The Crowned Hare Inn, Northumberland
The inn sat at the edge of the moor like a last breath—wooden, sloped, and dark with age. Smoke curled from the chimney into the velvet dusk, and the sign above the door creaked in the wind: The Crowned Hare, the paint flaked but still proud.
A faint sigil was carved into the lintel above the entrance. Old and deep. Protection. Grey's fingers brushed it absently as they stepped inside, her skin prickling at the touch. Recognition stirred—something old and aching in her bones.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the air changed. Warmth welcomed them like an old coat. Honeyed woodsmoke. Lanternlight pooling in golden halos. The quiet hum of low voices. A place carved for shelter. A place that remembered the old ways, even if it didn't speak of them aloud.
The landlord—a man with weather-creased skin and sharp eyes—gave them a look that lasted a second too long. Not suspicion exactly, but knowing. The kind of look that measured grief in footsteps.
"You'll be wantin' food," he said, already turning. "And ale. It's on the house."
Wickham, for once, didn't banter. He nodded, mouth set in an unreadable line, and followed the man toward a firelit table tucked into the corner. Alaric walked like his bones hurt, the shadow of the memory still clinging to him like frost.
Grey trailed behind, heart still a mess of thorns. They sat. No one spoke.
Rain ticked against the windows like fingers. The fire crackled. Wickham pulled a bottle from his coat—something dark and volatile—and poured three uneven glasses. He slid one to Grey, then Alaric. "Mourning wine," he said. It tasted of salt.
"To ghosts," he said softly. Alaric didn't raise his glass. But he drank.
And after a long moment, he said it again, as if to himself: "Her name was Aine."
Grey looked up at him. Wickham leaned back without a word, the glint in his eyes dulling to ash.
"She was..." Alaric began, then trailed off with a weary sigh. "Luminous. You know the way candlelight looks when it clings to dust in the air? She was like that. Always moving. Always laughing. Always leaving the scent of rosemary and smoke behind her."
His voice was low, velvet and grave. Grey found herself holding her breath. She couldn't breathe properly, her chest felt constricted.
"I met her during a Hunt. She was... fascinated. Not frightened like the others. Just curious. She followed us—barefoot, the idiot—and caught up when I slowed my horse." A faint smile touched his mouth. "She demanded I tell her where we rode, and what for. Said I owed her for knocking over her cider with a hoof I hadn't even put on the ground. She was—" he stopped, clearing his throat. "Unreasonable." He smiled sadly.
Grey's lips twitched despite the ache in her chest. Alaric looked down at his drink. "I lingered. Found reasons to return. Samhain to Beltane, I visited her cottage. Her mother made bread that could stop wars." He said with a smile. "Her father once tried to hit me with a rake. And Aine... she never stopped asking questions. Never stopped trying to understand."
He paused, fingers tightening on the glass. The firelight reflected in his eyes—dark amber now, dulled to memory.
"I meant to see her again that next Samhain. I had gifts. I wore green because she once said I looked like moss in it. But a summons came. The Queen sent me east, on a fabricated errand I didn't question. By the time I returned, she was gone."
The room held still.
"I searched. The Queen refused me—said mortals were fragile, that she'd gone where all mortals go. But I found her."
He swallowed.
"She was broken. Scarred. Not from disease. Not from accident. These were... shaped cruelties. And she would not look at me. She would not speak my name. She died in winter. In my arms, though she didn't seem to know or recognise me."
Something cracked behind Grey's ribs. Her hands curled around her glass to keep from reaching out.
"I tore through the Court," Alaric said, voice brittle. "Demanded answers. Demanded justice. But they smiled. Laughed. One of the ladies asked me if I'd taken leave of my wits for a mortal girl's bruises."
He looked up, straight at the fire. "And eventually, I left."
A silence fell that felt like snowfall. Then he continued, softer. "It was years before Caderyn let it slip. Once the liquor had taken hold one night, he said that mortals make the prettiest sounds when they scream. That some music lingers longer than others."
Wickham closed his eyes. Grey stared at Alaric, heart twisting. She didn't know if the ache rising in her was sorrow or fury.
"I never proved it. But I knew. In the way wind knows which way the fire will leap. In the way shadows lengthen before the storm."
He drained the rest of his glass. "And when I saw her memory twisted like that on the moor—I knew for certain. That it had been him. That it had all been orchestrated. I still don't understand why."
The fire hissed as a log split. For a moment, no one moved. Then Wickham picked up the bottle, poured another round, and said with quiet clarity, "Well, darling... that's a hell of a sad story and an excellent reason to drink."
And so they did. Alaric didn't speak again.
Grey didn't tease, or prod, or question. She just stayed close. She hadn't known Aine. But now she mourned her too, mourned the loss of a curious girl with a bright laugh, gone forever. And Wickham, who could always be counted on to fill the silence with mischief, said nothing clever at all.
They drank until the fire burned low and grief loosened its teeth. Until the rain stopped pretending it was summer. Until morning was a rumour behind the clouds.
And when they stumbled upstairs to go to bed, Alaric's hand brushed Grey's—and she didn't shake him off. Her fingers stayed there, curled soft against his for a heartbeat too long, like a secret.
No words. Only a ghost of warmth. A thread that might fray.
Or hold.
Unseelie Court, Veilside
It was nearly dawn, though the mist outside the obsidian spires of the Court showed no sign of lifting. The light here was always muted, silvered through fog and memory, as if the sun itself grieved to shine where rest walked.
The Queen sat alone in the Hall of Stillness, hands resting on the arms of her carved basalt throne. She wore no crown. Her eyes, pale as snowfall on ash, watched the curling mist beyond the high arches of her court.
She knew he would come before she heard the bells.
She did not rise when the glamour at the far end of the hall shimmered, nor when golden light bled like honey through the cracks in the air.
He stepped through with the kind of grace that once earned hymns. All white and soft gold—his robes woven with threads that shimmered like spun starlight. His hair, long and bright as wheat, framed a face that still bore the illusion of youth. Gentle molten copper eyes, too gentle. A mouth made to smile even when it said terrible things.
"Isolde," he greeted her warmly, voice carrying like music in a room built for silence.
"Caderyn," she said. Flat. Unmoved.
"You haven't aged a day."
"I don't," she replied.
He smiled. "Still so cold. So formal. No 'brother'? No fondness for old times?"
She tilted her head. "We are far from fond, Caderyn. And farther from kin."
A pause. One heartbeat too long.
Then: "I came to offer comfort."
"I did not request it."
"Even so."
He approached with slow elegance, trailing sunlight in his wake. When he stopped before her, it was to look down with something like pity.
"You've grown so... small," he said gently. "This court was once vibrant. Now, even your shadows are thinning."
She did not flinch. "What is it you want?"
"To save you, of course."
Another silence, long and cold.
His voice softened further. "You need not struggle. All this—this stone, this sorrow—it was never meant to last. You were meant to remember, not to reign."
"You've said as much before."
"And I will keep saying it until you see. Your people suffer. Starve. Fade. But I can offer sanctuary. My halls are vast. My gates are open. There is a place for them, if you simply let go of what you cannot keep."
Her fingers tightened slightly on the stone. "A place for them—stripped of memory. Reborn. Yours."
He smiled, like a man indulging a child. "They would be safe. Whole. You mistake loss for cruelty."
She rose.
Not quickly. Not with anger. But with a dignity that made even the mist recoil.
"I know cruelty, Caderyn. You wear it like perfume."
His expression didn't falter. Not quite. "Why cling to this ruin, Isolde? You sit here, waiting to be forgotten. What does your silence win you?"
"Dignity. Choice. Peace."
He sighed. "And what of your huntsman?"
She went still.
He pressed, softly. "He's gone, hasn't he? Your loyal dog, finally bored of bone and shadow."
She said nothing.
"I wonder," he mused, too casually, "if he ever tired of you whispering to ghosts. Or if he simply found someone more... vital."
Her eyes narrowed. "Speak plainly."
"I'm saying you lost him, Isolde. And you didn't even try to keep him."
She looked past him, to the far archway of her empty hall.
"No. You lost him first, Caderyn. I let him go," she said, softly.
She could feel the violence flare in him before he fought it under control.
"Of course." A pause. Then, almost tender: "He always did follow his heart. Even when it bled."
"You would know," she said.
That silenced him, just long enough for her to speak again.
"You came to gloat. But you grieve, don't you? Not for me. For him."
He gave a small, sad smile. "We all grieve. Even gods."
She wondered if that was what he thought he was. She stepped closer, standing at the foot of her throne now.
"And yet here you are. Offering extinction dressed as mercy."
"I offer a way forward."
"You offer erasure."
He did not argue. Instead, he said, "When you are ready, send word. My offer will remain. But we both know the outcome, Isolde. Time is not your ally."
"No," she said. "But at least she is honest."
They stood in silence. Opposites. Echoes. Then he bowed—not mockingly, not regally, but with the weight of history.
"Goodbye, sister," he said.
"Farewell, Caderyn," she answered.
He left no footprints in the stone.
But the warmth of his presence lingered like smoke in the air long after he vanished—and for a moment, just a moment, even the Queen looked tired.