Department of Cultural Anthropology (Harrower Section), University of Cumbria
The smell of chalk dust and college student body odour drifted through the lecture theatre. Afternoon sun slanted through the tall arched windows, catching on floating particles like motes in amber. Grey sat in the third row—far enough back to be overlooked, close enough to see the twitch in Professor Durei's left eye when someone dared to check their phone.
This particular part of the University was tucked beyond a dead-end corridor that didn't exist on any official map. The walls shimmered faintly with misdirection—anyone without the right sigils would simply find themselves turning back, convinced they'd made a wrong turn. It wasn't hidden to be exclusive, but to be safe. Only Harrowers, or those marked by them, could pass.
The glamour was subtle: the kind that tugged gently at your attention and folded your perception inward. Grey still remembered the first time she'd walked through it—how the world had gone momentarily muffled, like sound and air were passing through a thick veil of velvet. It wasn't just architecture. It was intention made solid. Magic etched into stone, whispering, you're not supposed to be here, unless, of course, you were.
A diagram shimmered faintly on the blackboard behind her, drawn not in chalk but in something glimmering faintly violet.
"—and so we return," Durei was saying, "to the classic case studies of Veilpiercers. Mortals who, either by accident or design, witnessed what was never meant for their kind. The results, as we know, are uniformly disastrous."
Grey tapped her pen against her notebook. "Disastrous" was a matter of perspective. Some of them went mad. Some vanished. A few, the really unlucky ones, were offered jobs.
Durei paced like a crow in a too-small cage, robes rustling. "The 1617 Gloucestershire incident. The boy who returned speaking only in dead languages. Or the Battersea Rending—where a girl passed through and came back with stars in her veins and no memory of her own name."
Grey resisted the urge to raise her hand and ask if "no memory" counted as a hall pass. She scribbled in her notes anyway:
Through the Veil = transformation, not passage. Self replaced or rewritten? Stars optional?
Durei's eyes swept the hall. "To glimpse beyond the Veil is to be seen in return. The Veil does not open without cost. You are not the same thing when you walk out. And no one—not one mortal in recorded history—has ever come back unchanged."
Grey glanced at her fingers. They still shimmered sometimes, under the right kind of moonlight. Like memory trying to stitch itself back into form.
The bell rang before her thoughts could.
Students shuffled to gather their things, chairs scraping and voices rising like the tide. Grey stood slowly, shouldering her worn satchel, and made for the side door. She didn't look back at the board. The diagram was gone. Durei had already begun to erase it—not with a cloth, but with the flat of her palm, the symbols vanishing into her skin. She absently wondered how many other students noticed.
Outside, the air was crisp and sharp with the promise of winter. The university green was half-shadowed now, leaves crunching beneath her boots.
Wickham's battered old Land Rover idled beside the curb, somehow managing to look smug despite the peeling paint and moss creeping up one wheel well. Wickham insisted it was enchanted. In Grey's opinion, it was possessed. Either way, the glove compartment kept spitting out old bus tickets and teeth, and the radio turned itself on at inopportune emotional moments.
Alaric leaned against it like a Calvin Klein model haunting a crime scene, long coat unbuttoned, dark hair caught by the wind. Thank the gods he had waited around the corner from the main campus. She couldn't bear to imagine how the students would have reacted to the sight of him—probably a spike in fainting spells and poorly disguised phone photos.
As she approached, she gave the Land Rover a wide berth.
"It tried to eat my notebook last time," she muttered.
"That's because it hungered for knowledge," Alaric offered with mock solemnity.
"It spat out a parking fine and a rat skull."
"Ah, so a scholar with taste."
Grey gave him a look. "You're very chipper today. Did you absorb a theatre kid?"
He shrugged. "The wind was singing your name. I just harmonised."
"Gods save me," she muttered, climbing in. "He's learned metaphor."
"No, I borrowed it. From your diary. Page twelve. Right after 'Alaric Fen is a menace with cheekbones.'"
She slammed the passenger door harder than strictly necessary.
His mouth curved into that infuriatingly slow smile.
"Missed you at lunch," he said. "Let me guess. Learning about the dangers of things like me?"
Grey gave him a look. "Yes. You're in at least three case studies. Possibly four, if the Battersea girl turns out to be one of your exes."
"You wound me, pet. I promise not to rewrite you at least until after buying you dinner."
Grey snorted. "What an honour. You going to charm me into forgetting myself first?"
"You already forget yourself every time I walk into the room," he said, sliding her a sidelong glance.
"No," she said flatly. "That's just dissociation."
"Romantic."
"You bring it out in me."
Alaric closed the door, circled the car, and got in beside her. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then, softly, he said, "Did it hurt? When they brought you back?"
Grey stared out the window as the campus slipped away behind them. "No," she murmured. "It hurt after."
Alaric nodded once. He didn't ask again.
The Folio of Threads – Page 87
As Retold (with questionable theatrics) by Wickham
Filed under: "Things You Shouldn't Do Unless You're Very Pretty, Very Brave, or Very Stupid"
Right then, darlings. Pull up a stone, pour something strong, and try not to blink too much. I've got a tale for you. It's an old one. Older than moss on a gravestone, older than the stones themselves if you believe in that sort of thing—which I do, because I've tripped over most of them.
So. Once upon a Beltane morning—or maybe it was Samhain, or Tuesday, no one quite agrees—there was a girl. Sharp laugh, sharper eyes. The sort of girl who doesn't listen when the wind says don't. You know the type. Brave. Or cursed. Possibly both.
She lives in some quiet village full of quiet people who know better than to peek under stones or whistle after dark. But she's got curiosity tangled in her hair and stubbornness in her blood, and so—of course—she finds a path that shouldn't be there.
Paved in bones. Or silver. Or teeth, if you're feeling poetically inclined.
At the end? A glamour. Not one of the grand ones—no arches of pearl or singing vines. Just a bent rowan tree with ribbons hanging like secrets. Seven of them. Always seven. There's a reason, and if you ever find out what it is, don't tell me. I like my teeth where they are.
Now here's the bit where any normal soul turns around.
But darling—she looks. Just a peek, mind. Just long enough to see the edges fray. And oh, what sights the Fae gave her. A man made of ash and velvet, playing harpstrings strung with breath. A woman with moth wings, drinking the stars like wine. A child with no mouth laughing like thunder.
She blinks. The glamour closes. But the damage is done.
Now here's where it gets chewy.
She remembers.
Not just remembers—carries. The things she saw cling to her like shadow to fire. She can't unsee. She can't unknow. Glamours break around her. Mirrors twitch. Salt won't stick. Her neighbours look at her like she's humming a tune they're too afraid to name.
So what does our girl do?
She writes. She carves truth into bark and bone. Bakes warnings into bread. Leaves sigils in the mud behind her boots and murmurs old names into the steam of her tea. Like a trail of breadcrumbs for anyone else foolish enough to look.
And the Courts notice. Oh yes, of course they do. They don't send blades. They send kindness. Soft voices. Sweet dreams. Offers of forgetting. One kiss on the brow and poof—gone. Wrapped in peace and a story no one quite remembers.
She says no.
And they? Well. They turn her into a tale.
So if you're ever walking through hills that don't have names, and you see a girl with ribbons in her hair and no mouth to speak with—keep walking. Don't ask what she saw. Don't ask what she knows.
Because darling, if she gives it to you…
The Veil will take something back.
And it's never what you expect.
Wickham's Notes in the Margin:
"Velvet man" might be the Seelie King. Or a metaphor for fashion crimes.
This story makes an excellent cautionary tale if you're trying to dissuade someone from marrying a Fae prince or opening mysterious doors. Trust me. I should know.