Not everyone who frequented the circle at night had fangs. Some just had a bit of magic, a quick smile, purple contacts, and just-as-purple hair.

Milo walked through the darkened park paths with ease. In their arms sat a large bouquet of flowers, picked from many different spots along their way from The Abyss, the one store in the mall where someone with all-black clothes, dark makeup, and multiple piercings wouldn’t stand out in the least. They moved with a bouncy step and happy hum, completely at ease and unperturbed by the circle’s overwhelming energy.

But then, not much bothered them, night or day. The young witch was a neutral party and they’d yet to be threatened with fangs or fire.

When they reached the ring of stones, they walked right into the middle, carefully side-stepping the smoldering embers and the black, corrosive puddle of doubly-dead Cruce. Still softly humming, they went up to the nearest stone and lay a few carefully-chosen flowers at its base. The young witch gave the dark crystal spike a respectful nod, and then moved onto the next. They continued around the inside, placing flowers at every stone, until they’d made a complete circle.

Flowers distributed, they stood in the center of the ring and held absolutely still, even holding their breath, until they heard it. Whispering. Just under the soft, cool breeze, under the beat of Milo’s heart. It always seemed to grow a little louder after their flowery visits.

“You’re welcome,” Milo said quietly, smiling. “I missed you too.”

Then, they realized, they were not alone. Milo hadn’t actually followed anyone; they simply knew they’d find the ones they searched for here, the way they knew there was no place like this circle in the world. Two girls, both gray-skinned with catlike eyes, stood at the edge of the stones, staring at Cruce’s remains.

“I think we knew the way because he knew,” Milo heard the taller girl say faintly. “Or maybe just because he died here.”

“Yeah,” the other one breathed out, sounding awed. “Just… wow. There he is.”

They stood there together for a while, staring at the corroded puddle of dead-vampire muck, all that was left of Cruce. Then both of them stood straight up as if they’d been poked with pins. Their focus on Cruce’s corpse had distracted them at first, but now they’d both sensed the stranger’s presence before a word had been spoken, but a moment later, that word came.

“Hi,” Milo said, giving an awkward little wave, which turned into a raised hand as they both started and jumped backwards, eyes flashing and clearly about to run, or fly away, as quickly as possible. “Wait, stop! Nails, Maestra—I’m a friend!”

At the sound of their names, both vampire girls froze. They exchanged a quick glance, and as they looked at each other, the lights in their eyes faded along with their startled snarls. They turned tentatively back to Milo, though both were still prepared to fly at the first sign of danger, every muscle tensed and clawed hands at the ready.

“Who are you?” Maestra demanded, voice slightly distorted, warped far beyond what a teenage girl’s should sound like. She’d stepped a bit between Milo and Nails and leveled the stranger with a gaze that was not so much predatory but promising; make a wrong move, and there could only be one outcome.

“My name’s Milo,” they said, speaking quickly and spreading both empty hands. A witch was never quite unarmed, but it did seem to calm the vampire girls a bit. “I guess you might say I’m a friend of a friend. Letizia sent me here to make sure you were doing all right, after… what happened.”

“Really?” Maestra blinked in clear surprise. “Wait—why’d she tell you to come here? She told us not to come here.”

Nails let out a snorting laugh. “That’s totally how she knew we would! Oh my God, she played us!”

“I guess she did,” Maestra grumbled, but kept looking curiously at Milo. “So what are you, another witch?”

“Yes,” Milo said with an unbothered, friendly nod. “I know her, and I knew of Cruce, and that until recently you were under his… employ. Your secret’s safe, and I’d like to help you get your bearings if I can.”

Nails squinted at Milo’s face, taking in their delicate features and smooth angles under the black eyeliner and purple shadow. “You look really familiar. Like, really. Do we know you?”

“Not personally, but I’ve seen you around the mall,” Milo said, though they hesitated for a moment. “Aside from that, I am a friend of Letizia’s—maybe that’s why you recognize me?”

“Yeah. Maybe,” Maestra said, but didn’t look quite certain. “It’s hard to say. It’s hard to tell much of anything right now.”

“It’s got to be disorienting, suddenly having a whole world to explore, and a whole life to live. Like getting to know yourself for the first time.” Milo gave them a little smile. “I know something about that.”

“Yeah, it’s been wild,” Nails said, trying to smile back, but just looking uncharacteristically nervous. “Everything’s weird and the whole world feels different, like clearer and fuzzier at the same time.”

“It feels like when we first changed,” Maestra added, eyes widening in realization. “How the whole world was different overnight. We woke up different people. It feels like we’re different people now.”

“Getting away from an abuser will do that,” Milo said. “Your lives were defined by Cruce for over a century. Remembering who you really are is never easy after something like that.”

“Yeah,” Nails sighed. “Like impossible. Everything after we got turned feels like a weird dream, and I don’t really remember being human at all.”

“That’s understandable,” Milo sighed. “And you’re not missing much. Being a human isn’t very fun, most days.”

“Some things do kind of… make noise in my head, though, even if I don’t know why. Like you.”

“And these.” Maestra pointed at one of the few “missing” posters that hadn’t been ripped down or scratched out—not one of Pixie, but a lanky, grungy-looking boy with unruly hair. “This guy here? He looks kind of familiar, but I don’t know his name or anything, or where I’ve seen him before. It’s like the images are still here, but the labels are gone.”

“That sounds scary,” Milo said with a slight hesitation as their eyes paused on the poster, but then gave a sympathetic nod that encouraged both of them to continue.

“Yeah, but it’s been more like… lonely, I guess?” Nails said, serious as the other two by now. “Maybe just because we’ve been alive so long, but I don’t think that’s it. Time gets... weird. Like it passes really fast and slow at the same time. Years and weeks kind of start to feel the same, and nothing really changes with you, even if the rest of the world does. You can’t talk to many people or they’ll be scared of you or—or bad stuff might happen. Even if it’s up to you, which sometimes... it’s not up to you.”

“It is now,” Maestra said quietly.

“Yeah it is.” Nails gave her a smile, encouraged. “But see, it’s hard to explain. Like the time thing—some things you just have to live yourself before you get it.”

Milo smiled. “I think I know what you mean. So what brings you here in particular? Do you remember something about it?”

“Not really, it’s more like we felt kind of pulled here,” Nails said, eyes lingering on the decaying clothes in the middle. “This is where it happened. Where Cruce died. But even besides that, this place feels... important.”

“It is,” Milo said. “It’s one of my favorite places in the city. I come here to get away from—well, this place is just special, that’s all. Can you feel that? It’s like the air is electric. It even feels good to breathe. Usually does. It’s felt kind of... off, lately.”

“Well, we don’t really breathe, but that’s what that tingly feeling is?” Nails stretched out her arms and moved them through the space. As she did, the hairs on them stood up like they hadn’t since she was alive. “Magic?”

“Mm-hmm,” Milo said with a nod. “It’s thick here, like... fog, almost. I bet that’s what it would look like if you could see it. I can’t, obviously. Can you?”

“Huh?” Maestra gave them a confused look.

“Vampire eyes are supposed to be different. You can probably see things even witches can’t. Like this?”

They held out both hands, clapping them and rubbing them together. When Milo pulled their hands apart, silvery strands clung to each finger, forming a glittering cat’s-cradle. Rainbows danced along each string as Milo twirled and looped them around their fingers in a continuous and hypnotic motion, quicksilver light transforming and blooming into more shining color.

“I’d wear that,” Maestra said wistfully. “A whole dress made of that. You can’t see it?”

“No,” Milo shook their head, but smiled. “But I know it’s there. It feels warm in my hands, a little bit like silk, or running water that... see, that doesn’t really begin to say what it actually feels like, there aren’t really words for it. I just know it’s there.”

“It’s like I can tell you’re a witch without looking,” Nails said, giving a sniff in Milo’s direction. “You smell the same way the circle does.”

“So I smell like magic,” Milo concluded with a contemplative head-tilt. “I guess that’s a compliment. And I’ve known vampires before. They were always... friends of the family, I guess you’d say. Some of them closer than my blood family, who never really…” they trailed off, then shook their head. “But that was a long time ago, and I have a new family. Like Letizia. She taught me almost everything I know about being a witch, like how to read cards—oh!”

They brightened, looking excited instead of sympathetic-but-guarded, and suddenly much younger.

“I have an idea,” Milo said. “Whenever I’m feeling lost, I turn to my tarot deck, or a friend’s. Reading for myself is hard, but I love doing it for others. Letizia’s the master, of course, but I can do my best, if that’s something you’d like? Very simple, three cards: past, present, and future.”

“Sure,” Maestra said, this time not needing to confer with Nails even with a glance; she was already nodding. “I’d love to see what the cards think about… all this.”

Milo stepped away from the center and nodded for them to follow. Just outside the stone circle was a smooth, flat stone that made a good table. Milo knelt down beside it, a deck of cards in their hand that neither girl had seen before. It was greatly reminiscent of Letizia’s habit of pulling items out of thin air, though unlike her, Milo didn’t accompany the gesture with a satisfied flourish.

“Do you have a significator?” they asked, cutting their deck and beginning to shuffle. Where Letizia’s was the classic Rider-Waite deck, the backs of Milo’s cards had an elegant silver and pastel blue design, the colors soft and painterly instead of starkly vivid.

“A what?” Maestra asked, catlike eyes following the motion of their hands as the both of them sat down across from Milo.

“A card that means you,” Milo said. “Something that fits with your personality. I can use that to start. Sometimes it makes for a more personal reading.”

“Oh. I don’t have that,” she said, and glanced at Nails, who shook her head as well, looking a little troubled, as if they were getting in over their heads. “Do we need to pick them out? I don’t know anything about any of this.”

“Don’t worry,” Milo said gently. “It’s not a problem at all. We can find out together…” They pulled one card and held it up, showing its face to both girls without looking at it themself. “The past, behind you is… The Moon, reversed?”

“Yeah,” Nails confirmed, looking impressed now. “How’d you know?”

“It’s my deck,” Milo said with a smile and little shrug. “We’re very well-acquainted. So that’s the one we’ll start with. The Moon can be neutral, referring to a pattern of events or behaviors—a cycle. Repeating history. Reversed, and that history is a less-than-happy one. It means being stuck in a rut that isn’t good for anyone involved. Less a tradition, and more a trap.”

“Sounds about right,” Nails grumbled, nodding with a rueful frown. “Like a hundred and fifty years of being trapped.”

“So the present, beneath you…” Milo reached for another card, eyes looking faraway and a bit out of focus, but movements sure. Again, when Milo pulled it, they did not look at the face, instead showing it to the pair sitting opposite. “Nine of Swords, reversed?”

Again, a pair of confirming nods.

“This one can mean internal struggles, turmoil… taking on too much and internalizing it. Enduring a secret pain that nobody else sees. Feeling imprisoned, helpless, with no end in sight.”

“More truth,” Maestra said, looking disappointed. “This is kind of a depressing spread, huh?”

Milo tilted their head, owlishly peering at the card and all its blades. “You can read it that way. But this is one of my favorite cards, especially reversed.”

“Really?” Nails asked, tilting her own head to look at the card, as if she might see what Milo did in its depths.

“Yes. It’s special to me. ‘Reversed’ doesn’t always mean bad—and here I think it means that there is an end in sight. In fact, it’s already happened.” They smiled a little. “You’ve already broken free. Cut away the ties binding you to something weighing you down. Sometimes you have to cut off an old life to live the one you were always meant to. Something I know a lot about. It’s not a bad card at all.”

“So what comes next?” Nails asked eagerly. “Now that we’re cut free?”

“The future, before you is…” They pulled one last card, showing them the picture of three dancing figures holding chalices overflowing with water; the image’s curves were gentle and the gem-tone colors harmonious. “Three of Cups.”

“It’s pretty,” Maestra said, just as Nails said, “hey, this one’s right-side-up!”

“Yes it is,” Milo said, and looked relieved. “And this one means friendship, happiness shared, emotional healing and relief. Blessings overflowing, specifically enjoyed with friends.”

“Finally,” Nails sighed. “It’s about time. We could really, really use some fun times and friends—we got a lot to make up for.”

“Easier said than done,” Maestra said a little darkly, eyeing the card’s carefree dance and bright colors as if finding them difficult to trust. “I’m glad you-know-who’s gone, but… well, it’s gonna take a while.”

“I’m sure,” Milo said with a sympathetic look at them, then back down at the card they laid beside the other two. “But ending with the Three of Cups is an encouraging sign. The first two were hard, it’s been a difficult ordeal, but that’s one of the happiest endings I can think of. Even if you can’t see exactly how you’ll get there.”

Milo fell silent, staring at the three cards, and for a moment, didn’t move. Then they gave a shiver, as if a chilly wind had swept through the clearing, though none had.

“And that’s all I can tell. Sorry I can’t give you more—like I said, this place hasn’t felt right in a while.” They looked around a bit anxiously, like the stones might somehow come to life and advance on them. “You two should probably steer clear of it for a few days at least, too.”

“Why?” Nails asked at once. “I thought our spread had a good ending. The Three of Cups is good, right?”

“It is—but I have a feeling that this circle’s destiny is bigger than one card, or you, or me, or any of us,” Milo said, still looking uneasy. “Something… very important is coming. I can feel it. And none of us should be around when it comes.”

Both girls looked at each other, then back at Milo. “What do you think is going to happen?” Maestra asked, very seriously.

“I don’t know, exactly—and when I don’t know, when something could go in any direction at all, I tend to be very careful in moving forward.”

“Well, we’ve been doing pretty good so far,” Nails said with a jerk of her head back toward Cruce’s remains. “That’s one monster down. Maybe we should keep a good thing going.”

“No,” Milo said, soft voice coming out a bit sharp. “No, you definitely shouldn’t. This circle is a powerful place, but soon, I don’t think it’s going to be a good one. I’m just telling you what Letizia told me, and she’s usually not wrong about these things—take it up with her if you have more questions, but I don’t think she’ll give many answers. I couldn’t get much more out of her myself.”

They stood up then, looking up at the sky as if expecting rain, very reasonable in this time and place, but their worried expression suggested they were actually expecting something more ominous.

“Now I think we should get going. You’re welcome to come with me, I’m happy to be a sounding board while you sort out your feelings, or we can do something else—do you like movies? You’ve probably missed a lot of great pop culture moments. I’m mostly a rom-com and Disney kind of enby, but I’m up for anything!”

Nails and Maestra exchanged one of their pointed looks that contained an entire conversation in under two seconds, even without the semi-telepathic bond they still shared and always would.

“That sounds great,” Nails said out loud as they both turned back to their new friend, who gave them a sunny smile. “I’ve always wanted to see an actual movie all the way through! Do you have anything about vampires?”

“But maybe funny vampires,” Maestra said with a little wince in the direction of Cruce’s remains. “I’ve kind of had enough serious and scary for a while.”

“I think I know just the thing,” Milo said as the three of them headed away from the circle and back to the trail leading to the human side of the world. “Do you know What We Do In The Shadows?”

“No, what do we do?” Nails asked, and Milo giggled.

“You’re about to find out.”

 

 

It was the morning before the night of the ritual, and Jude was about to crawl out of his skin.

He and Pixie hadn’t talked, about what had happened or what was about to happen, and the sad, desperate moment in the motel played over and over in Jude’s head, how blank and dead Pixie's usually more-alive-than-life eyes had been, the horror on his face when he realized what he’d done—Jude wanted to escape his own thoughts. But he couldn’t leave his brain behind, so instead he left the apartment, feet carrying him to a door just down the hall before he quite told them to.

The door opened just a few short moments after Jude’s first knock, taking him a bit by surprise. It usually took Jasper at least ten seconds to answer, maybe because he was in the back of his apartment with Felix, maybe just the fatigue Jude knew he was working through almost constantly.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked.

“I wish you would.” Jasper did indeed have dark circles under his eyes and leaned heavily against the door frame, but he smiled, and the knot inside Jude’s stomach loosened just a bit.

“Thanks. I don’t mean to disturb you or Felix, but…”

“You’re not, believe me. We can talk in here,” he said, leading the way inside and down the short hall past the living area. Jude’s eyes were immediately drawn toward a closed door that he hadn’t seen the other side of in some time. There, he knew, was Felix. Jude didn’t expect the wave of disappointment he felt at the sight of it, and realized that some part of him had been expecting, or at least hoping, to find it open.

“Felix is asleep—or his version of sleeping, rather,” Jasper said, clearly noticing the object of Jude’s attention and his reaction. “I’d like to keep it that way, for a few hours at least. He doesn’t really have a sleep schedule yet, and lord knows it’s hard enough for him to get there.”

“It’s hard on you too,” Jude said. “You deserve a few hours’ break.”

“The shop’s closed, and likely to remain closed for the immediate future. I’m only still paying rent on that place because moving everything out of there is out of the question. So I’m always on a break.”

“You know what I mean.”

For the first time in too long, Jude was able to see all of Jasper clearly and up close. He looked tired and run-down, even more so than Jude was accustomed to seeing him. In the early days of Felix’s return, Jasper had reminded him of a new father with a baby up at all hours, sleep-deprived and concerned but happy all the same—but right now he looked much more tired, and much less happy than he’d been at first.

Jude could also tell this time that Jasper indeed had lost more than a bit of weight, and now he could see the full extent. Still substantially broader than Jude, but not by as much as he remembered. All of Jasper seemed diminished, but Jude’s concerned eyes went quickly to the way his shirt hung more loosely, particularly around his waist. It was unlikely to have been intentional; Jasper had always seemed right at home with his round figure and size in general. Being fat was simply part of who he was, and a good part, like the quickness of his perceptive eyes or the wry tilt of his smile when he’d just thought of something sure to make even Jude laugh. This hurt to see. The physical evidence of how great a toll the last months had taken made Jude’s own stomach feel tight and cold.

“Does your head hurt?” Jude asked, figuring Jasper’s migraines were safer to inquire about, though just as urgent. They’d all had a lot on their minds, but Jasper maybe the most of all.

His friend gave a completely joyless chuckle. “I’ve forgotten the last time it didn’t.”

Jasper led him into the bedroom he and Felix shared, or had at one time, and lowered himself down to sit on the bed, slowly, as if his entire body ached, not just his head. Jude hesitated only momentarily before sitting down beside him. Once, Jude would have felt anxious and a wonderful kind of embarrassed to be alone with Jasper in his bedroom, even with Felix in the next room, but now it just felt sensible, natural. Intimate, yes, but their friendship always had been, and they were long past the point of getting worked up about little things like this, despite the distance the past months had put between them.

“Has Felix left your place at all?” he asked, making an effort to keep his voice down, even if it was probably pointless with vampires in the house.

“Only for the occasional flight to stretch his wings. But they’re never very long, and he always goes back to the guest room afterwards.”

“He doesn’t sleep with you in here?” Jude asked, frowning.

“No. I’ve tried, of course, but he just seems more at ease in the guest room. I’m trying not to read too much into that. Sometimes it feels like he doesn’t think he deserves it. He actually doesn’t sleep in a bed at all, really, unless I’m in it.

“Then how…?”

“Standing up,” Jasper said with an illustrative up-down wave. “Ramrod-straight, joints locked, like a… well, he’d make a wonderful coatrack. And it’s not really sleep either, more like some kind of trance with his eyes half-open. I’m not sure if that’s because of his permanently… morphed state, but it’s just how he is. Does any of this sound familiar to you?”

“No. Pixie’s definitely never done that,” Jude said, suddenly very grateful for that. “I’d remember.”

“Just a Felix thing, then. I thought as much. Hopefully it’ll level off with time. I’ve taken to sleeping in there with him, but it’s really not the same. I still wake up like clockwork thinking it was all a dream and he’s not there.”

“I’ve done that a few times too.” Jude had actually done that quite a bit more than a few times, but he felt strange admitting that to Jasper. What right did he have to still be messed up about this? Jasper had the monopoly on Felix-related trauma, as much as Jude knew he’d say it wasn’t a contest. Even if it was, there was no winning here to be had.

“So what has you so worried, Jude?”

“What?” Jude asked, brain only catching up to the words after a couple seconds. “Oh—nothing. Nothing important, anyway.”

“I very much doubt that. Both that it’s nothing, and that it’s nothing important.”

“I—no, really, I’m fine. I just wanted to be here instead of…” He shrugged. Words were getting harder to come by. Wasn’t that always how it worked? The more he wanted to communicate something, the more important the words, the more elusive they became.

“You didn’t come over just to ask about Felix… well, you might have, but I’m getting the impression that there’s something else on your mind,” Jasper said. Even if Jude lost every word in the dictionary, Jasper would still be able to read him like a book. “You and Pixie have both been through a major change. Living together is a big step. I’ve been meaning to ask, but…”

Jude couldn’t speak and felt a painful ache creep into his tense shoulders. He didn’t know when he’d started curling his fingers into fists around the comforter but forced himself to release it. He didn’t need to add bed wrinkles to the list of Jasper’s problems.

“Well, never mind that,” Jasper said, mercifully, and Jude’s shoulders dropped as he deliberately made himself relax. “How did your quest for spell ingredients go? Did you and Eva get the high-noon earth from the midnight circle?”

“Yeah,” Jude said after nodding a few times. One word at a time. “Yeah, we did. She did most of the work. I just distracted the guy guarding them—that redheaded punk who likes to yell and cause trouble.”

“Sanguine,” Jasper said with a nod, then, in response to Jude’s surprised look, “Letizia let me know about him a while ago. He hasn’t caused any mayhem at my shop, as far as I know, and she said it’s unlikely he would, but he’s always had it out for her, for some reason or another.”

“I think I know why.”

“Oh?” Jasper’s eyebrows raised.

“He had blood on his neck,” Jude said, with an accompanying gesture along his own. “Punctures.”

Jasper didn’t look surprised, more resigned. “I suspected that may be the case. Did he give you much trouble?”

Jude shook his head. “He didn’t throw a punch or anything. Even if he had, I doubt he’d be able to hurt anyone besides himself. He looked… bad. I’d almost feel bad for him, if he didn’t have such a mouth on him.”

“Yes, Jude, ‘almost.’” Jasper chuckled, and Jude began to feel warm inside instead of chilled with anxiety. Sometimes it was nice to be around someone who could see right through you and all the fibs you told, even to yourself. “It seems to me he’s insisting on fighting his own battle right now. But if there’s a way to help him, and he wants it, you’ll find it.”

“I can’t seem to help anyone right now,” Jude muttered, and where his shoulders had once been creeping up to his ears, now they sagged, and he rested his elbows on his knees. “Not even Pixie.”

“That’s funny, I was also just talking about him.”

Jude shut his eyes. He couldn’t keep anything from Jasper, not for long. He’d known that when he came here. If he was being honest with himself, that’s the reason he’d come here at all. “It’s—he’s—we’ve hit a couple bumps in the road.”

“Tell me,” Jasper said, and Jude felt the comforting warmth of a hand against his back. He leaned into it as Jasper continued. “Everything that you feel is yours to tell, anyway.”

“Part of it’s mine,” Jude said, anxiety making his tone uncertain and halting. “Part of it, I’m not sure. I don’t know if I even understand it all. That’s why I came to you.”

“I’ll do my best, even if my best is just to listen.”

“Well, last night we went looking for the ‘rose-tinted memories’ Letizia told him to find,” Jude said, focusing on the words, not the emotion behind them, not the worry still clawing at him, along with the memory of how hard Pixie had been shaking in his arms. “Pixie and I went back to where he used to live. This old motel, falling apart, nobody there now. He wanted to find a time capsule type thing that he’d made with—with his old boyfriend, I guess. So, a thing made of good memories, or at least something that looks good in hindsight—anyway. It wasn’t there, and he got really upset, and…”

He paused, taking a breath, still trying to make the events make sense in his own mind. Jasper didn’t prod or interrupt, just sat, waiting patiently. Jude felt another swell of gratitude; it was the best thing he or anyone could have done under the circumstances, and slowly Jude’s brain fully remembered how words worked again, and he made himself speak.

“I think he got scared. Or he’s been scared. Of everything, of Wicked Gold and getting hurt again, and us getting hurt, and—and me deciding I don’t want him around anymore.”

“I don’t think there’s much chance of that,” Jasper said with a little smile Jude couldn’t find it in himself to return.

“No, there isn’t. At all. But he said he owed me, and that he wasn’t doing anything in return for everything I’d given him, and…” he stopped, took another breath, and pushed the rest out. “He kissed me. But not like before, and not—not the right way, this was different, he was scared, and—he wanted me to touch him, but not because he wanted it, I don’t think. It’s like he thought he needed to repay me with sex. Like that was what he owed me, and he had to do it right then or I’d kick him out.”

“Oh, Jude. That must have been awful. For both of you.”

“It was,” Jude agreed with a vehement nod, and he looked fully over at Jasper to see that he’d turned slightly toward Jude, holding one arm a bit out, open.

Jude only hesitated for a moment before scooting over, not fully into Jasper’s thick (but still too thin) arms, but until their shoulders touched. He wanted more than anything to accept that embrace and the feeling of complete safety it had always offered, but something stopped him. Jasper had said part of him thought Felix believed he no longer deserved his place in his fiancé’s bed. All of Jude believed the same thing of himself. It wasn’t a refusal at all, but an inability, one that he now knew painfully well.

“It’s not that he pushed himself on me or anything,” Jude said quickly, when the unfortunate implications of his story occurred to him. “Pixie actually asked if he could touch me, I just didn’t know what he meant at first. Scared out of his mind and panicking, he still asked.”

“And when you said no—since I’m quite certain you did—yes, that’s what I thought,” Jasper said, smiling a bit in response to Jude’s wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights look. “When you said no, what did he say?”

“Not much,” Jude said with a tired shrug. “He cried for a while. I held him and told him he didn’t have to do that—he definitely had to do that before. He said that’s what men wanted from him. Wicked Gold, and just…”

“Worse men than you.”

“I guess.” Jude let his head hang down, oddly tired after expressing the thing that had been tearing up his insides all night. “I took him home, and I guess he didn’t want to talk about it because he turned into a bat and crawled into one of my oven mitts. He’s probably still there. I hope he’s still there.”

“You did the right thing,” Jasper said. “Taking care of him, and telling me about it—although I do know what you mean now about not all of it being yours to tell.”

“Yeah. I know he hasn’t even told me the whole thing.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, nothing you’ve told me leaves this room. But it’s good to know when a friend is struggling with that kind of pain. We can all keep him that much safer. I don’t think I need to tell Felix to be gentle with him. They probably know more about each other’s trauma than any of us could imagine.”

“Yeah,” Jude said again. “I just don’t know what to do about it. I want to help, but I don’t know what would make it better or worse, or…”

“It sounds like you’ve done all you can, for now at least. Sometimes there isn’t much you can do at all, except to give him a safe place to heal. I’m in very much the same boat, so I do speak from some experience.”

“Thanks. I knew I came to the right place.”

They sat together in a silence that would have been awkward with anyone else. Jasper did like to hear himself talk, but he also knew when to let quiet lie over them like gentle, unbroken snow. He’d always done that, known exactly when not to speak or demand anything, and given Jude a safe place to collect his scattered thoughts and fit them back together.

Eventually, Jude turned his head to look up at his friend, whose face remained serene, despite the worrying gauntness in his once-round cheeks. “You don’t sound worried about any of this.”

“I’m not. We’re not the innocents who stumbled in too far over our heads like when this began. We might be fumbling in the dark, but at least we’ve got a few matches this time.”

“Fire’s pretty easy to come by in a crucible, I guess,” Jude said in a dry mutter.

“There is that. But seriously, Jude—I’d always bet on us every time on pure principle. The difference is, this time around, I’d actually feel good about our odds.”

Jasper had always had a way of making him see other sides to a situation. They weren’t always good sides, but it was always better than facing them alone. Jude risked a teasing smile. “‘The innocents who stumbled in,’ you said—you, innocent? I had no idea.”

“Of course, you’re right.” Jasper smiled back, a bit quicker and more mischievous than before, reassuring in the familiarity. It had been too long since Jude had seen that private-joke smile, the one that was never laughing at him, only with, only warm. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“It’s good to talk to you, Jasper,” Jude said, and now it was relief rather than exhaustion making his limbs and head feel heavy. This was the good kind of tired, not the kind when you’re sorely missing a soft bed, but the feeling of having just climbed into it at last, knowing that, tonight at least, sleep wouldn’t be far behind. “I’ve missed you. Both of you.”

“You have? Really?” Jasper blinked. He sounded genuinely surprised, and something about that made Jude sad. And almost as worried as when he’d noticed the weight Jasper had lost in Jude’s absence. He’d thought giving Jasper and Felix some time and space was the right choice, but how could it possibly be, when Jude returned to find less of him? When Jasper was surprised to hear Jude had missed him at all?

“Yes, really. You’re important to me. One of the most important people I have.”

“That’s lovely of you to say, but…” Jasper said and grimaced, as if he’d just tasted something bad. “I don’t feel like it. I don’t know how to help Felix, and that’s the only thing in my brain, it rattles around like a marble in a tin can. Which doesn’t help the headaches, let me tell you. Felix is so changed, inside and out, and I don’t know how to reach him. It feels like he’s a different person, and he is, in a very literal sense. And I love this new Felix, I would do anything to help him—but I don’t know how. I don’t know the things to say or do anymore, because I’m not saying them to the Felix I remember. And I know, believe me, that I’m not who I was anymore either. So we’re two—not strangers, exactly, but we’re trying to live like we’re the same people as before, and we aren’t. But I don’t know how else to be. I feel so useless, every minute of every day and night.”

“You’re not,” Jude said, aware of how weak and hollow the words sounded. Even if he meant them with all his heart, they weren’t enough. “Far from it.”

“Thank you, Jude. That does help.” Jasper’s words were heavy with fatigue as well, but, as always, Jude believed them. “You always do. You’re helping Felix too, just by knocking on our door every morning.”

“God, there’s so much I want to say to him.” Even if he couldn't see the guest room door from here, Jude’s eyes went once again in that direction. “And ask him. I don’t want to pry, but...”

“He hasn’t said all that much about what happened, no,” Jasper said, attuned to Jude’s thoughts as always. “At least, no specifics. He was made to see, and do, terrible things. He was not himself, and not in control of his actions, though he certainly blames himself anyway. I haven’t pressed him, and he seems grateful. And I catch glimpses of him being himself again, every once in a while—maybe not his old self, but he’s finding the new Felix a little more every day.”

“That’s good,” Jude said, and meant it, though his worries weren’t fully assuaged. He paused, then pressed on with words that would have felt impossible only a few minutes ago, to say or to find at all. “I’ve… I’ve wanted to figure things out with you and Felix. Eventually. When he can—and when you can.”

Jasper chuckled softly. “We’re not the only ones in this equation, Jude.”

“Fine, when I can too,” Jude amended. “I want to... see where we are. I just wanted you to know I’m still thinking about that. I’m thinking about it a lot. About—what are we to each other? I mean, what am I to you? Or to Felix? Hell, what am I even to Pixie?

“And what are we, considering that Pixie is part of our lives now?”

“We’re—I mean, he’s said he’s totally fine with—with us being together, but me also seeing if you and Felix and me—he’s good, he said polyamory is normal for him.”

“And you believe him?”

“Yes,” Jude said with a nod. “I can tell when he’s holding something back or saying something's fine when it’s not, even if I don’t know what’s actually bothering him. He’s not doing that here. He really is okay with this.”

“Well, good. At least some things can be simple.”

“Sure, but nothing else is!” Jude made a frustrated noise. “Especially considering—okay. This is another wrinkle right here. Do you remember me telling you about the asexual and aromantic things?”

“I do, yes. Gray and demi, if I remember correctly.”

“Yeah. I was so glad to figure that out. It helped so much, it’s the word I needed, it made everything fit and make sense. Like how knowing I’m autistic explains so much, I’m not just weird, these aren’t just random things I’m experiencing, it’s real and it has a name. But I don’t know the names for what I feel for you, or for Pixie, or if they’re the same or not!” Jude was speaking faster now, as if his words couldn’t wait to come out now that he’d found them. “I think they’re different, but not in a bad way, just in a different way.”

“Different in what way?” Jasper asked, voice patient, grounding.

Jude’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t even know how to express it. Maybe it’s an a-spec thing, or maybe it’s an autistic thing, but I don’t know if I’m feeling the—the right things. I never really have. I don’t know what the things I’m supposed to be feeling even feel like!”

“Jude, believe me, whatever you’re feeling, it’s not the wrong thing. I don’t think there is such a thing as the wrong way to feel.” He half-turned to look at Jude, expression equal parts thoughtful and wry. “But maybe you really don’t feel the straightforward, sexual-romantic way you’ve been told is the ‘right’ way. So what if you don’t? You love us the way you do, and that’s the only way we want. Nothing else will satisfy.”

Jude didn’t have an answer for that. At least not one that held up against Jasper’s logic, and faith in Jude that quieted some of the anxiety buzzing in his brain. Most of it.

“In any case, you’re feeling more at once than most people feel their entire lifetimes. Being asexual, aromantic, autistic, and now navigating polyamory! Any one of those is a lot for one person to deal with, especially when they’re all interrelated and overlap. But they’re not bad things. They come together to make your brain the beautiful thing it is. And none of us have it all figured out. Frankly I’d be shocked if there was a single neurotypical among us. If there were, I suspect they’d be very confused.”

“Well, it’s really inconvenient to feel all this at once. I just wish my brain would make more sense,” Jude huffed.

“Dare to dream.” Jasper was quiet for a bit. When he spoke again, his voice was so soft that Jude had to lean in closer to hear him. “Sometimes I don’t know if there should be a ‘we.’”

“What?” Jude felt a cold little pang of shock and fear. “Why? What did I—why do you say that?”

Jasper’s eyes flicked away from Jude, then down at his folded hands, and stayed there. “Anything I’m in seems to go to ruin.”

Jude shook his head firmly. “That’s not true.”

“Well, I haven’t done much to un-ruin anything, either. I haven’t been able to help Felix at all. Or you, or Pixie, or even Letizia. I wish there was something I could do. For anyone. Anything.”

“Just you being here helps,” Jude said honestly, desperately hoping he was saying the right thing. He couldn’t remember the last time Jasper had shown him this kind of vulnerability, the kind he’d do anything to protect and comfort. “That’s all I want. That’s all any of us want. Even if you don’t do anything, just having you around is enough.”

“Well, thank you, but, I mean something real.” Now Jasper was the one to look in the direction of the room where Felix stayed, alone and silent. “I just hate seeing him hurt, and not being able to do anything.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jude said pointedly. “I hate seeing my most important people hurting.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing you’re not!” Jasper said with a mirthless laugh.

“Yes I—I told you how important you are to me, that wasn’t—”

“That’s not what I mean. I’m not the wounded party in any of this. True, I feel helpless, frustrated, ineffectual—but that’s because I can’t help the ones who actually are in pain. I’m not the one who was killed and brought back and imprisoned and tortured. I’m not the one who’s hurting.”

“Yes you are,” Jude said, and now he glared just a bit. “Don’t do that, yes you are.”

“Fine, Jude.” Jasper looked back at him now, just as pointedly. “If I am, then it’s just another thing we have in common.”

“What’s that? Hurting?”

“In a way. Both of us, very neurodivergent humans, in love with vampires, and not knowing how to help them. And not just because they’re vampires. I can’t begin to imagine the kind of trauma they’ve been through. Can you?”

Jude looked down at his own hands. “No.”

“A good thing, I suppose.” Jasper paused, then something else seemed to occur to him. “Circling back a bit—you said ‘gray’ made being asexual and aromantic less confusing, better-defined, better-managed. A succinct, easy term for complicated, sometimes-nebulous feelings that might change in unexpected ways.”

“Yeah. It does.”

“Then maybe we’re gray. For now, at least.” The corner of Jasper’s mouth pulled up a bit. “I know, it’s not easy being gray, but it’s not such a bad way to be.”

“Okay. Gray. Yeah.” Jude nodded, temporarily satisfied, if still troubled.

For a few seconds, neither of them spoke. The apartment was completely still and quiet around them, so much so that it seemed impossible that there could be anyone else here, in the next room or anywhere else in the world. In a way, it was true; hardly anyone else alive would understand anything about them now, all they’d seen and survived.

It was a very lonely, isolating feeling, realizing that whether you had changed or the world, you no longer quite belonged to it the way you once had. But at least they could be alone together.

“It’s not a bad thing that we’re different people now,” Jasper said quietly. “Any of us. We’re all changed, and we’ll keep changing, and maybe that’s good. Recovery doesn’t always mean everything goes back to the way it was before your world was shattered. Sometimes that’s impossible.” He let out a soft sigh. “But damn it all, if it doesn’t feel like moving forward is just as impossible.”

Jude didn’t answer. But, this time, it wasn’t that he couldn’t find the words. Instead, it wasn’t that he needed to speak at all, but act—and found the thought of it even more insurmountable.

If they were still the people they’d been before, this is when they would have kissed. If this was a perfect world, where none of the past five years had happened, but Jude knew then what he knew now, that Jasper—fat, safe, happy—loved him solidly and truly, and Felix—alive, well, whole—loved him with ease and without inhibition, and that with all his heart, he loved them, and always had. Any perfect world of his would have Eva in it too, secure and unburdened, and Pixie, another incredible, beautiful fat boy who Jude also sorely wanted to kiss right now—but no. Not if Jude wanted to keep him safe. And he couldn’t kiss Jasper now, either. They weren’t the people they’d been, they’d changed, the world wasn’t perfect, it had changed too, and Jude didn’t know this new grayscale landscape well enough to take a new step in it.

He couldn’t do anything but lean just a little more against Jasper’s too-thin shoulder, feel the warmth of him, feel him breathe, know they were by some miracle still alive, if not well, and that for now at least, gray was enough.

They sat together a bit longer, neither wanting to be the first one to rise. Finally, Jasper turned to him and spoke in a frank and level tone. “Jude, I don’t know what it’ll take to finally get Felix out of his room, or for Pixie to feel truly safe and sound, or to get us and Felix back to where we were heading—if we were heading anywhere together at all. And—”

“We were,” Jude said quietly. Unquestioningly. He remembered two kisses, and regretted only that the number had stopped there.

“Yes, we were. And, as I was going to say, I don’t know what’s coming next for any of us. But if there’s anyone I’d want beside us when we find out… well, you’re a good man for the job.”

Jude felt warm inside, and this time the good feeling stayed. He knew they were onto something before, something that had been put on hold, like so many other things, by Felix’s death and all of their subsequent coping mechanisms, healthy or not. But it had been something strong, and real, and important—strong enough to last, and to be there when they could finally return to it with all the care and clarity it deserved. And they would. Jude knew that as well as he knew the face and hands of the man beside him, and how they’d be there when he was ready too. Then, and every moment until.

“Yeah, well…” Jude did smile now, wider and more brightly than before. It felt good. “I was going to be your best man.”

Jasper smiled back, but it was the kind of tired, wistful smile on a too-gaunt face that made Jude’s heart ache. “You still are.”

 

 

“So I unlocked the door to the caves, that should be good to go. Is there anything else I can do?” Eva asked, trying not to sound too obviously bored. “Grab some eye of newt, find a creepy Latin book to read from, anything?”

Letizia had started to shuffle her cards again, but hadn’t spread them. She’d been shuffling for several minutes on end, hands never still. It seemed to be more of a nervous habit than anything else, Eva realized. She must find the repetitive motion and feel of the cards calming—which she seemed to need, because her face was drawn with obvious anxiety.

“No, none of that,” the Witch said, voice sounding weary. “I just… need you to be here. Just be with me.”

“But what do I do?” Eva asked insistently, frustrated at the lack of direction. “That can’t be it. You want me to just stand there, for what, moral support?”

“You can call it that,” Letizia said. “All you have to do is be here. The more powerful the magic, the easier it is to get lost in. It’s just safer to have someone there to bring you back.”

“And you trust me with that?” Eva asked, frustration fading with a little smile. “That’s flattering.”

“I’d trust you with anything,” Letizia said, looking directly into her eyes. Then she cleared her throat and looked away, setting the cards down at last, folding her hands as if to keep them from shaking. She looked up, and even for a vampire, she looked pale and drawn. “This is going to be a very powerful bit of magic. I might get caught in a riptide, swept out into the deep end. I need you to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“And what does getting lost look like?” Eva asked, eyes searching Letizia’s face, looking for signs of trouble right here and now.

“If I start to shake, eyes roll back in my head, anything like that, that’s not a good sign,” Letizia said, and now her smile took on some of its usual wryness. Familiar territory, Eva thought, slightly comforted. “Call me back. Squeeze my hands, give me a shake, or a good slap if you have to. Don’t hold back.”

“I won’t,” Eva assured her. “I’ll be right here the whole time, but I hope it doesn’t come to smacking you out of it. I will, though. With love.” She gave a short, nervous laugh.

“I appreciate that,” Letizia said. She sat down on the floor then, beside the completed mirror with its ring of bones, and motioned for Eva to do the same, across from her. When she did, Letizia held out her hands and Eva took them.

The Witch shut her eyes and seemed to slip into a deep trance. Sometimes, Eva forgot that Letizia and several of their friends weren’t actually alive. They didn’t always breathe, they didn’t need to. But usually they weren’t perfectly, unnaturally still like this, so it wasn’t as noticeable. Now, she noticed. A shiver running down her spine, Eva shut her eyes too, and waited for the magic to begin.

And waited.

Nothing broke the silence, no smoke or flash or wind. Nothing happened at all, and finally, after what felt like years but had probably only been a few minutes, Eva cracked open her eyes, and peered up at Letizia, who hadn’t moved a single muscle, still holding completely still, in a way no living human could. Eva’s arms were beginning to ache from holding them out across the mirror, and just as she felt them starting to dip with fatigue, Letizia opened her eyes.

“There,” the Witch said. “Done.”

“That’s it?” Eva asked in a hushed voice, feeling like they’d just stepped into a library.

“That’s it.” Letizia smiled. Her own voice sounded much stronger than it had before, and more focused.

“Huh. I didn’t feel anything—I always expected magic to be more... ceremonial,” Eva said, as Letizia gave her hands a little squeeze and then dropped them. “Particularly yours. You sure that was dramatic enough?”

“No drama this time,” Letizia answered, and now she sounded a bit more at ease, smiling in a satisfied way. “Not for the really important things. Showy gets you killed; practical may actually work. If things do start to get dramatic, it means something’s gone wrong.”

“Makes sense,” Eva said, though her puzzled look hadn’t gone anywhere. “I just thought there’d be more to it than that. I mean, besides doing the counter-spell itself. I thought there’d be more for me to do, is all.”

“You’ve already helped,” Letizia said plainly, quickly. The words, which to Eva seemed like almost an admission of vulnerability, had the feeling of ripping off a band-aid. “When I said I didn’t need you to bring anything, that wasn’t quite the truth. I needed an anchor.”

“An anchor?” Eva tried to smile, unable to resist a gentle tease. “Afraid I’m fresh out of those.”

“Not an actual anchor. I meant—I meant you, Eva.” Letizia stammered now, and if vampires could blush, Eva was sure her face would be turning red. “You’ve been the best friend to me I could imagine. This spell is dangerous, I don’t know how it’s going to go, but knowing it won’t touch you will give me courage. Knowing you’re safe will free me up to be daring and brave. I don’t want to know you’re safe, I…”

She stopped, leaving Eva waiting, eyebrows raised in surprised anticipation. She hadn’t expected the beginning to that sentence, and badly wanted to hear its ending, but just as she’d left her question about the bones unfinished, Letizia couldn’t seem to bring herself to complete this particular phrase. There were a lot of possible reasons for that, some much better than others. All of them pretty life-changing. None of them she knew how to put into words.

“I heard you. So that’s really it?” Eva asked eagerly instead. They still had a job to do, and there would be time to explore implications, emotions, and possibilities later. Hopefully. “The spell is ready?”

“It’s ready,” Letizia said, letting out her breath in a little rush, as if she’d just sprinted a short but challenging distance. “All that’s left is to get the mirror to the right place, and wait for the right time. Which in this case is midnight, and… what are you doing?”

“Texting Jude,” Eva said, not looking up from her phone. “Letting him know the where and when. This is happening!”

“No, stop,” Letizia said sharply and Eva looked up—but not before her thumb slipped down to hit send.

“What?”

“Don’t tell—you just sent the message, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Eva said, giving Letizia a raised-brow stare. “Was that bad?”

The Witch shut her eyes and turned her face upwards, appealing to the ceiling or heavens beyond for help. “I wish you hadn’t done that. Now they’ll come and want to help.”

“Well yeah, of course they will?” Eva said with a confusion-furrowed brow. “Are they not supposed to?”

“I’d rather them not, no.”

“Why would—wait a minute.” Eva slipped her phone back into her pocket and folded her arms. “You’re the one who said you needed our help to get the spell done, and wanted me here while you did—whatever you just did. Why are you mad they’re coming now?”

“I’m not mad,” Letizia said in a carefully calm voice that did nothing to convince Eva this was true. “But your part of the spell is over. Now it’s my turn to take over, and finish it myself. Everyone trying to come along will make everything…more difficult than it needs to be.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Eva asked, incredulous voice rising a bit in both volume and pitch. “What do you mean, ‘our part is over?’ You’re gonna do this whole ritual thing alone?”

“That was the idea, yes.”

“This very dangerous counter-spell to a very dangerous ritual, you’re flying this one solo?”

“Yes.” Letizia nodded. “The last steps, I have to take alone.”

“So what were we, your—your kitchen staff?” Eva’s eyes hardened. “You need us to make the meal, but now you’re gonna serve the whole feast yourself, is that right?”

“I feel like the metaphor is getting away from you a bit,” Letizia said, still in that carefully level tone. “But yes. And as long as we’re using it, let’s say that tonight is a feast, and the dinner guests are all ravenous sharks. I’d just as soon keep my helper chefs away from their tank.”

“Yeah? Well, sorry to burst your—your soufflé, or whatever, but it would’ve been nice to know earlier, before I—before we got all invested in this! Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

Letizia picked up her cards and began to shuffle them. “Because you and the others have no business being in a dangerous—”

“No business?” An indignant line appeared between Eva’s eyebrows. “Are we or are we not a part of this?”

“You are. A very important one.” Letizia’s shuffling grew faster, louder, the taps between a little more insistent. “But now you must see reason, instead of insisting on coming into a dangerous situation where you can do no good, and may be hurt, or worse.”

“Don’t you think that’s our decision to make?” Eva retorted. “So instead of letting us decide like grown-ups, you’re just making this—this unilateral decision, just giving us a kiss-off now that the feast is done instead of serving the thing all together like—ugh, forget it,” she shook her head. “This metaphor sucks. And this whole thing sucks! I gotta say, I’m feeling a little used here.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Letizia said, as her hands and cards moved so fast Eva could barely follow them, the tap-shuffle speeding up to a frantic rhythm. “But there’s nothing I can do. As I said, your part is over. I want you as far away as possible from the circle, and me, when the time comes.”

“Really, Letizia?” Eva stared at her. “After all this, it’s just ‘okay, that’s all, you’re dismissed?’”

The aggressive shuffling stopped. Abruptly, the Witch slapped her hands together, then the cards down on the table, pile haphazard and lopsided.

“You’ve done enough already,” she said, now holding perfectly still. She still didn’t meet Eva’s eyes, but her distress was obvious enough. “And now you’re done. You need to stay out of this, as far away as you can get.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” Eva said, folding her arms and gave the Witch a defiant glare. “You can’t always get what you want.”

Now Letizia did look up, eyes narrowing until she was glaring right back. “What makes you think you could help me with the actual spellwork itself? You’re not a Witch. You’re not even a vampire. You’re a human, fragile, breakable, and to have you there would be begging for disaster. Leave the wielding of arcane forces to the professionals.”

“I—you—” Eva sputtered, face beginning to flush. Then she stopped for the space of a breath, only to point a finger directly at Letizia’s face. “I know what you’re doing. You’re doing the—the Spiderman 2 thing!”

Letizia’s iron-resolved face went blank, and she gave a surprised blink. “The Spider…?”

“You’re trying to push me away by making me angry, so I decide that I hate you and don’t get mad when you run off and do something really dumb and really dangerous, because you think your superpowered ass is the only who can save the day or some shit like that! Yes, I said shit, I’m tired of keeping my mouth shut, and I’m tired of you acting like you’re the chosen one who needs to keep secrets and do everything by herself, because us puny humans could never handle the big scary magic! Give us some credit, get over yourself, and let us help!”

“…Are you finished?” Letizia asked when Eva broke off, panting.

“Yeah,” she said with a jerky nod. “Yeah, I’m done.”

“Yes, you are. Glad to hear we finally agree,” Letizia said, and turned away, beginning to pick up the fragments of bone that ringed the mirror, and slipping them into a small velvet pouch that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “Go home, Eva.”

Eva opened her mouth to argue further, then shut it, throwing up her hands and turning away. “Fine. You know what, fine! Be like that. Say you need our help, and then push away the people trying to help you right after you’re done with them. See if I care. Good luck with your big important magic.”

With that, Eva stormed out the apartment with a full head of steam. She thought she might have heard her name, but it was hard to hear over the slammed door.

 

 

When Jude got home, the sun was nearly down. Almost nightfall, the ritual just a few hours away. But that was an anxious buzz in the back of his mind, and he had more important things to do first, like check the oven mitt where he’d left Pixie. He frowned upon finding it as quiet as Jasper’s, the bedroom door closed, and Pixie presumably inside. He must still need some space, which Jude well understood and respected.

So, realizing that he couldn’t do anything useful here, Jude shifted his thoughts to another important subject—the spell and its requirements. His work wasn’t quite done.

It was a quick project, but he’d only just finished when Pixie came out of the bedroom, still looking chagrined, and Jude put his work aside, folding it up and sticking it into his jacket pocket.

“Hey,” Pixie said, still sounding sad and tired, but at least a little less so. “I’m sorry again, about earlier—at the motel.”

“You still have nothing to apologize for,” Jude said. “I know why you did it. I can tell you that you don’t have to worry, but you’re still going to. Just like you’re still going to have feelings about Jeff, and grief, and you don’t have to give that up or get over it for me to care about you and want you around. I always want you around.”

“Thanks. I mean it. But I’m still sorry. I… won’t let it get to that point again.” Pixie gave an awkward shrug, hands in his pockets. “So, um, I kept thinking about the spell, and found something else that might work.” He reached into a pocket and pulled something out that was bigger than a postcard but smaller than a poster. A sticker, reading “THIS BASS KILLS FASCISTS.”

“That was his, wasn’t it?” Jude asked quietly, looking over its weathered and scratched surface. It wasn’t ripped, though; Pixie must have removed it as carefully as possible.

“Yeah,” Pixie said. “I was gonna use his summer shirt, but… well, I figured this would work just as well. It’s, uh, a memory of happiness. Rose-tinted. Not because it’s pink, but because I know it’s easy to look back and think everything was perfect when it wasn’t, and to forget the good things you have now. And you have to know when to let that go. So I’m trying to let it go, and stop messing up—sorry. I’m gonna stop talking now.”

“Don’t stop,” Jude said. “I want to hear what you think. Even if it’s sad, or messy, or anything else. It’s when you hold back that I start to worry.”

“Okay. Thanks. I’ll try to share my sad messiness more—that was a joke!”

“I know. But I’m serious. I’m here for a reason, I want to be part of your life like you’re part of mine.” He cleared his throat, and pulled the paper he’d been working on from the inside of his jacket and unfolded it. “I was thinking about my part of the spell too, and I think I figured it out. And hopefully it’ll convince you that I meant everything I just said, and I’ll keep meaning it.”

He handed the paper to Pixie, whose eyes grew wide and round as he accepted it. It was the poster from earlier, the one with Pixie’s name and picture on it—but the bolded “MISSING” had been scribbled out, and above it, one word written in red sharpie: “FOUND.”

He heard Pixie make a soft, emotion-stricken noise, and his heart ached and felt warm at the same time.

“A dream of happiness, with eyes wide open,” Jude explained, voice wistful. “Because I know we’re not there yet, but… I want to be.”

“Jude…” Pixie said softly, and Jude looked over, waiting. But no more words came. Pixie’s eyes were squeezed shut, and his shoulders rose and fell as he took a deep, habitual breath. “I want that too. More than anything. You’re—I don’t know how I ended up here. I never thought I had that kind of luck in my life. And I guess I didn’t. But even after everything, even dying, even all the stuff after that? It’s okay. I’m here now. With you.”

Jude thought about his own journey, how he’d died too, felt the sun and heard the ocean waves, and come back to find everything different. All the pain and loss and adjustment, everything he’d do all over again if he had the choice. “I feel the same way.”

Pixie smiled at him, and Jude sucked in a breath—it was another of those moments, those kisses-in-a-perfect-world moments, but this time Jude felt a flutter of hope and excitement instead of fear, something pulling him forward instead of paralyzing him. He took a step forward, hand coming up to reach out for Pixie’s face and draw him closer, when—

Ding.

It wasn’t Mozart’s Requiem, but the standard text noise from the phone Jude had never bothered messing with much was just as jarring. Sighing, he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. Anyone else and he would have put it right away again, but not this time.

 

EVA: L says it’s time to go. Meet us at the mall at 9, same place as last time.

 

“I guess everything’s ready,” Jude said reluctantly, and gave Pixie an apologetic look. “We should go—and I don’t want to rush through this. But we’re coming back to it later.”

Pixie only looked disappointed for a moment, before brightening and grinning at him. “I can’t wait.”

 

 

The dark and empty mall was strangely peaceful, almost beautiful in its own odd, liminal-space kind of way.

“Are we really ready for this?” Jude asked as he, Pixie, Letizia, and Jasper stood before the heavy metal door that led to the mall’s sub-basement and the network of tunnels beyond. The last time they’d been down here, it had been to rescue Pixie and confront a monster. This time, at least, Pixie was standing safely at Jude’s side, though he looked more than a little apprehensive. Jude could relate.

“I am more than ready,” Letizia said, her voice harder than usual. Oddly, she’d looked annoyed to see Jude and Pixie’s approach, and now she stood unwavering and fixing the door with a level stare, as if she could see beyond it to her goal. Maybe she actually could. “The door should be open. Eva unlocked it earlier.”

“Speaking of, where is Eva?” Jude asked, looking around, half-expecting her to emerge from a darkened storefront. He’d feel much better if she did. “We got her text, so I figured she’d be here before us. We can’t do this without her.”

“I asked her not to come,” Letizia said, tone cool and steady as she was. “She would be much more helpful away from this place. As would you.”

“What does that mean?” Jude asked, not liking something about the Witch’s phrasing, or the hard edge to her voice.

“It means what I said. The preparation of the spell was for all of us. The casting of it is for me alone. I told Eva this, and asked her to stay far away.”

“And she listened to that? That’s unlike her,” Jude said, a sinking feeling in his stomach. Letizia gave a slight nod, but said nothing more. “Also, what the hell do you mean, the casting is for you alone?”

“That’s exactly what she said,” the Witch sighed with a roll of her eyes. “And you weren’t supposed to be here either. I meant to tell you all beforehand, but Eva had sent word to you before I could stop her. As I told her, I am truly grateful for all you’ve done, collecting the necessary ingredients, but we are working with very dangerous forces. The kind that you should not be exposed to.”

“Well, you’re right about one thing,” Jasper cut in before Jude could, and more gently than he would have. “It would have been nice to know that earlier. But we’re here now, and I believe we’re all committed to seeing this through together.”

“I didn’t come this far to back out now,” Jude said. Still, he suddenly felt much less sure of this entire business. He turned to look around, then back at Jasper, who stood nearby. “Is Felix not coming either?”

“Not tonight,” Jasper confirmed in a flat voice, and Jude was disappointed again despite himself. He hadn’t quite expected Felix to venture out of Jasper’s apartment again, especially not this far, and would have been surprised to actually see him. Still, his heart sank a little too. Jasper himself seemed not so much calm as controlled. He didn’t like this either, Jude could tell. “This place is a little too... relevant.”

“No kidding,” Pixie muttered, looking unusually dour. It was the first time he’d spoken since leaving Jude’s apartment, and now he watched the door like it might suddenly come to life and attack them.

“You really don’t have to do this,” Jude said to him quietly. “Everyone would understand.”

“I know I don’t have to,” Pixie replied, sounding determined, if not encouraged, and not bothering to whisper. “I want to. Kind of. I mean, no, I don’t really want to, but I feel like it’s important to do. Prove the place didn’t kill me, if that makes sense.”

“It definitely does,” Jude said with a nod. “Reclaiming is important. So, are we—”

“No, ‘we’ are nothing,” Letizia said in a raised voice. “I am ready to proceed. All that’s left for you to do is give me your prepared items, so I can—”

Deee-deedle-deeee-dee.

Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor was back, echoing off the shining floor and interrupting the near-sacrosanct atmosphere like disturbing a crowded movie theater.

“Aaargh!” Letizia snarled as she pulled her phone—or an identical one, since the last time Jude had seen it, it had been very much on fire—eyes flaring briefly as her arm flew out in a blur, flinging the ringing phone against the nearest wall, where it shattered into a dozen pieces.

“Was that a good idea?” Jasper asked, eyebrows raised and tone magnanimous.

“It’s fine. It’ll be back.” As Letizia spoke, the pieces of the phone began to move, springing back together as if someone had hit ‘rewind’ on its destruction. Seamlessly repaired, it sprung back into her waiting hand. She sighed, shook her head, and stuck it back in her pocket, muttering irritated Italian under her breath.

“So, like I was about to ask,” Jude said, watching Letizia steadily with a deadpan expression. “Are we all ready?”

“As we’ll ever be, I think.” Jasper nodded, and Jude stepped up to the heavy door and pushed. It opened with a whining of hinges and grinding of metal, but it did open.

“Wait,” Letizia called, before Jude could continue into the dark, and he looked back to see her and Pixie still standing on the mall side of the door.

“What’s wrong?” Jude asked. “I thought we were the ones who were supposed to stay here.”

“You,” the Witch said to Jasper, seeming to choose not to dignify Jude’s barb with a response. “You I did ask here for a reason. You have to invite us in. Both of us.”

“What?” he exclaimed with a bark of nervous laughter that made Jude jump a bit. “Why me?”

“This was Cruce’s old lair. With him dead, ownership reverts to the next available power,” Letizia explained, sounding a little exasperated, or maybe embarrassed.

“Probably the mall’s parent corporation,” Jasper shrugged. “Or maybe the city of Portland, if eerie catacombs aren’t included?”

“On paper, perhaps,” Letizia said, shifting impatiently. “But in spirit, I would call Eva the guardian of this place.

“Eva, who isn’t here for some reason?” Jude asked with a narrowed gaze.

“Yes. And in her absence, the title would go to one of you.”

“I don’t own the mall,” Jasper said, looking dubious. “And I certainly don’t own miles of caves underneath it.”

“No, but you own a shop here, and quite a special one at that. Magic responds to magic.” She glanced around at them as if daring anyone to challenge her impeccable logic. “As the sole magician-in-residence of this place, that makes you an authority, and therefore a guardian.”

“Really, now? A guardian?” Jasper said with a slowly spreading grin. Jude could see him warm to the idea, which warmed him in turn. “I must admit, that does have quite a nice ring to it. Well, then! Come inside! Welcome to my domain.” He ushered them inside with an elaborate, hand-waving bow, and Letizia and Pixie stepped over the threshold without incident.

“Thank you,” Letizia said to him with a gracious nod. “And now, your part is truly over.”

“My dear, I believe we both know that isn’t true,” he said in a calm and level tone Jude recognized as the one he used when Jude was being particularly negative or stubborn. It wasn’t smug or gloating, but it was the one that meant Jasper was right, he knew he was right, and the sooner everyone else caught up, the better. “As Jude said, we’re all in too deep to bow out now. And if the forces at work are as dangerous as you say, then you’re asking us to let a friend walk knowingly into that danger alone. Does anything about us, or our history—filled with questionable decisions as it is—suggest that’s something we’re about to do?”

“I could send all of you to sleep right now,” Letizia said, with a quick glance around at all three of them, voice growing louder and more commanding with every word. “Do you know the witch you’re dealing with? I could turn you to frogs. Or human statues. I could simply teleport there and be done with it!”

“Then why haven’t you done any of that?” Jasper asked in that same, infuriatingly reasonable voice.

“Because…” Letizia let the word and its slight echo hang in the air. With her intense eyes darkening until they appeared completely black, she did indeed seem capable of wonders and horrors. Then she let out a sigh and shut her eyes, letting her head drop until her long hair formed a slight curtain in front of her face. “You’re my friends, who I love. Of course I want you with me. Of course I want her with me. But it would be selfish to ask, and irresponsible to allow.”

“Then it seems you’ve got a choice,” Jasper said. “Do something unpleasant to us so we can’t follow you, and risk us breaking out of whatever it is, following you down, interrupting your carefully-crafted spell and ruining everything… or letting your friends help you. Which I do actually know isn’t always easy—but if I’m being honest, I’d much rather assist in a dangerous spell than be a frog.”

Letizia didn’t answer. Jude got the impression that she couldn’t. But the corner of her mouth did turn up in a slow, crooked smile, and she headed into the tunnel before them without another word.

“Nicely done,” Jude said to Jasper as he moved to follow Letizia.

“I try,” he returned, a chuckle under his breath.

The door closed behind them. Together they went into the dark.

The corridor quickly turned to a stone tunnel bored directly through the earth, and it was every bit as ominous and oppressive-feeling as Jude remembered.

He had been terrified the last time they'd been down here, walking straight into God-knew-what, knowing only that somewhere down here waited a kidnapped and injured Pixie. Now, he and almost the same group made their way down—plus Pixie. It should have been plus Eva too, Jude thought, and he missed her. More than he even would have expected; she always let him breathe easier. Pixie stuck close to him, and the beam of his pocket flashlight—maybe Jude had the same effect on him. He hoped so.

It didn’t take long until the dark, twisting tunnels opened up into a large central cavern that seemed nearly the size of the mall itself. Much too big for one vampire, Jude thought with a shiver. How many others had made their lairs here? But there was no question about who had used this place last. Only Cruce could be responsible for the large spatters of what was definitely dried blood on the floor, walls, and in spots of the cave, ceiling.

Pixie stopped, taking in the large cavern. It was mostly empty, as it had been—except for the crude wooden cross dominating one side. Below it lay several nails and a large hammer. Pixie stared at the implements of torture that had caused him so much pain, not moving or saying a word. Jasper tapped Letizia on the shoulder and nodded toward the side tunnel entrances, beyond Cruce’s lingering accouterments. She unhesitatingly led the way toward one of them, as if she’d spent her life down here, and the two of them moved forward to give Pixie and Jude a moment together.

“Hey,” Jude said in a low voice, not wanting to startle Pixie out of the reverie into which he’d obviously fallen, but needing to all the same. “You’re still here. You made it out, and you’ll make it out again. I’m right here.”

“I know.” Pixie gave him a little smile, faint but there. “And it’s really okay, Jude. I’m okay. This is what I wanted to see—it’s not the place where Cruce almost killed me. It’s the place where you saved me.”

Jude let out a soft sound that was almost a laugh, but instead of amusement he felt a stab of something close to pain. Close, but not quite. He reached out, still awkward as he always was in emotional moments, but at least knowing now that it was the right thing. Pixie leaning into him when Jude wrapped his arm around his shoulders just confirmed it. “I’m... Really glad you’re still here.”

Letizia moved past them, bringing him back to the present, and set something down on the ground, which Jude was sure she hadn’t been holding before: a large, metal-framed mirror.

“All right. Everybody come here—let’s begin.”

 

 

Eva hadn’t gone home. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stay inside four walls with her brain buzzing with both frustration and anxiety, that it would just feel like a cage, and she needed to cool her head, both literally and figuratively. Before she said or texted anything else she might regret.

It was just cold enough outside that she could see the faint fog of her breath. She hadn’t known exactly where she was headed when she started walking through the park—not to the mall, since she didn’t want to see any witchy faces just now. She wasn’t quite so impulsive as to burst into a dark ritual alone and unprepared, but the images of the stones burned in her head like a song she couldn’t forget. They hung over her like the January chill, just as impossible to escape.

But she hadn’t seen them. Or anything even nearby, she thought with some confusion. Shouldn’t she be able to find them now, even without Letizia’s charm, since she knew where they were? It didn’t make sense.

Of course, nothing about Letizia made sense right now, she thought, with a surge of hurt instead of the anger she expected. Just when Eva had really been feeling their connection, enjoying working together, being on the same side, the same page, the Witch had ripped the rug right out from under her.

“Your work is done now, she says,” Eva muttered. “Go home, Eva, she says. Thanks for your help, now get the hell out. Well, fine. I don’t care. Don’t blame me if you end up dead, or whatever vampires end up as when they…”

She stopped walking. For a few foggy breaths, she stood there, hands in her pockets and not moving. Then she turned on her heel and strode back the way she’d come, toward the mall, and her friends, and stubborn, stubborn witches who pushed people away instead of letting them close enough to—

She wasn’t alone.

Unlike most humans, Eva knew for a fact that the shadows were rarely as empty as they seemed. She remembered reading some worrying statistic, that no matter where you went, there was always a spider within six feet of you in some direction. The same seemed to be true of vampires, or the humans who served them—because here he was. Again.

“Hello… you,” she said, more grouchily than necessary maybe, but the last time she’d had a one-on-one interaction with this kid, he’d been guarding dirt and been a brat. And the time before that, he’d hurled a piece of trash at her, causing her nose to meet a coffee thermos in a very uncomfortable way. She still blamed him for the coffee-stain destruction of one of her favorite shirts.

The skinny, dirt-smeared boy with rats-nest-hair, glowering up at her with narrowed eyes and a tucked-in chin. He stood directly in her path, just out of the light cast by the nearby streetlight, hands jammed into the pockets of a not-nearly-thick-enough jacket for the cold, wet night. Ordinarily, if a man had planted himself ominously between her and the way home in the dark, Eva would already be making sure her mace was in easy reach, and lining up a kick to his sensitive regions, which would be even more unpleasant thanks to her heels.

But this guy always looked like he could be taken out by a strong gust of breeze, and she couldn’t bring herself to be intimidated if she tried.

“It’s Sanguine,” he said grumpily.

“Gesundheit.”

“Very funny. That’s my name.”

“And it’s lovely. Now if you’ll excuse me.” She stepped around him, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, you better run!” he rasped, whipping around to face her as she went, but not actually pursuing. “I’m not kidding, get outta here!”

“I’d like nothing better, believe me,” she muttered, throwing a glance back at him and preparing to shoot back something like ‘you still owe me for that shirt,’ when she stopped dead, mid-word and mid-step.

He’d stepped into the streetlight’s glow for her to see him clearly. And she didn’t like what she saw at all—because the kid was bleeding. It trickled down from the top of his head, and now that she looked closer she could see that it matted his already almost-solid hair. Half his forehead—the entire left side of his face, really—was discolored, as if it were all one big bruise, so fresh it wasn’t even quite formed. It would be ghoulish when it was done. His eyes were out of focus and too dark, like his pupils were over-dilated; another time she might have figured it was just because he was on something, but now…

“Listen, kid—San-gween-eh. Am I saying that right?”

“Close enough.”

“You look like you’ve got a concussion. At least. What happened here?”

“Nothing,” he spat, wavering on his feet, but backpedaling out of the puddle of light. “Like I said, keep moving, so nothing else happens. To you.”

He raised one arm to wipe the blood from his face, and that’s when she saw them—huge, messy, barely-healed puncture wounds on his forearm, wrist, and, when he brushed some of his hair aside, along with the blood, up the side of his neck.

“Oh, God,” she whispered. “That’s…”

“That’s what?” he mumbled. One of the bite marks—because they could be nothing else—had reopened, sending a second trickle of blood down to pool in his too-defined collarbone. Jude had told her about them, of course, but seeing them for herself now, she found them much, much harder to ignore.

“What my friend Jude said when we saw you yesterday? We’ve seen… something like that before,” Eva said, lowering her voice but willing him to understand with every word, to confirm or deny what she was beginning to suspect. “Exactly like that. On your neck and arms—”

“Drugs!” Sanguine blurted. “I do tons of drugs. Like just, really, shooting up all day, doesn’t it look like I do all kinds of drugs?”

“Not really.” Eva shook her head. Had those injuries always been there, weeks and months ago? Had she ever looked close enough to tell, or seen them and forgotten, dismissed him as just another troublemaker? “You do look like you need help. Just talk to me for a second. We know how to deal with—”

“No! Shut up! Just shut up!” Sanguine exploded, and he took another step backwards and away from Eva, so unsteady he nearly fell.

“I know where you got those scars,” Eva said, and now, the sound of her voice seemed to hold Sanguine in place like quicksand. “I’ve seen them before. On a friend of mine. A few friends, actually. They were being hurt by a… very bad person. I know it sounds crazy to say out loud, and nobody would believe you, but we do. I do.”

His thin shoulders sagged as if someone had just placed a heavy weight on his back. His knees shook, clearly around five minutes away from buckling underneath him from exhaustion and sending him crashing to the ground. “I’m telling you, get out of here.”

“Not going to happen, kid.”

“Oh my God, why?” his voice went up in pitch until it was half-shout, half-whine. “Why are you still bugging me like you give a fuck?”

“Because I do give a fuck about what happens to other people, even if they make it really hard!” Forget trying to rein in the four-letter words. Sometimes they spoke the language of her fucking heart when nothing else did. “Which most people do! Even when I probably shouldn’t! But I know what did that to you, and nobody deserves it. And for whatever reason, dealing with ‘em is kind of me and my friends’ job now. It doesn’t pay very well, but that’s the gig economy for you. So drop the bull-crap and—”

Sanguine scowled. “I don’t know what you’re talking ab—”

“Do I look like your mom, walking in on you with a joint? Don’t lie to me like I’m your mom, I know bite marks when I see them!”

Sanguine jerked backwards like he’d been slapped. His usually-pale face lost any bit of color it had, and his mouth hung slack, blue eyes wide and glassy, but not at all vacant or dull. Pained.

“You’re trying to help me, but I’m the one trying to help you,” he said at last, voice unnaturally high-pitched, dropping only after a rough clearing of his throat. “Listen, it’s over for me. I’m done. You don’t have to be done. I was supposed to—I was ordered to stop you here and distract you but fuck that, I’ve been saying you need to go, but now you need to actually listen to me and get out of here right now, run, before…”

He stopped, suddenly shutting his eyes, and cringing away from Eva as if she really were going to slap him, even though she hadn’t moved at all.

“Before what?” she prodded, though the sinking feeling in her stomach gave her a very good idea. Sanguine didn’t open his eyes or lift his head, still looking like he was bracing for a blow. Now, she very much did have the urge to just bolt into a run, sprint away from here as fast as possible and keep running. But there were things you couldn’t run from, and things you needed to face head-on when it was too late to try. A chill shooting up her spine, Eva turned to look behind her.

She barely had time to register a pair of golden eyes, as cold and bright as polished coins, before the clawed hands flew toward her face.