery, wanted nothing more than to return to the Mortal Realm and write it off.

She couldn’t, he knew, not completely, but he doubted it would do any good to tell her that.

 

---

 

Rosalind shifted, making a face. Everything hurt, though nothing more than her shoulder. There was a deep ache, but also a terrible sort of pins and needles sensation that set her teeth on edge.

She grimaced before opening her eyes, freezing when she saw a narrow room lined with beds that she’d certainly never seen before. It looked to be an infirmary, but it was far different from Adrian’s. She was propped up on half a dozen pillows, slightly angled to her good side. She pushed herself to a sitting position, hissing as it tweaked her aching shoulder.

“Oh—darling, please be careful. The bone hasn’t set yet.”

It was only then that she noticed Valion sitting in a chair beside her bad, hair mussed from running his fingers through it, great shadows under his eyes.

“Where—where’s Adrian? And my friends?” she asked, and he he made a face, though it was gone so fast she might have missed it.

“In my apartments, hopefully not burning them down.”

“I want to go there. I don’t—I don’t want to be here,” she said off, looking around the room again. It felt so very claustrophobic, despite the high, vaulted ceilings.

“It’s the wards,” Valion said. “They can be uncomfortable, but they’re necessary. I—I will have the Head Healer look at your shoulder, but it is up to her whether or not you have healed enough to be released.”

“Fine,” she said, too sore and tired to argue with him. At least this made sense, too. So much of what he told her didn’t, all his ridiculous rules.

At least now they could all return to the Mortal Realm. She’d had quite enough of Faery.

The Head Healer was a sharp-eyed, meticulous faery woman who checked her shoulder thoroughly before saying that she could leave if she was very, very careful with her shoulder for the next four days and kept it in a sling if she wasn’t laying down—which she couldn’t do all the way, or she might turn over on it in her sleep. Rosalind had looked at her wide-eyed when she’d said she’d regrown the bones couldn’t be mended, though they apparently took a few days to harden properly.

Rosalind made a mental note to ask Valion for any books on fae healing he might be willing to lend her. It would certainly be a useful skill to have, much more than growing strange trees.

Valion kept his hand on the middle of her back as he walked her back to his apartments, jaw tight. She stepped out of his reach, though, once they were back in his apartments. It felt weird, was the sort of thing her father had done as they navigated the crowded market, or busy streets in far-off cities. There was comfort in the gesture, comfort that she didn’t feel with Valion.

“I’ll—I’ll make sure your things are packed and we can return to the Gloomveil house. It is far more comfortable. Then—then we shall speak about your plans going forward.”

Rosalind just nodded, unsure if he was really being reasonable, or if it were some sort of trick.

“Rose?”

She looked down the hall to see Adrian poking his head out of the door of the library, his face scrunched with worry. She beamed at him and one second he was sticking his head out the library door, the next he was stood in front of her, gently taking her hand as he looked her over for signs of injury.

“How—how’s your shoulder?” he asked, eyeing what Trevor had very grossly and accurately called ‘the opposite of a shoulder’ which now looked normal, even if it was horribly sore. The Head Healer had given Valion a handful of vials of medicine to help with the pain of it.

“It’s okay, just sore. They just said to be careful with it.”

“She can’t do anything until the bones set, otherwise they’ll need to be re-broken and reset. She is to be on absolute bedrest until then,” Valion said severely, glaring at Adrian.

“You should go sit down then,” Adrian said, leading her to the parlor couch, which was closest.

“She didn’t say I had to be on absolute bedrest. I can still walk around,” she said, making a face at Valion.

“You aren’t to move the arm. It’s safer for you to simply rest until they’re set.”

She huffed a sigh, too tired to argue with him. “I guess.”

He stared at her another moment before he left without a word, striding towards the guest bedroom she’d taken to grab what little she’d brought.

“Are you alright?” Adrian asked softly, cradling her jaw with one hand so gently it made her want to cry. She nodded, her throat tight. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and she fought the urge to just throw herself into his arms and hug him as tight as she could manage it.

“I just want to go home,” she said in barely more than a whisper. He gave her a sweet smile, though his brow remained worried.

“Me too,” he replied, eyes just tracing her face as if he hadn’t seen her for years.

“Are you okay?” she asked, hating the worry that twisted his features.

“I—you were in the infirmary for three days. Valion wouldn’t let us see you and he hardly updated us at all when he came to see meals delivered. He only came then, otherwise he was there.”

“Three days?”

“Your shoulder was bad, dove.”

“I thought you said it looked worse than it was,” she said, trying to ease a little of Adrian’s tension with a joke. He only stared back, face pinched.

“I lied, I—I didn’t want you to panic and make it worse.”

“I know. Thank you,” she said, raising his hand to her lips so she could press a kiss to his knuckles. Even if he had been perfectly safe, the whole thing a ploy, she was far happier ensuring he was safe, even if she had gotten hurt. She didn’t say that to him, of course. She doubted he’d feel the same way, but—

He’d done so, so much for her, even when she was nothing but an unwanted nuisance. She didn’t think she’d be able to bear it if he was hurt, especially on her behalf.

She simply loved him too much for that.

She’d realized it, as she saw Vranos leaping at him, realized in that second before he connected, when icy fear had extinguished that lovely warm, fluttering feeling in her chest, had stolen the breath from her lungs and she’d thrown out her hand without thinking about anything but making sure he didn’t hurt Adrian.

She’d known before too, she thought, known, but hadn’t been ready to put a name to it, not when everything was a nightmare and she could hardly tell up from down. She’d known in that cell, after Vranos took her, known when returning to see him again was so often the thought pushing her through her exhaustion, her pain. She hadn’t been ready to admit it then, couldn’t, when she didn’t know if she’d ever see him again, if he could ever feel remotely the same.

But she knew it now, for sure, knew it when she looked at him, like a ray of sunshine in the ghastly land of eternal night, knew it when he held her hand so gently, thumb tracing over her skin, knew it when she thought of the impossible time stretching out before her, knew it didn’t seem so frightening if he would be there with her too.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, and she just smiled.

“I missed you.”

“You were unconscious.”

“I still missed you.”

He huffed a laugh at that, shaking his head.

“You know, sometimes I think—”

“Let’s get a move-on, love birds. I’m sick of this dump,” Trevor said, tossing what looked like Adrian’s pack on the floor in front of the door with far more force than was necessary.

“Hey, it’s convex again,” he said, grinning as he pointed towards her shoulder.

“Sypha’s been reading somebody the dictionary before bed,” she shot back, returning his smile. Trevor was okay, when he wasn’t being a complete ass, and half the time he was being one, he was at least pretty funny.

Sypha appeared a moment later, pack strapped to her back, a pile of books in her arms.

“Rosalind! How are you feeling?” she asked as soon as she spotted her.

“Better. Still sore, but far better than before,” she said with a smile. Sypha beamed back.

“I’m glad! Oh, and your father said I could borrow these, I thought maybe were could go over them together.”

“Sounds like a good time to me.”

“I am so sick of books,” Trevor said under his breath as he took the pile to carry it for her. Sypha glared at him and Rosalind tried not to laugh.

“If you’re ready we can go now,” Valion said, voice clipped as he noted how closely they sat on the couch, that she still held his hand.

He could go boil his head for all she cared about what he thought of her and Adrian. She didn’t care if he disapproved, or why. Adrian had saved her, taken care of her, been her friend through this whole nightmare. Adrian had come all the way to Faery to find her and save her from her horrible uncle. Adrian made her feel safe when she had to lie down to sleep, because she knew he’d protect her, save her, if someone came to torment her in her dreams again.

“Then let’s go,” she said, not letting go of Adrian’s hand as they crossed to the door.

 

---

 

“I’ll set up your room so you’ll be more comfortable,” Valion said, turning to the stairs nearly the moment they stepped into the Gloomveil house. Rosalind shook her head. Her friends had waited in the yard.

“I want to go home. I—you said I didn’t have to stay, only that I had to learn my magic. So—so, we should make a schedule or something. That way you can check my progress and I can ask any questions I might have,” she said, jaw set

“You should stay here while you recover, then I can make sure everything is healing as it should.”

“Adrian will make sure everything heals right and that I don’t strain myself.”

“You will be far more comfortable here—”

“I want to go home. It’s been weeks and weeks. I just—I need a break from Faery, I need a break from—I need time to process it all.”

Valion just stared at her with such a desolate expression.

“Elyra—”

“Please? Please, just—I want to go home. I’ll keep to the arrangement and work on my studies, but I want to go home.”

He stared a moment before he sighed.

“Of—of course. Just—just let me put a bag together of a few things.”

“Okay,” she said, watching as he turned and climbed the stairs, shoulders slumped. She glanced around, looking at the paintings on the walls, the landscapes, she assumed, of Seelie, the strange insects and flowers painted in such detail.

It took longer than she would have thought to put together a few basic books on magic, so long that she had begun to think about simply joining her friends in the yard and creating a portal back to Adrian’s castle.

He came down the stairs with a far bigger bag than she had expected, stuffed so full it wouldn’t close.

“I—I packed a several introductory volumes and a few other things. Things your mother had—” he broke off, pressing his lips together as he looked away, blinking hard for a moment. “I—I thought they might be of interest to you.”

“I—thank you,” she said, unsure of what else to say. “I—I suppose I shall see you soon.”

“Yes, I suppose you shall,” he said, voice thick. “Please be careful.”

“I will,” she said, wondering if he simply meant while her shoulder healed. It wasn’t as if there was much danger to be found in the castle with Adrian.

Valion stared at her a moment more before he stepped forward and pressed a kiss to her hairline, hand coming up to cradle her head for a brief moment, almost as if she were a small child. He stepped back again before she’d fully processed what had happened, picking the bag back up and striding to hold open the door for her.

“Come any time,” he said, posture stiff and uncomfortable. He hesitated a moment before crossing to Adrian and wordlessly handing him the bag. After that he just stood, as if unsure of what to do next.

She walked over to her friends, pulling one of her gates from the air, the familiar, impossible castle looming from the other side. Trevor stepped through without a glance back, while Sypha turned and offered a polite, “Thank you for lending me the books.”

“Of course,” he replied woodenly, not quite looking at her. She nodded and stepped through after Trevor.

“I—I’ll see you,” Rosalind said awkwardly, staring at just how supremely uncomfortable Valion was. She felt bad, even if it wasn’t enough to stay.

“I—I love you, Elyra. I’ll—I’ll be here, when you wish to begin your lessons. Just, please be careful.”

“I will,” she said, stomach twisting uncomfortably. He stared at her face another moment before his eyes flicked to Adrian and his expression soured. He turned on his heel then, walking back to the front door as if he couldn’t bear to watch her step through the gate.

“Ready?” Adrian asked quietly, and she nodded, taking his hand as they stepped back to the Mortal Realm together.

Notes:

Aaaaand we are back, baby! Faery is behind them (for now) and they can finally have a bit of a respite. Looking forward to a little soft domesticity coming up to balance out all the awful they just went through. It will be really fun to see just how long Adrian and MC/Elyra will end up tiptoeing around the fact that they're hopelessly in love with each other.

Please let me know what you think!

Chapter 36: No Place Like Home

Valion closed the door softly and locked it, taking a deep, steadying breath. He leaned against the door, sliding down until he sat against it, head in his hands. His heart was hammering in his chest, the coffee he’d managed to drink before Elyra had woken threatening to come back up.

She was gone.

She was gone and he didn’t know when he would see her again. She didn’t want to stay in Faery, didn’t want to stay with him.

He couldn’t blame her, not really, but he’d thought, just maybe, that she might have changed her mind, might have been curious enough to stay, might have wanted to get to know him.

Why would she though, when her time in Faery had been nothing but a horror? She’d seen only the worst of it, not the Everdawn fields, or the Magnolia Wood, or the Endless Green Sea. Not any of the places her mother had loved, that he’d loved.

He’d meant to take her to all of them when he brought her home, meant to show her all the beautiful bits before she had to see the ugly.

He’d meant to do a lot of things.

He pressed his forehead to his knees, closing his eyes, as he tried to temper the horrible pain in his chest.

It was the same pain he’d felt when he’d had to leave her in the Mortal Realm, enough to knock the breath from his lungs, enough to send him into a miserable haze where he could barely get out of bed for weeks.

It hadn’t helped, then, that he’d had to return to bury Orlaith. He hadn’t thought Elyra should have to watch him dig her mother’s grave, even if she wouldn’t remember it.

He’d also known if he waited until after to find her a home in the Mortal Realm, he wouldn’t have been able to leave her, and at least then he’d had enough sense to know she deserved better parents than just him and his misery.

Hells, all he wanted to do was grow a circle to that godforsaken castle and make sure she was alright, make sure she was looked after, make sure nothing harmed her ever again. He wanted to be her father, be the father she’d deserved, that she could depend on, not the one that failed her over and over.

He wondered how long it would be before she returned. He’d said he’d give her space, said he’d wait for her to come to him when she was ready.

Now he just had to make it through the time in between.

However long it would be.

 

---

 

Alucard stepped through the gate and to the edge of a familiar forest, the castle looming above in gothic familiarity. He found himself smiling at it, after the whole nightmare of Faery.

“Never thought I’d be happy to see this place,” Trevor said under his breath. Alucard just rolled his eyes.

“It is nice to be back,” Sypha said, though she eyed the corpses staked outside the door with some disgust.

Rosalind, though, just looked a bit lost. He reached out and took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. She looked up at him and gave him a faint smile, letting him pull her gently towards the castle.

Trevor and Sypha almost immediately split off to go bathe, leaving him alone with Rosalind. She still seemed lost in her head as she stared around the entrance hall, though she hadn’t let go of his hand, her brow furrowed.

“Are you alright?” he asked softly. She made a face.

“I think so.”

“Are you in pain?”

“Not really. I just—it’s all the same. It’s all the same and yet I feel as though it should be different in some way. But perhaps the only difference is me. I—I nearly feel like I’ve returned a different person.”

“Not a different person. Just—a lot has happened, Rose, and it’s been far longer for you than for us. It’s sure to be an adjustment.”

She nodded, thinking for a long moment.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, grip tightening around his hand. “For letting me stay.”

“You don’t have to thank me for that. I—I had rather hoped you might,” he said, feeling his ears go red.

“I’m still grateful. I’m glad I didn’t have to stay in Faery. I—I’m not sure I ever want to go back.”

“You don’t have to, Rose. You don’t ever have to go back if you don’t wish to, no matter what Valion says,” he said, hating the discomfort that flashed over her face as she thought of Faery, of the whirlwind nightmare it had been.

“I do. At least once. There—there was a women in Cryptgarden, Ysolde. She showed me a hidden tunnel, helped me escape from my uncle. I—I promised I’d go back and visit.”

“Rose, how could you? You—you’re not supposed to make deals—”

“I needed to, he was going to catch me! And I made sure I would be able to leave again whenever I wished and that no one would harm me before I agreed. She—she seemed rather lonely.”

“Valion said she’s dangerous.”

“She helped me. I—I’ll have to go back. I promised.”

Alucard stared at her, heart hammering in his chest. It had to be a trick, he just didn’t know how. Faeries didn’t bargain lightly and it seemed like far too little for Ysolde to gain, to merely have Rosalind come back and visit. It had to be a trap, but if it was, it wasn’t exactly one that they could just avoid, not when breaking her word could be so much more disastrous.

“Did she say when you had to visit by?”

“No.”

That, at least, gave them time.

“Adrian,” she said softly, tugging him to a stop. “I don’t think she did it to hurt me. I—I really don’t. I’m not being foolish, I know faeries are dangerous, I just—I don’t think it’s a trick.”

Alucard opened his mouth to speak but then shut it and shook his head. They’d had enough to worry about these last few months. He’d give himself a few days, at least, until he had to worry about faery oaths and fallen Courts.

“I’m sorry,” she said, dropping her gaze to the floor, a terrible little waver in her voice. He dropped her bag to the floor so he could wrap her in a hug, hyperaware of her injured shoulder.

“Don’t apologize, I know—I know why you did it. It got you away from him, it kept you safe. We’ll—we’ll just figure out the rest, okay?”

He felt her nod into his chest, holding him tight with the arm not in a sling. He couldn’t help the smile that flashed across his lips.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” he asked, brushing his fingers through her hair, savoring the softness of it, finer than any silk. “We could hole up in the library if you want and read something entirely useless.”

She pulled back just enough to smile up at him softly, a smile he couldn’t help but return.

“I’d like that,” she replied.

“Why don’t you pick a book, and I’ll make us tea? I think we could both use some indolence right now.”

He huffed a laugh and nodded. He pressed a kiss to her hairline before he stepped back, releasing her from his embrace. He watched her until she disappeared into the library, his chest full of that new, strange warmth. He glanced down at the bag Valion had sent with her—he should put it away before making tea.

He hesitated, though when it came to where to put it. It would be entirely presumptuous to bring them to his room, even though they’d slept together in the same bed every night since he’d found her in Faery. Besides, if she was really to stay long term, she’d probably want her own space sometimes, but of course, he hadn’t prepared a proper room and he knew she wouldn’t want to return to her previous bedroom where Vranos had tormented her—she’d hardly been able to stand it before he’d taken her.

He ended up simply putting it in a guest room at the other end of the hall from his own, so if she did want her own space it wasn’t one that would bring back awful memories and it was close enough that he’d more easily hear if she was having a nightmare, rather than when she’d been a floor below—

He’d been so afraid he’d made sure to put stairs between them when she’d arrived, had been the only way he could sleep, even though it was entirely irrational. And now—

Now he rather hoped that she’d continue to share his bed, knew he’d sleep better for her presence.

 

---

 

Rosalind was relieved to be in the Mortal Realm once again, the the more so being back in Adrian’s familiar castle, to have what felt like the first normal evening in months.

It was different, though. Or, she was different. That was probably more accurate.

Everything was familiar, but it was like she was seeing it though new eyes—it was all sharper and brighter, more so now that she wasn’t deliriously ill or in pain. She swore she could hear the clockwork mechanism of the castle, always tick-tick-ticking away, hear steam and hot water rushing through pipes, hear gears turning and grinding—

“Dove?” Adrian asked, pulling her from the cacophony of miserable noise, her heart hammering in her chest. “Are you alright?”

“I—” she began, shaking her head. “I’m fine. Just—just feeling a bit scattered.”

“That’s perfectly understandable, considering everything. Do you want to talk about it?”

She shook her head. She wasn’t sure what she would even say. It was no doubt just another part of her faery heritage she’d have to learnt to live with. It wasn’t as if it hadn’t been infuriating in Faery, just—

Just now there was a maddening edge to the grating of metal, something she knew she couldn’t right with her magic.

She was just overwrought and on edge. It wasn’t surprising, considering everything. Her brain was just looking for things to fixate on, things out of the ordinary, things that could be threats—it had probably forgotten what it was like to not have to. After all, nearly every moment in Faery had been a nightmare, and she still wasn’t sure what to make of her apparent family or her father—

Valion. Not her father. Not in any sense but the technical. He was—he was still practically a stranger, after all. And he had left her alone. Even—even if it did seem like he might care, in a strange way she didn’t understand, he’d left her alone. Maybe it would have been different, if he’d come after her father’s death, come to look after her when she’d had no one, when she’d been so miserable and scared and lonely. Maybe then she’d have been glad to learn of him, of Faery, maybe then she’d have trusted that he wanted her, that he had hidden her away for her own safety.

Now she was left only with questions and resentment and doubts.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Adrian asked, cupping her jaw with a feather-light touch as he leaned forward on their shared couch so he could get a look at her face.

She hated worrying him.

“I’m fine,” she said quickly, forcing a smile. “I think I’m just tired. I don’t know how, all I’ve been doing has been reading.”

“Healing is tiring work. You should rest, if you’re tired. We can call it an early night, head to bed,” he said, his sweet concern making her heart clench in her chest. Still, she didn’t exactly want to be left to her thoughts alone in bed, either, not when her dreams had been filled with so much torment, when part of her was scared someone might just drag her back to Faery the moment she closed her eyes.

“I don’t want to go to bed,” she said in hardly a whisper. The very idea of returning back to her old room was enough to bring tears to her eyes, fear lancing up her spine. It was stupid—she knew he was dead, knew he couldn’t hurt her anymore, but her body didn’t want to listen to logic.

“Dove? Just breathe, it’s alright,” Adrian said and it was only then she realized she’d begun to breathe far too fast, her hands trembling.

“I—I’m sorry. I know he’s dead and it’s just, it’s just a room and he can’t hurt me anymore, I know, I’m sorry,” she stammered, heat flooding her system.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Adrian said, brows furrowed in concern.

“He’s dead, why am I still frightened?” she asked, mortified that she felt a handful of tears slip down her cheeks. Adrian reached out and gently brushed them away.

“It takes time, dove. I—I can stay with you, if you’d like. If it would help you rest easier.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She felt like such a terrible coward—she’d dealt with her uncle, after all, killed him herself, but she was still frightened to sleep, like some child afraid of the dark.

She was so tired of being afraid.

“I can show you were I put your things so you can change. I—when I went into town I got you a few things so you could have your own clothing, not just what I could find about the castle. I wasn’t sure what you would prefer, but I thought it would be nice in the interim until you could go pick what you liked and had it made to your measurements.”

She stared at him, tears welling in her eyes again, this time for an entirely different reason.

“Dove, I didn’t—”

“You’re the sweetest man alive,” she said, voice thick. “Thank you.”

“They’re nothing special, Rosalind, and certainly not worth tears,” he replied, brushing them from her skin, though she disagreed. He’d thought of her and gotten her her own clothes because he thought it would be a comfort after having nothing of her own for so long.

“They are,” she said, and he huffed a laughed.

“You haven’t even seen what I picked out yet. I could have hideous taste,” he said, tone teasing as he helped her up from the couch, offering her his arm as he lead her through the castle.

“Then I shall be glad for it, since such tastes allowed you to see past my monstrous visage, once revealed,” she quipped back. She practically felt Adrian roll his eyes.

“You’re a ridiculous woman. A beautiful, but quite ridiculous woman.”

“I—I am a monster, though. All those books from the Hold say so—”

“They say all sorts of things, but they’re not right, all the time.”

“I rather think they might be, after—after visiting Faery. After meeting my family.”

“That doesn’t make you a monster. You were raised here, but parents who wanted you to be good and kind.”

“I was raised human, but I’m not. I—I don’t know what I am, really. I don’t feel truly Faery either. Or perhaps I just don’t want to. I don’t want to be like them.”

“Then be like you,” Adrian said with a soft smile. “Whatever you want to be.”

She offered him a small smile, even if her mind was still churning, trying to make sense of everything that had happened since she’d last been in these familiar stone walls. He leaned down to press a sweet, chaste kiss to her lips, hand cradling her jaw with a tenderness that nearly brought tears to her eyes.

“I’m going to change for bed as well. Would you prefer to sleep in your chambers or mine?” he asked, voice soft, when they broke apart.

“I don’t—I don’t mind. Whatever you prefer,” she said. She wanted him to be comfortable, especially after what he’d shared, how he’d been so wretchedly betrayed.

She still wondered how he could bear to be close to her, how he could ever want to.

“Perhaps—perhaps we can sleep in my chambers, then. They are more comfortable. Just knock, whenever you are ready,” he said, pointing towards the door at the far end of the hall from her new room. She nodded.

She slipped into her new room, closing the door softly behind her. She just stared around her for a moment—it was so similar to the other room, the room she knew was at least a room below, but it had the same dark wood bed frame, the same deep red bed covering and curtains, though the electrical light in this one hummed louder than the other, buzzed like a hive of bees. She made a face, wondering when she would grow used to how loud everything had become.

It all left her head pounding.

She saw the bag Valion had packed for her set on the bed, but she ignored it. She didn’t have it in her to think anymore of Faery tonight—maybe not even for the next week.

Surely she’d earned a break.

She crossed to the wardrobe and pulled it open, staring at the clothes Adrian had gotten for her. There weren’t a lot—maybe three shifts and two dresses, a skirt and a nightgown—but she looked at them as though they were great treasures.

They were—they were from him, he’d thought of her, thought of her comfort. She pulled out the linen nightgown—she’d never had anything in linen before. Her parents—her real parents—had always had her clothes made from finely spun cotton or silk, something she hadn’t quite thought about until holding the nightdress.

The fabric felt rough in her hands—overwhelmingly so. Still, she slipped it on, ignoring the way it itched—it would soften after a wash or two, she was sure of it. She was just overwhelmed, so everything seemed overwhelming. She pushed back out into the hall, pausing when she thought she heard muffled voices—could it be Trevor and Sypha? No, they were in their room two floors below. She must have imagined it.

She crossed to Adrian’s room faster after that, feeling unsettled. She knocked on the door, focusing on the sound of her own breath, not the heartbeat she thought she heard on the other side of the door—that would be absurd.

Adrian opened the door and smiled at her, already wearing his night clothes. His eyes traced up her form in a way that made her blush and drop her gaze to the floor. He tugged her gently inside pressing his lips to her knuckles.

“Are you alright, dove?”

“Yes, I’m just—I don’t know,” she said, stumbling over her words. How could she explain this awful mixed up feeling inside her if she couldn’t even make sense of it herself? “I think I’m just overwrought.”

“It’s not surprising, with everything. Perhaps after sleep you’ll feel a bit more settled.”

She nodded, glad when he draw her into his arms and pulled her into bed, though he fussed with the pillows, making sure she couldn’t turn and injure her shoulder. She was just happy when she could feel him close, even if she couldn’t cling to him in the way she wished with her shoulder. He held her extra tight, as if he knew, as if he knew he was the only thing that made her feel tethered at all.

He fell asleep before her, his steady, soft breaths soothing. She tried to focus on them, on the beating of his heart rather than the clanging of gears, the rushing of steam through pipes, the creaking of metal, on the way she itched wherever fabric touched her skin.

All she had wanted the entire time she was in Faery was to return to the Mortal Realm, and yet now that she was here—

She couldn’t help but feel she didn’t belong anymore. That the world she’d left, the world she missed, the world she remembered growing up in was lost to her now.

Rosalind pressed closer to Adrian, squeezing her eyes shut.

 

Notes:

They're baaaaaaack. I am ready for some domestic fluff, but also MC has to adjust to living in the Mortal Realm unglamoured and while not ill, which she's never done. Adrian is just the sweetest person alive as ever.

Updates will keep being slow for a few weeks as I go into finals, but should pick up after then. Thank you so much for reading and all your comments, they mean so much to me!!!

Chapter 37: Inbetween

There was something soothing about being outside. Perhaps it was being away from all that blasted clockwork racket, perhaps it was just because she found the whispering song of the flora soothing, even if it was far fainter here, than it was in Faery. Even the linen was nearly bearable with the breeze, though it still left her skin feeling unpleasantly raw. She’d hardly washed it once, though, she was sure after a few more times it would be just as comfortable as anything else.

Rosalind paused, pulling her fingers from where they were intertwined with Adrian’s so she could stoop and tap a blade of grass. She watched it bloom into something between a dahlia and a rose and plucked it, thumbing off the thorns before standing to tuck it behind Adrian’s ear.

“What have I done to earn such a treasure?” he asked, smiling at her as she threaded their fingers together once again.

“It’s quite a list, I’m not sure you have the time,” she said, grinning at the slight flush in his cheeks. She watched as he plucked the bloom from his ear to study it, brows furrowing.

“I’ve never seen a flower like this before. What is it?”

She thought for a second. “A Rolia.”

He laughed. “A what?”

“Well, I don’t think it’s really anything at all! I just wanted it to bloom, I wasn’t specific.”

“But why a Rolia?” he asked, still laughing.

“Well, because it looks like some crossbreed of a rose and a dahlia. It’s still pretty, whatever it is,” she said, a tiny bit defensive. Adrian pulled her closer.

“Oh, it’s very pretty. It just might be my new favorite flower,” he said, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “However silly its name.”

He reached over to brush a stray lock of hair behind her ear as he tucked the bloom behind it. The soft brush of his fingers against the shell of her ear sent a shiver up her spine and an unfamiliar flash of heat through her abdomen, her breath hitching.

“Was there a thorn left, my darling? Did I scratch you?” he asked, pulling the flower away as he searched for a wound, fingers brushing against her ear again and sending another shiver up her spine though this time she ducked away, color flooding her cheeks, both out of mortification and because of the strange ripple of pleasure Adrian’s touch had sent through her.

“No, no, I’m fine,” she said quickly, though her voice sounded too high to her ears.

“Rose, are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes, it just—it felt odd. I, um, I think perhaps my ears are more sensitive without the glamour.”

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, face full of concern and she shook her head quickly.

“No. I promise you didn’t.”

“No?” he asked, brows still furrowed. “Was it a bad feeling?”

She couldn’t meet his eyes as she shook her head, knew she was somehow turning redder.

“Dove, are you sure you’re okay? I don’t want you to pretend something wasn’t unpleasant because you wish to spare my feelings.”

“It wasn’t, Adrian, I promise. It felt nice, but—I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting it. I don’t want you to worry.”

“It felt nice?” he asked, tone changing, though she still refused to look at him.

“Come on, I thought we were supposed to be collecting herbs for dinner,” she said, tugging him forward, the strange heat lingering low in her stomach in a very distracting way.

 

---

 

“How long before they properly admit it to each other?” Trevor asked, watching in mild disgust as Alucard and Rosalind giggled as they worked on dinner, hardly even aware that they weren’t alone.

“You leave them alone—they’ll figure it out in their own time.”

“We’ll be dead by the time they do. Our grandkids might be dead.”

“Thinking about our grandkids?” Sypha asked, flashing him a cheeky smile. He gave her a half-hearted dirty look.

“That’s not the point, the point is—”

“Leave it, Trevor. We’ve only just got back and they’re no doubt reeling. Rosalind especially. It was a lot longer for her, a lot longer. She deserves a chance to simply catch her breath. Let them be happy.”

He made a disgusted sound and sighed.

“I guess it’s better than the bastard brooding, though not by much,” he said, making a face at the love-smitten way Alucard looked at the faery girl, a faery girl who would no doubt bring more trouble than most, considering she was a fucking Unseelie princess.

Still, she wasn’t the wilting flower he’d expected her to be, and compared to the other faeries they’d met—well, she was basically human.

Except, of course, she wasn’t, at all.

 

---

 

Rosalind dragged the bag Valion had given her into one of the sitting rooms on the same floor, unwilling to sit and go through it in the room that looked so like the one her uncle had tormented her in. She hardly even like to go into it to change, though she had to.

At least Adrian still let her sleep with him in his bed—whatever sleep she could manage. She felt safe, next to him, though she’d trade that in a moment for his comfort.

She tried not to think about the new fluttering of butterflies in her chest when she saw him, the way she’d begun to hope his kisses might linger, and especially not the unfamiliar shivers he’d sent through her spine as his fingers brushed the shell of her ear.

She hadn’t known anyone’s touch could bring such pleasure. Perhaps that only added to her mortification.

Still, part of her wanted him to do it again.

She shook her head, turning her focus to the bag. There were half a dozen books inside, books that looked well-worn—had Valion learned magic from them, whenever it was that he’d been a child? She flipped through them before setting them aside. She was glad to have something to learn, something to work towards.

It had been so long.

Still, there was more in the bag. A portrait of the woman who’d given birth to her—it was hard to think of her as her mother when her mother had been the human woman who’d raised her. She stared at the portrait though—one she was sure Valion had painted—searching for any likeness between them. She hadn’t looked like her parents at all—something that had bothered her, growing up.

Now, of course, she knew why.

The eye color was obvious, the same bright green. Maybe there was something in the shape of her brow or the shape of her lips, but she knew she bore far more resemblance to Valion, though she lacked even more color than he did.

She set the portrait aside, on top of the stack of books, an odd heaviness in her chest. She turned back to the bag, pulling next what must of been meant to be her crib blanket, petal pink and softer that the wind’s whisper. She brought it up to her cheek without thought. Had she made it for her, the woman in the portrait? Valion had said she’d wanted her.

She left the blanket on her lap, trying not to focus on what a relief it had been against her skin. She pulled out a little box next, in the same sort of petal pink as the blanket. Inside was a delicate gold bracelet that looked like a flowered vine that was so small it would only just fit around her wrist.

There was still more in the bag—another pair of the silk slippers she favored, a handful of the pretty hair ornaments and ribbons that had been in the vanity, a silver and bone brush and comb set, an embroidered coin purse filled with gold pieces, more than she’d ever seen in one place in her life. There was a leather roll at the bottom, in which were all the hand tools and brushes she regularly used in her father’s shop, though far finer in quality, beneath which was a pretty wooden box that contained a rather beautiful writing set with quills from birds she was sure she’d never seen before and a seal that must have been her father’s.

At the very bottom was a filigree box that she suspected was made of pure silver. She opened it, only to find a slip of parchment atop an intricate silver necklace, moonstones set delicately into its surface. It was a beautiful thing.

She unfolded the parchment, frowning at the unfamiliar script.

Moonbeam—

This was meant to be your birthday present, something special for a new decade. Something special to make up for my tardiness. Something meant to keep you safe—of course my timing was abysmal.

There is an enchantment, woven into the stones. Something meant to prevent harm, offer you what protection I could in the Mortal Realm. I hope you will wear it, if only for its practicality.

Your mother had the bracelet made for you, before you were born. I don’t know if it will even fit, but I know she’d want you to have it. She had been so excited to pick out every manner of beautiful things for you.

I wish nothing more than for you to be safe and happy.

Love always,

your father

She stared at the note for a long time, a twisted and uncomfortable feeling in her chest. She didn’t know what to think about Valion—he left her feeling so tangled up. He’d sent her away, neglected her when she needed him most and yet—there were so many little things that he did that could almost convince her that he really did care in the way she needed him too, that he had been watching over her, keeping tabs.

Rosalind sniffled, brushing away a handful of tears she hadn’t realized had slipped down her cheeks. She picked up the little bracelet and fastened it around her wrist with some difficulty. She shifted her wrist as much as she was comfortable in the sling, watching as it glimmered in the buzzing electrical light.

She wondered what it would have been like, had the woman who’d had the bracelet made for her had been her mother—the mother who raised her. Valion said she never would have sent her away, that she’d wanted a little girl.

She picked up the portrait again, staring at the woman. She looked like sunlight, like spring. Would she have loved her, if she knew her? What would she think of how she’d turned out?

She carefully packed everything back into the bag and brought it back to her room, pulling out only the volume on elementary magic. She slipped back into the hall, intent to see if Adrian had managed to get Trevor to help with whatever he’d needed him for down in the Hold, or if they were in the process of maybe killing each other.

Most days it felt like a toss up.

 

---

 

Rosalind preferred to be outside, since they’d returned from Faery. Alucard chocked it up to being stuck in the castle for months, to the mild summer they were enjoying. Still, she’d seemed on edge and he wasn’t quite sure how to help. He shifted, so he could get a better look at her sleeping face.

He’d brought out the same blanket as he had on their last misadventure out into the woods, a basket packed with a handful of books, half of the loaf of sweetbread they’d made the night before wrapped in a kerchief and a bottle of sweet wine which they’d finished far too quickly.

He leaned over to rip off another piece of bread, enjoying the dabbled light on her face. He knew she hadn’t meant to fall asleep, had been diligently trying to get through one of the books Valion had sent with her, though the warmth of the day and the wine had worked against her. He tried to turn his focus back to his own volume, but he found himself drifting back to stare at her.

She was so very pretty.

And she wanted to stay here, with him, even though the castle was dour and they were practically in the middle of nowhere and she was used to the excitement of a city. She hadn’t even mentioned going back to Vienna, though he was going to bring it up, perhaps in a few days. She still had so little that was hers and he wanted her to feel at home.

For the castle to be her home too.

He wanted to keep waking next to her, to sleep with the comforting weight of her pressed to his side, to know she was safe in his embrace. He’d thought it’d be harder, once they returned, been nearly impossible for him to share his bed—his bed—but if anything her presence had been a comfort he hadn’t known he’d needed.

He watched as she awoke slowly, eyes fluttering open.

“Oh—oh, I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I’m sorry,” she said, color flooding her face.

“Don’t be sorry, I daresay you needed it,” he said, smiling. “Though you did say a whole manner of embarrassing things in your sleep.

She stared at him a moment, trying to work out whether he was joking before she rolled her eyes, shooting him a dirty look, though her lips quirked up the faintest bit as he laughed.

“I bet you think you’re funny,” she shot back.

“I am funny,” he said, leaning over to press his lips to hers. He rolled closer without breaking the kiss so she was caged beneath him, though he was careful not to press himself to her, to hold himself above.

His fingers skimmed her ear as they wove themselves into her hair and he felt her shiver beneath him. It was a new reaction, new since Sypha had stripped her glamour away. He pulled away enough to look at her face, at the flush that covered her cheeks, at her kiss-red lips, at the way her pupils were blown beneath her silver lashes.

They’d been so very careful with one another—they needed it, he knew, needed time to work through what had been done to them and heal. He found himself wanting more, though. Wanting to feel her skin on his, to kiss her breathless, to know what it might be to like make love with someone he trusted and adored.

“You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” he said, smiling softly down at her.

“I’ve seen the sort of creatures I’m in competition with around here, it’s not a high bar,” she replied, scrunching up her nose at him, though her voice was more than a little breathless. He laughed, despite himself.

“Yes, well, compared to a Night Creature, you’re particularly fetching.”

She laughed at that, and it made his breath hitch. He was rather sure it was his favorite sound. He shifted so he was laying on his side next to her. She turned to do the same, smiling sweetly at him even as a lock of hair fell in her face. He reached out to tuck it back behind her ear, purposely letting his fingers trace the shell of her ear. He smiled as her breath hitched, her flush deepening as she shivered like before, shying away from his touch to stare very hard at the blanket so he couldn’t see how dilated her pupils were.

“You said it felt nice,” he said, playing innocent. Even if it was a little mean he quite liked seeing her flustered, seeing how easy it was for him to do.

“Adrian,” she tried to admonish, though it came out more like a whine.

“Yes, darling?”

“It makes me feel strange when you do that.”

“Strange how?”

“They’re very sensitive.”

“So I should be very delicate?” he said, going back to his tracing, fingers featherlight. She let out a breathy sigh, squirming under his touch.

“A-Adrian,” she whined and he took pity on her, stopping his ministrations to knot his fingers in her hair and kiss her as if he was starved—he felt it, after the breathy sounds of her pleasure, how very needy it drove her.

Of course he hardly felt better off.

“Is this okay?” he asked, breathing hard as he broke away, searching her face. She nodded, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

“Are you sure?”

“If—if it’s okay with you,” she said, her expression somewhere between nervous and smitten.

“It’s more than okay,” he said, leaning forward to capture her lips again, to trail teasing kisses along her jaw and behind her ear, down her slender neck. She threaded her fingers through his hair, kissing him with a new sort of hunger.

He pulled back when they were both breathless, fingers trailing down the skin of her neck, savoring the softness of her skin. She gazed back at him, eyes half-lidded, but tracing his features as if she was trying to memorize them.

Rosalind’s eyes suddenly went wide and she shrieked, terror twisting her face. He whipped around only to see three night creatures stepping into the clearing, each one a unique horror.

“Stay behind me,” he said, leaping up and calling his longsword to him. He saw a vine tear itself from the earth, though it was nothing like the monstrous ones he’d seen her conjure in Faery. Still, it yanked one of their number over by the ankle, making it easy for him to skewer it with his sword.

The second of their number sliced through Rosalind’s vine, charging at them and he skewered it, moving far faster than it could see, never mind react.

Rosalind screamed behind him and he turned, blood turning to ice as he saw a fourth Night Creature, its taloned hand sunk into her waist. He sent his sword hurtling at it, though he wasn’t sure it would make it there before it had cause irreparable harm—

She reached out, face twisted with terror, and grabbed its wrist, as if she meant to rip its hand from her flesh. Instead, it howled as a sort of creeping necrosis spread up its arm and across its body, turning to ash as she tore herself away.

He dispatched the last remaining Night Creature with a swipe of his longsword, turning towards her before it had fallen dead on the ground. She had he hands clutched to her chest, horror plain on her face as she stared at the ashes that had been a Night Creature only seconds ago.

He focused on the blood, though, the blood at her side from where the thing had grabbed her.

“We need to get back to the castle. There could be more,” he said, and she nodded numbly.

 

---

 

“Aww, did a Night Creature stop you from fucking in the woods?” Trevor asked mockingly as he took in both of their disheveled appearances and the black blood that splattered their clothes.

“Shut up, Trevor,” Alucard shot back, with more venom than if he’d simply been blue-balled. He looked over the pair again and noticed Rosalind was shaking, that some of the blood on her dress was red.

“Oh, shit. Did it get you?” he asked, furrowing his brows.

“Just a little,” she said faintly. Alucard glowered.

“There were four of them. They’re coming closer and closer to the castle. Before it was just a stray here or there.”

“Well that’s great,” he said sarcastically. “Might be worth a purge, thin the numbers at least.”

“That’s what I was thinking. I—we’ll talk about it later,” he said darkly before turning back to Rosalind. “Come on, we’ll go to the infirmary and I can see to your wounds.”

“It’s nothing, Adrian. It only scratched me trying to grab me.”

“Judging by the amount of blood—her blood—on her dress, it had been more than a scratch.

“Still, it needs to be cleaned and dressed.”

“Okay,” she replied quietly, arms wrapped around herself. He watched Alucard usher her out, wondering if they could find enough Night Creatures in the damn forest to sate the simmering rage in the dhampir. He could tell he was keeping it leashed for Rosalind’s sake.

 

---

 

Alucard hated the fact that they were back in the infirmary, that she was once again bleeding and injured, that he hadn’t been able to prevent it. He hated that she’d been so frightened again, hated that a bunch of hell-beasts had ruined what had been a wonderful afternoon.

He gathered what he needed, turning to see that Rosalind had perched on the edge of one of the cots, anxiety twisting her face. He couldn’t help but notice the way she’d pulled her sleeves over her hands, the fabric bunched in her fists.

“It’s alright, dove, you’re safe,” he said, reaching out to cup her jaw, thumb tracing her cheekbone. She nodded, rather than speaking. He sighed, turning his attention back to the wound at her side. He could see the puncture wounds of the thing’s talons where they’d ripped through her blouse.

“Do you mind lifting up your shirt so I can get a better look?” he asked and she pulled it up out of the waistband of her skirt and held it for him. Her skin was red underneath, and angry looking. He reached up to feel her forehead.

“Do you have any odd weakness, or a burning sort of pain?” he asked. She shook her head.

“Why?”

“I—your skin is inflamed, it could be from some sort of toxin in the claws.”

“I feel fine. Honestly, Adrian, it barely got me.”

“I don’t like your idea of barely,” he said, cleaning out the wound with alcohol. She hissed at the sting of it.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she said quickly.

He knew she was trying to play the whole thing down, trying to lessen his worry, but it only did the opposite. He knew she was most concerned by her magic, knew how very unsettled she was, but he’d been glad for it. He wasn’t sure he’d have been able to get to her before the thing ripped her apart.

And it wasn’t as if it were the first time he’d seen her drain the life from something. Granted, it had only ever been plants before, but he knew her capable of it, and he knew it only every happened when she was deathly frightened.

He could still hear her heart hammering in her ribs.

He held a wad of gauze to the wounds, trying to stem the bleeding. Rosalind stared at her lap, as if she couldn’t bear to meet his gaze.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” she said in hardly more than a whisper. “I don’t know how I did it.”

“We’ll figure it out. All that matters is that it stopped the bastard from doing worse.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“You won’t—”

“But I don’t know what I did!”

“We’ll figure it out. It only happened because you were frightened.”

She stared at him, brows furrowed. He leaned forward enough to press a kiss to her forehead.

“It will be alright, I promise. We’ll figure out what happened with your magic, and Sypha, Trevor, and I will check the perimeter and deal with any others venturing too close to the castle.”

She didn’t answer. He changed the gauze, grabbing a roll so he could secure it to her side. He made a face at her inflamed skin, ducking to get a closer look, but she pulled her shirt down, wrapping her arms around herself.

“How about some tea? It’ll help calm your nerves. And we could finish that book, I daresay.”

“I’m okay, Adrian. You don’t have to coddle me.”

“I—I not trying to. I just want to take care of you. I—” he broke off, turning away to deal with the soiled gauze, before he started rambling. Then he’d admit that he did want to coddle her, just a little. That he wanted to make sure she was safe and wanted for nothing, that he wanted to take the weight off her shoulders after so many horrible months.

That sometimes it was easier to care for her than it was to care for himself.

That he wanted to because he loved her, so much it nearly scared him.

“I—I think I should see if there’s anything in those books Valion leant me. I don’t—” she broke off, shaking her head. She was trembling.

“Why don’t we lay down for a bit first? I think we’re both overwrought,” he said gently. She stared at him a long moment before she nodded. He wrapped her in a hug, careful not to put pressure on her wound. She hugged him back, though her hands remained balled into fists, her sleeves drawn over her hands.

 

---

 

Rosalind waited for Adrian to return, trying to focus on the magic book she was supposed to be reading, but instead she just kept imagining one of those terrible Night Creatures tearing into him. Her side still ached where she’d been clawed, though the lingering terror bothered her more.

She didn’t know what she’d done. She should be dead—she’d frozen, and Adrian had been fighting the others, they hadn’t seen the fourth one creeping around to ambush them from the back. Her magic hadn’t come to her easily, like it had in Faery—it was the first time it ever felt like it took effort.

And yet—the creature had died when she’d grabbed it, blackened and turned to ash and that had taken no effort at all.

At least none that she’d noticed in her terror.

She’d felt powerful, in Faery, magic as easy and breath, but here—

It was like she wasn’t speaking quite the right language.

She looked up, staring at the space before her for a moment before she pulled a gate from the air—more easily than it had been to form her vines, but harder than she knew it should have been. She sighed as she stared at the strange blue forest that had sprung up from the swamp in Faery, feeling a familiar, reassuring rush of magic.

She just stared through it for a long time, watching the moon-motes sparkle in the tree boughs, cataloging the gem-bright toadstools and all the strange flora that had sprung up between the trees. She couldn’t help but think it had been the nicest place she’d been in Faery by far.

The Gloomveil hadn’t been as bad, once she’d fixed the trees. Much better than the tunnels or the terrible Penumbral City.

She heard the castle doors open and pulled it shut, feeling almost as if she’d been doing something she shouldn’t have. She could hear Adrian and Trevor arguing downstairs, Sypha the perennial peace keeper. She shouldn’t be able to hear them so clearly from three floors up, even if she’d left the door to the sitting room open and it was close to the stairs.

“—it’s got to be some kind of dark magic shit, I mean have you seen anything like that? Anything other then when she went psycho at daddy dearest in the backyard?” Trevor asked, agitation clear in his voice.

“She didn’t go psycho—” Adrian snapped back.

“I don’t care what you call it! I want to know what the fuck she’s doing—I mean, does she even know? Does she have any control over it, because that’s one thing—”

“She’s figuring it out. I’ve been going through the books Valion sent and it’s—I don’t know how she’s making heads or tails of it. It’s working for her though, she’s practicing what she can—”

“Yeah, well is there anywhere in those books that talks about someone having the touch of death? I mean, fuck, what if she touched one of us—”

“If she hadn’t done it, the thing would have ripped her in two. And in the backyard it only happened when she was terrified—”

“And pissed. I really thought she was going to try and kill him,” Trevor retorted.

“You think it’s a reaction?” Sypha asked.

“Hell of a reaction,” Trevor said under his breath, but Adrian and Sypha ignored him.

“I don’t think she realizes she’s doing it—”

“Fucking wonderful—”

“—I think it’s a defense mechanism.”

“That doesn’t make it any better if she can’t control it.”

“You don’t know if she can’t control it. She’s just learning how to use her magic, control takes time,” Sypha said, voice sharper than usual.

“If she can figure out how to control it, I think it’s great, she can help us get rid of the wandering hordes of Night Creatures, but until then, I’m not shaking her hand. Her magic isn’t normal, even for Faery—you saw how all those bastards in the arena looked at her for those portals, for the fucking tree—”

“I’m done talking about this, it’s not even an issue—”

“Yet.”

“Fuck off, Trevor. It’s not like you’re coming up with any solutions.”

“I think she should go back to Daddy Dearest and figure out what the fuck is going on.”

“She doesn’t want to go to Faery—”

“Or you don’t want her to leave, considering how fucking moonstruck—”

“Trevor! That’s enough!” Sypha snapped.

“Somebody’s got to say it! I mean, I get it, she’s pretty and loves weird books and whatever, but she’s dangerous. Not even normal Fae dangerous. I mean, she’s a fucking Unseelie princess—you think they’re going to let her stay here? It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t want to go, they’ll drag her back. There’s no point in getting attached. I’m not trying to be an asshole, I mean I like her, she’s funny when she’s not dying, just—someone has to look at the reality of it all, and it’s a mess.”

“I’m fucking done with this,” Adrian snarled, and she could hear him stomping up the stairs, she turned back to her book, to the sheets of notes she’d been taking, trying very much to look like someone who didn’t feel like they were about to cry.

After all, nothing Trevor had said had been wrong. She was dangerous, and she couldn’t control her magic, and she had no idea if Valion or his parents would decide to drag her back to Faery.

She didn’t want to get and one hurt because of what she was. Especially Adrian.

Rosalind looked up as he knocked on the door, face still stormy, though she could tell he was trying to hide it. She offered him a smile she hoped looked normal.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine, it was nothing,” she said quickly. “How—how did it go? Were there more?”

“A few. We dealt with them, you don’t have to worry,” he said, crossing to her side and perching on the couch next to her. She felt a wave of shame at his words—she wanted to be able to help, not just cower in the castle.

“Have you had any luck with Valion’s books?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“I—I might have to ask him. I don’t—I don’t think there’s anything like it in these, they’re all—they’re all basic fundamentals."

"Maybe there's something in the Hold. We can start there."

Adrian reached for her hand and she yanked it away, clutching it to her chest.

“Don’t. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Adrian made a face reaching out to take her hand anyway, gently, as if it was made of glass.

“I’m not afraid of you, Rose. I know you’d never hurt me.”

“Not on purpose, but what if I—”

“Dove,” he said softly, pressing her hand to his cheek and holding it there. “Just breathe.”

“I am,” she said, though she knew she was breathing too fast, that her heart was hammering in her chest, tears threatening to slip down her cheeks at the mere thought of hurting him.

“Come to bed,” he said, expression so soft. “I’m tired of today, and I won’t be able to sleep if you stay here pouring over textbooks. I’ll help you look more in the morning.”

“Adrian—”

“Please, just come to bed?” he asked, golden eyes pleading.

“Do you have gloves I could wear?”

“Don’t be ridiculous—”

“I’m not,” she said, tears slipping down her cheeks. “I don’t want to hurt you by accident. I don’t know what I did or how I did it, and I’m dangerous, Adrian. I’m dangerous and it’s all such a mess and I don’t belong here. I’ll only bring more ruin—”

“You heard what Trevor said, downstairs?” he asked, voice flat.

She looked away, unable to meet his gaze. “He wasn’t wrong about any of it.”

“He was, and he was out of line. You’re only just learning, and you’ll figure it all out, I know you will. I want you here. I don’t care about any of the faery politics he was going on about—he doesn’t know about them any better than we do. And you haven’t brought ruin—you, you’ve been my singular joy these past few months. I—I would be devastated if you left, even more so, if it was for my supposed sake. Please just come to bed?”

Her face crumpled, but she still couldn’t look at him. She should leave go far, far away where she’d never hurt him, but the very thought of it made her heart ache so acutely that it made her nauseous. She could feel his gaze on her, clutched her hands even tighter to her chest.

He sighed.

“If I find you gloves?” he asked, a horrible sadness creeping into his voice. She thought for a long moment before she nodded.

Notes:

Hello! Tags have changed to include eventual smut--I don't know where exactly, but it will be in the next few chapters, I have to work it out still, there's a lot going on and I want it to feel right considering both of their trauma.

As always I so appreciate your comments :) Not sure when I will update next, probably after finals.

Chapter 38: Changeling

Even five days later, Rosalind refused to take off the gloves, unless she was at work alone in the library, either studying her magic books or repairing books that had been damaged in his fight with his father in the library. It was almost odd to see her flitting about after she’d been bed-bound for so long, odd to find out that she seemed unable to sit still when her mind was set on something.

He liked to watch her work. It was the only times she seemed truly calm anymore. He didn’t know precisely where she’d gotten the tools, all in bronze, but he had a pretty good guess it had been the same place she’d gotten the little gold bracelet she’d yet to take off. He hadn’t asked, though, he thought it better not to bring up her father—Valion. He turned back to his book, pretending to be immersed as she turned to glance at him.

If she knew he was watching her, she’d flit off somewhere else, to one of her other self-appointed tasks she seemed intent on completing. More than once he’d had to gently drag her away from remnants of his fight with his father, intent on apparently clearing the remainder of the rubble all on her own.

She’d been avoiding everyone, since she’d overheard his fight with Trevor. The only times they were all together anymore was for meals, and that was only because he insisted she needed to eat. She hardly talked, then, hadn’t even snapped back at Trevor when he’d make a shitty comment about her gloves. It probably would have been nicer than what he’d said.

It didn’t help that he was furious with Trevor. It was his fault she was convinced she was some sort of monster, that she didn’t belong, that she was going to ruin everything. Shouting at him hadn't made him feel much better, not when Rosalind only continued to withdraw. 

He hated seeing her so despondent, hated that he couldn’t seem to do anything to make it any better, to get her to see that Trevor was wrong and being mean because he was scared, that she did belong and he wanted her here. At night it was easier to coax her into a shadow of herself, could convince her to talk to him nearly normally, to cuddle with him so long as she had her damn gloves. But then dawn came it was more of the same, back to skittish disappearances and whatever work put her the furthest from the rest of them.

He set his book down, crossing to take a look at her work, though he stood opposite her, rather than beside her as he usually would have, as he wanted to, knew she’d panic if he was in arms reach and she didn’t have her gloves on.

“You’re very good at that. I don’t know how you managed to save half of these—I thought them beyond help.”

She flushed, dropping her eyes to the table. “It’s—it’s not difficult, it’s just meticulous work to do it right. I haven’t all the tools I need so some I’m just trying to stabilize.”

He huffed a laugh. “That makes it sound like you’re some sort of book doctor.”

“It’s just repair work, it’s nothing special.”

“I think it is—I wouldn't have even known where to start. I appreciate all your work, though you needn’t work yourself to the bone as you have been. Perhaps tomorrow we can have a picnic lunch, relax for a few hours. We’ve made sure no more Night Creatures have wandered anywhere close to the castle, and we could stay on the lawn, close to the castle.”

“I—I don’t know,” she said, voice trembling. “I don’t think so. I—there’s so much that needs to be done.”

“You need some sunshine. It’ll make you feel better.”

“I don’t want to go outside. I—I don’t.”

He sighed. It was just like after whatever had frightened her in the clearing—she’d refused to so much as consider going back outside.

“Okay, you don’t have to,” he said gently. “Will you read with me, before bed? I found something I think you’ll enjoy.”

“I—” she began, staring at all her work on the table, no doubt searching for another feeble excuse to stay away.

“It’s nearly eleven already. I’m sure your eyes need a break from all that detail work.”

She still hesitated, jaw tight.

“Please, dove? I’ve hardly seen you all day.”

She nodded after a long moment, reaching for her gloves. He waited for her to put them on before he took her hand, drawing her out of the library.

He hoped her fear would temper, hoped that soon she’d see she wasn’t any danger. Until then he would just keep being as gentle as he could, no matter how ridiculous he thought the whole thing. He knew her fear was real, knew it wasn’t ridiculous to her, that the gloves he’d quickly grown to loathe were the only thing that made her feel safe enough to touch him, to be close to him. He’d probably feel the same way, if he’d been convinced his very touch brought ruin and death.

He only hoped he could convince her to see herself as he saw her, to realize she had more control over her magic than she thought, even if she didn’t know how she was doing it.

 

---

 

Rosalind pressed her fingers hard into her temples as she tried to make heads or tails of one of the books on warding that she’d ‘borrowed’ from Valion’s library. She was starting to realize she didn’t have enough of a basis to puzzle out what they meant, all the first steps missing, supposed to have been learned well before.

Just like the last three books she’d tried to muddle through.

It didn’t help that she was trying to avoid Valion.

Maybe she could ask Ysolde. She’d be happy to see her again and it would fulfill her promise and she’d been a powerful caster, when she’d been alive. Of course that might involve making another deal and even if it was just to visit more she was sure Adrian would be cross with her if he found out.

She pressed her fingers harder into her temples, squeezing her eyes shut.

It didn’t help that everything was still so loud. She’d thought it would be better in the Mortal Realm because Valion had said magic ran weaker here, but she still found it maddening and dissident. Not to mention the tick-tick-tick of the castle’s clockwork and the turning of gears, the rushing of water through pipes and the screaming of steam. Sometimes it all became so loud she couldn’t even think—

“Dove, are you alright?” Adrian asked and she jumped in her seat, knocking her book closed. She hadn’t heard him approach, even though everything was so loud.

“I—yes, sorry. This book is giving me a headache,” she said as he sat next to her on the couch, passing her a cup of tea. She leaned forward to pull on her gloves before she took it, trying not to notice the face Adrian made.

He thought she was being ridiculous. She might be being ridiculous, but she’d rather that than taking a chance that she’d turn Adrian to ash if she touched him with her bare hand.

“Have any of them been helpful?” he asked, placing his own tea down on the table so he could flip open the book and wrap his other arm around her shoulders. She just shook her head.

“They’re all too advanced, or perhaps I’m just particularly stupid. I don’t know. Some of it seems so easy, but even then when I try and figure out the mechanism from these books it makes no sense.”

“You’re not stupid,” he said, absently playing with her hair. She sighed, letting her head drop to his shoulder. If she positioned her head just right she could muffle the cacophony rattling her skull, at least a little. She squeezed her eyes shut again, hoping that maybe limiting the amount of information she was taking in would help.

It wasn’t just the sound, that was just the worst of it. Everything was brighter and more vibrant and stronger than it should be, then she remembered, even right after Sypha had removed her glamour. She’d thought she’d gotten used to being unglamoured while in Faery, but it was so much worse since she’d come back.

She could hardly even stand to wear her clothes anymore her skin felt so raw and itchy, not to mention the fact that she was so worried about everything she was quite sure she was making herself sick. Still, she was trying so hard to pretend everything was alright—she didn’t want to worry Adrian anymore than he already was, didn’t want to be anymore of a problem.

He’d already done so much for her, and now that she could walk and wasn’t being buried alive by her uncle, she wanted to make sure she didn’t make a nuisance of herself, that she made herself useful—there were plenty of books that were in desperate need of repair, and though she didn’t have all the supplies she needed, she could at least stabilize them until she could go to a proper shop and get what she needed.

She insisted on helping clean and restore the castle, though Adrian had made a fuss about it, worried about her shoulder, but the faery doctor said her bones would be fine after five days and it had been over a week. She preferred working in the castle, anyway, because he and Trevor had been at work in the Hold. The elevator was quite bad enough, but the way Trevor looked at her now made it wholly untenable.

She’d start tending to the damaged books there when he was gone. She didn’t mind putting them off either, considering they were all about killing things like her.

Monsters.

“Are you sure it’s just the books?” he asked quietly, leaning his head on hers. He drew back, making a face as he felt her forehead. “You’re feverish.”

“I’m fine,” she said quickly.

“Don’t be silly. I’m going to go make you a draught. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re getting a cold with all that mucking about you’ve been doing in the rubble. That and I doubt your immune system has quite recovered after being sick for so long. I’ll be right back,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead before he got up and slipped out of the sitting room.

She put her tea down on the table so she could press the heels of her hands to her eyes.

It was all a mess. She’d thought it’d be easy, when she returned to the Mortal Realm, thought she and Adrian could finally simply enjoy each other’s company, that she could just try to forget what had happened, forget Faery as much as she was able, thought she could finally stop worrying him.

Instead she found herself hiding away from the others, even him, too frightened she’d do something and accidentally hurt them. She didn’t accept Sypha’s invitations to study in the library or practice magic in the ballroom or behind the castle, even though she desperately wanted to, wanted to be her friend. She avoided Trevor as much as possible—it wasn’t hard, she had a feeling he was avoiding her too. And Adrian—

All she wanted was to curl close to him, to know she was safe with him there, to explore the new, fluttering affection, the way his kisses seemed to steal her sense and the strange, shivering pleasure his touch brought, but she was terrified to even touch him. No matter how many times he tried to convince her she wouldn’t hurt him, she couldn’t make herself take that chance, not when she loved him so much it made her chest ache.

She needed to be sure that she wouldn’t hurt him on accident, wouldn’t hut anyone, prove to herself that she wasn’t the monster Trevor saw, the monster from the books in his hold.

She didn’t want to be a monster, to be like those horrible faeries in that obsidian city.

Still, she couldn’t quite keep herself from his orbit, especially at night. She craved his presence, his conversation, his affection. He was the only thing that made her feel safe in the dark.

Rosalind looked up as she heard Adrian’s footsteps on the stairs—she knew the difference between his light step and the pattering of Sypha’s sandals, never mind Trevor’s stomping boot steps. It had become useful in keeping herself hidden away as much as she could get away with.

He slipped back inside, carrying a glass with a pink-ish liquid in it, brow furrowed. He crossed back to his place on the couch, handing her the glass.

“That should help. You should have told me earlier you were feeling poorly.”

“I—it’s really nothing. Just a little fever,” she said, though she drank the entirety of the draught, hoping it might bring some relief.

“I don’t care if it’s a little fever, I don’t want you suffering when I can easily remedy it.”

She nodded, placing the empty glass next to her tea. Adrian reclined back, wrapping an arm around her to pull her close, fingers absently tracing patterns across her arm.

“I was thinking—”

“Always dangerous,” she replied automatically, and he turned to grin at her, huffing a laugh as if it had been some great joke instead of what she’d always sarcastically said to him before Faery.

“I was thinking perhaps we could take a trip to your house in Vienna. It’d be easy with your gates and you could pack up whatever you want. I thought too, perhaps we could repair whatever damage there is so you could visit whenever you like. I know you’re used to the city, there are no doubt things you miss, being in the middle of nowhere.”

“That—that might be nice. And—and I need more glue and a few other tools to repair many of the books.”

“You could show me Vienna. I’ve never been,” he said, smiling at her.

“You’d like it, I think. Much of it is very beautiful, and I do miss the shops—you could find anything. I liked doing the shopping. And the food is good—nearly as good as yours, though I do rather like their pastries. There’s a bakery two streets from my house—my father would take me on Saturday mornings for a strudel as a treat. I kept going, after he died,” she said, taking a deep breath as she tried to ignore the ache of her heart. She missed her father, more and more. She knew, somehow, he’d know the exact right thing to say, that he’d somehow make her feel better, feel as though it could all be fixed.

“My mother taught me how to cook,” he said, hold tightening on her as she tried not to sniffle. “It was something we’d do together all the time when I was growing up. Sometimes I find myself making complicated dishes just to spend more time in the kitchen. Part of me feels like I’ll turn around and she’ll be there still and sometimes—sometimes I need to feel close to her still so I go and rifle through her old recipes and I cook until the grief abates a bit.”

She looked up to see Adrian fighting back tears. She hugged him tighter.

“Grief is a funny thing, isn’t it? The things that hold so much weight when they’re gone,” he said, voice thick.

“It is,” she said, remembering how the embroidery on the dressing gown he’d given her had reminded her so viscerally of her mother. Adrian shifted, combing his hand through her hair.

“Sypha and Trevor are planning on leaving in the next week or two,” he said, almost absently.

“Where are they going?” she asked. He shook his head.

“I don’t know. Apparently—apparently there have been cults popping up, cults that wish to bring my father back from the dead. So they’re—they’re probably going to seek them out.”

She wanted to look at his face, but he held his chin at a very specific angle that disallowed it.

“Wouldn’t you want your father back?” she asked, furrowing her brow.

“That’s a very complicated question,” he said with a laugh that didn’t quite hide the way his voice broke. “I—I would love to have my father back, the man who raised me, taught me everything about swordcraft and magic, who read me stories, when I was small. They’re not trying to bring my father back, they’re trying to bring Dracula back.”

“But he’s your father. That’s what you said.”

“Yes, well—he forgot that, when my mother died. The Church burned her as a witch for practicing medicine and he...broke. He swore vengeance on all of Wallachia, was set on murdering all of mankind in retaliation. I—I tried to stop him, to make him see sense, to punish those responsible and not innocents but—he wouldn’t hear me. We fought—he nearly killed me. It took me a year to recover from my injuries.”

“Adrian—” she began, voice trembling, but he continued, as if he couldn’t stop, as if he needed to say it all, get it out.

“That’s how I met Sypha and Trevor. They—they helped me stop my father, his generals and his army, at least those in the castle. I—I killed him myself, for my mother. She wouldn’t have been able to stand the idea of all those innocents dying because of her. She loved people, loved helping people and when she died—I think it killed whatever good she’d seen in him, whatever good he’d become thanks to her. Until the the end, the very end. Only then he saw me again as his son and not his enemy. His boy. It—it was too late though. I had to—I had to end it. So, um—no, I don’t want them to bring him back. I don’t want to go through it all again. I don’t want to see the monster that wears my father’s face. I just—I want to mourn him as he was, before that. When he was just my father.”

She twisted in his hold so she could sit up, chest aching as she saw the tears running down his cheeks. She pulled her sleeve up to wipe them away, even as her own threatened to spill.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Adrian,” she said, her words lacking the pain she felt for him in her chest. “Fate has been so miserably cruel to you.”

Rosalind brushed back his hair, hoping it offered some comfort, wishing there was more she could do, anything to relieve a bit of the weight on his shoulders. She didn’t know how he even got out of bed, after everything he’d suffered, after what he’d had to do. He pulled her back so she was once more curled against him, hold tight.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “It’s—it’s hard, sometimes. The world knows him as a monster, Trevor and Sypha know him as a monster—and he was. Part of me was glad to be left behind to defend the libraries, to be able to grieve, for my parents. I don’t think they’d understand it, not my father, at least. Why would anyone grieve a monster? But it wasn’t all he was, and I think I might be the only one left that remembers that.”

“Of course you should grieve—he’s your father, you loved him, and he couldn’t have been all bad. Your mother wouldn’t have married him otherwise, and he couldn’t have raised you to be as wonderful as you are.”

“You might be the only one who believes that,” he said, huffing another of his humorless laughs.

“It doesn’t matter if anyone believes it. You know it. It’s your grief, not anyone else’s. They don’t have to understand it.”

“I don’t know how you always seem to find the words I need to hear. Even before I got to know you, you’d find them, like when you’d dragged yourself out into the hallway and we were talking of our mothers.”

“I wish I had more than words to offer you.”

“You merely being here is a comfort. A comfort I have begun to miss during the day.”

“There is so very much to do—”

“I know you’re avoiding everyone. I—I understand, I just wish you wouldn’t. I know Sypha misses your company as well, though I told her not to push.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want you to be sorry, I just—I want you to stop treating yourself like you’re some sort of monster. You’re not a monster, not even close.”

“But I’m dangerous,” she said, voice small to her own ears.

“You didn’t harm me in Faery, when you were killing the grass. Even though you were still frightened, you didn’t harm me.”

“But I could, next time. I don’t know how I do it, I can’t control it. If I hurt you—” she broke off, pressing her face to his shoulders as a sob was torn from her throat. “I can’t bear the thought of hurting you, of losing you.”

She hid her face as she tried to stop herself from sobbing, from the hysterics she felt mounting. He held her closer, one hand rubbing soothing circles on her back.

“It’s okay, Dove. You won’t, alright? We’ll figure it out.”

She couldn’t reply, not without breaking into a million tiny pieces.

 

---

 

Alucard couldn’t seem to break her fever—as soon as the draught wore off it came back. Rosalind still wouldn’t admit she was sick. He was sure she didn’t want to, not after the months she’d been made bedridden, but it made it harder to know how to treat it. The only thing he was sure of was the fever and the mounting headaches.

He took care of her, as much as she’d let him, though she had begun to disappear more and more. She’d lost interest in her book repair and he was quite sure she felt too ill to do any of her cleaning about the castle.

He just didn’t understand why she kept pulling away.

He tried to allow her space, though it made him feel sick to leave her alone when he knew she was suffering. She already struggled with feeling so deeply unwanted after learning she’d been given away, after Valion left her to be tormented, didn’t bother making sure she was okay for months and months. She’d been made to feel alien enough when she’d found out she wasn’t human as she'd thought and now it was only compounding.

He hated it, and he wasn’t sure of the right thing to do anymore. He couldn’t figure out how to make any of it better, not even whatever was making her sick.

He’d rarely felt so lost, so helpless.

 

---

 

Rosalind felt wretched, her head swimming, threatening to split open, sick to her stomach, and even more feverish, and that was not counting the fact that she was quite sure she was breaking out in hives wherever her dress touched. Still, she’d spent enough time in the castle being ill and Adrian had spent more time than he should have had to taking care of her.

She just kept insisting it was a cold, anytime he asked how she was feeling. He’d triple-checked the wound on her ankle from the shackle, worried it had grown infected, but it was healing perfectly. She’d take the draught for the fever whenever he gave it to her, do her very best to pretend as though it made everything better, though she wasn’t sure he believed her.

She’d woken so miserable that she hadn’t even the energy to work in the library. Instead she’d found a sitting room far away from the part of the castle they used all the time and curled into a ball on the couch, hoping perhaps she’d feel better after some extra rest.

If anything, she felt worse when she woke.

Her magic, too, felt unstable, felt as though it was weakening. Even something as simple as conjuring a mote of moonlight left her out of breath, something that sent her heart hammering in her chest.

There was something wrong, something very wrong, and she had no idea how to fix it. She’d searched through all the books on the fae that they’d dragged from the Hold, but found nothing more than horrible ways she could be killed.

She waited, until the next morning, until Adrian went to go work down in the Hold, when she knew he would be gone for a few hours before she scribbled a note trying her best to explain, and left it on his pillow.

She used what felt like the last dregs of her magic to pull open one of her gates, the effort of it causing her to wretch as soon as she stumbled to the other side, trying to blink away the black spots threatening to take over her vision, half-sure her head really would split open from the pain of it.

 

---

 

Valion threw open the door, wondering what sort of miserable nightmare he’d have to rip apart for slipping past his glamours over the path to the manor. It would be just his luck, after everything, another thing to go to absolute shit—

Elyra stood on the other side, brows knitted together with anxiety, her lips pressed into a thin line, though it didn’t completely disguise her quivering lower lip, her clear pain.

It had been a month and a half since he’d last seen her and here she was in a rough-spun blue dress that no doubt was a nightmare against her skin, a bag slung over her shoulder, looking as though she was trying desperately not to cry.

“What is it, what happened?” he asked, immediately searching her for injury, for any obvious cause of her distress. He swore if the dhampir had done a thing to upset her, or the Belmont boy had tried to harm her, he’d rip them apart. He found only over-flushed cheeks, sweat beading on her forehead, shadows under her eyes, hands trembling.

She took a shuttering breath, tears slipping down her cheeks, voice little more than a whimper.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Notes:

Two people who so desperately want the best for each other, who are trying so hard in their very different ways to protect and take care of the other.

Valion, perhaps, gets a chance to earn a bit of her trust, to be a proper father for once.

Chapter 39: Misery

“Come in, come in,” Valion said quickly, ushering her in before pressing the back of his hand to her forehead. She was feverish, her skin burning up. What worried him more, though was how weak her magic felt, thready and faint.

“How long have you been ill?” he asked. He pulled up her sleeves, swearing when he saw they were covered in angry, red hives. He hadn’t told her about mortal fabrics before she’d left, hadn’t had the forethought to tell her much of anything of import.

“I don’t—days? Ten maybe, ten days?”

“Let’s get you upstairs. You need to take a tepid bath, see if that will drop your temperature. I have medicine but it won’t work as fast.”

She didn’t fight him, let him lead her up to her room, face still crumpled. He ushered her into the bathroom, running it as cold as he dared—shocking her system would only make everything worse.

“I’m going to get medicine for your fever and I’ll set out some nightclothes for you. Just—call for me once you’ve changed, alright?”

She nodded, looking as though she might be sick. He hovered nervously another moment before he stepped out and shut the door behind him. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart.

At least she’d come to him, at least she knew he’d take care of her, even if he doubted she wanted him to. He hadn’t considered she’d grow ill so quickly, had hoped trips back for lessons would be enough to sustain her, to mitigate much of it. Either something was horribly wrong, or she’d used and absurd amount of magic in a very small time.

He laid out a nightdress from her wardrobe, noting how few there were in her size before he went to gather all he’d need. He wasn’t sick often, but he always kept a fully stocked medicine cabinet, ever since he’d lost Orlaith. He needed to know he had anything he might need—more so, now.

He had to be sure he had anything he might need to take care of his Moonbeam.

He wondered why she hadn’t brought her dhampir, when they seemed practically joined at the hip—why would she leave him behind, why would he allow her to travel alone while she was so sickly?

Of course, he knew why she’d waited so long to come—she hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t wanted to see him. Of course it would be all the worse for it.

He doubted it would be less that a week before all the salt was purged from her system, had no doubt there had been a fair amount already built up that she’d never noticed because she was already so sick that when she went back and added to it, it had reached an untenable level of toxicity.

It only made it worse that she’d somehow almost completely drained herself of magic.

He waited in her sitting room until he heard her faintly call. He pushed in, spotting her on the edge of the bed, looking no less miserable. He felt her forehead—the bath had helped, but not as much as he would have liked.

“Here,” he said, pull back the blankets and ushering her into bed before passing her a tincture. “It should help with the fever, though I’m afraid you’re going to be very sick for a while.”

“Thank you,” she mumbled after taking it. She curled into a ball under the covers, squeezing her eyes shut. He sat there awkwardly, wishing to comfort her but unsure of whether it would be of any comfort to her.

Every one of his instincts was screaming at him to scoop her into his arms and hold her tight, but he wasn’t her father, not in her eyes.

She just didn’t have anyone else to go to.

Still, he’d take care of her, as much as she’d allow. He only wished her first extended stay hadn’t have been because of how sick she’d grown in the Mortal Realm. He’d take it, though, take the time with his daughter, time when she wasn’t being hunted, when he didn’t have to play his role at Court, when he could simply be her father—the father he’d wanted to be.

He stayed with her until she’d fallen asleep, still curled so small under the blankets. He pressed a kiss to her temple and smoothed back her hair from her face before getting up. He wanted to have something mild made for when she woke.

 

---

 

Alucard couldn’t find Rosalind anywhere. He’d checked her usual hiding spots, even the ones she didn’t know he knew about, but couldn’t find hide nor hair of her. He eventually went to go check his bedroom to see if she’d gone back to bed—even though he knew from outside the door that she wasn’t there, her comforting heartbeat missing. Still, he thought, trying to convince himself, she’d been sick, it would make sense she’d go back to bed.

He opened the door, brows furrowed as he saw a piece of parchment on his pillow. He crossed to pick it up inhumanly fast, a sick feeling settling in his stomach.

It was her handwriting, those far more scrawled and messy than usual. He poured over it, breath caught in his chest.

 

My dearest Adrian,

I had to go back. I’m so sorry, I couldn’t bear to tell you in person and I wanted to save you the misery of Faery, of my father. I know it is craven, to leave without giving you a proper goodbye after everything, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make myself go, if I told you in person.

I’m so very sorry, Adrian.

I need to figure out what’s wrong with me, how I can make sure I won’t put anyone in danger, most of all you. Then I won’t have to worry about accidentally harming you, that I’ll lose control or do something I don’t mean to. I couldn’t just stay and keep putting you all in danger.

I promise I’ll return, when it’s safe to be around others. Valion had said faery children were dangerous, that they had very little control over their magic, and with how strange my magic is, even in Faery—it just can’t be safe. Maybe he can take it away, somehow. I’d rather not have any magic at all than to hurt someone I care about so much with it.

I don’t want to be a monster.

I’m so sorry, Adrian. I’m so very, very sorry. You have been so kind and patient and wonderful, and I keep bringing more danger to your door, putting you at risk over and over. It’s so very selfish of me to wish to stay just because I want to, because I adore you and don’t want to be parted from you, when my just being there puts you at risk. It’s wretched thanks for all you’ve done for me.

I don’t know how to tell you how very miserably sorry I am. I don’t think I have the words. I hope one day you might be able to forgive me.

I am so grateful for all you’ve done for me, most of all for the time I’ve had with you. Even when I was half-dead, just being around you made it bearable. I’d never had a friend before and you were the first person to not treat me as if I was unbearably strange, who I felt I could truly be myself with, since my father died. You were a ray of sunshine—sarcastic, wit sometimes biting, but sunshine nonetheless—and I was drowning in the dark.

I’ll never be able to thank you enough.

I will miss you so very much—my heart aches, even writing this. I hope it won’t take long, at least for you. Perhaps if Valion can just take it all away I’ll be back before you even find this and be able to toss it in the fire.

You are the dearest person left to me in this world—I can’t take the chance of being the thing to destroy you.

Always, eternally yours—

Rosalind

 

He stared at the letter, some awful mix of nausea, fury and desolation rising in his chest. She’d run away to Faery because she’d convinced herself she was some sort of monster, was going to to ask her father to take away all her magic because she was so afraid—something he knew he couldn’t do. She was magic—at the very least it would be excruciating, but he doubted it could be done without killing her.

She was so terribly soft-hearted and self-sacrificing, and she thought herself a monster.

He had to bring her back, convince her how foolish of a plan this was, that it would do her no good to hide herself away in Faery with no one but Valion just because she was so worried she might hurt someone she didn’t mean to, even though she’d never done so before.

There had to be some way to reach her, without Faery’s magic. He hadn’t read anything of it so far, but there were plenty more books to comb through. There were plenty of stories of people accidentally stumbling into Faery—even if he could just find one of those places, he was sure he could find the forest where her father’s house was. He knew she’d be there—he doubted Valion would want her anywhere near Court after last time.

He’d find a way. He’d lost enough people dear to him already—he wasn’t going to lose her for hardly any reason at all.

 

---

 

Valion perched on the edge of her bed, chest tight as he looked at his daughter so clearly sick and in pain, face screwed up in misery. It hadn’t lessened since the day before, though she seemed far more cognizant then when she’d arrived.

“Oh—my poor darling,” he said brushing back a stray lock of hair plastered to her forehead by sweat. Her fever was fighting him, though he was at least keeping it at a manageable level. He didn’t pull his hand back right away, instead combing his fingers through her hair.

He was surprised she allowed the affection. She must truly feel terrible.

“Everything is so much,” she said in barely a whisper.

“I know,” he said, heart panging in his chest. Part of it was being unglamoured after so long, of growing up with severely blunted senses to make staying in the Mortal Realm so long bearable. Part of it was simply that faeries were not meant to live in the Mortal Realm, not for any length of time. The only reason she’d been able to bear it before was the glamour and the fact that he’d Charmed her foster parents into keeping a more fae-friendly house when she was a babe.

They kept no iron in the house, forwent salt in her food, and clothed her in fine cotton and silk. He’d made sure she hadn’t had access to most of her magic, so she didn’t recognize the weakness associated from being away from Faery and its wild magic.

“What have you been eating, my darling?” he asked, though he already knew the culprit.

“Just—just normal things. Fish and wild vegetables, mainly. Adrian is a good cook.”

“Does he use salt?”

“I don’t—probably?”

“Salt is toxic to creatures from the Wilds, from Faery. Occasionally having a little might only make you feel a bit ill, but it builds up like a poison in the system.”

“Is it causing this, too? My skin feels raw,” she said, pushing up her sleeves. Her skin was bright red and inflamed, covered in hives. His stomach twisted with guilt—he should have told her about mortal fabrics before she left, should have made sure she had proper clothes and blankets. Some mortal fabrics might be bearable, but only those made in Faery would provide any sort of comfort.

At least now her nightdress was made of finest spider silk, wouldn’t aggravate it any more. He was sure he had a salve somewhere that would hasten their disappearance, or if he didn’t, he’d step out while she was asleep to get it.

“No, that would be the linen, especially so rough spun. You’ll find most fabric from the Mortal Realm to be quite untenable. Cotton can be bearable if fine enough spun, though silk is better.”

“Father always made sure my dresses were silk,” she said in hardly more than a whisper. His heart clenched painfully, though he made sure to hide it from his face. She turned to look at him, face wretchedly crumpled by misery.

“Do you think he knew? Do you think he knew what I was?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I charmed your parents so they’d keep a more fae-friendly house. No iron, no salt in your food, made sure they only ever dressed you in silk or fine cotton.”

She looked away, lower lip trembling.

“If you put the glamour back, would it all be bearable again?” she asked quietly. He shook his head.

“It would be worse.”

“It can’t be worse—”

“You had very little access to your magic under the glamour. It’s a stifling feeling, one that, even as a child you railed against. I had to fortify it much more than I expected I’d need to. Even at five you were trying to unweave it.”

“I couldn’t have, I didn’t know—”

“It was unconscious. That was why your hair silvered—you were undoing the glamour.”

She stared at him, brows furrowed. She still looked so very miserable and sickly and he hated it.

“You’ll feel better, after a few days in Faery, I promise. Getting used to your senses will unfortunately be a trial, but some of the irritation can be mitigated.”

“It’s not loud all the time here, not like home,” she said, making his gut twist. This should be her home, this house, in Faery. “And sometimes it’s loud here, but it’s not irritating. Like the trees, they’re not irritating anymore and I can hardly hear them from inside.”

“You could hear the trees from inside?”

“They were driving me mad. They made my teeth hurt.”

Valion stared at her, trying to figure out what to make of that. He couldn’t ever hear the magic of the Gloomveil from in the house unless he had a window open, and he’d never found its hum off-putting, hardly even noticed it when he was outside.

“Is that why you went out in the backyard?”

“I was trying to figure out why. I was just—I was trying to feel the magic in them. It was an awful cacophony, but then beneath it all I could feel it flowing as it should, like veins all interconnected and then it found its song, and you dragged me away. I wasn’t trying to do anything, I was just trying to feel it.”

He stared at her, trying to make sense of it all. The way she described magic was so strange, maybe it was because she’d grown up in the Mortal Realm, but after seeing the sort of things she’d managed to do—insane, impossible things—he wondered if her magic was simply different from his. Certainly her connection to it was. How she managed to access so much of it, with no training when what she’d done would have certainly killed a skilled mage.

“I—I killed a Night Creature. I didn’t mean to,” she said, drawing him from his thoughts.

“What?”

“We were—we were having a picnic. It’s easier to be outside, it’s not as painfully loud, and so we’d brought a bunch of books and then three of them jumped out of the woods, and my vines don’t work well there like they’re supposed to and Adrian was killing them and I froze because I was frightened and I didn’t see there was another and it grabbed me and I thought it was going to rip me apart and I grabbed its wrist to—I don’t know. I couldn’t have pulled it off, it was so much stronger than me. But I touched it and it turned black and died and all there was left was ash, and I don’t know how I did it,” she said, tears streaming down her face.

He sat there, trying to process everything she’d told him, to make sense of it. It wasn’t the sort of magic one had as a reflex—the grass he could make sense of perhaps, in was a small plant, but a Night Creature? And she was convinced it was her touch that had done it, that she had no control over it.

It explained the gloves, at least. She hadn't taken them off since she'd arrived. Not that he was convinced they’d do anything to stop it from happening. He doubted it was her touch alone—it had to be some sort of connection she opened unconsciously, something to tear the life from it, but he’d never studied much on death magic.

He stared at her, at her clear fear and uncertainty, knew how scared she’d have to be to seek his help. He reached forward to tug off her gloves. She pulled her hands back, terror flashing over her face.

“No, what are you doing?”

He tugged them off regardless, making a face at the hives they revealed. Still, he almost smiled at the sight of the bracelet Orlaith had gotten for her on her wrist. 

“It’s not your touch—not touch alone,” he said, taking hold of one of her hands so very gently and giving it a squeeze. “It’s something different some...channel you’re opening when you’re most terrified. I—I’ll have to research it. It’s never been anything I’ve studied.”

“I’m scared I’ll hurt someone by accident,” she said, fresh tears streaming down her face. “I don’t know how any of it works, and my magic doesn’t work right there.”

“Magic is weak in the Mortal Realm. You’ll find it draining, find it makes you feel weak, sickly, even. It will be easier with study and as you learn control, but it will never be like Faery. Everything here is magic, but not there. There are only vestiges there and so often you must pull from yourself, but there is nothing much to replace it once it’s gone, not like here.”

“What happens if it’s not replaced?”

He made a face. “If—if enough is used and not replaced, the faery would die.”

She stared back at him, though he didn’t quite know what to make of her expression, though he knew what she would ask.

“Is that why the changelings die?”

“Some of them. Some find themselves poisoned by salt or tainted water, or are injured too badly by iron.”

“Why didn’t I die, then? I know I used magic as a child.”

“The glamour took most of your ability to use it away. It took so very little for you to grow your window boxes. And I brought things from faery, things full of its magic, that you siphoned off, without knowing.”

“All the gifts that would show up, that my parents would argue about?”

“Some of them. Some—some I just used as an excuse to visit you, even if you didn’t know I was there.”

“You gave me the doll. The silver-haired one,” she said. He replied even though it hadn’t been a question.

“I had it made for you, when I saw how much you enjoyed them.”

“My mother wanted to throw it away, or destroy it. I begged to keep it, I cried so hard I made myself sick. I didn’t know why I wanted it so badly. My father convinced her to let me keep it, but she hated it.”

“Your—your mother,” he said, the word acidic on his tongue, wrong, to refer to anyone but Orlaith, who had been her true mother, who had given her life to bring her into the world. “She had some idea of what I was. I don’t know if she thought me a magician or if she knew I was fae, but she knew I wasn’t an ordinary man. I suspect she might have known you weren’t really hers, too, not by blood. Not that it mattered to her.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her tears seemingly endless. He longed to wipe them away, to comfort her properly, but her didn’t want to push his luck.

“It wasn’t—it wasn’t random, that you ended up with your human family. I wouldn’t just leave you with anyone, I needed to know they’d take care of you, that you’d be wanted, treasured. Your mother had just given birth to another stillborn babe, made desolate by grief. I found her burying them, alongside their siblings.”

“By the willow?”

He nodded.

“I knew she wanted a baby, I watched how carefully she buried hers, how gently she covered it in earth. I made it seem as those she’d accidentally buried her child alive, switched you and the dead babe. I think she knew you weren’t the same child. I hadn’t gotten a good enough look at it to know to change the glamour, that it had been blonde. She wanted a child so badly I don’t think she cared. I’m sure she worried, though, that you’d be taken back. She was right to worry, it was what I intended.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you remember the day your hair began to silver? Just the front piece? You were only five, you might not.”

She stared at him, gaze sharp with recognition.

“I was playing in the window box in the back room of the shop. Y-you lied to my father, told him I’d dropped my doll.”

“I’d meant to take you then, would have, if he hadn’t stepped into the back room. He loved you so much and you adored him and I—I thought then perhaps it would be better for you to stay longer. He was a good father, and I was a mess, still, after your mother. I—I knew what your loss would do to him and I—” he broke off, shaking his head.

“Is that why there’s all the little dresses in the wardrobe?”

“I kept putting it off. You were happy and he was so good to you and then it was so long and he was older and I—I wanted you to have the years he had left with him. It got harder and harder to visit as you grew older and I saw how much I was missing, when you weren’t my baby girl anymore, when I’d missed your whole childhood and I’d visit and see an young woman looking back at me. That was partly why it had been so long since I’d visited. It’s not an excuse it’s just—I should have been there. I put my own grief above ensuring your safety because I was too weak to face you. I just—I want you to know it was never easy to send you away, even if I knew it was best for you. There wasn’t a day I didn’t miss you like—like a limb that had been torn away. I never thought I could love anyone more than your mother until I held you in my arms. You were so small and beautiful and innocent, and I understood then why she had wanted you so badly.”

“Weren’t you angry?” she asked, looking away to hide her trembling lip. “Weren’t you angry I killed her?”

“You didn’t,” he said shaking his head, trying to will back the tears he felt threatening. “It was a hard birth, we didn’t have a healer because she wanted me there and no one could know you were mine. She wouldn’t stop bleeding, and I didn’t know any healing magic, not more than to heal a bruise. It was my fault she died—I should have insisted she go deliver you in the Light Court with a proper healer, but I never argued with what she wanted. And—and I wanted to be there too, so I didn’t push, even though I knew I should. I—I wanted to be there when you were born. If I’d just put my foot down for once she would be here, would have gotten to raise the little princess she wanted so desperately and you’d have never suffered my brother’s torment. So, no, I was never angry with you, you’d done nothing wrong. You were the last gift Orlaith gave me, the most precious gift anyone’s ever given me.”

“Her name was Orlaith?” Elyra asked. He nodded, realizing he’d never told her.

“You remind me so much of her. You make the same face when you’re furious,” he said, throat catching. He took a deep breath, getting to his feet.

“I could talk forever about your mother. You should eat, I’ll make something. It will make you feel better, to have food from Faery.”

She looked at him for a long moment before she nodded, misery still plain on her face.

 

---

 

“I’m going to kill you, I’m going to fucking kill you,” Alucard snarled at Trevor, grabbing him by his collar. “You couldn’t keep your goddamn mouth shut for five minutes, and now she’s gone. She already felt awful enough after those Night Creatures attacked, and you made her feel like a monster.”

“Who shat in your fucking porridge?” Trevor spat, pushing him back. Alucard glared at him.

“Rosalind left because you made her feel so awful about what happened. She went back to Faery, which she hates, because she’s convinced if she stays she’s a monster.”

“It’s not like I told her to go! I didn’t even say any of it to her, she only overheard me. It’s not my fault she decided to do the right thing, all things considered.”

Alucard beared his teeth, whole face twisted up in a snarl.

“You’re going to leave with Sypha and leave me here all alone again, and you couldn’t leave me the one shred of comfort I had! You couldn’t keep your mouth shut and leave me with one person, leave me with the one person who could possibly understand me, the one person staring down eons with me, the one person I adore. You knew you were leaving, and she and I would have figured out the magic, and it would have been fine, but now she’s gone.”

Trevor stared at him, a flicker of guilt behind his eyes.

“It’s not like you can do anything about it—she made her choice.”

“Like hell I can’t,” he spat before turning on his heel and storming off.

 

---

 

Rosalind was miserable.

She was miserable because she felt so, so awful, and because she felt better, in Faery. Her head wasn’t threatening to split open anymore, though it still ached, and it was nearly quiet.

Worse still was how Valion doted on her, how he seemed so very happy to, was so happy she was there. She wanted to be mad at him, wanted to hate him, for sending her away, for leaving her to her fear and torment, but it was harder, after hearing how he’d come to bring her back when she was small, but had left her because she’d been so happy with her parents.

He certainly could be lying, but she didn’t think he was. It explained the oddness of her rooms, all the pretty clothes that had just hung in the wardrobe. It didn’t relieve him of any guilt for not bothering to check on her for months, but it softened a bit of her anger, though it just turned to an aching sort of misery.

She’d have wanted this father after hers had died and left her alone. She’d needed this sort of father when she’d been desolate with grief. She’d needed this father to have swooped in and rescued her, when she’d been kidnapped, before the real horror began.

She hated the horrible little part of her that still wanted him, even after everything.

Worst of all, though, was how she missed Adrian.

She missed him so badly her chest felt as though it had been split open and her heart was being pulled out slowly. Half the time she was sick she wasn’t sure if it was because her body needed to purge the salt left in her system, or if she was just so wretchedly sad she was making herself sick. She spent whatever time Valion was out of the room curled into a ball, sobbing into her pillow to muffle the sound.

What if he hated her, for leaving? Or he hated her, because he realized Trevor had been right and she’d been selfishly putting him in danger? He might hate her too for her cravenness, for not giving him the explanation and goodbye he deserved.

She couldn’t sleep without him next to her, not without the medicine Valion gave her that practically knocked her out. She’d hated it, at first, hated how much it felt like whatever they’d drugged her in that wagon, but she didn’t mind as much now. It was the only time she didn’t have to think, didn’t feel crushed by Adrian’s absence.

She knew it had been the right thing to do, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.

She didn’t hear Valion return, too lost int her misery to notice his approach until he’d already sat on the side of the bed. His hair was shorter by nearly a foot since the last time she'd seen him, though she didn't have it in her to mention it or ask him why.

At least it made him look less like his brother.

“Oh—sweetling, what is it? Are you in pain?” he asked, searching her for some reason for her hysterics. She shook her head, trying to stop herself from sobbing—it was the last thing she wanted, to cry in front of Valion. To show any more weakness than what she’d already been forced to bare.

“Lyra, darling, please talk to me. I can’t bear to see you like this,” he said, voice soft as he combed his fingers through her hair. In that moment she wanted her father so badly, wanted him to hold her and tell her everything would be okay, that even Valion would do.

“I miss him. I miss him so much and he’s probably furious with me because I ran away without telling him and I can’t go back until I figure out how not to be a monster and I might never figure it out. It might just be something I am, that I can’t change and then I’ll never see him again,” she sobbed half into her pillow, not sure any of the words were intelligible.

She forced herself into a sitting position so she could throw up in the bowl he’d set on the nightstand. He held her hair back as she heaved, trembling. She pulled herself out of bed when the wave passed, meaning to dump it all down the sink and clean the bowl before she brushed the taste from her mouth.

“I’ve got it, baby. Just go brush your teeth.”

She let him take it, too miserable to argue, to tell him she could handle it herself, that she didn’t need him to. She just went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth until her mouth didn’t taste like bile. She stared at herself in the mirror then, just noted how awful she looked, somehow more pallid that normal, her hair an unbrushed mess, her lips faintly purple, enough so that they matched the shadows under her eyes. She looked like some sort of undead ghoul.

She crossed to the vanity and dug about for a brush and a ribbon. At least she could fix her hair, be a better-groomed ghoul.

She sat back on the bed, impatiently trying to work the knots from her hair. Her tears hadn’t stopped, but at least she had stopped sobbing. It wasn’t like there was anything left in her stomach to throw up. She heard Valion return but didn’t look up. she heard him set the bowl down, felt his hand gently tug the brush from hers.

“You’re going to rip it out. Just let me do it.”

She didn’t say anything, just stared at the blankets on the bed, let him brush out her hair like her parents had done when she was small. She was surprised when he braided it back, taking the ribbon from her hands, surprised that he knew how—she’d never seen him wear one, she’d only ever seen him wear it loose or tied back.

“I learned when you were small. I knew your mother would have had my head if I’d just let you go around like a wild thing with your hair undone,” he said, almost to himself. Her heart twisted at the pronouncement.

“Is there something wrong with me? Is that why my magic doesn’t work like it’s supposed to?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you, you’re just—there’s no other children of both Courts. It’s not supposed to happen. There was—there was one before, but she was killed as a babe. It’s why we were planning on hiding you away, making sure no one knew you were mine. Your magic could be working exactly as it’s supposed to, but you’re the only one that has it. Everything is new and so wildly different from my own, and it terrifies me.”

Rosalind's face crumpled, sobs tearing from her chest as she curled forward. How was she ever going to figure out how to control her magic if no one knew how it worked?

She’d never be able to go back.

Chapter 40: Heartsick

Rosalind stared out the window of the library, curled as small as she could manage on the window seat. Her fever had finally broken, and she was finally feeling as though she was getting better, but she felt no less wretched.

She had no idea how long it had been for Adrian. It had already been a week in the Gloomveil house, but that could have been a day for him, or a few hours. It had been less than two days for Adrian to find her outside the Undercrypts, but it had been weeks and weeks for her.

Her eyes hurt from crying and her chest ached as though it had really been carved into. The last time she had felt like this, had cried herself sick had been after her father’s death. Adrian hadn’t died, but she’d probably never see him again, shouldn’t, for his sake.

She shouldn’t exist. She was something completely other, something so dangerous they’d killed the only other girl to be born like her as a baby.

She’d have to stay in Faery. She’d have to stay forever and ever. She curled tighter around herself, not bothering to choke back her sobs. She was sure her heart was broken, shattered. It was only cruelty that it still beat in her chest.

She missed Adrian. She missed him so much. She missed talking to him, missed the comfort of his presence, missed how he never made her feel like the freak she was. She missed how everything was so easy with him—she’d never had to think about what she would say, or pretend to be something she wasn’t. She missed curling up with him at the end of the day, missed how safe he made her feel. She missed the little butterflies she’d get in her chest when he smiled at her across the room, missed his affection, missed being affectionate.

She wanted to go back so badly, wanted to beg his forgiveness, wanted to hold him and never, ever let go again.

But she’d be so miserably selfish if she did.

Valion was the only one relatively safe around her, and that was only because he could tear away her magic if he needed. It really looked like she’d be stuck with him for the next eighty years, at least, with all her terrible, mixed up feelings.

He was so nice to her now, overly attentive, if anything, but it chaffed against that awful wound of his abandonment when she’d needed him most, mixed with all the anger she wasn’t sure she’d ever get rid of at what had been done to her, what had been ripped away from her. The scared little girl in her wanted him to take care of her, but the furious, broken thing that had survived on her own screamed that he couldn’t be trusted, that he’d only leave her alone again when she most needed him.

Of course, what did it matter? He was all she had left.

Rosalind sobbed harder at that. She didn’t remember ever feeling so wretchedly lonely.

She heard the library door open, but she didn’t bother to try and stop crying, to try and hide it. She didn’t care anymore if he saw, if he thought her weak for it. If it was to be her house too as he kept saying, if she was stuck here forever, then she’d she’d cry whenever she wanted.

“Oh, my poor darling,” he said, crossing to her side and gathering her up in his arms. He held her tightly and she let him, because she needed it, because she was shattering into tiny, irreparable pieces.

 

---

 

“Come on, Moonbeam, time to get dressed. We’re going to go out for a bit,” he said. She glanced up over the book she’d been reading, or perhaps just staring at, and shook her head. He couldn’t bear how absolutely miserable she looked, how terribly heartsick. He’d thought it might begin to abate gradually, but if anything it only seemed to grow worse.

She rarely left her chambers anymore, even just to go to the library for a book. He had to beg her to attend meals with him and then she hardly ate, no matter what he made. He’d hardly been able to put any much-needed weight back on her bones.

He’d rather her angry. If she wasn’t crying she was just desolate and hollow.

He hated it.

“I don’t want to. I’ll stay here,” she replied, turning back to her book.

“You need fresh air.”

“I’ll open a window.”

He sighed. “You can’t just rot in this house.”

“I’m not rotting.”

“Go get dressed, Elyra. I don’t want to argue. Just—I want to show you something.”

“What?” she asked dully.

“You’ll know if you get dressed and come with me.”

She made a face, but put her book aside, disappearing into her bedroom to change—at least he hoped. She could just as easily be ignoring him from her room, burying herself once more under her blankets until he gave up.

She reemerged, though, a few minutes later in a blue dress, hair simply tied back with a ribbon. She stared back at him, misery still clear on her face.

He hated it, hated that half the time he walked into whatever room she’d decided to hide herself away in he’d find her crying, sometimes so violently he was scared she’d make herself sick—more than once she had. He certainly wasn’t a fan of the dhampir, but seeing her so heartsick was devastating.

He’d decided it was time to put an end to her wallowing. He needed to, before she spiraled any more.

“I have to glamour you, before we go.”

“What? Why?”

“People know who you are now. I assume you don’t want the attention. I know I never do. I’ll be glamouring myself too.”

“Will you teach me how to do that?” she asked quietly. That gave him a tiny spark of hope. She’d had no interest in learning anything of magic since she’d arrived.

“Perhaps in a few weeks. There are a few things that must be mastered first.”

He expected her to fight him on that, but she just nodded, eyes glued to the floor.

“We can start your lessons tomorrow, if you’d like. I think you’ve recovered enough.”

“Okay,” she said, without looking up. He sighed. He’d hoped that might bring the smallest amount of excitement—he knew she had been itching to learn, he’d found all the notes she’d taken from the books he’d sent with her. She must have been working diligently to manage all of them.

He raised his hands, weaving the glamour around her—he wasn’t changing much—it was always safer that way, harder to see through. He made her skin seem golden, her hair like sunlight. Her eyes he turned pale blue, like his.

It was enough to make her practically unrecognizable, if you didn’t know her well. He donned his usual disguise—the same golden skin and sunlit hair, that alone enough of a difference from his usual pallor and raven locks.

They walked out of the Gloomveil in silence. He wasn’t sure she looked up from the cobbled path once in the entire quarter-hour it took to reach its edge, shoulders curled in as if to make herself smaller.

He coaxed a circle into existence, hoping that perhaps a change in scenery and some fresh sea air would help. That maybe if she saw some of the wonderful parts of Faery she wouldn’t be so devastated to stay.

He brought her to a bustling port town right on the Endless Green Sea, one he and her mother had spent countless days wandering through, leaving with far lighter purses. Orlaith had always loved the hectic energy of it, the little shops, watching the boats in the harbor unload their cargo, listen to the latest gossip from across the sea.

He wrapped an arm around Elyra’s shoulders as he pulled her towards town, towards a familiar shop. He pushed inside, a brunette elf behind the counter turning and grinning at him.

“Darragh! It’s been a while! I wondered if you toppled off one of those cliffs you were painting,” the man laughed. “And who is this lovely little lady?”

“Ah, Nolan—this is my daughter, Aisling,” Valion said quickly. Fake names were always safer, and Elyra’s name was unique.

She gave a shy wave, which was more than he would have expected. Nolan turned back to him, still grinning, but shaking his head.

“You dog! How many decades have you been coming here and you’ve been hiding a wee one back home?”

“Yes, well, with the chlorosis, it wasn’t often we chanced her leaving the house. We found a new medicine, though, it’s been working wonders, so I thought she deserved a day out.”

Nolan gave a mildly pained smile, though he nodded. “That’s wonderful.”

Almost all children that caught chlorosis were left in the Mortal Realm to hasten their passing. It was an awful disease, leaving them pale and weak, caused them to waste away, often painfully. It was seen as kinder, to allow them a quicker death in the Mortal Realm.

It was a horrific choice for parents, but he knew it would stop Nolan from prying further, and when he went running his mouth about ‘Darragh’s wee girl’ it would be in hushed tones of sympathy and a communal sort of grief that came with any sickly child. No one would wonder why he hadn’t brought her around sooner, or mentioned her—they’d assume either she was getting a bit better, or that she was getting worse, and he wanted to do as much with her as he could before she passed.

“Well, it is a lovely day for it,” Nolan said, trading his usual booming voice for something more gentle as he addressed Elyra. “I suppose your Da’s taking you on a picnic to those cliffs he loves so much?”

“And I think we’ll go shopping after. I suppose we’ll take the special, whatever it is. It’s always better than whenever I try to order for myself,” he said, turning to Elyra. Nolan could be nosey and he’d rather control what he thought he knew.

“I’ll get right on that. Should only be a few minutes,” Nolan said, disappearing into the back room that served at the kitchen. He returned with two sandwiches wrapped in brown paper. Valion paid and Nolan reached under the counter and passed him a bottle of what he knew was his sweet roselle tea.

“For the wee one,” he said in a hushed whisper. Valion gave him a smile slipping another coin onto the counter, but Nolan shoved it back at him.

“It’s for being a first time visitor.”

“Thanks, Nol.”

“Of course. Enjoy the day,” he replied, more enthusiastically than he usually would have.

 

---

 

Rosalind hadn’t returned by dinner, or nightfall, and even though he’d waited long after they usually retired for the night, and there was still no sign of her returning. He lay in bed, just staring at the ceiling, wondering how long it had been for her. Wondering if maybe there was something Valion could do to at les assuage her fears—though he doubted he would if he could. He wanted her to stay in Faery, wanted her far away from him.

Valion had never hidden how little he liked him.

He was more likely to convince her that it was all for the best, that she did belong in Faery, that she was right to stay away from the human world.

Alucard wasn’t sure he could bear it if he did.

He was already sick with worry, already missed her so much it felt like he couldn’t take a full breath. He’d thought she needed space, thought it would help if he didn’t push too much, but she’d only convinced herself that her presence alone was a danger, that she was a monster, that she wasn’t even safe to be around.

He took a shuddering breath, reaching up to angrily wipe away the tears that had slipped down his cheeks.

He hadn’t even worked up the courage to tell her he loved her, and she was gone, and he didn’t even know if he’d be able to find a way to Faery. He certainly hadn’t found anything of use in all the books he’d scoured after finding her letter.

He hated thinking of Rosalind all alone in Faery, sick and tormenting herself with only Valion for company. He hated thinking of her in that house, in a place that she hated, a place that only made her feel more alien. He hated wondering if she’d been able to sleep at all in that big room all alone after everything she’d been put through, knew she hadn’t been able to when they’d been there together, even though she’d tried.

All he wanted was her safe and back in his arms, he wanted her to know how very wanted and adored she was, wanted to hold her tight and make sure she knew she was the furthest thing from a monster, especially in his eyes.

He closed his eyes, pretending he’d be able to sleep, praying she’d be home by breakfast.

 

---

 

“What’s chlorosis?” Elyra asked as they ate on one of the cliffs overlooking the sea.

“It’s a nasty disease. Makes children waste away.”

“So you told him I was dying?”

“No, I told him you were getting better. But it’s something awful enough people won’t question why I haven’t brought you around before. He did give you the tea because he thinks you’re dying, but considering how sick you’ve been the last few weeks I think it fair enough. You should try it, it’s very good.”

“You must come here a lot,” she said before taking another bite of her sandwich. She must have liked it—it was the first time he’d seen her show any real interest in food.

He was glad, at least, that Nolan’s had been a good choice.

“I’d come here with your mother a lot, and then more, after she passed, to just paint.

“It’s pretty,” she said, voice still horridly flattened by sadness.

“It is. There are a lot of beautiful places I’d like to take you. I’m afraid your first time here you saw little but ugliness.”

“I like it better than that stupid city,” she spat, almost under her breath. He laughed.

“So do I.”

“Are we supposed to be in Seelie?” she asked, staring out over the sea.

“It’s a bit of a grey area. It’s another reason for the glamours.”

“So we look Seelie?”

“People would be a lot less friendly, should they know we weren’t.”

The sat in silence for a long time, just eating until Elyra broke it, voice small.

“Thank you for taking me here.”

He couldn’t help but smile, glad she enjoyed it, even if it didn’t curb her melancholy as he’d hoped.

“Of course.”

“I’ve only seen the sea once before, when Father took me to Florence. It was so blue. You’d like it, all the best artists are there.”

He ignored the way his chest ached at her calling another man ‘father’, instead just contenting himself with the fact she was sharing anything at all with him, never mind a happy memory.

She had been such a happy girl.

“Perhaps you can show me, one day.”

“Won’t I just get sick again if I go?” she asked dully.

“Not if it’s a short time, and not if I figure out what was draining your magic. It shouldn’t have happened so fast.”

“It was probably whatever I did to the Night Creature.”

“It could have been, but I’d rather be sure.”

She nodded, turning back to look at the rolling green waves. She drew her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them as she wrapped her arms around her shins.

He waited a while before he spoke again, just watching her stare at the sea, the way her shoulders dropped a little, even if it was hardly noticeable.

“I should probably admit our trip is also a little self-serving. I’m tired of doing laundry every three days, so I hoped you’d pick out some things to wear until I can arrange for a proper wardrobe.”

“I can do the laundry—”

“You have three dresses, Elyra, darling. You had more in Vienna, you need clothes. I want you to pick whatever you want, otherwise I’m going to have to, and I have never been known for my taste in fashion.”

 

---

 

Alucard sat in the room he’d given her after their return, staring at the open wardrobe. It was empty, the bag her father had sent home with her gone. It felt like there should be remnants of her everywhere in the castle for how drastically she’d changed it from a miserable tomb to something like a home again, but there was nothing. She’d had nothing of her own when she’d arrived, and hardly anything when she’d left.

The only physical reminder he had left of her, besides the stacks of repaired and nearly-repaired books in the library was the flower she’d grown him, something entirely new. It was entirely dried now, losing its vibrancy, though he kept it in a little jar by his bed.

A rolia, she’d called it, a name that had made him laugh just as much as the very serious way she’d said it.

Her magic could make such beautiful things, bring entirely new things to life with hardly any effort at all, but she only saw the harm she could do.

 

---

 

Rosalind stared at the pile of clothes wrapped in brown paper that lay on her bed. She’d picked out four practical dresses, so she could go a week before needing to do laundry, but Valion had picked up apparently every piece of clothing she’d looked at for more than ten seconds.

She’d told him he was being ridiculous, he’d told her he’d warned her he’d pick out what she needed if she didn’t. He’d had far too much fun making good on his threat.

She unwrapped it all, taking her time putting it away in the wardrobe. Valion had taken all the dresses that didn’t fit from it, carting them off to who-knew-where. She took her time hanging them, trying to just focus on the tactile nature of the task instead of letting her mind wander. If she did that she’d only start crying.

It had been a nice day out, besides Valion’s absurd shopping. She’d liked the little seaside town and the people there were nice. It had even been nice to spend some normal time with Valion, though that only made her feel more twisted up.

She paused as she got to the bottom of the pile, to a stack of half a dozen or so pairs of trousers and practical shirts, along with odd things that looked somewhere between a bodice and a vest. She unfolded one of each, thinking Valion must have bought them for himself and it all got wrapped up together, but they were far too small for him.

She stuck them in a drawer, rather than asking him about them, crossing to her bed so she could wrap herself in one of the blankets on the end of it. She pulled the panels shut before she curled up in the middle of her mattress, even though it was still early. She wasn’t sure if she was exhausted or just overwhelmed, but either way she wanted to be done with the day.

She pressed her face to her pillows, trying to muffle the tears that came too fast. Valion might have succeeded in distracting her for a few hours, but it had done nothing to diminish the gaping hollow of her chest.

She was quite sure nothing would.

 

---

 

Alucard stared at the distance mirror, heart in his throat. Rosalind was just curled up in the library of the Gloomveil house, face crumpled, sobbing as she leaned her head on the window. She looked too pale, even with the splotchiness from crying so hard. Her hair was left wild and hardly brushed and nightgown wrinkled as if she’d already worn it to bed, hadn’t bothered to change.

He hated it—hated that she’d forced herself back to Faery to be utterly miserable, hated that he couldn’t do anything about it, not until he figured out a way to Faery, hated that nearly every time he’d used the mirror to check on her, she’d been crying, and if not she just was desolate.

He watched Valion push into the library, his face pinched as he saw her sobbing in the widow seat. He watched him cross to her side and pull her into a hug, saying something, though Rosalind didn’t react. She just kept crying, even as he held her and combed his fingers through her hair, watched how eventually she leaned into the hug, even if she kept her arms hugged around her shins.

He broke the connection, turning instead to stare through one of the bookcases next to him, feeling nauseous.

He hated seeing her cry. She’d hardly ever cried like that as long as he’d known her, even though she’d been being put through Hell. Now, it seemed, she cried like that all the time, like when it had all caught up with her after she’d kicked Valion out of his study for being a drunken mess.

He hated that she didn’t have to be in such pain, that she’d never had to—she’d only convinced herself she needed to.

He took a shuddering breath, half wondering why he kept finding her in the mirror if it only ever made him feel worse. Surely his time would be better spent finding a bridge to Faery so he could put an end to their misery.

 

---

 

“Alright, Moonbeam, time to get a move on,” Valion said, flicking a wrist at the sconces in her room to fill them with motes of silver light. He was digging through her wardrobe before she’d even properly woken.

“Fucking—for what?” Rosalind asked making a face. Time was weird in Faery, especially without any dawns or dusks to mark the days, but she was quite sure it was miserably early.

“For lessons,” he said, tossing a pair of trousers, a shirt, a bodice, and a belt on the bed. He set a pair of high brown boots next to them. “Time to get dressed.”

“I don’t want to wear those,” she said, still trying to make sense of what was going on. “We’re just going to be in the library—”

“Not starting today. We have to work on your swordcraft and I’m absolutely not teaching you in skirts. Come on, faster we get through the basics, faster you can break your fast.”

“I can’t even have breakfast?”

“You will be thanking me for not letting you eat breakfast. Now I want you downstairs in ten minutes.”

Rosalind groaned, dropping her head back into her pillows as Valion swept out of her room, just as fast as he’d come. When she’d agreed to lessons, she’d thought he’d meant magic, meant history and politics, not whipping around a sword. It seemed quite pointless when she’d never be as good at physical fighting than she was with her magic. She was too slight and too weak to pose much of a threat to anything, except maybe a raccoon.

Still she got out of bed and went to brush her teeth. She knew Valion would be really annoying if she dug her heels in and refused, and it wasn’t like she had anything better to do. It would hopefully at least be stimulating enough not to let her mind wander.

She set about getting ready, braiding her hair back before she returned to the clothes he’d laid out. It made sense that skirts wouldn’t be idea for learning to fight, but she surveyed the trousers with apprehension and distaste. She’d never worn boys clothing, and couldn’t find any enthusiasm in trying it now. Still, she pulled on the trousers and the shirt, lacing the bodice over it before fastening the belt around her waist.

She made a face before crossing to the mirror—somehow this felt so much more exposing than it had in just her shift in the undercrypts. She pulled on the boots and headed downstairs, trying to ignore how very strange it felt to be without the volume of her skirts. She met Valion downstairs, where he ushered her outside.

“Excellent! We’re going to start with a run to the end of the path and back,” he said brightly. He was similarly dressed in plain trousers and a casual shirt, his own boots well worn. She just stared at him, not bothering to hide her disgust.

“You want me to run?”

“Yes, of course. It’s wonderful conditioning, helps to build up your stamina.”

“I don’t run,” she said, looking at him as if he were insane.

“Of course you do,” he replied, shaking his head.

“No I don’t. Who the hell runs about Vienna? They’d think them a lunatic.”

“Well then, I suppose you run now.”

“Valion, I’m not—”

“You are. You’re going to run with me every day, otherwise there’s no point in teaching you to swing a sword—”

“—I’m fine with that—”

“Or any sort of offensive magic. If you haven’t any stamina, you’ll loose nearly every time. And we really need to work on your agility, your reactions are much too slow. Now, come on, we’ll go easy today, let you work up to it.”

Rosalind stared at him for a long moment, making a face before she threw her head back and groaned.

“Fuck. Whatever,” she said, hating how obviously he was looking forward to the whole nightmare. He took off at a run and she half-heartedly followed, swearing under her breath all the while.

They’d see how much fun he was having when she keeled over and died halfway to the damn glamour.

 

---

 

Alucard threw aside the tome, not caring how it landed. He just picked up the next one, looking for an answer, finally, a way forward. He’d hidden up in his father’s study, unable to deal with Sypha’s pitying glances or Trevor’s sheepish ones. They hadn’t talked, really, since their last argument, not that he cared—it was probably better. He doubted he’d have anything nicer to say.

He threw that one aside too, soon after, cursing.

In all the thousands of cursed books between his father’s library and the Belmont fucking Hold, there had to be one scrap of useful information. He didn’t need to sleep, didn’t need to eat, just needed one way to get to her.

He needed to see her again—really see her, not just watch her through the mirror, watch her cry or sit and stare with that desolation he’d hated so much when she’d begun to doubt there was anything that could help her, when she’d convinced herself she’d die of her illness, from the dreams, before they’d find anything to help. He needed to hold her in his arms and tell her that this week apart was worse than any possible risk of her magic hurting him, that her absence was an agony, that the castle was too big and quiet and empty, even with Sypha and Trevor still there.

He needed to finally tell her that he loved her, that there wasn’t a thing he didn’t adore about her, that she made him feel safe in a way he hadn’t thought he’d ever feel again, that she felt like home.

He’d already lost so much—was it selfish to want one person to stay? One person to hold dear that wouldn’t just leave him alone again?

Who else would ever treat him so gently, would even think to, would look at him as a man and not as a dhampir? Who else try to protect him, from his past, his memories, even her horrible uncle? She hadn’t known he’d meant to feint, had only seen what she’d thought was him about to get horribly hurt, and she’d acted without thinking to spare him the blow. He hated that she did it, hated how incredibly hurt she’d gotten, how frightened she’d been, but he couldn’t help the warmth in his chest that she’d even thought to have done it, that she cared enough to defend him. Hell, even those god forsaken gloves he hated had been her attempt to protect him, the only way she’d risk touching him, lest she somehow hurt him on accident.

He’d always had to be the protector, step in and defend who he could, and that was fine, it was the right thing to do and he was more suited to the role than most. But she’d looked at him and seen that he needed to be defended too, looked at him and told him he didn’t always have to be strong, that he didn’t have to carry it all alone and she’d meant it.

He knew she’d meant it.

How could he just let someone like that go, let someone like that convince themself they were a monster, that they didn’t deserve to be around the people they cared about, that they needed to hide away to protect everyone else?

He missed her so much it made him sick.

He turned back to the pile of books, grabbing the next in the stack.

 

---

 

“I hate this,” Rosalind said, throwing herself onto the grass as she tried to catch her breath. Her legs were screaming and had possibly turned to jelly, her lungs ached, and she was soaked in sweat.

Valion hardly looked like he’d exercised at all.

“You’re a bastard,” she groaned, not quite sure if she was going to throw up.

“Just wait,” he replied, seemingly not perturbed in the least by her name-calling.

“I think I’m going to die here.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. It was two miles and you walked at least a third of it.”

“I’m returning to the loam. Soon the moss will take me and my bones will turn to dust—”

“Stop being a little shit. Get some water and we’ll get started.”

“Start? Aren’t we done?”

“That was your warm up,” he replied, smiling annoyingly.

“I hope you shit yourself to death, you smug bastard,” she said under her breath as she dragged herself to her feet and stumbled over to the front door.

Valion just laughed.

Rosalind pushed back outside ten minutes later with an entire pitcher of water, which she was using for a glass. Valion shook his head but didn’t comment, waiting for her to set it on the stoop and shamble forward for her next round of misery before he threw a sword at her, hilt up. She flinched away, letting it fall to the ground and gave him a dirty look.

“You’re not even going to try and catch it?”

“Fuck no. Are you crazy?”

“The blade is blunted, it won’t cut you.”

“Well, I didn’t know that, you just chucked a sword at me!”

“Go pick it up,” he said, rolling his eyes at her. “We’ll work on blocks. First rule of sword fighting is don’t get stabbed.”

“Oh shit, thanks for telling me, I never would have guessed.”

“Keep running your mouth and we’ll stay out here all day.”

“That doesn’t mean anything! It’s always dark!” she snapped back.

Valion ignored her, instead demonstrating a series of blocks and detailing their use, where she should place her hand on the hilt, the sort of motions to throw off a blade after the block and throw off your opponent’s balance. He had her just practice in the air for a while, which made her feel unbelievably stupid, though it was far better than went he actually started trying to hit her with his sword.

Rosalind shrieked the first time he did it and dropped her sword, throwing up a shield of ice into the air as she stumbled back. For a moment it wasn’t Valion swinging a blunted sword at her, it was her uncle bringing his war hammer down to smash her shoulder to bits. Her heart thundered in her chest, tears pricking at her eyes.

“Try it again,” Valion said, kicking the shards of her shield out of the way. He didn’t chastise her like she would have assumed. Still, she could feel herself trembling.

“I—I don’t want to.”

“You have to. You said you froze when those Night Creatures attacked, you need to work through that. If you freeze in real life, you die. Now come on, we’ll try again, I’ll go slower.”

Even when he went slower and half the time called out the block she should be using to counter him, she still got that rush of fear through her chest. She didn’t like being up close and fighting, she liked the distance of her magic, of her bramble vines that could keep an enemy away.

“That’s better, put some power behind it,” Valion said, sharp eyes cataloguing her form. “Don’t let me step in, you need to maintain the distance.”

“I’m trying!”

“Stop stepping back, you’re letting me drive you into a corner. Hold your ground. Block me and don’t let me move you.”

“Then you’ll hit me!”

“If you don’t block it.”

She tried to do as he said, but she couldn’t stop herself from stepping back every time she saw the blade coming at her.

“Come on Lyra, try.”

“I am!”

“You have to try harder, work through the fear. You need to be able to handle someone getting in close and not freeze. You’re not always going to have the luxury of distance.”

“That’s easy for you to say! You didn’t just get smashed up!” she retorted, anger filling her. He just kept swiping at her, faster and faster until it was all she could do to just keep him from hitting her. She blocked his next blow harder, shoving his sword away as she smacked him on the arm with her blade, not very lightly at all.

To her surprise, Valion beamed at her, lowering his sword.

“There it is! You can get pissed, just don’t lose your head. Now do it again.”

She didn’t know how long they practiced for, but by the time Valion called it she was sore and bruised and drowning in sweat, but she wasn’t so frightened when she saw his sword coming at her.

“You did great, Moonbeam,” Valion said as he took her sword back. “It’s just going to keep getting easier, the more we work on it, okay? Now go get cleaned up and I’ll make something to eat. We’ll get started on your other lessons after lunch.”

He leaned over and pulled her into a side hug, pressing a quick kiss to the crown of her head before he let go and strode back in the house to put away the training blades. Rosalind just stood there for a second, unsure of what to make of it. Then she just shook her head and grabbed her pitcher, swearing the whole way up the stairs as her legs screamed.

 

---

 

“You can’t really mean to go to Faery yourself,” Sypha said, eyes wide.

“Of course I do,” Alucard snapped back. Sypha didn’t deserve his attitude, but he hardly was able to discriminate anymore, his mood so foul. It had been over a week since Rosalind had disappeared back to Faery and there hadn’t been a single sign she planned to return.

“Even if you managed to find a way to cross realms, it would be far too dangerous to go alone.”

“I don’t care.”

“Alucard—”

“I don’t. I have to bring her back, I have to make her see that she’s not a monster, or some sort of ever-looming threat, that she’s wonderful and that her being different only makes it more so. She has to know that she belongs here, that I—” he broke off, shaking his head as he made a face.

“You really love her, don’t you?” Sypha asked softly. It took him a moment to be able to answer.

“It’s a misery, being without her. She’s the first person I’ve met who just—who understands what it’s like to be caught between worlds. To be labeled half a monster just because of your birth. What it’s like to survive—” he broke off, unable to say it. “She makes me laugh, and she’s so smart, and kind, and good, even if she can’t see it. And brave—so brave. I don’t—I can’t lose her, especially for something so misguided.”

“Still, Alucard—how would you even find her?”

“I know where she is—”

“But not how to get there. If you find some way there, there no promises that it would bring you anywhere familiar. Or it might look completely different and be the same place. Remember the blue forest that grew from that swamp?”

“I—I have to try, Sypha. I can’t just leave her, give up—”

“She might still come back soon. She said she would when she figured out the magic.”

“I can’t leave it to chance. Besides, I’m sure Valion is doing everything he can to convince her to stay in Faery. You know that’s what he wants—wants to play at being her father and try and make up for how bad at it he’s been.”

“What if you go and she still wants to stay? If you can’t convince her to return, that it’s safe?” Sypha asked quietly.

“Then—then I’ll respect her wishes,” he said, though his voice cracked at the thought of having to leave her behind. He would, if that was what she truly wanted.

Even if it shattered his heart completely.

 

---

 

Elyra liked her lessons, even swordcraft, though it took her more than a month to. Around then their daily runs became less of a misery and more something she nearly looked forward to. She liked how she could let her mind go blank for a bit, focus on her breath and her stride, listen to the song of the forest around her.

Her magic lessons were frustrating, but not for her—Valion usually seemed about ready to tear his hair out every time he tried to teach her something and it ended up right, but in a wrong way that made him nervous, or he told her she couldn’t do something, that magic didn’t work that way, and she figured out how to do it out of spite.

Her magic was a comfort. It felt about as close to home as possible, without Adrian. Sometimes she’d open a gate to the blue forest after she told Valion she was going to bed, wander through, admiring the motes of moonlight in the branches, the beautiful and strange flowers, the birdsong, mixing with the symphony of the forest. The magic was different there, different in a way she wasn’t sure she could describe, other than the fact that it felt like hers.

There was a large clearing in the center of the forest, off the little path she followed, one that she would go to to lay on the moss and stare up at the sky. At first, when she’d gone, it had just been black, nothing but darkness. But the more she went, the more she’d find new stars twinkling above her, the sky so much more inviting for their presence.

She was glad there was at least one part of Unseelie that had even a little bit of light.

Sometimes she thought she should bring Valion to the blue forest—he painted so many beautiful places in Seelie and and hardly any in the Under Court. Sometimes she’d wander into his studio after dinner, when there were no more lessons for the day, and watch him paint. She didn’t talk to him, most of the time, but it didn’t feel as leaden, as awkward. Sometimes, though, she found herself seeking him out just to talk, to ask questions about her mother, or Faery, sometimes for no other reason than because she was lonely.

She could pretend she was okay, mostly, now. Valion’s lessons kept her busy from first thing in the morning until dinner, and often afterwards she’d need to study more about what she was supposed to have learned, all the ridiculous, convoluted noble lines and battles with far too similar names. She could keep herself occupied until it was an acceptable time for bed, one that Valion wouldn’t question, and then she could go walk through the blue wood until she could hardly keep her eyes open and return to sleep. She always thought she could exhaust herself to the point where she’d fall asleep the moment her head hit the pillow, but every time there was that old, awful fear in her that would rise, that was terrified of closing her eyes, that had her reaching out for Adrian instinctively on the other side of the bed only to find it cold and empty.

She couldn’t stop her tears then, or ignore the way that it felt like her chest had been hollowed out, that even with all the wild colors of everything in Faery, everything had taken on a sort of grey cast. It was only then that she let herself feel the whole ragged would of his loss, of the wretched reality that she’d probably never feel as though she was safe enough to return. Valion had no more answers than she did, but she knew he was looking.

She doubted it would help, though. She was a thing that shouldn’t exist, her magic an aberration, even if it felt as natural as breathing to her. Even in Faery, it was seen as dangerous, worried Valion more deeply than he thought he let show.

She’d just sob into her pillows in the silent house, wondering if there would ever come a day when it wasn’t excruciating, when Adrian’s absence wouldn’t steal her breath, the moment she stopped moving for long enough. She’d sob until sleep took her, until she was too exhausted to dream, until the nothingness it brought was a comfort.

Then she’d get up the next day and do it again.

 

---

 

Valion stood on the other side of Elyra’s door, heart breaking as he listened to her sob just as gut-wrenching and violent as she had the first days she’d arrived. She tried to hide it now, didn’t know just how late he stayed up, didn’t know that he knew she was lying when she told him she was going to sleep earlier and earlier.

He didn’t know where she went, between the time she told him she was going to bed and the time she returned to sob herself to sleep. He knew it wasn’t the Mortal Realm—he’d be able to smell its decay on her when she came back. She’d seen so few beautiful places in Faery that he could only guess she was going to the cliffs he’d taken her to, next to the Endless Green Sea. She’d liked it there.

Part of him wanted to confront her about it, demand to know where she was going, was worried sick about her being out alone without telling him where she was going, especially since she still knew so little of Faerie.

The other part though it better to let her think she had her secrets, to allow her the time alone to just be. He’d spent countless nights sitting in front of the sea himself, hoping the crash of the waves would somehow drown a but of his agony, make it even a little bearable. More often than not he’d gone to his and Orlaith’s favorite place in the Everdawn Wood and lay next to her grave, talking to her as if she was really beside him. Tell her about all the petty gossip from Court she loved to hear, about anything he’d managed to read, about Elyra—always about Elyra.

So he let her go, warding her bedroom door one way so she couldn’t hear him sitting in her parlor, working away in his sketchbook. He filled it with drawing of her, moments that were his. The dirty looks she’d give him when she decided he was making her exercise too much in the morning, the way she’d furrow her brow and bite her lip when she was engrossed in a text, the pensive expression she’d wear when she came to watch him paint. She rarely smiled anymore, and it never pushed the sadness from behind her eyes.

He’d draw, until he heard her climb into bed and bury her face in her pillow, draw, until he knew she was home safe, draw, until the familiar muffled sobs began. Then he’d put his sketchbook aside and just listen, until she cried herself out, listen and worry that she was falling heartsick, that her misery would eat away at her until it wasn’t any difference from any other illness, until she’d begin to waste away again, even though he’d finally managed to get her healthy, to a proper weight.

He’d thought if he kept her busy, if he started showing her the beautiful things in Faery, kept her mind and body occupied, that her grief would begin to wane. She’d been home nearly four months now, after all. But every night he listened to her sob just the same no matter what he did.

He’d never liked the dhampir, Adrian, but he hated what the pain of his loss did to his little girl. He hated how she sobbed herself sick missing him, hated how she never laughed anymore, how the only way he got her to show much of any emotion at all anymore was when he pissed her off by pushing her in her drills.

He didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t as if he wanted the damn dhampir courting her, as if it would lead to anything but worse heartbreak down the road when she was old enough to have the duties of the Crown dropped on her slender shoulders. But he couldn’t keep listening to her agony, couldn’t let her waste away in her grief.

Not when he knew precisely the sort of desolation that ripped those sort of sobs from one’s chest.

Notes:

This was my break from studying for finals lol. Very much looking forward to their reunion.

Valion is trying so hard to connect with his daughter and they're having baby steps. He's trying so hard to lessen her grief, but not be suffocating.

Chapter 41: To Try

“There’s nowhere else we can go for armor?” Elyra asked, making a face as they approached the Penumbral City.

“Nowhere else I would trust with yours,” Valion said, a hand on her shoulder. He seemed almost more nervous than last time to take her into the city.

She didn’t mind it this time, though. In fact, the contact was reassuring. The thought of returning made her nearly want to throw up.

“But we can leave right after?” she asked.

“Of course. I assure you, I don’t want to be here any more than you.”

“I really doubt that,” she replied under her breath. Valion huffed a laugh, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

“Now, remember—”

“Don’t talk to anyone, don’t look at anyone, don’t do anything unless you tell me to, don’t breathe weird, hold your shoulders back and your chin high and look like a scary asshole,” she recited, rolling her eyes. Valion raised an eyebrow.

“How would you breathe weird?”

Elyra made an awful sort of rasping, shuttering breath and Valion made a face.

“Yeah, don’t do that,” he said, though amusement was clear in his voice. All that amiability melted away, though, the moment they were within sight of the city gate. Then he was Prince Valion of the Undercourt, heir to the Umbral Throne.

The shift hadn’t bothered her last time, but for some reason this time it did.

Still, she followed him through the streets, trying very hard not to remember how all the faeries of the city that had piled into the arena had cheered for her and her friends’ blood just as much as they’d cheered for her uncle’s, that they’d have been just as pleased to watch her be smashed to death as they were to watch her rip him apart with a tree.

It didn’t exactly make her feel great about being surrounded by them all.

Valion didn’t look at her, but he squeezed her shoulder again, pulling her a bit closer.

She was glad when they reached the armorer’s workshop, which happened to be in a different part of the palace than she’d been before. She didn’t listen, really, to what Valion and the head armorer, Adelaide, were talking about, instead just staring around at all the other craftsmen, the pieces they were working on. She’d never thought much about armor or weapons being pretty, but every piece she saw them working on was strangely beautiful.

“Alright, she’s going to get you measured and then we’ll be done for the day,” Valion said, voice unfamiliar and nearly cold. She nodded, letting herself be lead to a small platform. Valion hovered very close, gaze severe as he watched Adelaide take her measurements, as if he was watching for the slightest mistake. She was just glad they were quick with it—she didn’t like strangers touching her. She’d worn one of her training outfits to make the whole thing go faster, because apparently she needed leg armor too.

She just wanted it to be over so she could go home.

At least now she found she didn’t mind the trousers so much, sometimes even preferred them—she had a lot more freedom in them, compared to her dresses.

Adelaide finished and Valion didn’t kill her, which seemed like a win in her book. She was just happy to be able to leave the city when she turned to step off the little platform only to see Valion staring daggers at a page approaching them.

“Your Highnesses,” he said, giving a low bow. “Her Majesty has requested both your presences the moment you are through here.”

Valion’s jaw twitched in annoyance.

“We are otherwise committed already.”

“I’m afraid she made it clear that I must insist.”

Valion blew out a breath.

“Fine. Come, Elyra, hopefully it will be quick,” he said, though she doubted it. Her stomach swooped nauseatingly—she hadn’t seen either of Valion’s parents since the trial and wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. She doubted they’d be very happy with her, considering she’d killed their other son.

Would they punish her? Valion wouldn’t let them, surely. She knew, at least, he wouldn’t let her be harmed if he was there. Of course, they were his parents, so they could stop him from intervening if they really wanted to. She couldn’t stop herself from trembling, though she tried to hide it as best she could, kept her chin defiantly up even though she really wanted to cry.

Valion pulled her closer as they entered the inner palace, catching her eye and giving her the slightest nod, as if to say it would be okay, but she doubted it. His parents seemed wild and unpredictable and sometimes cruel and she didn’t know what to expect, only that they frightened her.

The page lead them to a different part of the palace than she’d been to before, knocking on a door before pulling it open for the pair of them

It revealed an opulent parlor, all in obsidian, marble, silver. Elyra could see Valion’s mother rise from a chair at the far end of the room, clapping her hands together with the hint of a smile. She wore a beautiful midnight-violet gown, a small diadem covered in black gems set atop her hair.

‘”Ah! Wonderful,” Valion’s mother said as the page closed the door behind them. “I thought he might not catch you in time, since you’ve been so intent on avoiding your poor mother.”

“I haven’t been avoiding you, Mother.”

“You’re going to lie to my face?”

“I haven’t been actively avoiding you. I’ve been quite busy nursing Elyra back to health and beginning her lessons.”

Morgana turned to her, face softening. “How have you been doing, dear? You look much better than last I saw you, though I’m not sure I care for how your father has seen to your wardrobe.”

“Mother—”

“You have her dressed like some sort of peasant boy!” she said, glaring at him. He watched her eyes then flick up and down him in turn. "And you cut your hair. It looks terrible. Did you do it yourself with kitchen shears?"

He ignored her comments on his appearance, focusing on defending Elyra from her judgmental tongue. Besides, he had cut it himself, though he used the scissors in his studio.

He didn't care if it looked terrible, only cared that it made him look that much different from his brother. And it saved him so much time. 

“They’re her sparring clothes. She needed to be measured for armor.”

“She needs to be measured for a proper wardrobe. I mean, honestly Val! She’s a princess, and you’ve left me hardly any time at all to have anything proper made in time for Solstice.”

“I daresay we had more pressing matters to attend to.”

“Nonsense,” she replied, crossing to the door to call over a page. “See the tailor is summoned at once. And have someone fetch a tea service.”

Elyra just glanced over at Valion, feeling entirely uncertain. Valion looked over at her and made a face, reaching over to smooth back her hair.

“Sorry,” he mouthed so his mother couldn’t see.

“Go on, sit. I want to hear about your lessons,” Morgana said, ushering them over to the couches. Elyra sat next to Valion while his mother sat on the couch across from them, looking expectant.

Elyra hesitated before answering, voice soft. “Father has been teaching me swordcraft and we’ve been working on magic and history and politics so far. We’re going to start some lessons on healing soon.”

“Are you enjoying them?”

She nodded. Morgana turned back to Valion. “When is she to begin etiquette lessons? Or dancing? Your father said she has an aptitude for law, that should certainly be added, along with tactics, and of course diplomacy, and some sort of art—”

“Mother,” Valion said, exasperated. “I can handle my daughter’s education. I’m not going to overwhelm her, it’s been enough of an adjustment. She is extremely clever and was more well-educated in the Mortal Realm than many of their princes. She speaks four languages fluently, can read and write in six, is studied in literature, history, philosophy, art, and the natural sciences, is an utterly voracious reader and talented bookmaker, and has traveled extensively. I have no doubt she will master all that you are concerned about, but right now she has enough to learn and learn well.”

Elyra glanced up at him. She hadn’t known he’d paid such close attention to her schooling.

Morgana sighed. “I suppose you have your plan, though you know your father will have his say.”

“I’m sure Father will agree she’s earned some time to recover and adjust.”

“Yes of course. I wasn’t suggesting she hadn’t, merely ensuring you know what is to be expected.”

“I’m well aware.”

Morgana turned back towards her. “Well, I am glad that you’re enjoying your lessons and adjusting. It must be very different from what you’re used to.”

Elyra nodded.

“And what were you doing in the Mortal Realm? Merely working on your studies?”

“I—I helped my father there run his shop. We made books. And—and I was running it, before I was taken.”

“Well isn’t that quite industrious?” she replied and Elyra forced a smile, though her thoughts drifted to her poor father. She still missed him so very much.

Elyra glanced back as there was another knock on the door before it opened. An exceedingly well-dressed faery man with blue-tinged skin and beautiful, iridescent wings strode inside, followed by a cart stocked for tea. Behind that came a page carrying a heavy wooden platform that he placed towards the far side of the room, where she hadn’t noticed a full length mirror.

“Quinn, lovely. I have quite the project for you,” Morgana said, motioning for her to stand. She glanced at Valion before doing so, feeling extremely uncomfortable with the way the tailor looked at her, gaze so sharp she was sure he could see every one of her many flaws.

“Ah, the little arborist. A pleasure to meet you, your Highness,” he said with a bow. Morgana reached out and took her hand, leading her over to stand on the platform. She fought the urge to look back at Valion again. She was quite sure a Blackthorne was not supposed to be made nervous by a fitting.

“As I told you, she is a very pretty girl, all the more so now that she’s healthy,” Morgana said, smiling at her when she mentioned her health and reaching out to pet a hand over her curls.

“But obviously,” she said, shooting a dirty look back at Valion, who still sat on the couch. “Her father should not be trusted with her wardrobe.”

“He has gotten me very pretty dresses, your—your Majesty,” she said, unsure of what she should call her in general, bet especially in front of others. “He took me for armor, so I needed to wear trousers.”

“Oh, you silly girl, there’s no need to be so formal, though I am pleased your father has ensured you have proper manners. Simply call me Grandmother.”

“Yes, Grandmother.”

The tailor, Quinn, was busy striding around her, observing her from different angles. She shifted uncomfortably, unused to being so scrutinized.

“She has a nice figure and is taller than I’d thought, which certainly gives us more options. I do have to say—I don’t think our typical palette will do much for her features, and it would be a shame not to use them to her advantage. They are delightfully unusual.”

“What are you thinking?”

“White, silvers, iridescents. I’d like it to seem as if she’s dressed in moonlight itself.”

“Yes, that would be lovely.”

It was an odd experience, standing there and listening to the two of them talk about her almost as if she wasn’t there. She thought perhaps it was better than having to keep up a conversation, though.

“So, of course we’ll need a gown for Solstice, an array for Court—do you want anything more casual as well?” Quinn asked, flitting about with his measuring tape, moving her arms where he’d like as he took a whole manner of measurements.

“I want a whole wardrobe, she needs everything. I don’t want to trust it to Valion’s tastes, I mean,” she motioned to her outfit.

“I do rather like having trousers,” she said, half because it was true, half because she had the sudden need to be contradictory. To her surprise, though, Quinn beamed at her.

“Oh, I do love someone with a sense of adventure.”

“Quinn—”

“Oh, it will be as lovely as everything else I make, you must know by now to trust me, your Majesty.”

“I do trust you, I just want her to look like a proper princess.”

Elyra stopped listening, eyes flicking to the parlor door that opened and revealed Valion’s father. His cheeks were more hollow since last she’d seen him, shadows under his eyes. He crossed right to Valion, gaze intense.

She tried to look very much like she wasn’t eavesdropping.

“You haven’t answered a single one of my missives,” Veylon hissed.

“I’ve had enough on my hands to deal with. Elyra’s been ill, and we’ve been working on her lessons.”

“If she was ill you should have taken her to the Royal Healers.”

“It was nothing I was incapable of handling.”

“I’m not sure you’re the best judge of that, all things considered,” Veylon retorted, glaring at him. “Now you are going to give me some answers. Who is her mother?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters quite a bit, Val. The last silver eldertree died with the moon, and that’s not even mentioning those gates she was conjuring! The blight of the Gloomveil is apparently cured and the Gloaming has risen from the Muckmire as if that accursed swamp had never existed. They’re saying there are stars above it. Stars.”

“I don’t know what that has to do with my daughter.”

“Stop playing the idiot, Valion. I’ve had missives from the Uppercourt—they tell of a creeping twilight, all along that blasted forest on their lands. Now tell me who the girl’s mother is so that I know how to handle this. There’s already whisper that she’s some sort of omen, some sort of harbringer after that nightmare in the arena.”

“Let them say what they will,” Valion snapped back.

“Stupid boy, didn’t you learn from last time—?”

“Darling, how do you feel about jewelry?” Morgana asked, drawing her attention back to the fitting.

“I—I’m not sure I feel anything particular about it,” she stuttered.

“Well, that does make it more fun for me. Are your ears pierced?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

“We should have that done before you leave, then they’ll be healed in time for Solstice.”

“I’m not sure—”

“I’ll handle your father, it won’t be an issue,” Morgana said with a smile. “We’ll get you a haircut as well. I doubt we’ll have time for anything more before dinner.”

Quinn finished with a flourish, measuring tape disappearing into thin air.

“That’s all I need. I should have have it all designed by next week, I’ll let you know when the sketches are ready for approval, your Majesty,” he said with a bow to Morgana before he turned and offered her the same, which was more than a little off-putting. “It was a pleasure to meet you, your Highness.”

With that he flit away, a small sketchbook already in hand. Morgana pulled her to follow with her, firmly holding her arm. Elyra glanced over to catch Valion’s eye and he stood, making a face.

“Mother—”

“I’m taking her for a haircut. You stay and talk with your father.”

“I’ll come as well—”

“You won’t,” Veylon said sharply. “You’re going to stay here until you explain.”

“I will not—”

“Oh, they could fight for ages,” Morgana said, pulling her out of the parlor while Valion was distracted.

 

---

 

“You didn’t even talk to me before bringing her,” Valion snapped, glaring at his mother. Elyra stared very hard at the table, wishing she could melt into the floor. She wasn’t convinced they did anything but argue.

Valion had been furious when she and his mother had joined him and his father in what was apparently ‘the family’s private dining chamber’ and he’d seen the little silver studs fastened to her ears. She’d had it all done so fast it had made her head spin, but it wasn’t as if she could tell her no.

Or at least she didn’t feel like it.

It had hurt terribly, but at least it had only been a flash of pain, though her ears remained sore. Stupid, overactive fae nerves.

Still, that was better than the argument currently happening about her as if she wasn’t there.

“Don’t be dramatic, Val,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

“Did you even ask her if she wanted them pierced, or did you just bring her and have it done because you wanted it.”

“She’ll need to wear earrings.”

“Says who?”

“This is why I didn’t involve you—all the noble girls have their ears pierced. You don’t understand these sorts of things.”

“I don’t care what all the noble girls have, I care that you bullied my daughter into sticking needles through her ears.”

“Always with the drama! You don’t understand, there are certain things expected of young ladies and you clearly have no interest in trying to help her fit in at Court, I mean—” she said, gesturing to her training clothes.

“We were only supposed to be going to the armorer and then home.”

“That doesn’t matter, Valion. She’s a princess, she’s expected to look a certain way! You shouldn’t be taking her to the armorer in ratty boy’s clothes either!”

“That’s bullshit, Mother. I’m not letting you put all that crap in her head.”

“It’s not ‘bullshit’ to be well-groomed. You can’t be trusted to even get her proper shampoo—Pierre said her hair was dry. Luckily, I’ve sorted it.”

“Would you like a glass of wine?” Veylon asked her. She looked up and nodded. She’d never had faery wine before, but she’d appreciate any alcohol to get her through this dinner.

“Please.”

He poured her a glass and then himself, handing it to her with a sigh. He looked older than last she’d seen him, looked like he’d hardly been sleeping.

“Your father tells me you’ve taking to the sword quite well,” Veylon said, ignoring the escalating fight between his wife and son. “How are you finding your magic lessons? Your father always was a prodigious mage, I’m glad he’s tutoring you himself.”

“I like them,” she said quietly. “Some of it is hard to understand because I didn’t grow up here, so Father has to explain silly things that everyone who grew up here just knows.”

“Yes, I imagine he would. So many things we take for granted were shorn from you, growing up in the Mortal Realm,” he said, an undercurrent of sadness and anger woven into his words.

She took a sip of her wine, unsure of what to say to that. She was surprised to find it far different than the wine she’d had in the Mortal Realm—it was sweeter, entrancingly so, and it seemed to almost fizz with magic.

“Do they always fight like this?” she asked.

“Oh yes,” Veylon said, huffing an humorless sort of laugh. “I don’t know that they’ve ever agreed on anything and they’re both terribly short tempered. He takes after her, it’s why they clash so much. They’re both absolute terrors,” he said, staring blankly over her head.

She didn’t think Valion had a particularly short temper—in fact, he’d mostly been more patient then she’d expect, especially when she was needling him.

“This must all seem very strange and terrible to you,” Veylon said, still staring at the wall above her head. “I am sorry, for how you suffered. There should have been protections in place for you, it should have never—”

He broke off and shook his head, jaw tight. Elyra just stared, brows furrowed. She would have never expected Veylon to apologize to her—she’d expected him to angry with her, to resent her. They ate in silence for the rest of the meal while Valion and his mother argued.

She was glad when it was finally time to go and Morgana got up and shoved a bag of whatever she’d decided young ladies needed at Valion, walked over to press a kiss to her hair before she stormed out.

“Absolutely fucking insane,” Valion fumed, face still curled in anger. “Come on, Elyra, it’s time to go.”

Veylon rose and wrapped her in a hug, his hold tight. He held her for a long moment, as if he didn’t want to let go.

“Be good, dear,” he said before he released her, voice constricted, forcing a smile as he stepped back. “I hope we will see you again before Solstice.”

“Don’t fucking count on it,” Valion snapped back. “Let’s go.”

“Goodbye, Grandfather,” she said quietly, trying to force a smile. He nodded, looking somehow more tired than before. Valion ushered her out, hand on her back as he navigated back through the labyrinth of hallways, fury echoing in his every footstep.

 

---

 

“She shouldn’t have done that,” Valion said, examining her ears when they got home. He was still very much furious, but he handled her gently.

“It’s okay,” she said, ready to just forget about the whole thing.

“It’s not,” he said, gaze intense. “Did she ask you if you wanted them pierced?”

“No.”

“Did you want them pierced?”

“Not really.”

“Did you feel like you could say no?”

She shook her head, dropping her eyes to the floor.

“That’s not okay, Elyra. It’s so not okay. You tell her no if she tries to pull this again. You tell her no and you come get me and I’ll deal with it. Of course, I’m not going to let her steal you away again, just the two of you—she knew exactly what she was doing, exactly how I’d feel about it. She’s always been like this. Do they hurt?”

“They’re just sore, now.”

“I’m sorry, Moonbeam. I should have known she would pull something like this.”

“It’s fine, it wasn’t that bad,” she said, staring at the floorboards. Valion reached out and cradled her face in his hands, gently urging her to look at him.

“It is, and I don’t want you to brush it off. You didn’t want it, you didn’t ask for it, and she made you feel as though you couldn’t say no. No one should do that to you, I don’t care if it’s my mother. I don’t ever want you to feel as though you can’t say no,” he said, gaze as intense as before, though his eyes seemed misty.

She nodded, throat tight. Valion pulled her into a hug, hand combing through her hair. “We have to go to Solstice, but we’re not going back before, and I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“What do you mean, Solstice? Your mother kept talking about it but she never explained what it was.”

“It’s an old celebration, before the Light and Dark Courts split. We used to have day here too, nearly beyond memory, and it was the longest night of the year. Now it’s just all one bit night. We still celebrate it, though. There are Rites that must be renewed, and then we’ll be forced to sit through the ball. It’ll be a drag, but we won’t have to worry about it again for a year.”

“A ball?”

“It’s terribly dull, there’s far too many rules,” he said, face still stormy. He took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m still furious, so I’m going to make something for dessert, if you’d like to join me.”

“Does that help you to be less furious?” she asked, following him to the kitchen.

“Not even a little,” he said, banging open cabinets and pulling out ingredients. Elyra couldn’t help but snort.

“Go do something useful if you want to laugh at me,” he snapped at her, though there was no heat behind it. “Go get a bottle of wine.”

“What kind?”

“I couldn’t care less.”

She went down to the cellar, looking over the bottles for a long moment before choosing one at random. She didn’t know a thing about faery wine, hardly knew anything about mortal wine. She brought it upstairs and handed it to him. He glanced at the label before nodding.

“Do you want some?” he asked.

“Sure.”

He turned to grab a glass and open the bottle. He poured her a generous glass before drinking directly from the rest of the bottle, handing her hers before going back to digging through the cabinets. She sat at the counter and just watched him, trying to figure out if there was any reason to it.

“Don’t talk to my father if he asks you about your magic,” he said, dumping ingredients into a large bowl. “He’s prying, and if he finds out about your mother it’s going to be a shit show.”

“He didn’t ask me about it, really. Just asked me if I liked my lessons.”

“Well he at least usually has more tact than my mother. Still, I wouldn’t put it past him to involve you in it. He was furious I wouldn’t tell him.”

“He just seemed really sad.”

“He is, he’s miserable.”

“I thought he’d be angry with me, because of the whole trial. Your mother too.”

“No, they would never, they know you’re nothing but an innocent.”

“He wouldn’t really look at me.”

“He’s ashamed, it has nothing to do with you. He never took my brother’s jealousy or cruelty seriously and let him turn into a monster. He knows he’s every bit responsible for everything Vranos did to you as I am,” he said, taking a deep draft from the bottle. He dumped the mixture into a baking pan and practically threw it in the oven.

“I don’t want to talk about my parents anymore, if that’s alright with you. It’ll only make me angrier.”

She just shrugged. Valion stared at her for a long moment.

“What?” she asked, shrinking under his gaze.

“I still don’t know what I’m doing. I wish I knew what I was doing, Elyra. I want you to know I’m trying, I’m trying to do it right. At the very least not to become my parents. All I want is you to be safe and happy.”

“I know you’re trying,” she said softly, staring at the counter.

“I hate how miserable you are all the time.”

“I’m trying not to be.”

“I know. I just wish I could fix it all for you.”

Elyra stared at the counter for a long time, sipping her wine. Maybe the second glass made her tongue looser—faery wine was certainly stronger than what she was used to. Still, there were so many nasty questions that lingered in the back of her mind, the broken little part of her than still felt so abandoned, that felt like she wasn’t enough, that if she had been, he’d have kept her.

It was especially awful, because she loved her parents so much, they’d given her a wonderful childhood and she’d wanted for nothing—not affection or attention or love. But she hadn’t been theirs and she had to wonder if they’d ever have kept her, if they’d have known what she was. If they would have loved her the same way.

Would Valion have been a good father, if he’d kept her? Would she have felt so strange and out of place everywhere if she hadn’t spent her whole childhood a cuckoo? If her whole life hadn’t been a lie?

“Do you ever think you could have been a good father, if you kept me?” she asked without looking up from the counter.

“No,” he said with a desolate smile. “I think you would have grown up in a mausoleum, with a suffocating, overprotective father that was utterly crippled by grief. I think you would have been miserably lonely. Maybe if I’d taken you back when I meant to, I could have managed it. Not as well as your foster parents raised you, by any means, but maybe I could have done an alright job. Of course, you deserved better than that.”

She sniffled, mouth pressed together tightly. She didn’t doubt what he said—she’d seen how he’d lost himself to grief, how dysfunctional he’d been just dealing with what had been done to her, she just—part of her wanted him to have loved her enough to have kept her, to have tried to be better, because she’d needed him.

Still, she knew her parents had done a better job than he would have.

“I wish you would have come in October,” she said, voice hardly more than a breath.

“I do too,” he said, voice breaking. “More than anything, Lyra. I’d do anything to go back.”

She took a draft of her wine, not bothering to savor its sweetness. They didn’t say anything for a long time, until the silence was broken by the oven timer.

Valion pulled the dish out on set it on the counter. It was vaguely lumpy, had risen to a high dome in the middle of the pan, but it was a nice golden brown color.

“What is it?” Elyra asked.

“I don’t fucking know,” Valion replied, taking another swig from the wine bottle. “Some kind of cake? It smells edible.”

He grabbed a pair of forks and tossed her one, digging directly into whatever it was. She waited for him to taste it before deciding to chance it. He considered it for a moment, leaning his head back and forth as she made a face.

“I’ve definitely made worse,” he said, taking another bite. She reached over to take a small piece, mostly out of curiosity.

It wasn’t bad. The texture was a little strange, but the flavor was good. They ate in silence for a while, but it was comfortable, even after what they’d been talking about.

She didn’t know when it had grown comfortable.

For all his faults, he really was trying. She knew this sort of relationship wasn’t what either of them had wanted, but he was trying. He was keeping his word, teaching her so she’d be able to defend herself and handle Faery on her own. She knew he loved her, even if sometimes it didn’t feel like enough, after everything.

She really wanted it to be.

Still, they were all each other had, really. Valion certainly wasn’t close with his parents, and he was all she had in Faery, the only person she was safe to be around.

He‘d taken care of her when she was miserably sick, never complained that all she’d done for that first week had just been to puke and cry.

She finished her glass of wine, staring hard at the counter, trying to focus on the fizzing sort of magic it filled her with. Neither one of them could change what had happened, or make it better. They could try now, though.

Maybe she wanted to, now.

Maybe she wanted to be someone’s daughter again.

“Hey Dad?” she said, the name not sounding as strange as she’d thought, not like Father did—he wasn’t her father, that had been the man who’d raised her, who’d taught her to read and tie her boots, and taken her all across Europe so she could see how very big the world was, how fast it was changing.

Maybe he could be her dad, though. Maybe she wanted him to be, to try.

Maybe she wanted to feel like she was worth trying for, this time, not just sent away.

Valion looked up, brows furrowed as he searched her face, though the corners of his mouth curled up into a small, hesitant smile.

“Yeah?”

“Can we go to the seaside, tomorrow?”

“Of course we can, sweetling.”

 

---

 

Valion quietly closed his study door as Elyra climbed the stairs to go to bed. He’d follow her up in a half hour or so, make sure she was home and safe in bed before he went to sleep.

He sat on the couch, dropping his head into his hands, and took a deep breath, heart hammering in his chest.

She’d been drunk—she’d never had faery wine before, hadn’t any tolerance for it. Not really drunk, but drunk enough to say things she wouldn’t normally.

She’d called him Dad.

She hadn’t looked at him when she did, but it had been deliberate, even with the wine. She always just called him by his name if they were home, something he hated but tolerated because he had to, because it was deserved, because that was what she was comfortable with.

He got up to root around in one of his desk drawers, pulling out the doll he’d taken from her apartment in Vienna, the one that looked like her—her real face. She’d said she’d thrown a fit to keep it, cried so hard she made herself sick. She’d kept it, long after she’d stopped playing with dolls.

There hadn’t been any others in her room.

He stared at it, tracing its features. He’d had it made to his precise specifications, but he’d painted on the face himself. He remembered how careful he’d been, dead set on getting it right.

And she’d kept it.

She’d asked him if he would have been a good father, if he’d kept her and he’d been honest with her, even though he’d hated the truth of it. He knew what she’d really meant, though—could he have, if he’d tried, if he’d been selfish and kept her. Could he have put aside his own grief enough to be her father? Might he have, if there had been no other option, if he’d had to take care of her, see to her needs first?

If she’d never had to ask him why he gave her away.

He knew he’d never have been able to give her close to the childhood her foster parents had. He’d thought it the kindest, best thing he could do for her, but he’d never really considered how she’d feel when he came to take her back, the wound it would leave.

He saw it, in her eyes, sometimes, saw it so much when she was sick—the anger and miserable sadness. It got worse, the more he doted on her, the more he took care of her. It was as if he could hear her, plain as day—why didn’t you keep me? Why did you send me away? Why didn’t you take care of me then?

Why didn’t you try to be my father? Why didn’t you try then?

Of course the answer to them all was the same—he’d been selfish, he’d been a coward, and he’d been so very afraid.

She’d called him Dad.

Not father—he was rather sure he’d given that title away when he’d left her with her foster parents, made her feel discarded, made it all so much worse by being negligent in his care when it should have been the time for him to step in, to take care of her, to be there when she needed him most.

But Dad—

He knew she meant it as a second chance, probably the only other chance he’d ever get. He didn’t think she’d forgiven him, knew he didn't deserve it, but still—it was her way of trying. Of saying that she was trying. That there was still some small, not quite broken piece of her that wanted a connection with him, more than just necessity, that wanted him to step up and do what he should’ve, to prove to her that she could trust him, that he wouldn’t abandon her again, that he’d protect her, this time.

That maybe, if he could manage it, they could be a family. That maybe part of her wanted that.

He was lucky his daughter was braver than him by a mile, lucky that she was kinder than he deserved, lucky that she’d consider giving him another chance, a real chance, that she’d make herself so incredibly vulnerable.

He wouldn’t—couldn’t—fuck it up this time.

He looked back at her old doll, at the face he’d painted that she hadn’t recognized as her own, the doll he’d had made when he hadn’t been able to make himself take her home like some sort of twisted apology, that sat in his hands fifteen years later because she hadn’t gotten rid of it.

He got up and went upstairs, pushed into her sitting room and then to her empty bedroom. He tucked it into the bed, looking around the room, at how different it looked when it was lived in. Before it had just been a sort of shrine to everything he was missing, every new thing he discovered she liked, every sort of milestone.

The dolls were missing now, and the stuffed animals and childish things. There were piles of books on the nightstand and the vanity now, marked with scraps of paper and piles of notes in her flowing script.

He stepped back out to the sitting room, pulling the door shut behind him before warding the door so she wouldn’t hear him in the sitting room when she returned. He stepped out to retrieve his most recent sketchbook and sprawled on the couch, starting on yet another rendition of the cliffs by the Endless Green Sea, though this time he drew Elyra there, from their picnic, wind whipping about her hair as she stared out over the waves.

She’d liked it there, enough to wish to go back. He was glad it was a place they could share.

Perhaps someday she might even smile when they went.

 

---

 

Valion looked up from his sketchbook as her bedroom door opened and Elyra pushed in, face pinched, holding the doll he’d tucked into her bed. She sat wordlessly next to him on the couch and pulled her knees to her chest, curling up as small as she could manage as she leaned into his side. He put aside his sketchbook as a sob tore itself from her chest and she pressed her face to his shoulder.

“Moonbeam,” he said, wrapping her in a hug as she sobbed, his own heart breaking at the sound of her pain.

“Why can’t I be normal?” she choked out.

“Darling—”

“I wish I was normal, then I could be fixed, but I’m just this thing—”

“You’re not a thing, you’re a wonderful, clever girl.”

“I’m a monster. That’s why I can never go back.”

“You’re certainly not a monster—”

“I really love him,” she sobbed, voice muffled by his shoulder. “I love him and I can never see him again because I might hurt him and it doesn’t get any better. I don’t miss him any less.”

“Elyra, baby—”

“I’m dangerous. You’re the only one who’s safe around me, because you can tear the magic away, and no one can help me figure any of it out because I’m a freak.”

“You’re not a freak, and you’re not dangerous, not how you think.”

“They killed the last one. That’s why you won’t tell your father my mother was Seelie. Because she was dangerous and you think he'll want me dead—”

“They didn’t know—she was just a baby. She was just different and that was enough for her to be a threat to the way things are, the way they think they have to be.”

“I don’t want to be different! I don’t want to be different, I hate it! I’m always different, I don’t fit in anywhere, I don’t belong anywhere. I can’t go back to the Mortal Realm because it will make me sick and I might hurt my friends, I don’t want to fit in at Court, I hate being there, and if I ever wore my true face in Seelie, they’d hate me because I don't look right. I’m not human, but I don’t know how to be faery, my magic is dangerous and wrong. I’m just stuck in between everything,” she sobbed, nearing hysterics. He rubbed her back, trying to soothe her.

“When does it stop hurting?” she asked, looking up to stare at him with tears streaming down her face. “When does it get better?”

“I don’t know, sweetling. I haven’t found that out yet,” he said gently, honestly. He might be able to live with it better now, but Orlaith’s loss still gutted him the same now as it had when he’d sat by her bedside after she’d passed holding Elyra and forcing himself to do what was best. Sometimes he’d be doing something with Elyra or something she did would remind him of her, and it’d knock the breath out of him that he couldn’t tell her. Sometimes he’d just look at their daughter and the thought of all Orlaith had missed would knock him flat.

She sobbed harder, so hard he was scared she’d make herself sick again. He held her tight, wishing he could do anything to fix it all. He could swear he felt his heart breaking for her, the pain of her misery stealing his breath.

Instead he just held her, this time, until she cried herself to sleep. He hoped it was some comfort, at least, not to be alone with her grief. He scooped her up, once she was deep enough asleep that he didn’t think she’d wake, and carried her to her bed, tucking her into her blankets. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, brushing back her hair out of affection, rather than necessity. He blinked back the tears threatening to slip down his cheeks, his throat tight.

One day it would get better. It had to.

He couldn’t bear to watch her suffer so.

 

---

 

Elyra lay back in the grass, trying to enjoy the warmth of the sun on her face. She hadn’t realize how much she missed it until she was surrounded by endless night. She turned to her side after a while, absently coaxing flowers out of the grass. They were all strange, nothing that she’d ever seen before, but she liked them. She picked one to smell—it was something like honey suckle and apple blossoms. She twirled it in her fingers, only stopping when she noticed Valion glancing up at her and scribbling in his sketchbook. She made a face, pushing herself up so she was sitting.

“What are you doing?”

“Your mother used to call it being creepy and annoying,” he said without looking up. She scooted over to look over his shoulder.

He was drawing her, over and over, little sketches of her laying in the grass, of her flowers, of her twirling one between her fingers. It was strange to see herself as he saw her—he drew her far prettier than she was, her eyes terribly sad.

He glanced over to see her looking and shifted so it was easier for her, sticking his pencil behind his ear.

He flipped back to show her more—more of her looking desolate, looking furious, a few with a soft smile that must have been from when Adrian had been in Faery. He’d drawn her asleep in that narrow infirmary bed and pouring over books in the library. There were close up studies of the leaves and flowers of the eldertrees around the house, studies of moths and beetles, of landscapes she didn’t recognize. Some were just in pencil, others had color— sometimes in washes of transparent paint, others where the pencils themselves were colored. She stopped him at one, reaching out to stop him from flipping to the next one.

It was her forest, sketched out in blue pencil. He must have done it from memory.

“I think that’s the most beautiful place in the Undercourt,” she said, absently tracing one of the boughs of a tree.

“It might be,” Valion said, though there was something in his voice she didn’t know what to make of. “It’s not supposed to exist.”

“Why?”

“It sunk a long, long time ago, turned into an awful swamp. Your friends and I had to slog through it to get the the Undercrypts.”

“It was swamp at first when I saw it too, but the forest just grew as I went. I like its magic best.”

Valion glanced at her, brow furrowed. “Was it hard for you to use its magic?”

She shook her head. “It’s the easiest.”

He nodded slowly, the furrow between his brows deepening.

“Is that where you’ve been going?” he asked evenly. She’d expected a lecture this morning, after he figured out she’d left, anger at how irresponsible she was, that it was dangerous and she wasn’t to leave without telling him or without him going with her, but he hadn’t brought it up at all when they’d had breakfast.

She nodded. “I like to walk there. I just follow the path and there’s a place I like to sit. It just—there’s something comforting about it. I like its magic and there’s stars. There’re no stars anywhere else here.”

Valion stared at her for a long time, though she didn’t quite know what to make of his expression.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, shrinking under his gaze.

He took a deep breath. “Because I’m not sure what to make of it. Faery is changing and I’m not sure why, but you seem to be some sort of catalyst.”

“I didn’t make any of that happen, I was just there.”

“It might not have been you, you might have just been a vessel.”

“How could I be?” she asked, making a face. He shook his head.

“I don’t know. I have no idea what to make of it. None of the rules seem to apply to you, when it comes to magic. Still—there must be some. We’ll figure it out,” he said, smoothing back her hair, though she wasn’t sure if it was meant to reassure her or him.

“How about we get something for lunch, and then we’ll take a look at the shops?” he asked, clearly trying to change the subject. She nodded and got to her feet as he packed up his art supplies.

It was about twenty minutes back to the town, but she was rather glad for the walk. She didn’t understand why he seemed so unsettled—wasn’t it good the forest had returned instead of the swamp? That there were stars?

Surely it was better than endless, empty night skies?

Elyra absently ran her fingers over the bark of a long dead tree all by itself next to the cliffside path, gnarled and grey from its time standing against the sea winds. She wondered how long it had stood in defiance before succumbing.

She turned back towards the town, wondering what else it held. They hadn’t explored much of it last time, what with Valion’s shopping. He’d said there was a bookshop, which she wanted to see. It had been so long since she’d step foot in her father’s—she wondered if the ink and paper smell would be the same in Faery.

She turned to ask Valion where exactly it was, but didn’t find him by her side. She turned around, only to find him still fifty paces behind, next to the dead tree.

Or—it had been dead. It was growing once more, its barren limbs now budding with bright green leaves. She jogged back to where he stood frozen, just staring at it, eyes wide.

“I thought we were going to the bookstore,” she said, making a face. She really did want to go.

“Lyr—Elyra, what did you do? I watched you touch it and then it came back to life—it’s twice as large as it was before.”

“I don’t—I don’t know. I wasn’t trying to do anything. It just happens sometimes.”

“What do you mean, it just happens sometimes? You’ve done this before, with dead wood?”

“Once I was falling and I grabbed the bannister and it grew a tree branch. Then—then I did it again when you pulled me into the dream water. A whole tree grew from the divan while I was asleep,” she said, wondering why his face had gone pale. Surely it was just like her window boxes, or any of the things she’d grown since and it was far better than her touch of death.

“Moonbeam, I need you to be honest with me. When you were running from Vranos, did you stop in the necropolis? Did you step off the path?”

“Are you going to be angry with me?” she asked, trying to make sense of his face.

“No—no, I just need to know.”

“I—I did. I shouldn’t have stopped, I knew he was chasing me, but—it was almost like something was calling.”

Valion stared at her, jaw tight.

“Did you speak to anyone?”

“I—there was a lady, Ysolde, she was some sort of spirit. There were loads of them—a whole city of them. But I only talked to Isolde.”

“What did she say?”

“She—I didn’t know how to get out. She—” Elyra broke off, remembering how upset Adrian had been.

“Elyra, please tell me. I need to know, whatever it is.”

“I didn’t know where to go. She said she’d show me, but I had to come back and visit. I made sure that I’d be able to leave when I wanted and that no one would harm me, but—but I was scared he’d catch up to me. She showed me a hidden tunnel out, it was so small he wouldn’t have been able to follow me even if he found it. I know I’m not supposed to make deals, I know it was foolish, but I needed help,” she said, waiting for anger to wash over his face, for him to tell her how stupid she’d been, but he only looked more frightened.

“She was—she was nice. I don’t think she meant it as some sort of trick. She—she said she could smell Vranos coming, she told me to run. She—she called me Amaris, but I don’t know how—I don’t know how she knew one of my middle names when even I didn’t.”

Valion stood, breathing hard, eyes far away.

“What? What is it, you’re frightening me,” she said, tugging on his sleeve to bring his attention back.

“I—I gave you that name. It was the only one I picked. Your mother didn’t like it, she thought it was morbid, but she still let me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The other child—the baby girl born of both Courts—it had been her name. I don’t know why I wanted it so badly, I just—” he shook his head, taking a steadying breath. “I doubt that’s why she called you it, though. Ysolde was her mother. She sunk the Gloaming, she cursed the Undercrypts, she brought terror and destruction in the name of those stolen from her. They killed her, eventually, killed everyone loyal to her, anyone sympathetic. The necropolis—that’s where they buried them all. None of them—none of them will cross over the Veil. That’s why there’s so few faery children. There are no new souls, only souls ready to live again and without a soul ready to pass through the veil, there can be no child. Ysolde’s child—she was something new, a new soul, the first since the beginning, when everything was created. She had nowhere to go, just lingering in the Veil, until—”

He stared at the ground, shaking his head.

“I have her daughter’s soul?”

“I’m almost certain.”

“Then I’m sure she doesn’t want to hurt me when I go back. She probably—she probably misses her daughter if she went through the Veil without her.”

“I don’t think she will hurt you, not directly, but it doesn’t mean she isn’t scheming, that she isn’t angling for something. She—she’s very dangerous, Moonbeam. Her magic was unmatched—I doubt it’s been matched since, unless—We need to sort this out. I—I’ll need to make preparations before we do, but you can’t break the deal. It would be—you just can’t.”

“Do you think she might know why my magic is wrong?” she asked quietly. Valion ground his teeth.

“If anyone does, it would be her. It’s not the sort of information she’d give away for free, though, and you can’t bargain with her again. She can’t be trusted.”

Elyra nodded, trying to process everything he’d told her, to make sense of it all.

“There’s—there’s more, but I’ll tell you later, I don’t want to spoil the day. We’re here to enjoy the shops and the sun. Come on, I promised I’d take you to the book shop,” he said, cheeriness forced.

Still, she only nodded, following him numbly into town as her mind raced. Every time she thought she couldn’t get any stranger she discovered something else worse than the last.

Valion glanced over at her face and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

“It’ll be okay. I’ll make sure it’s okay, I promise,” he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze. She nodded, not sure if her voice would work if she could find the words to say.

 

---

 

Alucard was tired of pouring through useless books, or Sypha’s well-meaning lectures on patience. He didn’t care, anymore.

What was the point of patience if Rosalind had convinced herself staying away forever was the only way to keep them all safe? What was the point of patience if she never came back?

It had to have been a long time for her, had to have been months, and she hadn’t returned. Whatever she was looking for, she couldn’t find it, or thought it not enough.

It didn’t matter. He was going to do his damndest to convince her to come home, to forget about the awful, wrong things Trevor had said, to be happy with him.

He knew they could be happy together.

He stomped up the stairs to his father’s study, staring at the shards of the Carpathian Mirror as he blew out a breath. He was quite aware it was a desperate, idiot plan, that more than likely he’d maim himself or worse, that this was certainly not how the thing was supposed to be used, but even if he could teach Sypha how to open it and hold the portal, he doubted she’d agree. Not to mention it would take her weeks to learn, to build up the mental strength to hold it for any length of time.

He just needed a second. One, merciful second.

He called up the shards, focusing on the memory of Valion’s house in the woods, straining to pull it into focus, the moment he did, the moment the portal was wide enough he leapt through, hoping he was fast enough before the mirror snapped it shut.

He was falling and it was as if he was falling through the shards themselves, could feel glass tear through his skin, but all he could see was darkness. He slammed up against something solid and felt himself sliding down—or he thought it was down, he couldn’t tell.

He was half convinced he would simply fall forever through the pieces of glass when he slammed into the ground, impact knocking the breath from him. He opened his eyes, wincing as he sat up—he’d definitely broken a rib or two. He looked around, freezing when he saw a familiar forest to his right.

He hadn’t landed where he’d meant—no doubt it had been Valion’s glamour he’d slammed into, refusing him entry.

But he was here, he was in Faery.

She was so close.

He wondered how similar Valion’s glamour was to the wards his father had taught him—it would make it easier to unravel, though he’d figure it out even if they were nothing alike.

He had to.

He set off to find the path that led to the house, intent on forcing his way through its gate.

 

---

 

There was a hammering on the front door. Elyra made a face, setting aside her book to cross to the entrance hall.

“Leave it, Moonbeam, I’ll get it,” Valion called from upstairs, but she ignored him, something in her drawing her towards the door, even as the banging continued, the sound almost violent. She unlocked it and threw it open, calling magic to cling to her in case it was something awful on the other side that meant to eat her.

She froze, her breath stuttering in her lungs.

Adrian stood on the other side of the door, looking frenzied, covered in little lines of blood, the wounds already healed, looking almost as if he’d fallen through a thicket of briars. His shirt was torn and spotted with blood, hair wild and he was covered in no small amount of dirt and grime.

He stared at her for a second, golden eyes round and pleading.

“Rose,” he said, voice hardly more than a breath.

Elyra stood frozen, but for the tears she felt pouring down her face. She heard Valion thundering down the stairs but couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but stare at the face that had haunted every quiet moment she let her mind wander.

She couldn’t do anything but stare, her brain fighting to make sense of what she was seeing—Adrian couldn’t be here, he was safe in the Mortal Realm, he hadn’t any way to even get to Faery. He was supposed to be safe at home and if he was here, if he was around her he wasn’t.

“Dove, please don’t cry,” he said softly, reaching forward to brush the tears from her cheeks. “I hate to see you cry.”

“You can’t be here,” she said, her voice small and choked. “You can’t, you’re supposed to be safe, Adrian, I’m not—I’m not—”

“You can’t just lock yourself away because of something that might happen, because you’ve convinced yourself you’re something that you’re not. You can’t, I can’t bear it. I miss you, it’s been a misery without you. Please, Rose. Please will you just talk to me? We can figure something out, I’m sure.”

“Adrian—” she began, fresh tears pouring down her face, sobs tearing from her chest. How could she make him understand that it was for the best, that it was for him, that he deserved more than someone who was a monster, even in Faery. That she shouldn’t exist, that she was dangerous, that hiding away in the Gloomveil house was what was best for everyone.

That he deserved far better than her, that he always would.

“Would you like to come in for dinner?” Valion asked from behind her, his hand on her back, voice nearly pleasant. She turned, trying to make sense of his face, of the invitation itself. He didn’t like Adrian, though she quite doubted he’d like anyone who tried to court her.

“I would very much. Thank you,” Adrian said, and Valion gently pulled her back so he could step inside.

Notes:

It's been about six months in Faery and a little over a month in the Mortal Realm. MC/Elyra is slowly acclimating to Faery, convinced she'll never be safe enough to return to the Mortal Realm. She's been caught between her anger and hurt at how Valion let her down and part of her that wants a parent, that doesn't want to be alone. Being around his parents definitely makes her appreciate how he treats her, because she thinks they're mostly insane.

She's definitely struggling with the abandonment wound that Valion left her with, that she feels so alien everywhere, that she doesn't belong and he's the only one she feels safe to be around with how unpredictable her magic is. Their relationship still has a long way to go, by all means, but it's shifting.

And now Adrian's back in Faery and hell bent on taking her home. Should be interesting.

Chapter 42: If You'll Let Me

Rosalind looked so different.

How long had it been for her that she could change so much? It was the first time since he met her that she didn’t look starved and fragile, that she looked healthy, cheeks no longer hollow, bones no longer just under the surface. Her hair, too, was longer, moonlit curls nearly reaching her elbows. She wore an unfamiliar dress—something closer to what she’d arrived wearing from Vienna, simple and well-constructed in pale blue silk, though this one had little flowers embroidered over it.

She was so beautiful it stole his breath.

And yet her hiccoughing sobs broke his heart.

Valion turned to her, face softening as he smoothed his hands up and down her upper arms.

“Breathe, sweetling. Come on, we’ll get you some water, it’s all okay,” he said, trying to soothe her. He turned to Alucard, gaze once more sharp. “We’ll meet you in the sitting room.”

He motioned towards the door on the left with his chin, tugging Rosalind further down the hall. All Alucard wanted to do was to follow, but he didn’t want to press his luck. Instead he slipped into the sitting room, hating that he could still hear her sobbing, that he could do nothing to stop it.

He sat on one of the couches, unsure of what to do. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t still hear her misery, only slightly muffled by the distance and door.

He wished he couldn’t. it only made him feel so much worse.

“It’s okay, Elyra. It’s okay—”

“It’s not—it’s not, he’s supposed to be safe—”

“I’m here, I won’t let anything happen. You haven’t hurt a thing since you got here.”

“But what if I do? What if I hurt him? I can’t—”

“You won’t,” Valion said softly. “I promise you won’t.”

“I still can’t control any of it,” Rosalind said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“It’s just dinner, Moonbeam,” he replied. Alucard had never heard him speak so gently. “I know how much you miss him. He came all this way just to see you. It looks as if he lost a fight with a thorn bush along the way.”

“I left so he’d be safe. I want him to be safe.”

“I think you should talk with him, at least. If you want me to send him back home now, I will, but I think you’ll regret it. You’ll always wonder.”

There was a long moment of silence except for the sound of Rosalind’s sniffling tears.

“I will. I’ll talk to him,” Rosalind said finally, voice still thick with tears.

“Why don’t you go splash some cold water on your face. It’ll make you feel better.”

“Nothing will make me feel better.”

“You’re being dramatic, darling.”

“I’m not!” she snapped back, but he heard her footsteps retreat up the stairs. A few moments later he heard footsteps approaching and Valion opened the door, surveying him with an expression he wasn’t sure what to make of.

“How did you manage to get to get to Faery?” he asked evenly.

“I jumped through a Carpathian mirror.”

“Well, that’s a new one, at least,” he said, eyebrows raised. “I assume you mangled my wards?”

“I tried to unravel them on the gate to the path.”

“Wonderful,” he replied sarcastically, making a face.

Rosalind stepped past the threshold of the door, looking more meek than he’d ever seen her. Valion glanced back at her, reaching out to smooth back a few wet strands of hair stuck to her forehead. He was surprised she let him, surprised she didn’t shrink away.

“I have to go re-weave the wards on the path. I’ll be back in a few minutes, alright?”

She nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. Valion shot him a warning glance before he slipped out, shutting the front door hard behind him.

Alucard turned to Rosalind, hating the miserable look on her face. He wanted to do nothing more but pull her into his arms and not let go, but he held back.

“I thought you were going to come back,” he said, the words almost a rasp as they were torn from his throat. She shifted uncomfortably, dropping her gaze to the floor.

“I thought I could fix it,” she replied, voice trembling slightly. “I can’t, though. Valion doesn’t know how it works either and I keep making things happen without trying.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t come home—”

“There was another girl like me, with an Unseelie and a Seelie parent. They killed her, because they thought her so dangerous. She was just a baby.”

“All the more reason you should come back! What if someone finds out?”

“You’re not listening—they even know I’m dangerous here! I shouldn’t exist, I’m some sort of unnatural freak and the only one who’s safe around me is Valion, because he can rip my magic away!”

“I’m not afraid of you—”

“You should be! You shouldn’t have come.”

“Of course I should have! I couldn’t just let you lock yourself away, just because you’re scared of what might happen! I missed you—I’ve been miserable without you.”

“I’m sorry,” she choked out, voice hardly a whisper.

“I don’t want you to be sorry, I want you to come home.”

“This—this has to be my home now.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Please—”

“Even if I—I can’t. I can’t go back to the Mortal Realm.”

“Forget what Trevor said! He’s hardly ever worth listening to, and he certainly wasn’t after the Night Creatures.”

“It’s not—it’s not only because of what Trevor said.”

“Why, then?”

“I—it doesn’t matter. I just can’t.”

“Of course it matters! It matters to me. Everything about you matters to me.”

Rosalind’s face crumpled, tears slipping down her cheeks. “You’re just making this harder, Adrian. I’m trying—I’m trying so hard to do the right thing.”

“Who said it was? Because I don’t think the right thing would leave us both utterly miserable.”

“It keeps you safe.”

“You’re not a danger, not to me.”

“You can’t know that—”

“Yes, I can. I know you’d never hurt me.”

“You can’t—I don’t even know my own magic—”

“I don’t need to know your magic—I know you. I’ve never known you to hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. Maybe you don’t know how it works, or your not sure how to consciously control it yet, but you know who deserves it.”

“Adrian—Adrian, it will ruin me if I hurt you. And it’s not just my magic, not just for what I am—it’s who I am too. People will try and hurt me, to get to Valion, or they’d—th-they’d try to hurt you, to control me. Trevor was right, just being around me—”

“I can take care of myself just fine, dove. I can make sure no one ever harms you—”

“You shouldn’t have to! You shouldn’t have to deal with my shitty, evil Court and its politics—”

“Do you think vampire Courts are any different? That there’s any less backstabbing and treachery and violence? Do you think people don’t want to hurt me, don’t want me dead? Vampires see me as a sort of threat, or an abomination, and humans see me as a monster, hardly any different than a true vampire. I know what it is like to be different, Rose, and to be feared for it, reviled. I know how lonely it is. But we don’t have to be, dove, we can have each other.”

“Adrian—”

“I don’t want to be alone anymore. I thought I did—I thought I’d never want to see another miserable person for as many decades as I could manage. And then I met you, and you made me realize I didn’t want that at all. I want you, Rose, just how you are—the good, the bad, I want all of it.”

“It’s terrible, Adrian.”

“It’s not. It’s not if it’s you.”

Rosalind let out a choked sob, crossing to one of the couches so she could curl up and press her forehead to her knees, as if she was trying to hide her tears. He crossed to sit next to her, running his hand up and down her spine in a way that usually soothed her.

This time it only made her cry harder.

“What do you want, Rose?” he asked softly.

“It doesn’t matter what I want, I’m doing what’s right.”

“Of course it matters what you want,” he said, furrowing his brow. “We can figure out the rest, I know we can.”

“Not all of it. Some things can’t be fixed. I can’t change what I am—”

“I don’t want you to change anything—”

“I can’t—faeries aren’t supposed to live in the Mortal Realm. They just can’t.”

“You lived your whole childhood there.”

She shook her head, still hiding her face. “I can’t, Adrian.”

Valion stepped into the doorway, sharp eyes flicking between them, wearing that same incomprehensible expression.

“Dinner is ready, if you’d like to wash up,” he said, and Rosalind practically ran from the room and upstairs. Alucard watched her go, his heart somehow breaking even more.

 

---

 

Valion surveyed the dhampir as he sat at the table across from Elyra’s spot. She’d yet to come back down, though he wasn’t going to push.

“She was miserably ill when she arrived,” he said evenly, watching Adrian’s face.

“I’d been making her medicine to help—her fever was stubborn—”

“She was sick from the salt she was eating. It’s a poison to faeries, builds up in their system until it’s purged. She wouldn’t have gotten any better.”

He stared back at him, so very clearly distraught.

“I didn’t know,” he said, voice hardly more than a whisper. “I never would have—”

“I know it wasn’t intentional. I just need you to know. She can’t wear linen—it gives her hives, is like if you were to wear garments made from sandpaper. Contaminated mortal water can make her sicker than salt. She’s not used to her senses yet—her hearing especially seems to be sharp, and a source of much distress. Fae senses can be untenably sensitive and the are particularly overwhelming to her, to the point they cause her pain.

“And something drained her magic far too fast—there is not enough wild magic left in the Mortal Realm to use without drawing from oneselves reserves. Hers were nearly depleted when she arrived, which made her condition all the more dire. That is what changelings usually die of, in the Mortal Realm. We cannot live without magic,” Valion said, working hard to keep his tone level.

The boy hadn’t known, and he knew, at least, he wouldn’t willingly hurt his daughter. Still, he had to know, Valion had to be sure he said these things, this time, that he made sure he knew. He didn’t know what Elyra would decide to do, but he knew she loved him, so much that even now, after half a year she still cried herself to sleep every night.

He just wanted her to be happy.

The boy just stared, eyes wide, looking as if he might cry.

Elyra slunk into the dining room, eyes puffy and red from crying. She sat in her spot without a word, staring very hard at her plate. Valion wordlessly served the meal, not bothering to break the silence that had fallen over the table.

He didn’t like the dhampir. He didn’t think his precious daughter should be with anyone who had rotting corpses staked outside his front door, and that was even before he got into his lineage—the Belmont had alluded to him being Dracula’s progeny—or the fact that he hadn’t even a drop of fae blood.

Valion was well aware that staking seemed to be a family trait and rather the least of the unsavory things he’d heard rumor of.

She loved him, though, so much it made her sick, and he—he was devoted to her. He’d come to Faery for her twice, defended her against his wretch of a brother, comforted her when he couldn’t. He made her feel safe, even after everything.

He had no idea what he was supposed to do. He couldn’t watch his little girl be heartsick, day after day, but he feared if they went back to courting it would only be all the worse for her when she came of age and they’d be parted anyway. She was the heir to the Umbral Throne, it would be expected she’d marry some Unseelie noble, carry on the royal line.

It was all misery, every way he looked at it.

It wasn’t his decision to make, though—it was Elyra’s. However much he wished he could make it for her, that he could shield her from the pain of it, he couldn’t, and she’d only resent him for being overbearing and taking away her choice.

The rest of the meal passed in silence but for the clinking of silverware on the dishes. Elyra didn’t look up once, merely picking at her food and the dhampir looked like it was very likely he’d be sick. Valion just ate, trying to ignore the suffocating tension in the room.

It was still leagues preferable than almost any dinner he had with his parents.

 

---

 

“Can we—can we please finish talking?” Adrian asked quietly as they slipped out of the dining room as Valion cleared away the dishes. Elyra nodded and walked to the front door and opened it. She knew Valion would still probably be able to hear everything from inside, but it made her feel, at least, like it was more private.

She just sat on the stoop, looking out at the eldertrees that surrounded the house and lined the path. It would be easier, if she didn’t look at him, if she didn’t have to see just how miserable he looked, didn’t have to see the blood from the injuries he’d gotten making it to Faery in order to see her, didn’t have to see the features she loved so much, that she’d miss so much it made her sick.

Adrian sat next to her, though her left space between them that he wouldn’t have, before. She was both grateful for it and devastated by it.

If only her brain could convince her heart that this was for the best, that it was the kindest thing she could do for him, that he deserved so much better than her. But her heart only wanted to throw her arms around his next and beg him to forgive her for leaving, to promise to never leave his side again.

Her heart was terribly weak and selfish.

“I’m so sorry, Rose,” Adrian said, voice constricted. “I didn’t know salt would make you ill, or the clothes were causing the rash, or that your magic was draining away—”

“You don’t have to be sorry, you didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t know. I didn’t know—”

“But you should have told me that the clothes were irritating you—”

“I thought I’d grow used to them. I wanted to grow used to them—”

“They’d been giving you hives for nearly three weeks

“You went out of your way to get them for me so I would have my own clothes again, I didn’t want to—”

“Rosalind, dove, you have to tell me when something bothers you. I never want you to suffer, never mind because you are worried for my feelings. They were only ever meant to be interim clothes anyway, until you were well enough to pick out what you wanted.”

“Adrian—”

“And you didn’t tell me something was effecting your magic. Valion—Valion said you’d had very little when you arrived. Rose—you could have died, and I didn’t even know how sick you really were. Why—I don’t understand why you hid it, when it was so much worse.”

“I didn’t want you to worry,” she said quietly, staring at her knees. “And—and I didn’t want you to feel like you had to take care of me again. I didn’t want to be sick, again. I thought it would pass.”

“I wanted to take care of you, it’s not something I have to do, it’s—how could I not want to take care of someone so dear to me?”

“You shouldn’t have to—”

“You keep saying that—’I shouldn’t have to’. What if I want to, Rose? What if I want to take care of you when you’re ill, and know the things that bother you? What if I want to be with you, even with your magic? What if I don’t care if it’s strange and entirely new? What if I want to be with you? Exactly how you are?”

Elyra looked up at him, tears slipping down her cheeks. Adrian was staring at her, tears threatening to spill over his lashes, his expression a mix of devastation and something like hope.

She was trying so hard to do the right thing, trying to protect him, and he was making it so hard, so miserably hard. All she wanted was to throw herself into his arms and not let go, to sob into his shoulder how much she’d missed him, how desolate and hollow she’d been without him, that of course she wanted him to want her, even though she was a monster—how could she not, when she loved him so much that pushing him away felt as though her hear was being slowly shredded? When he looked at her with those soft, golden eyes like she was some sort of treasure instead of a never-ending source of pain and danger.

Of course she wanted to go back with him and pretend she was normal, wanted to curl up in the library with him, reading to one another, wanted to help him cook, but mostly just watch him and talk about whatever it was that struck their fancy, wanted to go on picnics that weren’t crashed by foul Night Creatures, wanted to bring him back to Vienna and show him the city she’d grown up in, the city she loved. Hell, she even wanted to show him the beautiful places in faery, show him how much more the blue forest had grown, show him the stars that had flickered into existence as she watched, drag him to Nolan’s for one of his delicious sandwiches and eat on one of the cliffs, overlooking the sea. She wanted to fall asleep and wake in his arms, wanted to kiss him until they were both breathless, wanted to drown in his affection.

She wanted to love him, as long as he would let her, whether that was a year or decades or if he wouldn’t tire of her as the centuries slipped by.

But all that was selfish—had to be—when it put him in danger just being around her, whether from her magic or Court politics or because she wasn’t supposed to exist in the first place. Veylon would eventually find out that she was half-Seelie, whether or not he learned who her mother had been, and then he’d probably have her killed, the same as the first baby. She didn’t want him to be stuck in the middle of any of that, wanted his days to be happy and unburdened, wanted him safe, more than anything else.

But when he looked at her with those eyes—

“I love you, Rose,” Adrian said and her breath caught in her chest. “I need you to know how much I love you, how much better my life has been since you stumbled to my door. I want you to let me love you—to let me stand by your side, whatever comes. That’s all I want.”

She stared at him, convinced she’d never known how to breath at all, that she’d be frozen here on this stoop until Faery ceased to exist.

He couldn’t mean it, couldn’t love her, not really, not when she a thing of destruction, an omen. He couldn’t mean it, because that would make staying in Faery under her self-imposed isolation nearly impossible to bear, would strain her willpower to the very brink, would make every moment of his absence so much more than the hell it already was.

“I’m doing this because I love you, more than anything, because I need to protect you from what I am—”

“But what do you want? Not what you have to do, but what you want?” he asked, eyes seeming to stare into her very soul.

“You,” she said in barely a whisper. “Of course I want you.”

Adrian didn’t let her say a thing more, just surged forward and kissed her as if he was ravenous. He tangled one of his hands in her hair, the other pulling her as close as he could manage, his grip tighter than it had ever been, as if he was scared she’d slip away. She kissed him back despite herself, whatever willpower she had left crumbling the second his lips touched hers, the moment his hands touched her. How could she stop herself, when it felt like the first time she had a real heart in her chest in months, when being at his side made her feel safer than anything, when he somehow never made her feel alien and out of place, when he’d come to Faery again for her, when he somehow loved her back?

She’d wanted to love him enough to protect him from her, wanted to be strong enough to do it, but she was a weak, selfish thing and he loved her.

They only broke apart when they were both breathless, color high in their cheeks as they both just stared at one another. Adrian smiled softly, brushing back a piece of her hair with such tenderness she was surprised she didn’t combust right there.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Adrian said in hardly more than a whisper, eyes misty.

“There hasn’t been a moment I haven’t missed you, missed you any less than when I first left,” she replied honestly, voice breaking. He pulled her into his arms, cradling her against his chest. She wrapped her arms around his waist, holding too tight, though she couldn’t seem to loosen her grip.

Eventually she calmed enough to lean back enough to look at his face, found tears slipping down his cheeks. She reached out to brush them away, hand lingering to cup his jaw.

“Can I show you something?” she asked, brows furrowed. He just smiled.

“Anything. Anything you want.”

She hesitated before taking his hands, though she still made to pull him to his feet before she turned and pulled open a gate. She stepped through it first and Adrian followed without hesitation.

 

---

 

Adrian turned to glance at Rosalind as she stared up at the stars, the furrow between her brows gone for the first time since he’d arrived. They lay on their backs in a clearing in the forest that had risen from the swamp they’d had to muck through to reach the Undercrypts, hands intertwined between them.

He didn’t know how she looked so much more beautiful under the starlight, like it was made to illuminate her. He loved that her cheeks were no longer hollow, her bones no longer sharp under her skin. She looked stronger, as though she’d put muscle on too.

At least Valion had been able to get her healthy again. He’d been slowly killing her and hadn’t even know it.

His gut twisted painfully at the thought, guilt burning in his chest. He still didn’t quite understand why she’d hidden how sick she was, that she was uncomfortable and in pain.

“There weren’t any stars here when I first started coming here. But every time I visit now, there’s more and more.”

“Maybe they’re shining for you,” he said softly, knew just why they would. She turned to make a face at him.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Adrian.”

“I hardly think I’m being ridiculous.”

She just stared at him then expression soft but disbelieving.

“I love you,” she said, green eyes finding his. “I have, for so long. I just never knew the time to tell you.”

“I was waiting too. I didn’t—I wanted you to settle in, first, after everything.”

“Are you really sure about this? I want you to be sure—”

“I am, dove. I really mean it. I want to be with you, whatever that means.“

He hated the flash of pain that crossed her face at his words, the self-loathing. He hated how deeply it had taken root, so much that she couldn’t see everything for how it really was.

In no world, no realm was she a monster or anything close.

He turned on his side, head propped up by his hand so he could look at her better, catalogue each and every change, no matter how small, admired her in the starlight, how her hair almost seemed luminescent in their light. She caught him just staring and turned to mirror him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, the tips of her ears going red.

“Because you are the most alluring creature I’ve ever laid eyes on, even more so, since last I saw you.”

She flushed at that, dropping her gaze to the moss to try and hide it. He reached out to gently urge her to look back at him, hand cupping her jaw. Shy looked at him shyly.

“I’d very much like to kiss you,” he said, and she gave him a small smile.

“I’d like that,” she replied, and he bridged the distance to press his lips to hers.

The kiss wasn’t desperate like it had been before, but reverent, something to be savored. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. He complied, rolling so he was propped up on his forearms above her, so he could admire her silver hair haloed around her, admire her blown pupils and kiss reddened lips.

He dipped his head to pepper kisses along her jaw, behind her ear, savoring the way her breath hitched. He tangled his fingers in her hair, tracing along the shell of her ear with his thumb as he kissed down her neck. She shivered beneath him, arching slightly into him. He couldn’t help but smile, even as he continued to press lingering kisses to her skin.

“Adrian,” she sighed, voice breathy and higher than usual as she pulled him even closer.

“Yes, my love?” he said, looking up to see her melt a bit at his words, eyes round and soft and so utterly smitten.

“I love you,” she said, and he could see there was a giddiness bubbling up in her at saying it, like she couldn’t believe she could. He beamed back at her, and he could feel his cheeks heating.

“Say it again,” he said, the words filling his chest with warmth.

“Adrian, I love you.”

“Again,” he said and she wrinkled her nose, still beaming back at him. He made that face right back at her and she giggled, the sound melodic to his ears.

“I love you,” she said, the words brightened by laughter. He wanted to know every way she could say them, savor every one of them.

He dipped down to kiss her again, pressing an almost chaste kiss to her lips before nipped lightly at her bottom lip with his fangs. She squealed in surprise and delight, pulling him closer as she allowed him to deepen the kiss, arched upward as if she needed to feel more of him against her, as if the inch or so between their bodies was entirely too much, arms tightening their hold.

He tangled his hand in her hair, his other tentatively exploring, brushing down her side, noting the curves that hadn’t existed before, the softness of her figure when she wasn’t just skin and bones. It was almost painfully arousing, this figure he’d never seen, because he’d never seen her healthy. He grasped her waist, careful not to let his fingers splay too close to her breast.

He knew they were supposed to be taking it slow—should be taking it slow—but that was hard to keep in his lust-addled mind, high on the fact that he finally had her back in his arms, that he’d finally made her see sense, see that pushing him away wasn’t better for either of them, despite her fears. He wanted to hear the breathy sounds of her pleasure, wanted to worship every inch of her skin, make up for every torment, every unwanted touch, wanted to feel just how ardently he loved her, loved every bit of her.

He broke away as he caught his breath, just admiring the way she looked back at him, something somehow reverent in her gaze, something so soft and sweet.

“I love you so much,” he said, voice barely more that a whisper as he traced along her face, combed his fingers through her hair, savored the feeling of her under his fingers. She tangled her own in his hair, pulling him in for another kiss, this one desperate and needy, his touch pulling a breathy moan from her, though she hardly let it interrupt the kiss. He held just above her waist, careful not to splay his fingers too much, not to brush the underside of her breast, tried very hard not to think of how it would feel in his hand, how soft and lovely.

He met her kiss with equal passion, reveling in their closeness, in the feeling of her all around him, of the scent of her, like the night-blooming flowers that grew on her vines, that had bloomed on the trees around Valion’s house. Her hands explored too, hesitantly, gently, fingers tracing up and down his spine, combing through his hair. It was only when he heard her whimper as she arched herself impossibly closer, felt the way she trembled slightly, that he realized he’d been running his thumb over the shell of her ear, lightly massaging it.

He wanted to hear her whimper like that at his touch, wanted to hear her pleasure, to know he was the one making her feel that way. He wanted to know what it felt like to make love to her, to share that sort of intimacy with someone who he could trust, who trusted him. He wanted to kiss every inch of her, every scar, every freckle. He wanted to know what it felt like to feel her lose herself to pleasure, to feel her all around him, to get lost in her. He wanted to know what she’d sound like when she lost herself to pleasure, to watch her face as it overwhelmed her—

He forced himself to break the kiss, to draw back. The sight of her beneath him, flushed and needy, reaching to draw him back for another kiss, was nearly enough to break what little willpower remained to him, knock what sense he had out of his head.

He wanted her. He wanted everything.

“Adrian,” she whined, reaching out to pull him in for another kiss.

It was almost enough for him to abandon all sense.

It took all his willpower to pull away.

“We should slow down, Rose,” he said, even as he enjoyed the lust on her face, her half-lidded eye and blown pupils, the redness of her lips, the flush across what chest he could see above the neckline of her dress. She stared up at him, face clouded by lust, something about it making her look even more fae, though there was a flash of disappointment before he could see sense return to her and she nodded.

“Of course,” she said, voice still clearly effected, smoothing out his no-doubt mussed hair as she smiled softly up at him.

“If we don’t I’ll lose all sense,” he said, gently stroking her cheek. “It’s not something I think either of us takes lightly, and we haven't talked about....being more physical with one another. I just—I want to be sure we’re both ready.”

“I—I’m glad you didn’t lose your sense,” she said, still breathing harder than she usually would. “I—I think I lost mine. I find myself easily overwhelmed by you. I’m not—I’m not used to such affection.”

He face was bright red by the time she’d managed to stammer through her confession. He rolled to the side, pulling her with him so she was cuddled to his side, her head on his chest. He found himself trailing his fingers absently up and down her spine. He pressed his lips to her forehead, pulling her even closer.

“Is it good overwhelming?” he asked. She nodded against him.

“I’m glad,” he said softly. Valion had said sometimes her senses became so overwhelming they caused her pain. He wanted to make sure he never accidentally contributed to her pain or discomfort again.

“Adrian?” she asked, tracing lazy, swirling patterns over his arm as he held her.

“Yes, dove?”

“Thank you,” she said, so very quietly.

“For stopping kissing you?” he quipped, lips curled into a smile. She didn’t return it, her brow pinched, a sort of heaviness behind her eyes.

“For—for coming. I—I don’t want to put you in danger, and—and I’m still scared and feel like I’m being selfish, but I missed you. I missed you so much. This is the first time I’ve felt like I could take a real breath at night in months. I’m sorry you had to.”

“You’re not being selfish,” he said, voice soft. “If you are then so am I.”

She forced a smile at that, though it didn’t quite meet her eyes.

"You were doing what you thought was best. You just—you don’t see yourself how you really are. I’m sure all those books on fairy from the hold and seeing Valion’s Court, and everything that Trevor said only made it worse. I wish you saw yourself as I saw you.”

She didn’t answer, but he could feel a few tears soak through his shirt. He pressed a kiss to her hairline, just resting his head atop hers as he relished the feeling of her in his arms.

“How—how long has it been, here?” he asked, tightening his hold slightly. He wanted to know, but he also never wanted to know, never wanted to know how long she’d kept herself here, misguided and miserable, because she thought it the only safe place for her to be. She sighed.

“Six—six months. A little more, I think?” she said, voice hardly louder than a breath. His heart lurched at that—six months and she’d still burst into tears at the sight of him, fear fear hardly abated, her misery raw.

They’d hardly known each other more than six months in the Mortal Realm.

He reached out, tugging her into his arms, her head resting against his shoulder, the weight so familiar, so right. He’d missed it so much, missed just being close in the chaste, serene way he knew brought them both comfort. She melted into his side, absently playing with a lock of his hair.

“Please—please don’t run away again,” he said softly, though his voice was pleading. “No matter—no matter what happens—let’s face it together. I never want to be parted like this again.”

“Even if it’s horrible?”

“No matter what. It won’t be so horrible at each other’s side, I promise. Not if we’re together.”

She propped herself up slightly so she could look at his face properly before she nodded slowly, deliberately.

“As long as you want me there,” she said, voice wavering just slightly.

“I’ll always want you there,” he replied, sitting up to press a kiss to her lips. He smiled at her when they broke apart, one that she returned shyly this time. He couldn’t help but feel as though something had shifted, something intrinsic.

They settled back against the moss and Alucard could have sworn there were more stars then there had been before.

 

---

 

Valion paused in the doorway to his daughter’s bedroom, jaw tight. Both Elyra and the boy were asleep in her bed, though they lay atop the covers, both in their clothes from the day as if they hadn’t meant to fall asleep. His daughter clung to him, hand knotted in the fabric of his shirt even in her sleep as if she was afraid he’d slip away, her head resting on his shoulder, his arms wrapped around her waist protectively.

He sighed, stepping back into her sitting room and pulling the door shut quietly. He didn’t like it, but he knew that wouldn’t change anything, he’d only push her away.

The dhampir at least treated her as he should, even if he was ignorant in the ways of faeries. He hadn’t known not to feed her salt, hadn’t known most human fabrics would be unbearable on her skin, had been devastated to learn he’d contributed to her illness. He clearly made her feel safe, though it was clearer still how completely she adored him and he was so clearly devoted to her.

What was important was he made her happy. All he wanted, especially after watching her be ever-consumed by desolation the last few months, was for her to be happy. If the damn dhampir made her so happy, then Valion would have to go and figure out what had been draining her magic so swiftly in the Mortal Realm, make sure there was nothing else in that blasted castle that could do her harm.

Make sure the boy took down those damn rotting corpses from the stakes outside the door. He wouldn’t have her living with such horrors.

He sighed heavily, walking to the library to see what sort of things could be done to make living in the Mortal Realm bearable. Wherever she was, he needed her to be safe and comfortable and taken care of properly.

It would be his only solace in her absence.

Chapter 43: Smitten

Valion found Elyra in the kitchen the next morning, picking through the bowl of berries on the counter, a half-drunk glass of water in hand.

“Good morning,” she said with her mouth full.

“You can’t just pick out all the knotberries,” he said, watching her with his brow raised.

“I don’t like the groundcherries.”

“What about the sweetberries, I thought you liked those.”

“I was going to eat them next. I like them second best.”

“And leave me with nothing but groundcherries?”

She nodded without hesitation. He snorted out a laugh.

“You’re a brat,” he said fondly, crossing to the cabinets to figure out something for breakfast.

She hucked a groundcherry at him and he caught it without looking, still pondering what to make, as if he was going to be adventurous. After a moment he pulled out the same tin of oats he always did and then stooped for a sauce pan. Elyra reached into the cabinet next to her and pulled out a bottle of honey and slid it down next to the stove.

“Do you want some?” he asked as he measured out a portion. She shook her head.

“I suppose you don’t have any room left after eating all the knotberries,” he said, watching her pop a sweetberry into her mouth.

“You could always get more knotberries,” she said, idly watching him stir his breakfast.

“I daresay you’d just eat those too. You’ll have to come up with a better scam.”

She huffed a laugh, setting her glass on the counter. He wondered how many more mornings like this he’d get before she disappeared again.

“When will you return to the Mortal Realm?” Valion asked, working very hard to keep his voice even, neutral. He could hardly bear the thought of weeks between her visits, of the silent, empty house.

“Dad—” she began, making a face.

“I’m just asking. I would like to accompany you to try and discern whatever it is draining your magic, and I do have a few spells that will provide a reprieve from the overwhelm of your senses. I also want to check the well, or wherever you’re getting your water—that could have certainly contributed to your sickness last time.”

Elyra stared at him for a moment before nodding. “I—I wanted to take him to the sea before we went. He’s never seen one.”

“Are you going today?”

“I’d like to, though I was going to ask you, since I already missed lessons yesterday.”

“Yes, of course you can go. Just—let me check your glamour before you leave and be careful. It will give me time to prepare. Though, you will have to be back for Solstice. I’ll have to come and fetch you,” he said, half-forcing his smile.

“It won’t be like last time,” she said quietly.

“I know, I’m going to make sure there’s nothing in that blasted castle that will make you ill—”

“I don’t mean—I’ll come home more. I want to keep up with my lessons and training. And you said we were going to go to the Everdawn Woods and the Night Market,” she said taking his hand and giving it a squeeze.

“Yes, those are the next on the list, aren’t they?” he said, giving her a small smile. It had started off an off-handed thing, but as Elyra learned more history and spent lessons pouring over maps, he’d found she’d indeed started a list—places he’d mentioned wanting to take her, places she’d read about she wanted to see. He’d enjoyed watching it grow.

“You could always visit too,” she said. He brushed back a bit of her hair from her face, hand lingering to cup her cheek. He wondered if she’d actually want him to visit, or if it was just the sort of thing she was supposed to say.

“Go get ready, I’ll need a few minutes to make my list.”

“Thank you,” she replied, smile bright. He watched her flit down the hall, listened to her climb the stairs.

It was the first time he’d seen her really smile in months. He held onto that, rather than the constricting feeling in his chest. She was happy, he wanted her to be happy. That was enough for now, even if he’d miss her like a limb.

 

---

 

Elyra squinted as she checked over Adrian’s glamour, looking for any loose threads that would give away the illusion. Once satisfied with her work she took a step back to get a proper look.

“Oh, that is strange,” she said. He was still Adrian, but he looked so very different with auburn hair and grey eyes, his usually pale skin sun-kissed.

Adrian turned around to examine his reflection in her vanity’s mirror, brows shooting up.

“I look like an entirely different person,” he said, touching his face as if to make sure it was still his.

“That’s the goal,” she said, ducking so she could weave her own glamour in the mirror, the familiar golden skin, sunlit hair and pale blue eyes.

Valion’s eyes.

Adrian looked on with wide eyes. “You’ve certainly been paying attention in your magic lessons.”

She grinned at him. “There’s a lot of theory for some of it, but it’s my favorite lesson. Come on, there’s so much to see,” she said, grabbing his hand and tugging him back downstairs.

“Dad!” she called out when she didn’t find him in his study.

“In the kitchen,” he called back. She turned to walk there, though she paused when she saw the look of confusion on Adrian’s face. For some reason it made her ears turn red and she scurried to the kitchen before he could notice.

Valion was wrapping something in brown paper when she came in, hair tied back in a ribbon. He looked up, brows furrowed as he checked her glamour.

“Very good. It’s getting easier, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “It doesn’t take as long, either. I did Adrian’s as well.”

Valion’s eyes flickered to where Adrian stood in the doorway. “His is good as well.

She watched him take whatever it was he’d wrapped in brown paper and tie it in a kerchief with a few other similarly wrapped things. He handed her the bundle.

“For lunch. So you don’t have to worry,” he said gesturing with his chin towards Adrian.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. He nodded curtly, posture stiff.

“Here’s the list, and some coin,” he said, handing her a folded slip of paper and far too heavy a coin purse. “It should be enough for everything on the list and anything else you want to get.”

“This is way too much,” she said, weighing it in her hand.

“Take it so you have it. I’ll see you at dinner?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then I will see you then, Moonbeam,” he said, crossing to press a kiss to her forehead before slipping out of the kitchen without another word. She heard him climb the stairs, knew he was going to shut himself in his studio until they left at least.

She knew he wasn’t happy about Adrian being here, knew he was trying very hard to seem like he was fine with her returning to the Mortal Realm, even if she really would be back all the time. She wasn’t sure he believed that, though.

She sighed, shaking her head.

“Are you ready to go?” she asked as she turned towards Adrian.

“I am,” he said, taking the bundle from her hands. She pulled open a gate and they stepped right to her favorite of the cliffs overlooking the Endless Green Sea.

 

---

 

Valion stared into the large black trunk, double-checking the titles he’d packed. He’d packed quite a few on faery medicine, several more large history volumes that he knew she would enjoy, and the entirety of his collection on elementary magic. He glanced back at the list he’d made himself—he wasn’t going to repeat his past carelessness. He would make sure she had everything she needed, that nothing was left to chance this time.

He crossed to the other trunk, cataloguing the dresses he’d already packed for her, all the ones she favored, as well as a few sets of practical training clothes, her shoes and nightclothes, adding each item to another list to be replaced. Quinn had her measurements now and he was going to put in an order for some actual, comfortable, casual clothing, not whatever his mother thought that was. Then when she returned she’d finally have the proper wardrobe he’d promised her. She was picking up bedding and towels and soaps and everything else so there wouldn’t be a thing she touched that would irritate her skin.

The last things he needed he’d have to go to the city for, something he was dreading, but it was necessary. He looked over everything one more time before going to grab his cloak.

 

---

 

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Rosalind asked Adrian as they turned down the main street. She still had a handful of sweetberries from their lunch she was savoring. Valion had picked them out from the bowl, even after all his grousing. He’d put them in a small tin so there wasn’t any chance of them touching anything Adrian ate.

“It is,” he said, but he was looking at her, rather than any of the shops they passed. She felt a flush rise in her cheeks. She clung to his arm a little tighter, trying to hide the giddiness bubbling up in her chest.

“What did Valion put on the list?” Adrian asked. She dug it out of her pocket and unfolded it.

“Looks like towels and sheets and blankets. Oh, and he has wash cloths and some type of soap—oh, there’s quite a bit,” she said scanning over it. Spidersilk sheets and blankets, a whole manner of faery soaps and lotions, eider feather pillows, a separate list just of medicines he wanted stocked up.

“I don’t know how we’re going to carry all this back,” she said, furrowing her brow.

“Don’t worry,” Adrian replied, brushing aside a stray piece of hair that had fallen in her face. She shivered as his fingers just barely brushed against her ear and she shot him a dirty look.

He looked far too pleased with himself.

It was fun, ambling her way through the shops with Adrian. It felt normal in a way she hadn’t felt in a very long time, normal as if she might just be doing her shopping in Vienna, though he wouldn’t let her carry any of the packages.

“Let me take some of them!” she demanded, reaching to grab the top half of the shopping. He stepped out of her reach.

“Absolutely not,” he said, grinning at the look she gave him.

“You’re being ridiculous!”

“You are ridiculous if you think I’m going to let you carry anything, love,” he said and she melted, no doubt staring at him like some sort of lovesick puppy.

“You’re impossible,” she said, though she couldn’t manage any sort of reproach behind it. He smiled wider.

“Is that everything on the list?” he asked. She went through it again and nodded.

“I’d like to stop one more place before we go back though, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” he replied and she smiled at him before standing on her toes so she could press a kiss to his lips. She couldn’t help but admire the blush that flooded his cheeks.

 

---

 

Alucard set down the ridiculous amount of shopping, glad that faeries had the ability to packaged things far smaller than they should be able to.

He’d loved watching Rosalind practically skip about the town, so excited to show him everything. Seelie was beautiful and the sight of the sea had knocked the breath from him, but his favorite part had her smile.

He'd missed it terribly. 

Valion appeared at the top of the stairs, eyes immediately going to Rosalind.

“How was your shopping?” he asked as he descended the stairs. She dug out the coin purse from her pocket and handed it back to him. Valion made a face as he weighed it in his hand.

“You hardly spent anything.”

“We got everything on the list.”

“You didn’t see anything you wanted? No new dresses or jewelry?”

“I got a new book!” she said, stooping to root through the packages. She tore off the brown paper to show him.

“You bought a children’s book?” he asked, furrowing his brow. She nodded.

“It’s all stories, sort of like the faery tales I grew up with. Father used to read them to me before bed, except my mother wouldn’t let him read the gory ones.”

Valion took the book from her hand, flipping through it thoughtfully, though sadness was plain in the slope of his shoulders.

“Yes, these would have been the sort of stories your mother and I would have read to you before bed. You will have to see how they compare to your mortal crib tales.”

He handed the book back to her, jaw tight. “I’m going to get started on dinner. You can leave the shopping there, I want to take care of it myself. Go amuse yourself for an hour.”

“Alright. Adrian do you want to go to the library?”

“Actually, I was hoping to help with dinner,” he said, ignoring the swooping feeling in his stomach at the prospect. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

Valion surveyed him for a long moment before he nodded. “If you wish. Lyra, perhaps then you could go over what I last gave you on abjurations. You need to know it before we can get into warding.”

“Al-alright,” she said, looking between the pair of them with clear apprehension. “I’ll be in the library then.”

She lingered another moment before climbing the stairs slower than she usually would have. Valion turned and wordlessly walked to the kitchen. Alucard followed, taking a deep breath.

“So, what is it you wish to talk about?” Valion asked, pulling pots and pans from cabinets and retrieving ingredients from cupboards. “It better not be some ridiculous thought of marriage—”

“No, I just—I wanted to see how you cook. I don’t want to make her sick again and I haven’t any idea the sort of dishes faeries favor.”

Valion stared at him for a long, long moment before he furrowed his brow and turned before Alucard could make out the expression that flashed across his face.

“Fine. Wash your hands,” he said, turning back to his rummaging.

 

---

 

“Valion is set on coming with us. He wants to see if he can figure out what was draining my magic, and he said there were some things he could do to perhaps prevent me from getting so overwhelmed this time, if that is alright?” Elyra asked, turning her head towards Adrian as they both lay on their backs in the mossy clearing of the Gloaming.

“Of course—anything that will make it easier for you,” he said, turning on his side so he could cup her jaw, just the touch of his hand enough to light her skin alight. She leaned into his touch before she turned and pressed a kiss to his palm. She looked up at him, admiring the lazy spirals of his hair, the weight of his gaze, the way his golden eyes could hold her effortlessly.

He put the angels she’d seen painted in Florence to shame, was beautiful like gold and dappled sunlight. She could get lost in his eyes forever and be perfectly content.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked softly.

“How much I want to kiss you,” she said honestly. “Though I don’t think I can be trusted not to abandon reason again.”

He smiled at her, thumb tracing her cheekbone.

“You’re hardly without your own charms, Rose. It’s very hard to remain a gentleman when I hear you saying my name so sweetly.”

“Is it?” she asked. Her voice sounded unfamiliar and strange to her own ears once Adrian began to drive her breathless. He huffed a laugh, though his eyes seemed to darken.

“You have no idea.”

“What—” she began, voice very quiet, though she could feel her face and ears go red and she dropped her eyes to the mossy ground. “What w-would you wish to do, if you weren’t to be a gentleman?”

She’d never even kissed anyone before she’d been kidnapped, never had shared and sort of intimacy with another, and she certainly didn’t count any of the painful, terrifying flashes she remembered from her journey in the cart, or that vampire groping her as he got drunk off her blood. That had only disgusted her, made her furious and scared, left her with wounds she couldn’t remember receiving.

Adrian’s touch was wonderful and maddening. His fingers left burning trails across her skin, his kisses made her feel as though she were filled with lightning, and he made her ache in an unfamiliar way, in a way that left her wanting more, even if she wasn’t sure exactly what.

It had to be different from her fractured memories, had to be, because they loved one another, because he made her feel drunk with his touch, with his gentle affection. Maybe then if she knew the difference, she’d know if she was ready. All she was sure of now was how he could so easily drown her in sensation and strange new pleasures and she couldn’t manage logical thought with his lips on her skin.

When he didn’t answer for a long moment she chanced a look back up at him, lip between her teeth. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes staring at the moss unseeing. Still, he caught her slight movement and looked up to meet her gaze. She was sure she flushed deeper but she held it, butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

“I—I’d wish to know the pleasure of undressing you, of kissing every inch of your skin, of memorizing every curve of your body. I—I’d wish to see you lost to pleasure, to make you sing with it. I’d wish to make sweet, ardent love to you, to know what it feels like when it is for love, done with trust. I wish to share such intimacy with you, to know you completely,” he said, eyes holding hers, even as her face grew warm and she could feel her chest flush, thighs clenching unconsciously at pooling heat in her stomach, her heart melting into a puddle in her chest.

“Oh,” she managed, breath stuttering in her chest. Adrian reached over and took her hand, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.

“Only when we’re ready. I would never wish to make you feel any sort of pressure—”

“You aren’t,” she said quickly. “I just—I wanted to know what it’s supposed to be like. What it could be like. Yours is the first gentle hand I have known in such a way and I—I am lucky to have very scattered memories of my journey to your castle.”

She watched Adrian’s face flash with anger and sadness and a horrible sort of knowing before he reached to pull her into a hug, holding her tighter than he ordinarily would.

“It’s nothing like that—it should never be anything like that,” he said, pressing his face to the crown of her head. She hated the slight tremor in his hands.

“I know. I—I know it isn’t. I just—it makes me feel better to know. It all feels strange and new to me.”

“I’m glad it makes you feel better,” he said, pressing a kiss to her hair.

“I—I would like to know you too, like you said,” she said, glad he couldn’t see her blush as she tucked her face against his chest. “I want you to feel as you make me.”

“I’d bet that you already do,” he said. She propped herself up so she could look at him properly. His cheeks were slightly flushed, eyes half lidded, lips slightly parted, golden hair haloed beneath him. She just stared, wondering how someone like him—kind and brave and clever and impossibly beautiful—would ever wish to be with something like her.

“God, you look like starlight was made just to shine on you,” he said with such soft sincerity it made her heart clench and her cheeks heat. “May I kiss you?”

“Always,” she said, leaning down to meet his lips, her hand on his chest for a bit of stability. He moved so fast she could hardly see him do it, rolling the pair of them so she was underneath him, her breath caught in her lungs. He pressed a line of kisses up the column of her neck and nipped playfully at her earlobe before tracing the shell of her ear with the tip of his tongue. She moaned, shivering as pleasure shot down her spine.

He kissed her hungrily then, hand tangling in her hair. She threw her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, though he still held himself above her so their bodies didn’t touch.

“Adrian?”

“Yes, love?”

“You don’t—you don’t have to hold yourself apart like that if you do not wish to.”

He surveyed her a moment before he caught he lips again, pressing himself to her without dropping all his weight. She loved the feeling of him against her, the press of his chest against her, how much tighter she could hold him.

He groaned, sending a shock of pleasure through her. She found her fingers knotting in his hair as he deepened the kiss, his thumb tracing over her ear. She felt as though she was burning, every nerve alight and craving more. He pressed closer and she could feel his arousal against her thigh, was surprised to find it only made her feel more desperate for his touch. His hips ground against hers for a moment and she couldn’t help but whimper as a shock of pleasure ripped through her, stronger than any she’d felt so far, even when he teased her ears. She threw her head back, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Fuck,” he said, a little breathless as he pulled away and sat up, knees on either side of her hips. She fought the urge to follow, to leave was no room between them, to feel him against her. She felt so desperately needy for his touch, but she tried to keep her head, not lose herself to the sensation of his hands brushing her skin, his lips pressing kisses down her throat.

She bit her lip, squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to calm her breathing, loosen the strange tension coiling in her stomach, overtaking her muscles, pleasure lingering infuriatingly. It felt strange, like too much and not enough all at the same time, her oversensitive nerves processing so much information she could hardly make sense of it, except to know that she wanted more.

“Rose?” Adrian asked, but she didn’t open her eyes, hands fisted in the material of her dress. “Are you alright?”

“We—we should stop,” she managed, voice unfamiliar. “We should stop, or I will beg you to touch me.”

Adrian was silent for a long moment before he spoke again.

“How—how would you like me to touch you?” he asked, an unfamiliar edge to his voice.

“Please don’t tease me, Adrian,” she whined, the heat of him sat above her not allowing her to calm, to uncoil the unfamiliar tension buzzing in her like his infuriating electric lights.

“I—I’m not,” he replied. “Do you truly want me to touch you?”

“Yes,” she said, eyes fluttering open to seen him above her, eyes dark and heavy lidded, lips reddened by their kissing.

“How, Rose?” he asked softly.

“However you wish,” she managed. “I need to feel your hands on me or I need to feel nothing until this passes.”

She felt as though she was burning, couldn’t calm the feeling when he practically sat on top of her. She squirmed beneath him, pressing her thighs together to try and relive some of the tension building, though it didn’t help. If anything it made it worse.

“O-oh,” she breathed as felt him grip her waist, thumb tracing across her ribs, leaving more fire in its wake. She’d thought it would provide some relief, but if anything it only wound her tighter, until it was almost painful. His other hand traced up her side, leaving goosebumps, she was sure, beneath the silk of her dress. She squeezed her eyes shut.

She felt him hesitantly trace over the swell of her breast, found herself arching into his touch. His thumb brushed over her clothed nipple and it sent another shock of pleasure through her, tension coiling tighter.

“Is this alright?” he asked, voice hardly more than a whisper. She nodded furiously, forcing her eyes open to look at him above her. His eyes were half-lidded, the gold of his iris overtaken by by his pupil. His lips were slightly parted, just barely revealing his fangs, color high in his cheeks.

He somehow looked even more beautiful.

“Adrian,” she began, and she meant to say more, but he kneaded her breast, thumb tracing back and forth over her nipple and the words were lost. He pressed his lips to hers in a ravenous kiss, pressing closer as his ands grew more bold. She moaned as his other hand found her ear, sending shivers down her spine as he massaged it in earnest.

She whined, her own voice unfamiliar to her ears, pressing herself as close to him as she could. She felt him shift above her, knee gently nudging her thighs apart until she felt his thigh flush against her, even the barest pressure sending shocks of pleasure through her as he brushed against her core. She felt herself shaking, muscles pulled too tight as he pulled away enough to trail kisses along her jaw. She felt him nip at her ear and she ground herself on his leg without thinking, whining at the overwhelming wave of pleasure it brought, even as she pulled away.

“It’s okay, Rose. You can let go. I’ve got you, I promise,” he said, pressing his leg firmly to her center once more.

“Adrian—”

“I’ve got you,” he said, breath tickling her ear enough that she pressed back against him, unable to hold back her breathy moan.

“There you go, love,” he said, voice ragged as he pressed kisses down her neck, hand massaging her breast. She couldn’t help but to grind against him, any sort of logical thinking or shame drowned by the overwhelming pleasure filling her, the overwhelm of sensation. It kept building, until she was wound so tightly she could have sworn she’d break, until it was almost pain, until she was sure she’d go mad.

Adrian ran his fingers over her ear and something snapped, her vision going white, every muscle pulled taught as she was truly overwhelmed by by a wave of white-hot pleasure, the whole of her trembling under the force of it. She didn’t know how long it lasted, it could have been seconds or days, only that when it ebbed enough for awareness to return, for her to be able to open her eyes, she saw Adrian above her, staring at her with a sort of reverence she couldn’t make sense of.

“You’re the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen,” he said in that same ragged voice, ducking down to press a kiss to her lips before gently brushing away the tears she hadn’t noticed had slipped down her cheek. He rolled them so they were once more cuddled together, looking up at the stars. She still trembled in an unfamiliar way, though there was a heaviness to her body, as if gravity itself was drawing her into sleep, everything left soft and hazy in the wake of such hedonistic gratification.

“I—I never felt anything like that before. I—I’m so sorry, I completely lost myself,” she said, the heat of embarrassment creeping up from her neck and coloring her cheeks. She must have gone temporarily mad, there was no other explanation for how she’d ground herself against him in such a manner.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said, hand combing soothingly through her hair. “Please, don’t be sorry. Watching you—I hardly thought it possible for you to be more beautiful. That was—thank you, for sharing it with me.”

She stared at him, unused to hearing him stumble over his words, though she hadn’t the presence to put together the words she needed to coax an explanation out of him. Adrian stared back so terribly fondly, expression so soft as he trailed his fingers up and down her spine. She clung to him tightly, let it soothe that vulnerable part of her that made her feel as if she’d done something wrong. Her eyelids began to droop at his gentle touch, her breath slowing.

“Can you make us a gate back, love?” he asked. She nodded, forcing herself to turn enough to pull it into existence. She made to get up but found herself scooped into Adrian’s arms before she could process what happened. He carried her through the gate, back to her bedroom and she pulled it shut behind them.

He set her down on the threshold of her bathroom, crossing to the wardrobe to retrieve her nightclothes which he pressed into her hands with a chaste, but lingering kiss. She slipped inside to change and brush her teeth, blushing as she saw how she’d soaked through her small clothes. She hurriedly washed them in the sink before shoving them to the very bottom of her hamper.

She pushed back into her bedroom and found Adrian perched on the edge of her bed, though his gaze immediately found her, something about it sending a delightful shiver down her spine. She found herself drawn to him, as if by an invisible string, unable to look away. His hands found her waist as she pressed her lips to his, her hands tangling in his hair. Adrian pulled away first, reaching up to smooth a stray curl back.

“It’s late, my love. I’ll join you in bed in a few moments, once I change.”

She nodded, giving him a brief kiss before crawling into bed and under the covers. She watched him retrieve his own clothes before disappearing into the bathroom, door shutting quietly behind him.

She meant to wait for him, but found her eyes growing heavy again. She tried to fight it, but she fell asleep before she felt Adrian return.

 

---

 

Alucard splashed cold water over his face, trying to settle his thoughts. All he could think of was Rosalind writhing below him as she found ecstasy, the way her face screwed up at the intensity of it, the sound of her chanting his name, her voice breathy with desire, the feel of her as she ground against him, mindlessly chasing release. He had no idea how he’d managed hold himself together, hold himself back from getting completely lost at the sight of her.

Perhaps it had been foolish of him to suggest taking such a step. He didn’t regret it, not one second of it, but he doubted now he’d be able to think of anything else tonight but the feel of her body against his, the softness of her as his hands wandered, how sensitive she was to every sort of sensation.

Now he couldn’t help but imagine how she’d react to his touch without faery-silk between them, of what it would be like to feel her press herself to him with nothing in between, of how it would feel to be buried inside her, not an inch of space between them, the sort of sounds she’d make when he pressed himself inside, slow and gentle and adoring—

He shook his head, taking a long breath, as if that would settle him. He pulled his nightshirt on and brushed his teeth too hard, trying to ignore the salacious thoughts swirling about his head.

He slipped back into her bedroom, smiling to himself as he found her fast asleep. He slipped into bed, wrapping his arms around her as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. She instinctively embraced him back, pressing closer even as she slept, legs tangling with his.

Rosalind was the most beautiful, alluring creature he’d ever had the fortune to have met and he—

He was playing a very dangerous game.

Chapter 44: New Paths

Trevor was about ready to give up on trying to find the pale bastard, wherever he’d decided to brood. Alucard might not have liked what he’d said—or how he’d said it—but he’d come around. It was logical, pragmatic—even if he got lucky and they figured out Rosalind’s magic so she didn’t accidentally turn him to ash, there would still always be the fact that she wasn’t just some changeling, she was a princess of Faery, of the Undercourt. Maybe they’d let her play house in the Mortal Realm for a decade or so, but they’d always drag her back. It would hurt less just to put an end to it now.

However much Alucard hated it, Rosalind had made the right decision, he had to give her that.

Of course, all of his brilliant and sympathetic logic was wasted on Sypha every time he tried to explain it.

“It’s kinder in the long run!” he said trying to make her understand. “Better they break it off before it’s anything serious than after years. They’ll just have her marry some faery bastard because it’s her duty or whatever and it’ll be so much worse.”

“It’s not your decision!” Sypha spat back. “Now they’re both miserable, and he’s going to be alone again in the castle because you were running your mouth.”

“It’s not like it wasn’t true—”

“It was cruel! Cruel to Alucard, who you know loves her, was worried sick about what happened, who’d already been looking into figuring out what had happened, how it had, and it was cruel to Rosalind.”

“I didn’t mean for her to hear.”

“Well, she did, and she hid herself away from everyone for two weeks and then ran away to Faery. Everything there moved so much faster than here—I doubt she’s coming back. So now she’s just stuck in that house with Valion in Faery, and he’s stuck here and they’re both alone. You should have stayed out of it.”

“I was trying to look out for him!”

“In the most rude and callous way possible!”

“I was just being direct! It doesn’t matter, anyway. Rosalind chose to go, it’s not an issue anymore.”

“Trevor you are so—”

But he didn’t find out precisely what she thought he was, because the front doors opened with an echoing sort of scraping and Alucard strode inside. Except he wasn’t alone—of course he wasn’t alone.

Not only did he somehow have his little faery princess at his side, but her father, Prince Lame-Ass trailed behind them, staring at everything with undisguised disgust.

He thought bitterly how nice it would be if God could find anywhere else to shit other than in his dinner.

 

---

 

Valion made a face as he approached the castle with Elyra and Adrian, wrinkling his nose at the rotting bodies staked next to the door.

“Those need to go,” he said, not bothering to temper his disgust. Elyra shot him a sharp look for some reason.

“Stop it. They earned worse than their fate,” she hissed back. He noted how Adrian stiffened, but didn’t say anything.

“I can do worse, I just don’t want them outside the door. I can throw them into the Rift and they’ll rot eternal in the Endless Abyss,” he said mildly. She only shot him a dirtier look.

“What?” he asked, making a face. If that wasn’t awful enough he’d figure something else out.

He could be very creative when need be. Or he was particularly irritated.

“I said stop—”

“Throw them in the Rift for all I care,” Adrian said without turning to look at him. Elyra looked at him with worry etched on her brow, fingers intertwining with his as she held onto his arm with her other hand.

“Adrian—”

“It’s fine, Rose. I don’t care,” he said, clearly placating her.

“Adrian—”

“Really, dove. We need not speak of it.”

She searched his face but didn’t argue, though her jaw remained tight. Valion wondered what the two humans had done in life to earn such loathing. Perhaps he would ask Elyra when not around the boy.

They must have done something to receive her ire.

The doors of the castle opened with a wave of Adrian’s hand and Valion could feel strong mortal magics interwoven in its wood, in the very stone of them place, dozens and dozens of wards and other things he didn’t bother to focus on enough to identify. Instead he gazed around the entry hall and couldn’t help but note the similarities in some of the designs as the Penumbral Palace, in the imposing-ness of it.

It was not the sort of place meant to make its guest feel at ease upon entry.

He heard someone swear from the top of the curving stairway to the upper floors and looked up to find the Belmont and the little Speaker. He liked the Speaker, but he made a face at the sight of the Belmont.

He’d yet to grow any fonder of the whelp. He wasn’t interested in trying to.

“Rosalind? You’re back?” the little Speaker asked in delight as she bounded down the stairs, leaving Belmont to sulk.

It never got any less strange to hear her called by the human name she’d been given. He found it irritating, now—it had been a placeholder name, a disguise, but it wasn’t her True name, held none of its power, not to mention it was far too similar to her grandmother's name.

Still, he said nothing.

“Well, um—Adrian can be rather convincing when he’d like to be,” Elyra said, ears turning red as the Speaker came up and wrapped her in a hug.

“You went’ to Faery? By yourself?” Belmont called from his place at the top of the stairs, eyes fixed on the dhampir and disgust coloring his voice.

“I told you I would,” he spat back. “What do you care, anyway?”

“I don’t,” he snapped back before he turned on his heel and disappeared down the hall.

Valion glanced around, making a face as he tried to identify the source of the seemingly endless ticking. It wasn’t any sort of natural thing, the sound mechanical and grating. He could see Elyra’s shoulder’s curling in at the volume of it.

“What in the hell is that racket?” he asked. The dhampir—Adrian—turned and looked at him, brows furrowed.

“What racket?” he asked.

“That horrible ticking noise. No wonder you were so overwhelmed,” he said, glancing at his daughter. Adrian made a face before raising his eyebrows.

“You can hear the clockwork?” he asked.

“It’s dreadful. Where is it?” Valion asked. The sooner he could muffle the assault on his and Elyra’s ears, the better.

He didn’t know how she’d managed to deal with such a profound annoyance for three weeks. He’d have burned the whole of the castle down by day four.

“Um—well the main engine is this way,” he said, leading him down through a half dozen twisting corridors. Elyra and the Speaker trailed behind, catching each other up on all that had occurred since last they saw each other.

He was glad she had such a friend.

Valion couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose at the deafening clockwork engines in a cavernous space somewhere to the back of the blasted castle. It was so wholly unnatural in made the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. He raised his hands without saying anything more to the dhampir, weaving a thick web of wards overtop the engines to silence their clanking and grinding.

He heard Elyra let out a relieved sigh behind him as the room fell silent.

“How did you do that?” she asked, stepping to his side with furrowed brows. He smiled at her.

“It is a rather simple ward, like the ones we’re working on. I can teach it to you next, if you’d like.”

“Please—oh, what I wouldn’t have given for just an hour of freedom from the steam and clockwork,” she said, looking far more relaxed. She didn’t seem to have the same adverse reaction to the unnatural engines as him, instead peering at them with interest now that they wouldn’t deafen her.

“You could hear the engines?” the Speaker asked her.

“I—my hearing is much more sensitive without the glamour.”

Valion caught the forlorn look on the dhampir’s face before he hid it. He truly did feel bad for his daughter’s suffering, even more for not realizing the extent.

“We should look for whatever it was that was draining your magic, sweetling. It never should have been siphoned away so quickly,” he said. She glanced at the dhampir, though he didn’t know what to make of the expression on her face.

“I’ll make something for lunch while you do,” he said, eyes trained solely on Elyra.

“I’ll help,” the Speaker said. Valion just nodded, though he was relieved it would be just him and Elyra. He was never the most social person at the best of times and he was trying very hard to suppress his foul mood so long as he was in the Mortal Realm. It was what she wanted, and he wouldn’t push her away over it—couldn’t—even if the idea of leaving her here again made him ill.

He hated it. He loved her more, though. He couldn’t bear to see her so desolate again, so heartsick.

He’d been starting to worry she’d never truly recover. Faery children felt everything so strongly, their emotions often overwhelming, and he’d seen Elyra’s dulled with her glamour to make them more bearable and help temper any instances of wild, uncontrolled magic, but that only made them all the more overpowering now.

And she loved the damn dhampir. Not in the fickle, capricious way most young faeries loved, but in a way that worried him.

It was the sort he didn’t want her to suffer, not so young and not a match so doomed from the start. Part of him had wished she’d never suffer it. So few did, after all.

He knew better than anyone the sort of pain it would bring.

He leaned over and pressed a kiss to Elyra’s hairline as the Speaker and dhampir disappeared back down the hall.

“Let’s see what we can find, darling. I half wonder if it has something to do with all this wretched machinery.”

“What would that have to do with it?” she asked, making a face.

“It—it is so utterly devoid of magic. A truly lifeless thing. I’m not sure—I’ve never seen anything like it before. I don’t like it in the least. What wretched things they must come up with in the absence of Wilde Magic.”

“I think it’s interesting,” Elyra said brightly. “Now that it’s not so loud. Adrian explained much of how it worked to me while he took care of me. I think it’s really clever.”

“You are a peculiar girl,” he said, shaking his head, though his voice was fond.

“Aren’t you curious about it?”

“Not in the least. Why would I? It’s far inferior to magic.”

Elyra made a face at that, clearly thinking, but didn’t answer. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, steering them back down the hall they’d come, searching for anything that could have siphoned off her magic so quickly. He was glad she’d chosen to accompany him, rather than shadow the dhampir to the kitchen, grateful for the time with her.

He’d miss it, when he returned home.

 

---

 

Alucard looked up as the door opened, revealing Rosalind, followed by Valion. Rosalind practically skipped over to see what he and Sypha were making but Valion lingered by the door, gaze intense as he surveyed him.

He doubted Valion liked him much at all. He’d yet to fully grasp his new, grudging acceptance of him, though he thought it was only because Rosalind had been so miserable apart from him. He did care for her, he knew, even if the things he did so often made little sense. Of course, he wasn’t sure he really cared for the faery-man either—he was arrogant and had a biting tongue, not to mention how incompetent he seemed as a father or how he’d hurt Rosalind.

Still, Alucard offered him a small smile. It had been longer for them in Faery, and he and Rosalind seemed to have reached some sort of understanding, some sort of positive relationship. She was far more comfortable with him and he was softer, now, seemed to have meant it when he’d told her he intended to be a proper father.

Valion had taught him how to cook a few faery dishes, explained more nuances of how it differed from that he was used to. He’d been sure to tell him things that would make her sick or uncomfortable, like salt or linen, and he’d told him how overwhelming fae senses could be—though he hadn’t thought them so sharp as to be able to hear the castle’s clockwork through floors of stone.

He hadn’t been terrible then—not nice, by any means—but merely cold and distant. He’d been the same since arriving at the castle. He had little interest for anyone but Rosalind, but he was polite, if short, when forced to interact with anyone else.

Alucard turned back to Rosalind, giving her a warm smile. He had to resist the urge to press a kiss to her temple.

“I made something special for you,” he said. It was one of the meals Valion had taught him—at least as close as he was able. He’d made sure to cook everything for her and her father in entirely different pans, which he’d washed out vigorously before he’d even begun.

“He was very particular about it,” Sypha said, grinning at her. Rosalind blushed and he could feel his own cheeks go red. Sypha giggled, but not unkindly, grabbing the pot of the other meal and bringing it to the table. Trevor already sat at the table, picking out dirt from beneath his nails with the tip of a dagger.

Alucard hadn’t said a word to him since he’d gotten back.

“You’re the sweetest,” Rosalind said softly, beaming at him.

“Wait until you taste it, it could be terrible.”

“It won’t be. You’re a wonderful cook. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, dove. I’ve missed cooking for you.”

She blushed deeper, biting her lip before she grabbed plates and silverware from the cupboards to set the table.

They sat all sat for the meal, three of them—him, Rosalind, and Sypha—falling into easy conversation.

“We’re going to go, today. There’s been odd rumors coming out of Targoviste that we need to check out,” Sypha said, brow furrowed.

“That you want to check out,” Trevor muttered under his breath.

“That we should check out. At the very least we should clear out the vampires that have taken up residency there. It’s too strategic of a stronghold for them to keep.”

“Just the two of you?” Rosalind asked, eyes wide.

“Oh yes!” Sypha said with delight. “It’s going to be such fun.”

Rosalind nodded slowly, though she still looked worried. Alucard put his hand reassuringly on her knee for a moment. Even after seeing the sort of magic Sypha could do, she was still worried for her friend—he found it terribly sweet. She hadn’t been raised a warrior like him or Trevor and he wasn’t sure she’d develop a taste for fighting like Sypha. He knew the Night Creatures terrified her.

He hoped she never had to see another one again, he thought darkly, thinking back to the wounds in her side from the monster’s claws.

He glanced over to the far side of the table where Valion sat, eyes glued to his plate, shoulders tight. Alucard wasn’t sure if he was ignoring them or just trying to. Rosalind caught his gaze and turned to her father.

“Do you think you could help me show Sypha the wards you’ve been teaching me?” she asked. She really was worried about her. Valion looked up, though his expression was soft when he replied.

“I could explain the theory, but I doubt they would work for her. It is a different sort of magic that humans wield.”

“A whole different magic?” she asked, furrowing her brow, interest plain on her face. Sypha too leaned closer. Valion glanced at her, the briefest flash of confusion crossing his face at Sypha’s excited interest before he turned back to Rosalind.

“Yes. It is—it’s hard to explain. It’s more of a manufactured thing, if that makes sense. There is hardly any wild magic left in this realm. It is why their magic requires incantations, runes, sometimes different physical components whereas for us it is more in learning how to connect with the magic around and have it react the way you wish,” he said, pinching his temples with one hand as he spoke in a far more casual tone to Rosalind than he ever had to any of them when answering their questions. “I have a book back home that gives a good overall comparison, I’ll dig it out for you.”

“Thanks, Dad, I’d appreciate that.”

“Dad?” Trevor said, half laughing in disbelief. “You go to Faery for three weeks and all the sudden it’s Daddy Dearest?”

Rosalind turned to glare at him, red-faced, before throwing down her fork. She got up and left without a word.

She’d hardly even had a chance to take more than a few bites of her meal. Alucard rounded on him.

“Leave her alone,” he snapped as Valion too, got up without a word and left. “I’m done with you needling her. I don’t want you to say another word to her. I won’t have you tormenting people I care for.”

“Oh yeah, that was really torment—”

“I’m done with this,” he said, and threw down his own fork. He’d thought Trevor might have at least had the decency to apologize, but he hadn’t so much as tried, no doubt because he still thought himself right.

He didn’t care. Trevor and Sypha would leave just like they did last time, but this time he’d have someone who cared for him, he’d know tender affection and care, know love, he wouldn’t be left to drown in his grief and loneliness.

He’d have Rosalind and he’d be happy.

 

---

 

“I don’t know what it is,” Valion said, clearly flustered. He and Elyra had combed through the castle twice for anything that could explain how depleted she’d been of her magic, but they’d found nothing.

She could tell it worried him, even if he tried to hide it behind irritation.

“Maybe it was just from being sick from the salt.”

“I doubt it. I’m going to have to research it and see what I can find. I’ll let you know when I find something,” he said, turning towards the front doors.

“You’re going now?” she asked.

“It’s rather urgent, considering how bad it got last time. I don’t like leaving you here without an answer and a solution.”

“It’s okay, I’ll see you in a couple of days, and I’ll be back in Faery and it won’t be a worry.”

“Still—I might have to search the palace archives. And don’t forget, I will have to come and collect you for Solstice. If we skip it your grandmother will flay me, but I promise I won’t leave you alone with her for a moment. We’ll do something fun after to make up for it though, I promise.”

He looked particularly unhappy at the prospect of Solstice and she saw his eyes flick to the studs in her still-healing ears. She wasn’t particularly looking forward to being around the Unseelie Court, or his parents, but she didn’t mention that. It wouldn’t changed that they’d have to go.

“Now, before I go—I didn’t want to pack this in one of your trunks and forget to explain it to you,” he said, pulling out a box from his pocket and handing it to her. She opened it, surprised to find a delicate cuff bracelet set with moonstones. It was beautiful, and she noted it would pair perfectly with the enchanted necklace he’d gotten her for her birthday.

One she should probably start wearing, considering her recent luck, if only for a little extra protection.

“Once you put it on, you’ll be the only one able to remove it. If you are in danger, or sick, or need anything, you need only pour a little magic into the stones, and I’ll come. Try it now,” he said, taking the bracelet and fastening it on her wrist for her. It felt strangely warm.

She did as he asked, sending a tiny shower of moon motes into the stones. It grew warmer on her wrist, but not uncomfortably so. Her eyes went wide as the stone in one of the rings he wore began to glow.

“If you need anything, sweetling, I’ll come. It will make it easier for me to find you, too.”

Elyra looked down at the bracelet and smiled to herself.

“Thanks Dad,” she said quietly. He strode forward and wrapped her in a tight hug.

“Be careful, my darling. If you begin to feel even the least bit sick, you must come home. And you’re always welcome, whenever you’d like to come. It’s your home too,” he said before pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“You won’t even have time to miss me,” she said, hugging him back. “I want to learn that new ward, and I have to keep up with my studies.”

“Yes, well, I packed you a full set of basic referential texts on just about every subject that you can look over at your leisure. I think after abjurations we should take some time to work on some basic healing magic. And if I’ve forgotten to pack anything you need or want, write it down for me and bring it next time I see you, and I’ll get it. I want to make sure you have everything you need and that you’re comfortable.”

“Thank you,” she said again. It was such a different goodbye than last time, Valion such a different type of father. Last time he’d hardly been able to look at her, had been too upset to remember to tell her what she needed to know, living in the Mortal Realm, hadn’t thought of the practical sort of things she’d need. This time it seemed his preparations had been exhaustive, filling two enormous black trunks to the brim with things for her to bring. Luckily they hadn’t had to carry them—Adrian had shoved them both through one of her gates from Valion’s house to the castle.

She’d offered to make them a gate to the castle, but Valion had insisted on making them a circle there. She thought maybe they made him nervous.

“It’s the least I can do, my darling. I should get going, I have much to look into.”

“I’ll see you soon, Dad. Really soon, I promise.”

He pressed a kiss to her temple.

“Be good. And remember, if you need anything at all, use the bracelet.”

“I will.”

“Alright. I love you, Moonbeam.”

She hugged him tighter before he let go, unable to say the words back as they stuck in her throat. She hadn’t been able to say them yet. Maybe because what she felt for him was so different than what she’d felt for her human parents. Maybe because everything was still new and strange in the scheme of things.

She watched him go, surprised by the way her chest constricted, just a little. She would see him soon though—she could spend a whole day with him and only be gone the morning in the Mortal Realm. It would make it a lot easier to visit often and keep up with her lessons.

It was strange to think that this time, this farewell, she’d actually miss him, though she’d visit far more often than she’d ever planned before. Of course, six months ago in Faery, he’d seemed a very different man, a very different father. Now—she was still getting used to it all in her head, but he was good to her. He took care of her, was a patient teacher, did his best to protect her from the nightmare of Court. It was comfortable being around him.

It was strange to know that part of her would miss him.

 

---

 

Elyra took the time to unpack her trunks while Adrian helped Trevor and Sypha load up their cart. She was surprised when opening the first to find all the blankets and sheets and everything they’d bought by the sea packed inside, along with most of her clothes and shoes.

She hadn’t really thought about the list he’d given her, which seemed silly now. He’d sent her out to buy all the things to make sure she’d be comfortable in the Mortal Realm this time, that she wouldn’t break out in hives or risk some other unpleasant reaction. She smiled to herself, gathering up the sheets to put on Adrian’s bed. He’d already asked that she share it with her. She’d turn an embarrassing shade of red when he’d asked, mind going back to the clearing in the blue forest, how it had felt to feel his hands on her, to lose herself entirely.

He’d grinned at her then, somehow knowing exactly what she’d been remembering.

She remade his bed with the new blankets and sheets and downy pillows, fighting the urge to simply lay down and revel in their softness. Instead she went back to her unpacking in the guest room Adrian had given her last time, hanging her clothes in the wardrobe and stowing away her shoes.

She was surprised, though, to find a real sword stowed inside, the blade razor sharp. It was beautiful, too, intricately designed and well-balanced, lighter than it looked like it would be. Under neath was a very unfamiliar set of armor. It too was a work of art, carefully patterned and bearing motifs of the moon.

Valion must have asked for that. He called her Moonbeam, after all. Sometimes she thought it strange, since there seemed to be no moon in all of Faery.

Perhaps he’d known she’d feel safer having it here, knowing there were still monstrous roaming Night Creatures. After all, her magic didn’t seem to work right here—or at least she needed to learn how to make it work.

It wasn’t natural, like in Faery.

It was an upsetting feeling, truly. It made her feel all the more vulnerable, though soon, maybe, she would feel like it didn’t have to be her only option. Valion said she was doing well with the sword, she was sure it wouldn’t be as frightening if she felt proficient with some sort of weapon.

Then she wouldn’t feel so useless.

She crossed to the window—it seemed like Trevor and Adrian were done loading the horrid cart. She sighed—she’d been avoiding Trevor since she’d gotten back, well enough that she’d only seen him briefly at lunch before she’d slipped away. She knew what he thought of her, knew he thought worse of her for returning.

Still, she wanted to say goodbye to Sypha, before she left. She really liked her. She’d miss her.

Maybe she would return after her next adventure. She’d like that, even if it meant having to see Trevor again.

Of course he was a Belmont, a monster hunter from a line of monster hunters—of course he’d only see her as a monster.

Sometimes she still worried she was.

She walked downstairs, rather than just using a gate—she was very careful not to use much of her magic, not until she knew why it seemed to seep away from her here. She held her breath as she walked between the two corpses staked outside, didn’t stop until she was only a few paces away from the trio.

If course, it might have been worse, then, when she took a breath, smelled horse and stale hay, the smell of it threatening to drag her back into her awful fractured memories of her journey here.

She couldn’t make herself take a step closer to the cart.

“I’m going to miss you!” Sypha said, darting forward to wrap her arms around her neck. “You must tell me all about how faery magic works when we come back.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “I can do my best. It’s not—Valion says my magic works differently from his though.”

“I still want to learn. You know, between the library and the Hold there were no books we could find on faery magic at all.”

“Probably for good reason,” Trevor said under his breath. Sypha made a face.

“Ignore him. Look after Alucard, okay? He gets terribly melancholy when left alone.”

“Of course I will.”

Sypha smiled at her, giving her another hug before turning to Adrian.

“We’ll see you again on our way back through. It was wonderful to see you again,” she said, giving him a hug too. Adrian returned it surprisingly awkwardly.

“You too. I hope our paths cross again soon,” he said in his usual measured way.

“Be careful,” Elyra said, thinking of the Night Creatures that had attacked her and Adrian in the woods. She knew Sypha was just about the most powerful sorceress ever, but she still worried about one of those awful monster hurting her.

“Of course,” she said, grinning at the both of them before bounding off to hop back onto the cart. Elyra caught Trevor giving her an odd look, though he looked away as soon as he saw her attention on him. He didn’t say anything, merely urging the horses forward. She thought maybe Adrian would say something to him—they were rather ornery friends after all—but he said nothing. Elyra waved to Sypha until the cart disappeared around a bend in the path.

Adrian turned, then, and crossed to her, a soft smile on his face.

“It has been a strangely long day,” he said, reaching out to wrap his arms around her waist.

“It was longer, since we began it in Faery,” she said, smile curving her lips. “I don’t know I’ll ever grow used to the way time works there. It seems impossible to measure, never mind track.”

"Perhaps—perhaps we should retire early tonight, then," he said, voice perfectly even, though she couldn't help but giggle at the look on his face, the slight flush in his cheeks.

 

---

 

Adrian’s lips were on hers the moment his bedroom door shut behind them. She giggled, rising up on her tip toes to better meet them, hands pressed against his chest. One of his hands was knotted in her hair, the other low on her hip, keeping her close.

She’d wanted to kiss him like this for hours, wanted to feel his hands wander again, gentle and loving and so different than any she’d felt before. She couldn’t help but remember the ecstasy he’d driven her to, couldn’t help but find herself greedy for more of it.

She hadn’t known anything could feel so good.

Still, the idea of losing herself in such a way still made her embarrassed, made her feel shy and uncertain, despite Adrian’s reassurances. Perhaps it was because it was all so new.

Or perhaps it was because it seemed only she truly lost her head.

She’d contemplate that later, though, when she wasn’t pressed pleasingly flush to Adrian with his hands holding her close, hyper-aware of his body against hers.

“I love you,” she murmured against his lips. He drew away enough to kiss along her jaw, over to her ear.

“I love you,” he whispered softly in her ear. “The castle feels like home again with you here.”

“Adrian—”

“I mean it. You have no idea how dismal it felt without you.”

“You feel like home to me,” she said, smiling up at him. “I don’t know if I quite belong anywhere anymore, but it feels right when I’m with you.”

Adrian smiled back at her in a terribly endearing way that made her melt. Yes—he felt like home. Maybe the Mortal Realm felt uncomfortable and foreign now, and Faerie was alien too her, but Adrian felt right. Wherever he was—that was where she wanted to be, as long as he’d let her.

He kissed her, more hungrily than before, walking her backwards towards the bed without letting go of her or breaking their kiss.

Elyra giggled as they flopped onto the bed. She glanced at Adrian next to her, his cheeks flushed, hair mussed and found herself feeling braver after their time in the little blue clearing.

She rolled over so she could kiss him while he lay on his back, carefully straddling his hips as he did to her, intent on driving him mad with teasing touches for a change, with the weight of her infuriatingly above him. She wanted to make him feel as good as he made her, wanted to find out what made him shiver and melt, wanted to admire how very pretty he looked with his golden hair haloed around him.

She froze, though, blood turning to ice in her veins as Adrian’s hand shot out faster than she could process and wrapped around her neck, tips of claws pricking at the delicate skin. His eyes were open, but they were somewhere else—she wasn’t sure he was seeing her at all.

“Adrian?” she managed with her throat constricted, hands coming to gently tug at his wrist. She’d done something to frighten him and she didn’t know what. Even as she grew light-headed from lack of oxygen, she couldn’t help but worry about him, about where he’d gone, where he was trapped behind those golden eyes she adored so much.

It was enough for her to feel fear, though.

“Please, Adrian,” she choked, tugging more insistently at his wrist. She knew it wasn’t his fault, but if he didn’t let go she was going to pass out. Her head felt soupy, fear acidic in her throat—

Adrian yanked himself away, so fast she didn’t see him move, only felt it as he tore himself from the bed, his hand leaving her throat. She toppled over, gasping in deep breaths. It took her a moment to right herself back to a sitting position.

Adrian stood plastered against the wall, horror plain on his face. She swore she felt her heart breaking for him and made to get up.

“Don’t—don’t, Rose,” he said, voice ragged. She froze, nodding.

“It’s okay, Adrian. Everything’s okay, you’re safe—”

“I hurt you,” he said, voice breaking. She shook her head.

“You didn’t! You didn’t! I—I’m sorry, Adrian. I don’t know what I did, but I frightened you and I’m sorry.”

“Don’t—why are you apologizing? I—I could have killed you! I—” he broke off, tearing at his hair. Elyra slowly got off the bed, hands outstretched where he could see them.

“It’s okay, Adrian. It—you weren’t seeing me, I know you weren’t. I did something and you went away, I could see you weren’t there.”

“Rose, don’t, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t, love. I know you won’t,” she said softly. She very slowly reached out and took his hands, running her thumbs over his knuckles.

“Can you talk to me, please? I don’t—I don’t know what I did. I don’t want to scare you. I’m so very sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong—”

“Adrian—”

“You didn’t. I just—the last time I was—I was under someone, they—” he broke off, looking away.

“I’m so sorry—” she said, bile rising in her throat.

“You didn’t know, I didn’t tell you. I didn’t—I didn’t think it would—” he broke off again, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry, Rose. I never should have—”

“You didn’t mean it, I know you didn’t. I won’t ever sit on you like that again, I promise. I promise, Adrian.”

Adrian made a face, looking almost as if he wished to cry.

“It’s not fair,” he said, voice sounding strangled. “I would—I would want you to if I wasn’t broken, if they hadn’t broken me. It wasn’t—it wasn’t you, for a moment, it was her, and I just—I could have hurt you so badly. I did hurt you.”

“Adrian—would—do you want a hug? I don’t want to make everything worse by touching you,” she asked, though she’d scarcely finished before he wrapped his arms around her, almost too tight.

“I’m sorry, Rose. You deserve so much better, so much more than a broken—”

“If you’re broken than I am to,” she said fiercely, even as tears slipped down her cheeks. She hugged him tighter, pressing her face to his chest. Adrian tightened his hold for a minute before he pulled away enough to look at her throat, fingers ghosting over it feather-light.

“It might—it might bruise,” he said, voice shaking. He still looked so horribly guilty. She gently took hold of his wrist and pressed a kiss to his palm.

“It’s not your fault. It’s their fault,” she said quietly, but seriously.

“I did it.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said, more sternly. “Let’s—I can read to you, for a change. I don’t have to stay tonight either—”

“No!” he said quickly. “Please—please stay. Unless—I understand if you don’t feel comfortable.”

He couldn’t quite meet her gaze. She gently took his hand and pulled him back towards the bed. She sat and scooted to the other side of the bed to grab the book he’d left on the bedside table—he always liked to read before bed.

She frowned. It was the same book they’d been reading before she left. She flipped it open—the bookmark was in the same place too.

“It felt wrong to finish it without you. I—I couldn’t bear to,” he said quietly as he slipped back into bed. She stared at him for a moment with furrowed brows, throat tight. Then she scooted over so she could press a kiss to his cheek, eyes misty. She slipped under the covers, wrapping an arm around him as she opened the book. She pressed another kiss to his temple as he settled against her, head resting on her shoulder as he snaked his arms around her waist.

“Thank you, Rose,” he said, voice barely more than a whisper.

“I love you,” she replied simply, before picking up where he’d left off so very long ago.

 

---

 

Valion unlocked the door and pinched his temples, wishing he didn’t feel so nauseous. He hated leaving her, hated the silence of the house without her.

He hoped she’d visit soon.

He pushed into his study, crossing to his desk and throwing himself into his chair. He knew he should go to his studio, force his melancholy into something at least productive, but he knew he’d probably just end up having a few too many glasses of whiskey and looking through his old sketchbooks, at his drawings of Elyra as she grew.

He turned to grab the little painting of her on his desk, but paused when he saw a package sat on his desk, wrapped in brown paper. ‘Dad’ had been scrawled across the paper in elegant script. He smiled at that.

He unwrapped it, careful not to tear the paper—he knew he’d tuck it in a trunk somewhere in the attic with Orlaith’s old lists and notes to herself, all the little pieces of her he couldn’t ever bear to give up, all the pieces that were left.

Besides Elyra.

Inside was a sketchbook, a finely made black leather one with sturdy, thick paper. He flipped it open, finding her script one more on the colored endpaper.

‘For Dad, From Elyra.’

He flipped to the next page to feel the tooth of the paper, still smiling in an awful, bittersweet way, when he froze. The pages weren’t blank. He flipped through, finding them beautifully illuminated with all the names of the places she wanted to visit, the places he’d told her he’d take her, on the bottom of each of the pages. The list only filled maybe a third of the sketchbook so far, though he was sure they’d add to it. He paused at the last place, huffing a small laugh.

Florence. Where she’d said all the best artists were, somewhere she’d said he’d love.

He smiled at the page, brushing away an errant tear with the back of his hand. She was such a terribly sweet girl.

He flipped back to the first page, labeled ‘Endless Green Sea’, as he got up and walked to the stairs, thumb tracing the beautiful letters as he went to his studio to retrieve his current sketchbook. He flipped through it, trying to decide which moment should represent their visit there. The paper was thick enough to paint on too, which delighted him.

It seemed they had a long way to go if they were going to fill it with new places to see.

Notes:

This one took me a dumb amount of time to finish for some reason. Very much looking forward to MC and Adrian to have to time alone. Also Solstice! Who doesn't like a royal ball full of evil lunatics?

Chapter 45: Reclamation

Alucard woke early the next morning, still wrapped in Rosalind’s embrace. She was still sleeping, chest rising and falling slowly. He shifted in her hold so he could look at her face, admire the look of peace on it. His eyes trailed down to her neck as he pressed his lips together.

There was faint bruising from how he’d grabbed her, little pinprick scabs from his nails on the side of her neck. The sight made him nauseous.

He’d hurt her, his sweet dove. He hardly thought it mattered that he hadn’t meant to, even though Rosalind seemed to think it excuse enough. He didn’t exactly like how fast and easily she’d brushed off that he’d harmed her, that he could have easily done so, so much worse.

He hated that Taka and Sumi were still causing damage, even as they rotted outside the front door. He hated what they’d taken from him, hated the fear they’d left him with, hated that their crime had caused him to hurt someone he loved, someone who had just been trying to love him. He hated that they’d taken something that should have been loving and passionate and wonderful and turned it to something that drove icy shards of terror into his heart.

He hated that he couldn’t separate their abuse from his lover’s adoration, that the moment he felt her straddle his waist it hadn’t been her any longer, it had been Sumi distracting him so she and Taka could bind him with silver, that he knew their intent this time, that he could stop them.

But it had been Rose.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that sort of intimacy had been so viscerally tainted for him, that the mere feeling of someone above him was enough to through him right back into that night. It wasn’t fair they were still tormenting him, now tormenting Rosalind though his brokenness. It wasn’t fair that they’d taken away his chance to receive tender affection in such a way.

He stared at her, stomach twisting uncomfortably as he thought of what would have happened if he’d gripped her neck just a little tighter, if he’d dug his nails in a little deeper, if her voice hadn’t broken through to him when it did to make him let go.

If he’d called for his sword on instinct instead of merely grabbing her neck.

He didn’t know how she had been able to so calmly share a bed with him, how she hadn’t been terrified and furious with him. How she’d comforted him, after what he’d done.

Rosalind stirred, eyes fluttering open, so very green under silver lashes. She smiled at him, reaching out to cradle his cheek before she’d even managed to fully wake.

“You are so pretty,” she said, voice a bit rough from sleep, eyes still heavy as she smiled lazily up at him. He felt himself blush.

“How’s your neck?” he asked, wondering if some of the roughness was from his handling of her the night before.

“It’s fine, Adrian. It doesn’t even hurt.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, love.”

He eyed her under furrowed brows, unsure if she was just brushing it off for his benefit. She gave him a dirty look, the abrupt transition from sweet, sleepy smile to irritation enough to nearly make him laugh.

“You stop that,” she said brusquely. That was enough to force out a giggle.

“What?” he said, trying not to laugh.”

“Stop with the mental self-flagellation. I can hear it from here. You’re going to really upset me if you keep it up.”

“I’m only worrying—”

“Well don’t! I’m fine, you’re fine. I don’t want to think about it anymore. I just want to enjoy spending time with you. You know, it feels like forever since it’s just been us in the castle.”

“It does,” he said, considering it fully for the first time. They’d spent months alone together in the castle, though it had never felt so charged as it did now. Of course she’d been near-bed bound for much of it, her leg stupendously broken on top of the sickness forced on her from her uncle’s dream visits.

And it had been before he’d ever realized he loved her, never mind told her. And far before he’d ever touched her in any way other than that of a reluctant healer, a caregiver.

Not as a lover.

And it had been a very different body, not just because of the glamour she’d still worn. She was no longer sickly and dying, but healthy and full of life and so beautiful in made him lose his head. Especially after watching her lose hers to pleasure, to his touch.

He wanted to see it again, wanted to watch her come undone, wanted to drown her in it, make up for every miserable way she’d been touched before, been hurt.

But he’d hurt her too, in his panic.

What if he did it again, what if he hurt her worse?

Rosalind flicked the tip of his nose lightly. He turned his attention back to her, finding her glaring at him.

“It was an accident, Adrian. I brought up a bad memory by accident and you got lost in it for a moment. It’s not your fault and I know you would never hurt me on purpose. You didn’t know you were doing it, just like I didn’t know what I did to the Night Creature. It’s just the same—”

“Except I actually did hurt you,” he said, furrowing his brows.

“You didn’t think it was me. You were back with them, it was them you were trying to stop. And you didn’t really hurt me, Adrian—even lost in that awful memory, you only really held me there.”

“I could have really—”

“You didn’t, and I know you won’t. You told me you knew I wouldn’t hurt you—I know the same.”

He stared at her, part of him wanting to argue more, to convince her that she should take it all much more seriously, but then he realized it was the same sort of knotted thought she’d fallen into that made her think she needed to run away to Faery to protect him, that she was unpredictable and dangerous.

Perhaps they both had a bit of a self-sacrificing streak.

“Would it feel better if we talked about things you don’t want, things that remind you of them? I don’t want to do anything to make you feel like you’re back there,” she said softly, one hand tucking a bit of his hair behind his ear.

“I—perhaps,” he said, though the idea of talking about it was hardly comfortable. “I—I don’t think I can have you sit above be like last night, not after them. And—and I don’t think I would like to be restricted in any way, like if you were to hold my wrists or to speak—to speak of any sort of intimacy as a r-reward,” he said, unable to look her in the eyes as he spoke.

“Okay,” Rosalind replied, combing her fingers through his hair. “And you can always add more, too. Anything you don’t want, for any reason at all. I never want to make you uncomfortable or anything.”

He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Thank you, Rose. You know, I want you to do the same too. I want you to be comfortable.”

“I know. It’s different, though, because you remember all of what happened to you. I just—I’m not sure I could be near a horse cart again. Perhaps not even a set of stables. I don’t think that will be much of an issue in the castle though.”

“But if there is something you remember—”

“I’ll tell you. You’re the only one I feel like I could tell,” she said, voice growing quieter. Adrian unfortunately understood—it felt almost insurmountable to tell someone who wouldn’t understand, who didn’t know what it was like, what it felt like. He doubted she’d feel comfortable opening up to Valion about it, doubted she felt he could put his own feeling aside about it to really help her.

“I’m sorry about Valion before, about the stakes. I was trying to get him to shut up, but he’s not very good at taking a hint,” she said, breaking him out of his thoughts.

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“I do, he was being pushy. He doesn’t know why they’re there.”

“He—he wasn’t exactly wrong, though. Maybe it’s time. I mean, they didn’t exactly keep anyone away,” he said, trying to force some humor into the last statement. He was glad they didn’t, glad she was brave enough to run right past them to bang on the door.

“It has to be your decision. I don’t want you to do it because he wants you to.”

“Do you want them gone?” he asked, furrowing his brow. “It—it’s your home too, now. As long as you want it to be.”

She stared at him a moment. “I want you to do what feels right to you. I only wish they could suffer more for what they did to you.”

He stared at her a moment before pressing a kiss to her cheek. She was far more patient and understanding than he deserved.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I—I might have to think on it.”

To his surprise, she smiled at him. “Then you should.”

He kissed her, holding her tight for a moment before drawing back again.

“What do you have planned for the day?” he asked. She furrowed her brow.

“I—I hadn’t quite thought about it. I suppose I’ve gotten used to my routine. Usually I would train with D—Valion in the morning and then I’d work on my lessons. I suppose I can go over the books he sent with me. Or there are still quite a few in the library in need of repair, though I don’t have all the tools I need to finish fixing them.”

“You know,” he said slowly as an idea took hold. “I do have some work in the Hold that I need to get to. I have to make sure it’s ready in time for winter. You could always go and study with Valion and then be back for the afternoon. I was in Faery for two days and it had hardly been twelve hours here.”

Her face lit up at that. “That’s not a bad idea if you have things you have to get done on your own! I do really like my lessons and Valion would be pleased to see I’m taking them seriously, I think.”

“Shall we call it a plan, then?” he asked. She nodded, scrunching up her nose as she grinned at him.

“Thank you, Adrian,” she said, pressing a kiss to his cheek. He shook his head.

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean,” he said, feigning ignorance. She just laughed at him, giving him one last kiss before scurrying off to get changed.

 

---

 

Valion made a face as he heard knocking at his door, before he realized who it had to be. Then he hurriedly cleaned off his brush and set it aside, wishing he’d bothered to change into proper clothes, rather than just remaining in his pajamas and dressing robe. He almost ran to throw the door open.

Elyra’s eyes went slightly wide as he did, perhaps not expecting such a violent opening. She wore a pale pink dress embroidered with little flowers, her hair half pulled back with a matching ribbon. He couldn’t help but think of how that pink had always been Orlaith’s favorite, think of how pretty it looked on their daughter.

He knew Orlaith would have disagreed, called it much too plain, but Valion though Elyra looked every bit the little princess she’d always wanted, dressed so sweetly. Of course he still thought Elyra was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen when she was drenched in sweat and wearing boy’s trousers, so he was fairly sure he was biased.

“I—did I come at a bad time? I—I don’t exactly know what time it is here, I hope I didn’t wake you,” she said, brow furrowing in worry.

“No—right now is a wonderful time. It’s nearly lunch, I just didn’t bother changing before I got caught up in my painting,” he said, ushering her in. He hadn’t expected her to return again so soon, despite what she’d said.

“Give me a moment, I’ll get dressed and I’ll make something for lunch,” he said, feeling a little giddy at having her back in the house.

“Okay,” she said, furrowing her brows, but he merely bounded back up the stairs to change into something acceptable while he wished he’d made the time to go to the market and buy more knotberries.

When he returned downstairs he found Elyra in the kitchen, her sleeves rolled up and one of his aprons thrown on and tied around her waist while she washed the dishes he’d left in the sink. He crossed to stop her.

“Leave those, I’ll deal with them. Just relax,” he said, trying to usher her away from the sink.

“I’m nearly done,” she said with a sweet smile.

“You’re a silly girl,” he replied, sighing before he went about making something for lunch. He probably wouldn’t have bothered with it if she hadn’t arrived, but he always did his best to make sure she didn’t skip meals. He never wanted to see her so horribly thin ever again.

“How long has it been?” she asked as she finished and pulled off the apron, hanging it back on its hook. He should get her one of her own, like the pinafore ones Orlaith liked, with pockets in the skirt.

“Only two days,” he said as he worked. “I hadn’t expected you for at least a week.”

“Oh, well Adrian had a few things he wanted to work on for the Hold so I thought I would stop by.”

“I’m glad you did, Moonbeam. I figured you’d be busy for a while.”

“Oh, there’s always something to do, but I told you, I want to keep up on my studies. The books in Adrian’s library aren’t going to get any more broken, they can wait a little while. I also need to go back to Vienna and get more tools to finish most of them.”

“I’m glad you’re keeping up with it, sweetling,” he said, unable to stop himself from smiling. “You have a real talent for it. You know, if you made a list of everything you need, I could make sure it’s all here in the studio for you to use when you wish.”

“Dad, that’s ridiculous. I have Father’s old tools and the presses, I don’t need more. They’re much too expensive to have doubles of.”

He just waved his hand. “You don’t have to worry about money. It would hardly be an expense of note.”

She stared at him with wide eyes. He laughed at her.

“Have you forgotten you’re a princess, my darling? Coin is not anything you need worry about.“

“Still, it would be a silly expense, especially with how easy it is for me to use what I already have.”

He smiled wider, sliding her plate in front of her, followed by a fork. They rarely at lunch in the dining room when it was just the two of them, instead sitting at the stools along the counter. He preferred the casualness of it.

“I suppose I should be grateful you don’t take after your mother in that way, though I suppose I’ll just end up spoiling you in her stead,” he said, filling his own plate as he sat across from her. It was strange—it hurt so badly to speak to her of Orlaith in the beginning, to the point that he often had to leave before he’d told her all he’d meant to, but now—

He didn’t miss her any less. It just wasn’t as painful with Elyra there. It still killed him that she wasn’t here, watching their baby girl grow up with him, but he saw her, pieces of her, in Elyra, parts of her that remained, that lived on. And he wanted her to know her mother, wanted to be able to tell her all the wonderful things, wanted her to be real to Elyra in a way he knew was hard, since she didn’t remember her.

“I don’t need to be spoiled,” Elyra said making a face. He almost laughed at that—of course she didn’t, she was a practical, hard-working girl. He was proud of how sensible she’d grown up to be, how industrious and grounded.

“Hardly anyone needs to be,” he said, unable to contain his fondness. He didn’t say that she deserved to be—he knew she’d disagree.

After they finished eating they went to the library to continue where they’d left off before she’d left. She was excited to learn a new ward, excited, as always, to understand a bit more of how Faery’s magic worked, though hers still remained incomprehensible to him.

He tried not to dwell on it too much, not when he was sure Ysolde had something to do with it.

He’d deal with that after Solstice. For now he just wanted to enjoy the time he had with his Moonbeam.

He hadn’t thought he’d enjoy teaching her as much as he did—he’d never had much patience when he was younger, nor was he fond of spending such long stretches of time with people for any reason, not since Orlaith had passed. He adored it with Elyra, though, despite the basic material that bored him to tears. He liked watching her figure it all out, liked answering her questions. Perhaps it helped that they were similar in their thirst for knowledge, that she was so diligent in her studies.

Or perhaps he simply loved any time at all he got to spend with her, no matter how mundane. He’d missed so much, after all. He scarcely wanted to miss anything more.

Of course that, he’d realized, meant letting go, at least to an extent. He hated it, but he knew it was the right thing to do, knew he couldn’t cloister her and hover as he would have if she’d still been small. At least this way she came back to see him, came back because she wanted to, not just because she had to.

At least this way he had a real relationship with her, could work on repairing the damage he’d inflicted, could make sure that she was safe in Faerie, that she was prepared for its dangers.

“Dad?” she asked, drawing him from his thoughts.

“Yes, Moonbeam?”

“Do you—Solstice is a ball, right?”

“It is,” he replied, somewhat warily. He didn’t blame her for being interested—on the surface it seemed very much like one of her Mortal faery tales—but she’d learn that it was dull and catty.

“Could—could I bring Adrian?” she asked, eyes glued to the table top. He sighed.

It wasn’t as if the Court didn’t already know of him, hadn’t already seen how close they were after his brother had destroyed her shoulder and the boy had tended to her in the arena. His parents wouldn’t like it one bit—at the very least they’d spend the who time making passive aggressive comments to him about it, and at the worst they’d make the whole thing a nightmare.

Still—

It was essentially harmless. She was too young for any interest of hers to be taken seriously and it would give her one more person she could trust around her. He trusted his parents to an extent, of course, but not enough, never enough when it came to the safety of his daughter.

And maybe it would keep the parade of wretched bachelors sure to come crawling out of the woodwork at bay, more so than just his ire. He knew all too well how much his mother love to try and play matchmaker, and he’d rather Elyra not suffer it, at least for a century or two when she’d feel more than comfortable standing her ground.

He was still furious at her for bullying her into piercing her ears.

It would make the dhampir a bit of a target, but he could hold his own.

He blew out a breath.

“He’ll need something decent to wear. I suppose I’ll have to talk to Quinn about that, though it’s cutting it close.”

“Really?” she asked, face lighting up. He couldn’t help but smile at her expression, even if he wasn’t exactly happy about the why.

“Of course, sweetling. It shouldn’t be an issue. I’ll still have to escort you myself, but he can come as a guest of the Crown.”

She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight, thanking him far more profusely than was necessary. Still, he held her close and basked in her happiness, hoping that soon it would be a common thing again like when she was small.

 

---

 

Alucard felt a little bad for lying to Rosalind. Not lying exactly—there was plenty he should be working on down in the Hold, he just had no intention of doing any of it while she was gone.

Instead he was more concerned with making sure they could finish their picnic from before everything had went so horribly. He knew she would hardly be comfortable continuing it in the woods again, even if he made sure there were no Night Creatures within miles, and he didn’t want her to be frightened.

Instead he thought it much more agreeable to finish it in the castle, even if it meant they couldn’t bask in the sunlight. The library still had her tree, after all, and it seemed much more outdoors-y after he’d gone out and plucked a basket full of wildflowers to set in vases around the blanket.

She liked flowers.

He spent the rest of the afternoon cooking, something that settled his nerves. He wasn’t exactly sure why he was nervous, but he had unfamiliar butterflies in his stomach.

Maybe it was just because he wanted her to like it, wanted to do something special to show just how much he adored her. She was so sweet and gentle with him when he needed her to be, always so kind and understanding. He just wanted to make her feel that wonderful.

He was just pulling out his modified sweet bread from the oven when he heard her calling his name from the entrance hall.

“In the kitchen, dove!” he called as he carefully set the pan on the counter. She arrived a moment later, beaming at him before crossing to wrap her arms around his waist.

“What have you been up to? Everything smells so good. I thought you were working in the Hold,” she said, pressing her cheek to her chest.

“I might have fibbed, a little,” he said, smiling at her as she leaned back enough to look up at him, brows furrowed. He pressed a kiss to her forehead before stepping back to quickly wrap the freshly baked bread in a tea towel and place it in the basket with everything else he’d made for their picnic.

“Come on, I have a little surprise. I think you’ll like it.”

He took her hand and lead her to the library, unable to stop himself from grinning as she gasped at the picnic he’d set up, the vases of flowers and piles of pillows and books he knew she’d enjoy.

“I thought since we never got to properly finish our last outing we might try again,” he said and she turned and gave him such a sweet smile before standing on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek.

“I think you’re the sweetest person I’ve ever met,” she said softly. He felt himself blush.

“Hardly. I simply wanted to do something special. It’s been a while since it’s been just the two of us.”

He tugged her towards the blanket, setting down the basket full of food before sprawling out on it, propped against the pillows. Rosalind followed him, snuggling against his side.

For a while he just enjoying the feeling of her pressed against him as he held her tight—until he remembered all the baking he’d done in the afternoon. Rosalind had quite a sweet tooth and he’d had fun altering a few of his favorite recipes so she could eat them without getting sick. He reveled in her delight and her praise as he had her sample everything.

The ended up spending the rest of the evening much like they had on their original picnic, before Rosalind had fallen asleep—they took turns reading to one another as they lay curled together, fingers absently trailing patterns across each other’s skin.

Until it became less absent, and the book was left by the side of the blanket while they merely got lost in one another. Only after drawing away from her lips utterly breathless did he suggest retiring to his chambers, even as his voice shook, just barely.

She smiled as she nodded and took the hand he offered.

 

---

 

He kissed her neck as he carefully undid the lacing of her dress, trying not to look at the way his hands shook, just slightly.

“Adrian?” she asked, voice hardly more than a breath.

“Yes, my love?”

“Are you—are you sure you want to do this? That you’re ready?”

“I’m sure,” he said, and he meant it—he wanted to make love to her, wanted to know what it was supposed to be like, wanted to drown her in the pleasures she’d been denied.

He just wanted to do it all right. And he was worried he didn’t know exactly how.

“You’re shaking,” she said, turning around to face him so she could take his hands in hers, her hold so achingly gentle.

“You are too,” he said, giving her hands a little squeeze. Her ears turned red.

“I—I’m a little nervous,” she admitted. He brought each of her hands in turn to his lips so he could kiss them.

“I am too,” he said simply. “I wish to try, though, if you do.”

Rosalind nodded, giving him a shy smile. “As long as it’s you.”

He was quite sure his heart had melted into a little puddle in his chest. He kissed her, unable to stop the smile curving his lips. Rosalind stared at him as he pulled back, expression adoring and still just a little nervous. She slipped the sleeves of her dress off, though, hesitantly let it fall to pool at her feet, leaving her in her shift.

He felt his face go red. It was a far more delicate thing than the ones he’d found for her around the castle, made from a gossamer silk that was far more translucent than anything he’d ever seen her in before. He could see the silhouette of her body through it, trace the graceful curves of it, imagine just what she might look like with nothing at all. The thought alone left him almost painfully aroused.

“You are utterly bewitching,” he said, voice hardly more than a whisper. She blushed, though she stared back as if she found herself enraptured by him too. He shivered as he felt her hands gently trace around his waist, over the fabric of his shirt. He pulled it off in a hurry, needing to feel her hands against his bare skin.

He enjoyed the way her eyes trailed over his chest, enjoyed how easily she flustered, though he enjoyed the warmth of her hands on his skin, one hand splaying across his ribs while the other settled over his heart.

“You are the most beautiful man I have ever seen, Adrian,” she said voice soft and earnest. She stepped closer, surprising him by pressing kisses to the scar across his torso. She didn’t hesitate when she saw the ugly extent of it, didn’t say a thing about it, just tenderly kissed along it as her fingers absently traced patterns across his skin. He felt as though his chest might burst with the warm feeling flooding it. He let his hands trail around her waist, exploring her curves under the gossamer fabric of her shift.

“Do—do you want to take it off?” she asked softly, eyes searching his face. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He hesitantly took hold of the fabric and pulled it over her head, leaving her in nothing but her small clothes. She took his hands in hers and walked backwards to the bed, plopping down as the back of her knees hit the mattress. She scooted further back and he joined her, feeling almost as if he were in a daze.

He trailed his fingers feather-light across her skin, struck dumb by the sight of her—of all of her. He found himself trailing his fingers lightly over the remnants of silver scars from cruel iron, trailing kisses along each just as she had with his.

“I love you, Rose,” he breathed, eyes finding hers, even as his fingers continued to roam. She smiled back up at him, softly, even when overtaken by lust.

“I love you,” she replied, looking at him so sweetly. He could hardly believe she was looking at him like that.

He cupped one of her breasts in his hand, marveling at the softness of it under his fingers. She sharply inhaled as his thumb brushed over her nipple, arching towards him slightly. He pinched it lightly and she moaned. Her grip on him tightened, pulling him closer, close enough that she could kiss him desperately.

He loved how she arched into him, loved the feeling of her skin against his, loved the sound of her breathy sighs. He loved that he could make her feel so good with just trailing touches and kisses, loved that she trusted him to.

He pulled back, admiring her flushed face for a moment before he spoke.

“Do—do you want to keep going, dove? I only want to do what you’re comfortable with,” he said, brushing a few stray hairs from her face.

“I do if you wish to,” she said, voice higher and breathier than usual.

“But you’ll tell me if you wish to stop?”

She nodded.

“I will. You will too, right?” she asked, brows furrowed with worry, even as flustered as she was. He couldn’t help but press a kiss to her forehead.

“Of course, dove.”

She reached out to gently cradle his face, holding it with an unfamiliar sort of reverence. She stared at him softly for a long moment before letting her hands drop back to the mattress.

He trailed his hands down her body slowly, pausing when he reached the waist band of her small clothes. She nodded when he looked to her and he pulled them from her slowly, eyes locked on her face. He trailed his fingers slowly back up the inside of her thighs, letting his other hand massage her breast, pinch lightly at her nipple. She pressed her thighs together unconsciously, bottom lip caught between her teeth.

“Is that alright?” he asked. She nodded and he traced absent patterns across her skin, watching her breaths turn uneven, the flush of her cheeks deepening. She began to squirm, hands curling and uncurling in the sheets.

“Adrian,” she whined in the way that absolutely wrecked him, the way that had made him toss caution to the wind in the clearing in Faery and asked to touch her. Every syllable drips with need—need for pleasure, for relief—for him.

“Do you want more?” he asked. She nodded quickly.

“Please—please. You—you make me ache,” she replied, voice breathy and high, eyes squeezed shut.

“I can’t have that, can I?” he replied with a smile. “Will you open your legs for me, my love?”

She let her thighs fall open and he just stared for a moment, mindlessly massaging her inner thighs as he noted just how wet she was from his touch. He watched her face as he trailed his fingers through her slick folds. She jolted as his fingers ran over the little nub at the apex of her thighs, letting out a breathy moan as she squeezed her eyes shut. He circled his fingers over it and she cried out, hands fisting in the sheets.

“God, you’re so beautiful like this,” he said, biting his lip as he watched her arch, watched her blush deepen.

“Adrian—”

“I love it when you say my name like that,” he said, voice sounding dreamy to his own ears.

“I—I love you,” she managed, squirming under his touch.

“God, you are so precious.”

“Adrian—”

“I’m right here.”

“I need—Adrian, I need—”

“What do you need, dove?”

“You, Adrian. Please,” she whined, arching towards him, reaching to pull him closer. He paused, searching her face.

“Are you sure, Rose?”

“Yes, I am. Please?”

He shifted so he could kiss her, pouring in all his love and adoration into it, so she’d know, even if more often than not he found himself unable to come up with the words to properly tell her what she meant to him. She kissed him back just the same, twining her arms around his neck.

He drew back enough to pull off his trousers and small clothes before returning to her side with another searing kiss. He guided himself to her entrance, closing his eyes as he concentrated on pushing inside slowly and so gently, making sure he caused her no pain. She whined as he did, clutching him even closer.

“Are you alright, love?” he asked as he bottomed out, breathing heavily. She felt so wonderful—warm and tight and exquisite wrapped around him. He fought the urge to begin thrusting, to chase the ecstasy she promised, too intent on her comfort first.

She nodded, eyes squeezed shut at the sensation. She spent a few moments just trying to catch her breath before she wriggled against him, searching for more. He kissed her as he began to move, rocking his hips slowly, gently. She moaned into his mouth, clutching him tighter, as if she could draw him even closer.

“Oh—Adrian,” she whined, brow furrowed as she threw her head back, back arching from the bed to press herself even closer.

“Fuck, Rose,” he moaned, reveling in the feel of her, of losing himself in her until the world narrowed to just the two of them, just the pleasure they gave one another. He wished he could remain in this moment together, drowning in her, in the way she held him that made him feel so adored, made him feel like something to be cherished, something precious, something loved.

He’d been right, to think it would be different when he did it out of love, when he knew she loved him too, that this was a choice they’d both made together, that it was because they loved one another. It was overwhelming, the adoration he felt as he made love to her, as he caressed her, ran his fingers over the shell of her ear to make her let out a gasping moan.

He could feel the tension in her body, feel her barreling towards her orgasm and he couldn’t help but chase his own, letting his eyes slip shut as he just concentrated on the feeling of her all around him, of the mounting pleasure threatening to make his eyes roll back. He felt her let go, felt her squeeze around him as she found bliss, drawing him into his own. For a few moments all he could process was white-hot pleasure coursing through him and Rosalind pressed tight to him.

He kept his eyes closed as he came down, trying to catch his breath. He pressed his forehead to hers as he gently pulled out. Every bit of him felt warm and liquid and content. Loved.

Alucard drew back enough to sweep a lock of hair out of her face, freezing when he saw the tears pooling at her lashes, blood turning to ice.

“Oh god—did I hurt you? Are you—”

“I love you,” she said, pulling him closer so she could bury her face in the crook of his neck, twine her arms around him, holding him so close. “I just love you so much.”

“Oh, dove,” he replied, tightening his hold, throat constricted. “I love you too. Today and every day after.”

“I don’t mean to cry,” she said, and he could feel her tears slipping down his neck. “You just—you make me so happy, Adrian.”

“It’s okay, Rose. You make me happy too.”

She drew away just enough to look up at him shyly, though it didn’t hide the lovesick expression on her face. It was something new, something adoring and vulnerable and he loved it. He showered her face in kisses, holding her tight until she began to giggle at his affection. He beamed at her, pressing a final kiss to her lips before he forced himself to sit up.

“We should clean up. I’ll draw you a bath, then I can deal with the sheets,” he said, admiring the boneless way she still reclined.

“Won’t you join me?” she asked, furrowing her brows.

“You want me to bathe with you?” he asked. He’d assumed she’d like a bit of privacy. Instead she nodded.

“I—I can do that, then,” he said, somehow feeling almost shy, though he didn’t understand why. He stood to cross to his bathroom so he could draw a bath, generously scenting the water with lavender oil before returning to retrieve Rosalind. She still looked at him in that soft, utterly besotted way, though her eyes widened in surprise as her gathered her into his arms to carry her to the bath.

“Adrian!” she cried, flinging her arms around his neck.

“Your legs are trembling, my love. I could hardly have you walk in such a state,” he replied, tone teasing, though there was truth to his words too. He just wanted to hold her tight and shower her in affection. He didn’t take her trust lightly, nor such an act. They meant something to him, all the more because she’d shared them with him.

She giggled at him, rolling her eyes, though she didn’t complain or ask to be put down. If anything she just clung tighter, letting her head rest on his shoulder. He stepped into the bath, adjusting his hold on her so she could lean comfortably against his chest. He had to admit, he like the feeling, was glad she’d wanted him to join her.

She stared up at him, eyes growing heavy, though she smiled at him with no less enthusiasm.

“You were—you were so wonderful to me, Adrian. It was perfect. Thank you,” she said softly. He hugged her tighter, pressing a kiss behind her ear.

“I should be thanking you, dove. You’re everything I could ever want and so much more.”

She turned crimson at that, though she merely turned as much as she was able in the tub to wrap her arms around him and hold him tight, her cheek pressed to the crook of his neck. He let his head drop to rest gently on top of hers, feeling a wonderful sort of contentment that had nothing to do with the soothing warmth of the water.

Chapter 46: In the Light of Day

Elyra awoke slowly, enjoying the feeling of being held. It felt different than before, more intimate, even if they’d slept cuddled together dozens of times before. It was as if a layer had been taken away, leaving them closer. She opened her eyes, lifting her head from Adrian’s shoulder just enough to admire his face.

She liked seeing him so relaxed, the furrow gone from his brow. She admired his bed-mussed hair, the line of his nose, the gentle bow of his lips. He was so pretty in an utterly masculine way, something ethereal about his countenance. The sight of him filled her with a delightful warmth, her heart hopelessly full.

She loved him so much. He treated her so gently, was so kind and thoughtful. He didn’t just make her feel loved, he made her feel seen.

Adrian stirred, opening his eyes slowly before catching sight of her smiling at him.

“Were you watching me sleep like a weirdo?” he asked, though he grinned back at her, tone utterly amused.

“You looked so calm,” she replied, though her cheeks went red. He huffed a laugh at her.

“Yes, well I slept particularly well last night,” he said, smile cheeky as he tucked a bit of hair behind her ear, purposely tracing his fingers up the shell of it, making her inhale sharply at the shiver of pleasure it brought her.

“Maybe it was the new bedding,” she said, trying and failing not to smile back at him, brow raised. He pretended to think about that for a moment.

“I’m not sure. I think someone might have worn me out,” he said and she swatted his arm playfully, rolling her eyes. It only made him grin wider as he reached out and cupped her jaw, thumb tracing her cheekbone. She couldn’t help the way his touch made her melt.

“I love you,” he said seriously, though the smile remained on his lips.

“I love you,” she replied, feeling almost giddy. It felt almost different today, as if she were bursting with it, the strength of it almost overwhelming. She felt as though she could burst into happy tears at any moment.

He stared at her a moment, eyes tracing her face, before he reached out and wrapped his arms around her, rolling the pair of them so he was practically laying on top of her, the feeling of his body pressed to hers, even with the fabric of their night clothes separating them, making her flush crimson. He grinned at her before peppering her face with kisses until her giggling turned breathless.

She wrinkled her nose as she beamed up at him, absently playing with his hair, which fell like a curtain around them.

“There’s still sweet bread left. I could toast it and we can have it with the jam I made yesterday for breakfast,” he said, finding one of her hands and lacing his fingers with hers.

“You made jam?” she asked with delight. He laughed at her, leaning down to press a kiss to the tip of her nose.

“I did. Someone is very fond of berries, I daresay I’ll have to make quite a bit to get them through the winter without suffering withdrawals.”

She laughed back at him, but didn’t deny it. She certainly wouldn’t ever discourage Adrian from cooking and she had been more fond of berries since losing her glamour. Or any fruit, really. They all tasted so much sweeter.

“Thank you,” she said, and she knew she was blushing, but he was just so sweet to her. “You’ve been spoiling me.”

“Hardly, dove,” he said dismissively. “I’m only trying to make sure you’re comfortable here.”

“Oh, I’m very comfortable here,” she said, arching slightly to press herself even closer to him and grinning at the way his face went red.

“If you keep that up, we’ll never make it out of this bed.”

“Oh the horror!” she said over-dramatically, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead as if she were about to faint. She watched Adrian try very hard not to laugh at her.

“You are far too alluring for your own good,” he said, staring at her with a hunger in his gaze that made her shiver. She grinned up at him, biting her lip.

He sighed, shaking his head as he tried not to grin back at her.

“I suppose we could always work up more of an appetite,” he said dryly before leaning down to kiss her like a man starved.

 

---

 

It was a long time before they managed to make it down to the kitchen so Alucard could make them breakfast.

He caught Rosalind staring at him, the softest, most lovesick expression on her face. She blushed all the way to the tips of her ears when she realized he’d caught her, quickly dropping her gaze back to her book in the hope that he wouldn’t notice her flush.

Instead he crossed to her place at the table, placing her plate of jam and sweet bread down in front of her. Then he gently took hold of her chin to urge her to look up at him so he could kiss her, lightly nipping at her bottom lip for permission to deepen the kiss as he wove his fingers into her hair, pulling back only when they were both breathless.

“I like it when you look at me like that,” he said softly, tracing her cheek with his thumb. Somehow she managed to turn even more red, though she stared at him with such a sweet, adoring expression that it only made him melt.

“Adrian,” she said in a way that he knew was meant to be lightly reprimanding, but came out with more yearning than anything else. He grinned at her before fetching his own plate and sitting next to her.

What had meant to be breakfast was now certainly lunch, though he couldn’t say he minded at all. He absently wound his arm around Rosalind’s waist as he took a bite of his toast, some part of him wanting to hold her whenever he could.

It had been a struggle to finally pull himself from bed where they’d spent the morning tangled together. The only thing that had offered enough motivation had been when Rosalind’s stomach had begun to growl. Neither one of them had even bothered to put on anything but their discarded pajamas, not before having something to eat. She leaned softly into his side, seeming to share his desire for touch, for closeness.

He couldn’t help but keep looking at her, his eyes tracing her every feature, couldn’t help but bask in this new sort of intimacy that hardly had anything to do with making love. That had been wonderful, earth-shattering, bliss, but for some reason he found himself enamored more with the trust it had taken them both, the feeling of being made so vulnerable and this time being gently adored, cherished, instead of betrayed. He reveled in the way she somehow made him melt even easier, turned his heart into a puddle of adoration.

He just wanted to shower her in gentle affection, bask in her smiles and laughter. After everything that had happened with his parents, with Taka and Sumi and her uncle, all he wanted was to drown them both in sweetness. They both knew precisely how cruel the world was, but here in the castle, just the two of them, the world could be nothing more than tender touches and soft, ardent intimacy.

“We are going to need to pick so many berries,” Rosalind said before taking another bite of her toast, closing her eyes as she savored the taste, smiling to herself. It made him laugh, fondness warming his chest.

He loved cooking again. He’d loved cooking with his mother, and then he’d enjoyed it, or used it as a way to soothe a bit of his grief, but now that he had someone to cook for again, someone he loved—

There was something about cooking for someone, cooking for someone he cared about and it making them happy that just made him feel so warm inside. It was such a simple, tangible way of taking care of someone, and he liked getting creative, coming up with things just for them.

He had no doubt he’d be an expert in making a whole manner of jams by the middle of the fall. How could he not, when it made her so happy?

She insisted on cleaning up the kitchen—”You cooked, it’s only fair!”—before they went back upstairs to actually get ready for the day. Aulcard stopped her, though, as she turned to go to the guest room where they’d put all her things.

“It—it seems silly for you to have to walk so far to change when you’re sleeping here too,” he said, hoping he wasn’t pressing a boundary. She might like having her own space, being able to change and choose her clothes in privacy and peace. Might like the option of having her own space to retreat to whe she wished.

“I—I don’t mind it. I don’t want to impose on your space—”

He laughed. “It’s not imposing if I want you to. I mean it, I want the castle to be your home too, I want you to feel comfortable here. I’d love to have your books stacked about and your dresses hung in the wardrobe and hairpins on the dresser and just—I want all of you, Rosalind. I want it to be your bedroom too, I want it to be ours.”

She stared at him for a moment, eyes misty, before she leaned over to give him the sweetest kiss, gaze adoring as she broke away.

He’d never been more excited to lug the contents of two enormous trunks around the castle. He, of course, insisted she let him handle all of it, which equally irritated her and made her visibly melt a bit, which he found amusing to no end. He understood the drive to be independent, to be useful, but he was sure his father would somehow come back to haunt him if he allowed his lady love to lug about heavy things, or carry her own shopping, or anything of the like. His father had made sure he knew how to treat a lady, whether through example with his mother, or actually sitting down with him and explaining what he and his mother expected of him.

His heart twinged a little at the memory of his father’s softer side, but he pushed it away. Instead he smiled to himself as he tucked Rosalind’s dresses into his own wardrobe, thinking with delight that he might have to find a larger one, now that she had a proper wardrobe.

After months of scraping together second-hand clothes and the whole fiasco with the linen clothes he’d bought he was inordinately happy for her to have her own that she liked, that were comfortable and pretty.

He’d thought she looked pretty in a stolen shift and one of his old sweaters. She was truly something else all dressed up in a silk gown.

He looked over as she huffed in annoyance.

“What is it?” he asked, striding over to where she sat at the newly-added vanity. She just shook her head, unbraiding the section she’d just done.

“Nothing, it just isn’t lying right,” she replied, brushing it out so she could try again.

“Let me try,” he said, taking the lock of hair from her and twisting it back into a braid, fixing the part that had been sticking out wrong before doing the other side and pinning them with some of the fancier hairpins in her little collection, ones he’d never seen her use. Perhaps such an ordinary day didn’t call for crystal and pearls, but she was just so pretty, it only seemed natural to adorn her in such things.

“Would you—I have to go to this Solstice celebration in Faery soon. There’s supposed to be a ball—I wasn’t sure if perhaps you’d like to go with me. Y-you don’t have to, of course! But Valion said it was alright for me to invite you. He did also say it wouldn’t be any fun, and—” she said, quickly brushing off the invitation as she turned red.

“I’d love to,” he said, cutting her off before she could ramble more. She gave him a shy smile.

“Really? Even if it will probably be awful?”

“I’ll be there with you. It could hardly be awful then,” he said and he meant it, smiling back at her. She grinned back.

“You really might be an angel,” she said, standing so she could wrap him in a hug, her cheek pressed to his chest.

“Hardly,” he replied flippantly. “I just want to see you all dressed up.”

“You’ll get to enjoy watching me trip over my feet, at least,” she said, laughing.

“Did you not go out dancing in Vienna?” he asked, brows furrowed.

“Only sometimes, really. Usually my father would have to drag me. I really only knew people my age in passing, and I hardly was good at making friends—I never knew any good gossip and would go on far too long about foreign treatises. I was also exceptionally bad at dancing. Am, still, no doubt.”

“We would have got on very well if we met at a dance,” he said with a laugh. He’d never found it easy to relate to people his own age, but he was ever-fascinated by academia and intellectual pursuits, never mind conversation with someone who was so enthusiastic about them. “I daresay all you would need to become an accomplished dancer would be practice. I could help you. I have been fond of it, on occasion.”

“I don’t think I could do that in good conscious to your poor toes. I do think I’m rather hopeless. Even Father used to joke that as soon as I got on the dance floor it looked as though someone had traded my feet for flippers. He still made me go, though. He said it was good for me,” she said, gaze slipping far away. Alucard wondered what sort of a man her father was—he had to have been someone exceptional, to have raised Rosalind as he had, not to mention for her to hold him in as high esteem as she did.

“Did he tell you why it was?” he asked softly, absently playing with one of her loose curls that had fallen over her shoulder.

“Oh—I don’t know. He said I just might meet someone worth knowing. I think he truly wished for me to make some friends. I think it bothered him that I never really had any, but frankly I wasn’t all that interested,” she said, shrugging.

“I understand,” he said with a soft smile. “I was much the same. I was more that content with just my parents for company, though my mother did ensure I socialized with ordinary people. She’d drag me along to her house calls and to her little shop—it was how I learned medicine.”

“That sounds rather exciting,” she replied with a smile. He huffed a laugh. “Sometimes. Sometimes I thought it was untenably boring, but I’m glad she made me learn. And I’m glad for the time together it gave us.”

“As am I,” she said with a laugh. “I owe your mother a great debt! I’m glad she didn’t let you forsake your studies.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that, though it was tempered by the bittersweetness that so often came with the memory of his mother. She’d have loved Rosalind, he knew. For her kindness and bravery, for how gently she treated him, but he knew she’d have loved her simply for making him so happy. He wondered what his father would have thought of her—he thought he’d have liked her. Or maybe he just hoped.

He wasn’t sure he’d known his father as well as he’d thought, anymore. Or at least, he wasn’t sure if his father had care about him as he’d thought. It was hard to forget the father who had nearly killed him for disagreeing with him, for trying to get him to forgo mindless genocide for justice.

Rosalind reached out to take his hand, expression questioning, but he just shook his head. He wouldn’t spoil such a wonderful day with talk of his father.

She nodded, lifting both their hands so she could press a kiss to his knuckles before giving his hand a reassuring squeeze.

 

---

 

Valion smiled to himself as he heard a knock at the door and cleaned off his brush before setting aside his most recent painting. He took the stairs two at a time to reach the door, un-warding it and unlocking it before pulling it open without ceremony.

She wore a pale blue gown that particularly favored her coloring and she must have taken time with her hair—it was braided back from her face on each side, the rest of her hair left loose. She’d even bothered with a few of the little hair pins he’d gotten her—a few crystals and pearls glinting from her silver curls.

“Moonbeam! I didn’t expect you so early in the day.”

“Is it early? I thought I’d be late, I left after lunch,” she said, making a face. “I don’t think I’ll ever get a hang of how time works around here.”

“It never matters what time anyway. Come in, come in,” he said, pulling her into a hug and pressing a kiss to her forehead. He paused, furrowing his brow. She smelled different and not just the way scents might linger on her throughout the day—no, she smelled like the boy, much stronger than she should from merely existing in close quarters. He especially didn’t like the way it seemed to mix with her own, almost creating something new from the blend, didn’t like thinking of why—

“Dad, are you okay?” Elyra asked, pulling back to look at his face. “You look angry, are you sure it’s not too early?”

“No, no, no, no—I was just thinking about something else. It’s good you’re here early, I want to get through some basic healing magic and I want to make sure you’re keeping up with your drills. We’re going to go practice out at the Rift after Solstice, I want you getting practical experience,” he said quickly, masking his distress to focus on all that needed to get done. Elyra looked at him for another moment before nodding.

“Okay. I suppose I better get started, then. That’s a lot to fit into the day,” she said. He just motioned towards the stairs so they could head to the library.

“I already pulled a good introduction on healing, I think we’ll get comfortable with cuts and bruises first—it will be good when we go to the Rift, too.”

“What’s the Rift?” she asked as he held open the door to the library for her.

“It is an ancient fissure in the earth, it spans across much of the southern borders of both the Unseelie and Seelie Courts. It leads to the Endless Abyss, and its monstrous denizens are want to claw their way up its walls to try and rampage through Faery. Both Courts station warriors along the largest, most dangerous sections, and patrols circulate to deal with the smaller vermin that makes it out. We’ll be exterminating some of the vermin.”

“What sort of vermin?” she asked, and he could see her shoulders curl slightly with her anxiety.

“Imps and little goblin-like creatures, nothing very dangerous, and of course I’ll be there as well. But it is important you learn not just how to fight during training, but how to fight against an unknown opponent. I need to make sure you can handle yourself, no matter what.”

She nodded, though he could see the prospect still made her a bit nervous. He didn’t blame her—she hadn’t grown up with a sword in her hand like he had, hadn’t been forced to fight from the moment she could raise a fist.

He was glad she hadn’t.

“We won’t start with that until after Solstice, so there’s no need to fret about it. I want to make sure you have a firm grasp on healing magic and shielding spells before we try any practical applications.”

“Alright,” she said, nodding to herself before crossing to their work table to look at all the new books for their lesson. He watched her shoulders relax after a minute of perusing the titles.

There was nothing like books to make her feel more comfortable.

He got her started, pulling out his list of sections for her to read before they dove deeper and left her curled in one of the comfortable green velvet armchairs to read, a notebook and pencil balanced on the arm of her chair for any questions she had as she read.

He told her he had something to do downstairs for a bit before slipping downstairs. Valion quietly closed the door to his study behind him before pressing his forehead to the moulding, fighting the urge to beat his head against it. He squeezed his eyes shut, taking deep breaths as he balled his hands into fists.

There were few reasons why the damn dhampir’s scent would be so interwoven with her own, none of which he liked. He wasn’t naive by any means, he’d hardly expected celibacy with just the two of them in that wretched clockwork monstrosity of a castle, but it didn’t mean he liked it. Not one bit.

What was worse was how it only made him worry that he was right about the pair. The scent of a partner might linger from a tryst, or prolonged cuddling, but it was something that layered over the person’s scent. For his to intermingle with hers, especially after the severity of her grief after being parted with him, her utter heartsickness—

Some souls were meant to find each other. Some did, lifetime after lifetime. But it was a rare thing, most faeries far too capricious for such a thing. And maybe it was a simple as some never finding the other, never realizing.

He certainly doubted whoever had carried his and Orlaith’s souls before had found each other over the borders of Seelie and Unseelie. Or perhaps they’d been better at hiding it. They certainly hadn’t brought into the world a child that would be in mortal peril if anyone so much as realized what she truly was, who her mother had been.

The last thing he needed on on top of trying to protect her from Faery and its violent politics was for her to not only find a heartmate, but for it to be someone who wasn’t even faery, someone he doubted would live more than one, if unusually long, life.

Perhaps he was thinking too much into it. Perhaps it only appeared that way because he was half-mortal, or maybe in blunting her emotions as a child, this was simply an overwhelming infatuation that would temper as she grew used to them.

He hoped that was what it was.

The last thing he wanted was for her to suffer as he did, for her to have to hide as he and Orlaith had, for her to have one more obstacle in her path.

And he didn’t like the dhampir. That part wasn’t relevant—he doubted he’d like anyone who tried to woo his daughter, who made him horribly aware that she was growing up, that she was a young woman, that she was being made unbelievably vulnerable, especially after what had been done to her. But it made him angry and irritated beyond belief, because he wasn’t even sure if he could do anything about it.

He didn’t want to bring it up with her—what a mortifying conversation for them both. It would probably only push her away, destroy any trust he’d managed to earn.

He’d wait. If the boy so much as made her cry, he’d run him live through a meat grinder and be done with it. He’d been more than patient, after all, and no one would ever hurt his daughter again, not without facing his wrath.

“Dad?” he heard Elyra call, drawing him out of his thoughts.

“Yes, sweetling? Did you get through the section on integumentary repair?” he called back, taking a deep breath before he opened the study door and did his best to arrange his face back into something unassuming. He crossed to the base of the staircase to see her standing at the top, book in hand.

“I did, I have some questions. I was hungry, but you told me I wasn’t to use the oven without asking you after last time,” she said in that enthusiastic but serious way of hers. She managed to make him laugh despite his foul mood.

“I’ll make lunch while you ask your questions, how about that? I know better than to leave you to your devices now with something cooking if you have a book. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen vegetables catch so completely on fire before.”

“I didn’t mean to!” she huffed, making a face. “I never really cooked much!”

“Don’t worry, it shows, my dear,” he said as she stomped down the stairs. She stopped when he reached out for her and let him press a kiss to her forehead before she stomped off to the kitchen, just as annoyed with his teasing as before.

He let himself smile after her, trying to focus on the present, on the time he had with her, rather than the uncertain future, than how she was growing and changing still, how he wasn’t ready for it, how it tore him apart because she wasn’t his little girl anymore and he’d missed it all. It would only make him more miserable to dwell on it, make him waste what time he had now.

He set off after her, trying to decide what to make while going over basic healing magic—he was glad she had questions, seemed to find it interesting. It was nearly as important to him that she master it as it was she mastered wards.

 

---

 

Elyra flipped through a book that had been tossed to the floor of the Hold. Judging by the subject of the others scattered on the floor around it and the pile still stacked haphazardly on the table, she’d guess it was from either Adrian’s search for a cure for her uncle’s torment, or his quest for a way to Faery.

They were all on the Fae, though none seemed to offer anything in the way of real explanation of the realm or its people. She wouldn’t deny that many of the faeries she’d met had been upsettingly strange and cruel, but others had been perfectly kind. She was starting to think they were all just like particularly strange people—after all, there were plenty of cruel people in the Mortal Realm, and cruel creatures.

All the books in the Hold seemed to care about was killing faeries—that or what use their parts might be after they were dead.

Apparently human mages used fae blood and bone, fae wings and hair for powerful spells—whatever they could get their hands on, really. She made a mental note to ask Valion if it was because the faeries themselves were magical, or if they didn’t really help in human magic at all.

Maybe it was nothing more than cruel superstition.

She snapped the book shut hard when she came across a section on changelings, saw how the author recommended killing them and what to do with their remains. She found herself gritting her teeth, tears pricking at her eyes.

She didn’t know why it made her so furious—she’d known approximately what most of the books down here would say, knew what the Belmonts thought of faeries, knew what most humans thought of them. Her anger was disproportional, but at the same time, she still couldn’t completely quell it.

Maybe it was because most of the changelings they spoke of would have been babies or young children. Innocent things that had already been left to die—Valion had said parents would leave a sick faery child in the Mortal Realm to hasten its passing, that it was seem as a mercy.

She doubted it was a mercy to be killed by some monster hunter, never mind a Belmont.

“Oh, Rosalind! I thought you were warding the lights,” Adrian said, pausing at the end of the aisle she’d hidden herself away in. It almost felt strange, hearing him call her Rosalind. Why would it feel strange? It was her name—had been her name for twenty years, her whole life, really.

When had she stopped thinking of herself as Rosalind and started thinking of herself as Elyra?

The question left her feeling disquieted, even more than the miserable literature.

She forced a smile.

“I got distracted.”

“I hardly find that surprising considering you’re surrounded by books,” he said with a laugh, striding over to peek at the book in her hand. He made a face.

“I wouldn’t say those are worth the read, though,” he said, gently tugging it from her grasp. She let him.

“I suppose not,” she said. Adrian tossed the book back on the table top and ducked to press a kiss to her temple.

“Don’t bother with it. I think you’d much prefer the collection on languages of antiquity anyway,” he said cupping her jaw with her hand, she nodded.

“I’m sure you’re right. I was only curious. Besides, I still have lights to ward. I think that might be the best ward Da-Valion has taught me so far,” she said, slipping up when referring to Valion. That had changed too, in the last few months, that she’d stopped thinking of him so much as Valion, but as her dad. Maybe it made it all easier, to accept in some way that he was her father, especially when she’d had to show up at his doorstep and rely on him.

Adrian hadn’t made fun of her as Trevor had, but she’d his look of confusion the first time she’d called him ‘Dad’ in front of him.

She didn’t know why she felt so self-conscious about it—he was her dad. He’d fucked up a lot, but he’d been there for her when she’d gotten sick like he said he would, when she had no where else to go. He was trying and she wanted him to. He was all she had in Faery, the only one she thought she could really trust.

And she liked spending time with him, now that he’d settled down. They both liked books and learning, and he didn’t get angry at her for all her questions—he’d gotten her a little notebook she could carry with her to write them down as they came to her so she wouldn’t forget them. He was ornery, but there was rarely any heat behind it, at least at the house, and he never directed it at her.

“I’ll bet,” Adrian said with a smile. “I still can’t believe you could hear the clockwork.”

“Valion thinks it’s worse because it’s mechanical. He didn’t really explain why, I suppose it must be because it’s lacking magic, or at least wild magic.”

“I’m just glad he knew something to help. I’d have had a much harder time trying to deafen the engines.”

“You can’t mean—”

“Oh, I’m sure I would have figured out something, but I doubt I would have done so nearly as quickly,” he said, as if it was an obvious thing, that he’d figure out a way to make the castle quiet for her.

She was rather sure if he made her melt any more she’d end up a puddle on the stone floor.

She smiled at him, standing on her tiptoes and craning up to try and kiss him, though he had to bend down for her to be able to reach. He smiled into the kiss, wrapping his arms around her waist. She wrapped her own arms around his neck, savoring the feeling of him so close, of the sweetness of the kiss, of everything that was Adrian

She didn’t let go when they parted, just taking a moment to admire him, especially the soft way he looked at her with his beautiful, golden eyes.

“I bet they’ll be dancing, at this ball of yours,” he said, mischief glinting in his eyes.

“Undoubtedly,” she said, a tiny bit warily.

“I am a very good dancer and I did offer to teach you.”

“I did tell you I would smush all your poor toes,” she replied and he laughed.

“I think it is a risk I’m willing to take. A noble sacrifice if you will,” he said in a mock-serious voice that made her snort with laughter.

“Really, Adrian, I’m quite terrible,” she said, making a face. He just smiled at her.

“Perhaps you only need the right partner to help you learn.”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“No,” he said, grinning wider.

“It’s your toes’ funeral,” she said, feeling just the tiniest bit anxious. She hoped Adrian didn’t think she was being coy—she really was a terrible dancer. Still, he seemed intent on it.

And she supposed it was better to make a fool out of herself with only Adrian to witness it than to do so in front of the whole Unseelie Court if she was forced to dance. He, at least, she knew, wouldn’t hold it against her.

And perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad with him. She’d always hated how uncomfortable she felt dancing with a near-stranger, how awkward and clumsy she felt as her mind raced and her feet tripped over each other. At least she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable with Adrian.

Perhaps then she had a chance of learning the steps.

 

---

 

Rosalind hadn’t been exaggerating—she was terrible at dancing, though he found it entirely endearing. He’d dragged her into the ballroom after dinner for a lesson, and he’d quickly found she seemed to lose all coordination when confronted with the prospect of a dance.

He was rather sure at least half of her problem was that she spent the whole time anxious and overthinking each step. He could almost see her thoughts racing in her head, brow furrowed as she concentrated.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” she exclaimed, turning beet red as she accidentally trod on his toe again. “Oh—Adrian, I told you, I’m hopeless! We should just stop.”

“You’re not hopeless. You’re getting in your own head. Here—why don’t you try closing your eyes.”

“I can’t manage not to step on you with my eyes open!”

“I think it will help. Just—will you try?”

“I—I suppose,” she said, taking a deep breath before she did. He smiled at the obvious trust she had in him—even if she didn’t believe it would help.

“Alright, this time just concentrate on me. Feel the the lead and let it guide your steps—you keep thinking too much about the steps and mucking them up. Just—feel as I step forward and take a step back—like that! And then step—yes!” he said, grinning as she began to feel the dance, feel him move and follow. She was still clumsy and a bit unsure, but he could see it click in her head.

He was glad, though he wouldn’t have minded if it hadn’t. Even if she never got any better and it always promised bruised toes, he’d still like dancing with her. Partially simply because it was her, but partially because he really did enjoy dancing in every sappy, romantic way he could. Maybe he only liked it so much because he’d seen his parents do it so often, so he associated it with that sort of love they’d shared.

He fought the urge to lean down and press his lips to Rosalind’s, knew that would only throw her off again, leave her flustered. Instead he focused on keeping a strong, obvious lead as she got used to the steps, got used to following, rather than just trying to do his steps backwards.

He smiled to himself, thinking how this was very much worth his sore toes.

 

---

 

Valion woke in a more foul mood than usual, which was nearly an achievement. Or at least it was lately, ever since he’d suspected Elyra had allowed the dhampir to bed her. Every day since that unwanted realization had been a misery and a trial.

No matter how many times he told himself that she was happy, that it wasn’t his business beyond ensuring he was the only one that scented it, he just couldn’t make his anger abate. Maybe he was just struggling with the reality that she was growing up and part of him wanted to hold her in some sort of stasis before the rest of her childhood slipped away. Maybe it was harder because of what had happened to Orlaith, despite the impossibility that Elyra and the dhampir could ever conceive.

The thought of Elyra dying in childbirth like her mother—the thought of her falling pregnant at all was enough to nearly untether him from reality. He’d fully broken when Orlaith had died. He couldn’t imagine the sort of thing he’d become if he lost Elyra in the same way, if he even managed to survive her loss.

He didn’t think he could.

Of course to make matters worse, it was Solstice, which meant hours of inane ceremony and small talk, watching every last predatory fuck from Court to make sure they didn’t so much as breath near her wrong, and putting up with his parents’ usual bullshit, while now trying to desperately shield his daughter from the same sort of damage they inflicted on him.

Oh, and that was before he even thought about the fact that Róisín and Colm would be there for the entire fucking celebration. And he couldn’t even get drunk this year, because he had to look after Elyra.

He considered faking his own death as far as his parents and the Court was concerned for far longer than he should have before forcing himself out of bed. He’d never hear the end of it if he didn’t show up, not to mention the political ramifications he’d have to deal with from both Courts for not doing his part. Elyra, too, was bound similarly, now the Court knew of her.

He swore and forced himself to get ready to go collect her from that miserable fucking castle, his head somehow already beginning to pound.

 

---

 

Elyra jumped at the sound of a tremendous bang somewhere in the castle. She started again as it came a second time, though this time she was able to pinpoint it to the entrance hall below.

It came again, in faster succession this time, though it echoed just as loud through the castle, all the way up to the library.

“Is someone knocking?” she asked, turning to Adrian with wide eyes. He furrowed his brow.

“It sounds more as if someone is trying to beat down the door. You should stay here, I’ll see to it—”

“I won’t have you go alone—”

“Rose, I‘ll be fine.”

“You will, because I’m coming too!”

“We have no idea what it even is—”

“I’ll stay back, but I’m coming too.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “Fine, but you need to stay back, and if I tell you, open a gate to Faery. I won’t have you hurt, not again.”

“Adrian—”

The banging started again, even louder. Adrian called for his sword as they crept downstairs. Elyra lingered near the stairs, heart hammering in her chest, as Adrian went to fling open the doors to whatever monstrosity was trying to beat its way in.

Except the only thing on the other side of the door was her dad.

Granted, he looked as if he was stupendously in one of his moods, but that hardly gave him the right to frighten them so.

“Did you not hear me knocking? We need to get going, if we’re late I’ll never hear the end of it,” he said in his usual snappish irritation.

“We thought you were some beast trying to break down the door!” she cried in exasperation. Valion just furrowed his brow.

“I wanted to make sure you heard me.”

“You’re an idiot!” she spat back at him, trying to slow her racing heart. Valion didn’t even bother reacting. She’d called him far worse during training

“It’s been said before. Now get a move on, there’s far too much to do,” he said, and turned on his heel.

“Adrian needs to get his things!” she hollered back at him.

“Adrian needs to deal with the carrion staked next to his stoop,” he spat back without turning. Elyra glared at him, hands curling into fists.

“I hate it when he gets like this,” she growled under her breath.

“I’m not joking, Elyra. We cannot be late.”

“Fine!” she yelled back. “Go take your stupid circle back and I’ll wait for Adrian to get his things and still beat you there!”

She stomped up the stairs without another word, though she heard Adrian close and ward the doors behind him before jogging to catch up with her.

“Are you alright?” he asked. She just shrugged.

“I didn’t think this would be such a complete nightmare. Honestly, if you want to skip it and stay—”

“I’m coming too. It’s all the more reason I should if it’s going to be a nightmare.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am,” he assured her and she couldn’t help but smile, even if anxiety was already beginning to flutter about in her chest.

Chapter 47: The Letting of the Long Night

Elyra was, predictably, glaring at him when he reached the house. He did his best to temper his inordinately foul mood. The dhampir was nowhere to be seen, so she must have undone the wards and sent him inside.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she spat at him. “I know you don’t want to go to Solstice, but that gives you no right to be an asshole!”

“Lyra, sweetheart,” he said evenly, taking a deep breath to try and steady himself. “I am at the end of my fucking tether. I’m sorry for startling you, I’m sorry for being rude, I am sorry for the misery that will be the day. The best I can promise you today, is that I’ll be a huge asshole. Just—my best is shit today and all I can handle is getting through this shitshow with with you unscathed. There is only one other day a year I hate more than fucking Solstice and—” he broke off as he saw a flash of hurt cross her face before she dropped her gaze to stare at the hem of her dress. His heart seized at the way her shoulders curled in on themselves.

“Fuck—I didn’t—I didn’t mean it like that, of course I didn’t. I just—it’s a bad day, Moonbeam. Solstice was—your mother and I met on Solstice. We’d always be able to see one another then. Her—her parents serve as the Seelie queen’s ambassadors to the Under Court. I—they’ll be there, tonight. I just—it was your mother and I’s night for millennia. The fact that I’d always get to spend the night with her balanced out all the banal, irritating bits and now—I’m trying, Elyra. I know it doesn’t seem like it, and it won’t tonight, but I am. Just—please just ignore me, tonight, leave me to my wretchedness. I’m sorry, sweetling, I’m just—I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” he said, anxiety and anger buzzing untenably through him, despite anything he did to try and quell them.

Elyra stared at him for a long moment before she stepped forward and hugged him tight enough that it ripped a ragged sob from his chest before he could stop it.

“I’m sorry,” she said, voice no longer furious, but terribly soft. “I’m sorry it’s an awful day. I wish you’d just told me though, before. Then I would have understood, at least.”

He held her tight, face pressed to the crown of her head, throat too tight to manage to say anything else for a long time.

“I didn’t mean before—it’s just—your birthday is complicated for me. It’s—it’s the most important day, because it was the day I got you, but it was also the day I had to give you away and bury your mother. It has no bearing on how much I adore you and how grateful I am for you. I need you to know that,” he said imploringly. He didn’t for a second want her to think again that he blamed her for any of it, or, stars forbid, resented her.

She nodded, lips pressed together tightly, hurt still plain on her face.

“I know. I know, Dad.”

“I’m sorry, Moonbeam. I’m so sorry,” he said, pulling her into another hug and holding her so gently. “You’re my precious girl, you’re my baby, my whole heart. You’re the only reason I haven’t lost myself completely. I love you more than anything, I mean that.”

He pulled back enough to search her face, heart clenching as he saw her watery eyes.

“I’ll try, tonight, Lyra, I’ll try not to be a complete monster. Know when I do behave like a monster at Court it’s for your safety, as much as my own immaturity. Just—know I love you, more than anything. Know tomorrow I’ll be able to be better, alright?”

“Alright,” she said, brushing a few stray tears from her eyelashes with her knuckles. He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“We have to leave in an hour, okay? Just—go take a bath and I already laid out clothes for the palace on your bed so we don’t have to listen to my mother this time.”

“Okay,” she said, slipping away, though she paused with her hand on the door handle.

“Dad?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Um, maybe—maybe can you point out M-Mom’s parents, tonight. I won’t—I won’t say anything to them, of course. I just—I don’t know,” she said in a small, stilted voice, eyes glued, unseeing, to the stone of the stoop.

He took a deep breath, trying to settle himself.

She’d never called Orlaith ‘Mom’ before. She’d usually skated around calling her anything, and if she had referred to her, she’d called her her birth mother, something that gutted him each time he heard it, even if he objectively understood why she called her that.

“I will,” he replied, forcing a smile. He waited until she’d slipped inside to let it fall, to press his hands to his face and wish, with every miserable bone in his body, that he was a better man. A stronger man.

That he was the sort of father his Moonbeam deserved.

 

---

 

“Took you long enough,” Orlaith giggled as he finally made it to their meeting place in the hedge maze. He rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop himself from smiling at the sound of her laughter.

She was beautiful, even more so than usual in her glittering emerald green gown, the blonde of her hair twisted back into an elegant chignon at the back of her head. He brought his hand through the air, deftly weaving wards that would keep them from being heard or seen, that would make anyone about to walk up the path and stumble on them suddenly remember somewhere else they just had to be.

“One of us has to be cautious—it should be you, your parents actually give a shit about where you go,” he said dryly. She laughed him off, as always.

“I saw Lady Dervla trying to cozy up to you at dinner,” she said, far too amused by the fact. He made a face.

“Please don’t remind me. She’s nearly as old as my mother.”

“Perhaps a mature woman would do you good, Val. You need someone to keep you in line,” she said, amusement not tempered by his lack.

“I already have you, surely that’s enough.”

“I don’t know, I think maybe—”

“Please stop talking about creepy old ladies,” he pleaded. “I’ve been waiting to see you properly all night, can you not torment me?”

“Ughhh,” she groaned in faux irritation. “I guess.”

Valion couldn’t help but huff a laugh at her antics. That left a smug smile plastered on her face. He rolled his eyes before leaning in to kiss her like he’d been waiting all night. They were breathless when they broke away. He admired the flush in her cheeks, the soft way she stared back at him.

Music trickled out from the open doors of the ballroom, soft this far out into the maze. Valion stepped back to offer her his hand which she took without hesitation, the pair of them falling easily into the waltz, their movements near instinctual by now.

It only made him enjoy the dance more, let him focus on nothing but Orlaith under the moon motes that lit the hedges for the ball. He knew they both couldn’t disappear for long, lest they raise suspicion, but he pretended they’d have all night, that she would be the only one he’d dance with, that she could be his only focus.

If only.

Instead he had to pretend she wasn’t the most important thing in all the realms to him, that he wasn’t hopelessly in love, that every moment spent away from her entertaining inane Court gossip wasn’t a complete waste of his time.

He leaned down to kiss Orlaith, knowing he’d never, ever, be able to do it enough.

 

---

 

Elyra kept side-eyeing Valion as they walked through the Penumbral City, worry sat heavy in her gut. She knew he couldn’t handle grief, knew he was a cantankerous ass when slightly inconvenienced, but this seemed almost dangerous.

And she felt bad for him.

It was impossible not to, when he stared at her with such anguish, such self-loathing, as he talked about Orlaith, as he went from ornery fury to pleading desolation. It sort of reminded her of a wounded animal, growling and clawing at anyone who came near, lest they inflict even more pain.

And she knew him well enough, now, to know when he was trying, even if it didn’t seem like much.

Still, she hated this version of him, the Unseelie prince, the cruel and unpredictable man that inspired fear in all who crossed his path.

Who scared her, just a little.

She hadn’t known why how he acted in the city bothered her so much last time, but this time she realized—he frightened her. Even though she knew he’d never hurt her, he was so volatile and clearly dangerous that it put her on edge, even as she did everything in her power to play a proper Blackthorne, to remain unreadable.

She supposed it was because he reminded her of his brother when he acted like that.

She’d done a good job of differentiating the two in her mind, had to, after all Vranos had put her through. It helped, too, that usually they acted so differently, and that Valion had cut his hair, a few days after she’d come to beg his help. Cut nearly a foot off of it so it barely went past his shoulders and made him look so drastically different.

She’d begun to simply wish the day was over. If she hadn’t known why, she’d had simply thought he was being juvenile, throwing a tantrum because he had to go when he didn’t want to. But knowing it had been his and Orlaith’s anniversary, that he not only would have to deal with his parents, but hers too, she couldn’t help but sympathize.

She wondered if Orlaith’s parents knew she was dead.

Her grandparents.

She wondered if they were any less insane than Valion’s family.

Not that it mattered. She wouldn’t ever get to know them and they’d never know who she was, if Valion got his way, but that was for the best.

They might just want to kill her for being an abomination like everyone else would.

Still, it was a sick feeling, thinking about them being there, tonight. About seeing them and knowing what had happened to their daughter—being what had happened to their daughter—and being strangers.

She felt bad for dragging Adrian to Faery for such a nightmare—if Valion had told her any of the real reasons he hated the holiday, she never would have invited him and inflicted such a night on him. She’d thought Valion disliked it simply because it bored him to tears after however many years of having to attend.

She just hoped it would all be over soon. She wanted to go back to the house, wanted to curl up in her bed and process what he’d said in his grief—things she knew he hadn’t said to hurt her, but true things nonetheless.

It hadn’t even been surprising to hear he hated her birthday more than any other day—perhaps it had just been surprising to hear him say it out loud. She didn’t blame him, nor was she mad at him—she just felt a hollow sort of ache in her chest, suffocating guilt lodged in her throat.

Even if she knew it wasn’t really her fault that her mother had died giving birth to her, it felt like it. Sometimes it felt like she’d ruined everything, just by being born.

She glanced over at Adrian, who gave her the smallest, reassuring smile. She wished she could hold his hand, wished she didn’t have to play at being a cold and indifferent Blackthorne. She tried to convey just how sorry she was as they reached the palace gates.

She couldn’t help the bubble of anxiety growing in her gut.

 

---

 

They were led to his father’s casual parlor, something that didn’t surprise him, though it meant his mother was off somewhere, working on whatever machinations he’d have to deal with tonight.

His father hardly looked better than last they’d visited. It looked as if he’d lost weight, and the shadows under his eyes were darker. Valion wasn’t sure he could find it in himself to feel bad for him. Still, his father smiled as he stood, getting up to pull Elyra into a hug, which she stiffly returned.

“It’s been too long. I’d hoped to see you sooner,” he said, smiling at her. He barely nodded in Valion’s direction and completely ignored Adrian, which he knew was a blessing.

“I told you you wouldn’t,” Valion said, not bothering to hide his irritation. “I don’t know why you never believe me.”

“Perhaps I thought you less petty then you are.”

“Protecting my daughter is not petty. Neither is asking her bodily autonomy be respected, especially after what she suffered,” he spat back. His father paled, but didn’t respond, turning back to Elyra.

“How have your studies been going, dear? What are you working on?” he asked, taking her hand and pulling her towards the couches. He followed, the dhampir at his heels.

“Good. We’re working on healing magic right now, it’s very interesting,” Elyra said, voice quiet.

“How wonderful! I could always arrange lessons with our head healer here at the palace, if it’s something you’d like to learn more in depth. In fact, we have a plethora of tutors here in every subject—”

“She’s fine, learning at home.”

“You can’t keep her hidden away there all the time. People will talk. They already are.”

“Let them. Why should I give a fuck what they say? I’m doing right by Elyra, the rest can go shit themselves to death for all I care,” he said, slumping back against the couch. His father sighed.

“I don’t want to argue with you, Val. Save it for your mother if you can’t be civil. At least she enjoys arguing.”

“Then don’t start with me. Today is already going to be enough of a misery.”

His father rolled his eyes. “I thought perhaps you’d be even a little excited, as it is Elyra’s first.”

“Well, I’m not. I want to go home.”

“You’d never leave your house if duty didn’t demand it.”

“And I’d be far happier for it,” he snapped back. His father sighed.

“Yes, well—perhaps you might consider visiting more. Now, at least.”

Valion didn’t dignify that with an answer. Luckily his mother bustled into the room then, at least giving him a different, uncomfortable situation to deal with.

“Oh! Elyra, I had heard you arrived. Look at you, aren’t you darling? Did your father finally take you shopping?” she said, striding over to pull her to her feet and look at the indigo dress he’d bought for the palace, so he wouldn’t have to hear it again. That, and all the ones he’d gotten her before were nice, light, happy colors, which would be far too out of place in the Penumbral City.

Elyra looked pretty in everything, but the dark colors expected of Court left her looking washed out.

“Quinn, I do think you were right to alter the palette,” she said, glancing back at the winged faery man behind her. Valion hadn’t bothered to note his entrance. “We should get started right away, Quinn has a final fitting to do for you before we even get started on anything else, darling!”

“Hello, Grandmother,” Elyra said hesitantly and he stood, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. He didn’t address his mother, though.

“Quinn, if my daughter comes back with a single new piercing or any other permanent, or semi-permanent modification to her appearance, I’m going to nail your wings to the wall before I break every one of your fingers,” Valion said, glaring at the faery man.

“Dad!” Elyra exclaimed, horrified enough to drop her usual formalities she used at the palace. It almost made him feel bad.

Not bad enough to stop, though.

“Do you understand? I’ll hurt you far worse than my mother could even dream up,” he said without turning away from the designer. Quinn, to his credit, hardly looked phased by the threat—of could he was used to working with his mother, so that was to be expected.

“I will ensure the princess is handled with the utmost care, Your Highness,” he said with an elegant bow. Valion still glowered at him.

“Darkness below, you are far too overprotective. You can’t spend the whole night snarling and snapping at anyone who looks at your daughter,” his mother spat at him.

“I think you severely underestimate my capabilities, Mother,” he retorted.

“Don’t you dare ruin tonight with one of your tantrums!” she snarled back. “Not on Solstice, and not on Elyra’s official debut. I swear you haven’t an ounce of sense in that head of yours!”

“You just wait—I’ll show you a fucking tantrum if you try and pull any of that shit you did last time. I haven’t forgotten and I haven’t forgiven you.”

“You’re so dramatic, honestly.”

“And you’re not fit to be around children,” he spat back. “I’m not going to let you screw her up too.”

“Don’t be foul,” she snapped, hands curling into fists, hurt flashing across her face before she could hide it.

He might have felt bad about calling her out on her shit parenting if it hadn’t directly lead to his daughter being brutalized.

“Valion, that’s enough,” his father said, voice sharp.

He just shook his head, scowling as his mother glared at him. Then she abruptly turned to Elyra.

“Come on darling, we’ll leave your father to his mood. We’ve got lots to do,” she said, voice going saccharine.

“Yes, Grandmother.”

Valion got up to follow, trying to temper his irritation. His mother turned to glower at him.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m going with my daughter to help her get ready.”

“Absolutely not! How’s she supposed to enjoy a moment of getting ready with you looming over her. No, such things require a woman’s touch. I am perfectly capable of ensuring everything goes as planned.”

“I’m not leaving you alone with her, after last time.”

“She had her ears pierced Val! You act as though I had her waterboarded! Now stop being ridiculous,” she snarled. Elyra shifted uncomfortably next to him.

She wasn’t used to so much fighting—her foster parents had rarely fought, as far as he knew, and not in front of her.

“It’s okay, Dad. I can just catch up with you after I get ready,” she said quietly, eyes locked on the floor. He sighed, knowing that if he pushed the matter it would only escalate the fight and upset her more, even if it left him with what he wanted.

“Call me, if you need anything,” Valion said, eyes flicking to the bracelet on her wrist. She looked up and caught his gaze, nodding as she forced a smile.

“As if she'd be left wanting for a thing! Honestly Val!” his mother huffed, ushering Elyra towards the door. She turned before stepping into the hall, shooting him a dirty look.

“And you need to see the hairdresser! You need to fix that mop on your head. Honestly, Val, you’ve always had such beautiful hair, I don’t know what possessed you to go and ruin it!”

He just rolled his eyes, mentally counting down the hours until it would be acceptable to leave.

 

---

 

“Here,” Valion said, shoving one of the garment bags and a large box that had been delivered to his chambers, fifteen minutes after storming out of the parlor, at him. He’d hardly lasted ten minutes after Rosalind had left before he got up without a word to his father and stalked off. Alucard had tried to offer a polite farewell but he was pretty sure Rosalind’s grandparents were pretending he didn’t exist.

“I, um—thank you?”

“I don’t need you sticking out more than you already do,” he said grumpily, stomping off to his bedroom. Alucard stared after him for a moment before he crossed to the room he’d been given last time to set aside his things.

He set the garment bag on the bed before unzipping it. Inside was an elaborate black velvet doublet stitched with silver, ornate embroidery all about the collar and cuffs, the sleeves themselves subtly patterned and its buttons made of pearls. There were also a pair of fine matching trousers and a somehow more elaborately embellished elbow-length cavalier cape made from palest silver iridescent silk, the border and collar silver and embroidered with pearls and tiny glinting silver beads. In the box were a pair of tall boots accented with matching silver detailing and somehow in his size.

Alucard just stared at it for a moment, somewhat taken back by the fact that Valion had not only arranged clothes for him for the ball, but extremely nice, fancy clothes. He’d thought what he’d packed would have been fine, but now he realized just how out of place he’d have looked, not only because he wasn’t even sure he owned anything apparently extravagant enough, but because the style of faery clothing was different, somehow both sleek and nearly overly elaborate.

Valion was strange in a way he couldn’t pin down. He was rude and ill-tempered and didn’t seem to like people in general, except for Rosalind, but he was patient and soft with her, and surprisingly thoughtful, even though he was positive he only did it for Rosalind’s benefit.

He certainly treated her much different than either of his parents treated him. It wasn’t hard to see where he got his snappish temper, or sharp tongue.

It seemed he was trying very hard not to follow in their footsteps as a parent, at least when he was left to his own devices. Being around his own parents did seem to bring out the worst in him.

Alucard sighed and dressed, enjoying the softness of the faery fabrics—while he wasn’t so viscerally irritated by ordinary ones, he could enjoy just how soft and silky they were. He glanced in the mirror once he’d finished, lingering on the silver details. They seemed to bring out his pallor, his hair looking all the more gold for it.

He returned to the sitting room, only to find Valion already there and pacing back and forth. He too wore an intricate doublet, though his was of darkest blue silk, embroidered in black metallic thread with sapphires stitched into the design on the collar, fashioned into buttons. He too sported a one-shouldered cape, but his was ankle-length, made of black velvet and lined with indigo silk, the shoulder bedecked in a sort of pauldron of raven feathers. He wore a simple, blackened-silver crown on his brow, sparsely set with large sapphires and black diamonds, curls wild.

Valion turned and made a face a face as he looked Alucard up and down, eyes lingering on the silver of the cape he wore.

“He’s such an asshole,” he muttered under his breath, raising his hand to make a complicated gesture in the air in front of him. Alucard watched in shock as all the silver detailing turned to a bright, warm gold, only a shade or two off from his hair. Valion then turned away without a word of explanation.

Alucard glanced down at his clothes—it was nearly the same palette he always favored. He doubted that was why Valion had done it, though.

“Come on. I need to get a haircut, you might as well get one too,” he said, sounding bone tired as he pulled open the door and motioned for him to follow. Alucard just nodded, trying to make sense of Valion’s ever-shifting moods.

 

---

 

Unfortunately, his father had also decided to visit the barber when he and the boy had, which lead them to being dragged back to the sitting room after to await Elyra and his Mother. Loathe as he was to admit it, his hair did look much better after the barber had fixed his spur of the moment hack job.

He mostly ignored his father as he spoke at him—he didn’t care about murmurings of more uprisings in the Heartlands, or increased activity at the border Rift, nor about the petty machinations of the Court. He wasn’t sure if his father knew he wasn’t listening or if he simply didn’t care.

Either way, it hardly bothered Valion.

He looked up as the door opened and Elyra entered the sitting room, brow furrowed, bottom lip caught between her teeth. He stood, ignoring whatever it was his father was telling him of the Heartlands so he could step around the couches and fully see how she’d been dressed.

She looked beautiful.

Her silver curls were pinned back into a complicated sort of half-updo that left the rest streaming down to the middle of her back. Pearls and diamonds glinted from the braids, though her hair was left mostly unadorned.

Quinn had made her a ballgown of iridescent pale silver silks, the top fitted and leaving her upper chest and arms bare while the skirt was dramatically full. The whole thing glimmered with tiny beads, making her look like starlight itself. She wore an unfamiliar, ornate silver necklace that left her dripping with diamonds, moonstones, and pearls, with matching dangling earrings, though he noted the bracelet he’d given her remained on her wrist.

His throat felt tight, tears pricking at his eyes. She really was Orlaith’s little princess done up like that—he was sure she’d have been giddy to seen her so dressed up, though she would have had her hand in every step of the design process, dragged him out to help he pick the right jewelry, which he was always terrible at, would have spent several hours deciding on the right shoes.

She looked so grown up.

How could she look so grown up? He wish she’d stop, slow down—he wasn’t ready.

Maybe he would never be ready.

Especially when he took note of the scars on her arms, faint and silver, but permanent reminders of his brother’s cruelty, his failures as a father.

“Ah, Val, I was hoping you were here,” his mother said, bustling into the sitting room behind Elyra, all business.

She wore a glittering gown of near-black silk, adhering to their usual dark color palette—black, deep indigos and purples, darkest blues. He couldn’t remember anyone ever straying from it for formal events—the Court hardly did either, except for a rare deep burgundy.

Elyra would stick out like the moon in the night sky. Usually he’d be against her standing out in such a way, but she’d be the center of much attention regardless of what she wore, and it made her all the easier to keep an eye on at any moment. Besides, she’d always stick out among the family anyway—he was quite sure she was the only Blackthorne in the entirety of its line without its signature black hair.

His mother crossed to his side and handed him a large-ish leather box.

“You should put it on her, since it’s the first time, but you need to make sure it’s straight and centered, and you don’t ruin her hair,” she said, motioning for him to open the box.

Inside sat a silver tiara sparkling with diamonds and pearls and more moonstones. It was entirely different from any of the crowns or tiaras he’d grown up seeing or wearing, each of them dark and imposing, a symbol, foremost, of authority. This one was delicate, ethereal.

“I had it made specially for her. Most of the pieces we have in the collection would be too harsh on her, with her coloring. Your father agreed we should add a few things to suit her,” she said, nodding towards his father, who he hadn’t noticed had joined them.

“Go on,” his father said with an uncharacteristically soft smile. “It should be you for her first official appearance.”

Valion took the tiara from the box and set the box aside, staring at the little diadem in his hand. It was such a light, fragile thing for all the weight it bore, the burden it left her with.

He took a deep breath before carefully setting it atop her head, throat too tight for him to speak, even if he wanted to. Elyra searched his face, brows furrowed, but he just cupped her jaw and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Oh, how darling!” his mother said in delight, clapping her hands together. “You finally look like a proper little princess. And don’t worry, Quinn has nearly finished with the rest of your wardrobe but I’ve already had what’s ready packaged up to return to your father’s estate with you, so he won’t have any excuse for dragging you here in peasant boys’ clothes again.”

“You look beautiful,” Adrian said a little breathlessly, having also risen from his previous place on the sofa to stand at his side, eyes locked on Elyra. She blushed, ducking her head to try and hide it.

“Thank you,” she replied, smiling when she looked up to meet his eyes. "Though I hardly think I can compare."

The pair of them were so desperately lovesick he almost worried for the boy at the ball. He’d certainly be making no friends in Court, never mind if anyone saw they way she looked at him.

He caught his mother making a sour face while his father eyed him as if sizing him up at a Council meeting. Neither had said anything yet, but he doubted their restraint would last the whole night. He only hoped they had the decency not to say anything in front of Elyra.

Of course, he’d shut it down quickly, if they tried. He’d protect her from as much of the cruelty of Court as he was able, for as long as he could, and that certainly included shielding her from his parents. He was more alert for it now, after what his mother had pulled piercing Elyra’s ears. He had to be somewhat delicate in handling his parents, but anyone else—

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d killed someone at a State event. His only reservation would be upsetting Elyra. Of course it would no doubt happen eventually, as those things tended to, but he’d rather not add to her trauma unnecessarily, especially when he could see how the role he played at Court upset her.

Unfortunately, his behaving in such a way would keep her safe. He’d just have to make sure that he took the time after, when they were alone, to ensure she was okay, that they had time to return to their normal. He was used to the split between his selfs, hardly even thought about it anymore, but it was something very new to her, on top of Court and Faery and magic.

He was determined to protect her goodness, her sweetness, what innocence was left to her. And he didn’t care if the onyx of the palace floors ran slick with crimson for him to do it.

 

---

 

Valion glanced back behind him, brush stilling as he looked at Orlaith sprawled out on the velvet mauve couch she’d picked for the baby’s sitting room, stupendously pregnant. She was fully convinced it was a girl, insisting he paint flowers on the walls of all of the baby’s chambers. She was going through the sketches he’d made her for the tailor of all the ridiculous dresses she wanted made for the baby—all bows and ruffles and glittering beads. He thought it absurd, but he drew them anyway—if the baby only got to wear one of them for two weeks before they grew out of it and it made Orlaith happy, then it wasn’t worth bringing up.

“You had better be right about the baby,” he groused. “I won’t be happy if I have to repaint the whole thing.”

“You’re not happy about it now, what would be the difference?” she replied blithely, without looking up. He hated that that made him want to laugh.

He didn’t find himself wanting to laugh often these days.

Orlaith looked up and stared at him for a long moment before she set the drawings aside, brows furrowed.

“You always worry too much, Val.”

“Have you ever thought maybe you don’t worry enough?” he replied. She rolled her eyes at him.

“I mean it, love. I think you’re being far too blasé about this whole thing. I mean, I know you want me there, and I want to be there, but it would be much safer if you had a midwife—”

“I’m not giving birth to her alone, Val. And you know if I had her in Seelie, at home, Mummy and Daddy would find out and they’d never let us leave, not at least until she’s two. You’d miss everything and I’d be miserable. Besides—she might look too Unseelie and I won’t have a chance to glamour her before the midwife sees, obviously, and you know they all talk.”

“But you’d both be safer. I just—I think you should think about it more. I’ve been reading all the books, but I’m not anywhere near as competent as a midwife. And that’s not to mention postpartum. There are all sorts of things that can go wrong, from—”

He broke off as she got up with some difficulty and crossed to where he sat perched on his low stool. She took his hand and pressed it to her stomach and he felt the fluttering movements of the baby through her skin.

It made his throat tighten.

“She always gets so active when you get talking,” she said with a smile. Valion glowered at her.

“Maybe it makes her agitated too,” he groused back, not exactly happy to have his concerns brushed off again. Orlaith just shook her head.

“No, I think she likes the sound of her Daddy’s voice,” she said softly. “She’s around you enough to know not to take you seriously when you’re being a grouch.”

He couldn’t help but huff the smallest of laughs at that.

Orlaith was the only one who never took his moods seriously—in fact she enjoyed making fun of him for them. She always seemed able to see the root of his dissatisfaction, even if he hadn’t yet realized it, never cowed to his anger or frustration like everyone else.

She’d never seen him as the dastardly, evil, Unseelie prince, just as the stuttering dork of a fifteen year old that she’d lit on fire by accident at their first Solstice, thinking him his brother. She’d never been afraid to tell him he was being an ass, or an idiot, or to shut up, or indeed anything at all.

He took a deep breath, trying to concentrate on the feeling of the child shifting in Orlaith’s womb, rather than the swirling anxiety that always seemed to be on the edge of consuming him, nowadays. ‘

“You should talk to her,” Orlaith said gently.

“I don’t—I don’t know what to say,” he said quickly.

“Just try,” she encouraged.

He let out a heavy sigh.

“Um, I—hello, I guess?” he said, feeling like an idiot. “I doubt you can understand any of this, but, um I don’t know. I’m not good with people. Hopefully for your sake you take after your mother.”

He felt the baby kick his hand and froze, heart squeezing in a near-painful way. It was hard not to think about the fact, now, that there was a whole baby in Orlaith’s stomach, a whole person—a person they’d created together, a real person and not just the idea of one.

He’d have to be a father—he was a father. He hadn’t the faintest clue how, though. He wasn’t good with people, with adults, much less babies and children. He was rather sure Orlaith was the only one who could stand to be around him for any length of time, the only person he’d rather spend time with instead of burying himself in a painting.

How was he supposed to be a good father? How could he not pass on all the damage of his own childhood, protect this child that was coming, whether he liked it or not, from the selfish machinations of Court, from the danger and misery?

Somehow the thought left him feeling so overwhelmed he thought he might puke.

Orlaith reached out and brushed his hair back, running her fingers through it to soothe him. He leaned into her touch, just enjoying the feeling of her playing with his hair. He always kept it long, because she liked to play with his curls—her hair had always been as straight as corn silk—because she liked it best that way. That was enough for him to make it worth the extra work it required.

“You’ll be a great Dad, Val, I know you will. As soon as she’s here, you’ll figure it out—and she already loves you.”

“Don’t be absurd,” he said making a face. She shot him a dirty look.

“I’m not! I know she does, I can tell. How could she not?”

He didn’t answer that, because he knew he wasn’t supposed to. Still, a whole plethora of reasons swirled in his mind, each more damning than the rest.

Orlaith sighed, staring at him like she could read his thoughts.

“You’ll miss out on so much if you let fear rule you, Val.”

He wished she could understand the simmering terror that had filled him since she’d told him she was pregnant, wish he could go a moment without thinking of the baby, of its upcoming arrival, of every awful thing that could go wrong.

The more excited she got, the more his dread grew.

He just shook his head, turning back to his painting.

 

---

 

Valion wasn’t sure which he was dreading more—the Rite or the ball itself. The Rite would at least be short—shorter. His father was known to ramble.

He kept a hand on Elyra’s shoulder as they walked toward the royal balcony that overlooked the main city square. He made sure the dhampir didn’t stray too far behind, but paid him little mind otherwise.

There was already a small gathering of high nobility in the foyer to the balcony, gossiping no doubt, some already with champagne in their hands. Unfortunately, those present were important enough that he had to acknowledge their existence and greet them with relative politeness, the worst of which being, of course, Lady Róisín Aureliane, eldest daughter of the Grand Duchess Aoife Aureliane, sister of Queen Riona of Seelie, and her husband, Lord Colm.

Orlaith had looked so like her mother with her pale-blonde hair and golden skin, the delicate features they shared. Indeed, the only thing she had inherited from her father by way of looks was his eyes, the same shockingly verdant green. He swallowed hard as he approached, unconsciously puling Elyra closer.

The pair smiled politely as they approached, though Valion didn’t return it.

It was all he could do to keep himself steady as it was.

Lady Róisín offered a polite curtsey, but Lord Colm stood frozen, staring at Elyra as if he’d seen a ghost. Valion cleared his throat, even as his blood ran cold.

“Oh—I am sorry Your Highness,” he said, offering him a bow. “I was lost in my thoughts.”

He bowed then to Elyra, eyes lingering on her face for just a second too long before he and his wife moved to find their seats with the rest of the high nobility present on one of the lower balconies.

His parents strode to the royal balcony, but Valion turning to address both Elyra and Adrian.

“Just—stand back, against the wall next to me until it’s over with,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose before turning to the boy and warding him.

“What are you doing?” Elyra asked, brows furrowing.

“Making him forgettable, at least for the public Rite. They’ll see him, but he’ll slip from their minds as if he’d never been there at all. It’s safer, that way.”

She nodded, biting her lip.

“Thank you,” she said, voice small. He took her hand, giving it a squeeze.

“Of course, Moonbeam. There’s nothing to worry about. The Rite is simply something that must be endured, but it shouldn’t take too long.”

She nodded.

“Valion!” his mother hissed from the door, beckoning him to follow. He ignored her.

“Are you ready?” he asked softly. Elyra nodded, despite her anxiety. He forced a smile to hopefully soothe a bit of her anxiety before leading her to the balcony. His father surveyed them a moment before turning to address the crowds below, both in the square below and seated on various other balconies.

When he address them, it wasn’t the tired, world-weary voice of his father, but the powerful, immovable voice of the king. The difference was nearly jarring.

“It is once more time for the Letting of the Long Night. Here, we commemorate the Longest Night, the Night which once gave way to Day when it still had a hold in these lands, before Night Eternal reigned. Still, we pay tribute to the ways of Old, to the Ancient and most Sacred Balance that guides all of us still. We ask that this Letting maintains that Balance, that this sacrifice of most vital Blackthorne blood will serve to renew our lands during the Waning,” his father said, voice booming out over the assembled Court, the citizens gathered in the square below, staring up at the spectacle set in the royal balcony.

Valion sighed as his father stepped slightly off-center of the alter, what he knew to be his cue to step forward.

Because reigning Blackthorne blood alone wasn’t enough, not if there was more to be shed in supplication to the throne, to the sempiternal rule of the Blackthorne clan. The heir too, had to give and give, long before they’d ever be cursed to rule.

He stepped up next to his father, watching as he first sliced through his palm, curling it into a fist to force more blood into the ancient silver blót. After he deemed it enough he reached out for Valion’s hand, which he gave with only minor annoyance. The whole thing was rote by now.

His father dragged the dagger across his hand, across the thick scar that ran across his palm from thousands of sacrifices before. He sighed as he held his hand over the bowl, though he left his hand open, forced no more blood from it than it wanted to give. He pulled it away after a few moments, ignoring the ache that was always disproportionately more than what it should have been for such a wound.

“Come on, Elyra,” his father said, ushering her forward. She stepped forward hesitantly to stand between them, the crowd tittering at her appearance, whispers whipping like wind through the square. Valion threw his hand out as his father reached for her hand with his own bloodied one, lifting the silver knife again in his other.

“What are you doing? You didn’t say anything about her participating, she’s far too young—”

“She’s older than you were when you began. And it is her duty as your heir, just as it is your duty as mine.”

“I don’t care, she’s not doing it, not until she comes of age. She’s third in line anyway, there’s no need.”

“That’s not an option, Val. You know it’s not simply the immediate heir, your brother gave just as you did, before the line was assured. Now stop making a scene. You know it must be done.”

“It doesn’t—”

“It’s—it’s okay. It’s just a little cut, it’s okay, Dad—” Elyra said quietly, ever the peacekeeper. He hated it, hated that because she was good and kind and sweet his parents used it to manipulate her. One good thing in the whole cesspool of Court and they were racing each other to try and drown her in its filth.

“It’s not—”

But his father had already taken her hand when she said it was okay and dragged the silver knife across her palm, letting her blood, too, drip into the alter bowl with his and his father’s.

Valion pulled her back the moment his father let go of her wrist, didn’t give a damn what it looked like to the rabble below. He had eyes only for his daughter, only for the latest coerced wound in her flesh. He held her hand, palm up, tracing over the wound with his fingers and knitting her skin back together. He banished the blood with a twist of his wrist, trying to contain his rage.

He didn’t care if it was some ancient ceremony, he didn’t care if he’d had to start when he was ten—he cared that his father had bullied her into it at the moment, hated that he’d planned it, as surely as his mother had planned to pierce her ears, hated that it was all for the bloody show of it, because he was so worried about what people whispered—

It didn’t matter what they whispered, or thought. What should have mattered to him was protecting his granddaughter, sparing her whatever pain he could after how she’d suffered from Vranos’s cruelty.

Valion looked up as he heard a wave of gasps and froze, eyes wide. His blood ran cold as, for the first time in living memory, the moon rose over the Penumbral City, bright and full, bathing everything in its silver light.

Chapter 48: Lineage

Ysolde walked slowly through Cryptgarden, admiring the moss that now covered the once-barren earth, the waxy white flowers that had sprung up between the stones, smelling of honeysuckle and jasmine. She smiled at those she passed, the bittersweetness of it all not enough to smother her delight.

She paused at the edge of the necropolis, eyeing the path now overrun with greenery and fragrant blooms. For so long it had been a cage, but now—

She stepped onto the path, warmth filling her as she set off through the tunnels, each just as lush and overgrown as Cryptgarden itself. Things were changing, the Realm healing, finally.

She knew Amaris would keep her word and return.

She just didn’t have to wait any longer to be reunited with her.

 

---

 

Elyra stared up at the moon bathing everything in silver light. It was the first time she’d seen it, in Faery—she’d begun to think there wasn’t one here, not like back home.

But there it was, hung low in the sky, enormous compared to what she was used to in the Mortal Realm. Brighter, too. The city didn’t look nearly as frightening under its light—in fact, the obsidian glimmered in it, everything taking on a more ethereal quality.

It was beautiful in a way she’d thought Unseelie incapable of being.

She hardly had time to admire it, though, before the balcony doors were flung open and Valion pulled her back inside. She looked around wildly, reaching out to grab Adrian’s hand to drag him with them.

“What’s going on?” she asked, trying to get a look at Valion’s face, but it was hard, with how fast he kept them walking. She could see how tight his jaw was, though, knew that never meant anything good.

“Nothing, just keep walking,” he said, not bothering to sound convincing.

“Where are we going?” she asked, having to jog slightly to keep up with his furious pace. It was much harder to move quickly in the heeled silver shoes Quinn had given her to wear—she much preferred her comfortable silk slippers.

“To my chambers—our chambers.”

“Why?”

“Leave it, Lyra.”

“Was that—was that not supposed to happen?” she asked, fear taking root in her chest. Valion ignored her.

“Dad?” she asked, fear settling heavily into her gut. She glanced back at Adrian, brows pulled together. It was only then that she saw her grandfather stalking towards them, looking more furious than she’d ever seen him. Her hand ached with a sort of phantom pain, her voice catching in her throat.

Adrian reached out and squeezed her hand reassuringly before letting it drop, even as his free hand drifted toward the pommel of his longsword strapped to his hip, eyes flickering back to her grandfather.

“Valion,” he spat, voice low so as not to carry. “The parlor, now.”

Valion turned and glared at his father, though she was almost surprised when he didn’t argue. He lead them through the maze of obsidian halls, to the familiar sitting room she’d only just left before the ceremony.

Valion’s father slammed the door behind him and warded it before he whirled on his son.

“I’m done with the games, Valion. I need to know who her mother is now,” he nearly yelled, color high in his cheeks. Valion stepped in front of her even as she shrunk back at her grandfather’s fury, retreating so she could take hold of Adrian’s hand. He pulled her close, though his eyes remained locked on her grandfather.

Would he try and kill her immediately, if he knew she saw half-Seelie? At least she was sure she could make a gate and escape with Adrian and her dad, but where would they run? She doubted there would be anywhere safe if all of Faery decided they wanted her dead.

Perhaps Cryptgarden. Everyone seemed very wary of Ysolde and she’d been kind to her, saved her once before. She still had to fulfill her promise to her, though.

Valion ad said they would after Solstice.

Maybe they wouldn’t have a choice.

“Who is her mother?” her grandfather asked, staring at Valion with an unfamiliar fury.

“I told you, I’m not fucking telling you.”

“You will. You’ll tell me right fucking now, because we are not having another situation like with your brother! I’m not having you back me into another corner because you want to keep your secrets—I can do nothing to help if you don’t tell me!”

“And nothing to hurt, either!” Valion shot back and her grandfather stalked forward, until they were nearly nose to nose, rage barely contained.

“You tell me right now, Valion, if that child’s mother was Seelie,” he nearly growled. Elyra thought she might throw up, but Valion said nothing, didn’t even flinch. Her grandfather’s eyes, though, flicked to her face, and he must have found the answer there, because he clenched his jaw to tight she thought he’d break teeth.

“Stupid boy. Stupid, stupid, stupid!” he snarled, abruptly turning away. “What were you thinking?! Whose is she? What fucking family?”

“I’m not—”

“She grew an eldertree that had been extinct for eons. Her sacrifice just brought back the fucking moon, Val. The moon. The Gloaming has risen larger and more wild than it had ever been and there are stars creeping into the Dawnlands. They will figure it out and come for her. What fucking clan is going to come to try and claim her? What family is going to come and try to steal away my granddaughter, Valion?”

He just stared at him for a long moment, searching his face. His father sighed, shaking his head, though his anger remained.

“You think so little of me, Valion. I know I wasn’t a perfect father, but I would never harm your child, no matter how foolishly conceived. I know what happened before, we all know what happened, have been haunted by it. I’m not foolish or cruel enough to repeat it.”

Valion stared at him for a long moment, breath slightly ragged, hands curled into fists.

“Swear it then. Swear you won’t harm her, or send someone else to, or allow anyone to. Swear you’ll protect her.”

“Val—”

“Swear it and I’ll tell you,” he said, glaring at his father. He, in turn, merely sighed.

“I shall never harm Elyra, or send someone to on my behalf, or knowingly allow her to be harmed. I shall protect her as I am able,” he said, staring Valion in the eye the whole time he spoke.

Somehow the words left the air feeling electric.

Valion took a deep breath, gaze flicking to the floor.

“Aureliane,” he said finally, voice clipped. Somehow her grandfather grew even more furious. Elyra shrunk back pressing closer to Adrian. He wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her close, though his eyes didn’t leave Valion and his father.

“Aureliane? Aureliane? There isn’t a word for how stupid you are! Who—was it the fucking ambassadors’ daughter that went missing? Did you kill—”

“I would never hard a single fucking hair on her head,” Valion snarled, his own fury ripping free for the first time since his father had begun berating him. “Don’t you dare even suggest I would do something so vile. I loved her. I’l never love another like I loved her.”

Her grandfather stared at him for a long time, taking long, deep breaths to attempt to calm himself. His eyes flicked to where she stood and she could see how he forced himself to relax his muscles slightly, straighten so he no longer looked like a predator waiting to pounce.

Not that it made her feel any better.

“What happened to her, then?” he said, voice forcibly softer. Valion didn’t say anything for a long time, though his breaths became uneven.

“She died,” he said finally, eyes glued to the wall behind his father’ head. “She died giving birth to Elyra. Something went wrong and I—I couldn’t stop the bleeding.”

His father took a deep breath, putting his hand ever so briefly on Valion’s shoulder, almost as if it was meant to be a comfort. Valion shrugged it off. His father swore.

“Damn it all, Val,” he spat, looking away to stare at the floor as if hoping to burn holes in it. He took a deep breath before striding towards her, hand outstretched.

She took a few stumbling steps back, eyes wide, even as her father and Adrian stepped in front of her again to intercept him. 

Her grandfather hardly took notice of Valion’s rudeness, didn't acknowledge Adrian at all, though he looked hurt that she’d retreated from him, that she was frightened of him.

Of course she was frightened of him. She hardly knew him and he was strange and sometimes cruel and so very obsessed with Faery’s rules—which she didn’t know enough to even know if she was breaking them.

Other than by existing.

“I’m going to glamour her eyes, since you were too much of a fool to. I wondered why Colm had been staring. Come here, Elyra,” he said, jaw tight as he fumed.

“I’ll do it,” Valion snapped. His father just glared.

“Then do it. Subtly. He’s already seen her, anything too drastic and he’ll know she’s been glamoured. You’re lucky she took after you so much.”

Valion turned toward her, raising his hand, and she felt the familiar feeling of his magic wash over her, warm and comforting, as he wove a glamour over her, brows knitted together as he worked.

She tried to catch his eye, tried to make sense of the expression on his face, but he avoided her gaze, turning away as soon as he finished, back towards his father who just glowered.

“You had better be in the hall for the fucking entrances in twenty minutes. This whole damn night is going to be damage control.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t have had to be if you hadn’t tricked her into the Letting,” Valion snapped back. His father glared at him.

“We all have duties, Valion, as much as you try to shirk yours. She’s an heir to the Umbral Throne and it just might be the only thing that keeps the Aurelianes at bay. They’ll want blood, you know they will.”

Valion made a face but didn’t reply. His father stared at him another moment before his eyes flicked to Elyra, fury exchanged for a flash of worry before he turned and stalked from the parlor, slamming the door hard enough to knock a portrait from the wall and break the frame.

Elyra turned back to Valion, eyes wide, not quite able to disguise how very frightened she was. She didn’t understand most of it, not why it was so much worse that Orlaith had been an Aureliane, but she understood it was very, very bad.

She opened a gate to Valion’s opulent and utterly unwelcoming sitting room without a word, biting her lip as she tried to stop her hands from shaking. Valion looked at her a moment before he nodded and stepped through the gate without argument for once, jaw tight. She felt Adrian wrap an arm reassuringly around her waist and looked up to see her worry mirrored on his face. She leaned into his touch just slightly as they stepped through to Valion’s chambers.

 

---

 

“If I tell you to go tonight, I need you to listen,” Valion said, heart hammering in his chest. Even with his father’s oath, he couldn’t calm the terror that seized him, the panic at the thought that someone else might guess, might try to hurt her.

He couldn’t help himself from pacing about the apartments, absently searching through the daggers he had hidden about the place, looking for something useful. He cursed his mother, and Quinn—the stupid fucking dress didn’t even have sleeves to hide a blade in, never mind that it left her horribly exposed.

He’d changed his mind, it was a wretched dress, no matter how lovely she looked in it, how much like her mother. Trust his mother to make sure she had the most impractical attire when stepping into a den of vipers—

“What?” Elyra asked, another wretched flash of fear crossing her face.

“If I tell you to go, I need you to open one of your gates and go. Go to the house, take the books on warding that I set out, and go back to the Mortal Realm. Weave as many over that damn castle as you are capable and only return to the Gloaming, and only long enough to replenish your magic, until I get you. Promise me.”

“Dad, I don’t—”

“I need you to promise me, Elyra.”

“But—what about you—”

“Don’t worry about me. I need you to promise you’ll listen.”

“If I have to go then you have to come too,” she said, scowling at him, though it didn’t disguise the way her hands still trembled, even balled into fists.

She was frightened and he hadn’t the faintest idea how to make her feel better, because she should be frightened. Even if she knew, now, that he’d do whatever it took to protect her, she should be frightened.

She already knew how mercurial and bloodthirsty the Court was. She’d been in enough danger simply as his heir, but if any of them suspected she was half Seelie, if they marked her as Ysolde’s, however unfairly—

He shook his head.

“No, Elyra. I need you to worry about yourself—”

“But Dad—”

He turned to the dhampir, fixing him in a piercing gaze.

“If I tell you to get her out, make her go. Get her out safely, whatever you need to do, whoever you need to kill. Don’t linger, don’t pause for anyone, no matter what happens,” he said, hoping the boy’s devotion might be enough, should it come to it. He nodded.

Elyra gaped at him, wide-eyed. “Adrian—”

“Dove, if something goes wrong I’m going to make sure you get out of here safely. He only asked what I’d do already. I won’t allow anyone to harm you,” he said with an intensity Valion recognized.

It made him feel the smallest bit better.

“What do you think is going to happen?” Elyra asked, turning back to face him, voice trembling just slightly. He reached out to cup her jaw. “I don’t understand what’s going on, what happened. Why is it so bad that Mom was an Aureliane?”

“You don’t have to worry,” he said, though it felt like a lie. He’d do whatever it took to shield her from who he had to, whatever Court claimed them. Hell, he’d take the damn Umbral Throne for himself if it meant she’d be safe, untouchable, as loathsome as the prospect was.

He do despicable, unforgivable things to protect her, do them without a moment’s hesitation. He’d bring all of Faery under the Unseelie banner, drown the Realm in blood, if that was what it took to ensure her safety.

“Dad—” she said, anger overriding her fear at his brush off.

He still couldn’t believe just how much she looked like Orlaith when she was angry with him.

Any other day it might have made him smile, just a bit.

“We’ll talk about it later, Moonbeam,” he said, pulling her into a tight hug, his face pressed to her curls. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“But—”

“Not now. Later, I promise,” he said, ducking to press a kiss to her forehead. “Once we’re done with this nightmare and back home.”

She didn’t answer, but she didn’t argue—he hoped that meant she’d listen, hoped that meant she’d slip away before the carnage, should it come to that.

He released her to return to his search, swearing to himself as he dug out his only blades that were small enough to perhaps be hidden strapped to her ankle, though he doubted she could reach them fast enough if she needed to with all that fabric from her skirts. It would have to do, though.

“Here, I don’t have a proper ankle sheath, so we’ll have to make do. I know you have your magic and Adrian and I are armed, but I don’t want you down there without a blade too—”

“Another one?” Elyra asked, making a face. He raised his brows. She sunk her hands into the organza of her skirt and pulled out twin, wicked-looking daggers—proper sized daggers, their blades’ undulating to maximize the damage dealt. The handles were finely wrought and heavily bejeweled with the same stones that adorned her jewelry, though it hardly made them any less intimidating—even their pommels were forged to be used for maximum damage, each pointed enough to puncture an eye.

“Your—Grandmother gave them to me. She made me practice taking them out so I wouldn’t get them caught on the skirt.”

He was so rarely grateful for his mother’s overbearingness and meddling. He nodded, setting aside the paltry dagger he’d found.

“Those will do,” he said, giving her the slightest smile. She searched his face, bottom lip caught between her teeth as she stowed them away again, the slits in her dress completely disguised by the petals of her skirt.

 

---

 

“Next Solstice will be her first,” Orlaith said, beaming at him as she cradled her hand against her perfectly flat stomach—she was barely two and a half months along, hadn’t even remotely begun to show.

It didn’t make him any less worried.

“Neither of you will be here,” he said, sharper than he meant to. He reclined on the lip of the fountain in their usual hiding spot, glaring up at the starless black sky.

“What are you on about?” she asked, making a face. She got so very cranky with him when he ruined her daydreaming and planning with his sour moods.

“You won’t come next year, you’ll be home with it,” he said, shaking his head. Orlaith glared at him, hand still on her stomach.

“It? It, Val? She’s not an it, she’s your daughter, and I hardly see why we should have to stay home. She’ll be nearly nine months old then, if we stay in the Gloomveil,” she spat. He made a face.

“She’ll be too young. Your parents didn’t let you attend until you were fifteen, and that was still foolish—”

“You’ve been attending since you were born—”

“I’ve had to—”

“She should. It’s her Court too, she should know both. And its a ball, Val, not the fucking Rift. She’ll be fine, no one would even think of harming her, not with my parents there. They won’t know who she is, not really.”

“I doubt your parents will let you bring her. Colm will sooner stay home to play nanny than let you bring a baby to Court—never mind your baby.”

Orlaith glared at him. He just sighed.

“What do you even care what I say? You never listen anyway,” he said, not bothering to soften his attitude.

“You wait! You’re going to feel like such an ass when you’re the one who can’t bear to leave her behind.”

“I am an ass,” he said, giving her a dirty look, though there wasn’t any real heat behind it. He wasn’t mad at her, after all, just—just mad. Mad and terrified and plagued by a sense of looming doom that never seemed to go away.

Orlaith stuck her hand into the fountain to splash water all over the velvet of his doublet, taking a second swipe to drench his curls.

“Why can’t you just be happy, Val? She’s a miracle and half the time you act like you don’t even want her,” she snarled at him, face screwed up in fury.

“I never said that,” he snapped back—he’d been sure not to say it, no matter how ofter he thought it.

“I don’t understand you at all sometimes!” she nearly shouted and Valion sat up abruptly at the sight of tears welling in her eyes, foul mood forgotten.

“Darling—darling I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Please—please don’t cry. I didn’t—I’m sorry, Orlaith,” he said, reaching out to pull her into his arms but she stepped away, still glowering.

“I want her. I want her so much. I don’t know how you can act like this when she’s ours, Val. I—I never thought we’d have a child, I’d given up. She’s a miracle.”

“Orlaith—” he began, but she turned on her heel and stalked off without looking back.

 

---

 

“The boy will have to go in ahead,” her grandfather said, gaze sharp as he looked at Adrian. They were gathered in an unfamiliar hallway, the buzzing of all the voices in the ballroom, right behind the door, only slightly muffled. There seemed to be a lot more courtiers than she’d thought there would be, close to five hundred.

Elyra made a face.

“Why?” she asked, more boldly than she would have usually, but she didn’t like the idea of Adrian being in a room of murderous, awful faeries without her or Valion.

“Because he holds no rank within the Courts,” he replied, sharp, though less so than if it had been Valion who’d asked.

“He can just come in with me, it’s silly to make him wait by himself—”

“Absolutely not,” her grandmother said, glaring not at her, but at Valion. “Have you not explained a thing of protocol to her?”

Valion sighed deeply, massaging his temples as he squeezed his eyes shut.

“I have to escort you, until you come of age, when you can then be announced by yourself. The only time you would be escorted by anyone other than myself or one of your grandparents would be if you were betrothed or married. State events are very formal,” he said, without opening his eyes. His mother still glared at him.

Elyra let her eyes flick to Adrian’s and felt a slight blush warm her cheeks.

She wondered if that was something he’d ever want—she couldn’t even picture ever being with someone other than him, didn’t want to. They both had an awful long time to live, though, so she was sure that made things more complicated. Who was to say he wouldn’t be tired of her in ten years, of thirty or a hundred?

And he might not like the idea of marriage at all. They hadn’t talked about it and neither of them were traditionalists, content with simply loving one another. She hadn’t even really thought about it, until then, until she thought about being able to walk down the stupid steps with him, thought about everyone having to acknowledge him for what he was—her dearest love, her partner, her better half.

Of course it didn’t matter—it didn’t change the way she felt about him, or how they lived together.

She liked the idea of it, though. Of being his, of him being hers, of it being official, visible, material—plain as a pair of gold bands on their fingers. She liked the idea of calling him her husband—he practically acted like some sort of story book one already.

She stared at the floor, hoping her ears weren’t as red as they felt.

They almost always gave her away.

“I will have him escorted to the dais,” her grandfather said, and she turned to look at Valion.

“Perhaps Lady Róisín and Lord Colm have not yet found their seats. They tend to mingle beforehand,” he said, looking at his father. “Then at least he’ll know someone. And you know how fascinated Lady Róisín is by the Mortal Realm, I’m sure she’ll find it agreeable, so long as she can pester him with questions.”

“Fine,” her grandfather said, waving him off. To her surprise, Valion motioned for Adrian to follow him and lead him down the hall himself, to wherever Lady Róisín and Lord Colm might be dallying.

She was surprised he’d suggested them. He’d been furious and distraught over the idea of seeing them this morning, then he’d seemed indifferent to them when they’d met briefly before the Rite, but now he trusted them enough to look after Adrian, if only for a couple of minutes. Even though she knew he didn’t like Adrian all that much, she knew he’d make sure he was safe and taken care of, if only for her sake.

Elyra started as her grandmother strode over and began to fuss with her hair, making sure the curls lay just so, that all her jewelry hung straight.

“Remember to keep your head high, dear,” she said, still fussing, now with her dress. “This is the first time most of them will see you properly, you want to make sure you set the right impression.”

“I—I will,” she said, hoping Valion would return soon. She especially didn’t like being left alone with her grandmother, even though she’d been perfectly nice and normal when they’d gotten ready for the Rite. She just never knew when her mood would shift, or use the time to have her do something she knew Valion wouldn’t approve of.

She also kept wondering when the novelty of a grandchild would wear off and she’d start yelling at her like she yelled at Valion. Elyra wasn’t sure she could stand it—she’d never been yelled at as a child, and Valion had only yelled at her once, and she’d hated it. It made her feel wobbly and like she would burst into tears.

She let out a sigh of relief to see Valion returning, taking the arm he offered her without hesitation.

“Are we ready, then?” he asked his parents, sounding untenably bored. His mother shot him a dirty look.

“Yes, whenever you want to go, we’ll follow after,” her grandfather said. Valion motioned for the servant next to the door to pull it open and lead her though it, though she almost stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of the ballroom. She hardly heard the herald call out Valion’s laundry-list of titles or her name, to busy trying to take in all of the room from the platform they’d stepped out on, giving way to a sweeping, curved stairway.

The ballroom, too, was made entirely of black obsidian, but there was swaths of glimmering, midnight silk hung about in a way that almost made her feel like they were in some sort of melting night sky, all sorts of crystals hanging from the ceiling at different levels like stars. There were all sorts of unfamiliar flowers, too, most of them in deep blues and violets, reminding her almost of a darker Gloaming.

Valion tugged her lightly forward and lead her down the stairs. They’d have to cross the whole of the ballroom, then, to reach the balcony where they royal family and their guests sat, something that made her stomach swoop sickeningly. She tried to focus on the blip of gold on the other side that was Adrian’s hair, though he was far too far away for her to make out his features yet.

She felt the Court’s gazes on her like searing beams, the room erupting into not so hushed conversation at the sight of them. She couldn’t help but lean closer to Valion at the sound of all the whispering, like locusts as they all watched her with sharp, dangerous eyes.

Would one of them try and harm her? Both Valion and her grandmother had been adamant she be armed, even with her magic. She hadn’t seen anyone act so blatantly violent at Court yet, but she knew it was only a matter of time.

Did they suspect what she was? Did they think her dangerous? Would they try and kill her like Ysolde’s poor baby?

She shrunk into his side, even though she knew she was supposed to be playing a proper Blackthorne, that she wasn’t supposed to be afraid of anything, was supposed to appear cold and cruel.

It was hard, though, with how the faeries looked at them like predators, like they were just waiting to sink their teeth into their flesh.

Valion didn’t look at her, but his hold tightened, just enough to remind her that he had her, that he wouldn’t let go. He glowered at the faeries around them as they walked, hand coming to rest on the pommel of his sword, though his glare seemed nearly enough to kill as it was. The faeries almost seemed to fall silent in a wave as they approached, eyes darting from Valion’s furious expression to his grip on his blade.

She didn’t mind the horrible, intimidating mask of the Crown Prince Valion wore this time, not when it at least seemed enough to keep the Court at bay, at least for now, though sharp eyes still followed her, some sparkling with interest and some narrowed and wary.

 

---

 

Elyra lingered in the corner of the balcony, eyes fixed on the door Valion and Adrian had disappeared out of as soon as the dignitaries on the balcony had become distracted enough to not notice their absence. She knew why she couldn’t go too, knew she was far too visible, that she hadn’t the faintest hope of sneaking about, but she still didn’t like being left behind, even for a few minutes, even if she could feel her grandfather’s gaze on her like a weight.

He wouldn’t harm her—he’d sworn not to.

Would he have if Valion hadn’t made him promise not to? He’d said he wouldn’t have, but she wasn’t sure.

His parents still scared her, even if they were almost always nice to her. They were rather awful to Valion, and they both liked to back her in to doing what they wanted—even if it was only piercing her ears and slicing her hand. In the scheme of things it wasn’t so terrible, but it made Valion properly furious.

She didn’t mind him being furious on her behalf, especially not when she was frightened.

“I didn’t get the chance to properly introduce myself before, Your Highness,” the man said—the same man who had stared at her before the Rite, that Valion hd gotten testy with.

Her grandfather—Orlaith’s father.

“I am Lord Colm Aureliane, and you met my wife briefly,” he said, gesturing to where the beautiful blonde Seelie woman was deep in conversations with several of her grandfather’s advisors. “Lady Róisín Aureliane. It is very nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too. Father said you and your wife were ambassadors of the Seelie Court,” she said, trying very hard to appear polite and not nervous, or overly invested in the conversation, even as her heart pounded in her chest, loud enough that she knew he could hear it.

He had her eyes—or, she had his. She didn’t resemble him in any other way—he had tanned skin and light brown, almost blonde hair, had a round jaw, a disarming face—but she had his eyes.

“Technically Róisín is the ambassador, I’m just her date,” he said with a laugh, though his eyes searched her face, eyes slightly watery. She huffed a laugh, somehow, through her constricted throat.

“This must all be a bit overwhelming. We heard how your father hid you away in the Mortal Realm. He’s always been...peculiar,” Colm said, talking a deep breath. He didn’t say it in the viciously mean way she often heard her father talked of at Court, but she still had the strange impulse to defend him.

“He found me wonderful human parents. They gave me a better education than I ever could have asked for and made sure I knew I was loved every day, always made time for me, as a child. I adored them and he let me stay with them until they passed, so I wouldn’t have to be parted from them. They taught me to be kind, and how to work hard, and think for myself—I hardly think I’d have been afforded the same opportunities had Father decided to raise me here,” she said, trying not to make a face at the prospect of what she’d have become if she’d grown up in this awful place.

To her surprise, Colm smiled.

“No, I daresay you wouldn’t have. However strange the choice, I can understand why he made it.”

“He visited me all the time too. I just—I didn’t know who he was, then,” she said, knocked off-kilter by his affability. She felt strange, talking to him, strange because he was her grandfather and she didn’t remember his daughter, strange because it was her fault his daughter had died, even if it hadn’t been on purpose, strange because she didn’t want him to think ill of Valion, not when she knew how much he’d loved Orlaith, how much her death still destroyed him.

She wanted him to know—wanted him to know her mother had wanted her, that she’d crocheted her baby blankets from pink spider-silk, made Valion paint flowers on all her walls, that she’d loved Valion, so much.

She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to force away the tears threatening to spill over her lashes, trying to pretend that this was a simple conversation of pleasantries and it didn’t make her want to cry—did he know Orlaith was dead? Did he still hope she’d come home one day? How long had it been for them here? It had been twenty years for her in the Mortal Realm—had it been sixty here? A hundred?

More?

“Ah, sweetling,” Valion said, striding up and wrapping an arm protectively around her shoulders. “I wondered where you’d wandered off to. Lord Colm.”

He inclined his head in his direction, tone polite but detached.

“Your Highness,” he replied with a bow. “I wanted to introduce myself to your daughter. I hardly had the time before.”

“Of course. Unfortunately, with it being her first State event there is much to attend to, so I must steal her away,” Valion replied in that same measured tone. She leaned into his side, glad to be ushered away.

“It was nice meeting you,” she managed before Valion tugged her to the other side of the balcony, where she saw Adrian waiting, brows pulled together. She forced a smile, hoping it reassured him.

She hoped whatever Valion had dragged him off for hadn’t been so bad, that he hadn’t bee rude to him or threatened him or something stupid. She didn’t think he would, only because he knew how very upset it would make her.

She’d have to wait for a moment when everyone else was distracted to ask him.

Valion squeezed her shoulder and she looked up at him, recognizing his tight expression—she was quite sure she wore the same, though she probably looked as though she was about to cry, despite how hard she was trying not to.

“It’s alright, Moonbeam,” he said quietly, so quietly only she could hear. “The dancing will begin in a few minutes. Then it will only be a few more hours before we can go home. Just—enjoy the dancing, sweetling.”

She nodded, giving him a small smile before crossing over to where Adrian stood and subtly taking his hand. She longed to wrap her arms around his waist, press her ear to his chest, right about his heart, to close her eyes and pretend she was somewhere else—anywhere else—but she couldn’t.

Adrian caught her eye and traced his thumb over her knuckles, whisper soft.

“Where did you go?” she asked, voice hardly more than a breath.

“There’s a shortcut out of the palace, through the hedge maze,” he said, just as quietly. “In case, I suppose.”

Elyra made a face. Adrian gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

“It’s just being prepared,” he said, and she nodded, even if she wasn’t sure she believed him. She knew Valion was hiding things from her on purpose, knew everything was worse than she knew.

Adrian looked away as music started up from the far side of the ballroom, something otherworldly and intoxicating about it. She watched Valion stomp up to them, press three of his fingers to Adrian’s forehead before making a series of complicated hand gestures in the air with the other. His eyes flicked to hers after he finished and he sighed.

“He can’t be charmed by the dance anymore, at least tonight. You’ll be able to come and go at you please,” he said, not looking at Adrian. Elyra gave him a small smile.

“Thank you,” she said, and he just made a face and walked off again.

He seemed about ready to snap.

“I suppose we should test out the dance floor, then,” Adrian said, drawing her attention back from the worry that was threatening to drown her. She nodded, her smile not entirely forced, though it grew more and more natural the further he pulled her away from the royal balcony.

 

---

 

“I don’t understand why you let her bring the deadling boy,” his mother said, wrinkling her nose as she watched Elyra and Adrian dance below, the pair of them so helplessly besotted. Valion wasn’t sure either were even aware of the others around them, never mind the looks and whispers they elicited.

“She wanted to bring him,” he said, taking a deep draft from his wine glass. He wouldn’t get drunk—no where near— but he couldn’t deal with his mother’s sniping on top of everything else without at least half a bottle sloshing about in his stomach.

“It doesn’t matter if she wanted to—it was foolish. It’ll only lead to talk—”

“I don’t care if they talk, Mother.”

“You should! You have to think about these things. It will effect her when it comes time to begin looking for a serious match.”

“She’s a fucking princess, no one will give a shit if she dated a dhampir as a child. In fact, none of them will give a shit about anything other than the fact that she’s second in line to the throne, because they’re all centuries older than her and will only see her as a prize to manipulate for their own gain.”

“Valion—!”

“There’s not a single bastard in this whole room that would care for her beyond her utility. They would have all watched her die just as happily as they watched Vranos, because Blackthorne blood is all the same to them.”

“We all know how you feel about your duty,” his mother sneered at him, glaring, though she’d gone pale at the mention of his brother. She’d never grown any less furious by his refusal to marry, had hardly forgiven him even since she’d learned of Elyra.

Of course she thought her merely a product of his ‘whoring’. As happy as she was to finally have a grandchild, she still was furious at him for ‘doing it wrong.’

If she hadn’t known Elyra’s mother was dead, he was sure she’d have forced him to the alter, at least until she discovered who, exactly, Elyra’s mother was.

“Leave her alone. She wanted to bring him to the ball, she was excited. Don’t ruin this for her.”

“I’m not ruining anything, Valion, I’m thinking of her future, of our future, because someone has to!” she snapped back.

“She’s not a piece for your political games, Mother. And she doesn’t need a single one of them—she’s a Blackthorne, and she’s my daughter. They can offer nothing more than what we have already.”

“And what does the deadling offer, Valion? They are not even of the same Realm, there is nothing to be gained by cowing to girlish fancy. You need to teach her responsibility, and if you’re incapable, which I am nearly positive you are, then you need to finally swallow your pride and move back to the palace to see that she gets a proper education.”

“He cares for her. He cares for the same as when he thought her nothing more than a sickly changeling girl. He came to Faery to rescue her from Vranos and stood as her champion in that farce of a trial to protect her. Not because he’d gain anything, like the list Father had of volunteers. And she’s happy. He makes her happy, even after everything that Vranos put her through, even after he harmed her in every way he could manage. So leave her alone, and let her enjoy what childish innocence your son didn’t manage to obliterate. If you so much as try to force an introduction to one of these cruel old pricks, I will gut him before you can get through his titles,” he said, glaring at his mother with more loathing than usual as he flicked one of the hidden blades in his sleeve into his hand, gesturing with it for emphasis.

She glowered at him, jaw tight. She looked as though she was caught between wanting to throttle him and be sick all over the obsidian of the floor. She still refused to talk about Vranos, even acknowledge he’d ever existed, though his mere mention was enough to bring tears to her eyes and drain her face of blood.

He didn’t care though—who was she to tell him how to parent his child? She’d raised two monsters. The only reason Valion thought he wasn’t a complete psychopath like his brother was because he’d spent his life ignoring her and her rules, and because he’d had Orlaith, and she’d shown him a sliver of normalcy to strive to.

He wasn’t a good father by any means, but he was trying to be better, and he’d never be like his parents, never look at his daughter, his baby girl, and see an heir to be put through her paces, to be molded to fit in with the vileness of Court.

And if the damn boy was, somehow, his daughter’s heartmate, he’d make sure she never suffered as he had, fuck the Court and his parents. Fuck them anyway—he wouldn’t let them damage her as they felt they had the right to, wouldn’t have her suffer it, not even a fraction of what he’d been put through.

He was done with it all.

Hell—he’d have Róisín and Colm hide her away in the Light Court if he had to, knew that no matter how much they would loathe him and blame him for Orlaith’s death, they would make sure not a thing hurt their grandchild, Orlaith’s daughter. Róisín wouldn’t even allow her aunt to touch her, not while she breathed.

And they couldn’t keep her from him, not if she wanted to see him, not with those clever, infuriating, terrifying gates of hers.

They’d be good to her, he knew. They loved their daughter, had doted on her every chance they got. Orlaith had so often found it stifling, but Valion had always secretly found himself a little jealous.

He was never quite sure if his parents loved him, or their heir.

He loved his daughter. He loved her more than anything in all the Realms, his daughter, not his heir.

He strode to the opposite end of the balcony, as far away from his mother as he could get, and leaned on the railing, watching his daughter dance. He could tell she’d practiced, though she still stumbled over her feet a time or two—she took after him, then, the poor dear. He’d been nearly forty before Orlaith had finally declared his dancing ‘passable’.

He smiled to himself, just barely, as he watched her laugh, her whole face light up, watched her beam at the boy, at Adrian, watched as they spun and he could see the hopelessly besotted expression on his face.

He remembered that face, remembered that feeling, looking at Orlaith on that same ballroom floor. It made his chest ache, threatened to steal his breath as he stood there alone, with only the hollowness of her absence, the shards that remained of his heart.

They spun again and he saw her smiling, saw her chattering on about something, eyes bright, the boy hanging on her every word. The raw void in his chest ached no less, but Elyra somehow softened the sharp edges, made it almost bearable, even as he mourned the fact that Orlaith would never tease her for her clumsy dancing, or look at him and start going on about what she wanted to design for her next ball, vision already in place, mourned the fact that they wouldn’t all return back to the Gloomveil house and pile into the kitchen without bothering to change to eat ice cream and drink elderflower wine until all the awful bits of the night were forgotten and buried under laughter.

It wasn’t fair, all that she’d missed, wasn’t fair that she’d wanted her so bad, loved her so much from the moment she knew she was pregnant and she’d barely gotten to hold her. It wasn’t fair that he’d only understood what she’d been saying the whole pregnancy when he held his crying daughter for the first time, when he perched on the side of the bed and nestled her in Orlaith’s arms, when it hurt, physically, to let go.

He took a deep breath, throat unbearably tight as he watched their daughter dance, pretended, for a few moments, that Orlaith was watching next to him, that he’d see her if he only turned his head. He imagined her laughing—laughing at him—as they watched, making jokes about Elyra growing up, about him not being the only man in her life any longer.

She’d have liked the boy, if only to irritate him. She’d have liked him more, though, because Elyra did, because of the way he looked at her. She’d have been insufferable after he’d asked for cooking lessons, dragging him out to look at hope chests just to send his blood pressure through the roof.

He’d have done anything for her to be here, laughing at him as she tried very hard to nearly kill him.

He finished his wine, blinking hard to force back the tears threatening to gather along his lashes. He only had to endure a few more hours, then he’d raid the palace kitchen for ice cream like he always did, even after he lost Orlaith, and he’d drag the kids back home to pile into the kitchen and help him eat it.

It’d be the first time since Orlaith died that he wouldn’t return alone to an empty, silent house.

Chapter 49: Under the Moon Returned

Alucard couldn’t keep his eyes off Rosalind. Even if the rest of the night was a misery, the little moments he got alone with her were worth it. As if he wouldn’t have come to simply make sure she wasn’t left alone with her awful family and a Court full of malicious faeries.

Dancing like this though, he enjoyed. It didn’t matter that Rossalind was still a bit of a clumsy dancer, only that the smile on her face was the first real one he’d seen of the night, that the furrow between her brows had softened, finally, if only a little. He knew she was still scared, still uncertain what any of the madness really meant, but together they could pretend for a few minutes that it was just the two of them, that it was the same as their 'dancing lessons' in the castle's ballroom.

He wished it was a normal sort of ball, wished he’d been able to properly escort her, that he wasn’t half looking for someone to try and hurt her the entire time they were in the Penumbral City. He wished it was the sort of ball Rosalind’s human father had made her go to, with ordinary people and perhaps a half-decent quartet. He doubted anyone there dressed up beyond their nicest usual clothes and perhaps a new hair-ribbon, or something small, not the sort of opulence of the Unseelie Court. They’d have to worry about what people would say when they danced consecutive dances without being betrothed, not whether they’d be stabbed or someone would try to drag Rosalind away to Seelie.

Of course, one of those had a very easy solution.

Not that it was time, or they were ready, or Valion wouldn’t try to kill him if he asked her.

He wasn’t sure he could imagine spending sprawling eternity with anyone else, though.

But it was enough, now, that she was smiling, that he could make her laugh with petty jokes about the faery couples they passed, comparing them to characters from the novels they’d read together that he was sure none of them had read. 

Anything mortal was beneath them, after all.

It didn’t really bother him, how the faeries of her grandfather’s Court treated him. He was used to being looked at as lesser, or something unnatural and wrong—vampires weren’t overly fond of dhampirs, found them weak, despised their humanity. His father had never allowed anyone to say a thing to him, but he’d still heard it whispered, on the rare occasions his father met with his generals and took him along.

He was surprised to learn that Valion treated him more decently than any of the other faeries, and he knew her dad didn’t like him. He didn’t treat him badly because he was a dhampir or from the Mortal Realm, just because he didn’t like him being with his daughter, which Alucard could almost respect. That, and he wasn’t sure Valion liked anyone except Rosalind.

He’d yet to find the man treat anyone with anything other than begrudging, cold tolerance.

“Dad wants us to stay over tonight,” she said quietly, drawing him from his thoughts. “I know we’d planned on going home.”

“I assumed, he did say he’d talk to you after.”

“Are you sure that’s alright?”

“Of course. Don’t worry, dove,” he said, giving her hand a little squeeze. He was rewarded with one of her smiles, sweet and almost vulnerable, like she hadn’t expected him to agree.

As if he’d deny her anything.

He might not be Valion’s biggest fan, but he was Rosalind’s father and the only parent she had left. He could tell he was trying to be better at it, trying to be tolerant and patient and come to terms with the fact that the baby he’d given away was a young woman, and he couldn’t just force her to stay in that house and call him Father and pretend they were an ordinary sort of family.

And Rosalind wanted a relationship with him. It was perfectly natural for her to, even if it was complicated.

Even if Valion was an asshole.

Maybe he could be a good father, one day. Alucard wasn’t exactly holding his breath, more just waiting for him to screw up again. He only worried how it would hurt Rosalind, this time.

Of course, he could be worse. At least he hadn’t taken after his parents. Valion seemed almost normal compared to them.

Not that that was any comfort.

Alucard hardly noticed the song had ended, had meant to simply keep dancing with Rosalind—after all, what else were they to do? The balcony with her family and important dignitaries was a nightmare and they weren’t allowed to leave yet or Valion would be dragging them bodily out the door.

Though Alucard might have thanked him.

He did notice, however, the sound of a throat being pointedly cleared next to him. He turned, spotting a foppish male faery, dressed garishly in a black and silver brocade suit that was embroidered with an obscene amount of black gems. He had a pointed, sneering face and pale blue hair very deliberately coifed into perfect, nearly-unmoving curls.

“Your Highness,” he said, ignoring Alucard completely to stare at Rosalind, gaze almost hungry as he bowed. “I’d ask that you honor me with your next dance.”

Rosalind stared at him for a moment, eyes slightly wide. Alucard was about to tell him to get lost when she answered, far too kindly for any lout of the Unseelie Court.

“Um, I suppose,” she said, though it sounded a bit more like a question than a statement of agreement. “I—I’ll meet you upstairs after?” she asked him.

Alucard nodded. He didn’t want to leave her with some faery stranger, by any means, but it was just a dance and it wasn’t unexpected that someone else asked to dance with her.

Even if she wasn't Princess of Unseelie, she'd still be the most beautiful woman in the room.

He stared at her another moment, until she gave him a reassuring smile and he nodded again, though he stooped and pressed a kiss to her cheek before he agreed, giving the man a withering stare before he turned to retreat to the balcony. Rosalind smiled after him until the man pulled her attention back to himself.

Alucard walked back to the royal balcony, the guards at the base parting easily for him, though neither looked him in the eye. Valion glared at him the moment he reached the top of the stairs, though he moved over slightly to make room for him next to him as he leaned on the railing.

“She’s too damn polite,” he growled under his breath. 

His mood was only seeming to grow more foul as the night dragged on, especially when Rosalind was out of earshot. Alucard just nodded, watching the stiff way she danced, the blank expression on her face that the rest of her family favored when amongst the Court.

Valion didn’t say anything else to him, but he didn’t shoo him away, either. Alucard almost wondered if he wanted company, even if he so clearly did not want to talk.

He thought he might be wretchedly lonely.

He wouldn't be surprised. The only people he'd ever heard him speak fondly of was Rosalind and her mother. Alucard wondered if there was a single other person he was fond of, or even friendly with. 

He leaned against the railing, watching Rosalind stumble over her feet, brow furrowed as she went right back to overthinking her every step. He thought he heard Valion just barely snort a laugh when she trod on the man’s foot particularly badly and he winced, but it was so quiet he couldn’t be sure.

 

---

 

She couldn’t wait for the song to be over.

She tried to concentrate on the steps of the dance, tried to just muddle her was through it like she would have at one of the public balls her father forced her to attend in Vienna.

They hadn’t been so bad, though. Most of the boys that had asked her to dance had been nice enough, if boring and horribly traditional. Between her dancing and all the weird things she spoke about, she rarely got asked for a second dance, which was perfectly fine with her. She’d have much rather been at home, curled up with a good book or working on some of her illumination—she’d liked working on the special editions, liked the ink work.

Still, she’d always gone because it had made her father so happy—he always wanted her to be more social. He wanted her to have friends, she knew, wanted her to relate to people her own age and not just dusty old professors and whoever else they met on their travels.

She’d never found herself very interested, though she tried for his sake. It wasn’t until she’d met Adrian that she’d ever found someone she really wanted to be her friend.

Now she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to go about trying to make others. Certainly two was enough—she had Adrian and Sypha. She doubted there was anyone in Faery she’d like to add to the list.

At least in her father’s Court.

The faerie man—Count Maltrax or whatever it had been—cleared his throat to draw her attention.

“How are you finding Court, Your Highness?” he simpered, though he stared at her with a predator’s eyes.

“It has been fine,” she said, trying to be polite. It had been a nightmare and anyone with half a brain could have guessed that for themselves.

“Will you be staying in the city long? Surely until the end of the celebration, at least.”

“You mean tonight, when the ball ends?” she asked, furrowing her brow. He laughed at her.

“Oh, no—Solstice lasts a ten-day. The revelry hardly even begins until the third day, once all the formal rites are over. That’s when things get interesting,” he said, tone salacious on ‘interesting’ in a way that made her skin crawl. “Though it was quite the little spectacle during the Letting. An omen, some are calling it.”

“Of what?” she asked, brows furrowed, despite herself.

“All sorts of things. No one can seem to agree,” he said, delighted by her anxiety. “Only that none of it happened while your father had you hidden away.”

Her stomach flipped uncomfortably, though Maltrax hardly seemed concerned at all, far more interested in hearing his own voice.

“Are you keeping the halfbreed as some sort of pet? He certainly follows you about like a dog,” he said with a cruel laugh.

“What did you just say?” she asked, voice low and dangerous as she stepped back and planted her feet, halting the miserable dance.

“Oh, no one will fault you for such games now. I suppose you are intent on taking after your father. He certainly enjoyed his share of exotic dalliances,” he said with obvious amusement, reaching to pull her back into the dance.

She stepped in, but it was only so she could throw her hip into the punch like her father had taught her when she was young, aimed at his jaw. He stumbled back, blinking in shock.

She didn’t really notice the lights flicker in her fury, or the chill that overtook the ballroom, as if they’d all been plunged right into deepest winter. She didn’t see Valion push off from his place at the railing and stalk down the stairs to the dance floor, jagged shards of ice springing up as he walked, sharp as any blade. She didn’t really notice, either, that the faeries around her had stopped dancing and backed away, that they’d gone a deathly sort of silent as they stared at the scene.

Instead she heard only the rushing of her blood in her ears, furious and red-hot, felt only her own magic rushing to her in her anger, cracking around her like electricity.

“You’re disgusting,” she snarled. “Don’t ever speak to me again.”

“Your Highness—” he spluttered, anger and embarrassment coloring his cheeks as he glanced around at the crowd.

“Are you particularly stupid? What did I just say?” she snapped and pulled a gate into existence behind him without thought, fury taking over.

She reached out to the other side of it, to Cryptgarden, and called for one of her bramble vines, which shot out like a whip and wrapped around his middle, and yanked him through the gate with a yelp. She pulled the gate shut, only then noticing the audience of gawking faeries. She shot the lot of them a withering look and turned on her heel, only to find Valion stalking towards her, fury radiating off of him in waves, the floor beneath his feet covered in frozen fractals.

It was only then that she realized how they’d all backed away, how they watched her now like she’d seen some of them watch her dad the first time she’d stepped foot in the Council Chamber, in a wary, calculating sort of way. She still didn’t know anything about the faeries at Court.

It felt all the more dangerous, now.

She should probably ask Valion to add it to her lessons.

Valion reached out and wrapped his arm around her shoulders and led her back to the balcony, fury still rippling off him. Only when they’d reached the balcony did the music begin again, did the room once more fill with the sound of hundreds of voices, though there was an edge to them, now.

Valion hardly even seemed to notice, simply led her to a chair at the furthest table, where it was hardest for the crowd below to see her. He stooped in front of her, hands on her shoulders as he searched her for injury, his magic still crackling around him, turning the air electric.

Maybe it should have been off-putting, but she found the feeling of his magic in the air almost comforting.

“Are you alright? What did he do?” he asked, voice even, though she could see the control it took in the tension of his body. He examined her hand, the slight redness from the impact, thumb tracing over her knuckles more to soothe himself.

She looked over Valion's shoulder to Adrian, who hid his anger much better than her dad, but she knew him well enough to see it. She tried to give him a reassuring look, but she thought it just cam out as a different sort of angry. 

“I’m fine,” she said quickly, dropping her gaze to her lap as she tried to tamp down her own fury, though she was hardly successful. “He—he was being disgusting.”

“How—what did he say?” Valion asked, temper flaring even with all his effort. She knew his anger wasn’t directed at her, though.

“He said something vile about Adrian and implied I was taking after you in your youthful whoring,” she said, keeping her voice low as she stared down at the obsidian of the floor, jaw tight. Rage simmered in her gut, hot and acidic.

She’d hated how he’d spoken of Adrian, like some sort of thing, not a person—not a faery. People were horrible to him here, just because he wasn’t a faery, not from one of their stupid noble families—her grandparents had yet to even speak to him.

And then there was how he’d spoken of Valion—she didn’t know what he’d done to foster such a reputation, especially when she knew how he’d loved her mother, could hardly stand to be around other people. Her grandparents too, made nasty comments about it, and Vranos, but for some noble fae bastard she’d never met to so casually insult her, insult her dad to her face—

She didn’t feel badly at all for dumping him in to the tunnels of Cryptgarden. Maybe she should have dumped him in the middle of the Endless Green Sea.

Valion sighed, drawing her attention back to him.

“I’m sorry, Moonbeam,” he said quietly, sincerely, before his parents stalked over and the mask fell back over his features.

That only stroked the embers of her fury. She hated having to pretend with them, hated who Valion was around them, how miserable they made him. She felt hot all over, like she was running a fever. She clenched her teeth, hands curling into fists as she tried to take slow, calming breaths.

“What on earth happened?” her grandfather asked, looking between the two of them, eyes sharp.

“He insulted her date and called her a whore,” Valion said, without looking away from her. She glanced up at her grandparents, expecting them to begin one of their lectures, to tell her off for offending someone important or using her magic, but her grandfather’s expression hadn’t changed.

Her grandmother, though smiled at her. She fought the urge to give her a dirty look.

“Where did you send him?” she asked.

“Somewhere in the Undercrypts. Maybe something will eat him!” she replied, half-meaning it. She certainly wouldn’t find herself too upset if he never came back.

“And you were worried about her holding her own at Court,” her grandmother said to Valion with narrowed eyes. “Though I told you, they would talk. She already has to suffer your reputation, she doesn’t need anything else to contend with."

She knew she meant Adrian, and that only made her angrier, angry enough to want to snap back at her that she was a shallow, mean old woman who cared more for appearances than her family and she didn't give a shit what she thought of Adrian. She'd raised a monster who'd had her kidnapped, molested, and abused, after all, before stepping in to do it himself. 

The scar on her ankle from the iron shackle was still red and furious, hadn't even managed to turn pink yet. 

Valion ignored his mother, giving her shoulders a faint, reassuring squeeze, though the look he gave her was sharp, as if he could read her caustic thoughts. She stared back at him, fury barely abating, especially when his mother had to take the opportunity to insult him like always.

“You don’t have to dance with anyone you don’t wish to,” he said with the same intensity he’d had when they’d gotten home after her grandmother had had her ears pierced. She nodded.

She wasn’t going to dance with a single one of the nasty fucks—she was done. She hadn’t wanted to in the first place after all, had only said yes because it was polite, because it was expected.

No one had ever really said no to a dance back in Vienna, but then again, the worst one might have to suffer there had been a tiresome conversation until the song changed. 

“Now Valion—” his mother began, but he cut her off.

“None of them,” he said, jaw tight. “And I’ll deal with whoever can’t take no for an answer.”

He glared at his mother, then, holding her gaze just long enough for it to be a threat.

 

---

 

“Come on, lets talk a walk,” Alucard said softly as Valion and his mother snapped at one another, the situation only agitating Rosalind more. He’d rarely seen her so angry—not since they’d dealt with her uncle and her father had taken away her magic.

Now it seemed to be building—he remembered what Valion had said about young faeries and their emotions, how they felt everything so much more intensely, which was half the reason they could be so volatile.

It would be very bad if she joined in the argument, which seemed likely considering how her grandmother kept insulting Valion and the faint twitch of Rosalind's eye.

He reached out his hand and she took it, following him without argument—the faeries on the dance floor gave them a wide berth, now, eyeing Rosalind with both wariness and interest.

The interest worried him. He doubted it meant anything good—as much as he hated to admit it, Valion was by far the least horrible faery he’d met in all of Unseelie.

They slipped out of the ballroom and into the garden Valion had showed him, showed him the secret path out, where they could slip away if something went poorly. Now it seemed a good idea to drag her along to the fountain that sat by the hidden exit. It would be well out of the way, hopefully enough for them to have a bit of privacy.

He didn’t say anything until the reached the tiny courtyard and not until he pulled her into a hug. He could feel her trembling slightly, so utterly furious.

“It’s alright, dove,” he said softly.

“It’s not—not even a little. I hate it. Everyone here has been so awful to you and I hate how they talk about Dad! I thought it was a ball, it would be fun, but I just dragged you to another misery. Nothing can just be normal, it all has to be nasty and horrible,” she replied, face scrunched up in anger.

“You didn’t drag me into anything—”

“I did, I should have known better to invite you to something with—with my family,” she said, though it took effort for her to refer to them that way. He didn’t blame her. Her grandparents might treat her nicer than they treated Valion, but it wasn’t a high bar. Both of them were pushy and expected her to fall in line without complaint. She was afraid of them—he wasn’t sure she’d admit it, but he could see it.

She pulled away from him and sat heavily on the lip of the fountain, shoulders slumping, anger dissipating into desolation. He sat next to her, gently taking hold of her hand.

She made a face, lip trembling slightly.

“I had a nice family, Adrian. My parents—they would have adored you. My mother would have cooked one of her ridiculous, wonderful dinners where you’d swear she’d been planning on feeding to dozen people and my father would have sent you home with a stack of books he’d expect you to read so you could talk about them with him next time you came over. They never would have—they didn’t fight like this, they weren’t mean. I miss them,” she said, voice hardly a whisper by the end.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. She hugged him back, pressing her face to the crook of his neck.

“I’d have liked to meet them,” he said. They had to have been particularly special people to have raised Rosalind. They’d been good people—it was easy to see that through the daughter they’d raised.

“I just want to go home,” she said, voice slightly muffled against his skin.

“I’ll bet it’s not too much longer.”

She mumbled something about it still being ‘too goddamn long’ and he couldn’t help but smile. Sometimes he couldn’t help but find her irritation endearing.

Rosalind pulled back enough to search his face, brow furrowed. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, enjoying the way it made her blush, made her face soften, just a little.

“You should be mad,” she said, pressing her lips together in a tight line. Alucard laughed.

“Should I?” he asked, only smiling wider at the dirty look she gave him.

“Yes, you should! I dragged you to a terrible ball full of terrible people who either ignore you completely or say foul things to you just because you’re not faery. You should be so mad!”

“I don’t care about any of them,” he said simply. He didn’t beyond how they could hurt Rosalind. “I had a fun time dancing with you. You’re getting better.”

He had to try very hard not to laugh at the expression on her face, somewhere between that soft, lovesick expression he loved, and curled irritation.

“I’m still terrible!”

“Not terrible. Bad, maybe. Perhaps even fine, but fine as in mediocre,” he said in mock seriousness. Rosalind huffed a laugh despite herself.

She sighed and leaned into his side. They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, just looking up at the sky, at the handful of twinkling stars that almost seemed to wink into existence right before his eyes.

“I don’t know why everyone seemed so upset the moon returned,” Rosalind said finally, absently trailing her fingers through the water of the fountain. “I’d say it’s an improvement over nothing but darkness. Nothing in Faery makes any sense at all.”

“It will, one day,” he said, hoping to reassure her. He didn’t disagree with her assessment, only wished she didn’t feel so out of place.

“I’m sorry, about tonight. I’ll make it up to you,” she said, letting her head drop to his shoulder. He sighed, tightening his hold around her.

“I told you, you have nothing to be sorry for. I’m enjoying the time I get to spend with you,” he said, and he hardly had to glance at her face to know she didn’t quite believe him. He just pressed a kiss to her temple, enjoying the feeling of her in his arms, of being away from Court and her family.

He couldn’t help but think she deserved better.

He froze, though, when he heard rustling in the maze behind them, the sort where someone was clearly trying to be quiet. Rosalind turned to look at him, eyes slightly wide as she clocked the noise and the look on his face. He stood silently, offering his hand automatically to help her up, even as his eyes searched for the source of the noise. It had to be more than one person, more than one person that had followed them into the maze.

His sword instinctually rose from its scabbard, waiting on his command to strike out. He glanced at Rosalind, silently ushering her to stand behind him, though he could feel the air around them thicken, electrify in the way he knew meant she was gathering magic around her, making sure she had all she'd need.

A pair of faeries stumbled into the little courtyard, clothes half-pulled off and utterly unaware of anyone but the other. They seemed to be in competition to see who could unclothe the other first, though considering the way the taller of the two had their hand shoved down the other’s trousers, it didn’t seem to be a necessity.

Rosalind let out a single bark of laughter before clapping her hand over her mouth, cheeks bright red. The faeries broke apart, eyes going wide at they spotted her, the full extent of their disrobing on full display. Alucard grabbed her hand and tugged her away, back down another path. Once they were were far enough away they caught each other’s eyes and burst out laughing.

“Stars above,” she said, covering her face with her hands. He couldn’t help but laugh, half because of the faeries they’d seen practically having sex in the middle of the hedge maze and half because of Rosalind’s hysterical giggling.

 

---

 

A lone figure leaned against the wall, only a few paces from the door to the hedge maze, idly swirling a glass of champagne. Their skin was faintly blue, hair black and straight and bluntly cut. They wore a fine midnight silk suit, the cut emphasizing their almost unnatural thinness. Their edges seemed slightly blurred, so subtly that you could hardly tell, not unless you were looking, unless you knew what to look for.

They watched the princess and her dhampir return with sharp, violet eyes— eyes that narrowed at the sight of their flushed faces and poorly hidden giddy smiles.

She was nothing more than a child.

A foolish child with far more power than she’d ever know what to do with, power enough to tear the Realm apart—The Gloaming had returned, since her arrival, and the stars, going so far as to seep over into the Dawnlands, and now the Moon. She had impossible magic, could step from place to place without effort or any of the usual rules applying, had resurrected a tree long extinct, grown it without sense of consequence.

Oh course how could she have, when she knew nothing of Unseelie, nothing of Faerie. 

There would be such a short window, before she figured out how to truly control it all, before she would become unyieldingly dangerous, before she couldn’t be challenged.

Wretchedly short.

Of course her father complicated things—he was far from one to be underestimated, and he was violently protective of her—but he wasn’t around her always. No doubt she’d return sometime to the Mortal Realm, to the land of her paramour, to where she was raised. No doubt she thought it comfortable—safe.

Nowhere would ever be safe for a Blackthorne.

They watched the dhampir pull her back onto the dance floor, watched the little princess’s clumsy footwork. She hadn’t trained as she should have as a child, had none of the grace of a warrior, or indeed a noble girl of any standing.

No, she was still a changeling, still practically human in her own mind, still incapable of defending herself with anything but her magic.

Powerful magic, even now, though her ignorance meant she relied on instinct, rather than anything else.

And human instincts rarely served anyone well in Faerie.

 

---

 

Valion stood on the far side of the balcony, staring out over the courtiers below, though really he was watching Elyra from the corner of his eye. He hadn’t seen her slip out into the hedge maze, had been ready to set out to search for her when she’d returned with Adrian in a markedly better mood. They’d both been red-faced and trying to hide their giggles as they glanced back towards the maze.

He could only guess the sort of debauchery they’d accidentally come across in the maze.

He shook his head, mind flitting back to earlier, when she’d punched the damn Count and deposited him in the Undercrypts.

What she’d done to Maltrax—however deserved—was out of character for her. Or, at least, it had been, before she’d gotten dragged into Unseelie’s rot.

He hated it, as much as he was glad she could defend herself, proud that she wouldn’t allow piddling lords to speak to her with such disrespect. It was merciful, compared to what he’d have done to the wretch for upsetting his daughter, for insulting her.

What he would do, if he dared show his face at Court again.

He didn’t care that the Court thought him an incorrigible rake—he’d cultivated that reputation himself, had hardly had to try to keep it up after the first fifty years or so. It kept anyone from suspecting his relationship with Orlaith, kept away some of the smarter noble women who knew better than to marry a debauchee, even if he was a prince.

He did care that someone had implied she was some sort of whore, no doubt because she’d brought the dhampir. He could guess the sort of vile things the Count had said about him—most faeries held themselves far superior to those born of other realms, especially mortals and those of mixed lineage, particularly in the Undercourt.

There was a reason you never saw any half-faeries about, even though at least half the Court had produced one or two over the millenia. They were lesser things, fleeting and mortal, in the eyes of the fae—what was a few hundred years, after all, in the face of eternity?

He couldn’t fathom the neglect most of the poor things faced, discarded by their immortal parent to save them the mourning that would come when they passed. Had he known he’d only have Elyra for a handful of centuries, he’d have been hard pressed to be made to do anything other than spend the time he had with her, make the most of every bit of it.

He watched Elyra as she stood at the opposite end of the balcony, speaking softly with Adrian. Valion made a face, though, when Colm strode over to the pair, once more inserting himself into conversation with Elyra.

Unfortunately, Valion knew Colm wasn’t stupid, and he knew he’d seen Elyra’s eyes—her real eyes—before the glamour, knew he’d been so, so stupid in his grief and misery not to think to glamour them before they left. Valion wished he could know what was going on in his head, what exactly he suspected, what he thought.

He didn’t want it to give him more hope, where there was nothing but grief, didn’t want him to somehow take it as a sign Orlaith was still alive, just hidden away.

He didn’t deserve that sort of pain.

Valion also couldn’t afford him to go digging, or asking questions when it would put Elyra in danger. The Seelie Court could do whatever it wanted to him—or try—but he wouldn’t allow then to harm his daughter, or try and take her.

Not that it would go particularly well for them.

He pushed off the balcony railing and crossed to the other side of the platform, butting into whatever Colm and Elyra had been discussing after letting it go on for admittedly too long.

He was getting soft. 

“Your Highness,” Colm said politely with an incline of his head. “We were just discussing the princess’s lessons.”

“Lord Colm was recommending a few history books,” Elyra said, smile slightly strained as she looked at him. He was sure meeting her grandparents—her other grandparents—had brought up a whole host of uncomfortable feelings. He’d have to figure out how to talk through them with her—he’d always just drank, himself, but he wasn’t going to leave Elyra to fall into his bad habits.

“You know how I do love history and Her Highness recommended some very interesting mortal compendiums I’ll have to track down. She brought up a very intriguing line of inquiry I find myself itching, now, to pursue,” Colm said brightly. He always had loved history—it hardly mattered what kind. Valion knew he lectured at the Academy of the Dawn, though he preferred his research in its archives.

He also knew Colm was clever enough to get the answers he wanted in a round about way, and Elyra wasn’t familiar with Faery’s double-speak, not yet.

“I only asked if he knew if any faeries ever had ever effected mortal politics or anything. There’s so many stories about faeries we hear growing up, some must be based in true events,” she said, flushing slightly in embarrassment.

“I think it’s worth looking into,” Adrian said, eyes bright. “There is certainly those who are more aware of faeries than others in the Mortal Realm, but there is strangely little real information. Some of that, I’m sure is due to who’d been collecting it though.”

He and Elyra shared a look at that, shaking their heads. No doubt they were thinking of whatever the Belmont’s had in their collection.

“Isn’t that always the case?” Colm asked, beaming at the boy. “You’ve clearly got a mind for research!”

“We do enjoy it,” Adrian said, smiling with a disgusting amount of sweetness at Elyra. “I’ve never met anyone else who loved books as much as she does. She’s a wonder at repairing them, too.”

“You’re a craftswoman as well, how delightful!” Colm said, smiling wider, even if his eyes looked a little misty.

Elyra’s eyes.

“Oh, well, my fa—my mortal father taught me. He was a book maker, he worked mostly in reproducing rare volumes, but he lectured too, at the University. He always took me with him so I could learn too.”

“How wonderful!” Colm said, and Valion knew he meant it. “You know, I’m known to lecture on occasion at the Academy in Ghrian, I could show you all around. You would just love the Archive—the both of you.”

He turned to smile at Adrian too.

“We will have to see,” Valion said stiffly, fear spiking in his chest at the very thought of Elyra stepping anywhere near the Seelie capital.

“Oh, well of course I’d expect you to accompany them,” Colm said quickly. “You’ve always been a ravenous scholar yourself.”

Valion hated the compliment, hated that Colm knew him as more than just the wretched Unseelie prince, that he no doubt remembered him younger than Elyra was now, being told off for sneaking books in to read under the table.

“Yes, well, such visits are at my father’s whim,” he said, forcing a smile.

“I know, I know. You know how I get ahead of myself,” he said, nodding, and Valion did, remembered countless times Colm had sat rambling at the dinner table, Orlaith utterly bored and mortified by her father’s chatter, though he’d always enjoyed it, however meandering it got.

Valion’s chest hurt.

“Ah, Lord Colm, I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” his father said as he bustled over, subtle as an ox in a china shop. The tension radiating off of him was nearly visible as his eyes flicked to Elyra and then back to Colm.

Colm took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes, of course, Your Majesty.”

Valion ignored the dirty look his father gave him, no doubt for not shooing him away from Elyra the moment he say him talking to her. He’d learned more by letting it continue—

Whatever he suspected, he’d held no ill will towards Elyra—in fact he’d seemed utterly delighted to speak with her. It was something, though it hardly made him feel any better.

He couldn’t help but imagine what it would have been like if Elyra had grown up as she should have, if Orlaith had raised her in the Light Court while they lived as a family in private as much as they were able.

She’d have had doting grandparents, no doubt grown up attending just as many lectures as she had in the Mortal Realm if Colm had had any say in it, would have learned the art of diplomacy at Róisín’s knee. He couldn’t imagine her ever being frightened of them. He could much more readily picture them fussing over her like the had over Orlaith, something that had annoyed her to no end.

He was glad Elyra didn’t know the extent of what she’d lost with her mother, how very different her life would have been.

She might even have loved Faery. Might have loved him, not just been as fond as she was able, after he’d failed her so fundamentally.

He bit his cheek, hard. He did enough living in the past.

He turned to search her face, looking for the same earlier signs of discomfort—there were some, but it was mostly guilt she was too young and innocent to know how to properly hide, and too sweet and naive to fully understand it wasn’t hers to shoulder.

“He’s nice,” she said quietly, almost like she wished he wasn’t. He sighed.

“He is,” he replied, understanding the sentiment exactly.

 

---

 

Valion dumped the basket of stolen food on the counter, waving a hand to send a dozen moonmotes to fill the sconces and light the kitchen. Elyra crowded in next to him, kneeling on the stool to get a better look at the cartons in the basket.

She’d been all too ready to leave, had hardly even offered a goodbye to his parents, not that he cared. She could have told them both to choke on rancid donkey cock and he'd have just told them to make sure to gargle the balls. The least they deserved was a snub, after everything. 

Part of him—the stupid, impulsive, petty part—wished she had. They treated her less like their grandchild and more like a prized dog they expected to heel and listen to their every command. Perhaps they'd back off if they felt the sharpness of her teeth directed at them—they couldn't care less what he said, or told them. 

He felt like he could breathe again, now that they were back home, now that Elyra was back to acting herself and not trying to play the princess Unseelie wanted her to be. He much preferred it, hated the way the Court was already warping her.

But that was a worry for another night, or at least after they'd gorged themselves on ice cream. It'd long melt if he got thinking about it now. 

He focused on his daughter's innocent curiosity, on her excitement, however silly, at such a pedestrian nightcap. It was easy for the weight of the world to bow his shoulders after six millennia, for his jadedness to taint even the smallest, simplest things. Watching her, though, reminded him of the wonder he'd long lost, the joy in simplicity.

It nearly made him feel a bit better. 

“Calm down, Moonbeam,” he said, making a face. “There’s plenty. No need to bite any fingers.”

“I want to see it,” she said, grabbing one of te cartons and pulling off the lid, examining it with interest.

“It’s just ice cream,” he said, raising his brows. “That one’s pistachio, I got chocolate and sweet cream and there was sweetberry, this time.”

“I’ve never seen ice cream before. Or heard of it,” she said, grinning at him as he crossed to the cabinets for bowls and spoons. “Have you, Adrian?”

He shook his head. Valion nodded, almost to himself. He supposed it would be hard to make without magic. Hardly any mortals even had proper refrigeration.

“Ah well, perhaps it will make up for the foul night then,” he said, wondering what else he hadn’t even considered his daughter had grown up without. “You can help yourselves, there’s more sweets in the basket.”

He got up to go get a bottle of wine, a horrible, tangled up feeling in his chest. The night could have hardly been less of a disaster, even if the worst thing that had happened at the ball was that vile little Count insulting his daughter. Just because no one had made any moves right away didn’t mean that they wouldn’t, only that they’d be more clever about it. Elyra had always been a target but now—

People would start suspecting she wasn’t an ordinary faery child. There were too many oddities, too many things that tied her back to Ysolde, to the Gloaming, to the babe of two Courts she’d drowned the Realm in blood for.

He didn’t know what to do. He hardly knew how to be an ordinary father, was still mostly hopeless at it, and that was without all of Faery conspiring to rip them apart. He took a deep, steadying breath before he left the wine cellar, intent not to let Elyra see his anxiety. He didn’t want to ruin her excitement, didn’t want to place more worries on her shoulders—he’d figure it out, tell her only what she needed to know, when she needed to know.

She deserved to remain innocent a little longer. As long as he could manage.

He returned to the kitchen to find her and Adrian sat at the counter, both with a bit of all the flavors scooped into their bowls, chattering on about which ones were their favorites. She’d let her hair down, curls wild. Valion sat at the counter across from them, watching their childish delight with a sort of bittersweet fondness.

Elyra laughed as she dug through the basket and found the frankly enormous bowl of knotberries he’d stolen and beamed at him before taking a heaping handful and dumping them into her bowl with the ice cream.

He found himself smiling back, if faintly, as he poured himself a glass of wine, poured a second for his daughter.

She made a face as she handed it to her, and she placed it on the counter before turning without explanation and pulled open one of those impossible gates of hers.

“Lyra, baby—” he called after her, fear constricting his voice as he watched her dart through, though she returned only a second later, carrying a bottle of wine as she pulled the gate shut. She handed it to Adrian, looking very pleased with herself.

“Since you can’t have faery wine.”

Adrian huffed a laugh before thanking her and setting it on the counter. Valion helped himself to his own bowl, trying very hard not to think of the last time he’d had someone to share his post-Solstice sugar coma.

He wished more than anything that Orlaith was here with them. Even with their daughter here, with the company and the laughter, her absence was still a ragged wound tonight.

“What books did Colm recommend?” he asked, pretending it was of passing interest. “I might have them already.”

“Oh, he said I should read Before Darkness by Theonin Raloris,” she said brightly, with the same excitement she always had when talking about books.

“He also said I might enjoy The Never-Queen by Vanya Sygella and there was one on, what was it?” she asked, turning to Adrian with a furrowed brow.

“The something Eventide I think it was,” he said before digging back into his ice cream. Valion just nodded, though his stomach sunk.

He knew the book they spoke of—The Death of Eventide. It was a comprehensive account of the Black Cull and the war that followed, that ended in nothing but slaughter. Like the other books, it focused on Ysolde and her almost-Court, on the curses she’d brought upon Unseelie in retribution for her family’s murders, for the killing of her subjects.

It had been Ysolde that had banished the moon, banished the stars, banished all light from Unseelie and banished Night from Seelie, arresting them both into their perpetual essences, cursed to never change, languish in their never-ending Night and Day.

Which meant that Colm knew, maybe not for certain, but was sure enough Elyra was Orlaith’s. Which, in turn, meant he knew Orlaith was dead. No one who’d ever known her would have believed she’d send her child to the Mortal Realm, that she’d let anyone.

That was—that was bad. Colm was usually level-headed, but Orlaith had gotten her temper from her mother. All she would have to do was go to her mother or her aunt and tell them and it would all fall apart. There’d be war, again, unlike any that the Realm had seen since the Cull, and he wasn’t sure there would be a place safe for his daughter.

But—maybe he could reason with Colm, explain it. He was wretchedly decent, and he’d very clearly been taken with Elyra. Of course he had—she was clever and good and kind. She was so unlike the Unseelie he was forced to make conversation with, year after year—not a single one of them was ever genuine, not completely, but Elyra hadn’t learned the Court’s language of lies yet.

He’d want to see her, want to know her, even if he wanted to kill Valion for what had happened to his daughter, to Orlaith. Maybe—maybe they could come to some sort of agreement, some sort of compromise.

Colm was well aware of what had happened to Ysolde’s child last time, after all. He doubted he’d want to put Orlaith’s daughter at risk, never mind throw the Realm into another war like that after the Cull.

He was broken from his thoughts by Elyra’s laugher, her nose crinkled as she argued with Adrian about some book they’d just read. He couldn’t help the small smile that curved his lips as he watched them debate between mouthfuls of ice cream, think of how similar the scene was to so many Solstices he’d ended in this kitchen, especially when they'd been young. Though he and Orlaith usually had argued over who the worst attendee had been that year, or traded gossip from the time they’d had to spend apart.

He took another sip of his wine, leaning back in his chair. Tomorrow he’d figure out what needed to be done, worry about what Orlaith’s parents would do, re-ward the house and the forest to make sure no one could reach her here, at least not without enough effort that he’d know, right away.

Now, though, he watched his daughter laugh as she sat in their little kitchen in her ballgown, hairpins pulled out and haphazardly piled on the counter next the the tiara his parents had had made for her. He just listened to her play argument, watched her delight in being clever and pedantic and silly with the boy, who was bright enough to keep up with her.

He could pretend, for a night, that it all wasn’t so complicated, that everything didn’t lay at a razor’s edge. Tonight it was enough they were together, that she was safe, that she was happy.

 

---

 

Colm sat on the edge of the bed in his and Róisín’s guest chamber, his head in his hands.

She’d had Orlaith’s eyes, Valion’s little daughter. He knew he hadn’t been seeing things before the Letting, knew they’d been glamoured after the whole spectacle of the Rite.

The moon. It hadn’t returned until Veylon had sliced her palm, until her blood had been given. What had been the wording of Ysolde Blackthorne’s curse? That no light would touch Unseelie until hers returned? He’d have to look it up when he returned home.

She’d offered so many, after all, it was hard to keep them all straight.

Of course, if she was Ysolde’s daughter reborn, that meant her mother was Seelie.

And she’d had Orlaith’s eyes.

It had been so long since he’d seen them on another. He’d stopped being able to look at himself in the mirror, couldn’t bear the reminder of what they shared, not when she was still missing. But the little princess’s had been the same shock of green, the same shape, crinkled the same way his Orlaith’s had when she smiled.

She was a sweet girl—too sweet for the Undercourt. He’d heard bits and pieces of the story of her arrival, the horror and the cruelty of it, magnified as it always was by the politics of the Unseelie Court.

And worsened by the fact that she as a Blackthorne. They’d always been cruelest against their own.

Orlaith would never have allowed her daughter to suffer such pain, such cruelties and indignities on her own. Valion had been bound by procedure and his father not to intercede, but if Orlaith had had the slightest inkling—

He brushed away a few stray tears, throat tight.

The poor girl had looked as if she wanted to burst into tears the first time he’d spoken to her after the Letting, had been so quick to inform him that her father had done right by her in the Mortal Realm, that her mortal parents had loved her and he’d visited often, that she’d had a far better childhood than she could have in Unseelie—it had seemed so important to her that he know.

She hadn’t wanted him to think poorly of her father.

Could she really be Orlaith’s? She’d always wanted a little girl, from the time she’d still been playing with dolls. Orlaith’s birth had been hard—it had taken two healers to stabilize Róisín after, and it had left her unable to carry another babe. If she’d had some sort of complication and they’d been hiding away somewhere so no one would know—

The poor dear never would have been hidden away in the Mortal Realm if Orlaith had been her mother and she’d lived. Not unless Orlaith had gone too.

He knew what the logical conclusion was. He just hated it.

“Are you alright, my sweet?” Róisín asked as she came out of the bathroom, makeup removed, hair soft and brushed out from her previous updo. She sat next to him on the bed, one hand rubbing circles into his shoulder blades.

“I—I was just thinking about her,” he said, and it wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. He didn’t know for sure that his conclusions were correct, wouldn’t break Róisín’s heart if he wasn’t certain it was the truth.

Even then he wasn’t sure if he could manage it.

“Solstice is always hard,” she said, jaw tight in the way he knew meant she was trying so very hard not to let her emotions overtake her. “She always loved it. Loved any excuse to visit the tailor for a new gown.”

Colm nodded, smiling despite himself. Orlaith loved beautiful things, fine clothes and jewelry, had designed much of her own, and loved any occasion to show them off.

She'd always been so talented.

Róisín pressed a kiss to his temple before climbing into the plush bed. He knew she couldn’t bear to talk about her, not for very long, not without crying, and Róisín hated to cry.

He took another deep breath before he joined her, snuffing out the sun motes in the sconces and leaving the room lit only by brilliant silver moonlight.

Moonlight the realm hadn’t seen in millenia.

He couldn’t help but think of the little princess, the wonder and delight on her face as she’d watched it appear, a stark contrast against the horror of her father and grandfather.

Was he her grandfather too? The poor thing, born of two Courts. She had to be, for Ysolde’s curses to begin unweaving, for there to be creeping stars in the Dawnlands, for the moon to have returned, the Gloaming to have risen.

He’d have to see her again to be sure. He didn’t want to raise suspicion, but he had to know, and if she was Orlaith’s—

He couldn’t not try to have some sort of relationship with her, not if she was his baby girl’s. Valion—for all his snarling, Colm knew he could be reasoned with. He wouldn’t push the girl, Elyra, wouldn’t force her when he was little more than a stranger, but he’d have to try to get to know her.

He turned over the name in his head—it was unique and lyrical, the sort of name he’d have expected Orlaith to choose. She never would have wanted anything traditional, or common.

He had to know—couldn’t just sit and wonder and worry, not any longer, not with an answer so close, even if it was his worst nightmare. Valion owed him that, at least. Had, for a while, if he was right, though he understood why he’d never said anything.

He understood all too well what it was like to love your daughter, to want to protect her from all the ills of the world, from the slightest of dangers. And it was clear enough that Valion loved that girl, really loved her, not the way his parents loved him.

He shut his eyes, hoping that sleep would find him before he drove himself mad turning it all over in his head.

 

---

 

“Fucking bitch,” Maltrax spat as he waded his way through the bramble vines that choked the tunnel, fury plain on his face. “Only a Blackthorne bastard would have the nerve. Hot-tempered whore, just like her father. Clearly the damn half-breed isn’t enough to fuck it out of her. Maybe some decent faery cock will be enough to remind her of her place—to be humiliated by some bastard girl of the whore prince. As if he doesn’t have half a dozen others hidden away, ready to replace her.”

Thorns tugged on the fine silk of his clothes, and he swore, bearing his teeth at the offending vines.

Ysolde narrowed her eyes at the man, not bothering to hide her disgust. He hadn’t noticed her in the shadows, didn’t notice much but the way his suit tore. He spoke so foully of her Amaris, spoke of her like a thing to be defiled and broken like an animal.

She stepped out of the shadows, raising a hand and with it a whole mess of bramble vines, lined with thick, inch-long thorns. She twisted her wrist, watching as the thorns tore into his flesh, ripped through veins, slashed at him until he was hardly recognizable as a faery, looked much more like mere carrion.

No one would treat her Amaris so wretchedly, not again, not while she walked free. She’d killed so many in her name already—she’d kill them all again, if she had to, wouldn’t hesitate or feel an ounce of remorse.

What had she to feel remorse for, anyway?

She stepped over the bloody remnants of the faery’s corpse and continued down the tunnel, up towards the surface. She paused as she reached the once familiar mouth of the cavern, a smile curving her lips.

The Gloaming was far more wild and sprawling than she remembered—even the color seemed more vibrant, and far more blue. There were all sorts of new, unfamiliar plants, moon motes hung in the boughs of the trees, casting everything in their silvery, glimmering glow. It was whimsical, like something out of a story book, something innocent and wonderful in the way she’d made it, called it back from the depths of the choking swamp Ysolde had sunk its last iteration into.

It was so beautiful.

She smiled, a tear slipping down her cheek as she re-memorized the forest that had once been her home, her sanctuary. It was Amaris’s now, just as she’d always wanted it to be, one day.

Amaris, who still saw the world with a sort of storybook wonder, who hadn’t yet been corrupted by their festering line, the shackle that was the Blackthorne name, who had the chance to be something different, something so much more.

Who had a chance to be free of it all, this time.

Ysolde would see that she was.

Notes:

Meant to have this out earlier but it was a bit of a beast and then I got heat sick and my brain was too dumb to write but we're here now!

Also, in case anyone is wondering my account name changing, just really didn't feel great about having a HP inspired name with everything that JK is doing and using her money from HP to do. I've used stillmarauding since I was like 13 and still on fanfiction.net and ao3 didn't exist, but I just think it's time for a change. It's also my handle on tumblr if you're looking for rambling or writing memes or possibly updates on when chapters are coming out or just want to chat!

Chapter 50: What Once Was

Notes:

AN (9/27/25): I've finally come to concede I'm incapable of writing an xreader fic and have gone back and named our heroine. I really wanted to have something floral-y for her name, along with something that would have been used in Austria at the time (even though Castlevania is hardly historically accurate). Rosalind originally comes from Germanic roots, meaning 'gentle horse' but during the Middle Ages shifted in meaning to 'little rose' from the Latin phrase 'rosa linda'. I also really love the literary ties, mainly to Shakespeare's Rosalind from As You Like It.

Alucard smiled to himself as he lightly traced his fingers up and down Rosalind’s spine, absently watching her sleep. Her head rested on his shoulder, her legs tangled with his own, curls wild and shining in the orange tendrils of dawn. He savored the feeling of her bare skin under his fingers—neither one of them had had the wherewithal to bother to find and tug their sleepwear back on by the time they’d finished the night before.

He couldn’t find it in himself to mind, though, even with the perpetual chill of the castle.

Rosalind shifted closer in her sleep, arm tightening around his waist. He craned his neck so he could press his lips to her forehead, his own grip on her tightening in response.

She’d wanted to be that much closer, since Solstice. He knew it had to do with her awful family and the Court, knew she felt misguidedly guilty for how they’d treated him, was trying to make up of it, as if he’d cared in the slightest. He’d meant it, when he said he didn’t care what any of them thought of him—only what she did.

No matter how many time he told her, though, she didn’t believe him.

He was glad he’d went, even if it had been a nightmare—he couldn’t imagine just how much worse it would have been for her if she’d gone alone with only Valion to look after her. Still, he’d take her to a proper ball to make up for it—she’d been so excited to go when she’d thought it to be the normal sort.

She stirred in his arms, blinking blearily up at him as she woke, a smile curving her lips as she saw him.

“Good morning, love,” she said, voice slightly rough from sleep. He smiled back at her fondly.

“It’s always a good morning with you,” he said and she wrinkled her nose at him, though she smiled wider.

“You’re ridiculous,” she replied, propping herself up enough to look at him properly.

“You like it,” he replied, making her roll her eyes. He grinned at her. She reached out, carefully tucking a stray bit of hair behind his ear before she cupped his jaw with an aching tenderness.

“How would you feel about taking a little trip today?” she asked, eyes tracing his features with a sort of reverence that made him blush.

“I daresay we could use a trip into town. We’re nearly out of flour and I could use some more nails for the Hold’s repairs,” he replied seriously, though he was surprised she was the one who had suggested it. She’d been so against going into town with him the last time and even now, she was still hesitant to leave the castle, wouldn’t go into the woods without the sword Valion had sent with her.

“Could—could we perhaps get them in Vienna? I need a few things to finish my repairs and about three gallons of glue at least and—and I daresay I would like to see it again,” she said, voice growing softer as she spoke, almost melancholy.

He smiled at her.

“Of course, darling. Though I will have to insist you give me the whole tour—I’ve been terribly curious to see everything,” he said, and she beamed back at him. He couldn’t help but lean forward and kiss her, his chest impossibly light and warm at the mere joy on her face.

It seemed finally things were settling into a new sort of normal he’d very much like to get used to.

 

---

 

It couldn’t just be one scum-sucking, necromantic death cult trying to bring Dracula back from the dead—noooo, it had to be every two-bit necromancer from Lindenfeld to Targoviste.

Trevor grit his teeth as one of the damn reanimated skeletons got a good swipe at him, tearing into his arm. There were dozens of the damn things swarming them, preventing them from getting close enough to the necromancer to kill him. Not even climbing into one of the craggy trees had dissuaded their assault, and now maneuvering in the branches made avoiding them all the harder.

“Syph, a little help here!” he called as three more swarmed him, far faster than they had any right to be.

“I’m a little busy!” she snapped back and he chanced a glance over to see her fending off a half dozen of her own.

Of course their luck had run out, seemingly the moment they’d left the pale bastard and his goddamn faery princess to their fucked up little monster faerytale.

Maybe she had cursed him, like she’d threatened. She’d certainly been angry enough at him to do so, or ask Daddy Dearest to do it for her. Though, he knew she’d never have done anything that would have put Sypha in danger, no matter how much she disliked him.

Of course that just meant it was his own miserable luck catching up with the pair of them after they’d enjoyed Sypha’s for so long.

He’d rather have been able to blame it one some dumb faery bullshit. At least then he’d have something more concrete to blame it on.

He swore as he felt boney fingers tear through his skin, knocking him off-balance and he fell from the limb he’d been balancing on, hardly managing to tangle his whip on another to prevent him from plummeting to the forest floor forty feet below, though he could have sworn the impact of the fall still tore something in his shoulder.

 

---

 

Alucard wasn’t sure he’d seen Rosalind get ready so quickly before, though she spent longer than usual picking a dress and making sure her braids and the ribbon in her hair sat just right. She hardly sat still from the moment he’d agreed on the trip, though he doubted she noticed it herself.

It was odd, though, to watch her weave the glamour over her features this time, to watch her slip on the face of the woman he’d first met, the woman he’d first fell in love with over that of the woman he so desperately adored.

Though it wasn’t the same as the glamour she’d first worn—it was more subtle, somewhere between it and her real face. Not different enough that anyone who might have known her before wouldn’t recognize her, or think it some drastic change—they’d just brush it off as her growing up, surely, or their memory not being quite as good as they’d thought.

He’d assumed she’d want to first visit her house, though she’d shaken her head when he’d suggested it.

“I—it’s a disaster, I know it is and I—I just don’t want to deal with it today. Don’t want to think about all that. I’d much rather we just get strudel and go to the market and then you can just tell me when I’ve bored you senseless,” she said, and she still smiled, but he could hear the waver in her voice, so slight that had he not known her so well he’d have surely missed it.

Of course it would be rather awful to return after she’d been kidnapped from her home, especially when she didn’t know what remained in her absence—if anything did.

Perhaps next time he had to see Valion he’d see if there was some way he could help him to fix it up for her. Even if he merely made him a circle to the city and told him where it was so he could work on it while Rosalind was in Faery working on her lessons—then she wouldn’t have to think about her attack, or her abduction when they visited, could simply enjoy visiting her childhood home.

He was nearly done winterizing the Hold, anyhow.

She made them a gate to a small, deserted little copse of trees just inside the city limits, but out of sight of any nearby windows. He wondered if she realized just how widely she was smiling as she took the arm he offered.

“Oh!” Rosalind said excitedly, tugging him down the cobbled street. “I have to take you to Ertl’s—they’re the best bakery in the whole city. Maybe in the whole country!”

“Well, then lead on, my dear,” he said, grinning at her, at the little skip in her step she’d picked up since setting out in the city. She seemed lighter for it, happy in a way he’d rarely seen her.

He rather thought he’d have to insist they visit more often. Clearly she’d missed it more than she let on, or perhaps even realized.

It certainly felt like a much needed balm after the last few weeks.

He hardly looked at the city around them, too enthralled with her excitement as she dragged him about the city, breaking off into all sorts of tangents about the city’s history, or a particular style of architecture, or some anecdote from her childhood. He hung on her every word—she’d always been somewhat reserved, but she seemed too excited to show him everything to even realize how much more she was talking than usual.

He couldn’t find a single part of him that wanted to remind her, though.

She showed him her favorite bakery and the university her father had taught at on occasion before leading him to the public gardens she’d liked to walk about when she needed to think about something, or needed somewhere relatively quiet and outdoors to hide away with a book. He had to admit, they were rather pretty, if overly manicured compared to anything he’d seen in Wallachia. Still, perhaps they could start a garden next spring—he doubted it would be very difficult at all with Rosalind’s talents, and she did love admiring the flowers.

“The market is only a few streets over,” she said, beaming up at him as she held onto his arm as they walked through the garden. “I bet Ernst will have everything you need for the Hold—he’s the best blacksmith around here, and then I can go to the stationer by the canal and they should have the glue I need as well. I could put in an order for new inks too—there’s some illumination I could repair if I could get a hold of some. Oh, and I haven’t brought you to a proper cafe yet—”

“Miss Eigenstiller? Is that you?”

Rosalind turned at the sound of the voice and Alucard realized that must have been her surname growing up, before she’d ever known she was a Blackthorne.

Somehow he rather thought it suited her better.

“Oh! It is! You’ve given us all quite the scare, we’d all assumed the worst after we heard about the break in at the shop,” said a middle aged woman, her hair tucked back in a kerchief as she strode forward, an apron tied over her dress.

“Mrs. Kainz! I—I didn’t mean to. I’m so very sorry for worrying you. I was—I was traveling when they came.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, dear! I’m only happy to see you unharmed. And married, finally! Oh, your father would have been ecstatic, how you made him worry! If only he’d known before he passed, I know it would have put him at ease—how he worried about what would happen to you when he was gone! Though I suppose this means I can’t call you Miss Eigenstiller any longer,” the woman said, with enough familiarity that Alucard guessed she’d known Rosalind and her family rather well while she was growing up.

Rosalind though, had merely turned bright, cherry-red as soon as Mrs. Kainz had mentioned ‘married’, her mouth slightly open as she searched for a response. Alucard, though, couldn’t help the way his breath caught in his throat at the mention of marriage, the idea that perhaps one day she’d agree to be his, just as he was already hopelessly hers in all but ceremony.

“Well aren’t you the perfect little blushing bride,” Mrs. Kainz said with no small amount of amusement before she turned towards him. “We were all rather sure little Rosalind would never wed, not unless it was to that shop of her father’s. I daresay you must be something special Mr.—?”

“Tepes,” Alucard supplied automatically, arm wrapping reassuringly around Rosalind’s waist. “And I daresay she’s the special one. I was merely particularly lucky.”

“Adrian—” she began, cheek bright red, though her response was cut off by the older woman’s laughter.

“That’s a Wallachian name if I’m not mistaken. You always were your father’s daughter,” she said, still laughing. Alucard supposed she must have meant Rosalind’s human mother—she’d told him she’d been from Gresit.

“It is,” he said, smiling.

“Wonderful—well, you had better take particular care of her, Mr. Tepes,” she said giving him a hard stare, before turning back to Rosalind. “It’s wonderful to see you dear, and I’m so happy for you. I wish you all the best. And I’m sure if you need help fixing up the shop Johann will more than willing to help.”

“I’m sure Adrian and I can manage, we will keep him in mind, though, should we need help with the repairs. We should get going, though, I promised Adrian the whole tour and we haven’t even gotten to the market yet.”

“I suppose you should get going then, Mrs. Tepes,” Mrs. Kainz said fondly and Rosalind somehow turned even redder before she gave her a little wave, tugging Alucard along. He offered a smile and wave before he went, enjoying how flustered the encounter had left Rosalind more than he’d probably ever like to admit.

Mrs. Tepes. He rather thought he liked the sound of it, perhaps too much, and he certainly wouldn’t mind playing the doting husband every time they came back to Vienna.

Hell, he doubted he’d ever mind.

He wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her close as they walked.

“I suppose we’re playing newlyweds then, Mrs. Tepes. Mrs. Kainz seems the sort to talk.”

“Oh—I should have thought of that, I didn’t think we’d run into anyone before the market and of course she’d assume. I’m so sorry—”

“Why on earth are you sorry?” he said, laughing. She stared up at him, searching his face from beneath furrowed brows cheeks still faintly flushed. He reached out with his free hand to gently take hers, pressing his lips to her knuckles so her could enjoy the way she blushed.

“If I could ever be so lucky as to call you mine,” he said, lips still brushing her skin as he held her hand. She almost seemed to melt at his words, staring at him with such round, sweet eyes.

“I’m already yours, Adrian,” she said softly, giving his hand a little squeeze. “Surely you know that.”

“Then surely I am the luckiest man alive,” he said, unable to stop smiling even as he kissed her. He pulled away to find Rosalind smiling back at him, somehow looking at him as if he were the sun.

“Come on then, my darling. I believe I was promised a tour of the market next,” he said and he could have sworn the giddy laugh his words pulled from her lips was his favorite sound in all the Realms.

 

---

 

Elyra sighed as she watched Adrian hard at work fixing one of the staircases in the Hold. She wasn’t sure exactly when in the time since she’d last seen him that he’d shed his shirt, but she certainly didn’t mind admiring the lean lines of his chest. He was so beautiful, sometimes she could hardly even believe him real, much less that he’d ever spared a second glance for her, never mind the way he’d smiled at her when her old neighbor had assumed he was her husband, as if he was somehow lucky.

As if the very thought of ever being able to call him her husband didn’t make her breath catch in her throat.

She darted back down the aisle before he could catch her staring at him like some sort of moonstruck idiot, going back to her self-appointed task. So much of the collection had been scattered during Adrian and the other’s fight with the Night Creatures so she was trying to track it all down so she could figure out where it should go.

She set off down the aisle, following yet another path of destruction. She hardly wanted to think of what sort of fight could have produced so much damage, didn’t want to imagine the sort of monsters that had broken inside.

She paused at a case, gritting her teeth. It was full of skulls—vampire skulls judging by the tags. She slowly walked down the length of the case, noting each of the dozens and dozens of skulls. Had Trevor’s family really gone to all the trouble of decapitating and de-fleshing the skulls of all these vampire for what? For a trophy? Surely they must have been sick—it would certainly explain how mentally deficient Trevor could be.

She froze, though, at the sight of one of the skull, so much smaller than the others. It couldn’t be an adults—no. She nearly vomited when she leaned close enough to read the little tag next to it.

It was the skull of a dhampir, a child—the Belmonts had not only killed a child, but taken its head as a trophy.

It was so small. They could have hardly been more than a baby.

She clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound of the sob that ripped from her chest, bile scalding her throat.

The Belmonts had killed babies. Adrian had said so, but she thought it some sort of theatrical exaggeration, but it was true, this whole time. Surely that meant Adrian had seen the little dhampir skull, had seen what Trevor’s family had done to creatures like him, babes that could hardly have cut their first tooth.

How could Adrian work so diligently restoring the hold of a family that would have killed him, simply for what he was? He was so wretchedly good it made her want to cry, nearly as much as the little skull tucked behind glass.

She pulled open the door to the case and picked it up, cradling it to her chest.

There would be no more trophies in this wretched Hold, no more babes laid out like idle curiosities for the sick and twisted. It wouldn’t ever be enough, but she’d give them what dignity she was capable of.

 

---

 

Valion wandered up into the attic, setting down his glass of whiskey. Elyra wouldn’t be back for at least another two days, though last time it had been four—she’d gone back to Vienna apparently for some shopping and lost track of the time.

He’d pretended he hadn’t been heartbroken by her absence, hadn’t paced the house wondering if she’d decided to forgo her visits for another few weeks after the nightmare that Solstice had been. He couldn’t have blamed her, but the thought of not seeing her for so long, like when she’d first gone back to the Mortal Realm—

He sighed and sat down heavily on the stool sat beside one of the dozens of trunks stored away. He unlocked it and flipped open the lid, just staring at the contents for a long moment.

It was hard to believe Elyra had ever been so small.

He plucked out one of the little onesies she’d never gotten to wear, pink and ruffled and wretchedly adorable. He remembered Orlaith picking it out, remembered the little shop in Ghrian.

If only she was still so small, perhaps he’d be able to keep her safe. If only he was the man he was now when she’d been so little, he might not have had to worry.

His father had summoned him to the palace twice, though he’d ignored both. He didn’t care about the rumors or whatever it was that Court thought, only keeping her away, as much as he could.

People had begun to guess, he was sure. It wasn’t as if they could ignore the moon’s return, or the Gloaming’s return. It was almost better if she stayed in the Mortal Realm more, he thought bitterly, if only because it kept her out of reach.

It didn’t mean he didn’t hate it though.

He picked up a little dress from the trunk, sniffling. It was all about to get so much more fraught, so dangerous and he couldn’t make a misstep, not when the stakes were so high, when a mistake could get Elyra hurt or worse.

He wouldn’t think about worse. Couldn’t.

He kept picking through the trunk, at all the bits of the life they’d supposed to have had, hands shaking slightly.

He paused at the little oval shaped panel at the bottom, the one portrait he couldn’t bear to hang anywhere, to leave about the house. He’d thought, maybe, when he’d painted it that it would help, but it only tore at his heart every time he saw it.

It was Orlaith, dressed in what she’d have considered to be unforgivably casual clothes, beaming down at the little baby in her lap, at Elyra, as she tugged at a strand of her golden hair.

A moment that should have been but never was.

What he wouldn’t have given for it to have been a memory, instead of a fabrication.

He set it back inside the trunk, along with the little pile of clothes on his lap. He was being foolish, wallowing where he should have been planning, should have been solidifying his alliances and preparing for whatever might be necessary.

And he would. Just—in the morning, when his melancholy wasn’t threatening to drown him, when maybe he wouldn’t miss his little girl like a limb.

 

---

 

Alucard wiped his brow as he finished repairing one of the lower stair cases, letting out a deep sigh. Sometimes it hardly seemed like he was making any progress at all, with how much there was to fix, but now he finally felt like he was turning the tide.

He listened for Rosalind’s rustling about—she was set on reorganizing the place, despite the dozens of times he’d told her she needn’t trouble herself with the Hold’s restoration.

She was nothing if not stubborn. He rather adored it about her.

He paused, though, when he was met by nothing but stoney silence. He furrowed his brow, crossing to where she’d last been working but found her piles of books and artifacts just where she’d left them.

It wasn’t like her to leave without saying something. Still, maybe she simply went back to the castle for something—it was easy enough with those clever little gates of hers.

He set off towards the entrance without further ceremony—he could use a break anyhow, and he should start thinking of dinner. Certainly before Rosalind tried to surprise him with it.

He wasn’t sure cooking numbered among her many talents, though she’d tried so very sweetly. Sometimes he did wonder, though, how she’d managed to feed herself all alone in Vienna.

He pushed out of the Hold and froze at the sight before him. Rosalind hadn’t lingered outside the castle since the Night Creature attack, still too afraid to go back into the woods, but she stood in the shadow of an aged ash tree, digging furiously. It took him a moment to shake off his shock before he crossed to her.

“What on earth are you doing?” Alucard asked, furrowing his brow as he watched her dig quite determinedly with a spade too small for the job. She must not have been able to locate a proper shovel, though he didn’t know why she wouldn’t simply ask. Still she’d already managed one hole about four feet deep and was working on a second.

“Nothing,” she said without turning to look at him, her shoulders stiff as she continued digging. He noticed a handful of pasteboard boxes at her feet and crossed to pick one of them up. He opened it, recoiling slightly when he saw the tiny skull of a dhampir inside, probably no more than two, set carefully on wadded up cotton.

“Dove, what are you doing?”

“Go away, Adrian,” she said, her voice thick with tears. She didn’t stop digging, though, didn’t turn to face him. He stepped around enough to put a hand on her shoulder, to duck and see her tear-slicked face.

“Oh, sweetheart—what is the matter?” he said, gently placing down the box with the little skull so he could pull the spade from her hands. He set it aside, pulling her into his arms. She let out a sob.

“They were so l-little,” she choked out. “They w-were so little and they had them in the case like trophies.”

She let out another sob, and he hugged her tighter. “It’s okay—”

“It’s not! They were—they were babies. How wretched were they to kill babies?” she cried. “They hadn’t done a thing.”

Alucard’s heart twisted in his chest. He hadn’t told her of the skulls, had specifically avoided bringing her past their case any time he’d brought her into the Hold before, though he never would have expected them to upset her this much.

He took a deep breath, cradling her face, chest aching.

“Do you want help?” he asked and she nodded, face still crumpled.

“Just let me get a shovel,” he said, stroking her cheekbone with his thumb. She nodded, turning back to the boxes.

She was still staring at them when he returned, face crumpled with misery. She’d undone the other lids, fingers so gently tracing the bleached bone inside, almost how one would sweep back the downy hair of a babe.

There were two dhampir skulls, one much smaller than the other and a third, small, strange skull that was somewhere between the two in size. It looked almost human, though the bone looked somehow more delicate, the features oddly proportioned.

“It’s a changeling,” she said dully, without looking up at him. His heart lurched in his chest. It had been a little faery child just like her, left in the Mortal Realm, though its parents had meant it to die, left it to die alone, at the mercy of some Belmont.

She carefully put the lids back on all the boxes, wiping her face with her sleeve.

“Rose—”

“It’s not okay, Adrian, it’s not.”

“No, it’s not,” he agreed softly. “It’s wretched.”

She reached out to snake her arm around his waist, pressing her face to his chest. He held her tight, trying to ignore how tight his own throat had grown.

He’d never really let himself acknowledge the horror the Hold held. He supposed it was easier not to.

He pressed a kiss to her head before he stepped away and into the second hole, finishing it far fast than she could have hoped with her spade before moving on to the last of the three. When he looked back up, Rosalind still knelt next to the boxes, tears running down her cheeks.

He climbed out of the little grave and took her hand, pressing his lips to her knuckles. She just gave him the most heart-rending look. Then she picked up each of the little boxes and gently placed each one into a little grave before stepping back and just staring.

“It was unfair, and cruel, and if there truly is anything after, I hope it is kinder than this life was,” she said finally. She just stared for a long time after that, tears sliding down her face.

“I can finish burying them, dove,” he said gently. She shook her head.

“I want to do it.”

She hesitated another moment before stepping forward to the graves and dropping to her knees. She didn’t use the spade, or the shovel to fill them, instead tucking the dirt gently around them by hand, the act so heartbreakingly tender. It took well over an hour and left her covered in grave dirt, lower lip still trembling.

“I’ll draw you a bath,” he said when she finally stepped away and she nodded, sniffling as tears poured down her cheeks. He wrapped an arm around her, leading her back to the castle, to their bathroom. He filled the tub with steaming water, scented it with lavender oil he hoped might help to soothe her, though he knew it wouldn’t be enough.

She hadn’t moved by the time he turned, was just stood, frozen, eyes staring through the marble tile. He sighed and crossed to help her undress. She thanked, him, voice hardly more than a breath, before she stepped into the tub, eyes still so far away.

“Don’t go,” she said softly as he turned to slip from the room. “Please. Please stay with me.”

“Of course,” he said, voice hardly more than a breath as he took the hand she reached for him, cradling it between both of his own. She tugged him wordlessly towards the tub and he nodded, hurriedly pulling off his clothes so he could slip into the water behind her and pull her into his arms. She turned, wrapping her own around his neck, her cheek pressed to his chest as she curled as close as she could manage.

“How could they think them monsters?” she asked quietly, face still crumpled with misery. He just shook his head, unable to answer.

 

---

 

Valion needed to know what Ysolde’s play was, what she was planning. She might have just helped Elyra because she was her daughter reborn, might have simply wanted to see her again, as Elyra thought. But she could also be using Elyra to transport strange magic, to enact her will Above, continue where she’d left off. Or—or she could be trying to trick Elyra into staying in the Undercrypts with her, looking to bind her there with her.

She could be trying to steal his daughter to replace her own.

That scared him more than anything else.

It didn’t help that she just might be his greatest ally in this whole mess—or his greatest enemy, perhaps at the same time.

Still, if he could convince her to protect Elyra—even as a shade, her magic was nearly unmatched and her reputation alone just might be enough to keep everyone at bay, at least for a time, long enough, perhaps for him to come up with something that would keep her safe forever, for always.

He’d do anything to protect her. Surely Ysolde could understand that, could empathize.

Bile rose in his throat as he ducked into the tunnels of the Undercrypts, found them no longer barren but teaming with moss and spores and waxy white flowers. He only felt sicker when he reached the necropolis, only to find it a riot with blooms of every sort.

And yet it was empty, utterly.

He pulled at his hair, just staring at the deserted graves. There shouldn’t be any way Ysolde could have left this place, not with all the magic it had taken to bind her there.

If she wasn’t bound to this place, her doubted there was a thing that would keep her from Elyra.

He doubled over and wretched, right on the path.

 

---

 

Elyra curled next to Adrian, absently tracing the little wrinkles in the fabric of his nightshirt. She felt more settled after their bath, though the soul-deep grief had yet to abate.

She couldn’t wrap her head around anyone hurting such tiny, innocent creatures, couldn’t imagine anyone raising a hand to a baby.

Maybe she’d just grown up in a house where they were particularly precious.

Her parents had never hidden the children they’d lost before her. She knew each of their names—Elias, Anna-Maria, Leon, Alina, Emilia, and Lukas. Her parents lit a candle every year on each of their birthdays, kept a little ceramic angel for each with their names engraved on the bottom. She’d grown up playing with her dolls among their headstones whenever they returned to Gresit—her mother always insisted on doing the laundry in the river by the willow they were buried under.

She remembered how her mother would watch her as she played, the tight expression she wore when she didn’t know she was looking. The face she’d make when she asked her about the last stone, the seventh in the little arch around the tree.

She’d never answer, but sometimes, when she was small, she remembered having nightmares of being buried there, of watching her parents mourn above her, unable to dig herself out.

She couldn’t help but think of the boxes she’d buried, note that she’d still have to find them stones—she hadn’t even thought to look in her misery.

She closed her eyes as she felt Adrian’s fingers weave through her hair, gently scratching at her scalp.

“I don’t think I want to work in the Hold for a while,” she said softly.

“You don’t ever have to set foot in it again, dove, if you don’t want to,” Adrian replied gently. He’d been so gentle with her today.

“I know it’s foolish,” she said, eyes fixed on his nightshirt.

“It’s not. Someone should weep for them. I’m glad we buried them,” he said, stroking her hair. She nodded, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.

“Thank you, Adrian,” she managed, after a long span of silence. He shifted, craning to get a look at her face.

“Whatever for?”

She just shook her head, throat too tight to answer. Instead she hugged him tighter, squeezing her eyes shut.

Notes:

Sorry it's been a hot second, it's been a bit of a whirlwind. Luckily I'm feeling well enough after surgery now to get back to writing! I'm hoping to update weekly as the semester starts and I go back to juggling school and work.

Also seriously thinking about reworking the story to not be xreader anymore—the story has definitely grown and changed from what I originally planned and Elyra has become more of her own character than I originally intended.

Chapter 51: Threats

Chapter by mt-musings (Stillmarauding)

Elyra glanced at Valion, chewing on her lip. He’d been different since she arrived, not his usual ornery self, but brusk and far more serious than she was used to seeing him. He’d declared it was time for her to practice at the Rift, that she had to get used to actual fighting, not just sparring with him.

She wasn’t exactly looking forward to it—she’d had to don her armor for the first time, and he’d checked it four times before they left the house. Her hand drifted to the sword at her hip, a real, extremely sharp sword meant for maiming and killing.

She’d only ever killed two things before, and one had been by accident. She wouldn’t be able to say that at the end of the day.

She watched him make a circle when they got to the end of the lane, past the illusion and wards, watched little red toadstools spring to life at his beckoning and couldn’t help but feel a little sick.

“What—what if I’m not ready?” she asked quietly, shame and fear scalding her throat. Valion surveyed her a second before he sighed.

“You have to be, Moonbeam. I wish you didn’t. Know that, should things become overwhelming that I will be there, that I won’t allow you to be harmed, but you need to learn. I’d be a poor father if I allowed you to only whip about a training blade.”

She nodded, though she didn’t feel better at all. If anything she felt worse.

“Now remember—I’m going to blunt your magic. It’s going to be a horrible feeling, but you need to be able to fight without it.”

She nodded. It seemed foolish, here in Faery where she was so much better off with her magic, but in the Mortal Realm it was it was hardly easy.

“Shall we, then?” Valion asked. She nodded again, unable to find her voice. He stooped, pressing a kiss to her temple before motioning for her to step through the circle as he followed only a step behind.

 

---

 

Elyra hadn’t thought there could be worse places in Faery than the Penumbral City, but she’d been very, very wrong.

The place they stepped out to was grey, as if covered completely by ash, the trees gnarled and leafless and black. The air was hot and thick and smelled of sulphur and blood and something just malevolent she couldn’t quite name.

“Keep your eyes sharp. We’re at a very narrow portion of the Rift, so there shouldn’t be anything too large that can crawl out, but they can still be dangerous if they take you by surprise.”

“Okay,” she said, and she was glad her voice didn’t waver.

She screamed, though, as something leapt at her from one of the gnarled tree’s shadows.

Elyra stared in horror at the monstrous thing in front of her, its black maw full of needle teeth and dripping drool, its limbs spindly and oddly proportioned. Its hands almost looked as they could be human, but the fingers were too long and almost seemed to have too many joints, and they were tipped with claws.

It leapt at her and instinctually she reached for her magic, only for terror to rise in her throat when it didn’t answer. She slashed at it with her sword, but she’d wasted time and felt the impact of its claws, heard them scrape against her armor before she could fell it, putrid black blood spraying all over her as it crumpled to the ground.

She stared at it, the thing, somehow more frightening than even the Night Creatures she’d seen, just wrong. She tried to stop her lip from trembling, to slow her heart, stop it from trying to beat its way out of her chest, but she very much wanted to cry.

She felt Valion’s hand on her shoulder, looked up to find him searching her for any injuries. He nodded to himself as he found none, turning back towards the path towards the Rift. He didn’t quite look at her as he urged her to follow, eyes raking through the trees.

“It will get easier, Moonbeam. I promise.”

 

---

 

Valion glared at the cut on Elyra’s cheek, very carefully healing it to make sure it didn’t scar. By all logic, he should be pleased—she’d done well and escaped the exercise with hardly more than a few scratches and bruises. Instead he felt sick, though he wasn’t sure if it was from fear or self-loathing. It hadn’t gotten any better when they’d arrived back home—if anything, seeing her standing in their house, in her room covered in the flowers he’d spent days painting splattered fetid demon blood and ash only made him feel worse.

She’d been so very frightened, though she’d made a valiant effort to hide it, and he’d known and kept going, kept going because he had to, had to make sure she could defend herself, that she wouldn’t freeze, that she’d have another way of defending herself. Maybe if the moon hadn’t returned he wouldn’t have had to push so hard, could have gone slower, let her grow used to the misery that was true combat, but they didn’t have the luxury of that sort of time.

“It’s just a scratch, Dad, it’s fine,” Elyra said, drawing him from his thoughts. He sighed, hating that she felt the need to comfort him after what he’d put her through.

“I know,” he said, forcing a smile as he reached out to cup her cheek. “You did well. We’ll just have to keep practicing.”

“Is something going on?” she asked. He made a face.

“Something’s always going on, sweetling,” he said, trying to keep his voice light. “There will always be a lurking danger, a host of threats. That is the foul inheritance I have given you, but I promised you, I will ensure you are prepared to best whatever comes.”

“Is it about Solstice?” she asked.

“No,” he lied. He turned and crossed to the door, trying to ignore the crushing feeling in her chest.

“I’m going to bathe and then I’ll make something for dinner. I left some books out in the library I thought you might like.”

He slipped out then, praying she wouldn’t press the subject over dinner.

 

---

 

Valion set off right after Elyra left, feeling as though he was somehow full of swarming hornets. Dinner had been awkward, and he knew it was his fault, but he couldn’t talk to her about any of it, not yet. It was safer for her not to know, better for her not to worry. He knew she was worrying any way, hell, she’d forgotten her armor in her room she’d been so lost in thought, which was out of character. He’d just taken it to properly clean and polish later, when he couldn’t sleep. She’d only roughly wiped off the blood, and the remnants would be corrosive, if left.

It had hurt to watch her slip out so early when she usually stayed for a while after dinner, pestering him with questions as he worked in his studio. She’d begun to sketch, too, as she did—little doodles full of promise.

That would be about the only thing he’d be happy if she took after him. He’d be glad if she took more of an interest, ecstatic to teach her, should she ever want. For now though, he was pretending not to notice, picking the drawings out of the bin after she left and slipping them into a little box in his study.

He wished he could be sitting in his study now, thumbing through them as he nursed a glass of brandy. Instead he had to go to the damn manor and see if Lucien had written back yet. He could always go get an answer in person, but that risked alerting other to the moves being made.

He called forth a circle, swearing under his breath as he stepped through and severed the connection behind him. He just stood for a moment at the tree line, glaring at the stately, but unwelcoming manor house, at the perfectly manicured gardens and royal seal, carved into the black stone above the front door.

He rolled his shoulders back and stalked forward, bad mood worsening with every step. He pushed inside, footsteps echoing across the cold marble of the entranceway.

“Alasdair!” he called out as he made for his formal study. He heard footsteps coming from upstairs but didn’t slow down. Two of the maids who had been busy carefully dusting the portraits of long-dead Blackthornes that lined the walls quickly stepped aside and bowed, eyes glued to the floor.

He pushed into his study, letting the door bang against the wall in his irritation. He just strode to the desk to pick through the mail carefully piled on its surface.

“Your Highness,” Alasdair said with a bow as he appeared in the doorway. He was a thin man, ashen skinned with pale blue hair that he wore neatly tied back in a braid. You could hardly see his limp when he walked, unless you knew to look for it.

“I apologize, we weren’t expecting you. Shall I tell the cook to prepare something for dinner?”

“No. Is this all the mail that’s arrived since last I was here?” he asked, making a face as he noted nothing of import.

“Oh, no, of course not, merely trivialities. These have been kept in the safe since they arrived,” he said, walking over to pass him another, larger stack of letters.

Most were from his father, which he tossed aside. He was sure they were summons to the palace or something else he’d ignore if he bothered to open them and read them, chances of which were slim.

“We heard of the Princess’s debut at Court. Should we see a room made up for her Highness for when she stays?” Alasdair asked. Valion made a face. If he had his way Elyra would never even know of this house, never mind step foot in it.

“Surely she should have her own chambers—it would seem strange to simply give her one of the guest rooms,” Alasdair said, expression pointed even if his voice remained unchanged.

“Fucking—yes of course,” he said, mood souring in the way it usually did when Alasdair was right.

“Do you have any preference as to how?” Alasdair asked and Valion gave him a look. Alasdair’s lips just barely curved upwards in smug satisfaction.

“I’ll see that it’s done,” he said with another little bow. “Shall I have your rooms prepared for the evening?”

“I’m going to fucking hurt you,” Valion retorted. Alasdair fully smirked at that.

“Anything I should be aware of, since last I was here?” he asked.

“His Majesty has sent no less than three carriages to come and collect you for the palace and the coachman that arrived with the last one said your mother would be coming with the next if you don’t write back to your father. I, of course, told them that you were out on a hunt with the young Highness and would write back as soon as you returned.”

“Tell her to go fuck herself if she actually shows up,” he said, glowering at the envelopes bearing the royal seal.

“I will not, your Highness.”

“Coward.”

“I’m simply not an idiot.”

Valion rolled his eyes. “Just get out, then. Go pretend to bultle or whatever the fuck it is you usually do.”

“As you wish,” he said and left, shutting the door behind him.

He sighed, throwing himself into his desk chair. He flipped through the envelopes one by one, glad, at least, that Lucien had written back. He froze, though, at the sight of another familiar seal, blood running cold.

He tore it open, eye scanning the parchment father than he could read the words scrawled on it. He had to take a breath, forcing himself to read each word in turn.

 

Prince Valion,

I have discovered some things in my research I believe you and your daughter would find most invaluable, though I would not trust such information to a letter. I ask that we might meet to discuss what I have found.

Regards,

Colm Aureliane

 

Valion swore, dropping the letter to his desk before he sat back, tearing at his hair.

He knew. He knew for sure and now he was going to have to pray Colm hadn’t told anyone else, that the Light Court wasn’t already making moves to mitigate what they’d see as a threat, that this wasn’t a ploy to try an kill him—then Elyra would be alone in Faery if they somehow managed it and she'd be utterly vulnerable.

“FUCK!” he yelled, grabbing an inkwell and whipping it into the fireplace. Ink exploded everywhere, though he hardly cared.

This was the sort of thing that was the reason he and Orlaith had planned to have Elyra raised in the Light Court, raised under the umbrella of the Aureliane’s protection so when they’d eventually be forced to reveal her as his heir, they’d think of her and their creature, think it a boon in the Undercourt, rather than a threat.

But now Colm knew, and they all knew her as the Unseelie princess with strange magic and it would all go to shit.

 

---

 

Elyra walked carefully through the brook, skirts hiked up to prevent the end from becoming sodden, scouring for the perfect stones. Adrian sat watching her, leaning against a tree, two water-smoother rocks sat next to him.

“Are you sure you don’t want help?” he asked. She shook her head. She stooped and grabbed a largish white stone from the water, smoothed and veined with grey.

“This is the last one,” she said, carrying it over. Adrian surveyed it, giving her a smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes. He stood and grabbed the other two, silent as they made their way back out of the forest.

She didn’t mind. Somehow the silence seemed right for their task. She stopped when she got to the three little graves. Then she sighed.

She set the white river stone at the head of the changeling’s grave. It had reminded her of the extra stone next to her siblings’ graves in Gresit—or, not her siblings—but the grave that had been their sibling’s, the grave Valion had magicked her into to make her Mother think by some miracle her baby hadn’t been truly dead when she’d buried them.

A sibling that never got a name, because she’d stolen their place, their life, the only reminder that they’d ever existed at all the white river-stone.

“Which one is for which?” Adrian asked, holding up the other two. She took the pretty almost-blue stone and put it on the grave of the smaller dhampir before taking the larger, orange striated stone and putting it on the other.

“You picked good ones,” he said, voice soft. She knelt in the grass, laying her hand on the dirt of each in turn, coaxing a riot of flowers to bloom, even though it was so late in the season.

Adrian reached for her hand as she finished pulling her to her feet. She snaked her arms around his waist, pressing her ear to his chest and closing her eyes. He wrapped his arms around her and she felt him rest his cheek on the top of her head.

“How about some tea and an entirely frivolous book?” he asked gently. She nodded.

She found it hard to stop thinking of the little skulls, to stop wondering who they’d been when they were alive, what they might have become, had fate not been so miserably cruel. She didn’t know if it was because they were children, or because they were like her and Adrian, or maybe it was because they’d never grown up to be.

Between that, her miserable lesson at the Rift, and whatever it was Valion was hiding from her, she’d found herself rather subdued. She was lucky Adrian was so understanding.

“Who is that?” she asked as they approached the front of the castle, staring at an approaching horse, its rider slumped over the beast. Adrian’s face hardened.

“Just—stay back here for a moment,” he said and crossed to the horse, which whinnied at him, throwing its head back and forth.

“That’s quite enough of that,” he told the horse sternly before approaching the rider. She could see now that he was dead, had been gored through the side by some horrible creature. He’d tied his hands to the reigns though, kept riding until he’d died.

Adrian pulled a roll of paper from where it had been tied to his palm. He glanced once more at the dead man on the horse before crossing back to her side, unrolling the missive.

“To The Alucard of the Castle—for God’s sake, why am I the Alucard now?” he read aloud, making a face at the name. “To the Alucard of the castle, we the people of Danesti beg your aid. Night Creatures, vampires, and terrible demons assault us and we know not why. Our Defenses weaken and our numbers dwindle. Please, sir, save our souls.”

Elyra couldn’t help but look back over at the dead man. When had he known he wouldn’t make the journey alive? How had he tied the note to his palm and his hands to the reigns with his innards practically falling out.

“That’s a good twenty miles away,” Adrian said, drawing back her attention. He was staring at a hand drawn map on the back, showing the route to get to the village.

She looked up at him, opening her mouth and he nodded with a sigh.

“I know, I will. We should bury him first, though.”

“Yeah,” she said, swallowing hard. Adrian reached out and gripped her arm reassuringly for a moment before going back to the horse who whinnied and huffed even louder than before.

Adrian turned to it, giving it a dirty look. “You can shut up.”

He pulled the body from its back and laid him carefully on the ground.

“And you still kept on riding, until you died from the pain or the blood loss. Or both,” he said quietly, almost to himself

He looked up and caught her watching, bottom lip caught between her teeth.

“I can handle it, Dove,” he said, eyes mournful, even if he offered her a smile. “Go inside, I’ll sort it all out. I imagine I’ll be back by dawn.”

“What are you talking about? You can’t go by yourself.”

“I can handle a few Night Creatures, love. You needn’t worry.”

“Of course, because I’m coming with you.”

“Rosalind—” he began sternly, but she cut him off.

“I’m going to change into some ugly trousers and come back to help and don’t you even think of leaving without me, because I will follow after you all by myself,” she said, shooting him a dirty look. He glared at her a moment before he shook his head, turning back to the body.

“So damn stubborn,” she heard him mumbled under his breath as she strode back into the castle.

 

---

 

Colm sat at his desk, pouring over yellow fragile pages, trying to ignore the foreboding curling in his gut. It was all worse than he’d thought, though he was struggling to find out just how much worse. Ysolde had sworn on with her dying breath that she would return, that she would finish what she’d started, though no one had thought she could. They’d thought her and her ‘Court’s’ final rebellion would simply be to linger, refuse to pass on, further stagnate Faery.

But is curses and wards were undoing themselves, it made sense that the spells binding Ysolde and her ‘Court’ would begin to fray, and if that happened—

He didn’t know. He didn’t know what sort of damage a spektor could be capable, but he knew Ysolde was dangerous no matter her form.

And the little princess was the key.

How could she not be, when everything had only started unraveling since her return to Faery. Would there be an end to it or would all Ysolde’s curses be undone? Would it stop with the Gloaming’s rising, or the creeping stars, or the return of the moon? Or would twilight continue to creep across the Dawnlands?

Would Seelie see Night again? Would dawn finally break the endless midnight of the Penumbral City?

Could they stop it—should they?

What would it mean that poor girl?

He knew—they all knew what had happened last time, and logic would dictate such despicable mistakes not be repeated, but he knew most thought not with logic, but with swirling fear and mistrust of the unknown.

“Colm, darling, what in dawn’s light are you still doing up?”

He looked up to find Róisín leaning in the doorway to his office, wrapped in a robe and blinking blearily at him.

“Oh—I got caught up in some research. You know how it is,” he said, offering her a tight smile. She crossed to his desk and perched on the edge of it next to him, searching his face.

“Are you sure that’s all? You’ve been off, since we returned from Solstice.”

“Yes, well, it was more unpleasant than usual.”

“Yes—it’s all a mess. My aunt was hardly pleased with the report, though Mother has always been a tempering influence on her.”

“For that I’m glad. I don’t want to think of the consequences of anything too rash.”

Róisín searched his face. “You worry for the girl, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. I would, even if the moon hadn’t reappeared at her letting, in that family, never mind in the Undercourt.”

“Valion seems keen to keep her away from Veylon and Morgana’s influence. That was only her third time in the capital, according to my eyes and ears.”

“He’s smart to.”

“He’s hardly better than they are. We can only hope the girl has sense. She’s certainly not the shrinking wallflower one would have expected of a changeling princess. She has a quick temper, and with that magic of hers—” she broke off, shaking her head.

That magic was enough for her to be seen as a serious threat, he knew, knew Róisín had been locked away in meeting after meeting since their return as the Queen and her advisors decided what to make of it.

“She’s just a girl,” Colm said quietly. “Hardly but a child.”

“A terribly unlucky child,” Róisín said with a sigh. “Just like every child born in that family. An unlucky child that they turn into a monster, if only to hold the rest of Court at bay.”

His stomach twisted at that, the wretched truth of it. He’d seen it with Valion, seen a quiet boy, far more interested in burying himself in books that the petty politics of Court turn into something ruthless, something to be feared, something his father could use to further cement his power.

He hated to think about that happening to Valion’s daughter.

Róisín sighed.

“Come to bed—the tomes will be here when you wake.”

“I—I will. I just—I need to follow my momentum.”

Róisín reached out and cupped his cheek, eyes terribly sad, but she nodded.

“Try not to stay up too late. You know we have tea with my Aunt tomorrow.”

“At the country house?”

“At the palace.”

Colm made a face, but nodded. If they were meeting at the palace than it wouldn’t be a purely social call. Róisín faintly smiled at his clear distaste, pressing a kiss to his temple before slipping out of his office.

He just sat there for a long moment staring listlessly at the wall. He hated that he was hiding his suspicions from Róisín, hated hiding anything from her. But how could he tell her, when he wasn’t sure, when part of him was still desperately hoping to somehow be wrong.

How could he not when it meant giving up hope that their sweet daughter would return to them, that she’d simply been lost, waylaid somehow by her sense of adventure?

He took a deep breath, slipping a bookmark into the his tome before he closed it, He pressed his hand to his mouth, muffling the sound of the sobs that tore from his throat. He didn’t bother to try and wipe away the tears flowing down his face, only squeezed his eyes shut.

He hadn’t known that spring afternoon Orlaith had breezed through his office on her way to do stars knew what would be the last time he’d see her, that it would be the last time she’d lean down and press a kiss to his cheek, that it was the last time she’d murmur ‘hello Daddy’ and glance over his piles of books and maps and notes and wrinkle her nose at the smell of the walnut ink he favored. That when she breezed out again with nary a word it would be the last time he’d see her.

He’d been so caught up in his research he’d hardly pressed a kiss to her forehead before she went.

He felt another wave of sobs overtake him, thinking of the little Blackthorne princess, of the girl with his daughter’s eyes—

Orlaith had wanted a daughter so badly. He’d always wondered why she never settled down, never married, when he knew—he knew that was what she wanted, more than anything. A quiet life, a little family, a sweet little girl to spoil and dress in all her creations.

He hadn’t been able to read the full report on the whole debacle of her introduction to the Undercourt. He’d stolen it from Róisín’s office as he was want to do whenever something tumultuous happened, eager to read the first hand account from one of her spies before it was doctored up, before history wrote itself, often less tethered to fact than most would like.

He’d gotten through the accusations before he’d simply had to put it down, couldn’t read of any barbaric trial by combat the Unseelie Court still allowed for whatever miserable reason.

He hadn’t had any idea just who she might be, then, simply couldn’t imagine anyone putting a child through such a horror, never mind after what she’d already suffered. He’d never been fond of Veylon or the way he presided over the Undercourt, especially after the latest mess with the Heartlands, but he’d scarcely wanted to look at him at Solstice.

It was a blessing Róisín was the diplomat. He’d struggled to remain even believably pleasant before he’d been able to slip away.

He’d watched her then, Elyra, from the periphery of the balcony, watched how Valion softened as he spoke with her, though it only seemed to sharpen his fierceness towards everyone else. It was the boy, though, he’d liked watching her with, the clever blond boy that had made her smile.

He liked knowing there was someone who made the poor girl smile.

He dropped his head in his hands, head swimming. He hoped Valion knew him well enough by now to give him the benefit of the doubt, to know he’d never willingly bring harm to a child, whether or not she was Orlaith’s daughter.

He just—he just needed to know. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, not since the first night of Solstice, couldn’t stop working it over in his head.

Couldn’t stop worrying about the poor girl. Even if by some miracle she wasn’t Orlaith’s she’d still been pulled into a wretched situation and was in no less danger for it.

If only Valion would answer his letter, he might be able to help, at the very least. He didn’t want to see another Blackthorne babe killed for being half of Light, didn’t want her to get pulled into whatever Ysolde had put into motion millenia ago.

He took a shaking breath, wiping the tears from his cheeks before he turned to grab the next volume in his pile. There was too much work to be done to sleep anyway.

 

---

 

Elyra’s stomach flipped nervously, though it had very little to do with it being her first time riding a horse, never mind riding it at a full gallop through the narrow forest path.

She’d forgotten her armor at the Gloomveil house, and when she’d gone to get it, it had been missing, along with him. Valion hardly ever went anywhere, and he’d always told her before, if he was going to be away. It didn’t make her feel any better that he’d been acting so weird after they’d gotten back from the Rift, had been lying to her.

Valion didn’t usually lie to her. He’d withhold things from her, hope she wouldn’t ask, dodge, the question, but she wasn’t sure she could think of another time he’d lied.

She hadn’t told any of that to Adrian, though. He didn’t know about the armor, so he couldn’t get upset she didn’t have it. She felt strange, though, without it. Still—the things that had crawled out of the Rift had been cosmic horrors, and she’d held her own.

And there was no way she’d leave Adrian to fight all alone. The thought alone made her sick.

“We don’t know exactly what we’re walking into. You need to stay back, as much as you can keep your distance. Just like we did in Faery, remember?” he asked from where he sat behind her, arms wrapped around her to grip the reigns. His grip was white-knuckled.

She nodded.

“Please—please be careful,” he said softly, though it didn’t mask the anxiety in his voice.

“I will, Adrian, I promise.”

She felt him blow out a breath behind her, could feel the tension coiled in him.

Elyra felt her stomach drop as the forest gave way and she spotted the Night Creatures swarming around the town wall. They were bigger than the ones she’d seen before and insectiod, almost armored. She almost unconsciously pulled open a gate to the blue forest, the rush of its magic reassuring.

“Remember, stay back,” Adrian said, shoving the reigns into her hands and he somehow climbed to his feet behind her, even though the horse was still charging full speed forward. He leapt off, launching himself at one of the monsters.

“Woah, woah, woah, stop! Stop, stop, stop!” she said, pulling back a bit on the reigns. It whinnied at her, though it listened and she clambered from its back without an ounce of grace.

She looked around, trying to assess the scene—the monsters were working to tear down the village wall, had begun to break through it. She threw out a hand and pulled a mess of bramble from the soil in front of the wall, willing it to thicken and grow dense enough to keep the wall from being torn down.

It was much harder to do that she was used to. She struggled to keep track of Adrian, flitting so fast between monsters and felling them with so little effort. Instead she turned at the sound of something smashing, watching in horror as another of the creatures tore down another section of the wall.

Elyra threw out a gate in front of the break as one of the Night Creatures advanced on the villagers. It was harder to call out to Cryptgarden from the Mortal Realm, taking effort if never did in Faery, but she pulled a hulking bramble vine from its soil, whipping out from the gate to wrap around the Night Creature and drag it through, piercing it with six inch thorns as it wrapped around it like a boa constrictor.

She cried out as something slammed into her—not something, another of the damn Night Creatures—and she felt claws tear through her skin, right where she’d been clawed the last time. She tumbled, the thing landing on top of her, teeth gnashing as drool dripped from its mouth. She fought her terror, trying to jam her sword between the plates of its chitin.

“Rose!”

The beast was torn off her by the head, so violently she head its neck snap and tossed aside like some sort of horrific doll. Adrian knelt, pulling her gently to a sitting position.

She was far more winded than she thought she ought to be. She instinctively pulled shut the gate she’d opened, though it left her feeling woozy, almost faint.

Had she used too much magic?

“You’re bleeding,” Adrian said, concern causing him to pale. He looked frightened and she hated it.

If only she was a stronger fighter, she’d have given him nothing to be frightened of.

“It’s a scratch,” she said, shifting so her cloak fell over the wound at her side, instead showing him the superficial claw wound on her forearm. Perhaps if he thought that all, he’d stop worrying so much.

And maybe she wouldn’t have to admit him right, that she should have stayed behind. She’d just given him another person to rescue.

He made a face, reaching down to tear a strip of the lining of his cloak. He wrapped it carefully around the wound, checking the tightness twice before he dropped his hands, though his brow remained tight.

It made her feel worse about hiding the wound at her ribs. Not enough to tell him though.

He helped her to her feet and she followed him over to the small crowd of villagers huddled by the destroyed wall.

“That was one hell of an entrance,” the headwoman said, offering a rye smile to Adrian. Elyra stayed a step behind him, pressing her hand subtly to her side as his attention was pulled away from her. She made a face when she felt it slick with blood.

“Indeed so,” came another voice, drawing her attention. “You really are an impressive young man. Sickening violence isn’t in my skill set, but I can recognize a fellow expert, no matter the field.”

It was an older man, dressed rather garishly in some farce of noble sensibilities, complete with a slightly muddy, foppish hat.

“You fucking shit-heel,” Elyra spat, glaring at the man as rage filled her, pushing aside all her previous worries of blood loss and overusing her magic.

“Have we met? I feel like yours would be a face I’d remember,” he said, eyes lingering on her barely-glamoured face. “I think you must have me mistaken with someone—”

Elyra strode forward without another word and kicked him hard in the crotch.

Notes:

I'm going to try and keep to a schedule moving forward to keep everything balanced between school and work this semester, so Fridays will be update days.

Hope you enjoy! I had a crazy burst of creativity and plotted out the next five chapters, so I'm really excited to get to them.

Feel free to come say hi to my on tumblr @mt-musings. I'm also going to start posting a preview of the upcoming chapter on Wednesdays