[Author’s Notes / Story Q&A]

Thank you so much, everyone, for coming along with me for A Little Night Magic, whether you joined in or just read. It was enormous fun to write, and I hope you all enjoyed reading it as well.

The final length of this story was 53,200 words (around 125 pages in gdocs)! Once again, we managed to pull off NaNo in October! If and when you want to reread it, you’ll be able to find this story linked from my Interactive Fiction page. Feel free to check out some older interactive stories there too!

If you enjoyed the story and are looking for ways to support me and my work, you can learn more about and pick up my books over here. Read some already? Leaving a good rating or review on Goodreads or Amazon can make all the difference. I’ve also got a tip jar over at Ko-Fi if you’d like to buy me a drink! And please, feel free to follow me on social media to see what I’m up to: Personal Twitter and Book Twitter.

Okay, business aside—let’s do a story Q&A! Feel free to ask me anything you want about the story, whether it’s about what my writing process was, how I got the idea for certain events or characters, things people may have suspected but not had confirmed, other ‘routes’, etc. Wonder what would have happened if you’d done X instead of Y? Ask it here! (Lurkers are totally allowed to ask too, you don’t need to have participated to ask!).

Here’s some starting information: I got the initial idea for this after moving into a new apartment. In the elevator room in the lowest basement, I kept finding dead moths, and at one point I had a conversation with the (perfectly lovely and not-possessed) janitor, who didn’t seem to notice she was mopping up dead bugs instead of leaves. After that, when a moth got into our apartment and got hunted by one of our cats, I kept thinking, what if.

Thank you once again… and happy Halloween!

[Ask Me Some Questions, I’ll Tell You No Lies]

[Completed parts: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17 | Day 18 | Day 19 | Day 20 | Day 21 | Day 22 | Day 23 | Day 24 | Day 25 | Day 26 | Day 27 | Day 28 | Day 29 | Day 30 | Epilogue]

[Epilogue]

“Be reasonable, auntie,” Viv said, with some impatience, into the phone. “I don’t see how telling you that I’d pay you back for the cost of breaking lease is ‘throwing your gift back in your face’.”

Aunt Bethany let out an enraged, tea-kettle sound. “You need the place I rented for you! That’s why I rented it! Do you really think that moving in with a partner within two weeks is a good idea?!”

Normally, Viv would say no. She’d say it both because it was common sense, and because she’d spent her entire life bowing to what her aunt insisted was the right thing to do. 

But after the last week? She found herself hard-pressed to be intimidated by her overbearing aunt. “Sure, it’s fine,” she said. “We’re good with it. And my partner really loves the cats.”

“You can’t do this to me,” Aunt Beth groaned.

“I’m not doing anything. Like I said, I’ll pay the fee.”

“With what money?! Both of us know you don’t work, and with no driver’s license, I can’t see how you’ll ever get a job. You can’t count on living on your partner’s kindness forever, you know,” Beth said, as if she hadn’t fully expected Viv to live on Beth’s kindness forever. “What will you do when you two break up?”

When, not if, Viv noted. Again, normally, she’d think that was fair. After all, things between her and Reese had gone sour in the worst way. But Reese had never tried to work things out with her, and Thys had been willing to struggle against their own nature in the name of communication and understanding. “I mean, if that happens,” Viv stressed, “I’ll be fine. I just got a job working at a nearby coffee shop—”

“Where you’ll make a pittance alone, I’m sure—”  

“—and I’m actively working with the Twilight Council to get properly trained, so I can get a job in witchery after we’ve got all my new abilities sorted out. I’ll be fine even if the worst happens. You don’t need to worry about me so much.”

For a moment, Aunt Beth was silent. And then, bitterly, she said, “You’re not even a real witch, Viv! Even if you’re not lying about the things you’ve told me about your new powers, they only work at night now anyway. During the day, you can still barely get a spell off. Do you really think this is the path for you?”

Viv swallowed, trying to force the pain down. Beth wasn’t wrong—Viv hadn’t realized it during the time they were dealing with everything, since it all went down so fast and at night. But her newfound abilities were somehow tied to light and shadow now. While her abilities during the daytime weren’t entirely as awful as they’d originally been, they were faint shadows of the night magic she’d learned to do. 

Thys theorized it was because dealan-dé were nocturnal by nature, so, when Thys’s power eased open Viv’s channels, it was tied to that. Besides which, when they’d been bonded, Thys was still being drained by the lanternfish, so that might have affected things too. The Twilight Counsel was experimenting, but they didn’t seem to think it was too odd, necessarily. When channels open oddly, odd expressions of magic can appear, they’d said.

And yet…

After all the years of Beth’s refusal to let Viv do anything but practice in the traditional way, as if it was possible to break down the blocks in her through repetition alone, she was acting like this when Viv had finally figured out something that let her actually work?

She supposed that Beth must feel pretty bitter that after finally washing her hands of Viv and sending her away to be an embarrassment far away. It probably stuck in her craw that the moment she gave up on Viv, Viv started doing just fine.

Briefly, she considered turning this into a real fight—but there was no point. There was no convincing Beth, she’d learned that years ago. “So what?” Viv said instead. “People still need magic at night. And if that means I’m not a real witch, maybe I’m something different now. That’d be cool.”

“Viv, you can’t just—”

“Got to go, auntie,” Viv said. “I’m going to be late for an appointment.”

She hung up, then stared down at the phone, stewing a little. Pebbles was already curled up in her lap where she was sitting on the couch. But the moment she was off the phone, the other two cats came over too. Beano hopped up, shaking the couch with his weight as he flumphed over, leaning his side against Viv. And even aloof Notch came over and wound against her ankles in passing, trying to comfort.

“Thanks, guys,” she muttered, then almost jumped as Thys too leaned in from behind the couch, draping their arms around Viv and hugging. “Sorry, I’m okay.”

Thys hummed softly. “I feel as if I should pay a visit to your aunt.”

“You really don’t have to.”

“I feel as though I should,” Thys said. “I would like to put a little fear into her.”

Viv laughed, shaking her head. “She’s just…” A sigh. “I don’t know. She means well, I think, but she’s been emotionally invested in me as a project more than a person, so I don’t think she knows how to take all of this. I’m okay. She’s family, you know, but… I don’t need her to approve of me. I’ve got you.”

Notch nipped her toes, making her jump.

“I’ve got you, and these three,” Viv amended, smiling ruefully. “But thanks, Thys.”

“I do know what you mean about family,” Thys said. And then, abruptly, “Gwyffelydd.”

“Gesundheit?”

Thys kissed the top of Viv’s head. “From my lips to your ears, my true name. Do not use it in public, if you would not mind. Humans may use it for all sorts of purposes, and, besides, it’s rude.”

“I don’t want to be rude,” Viv said, tipping her head back and gazing up at Thys warmly. “I’d be a lousy wife if I did, wouldn’t I?”

Thys pinked a little. “You would! Yet I cannot imagine you being a lousy wife, and so… so there.”

“So there,” Viv echoed back. She reached up, snagging some of Thys’s strangely-dusty hair, tugging them down for a kiss.

For a moment, they just kissed, soft and warm and wet, one kiss turning into another into another. Thys’s hands slid off Viv’s shoulders, down, forward, and Viv let out a little groan, then pulled away, blushing. “You know I’d love to, but we really are going to be late.”

“Hmmm,” Thys said dubiously.

“If it were just meeting the guys after, that’s one thing,” Viv said, going even redder. “But given the rest…”

“Yes. We should not keep that one waiting,” Thys said reluctantly, and pulled away. “Later, then.”

“Later,” Viv promised eagerly. She’d definitely look forward to it.

***

They’d definitely had time after all, Viv thought ruefully, checking the time on her phone for the fifth time. Thys seemed to be thinking the same thing, pacing small even circles directly around Viv, their cheeks puffed out a little with mild irritation.

“Yeah, I know,” the ticket seller said dryly. “This happens a lot.”

“What does, darling?” Lithway asked, sweeping into the room. The spider-woman just shrugged, gesturing at Viv and Thys instead of answering, and Lithway seemed to beam, sweeping around to shake their hands. “There you are! I thought you might have left. So sorry to be held up, I had to work out some technical details with my orchestra, you know how it is.”

“Sure, yeah, of course,” said Viv, who had noticed that Lithway had come from the direction of the apartments overhead, not the practice area backstage. “Because of the new piece, right?”

“Of course,” Lithway said. “Best to get everyone started as soon as possible.”

The day after they’d defeated the shadow woman, Lithway had abruptly cancelled all remaining performances of The Lanternfish’s Lure and refunded outstanding tickets. They had announced a new play, Tatterdemalion, to begin instead in one week, and that anyone who wished their tickets to be transferred rather than refunded would be guaranteed seats.

They refused to explain to the press the sudden change, but the press was accustomed to Lithway’s whims and it hardly got any commentary beyond the announcement itself. Viv and Thys had their own theories, of course, which they had discussed behind closed doors, but it didn’t matter. If the issue was closed and Lithway no longer wished to be spreading news or information about their own kind, so be it.

Viv studied Lithway for a long moment. As she’d thought, Lithway and the shadow woman were very clearly the same thing, although Lithway, to the best of her knowledge, had never appeared as anyone but Lithway, as anything but shadow. She wondered if that was an inherent difference—if there were multiple type of shadowfolk, and Lithway was warning them about the other kind—or if Lithway just chose not to steal lives and faces the way the shadow woman had.

There was a third option, of course, that she didn’t like thinking about—that Lithway did, and just, nobody knew about it. Yet they’d clearly been concerned enough about the shadow woman hunting in Branwin Valley to subtly warn people about the threat, so perhaps that last was impossible after all.

“Something on my face?” he asked wryly.

“Is anything ever?” Thys asked, as if thinking the same thing Viv had.

Lithway beamed at them both, beatific. “Why, masks sometimes. The theatre does demand it. Rarely makeup; it tends to be a little garish on me, darlings. Are you here to tell me how things went?” They led the way into the back.

They did, taking turns explaining what happened with the shadow woman, and both being careful not to put into direct words the conclusion they’d made that the ‘lanternfish’ was just one of the shadowfolk. As Lithway had said before, conclusions they formed on their own time was fine—but he didn’t want to be responsible for things getting out.

After Viv explained about showing the memories to the fae lord, Lithway reached for her head. She flinched slightly, and Thys stiffened, but Lithway just ruffled her hair. “It sounds to me as if you treated my request with respect, which is all I can ask for.”

She nodded after a moment, and looked up into their shadowy eyes. “I understand your reasons for wanting to keep things secret,” she said, instead of anything more specific. “But aren’t you worried that your play might draw more attention to you than you wanted? What if the… the lanternfish had said something to someone?”

Lithway considered that, leaning back and reclining on a chair made of the shadows that surrounded them. “Well, it’s possible, but she’d have a hard time finding someone here to tattle to; she’d have to successfully make it back to… wherever she came from,” Lithway said, finally. Their tone was vague. “Valleys are places for misfits, you know. Not always, of course, but so many of us are humans who had reason to wander away from human-first societies, or monsters who, likewise, had reason to leave their own realms or the Otherworld to live somewhere new entirely. Perhaps I am a misfit as well, when you think of it that way.”

They didn’t seem to be inclined to say more than that, so Thys and Viv shared a look, neither entirely sure what Lithway meant by that. Still, rather than prying, they simply bowed. “We’ve got something else to be getting to, my lord, so if you are satisfied, we will take our leave,” Thys said.

“Break a leg with your new play,” Viv added.

“I shall endeavor to break both,” Lithway said, and waved them off with a smile.

***

“We were going to start without you,” Star said impatiently as they joined the group around the table. Viv let fall the curtain that blocked their booth off from the rest of the Good Neighbours pub, an attempt to give the band privacy to have fun as customers for once, rather than getting swamped as celebrities.

Star had already set up a Dungeon Master’s screen in front of himself, which was great for hiding his almost complete nudity. Judging by the character sheets scattered around, the group had gotten a good ways into finalizing everyone’s initial pass at character creation.

“Sorry, sorry,” Viv said wryly. “We got a bit behind on some important business.” As Thys began digging out their supplies from the bag they carried, she added, “So what’s everyone else playing? Since I’ve played before, I can switch if I have to.”

“Tiefling Cleric,” Varsha said promptly. “I felt that having an experienccced healer wasss an important part of getting our sssessssssion to go well.”

Dandelion sort of shrugged a shoulder awkwardly. He looked slightly uncomfortable, and maybe out of his depth, but was clearly willing to give it a shot, if just as something he could do with his friends. “I spent a lot of time reading the rules and I settled on a dragonborn sorcerer. You’ll have to bear with me when I look up spells, though, the rules system for this is… well, it’s a bit much.”

Adrien looked like he’d had four beers already, judging by the pints gathered around himself. “Sexy gnome bard.”

“So you’re just playing yourself,” Caoihme said, rolling her eyes.

“Hey,” Adrien protested. “First of all, I know how to play myself best of all, so I’m going to win roleplay. Second? Thanks for calling me sexy.”

Caoimhe stuck her tongue out at him, then turned back. “I am playing a somewhat aged human fighter,” she said. “I decided to base my character on Lt. Ripley from Aliens. Obviously, a high fantasy version. I also brought homemade sugar cookies!” She lifted a container from beside her on the bench; in it, Viv could see they were iced like pumpkins and bats.

Thys finished pulling their supplies out, and tapped their papers on the table to square them. Viv turned and watched with interest. They hadn’t really discussed their characters together in advance since Viv had largely been occupied with big changes like moving all her stuff over to Thys’s apartment and job interviews, so she was eager to see what Thys had come up with.

“I would like,” Thys said, “to be the Archfey patron to Viv’s warlock.”

“So you’re just playing yourself too,” Adrien said.

“You can’t play an Archfey,” Star said with exaggerated patience. “You’re level 1.”

Viv half-lifted a hand. “I was also not planning to play a warlock.”

“But you are a warlock in real life!” Thys protested. “And I presume I am your patron?”

Waggling that hand, Viv said, “I mean, I don’t want to play me, though. I wrote up a sheet for a snooty elf paladin. I’d want him to learn to be a better person and really embrace the good side of his alignment rather than the lawful side over time, but that’s where I’m at with that.” She pulled her own sheet out.

“But! But!” Thys protested, waving their papers, “I wrote up your character sheet and everything!” They showed the table. The character’s name was even Niaviv.

“Why don’t you play the warlock, then?” Star suggested lightly. “We could use another spell-slinger anyway, and it might be fun to put yourself in someone else’s shoes.”

“I…” Thys considered, looked aside at Vivian, looked back at their character sheet, the nodded. “All right. I am Niaviv, Nia for short. A very, very beautiful warlock who has not yet realized that she has made a deal with her patron. …perhaps I should pick not an Archfey patron, then, if we are moving away from ourselves…”

“Now you’re getting it,” Star said cheerily. 

The group had a little more tabletalk to finalize character building as appies arrived and Viv put in an order for a pumpkin cider. The spooky music playing throughout the pub was prerecorded this early in the day, not live, but that was fine. She’d have plenty of chance to hear everyone here play live later tonight for their Halloween performance.

“Okay, looks like we’re ready,” Star said finally. He leaned forward over his DM screen and gave everyone an ominous stare as, in a spooky voice, he began his opening narration. “It is a dark and stormy night, and you have recently all happened to stop at the same tavern to get out of the rain during your respective travels. You had a fine meal, and bedded down for the night, but you wake in the darkness with some confusion, no longer knowing where you are. The tavern appears abandoned, and in the distance, a castle looms…”

Vivian closed her eyes, letting the narration wash her away. It was a familiar opening, in a way, waking in the dark, confused, alone— 

But in real life, she knew exactly where she was, and had her lover and all her friends around her.

She couldn’t ask for a better way to spend Halloween.

[Head on over to the Author’s Notes/Story Q&A?]

[Previous Day: Day Thirty | Next Day: Author’s Notes/Story Q&A]

[Please read the instructions before jumping in!]

Viv drew a deep breath. She couldn’t second guess this. From everything she’d heard, she was the only one who could change what these fae lords might do to her friends.

“Hey! Excuse me, hello!” Her voice only trembled a little as she shouted, drawing everyone’s attention to where she was floating. “Can someone help pull me down there, I’m stuck, but I think I can help clear things up?”

For a long moment, the group—fae and demon alike—just stared at her. Varsha let out a soft, mortified wheeze on the branch next to her and slithered a bit more under cover.

“Very well, miss,” the fae lady said finally, and beckoned with one crooked finger. Viv felt something seize her. It wrapped around her carefully but firmly—there was no escaping this invisible grasp—and pulled her down to everyone else’s height. “Why were you floating?”

“We all float down here? I don’t know, I was just, it sort of happened. Side effect,” Viv babbled. She drew a deep breath and tried to center herself. “So, hey, yes, I’m Thysania’s wife. Hi. That happened, and I have seen everything here, and you were saying that humans couldn’t lie to you?”

“Oh, humans could lie to us,” the fae lord said dryly. “Humans lie to us frequently. It seems to be part of the human condition. What I was saying was that we could bypass the lies and misdirections if I could see everything through a human’s eyes instead. It cuts through the babble of what he, she, or they said, and instead we are allowed to see it unfold ourselves.”

Thys stepped closer, putting herself beside Viv while glaring at the fae lady, presumably for her magical grip on Viv. Though, given how angry Thys seemed at this woman’s desire to bring them back home, it probably wouldn’t have taken much to earn that glower. “You will not hurt her,” Thys said, voice low. “Or I swear on all the powers above and below and between, I will destroy you myself.”

The fae lord sighed. Viv was getting the impression that he was desperately hoping to be anywhere but here and could hardly wait until he could get free from this entire situation. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about potential war being treated as just a nuisance, but… well, if he wanted to get the investigation over with as soon as possible, hopefully they’d all benefit from it. “It will not hurt her to do this. Miss, tell me how you understand things to be, and then I will watch the matching memories from your eyes to confirm it.”

Viv drew a deep breath again, trying to focus. “This shadow woman is… we’ve been calling her the lanternfish. She has the ability to hypnotize or lure people with flickering lights, and then pulls the light away and attacks them in the shadows. Once she’s attacked them, she can take their form and see enough of their memories to mimic their personality and behaviors.”

“I don’t know why we’re bothering with this whole farce,” Ferthur said sulkily. The fae lady hushed him absently.

“I met Thysania after they were attacked by the lanternfish and had just managed to escape,” Viv said evenly. “I bonded to Thys in order to help save their life, and the two of us, with the help of the others you see here, tried to protect ourselves from the lanternfish and figure out what it, what she, wanted, so that we could keep ourselves safe. It turned out what she wanted was to kill Thysania to get rid of loose ends and then take their form, return to Thysania’s realm, reclaim their title and army, and then use that army to start a war between the fae and the demons.”

Dandelion let out a soft hiss of breath. He didn’t sound surprised, not exactly, and Viv supposed he’d put most of that together by the end—but he didn’t sound pleased, either, to have her spell it out in such detail when they’d kept the specifics from him in the past. 

But she supposed he’d understand. They could explain later, when they were all safely out of this.

“I see,” the fae lord said, still in that serious, mildly-aggravated voice. “Then, you won’t mind me reviewing those memories?”

“All except one,” Viv said. She felt everyone around her tense more than seeing it, but she had to be honest. She looked that lord in his eyes—which glittered like diamonds and silver—and said, “One person gave me information that helped us track down and deal with the lanternfish, but I promised that person I wouldn’t get them involved at all. So if we can skip that memory, that would be great. You will be able to see everything you need to know from the rest of it, ’cause it’s literally nothing but some tips. Is that okay?”

Ferthur spat again. “She’s obviously trying to trick you! That memory has to be the key to all of it.”

“I have my doubts as well,” the fae lady said mildly. “When we need to know the truth, is there anything that we can afford to leave out?”

“She is not lying,” Thys said fiercely. “She is not a liar. I was there as well, and I tell you, we gave our word. Would you have us break that word simply so that you can assure yourselves, when the rest of what happened will prove the truth otherwise?”

The fae lord lifted a hand as if to wave away everyone’s protests. “I will look at the rest of it. If those other memories clearly, beyond any shadow of doubt, show what you have told me, then I don’t think we need to worry about prying open doors you promised would remain closed.”

“Thank you,” Viv said, weakly. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold onto the cage I’ve made while you do this, so if one of you could be ready with some way of trapping the shadow woman, that would be great, please.”

The fae lady nodded seriously, and even Ferthur nodded along, though with a sneering frown. Viv could only hope that between those two powers, they’d have it covered. 

“Then, if you don’t mind,” the fae lord said politely. He put his hands on both sides of Viv’s face, leaned his forehead against hers, and— 

Viv remembered. She saw it all like her life flashing before her eyes, a sped-up version of everything that had recently happened. She saw herself waking, saw Beano stalking the moth behind the curtain, saw herself free it and head downstairs and get that sense that something was wrong with the garbage room. She saw herself interrupted by the janitor, and flee in embarrassment, and head out to go to the pub, and then Thysania’s arrival and collapse.

On and on it went, slowing for some details such as Thys’s description of their attack, then speeding up again through parts that seemed irrelevant. When they went to Lithway’s, she tried to interject, screaming at the fae lord in her mind: This is it! This is what I made the promise about! and, although she had doubted him, he sped through that so fast that it was barely a flicker on the overall timeline of her memories.

She hoped that was enough, hoped that he hadn’t seen it and only mislead her into thinking otherwise. But it was the best she could do.

It continued on: she and Thys growing closer, she and Thys trembling on the edge of going further in their relationship, but the second attack happening before they could do anything. The fae lord slowed completely for the attack, played through it in what felt like real time, leaving Viv shaking and terrified and elated all over again. 

It seemed as though he was mostly focusing his attention on to the things they talked about: their theories about what the lanternfish wanted, their worries that Dandelion would risk death to try to save the fae realm and Thys alike if he knew that it wanted to take over Thys’s old life. Their conclusion that they had to try to stop the lanternfish, even if it put Thys at risk of returning to a home they hated. And then the entire fight: everything they’d done to stop the lanternfish from reaching its goals.

Everything the lanternfish had said to them to convince them to let her go, her insistence on wanting to cause a war.

The fae lord released Viv.

She reeled, stumbling to try to keep her footing as reality slammed in around her again. The world seemed to spin, and if Thys wasn’t already there, holding her tight and supporting her, she suspected she would have fallen.

“Well?” Ferthur asked.

“My lord?” the fae lady prompted.

Viv looked around, making sure everyone was still okay—it was impossible to tell how much time had passed when she’d just relived several days at variable speeds—but nothing had changed much. Dandelion was still kneeling; Thys was still at Viv’s side; the others were still there and bowing; Varsha was still in the trees, and…

The lanternfish was still captive in Viv’s own bubble.

She looked back to the fae lord, pleading with him silently with her gaze, and he gazed back at her impassively, evenly.

And then he knelt to her.

The reaction sent a shock through everyone watching, demon and fae lady and gathered troops and her own friends alike. Viv froze, unsure of what she should do with this, but before she could say anything wrong, the fae lord spoke.

“We owe you a great debt today, you and Thysania and… Dandelion, and all your friends gathered here,” he said. He rose then, unwilling to kneel to her any longer, but kept his head slightly inclined. “What I saw proves beyond any measure of doubt that this creature wished to impersonate Thysania to gain access to a fae army and use it to start a war with the demons.”

“Are you serious,” Ferthur said, taken aback. “But this whole thing is—”

The fae lord turned back to his own crew. “Both Thysania and the exile Dandelion have put themselves at great risk to try to stop this shadow person from infiltrating our kind and starting a war. We owe them a grave debt, and, as such, will not persecute them any longer.”

The fae lady hmmed but didn’t protest. She looked at Thysania a long moment, as though she had many things to say and no idea of how to say them—and then she just shrugged and turned away.

“I cannot end your exile on my own,” the fae lord added to Dandelion, “but I will bring your actions up at court in your defense.”

“I have no intention to return, so it does not matter if you do or don’t,” Dandelion said, but he rose, finally.

The fae lord sighed. “But I will regardless, child. Now—” he turned back to Viv. “This creature you have fought has worked hard to enter our realm. Out of deference to that, I ask that you hand her custody over to me so that I may take her to court for us to decide her fate. She has impersonated one of our own, and did so in order to undo millennia of our hard work at maintaining peace. I believe that we deserve the right to handle her case from here.”

“Oh, please, yes,” Viv said fervently. She was only too willing to not be the one responsible for this shadow woman’s fate, especially since the two options left to her were ‘kill her’ or ‘let her go’, neither of which seemed particularly great. The fae police putting her on fae trial in the fae courts sounded fantastically like absolutely none of her business. 

She willed the ownership of the cage over to the fae lord, and watched electricity spark from his hand, connecting to the cage and turning it into a large sack that he could use to drag the shadow woman away with.

“Fantastic,” he said flatly, and, Viv had to admit, dragging a giant bag of prisoner away wasn’t the most dignified, but he seemed to accept it, turning away and pulling at the bag. “Thank you all again for your service. It will not be forgotten.”

And with that he, the fae lady, and the gathered troops turned to head back down the passage to the fae realms.

The shadow woman said nothing. Her dark eyes, shadows within shadows, watched Viv through the bars of the cage until she was lost from sight through the gate, and Viv couldn’t quite resist a shiver.

Ferthur was the last to go, seeming ready to protest one last time—and then he just scowled, pointed to his eyes and then to all of them in a sulky threat, and slouched after the fae soldiers.

Viv, Thys, and their friends were finally left alone.

For a moment, none of them moved, silent and unsure of what would happen next.

And then Varsha plopped out of the tree, landing with a thud next to them, and pushed herself upright with a huff. “Issss it over?” she said.

“I… I think it is,” Dandelion said, and let out the softest sniffle.

Adrien hollered, as if to cover up the sound of Dandelion’s threatened tears, and wrapped Dandelion in a fierce hug, burying Dandelion’s face in his chest. Caoimhe hugged him as well, and then Star, in human form once again, grabbed Thys, Viv, and Varsha, and smushed them all into Dandelion too.

Giggling, Viv twisted her head to look at Thys, saw them smiling gently and gazing back with eyes only for Viv. 

In the midst of the chaos of laughter and tears and hugs, Viv leaned forward and stole a quick kiss.

This time, nobody interrupted their celebrations.

[An epilogue will go up tomorrow sometime,
along with an author Q&A!

Feel free to mention anything you especially want to see covered in the epilogue ;)]

[Previous Day: Day Twenty-nine | Next Day: Epilogue]

[Please read the instructions before jumping in!]

Viv closed her eyes briefly, screwing her courage to the sticking point. She didn’t want to kill someone, but a war would only cause more suffering and death. Even if she actually believed that it would only be between the fae and demons, lots of people would still die, and be tortured, and who knew what.

And she didn’t believe war would just impact those two groups. Wars had a way of growing, and when it was between realms—and between people known to make deals and settle debts with all kinds of other creatures—it would only grow bigger, wider, worse.

She opened her eyes and finished the incantation for her lightning spell. 

Electricity rained down from her fingers, sparking through her almost painfully, and hit that darkest shadow square on. 

The shadow woman screamed, the sound high and thin and surprised—she had been caught totally off guard in this moment, not expecting a counter-attack from above from someone who had been drowned in her darkness. The shadows that she was casting over them, that sticky, inky blackness that had blinded Viv—all were banished, and the area once more flooded entirely with light.

They had her. Viv knew that. The shadow woman had been flung to the ground, was twisting, nearly dissolving under the rain of electricity on her. Electricity might have been the best thing she could pick, she thought, almost floaty in her own shock; it was made of light, but it was also the form of light that humans like Viv had best learned how to harness, the tool they had worked with for so long to effectively banish the night.

And the shadow woman was screaming and crying and begging and Viv knew she had nowhere to run, no chance to run.

For a moment, Viv’s will trembled, because she didn’t want to kill. She didn’t want to be someone who struck down someone else, even if that person absolutely deserved it— 

And she thought about the way the shadow woman had coated her with that darkness, had stuck it to her body to blind her and trap her.

And she thought again about the symbolism of electricity.

And she thought about divination and how important it was to trust her instincts. 

And then Viv wove the spell, shaped it, drawing on reserves that shouldn’t have been possible, abilities that shouldn’t have been possible, not when she had just barely learned the spell a few hours earlier—and formed an orb of crackling light around the shadow woman, leaving her injured, trapped, and helpless.

The shadow woman curled into a tighter ball, unable to find a way through that orb that Viv had made, unable to to find freedom, unable to even let herself touch the walls of light.

Viv felt the shadow woman’s last attempts to struggle—felt that lure try to form in her electric prison as the shadow woman tried to change that glowing spell into that light of command that the lanternfish had been so good at using—but she was unable to, not with Viv controlling the electricity so directly. 

For a moment, there was silence.

And then there was cheering. Thys burst into a loud half-sob, half-hoot, throwing her arms around Dandelion and squeezing him, Caoimhe sweeping Adrien off his feet in a kiss, Star letting out loud kazoo toots in a victory riff. Even Viv let out a brief relieved sigh, grasping onto the branch she was holding onto and finding Varsha’s hand reaching back to hold onto her. She was still floating—the side effect of the breakfast bar, Viv had to assume, since floating was definitely not part of a light spell normally—but that was fine.

And then Viv remembered what she’d heard approaching. She swore and looked at the passage to the fae realms.

The sound of the approaching group had stopped, but only because they had watched what was happening—had stopped at the wall of shadow at the edge of the gate, had watched that shadow get sucked back into the trapped shadow woman, and were now watching the entire group’s undignified celebrations. There were three people there at the head of a mounted group of what Viv had to assume were fae soldiers, though she couldn’t really see much past them but horses and armour.

One of the people was a tall daoine sidhe man with rich brown skin and long black hair woven into an intricate array of braids. He was wearing a silver and blue outfit of rich material, and was standing with one hand on his hip and another on his sword. 

The second person was a somewhat harried-looking fae woman, pale and twisted and bent, covered in bumps and protrusions that Viv couldn’t identify as warts or bone spurs or something else all together. Her hair was tied up in a bun, and she was dressed in tidy but unremarkable clothes—but the staff she used to bear her weight was made of solid gold with rich jewels drawing out uncanny patterns on its surface.

And the third person was Ferthur. He shuffled forward with a clicking of hooves, blood dripping down his face and spraying the ground in front of him as he jerked his antlered head to toss his hair back from his eyes. 

“See, my lord, my lady? I told you he was sneaking this way, trying to get back into the fae realms as if exile meant nothing to him, and with a whole group to help him,” Ferthur said, showing too many teeth as he grinned. “They seem to have got caught up with fighting someone, sure. Maybe she recognized them and challenged their right of passage? This fight is surely the only reason they haven’t entered already—or perhaps they already have crossed that boundary, hm, and were drawn back by this person. We may have arrived in the nick of time to be heroes and save this poor woman from this terrible gang that attacked her.”

“Hush for a moment,” the fae lord said, holding up a hand. He was eyeing the group in front of him with a stern but somewhat strained gaze—he hadn’t seen Viv or Varsha above, not yet, but Viv didn’t think they’d stay hidden for long. “Asterace, is that true? Did you intend to return despite your exile?”

“I did not,” Dandelion said, stiffly. He had lowered his head, was not looking any of these people in the eye. “Nor have I crossed the territory’s boundary. Rather, I have accepted the terms of my exile to the point that I was actively seeking ways to prevent future war—much as the tithe itself is designed to do.”

“What do you mean by that, exactly?” the fae lady said. She hobbled forward to challenge Dandelion—then frowned when she saw Thys. “Is that… Thysania? The missing noble?”

Thys looked away. “I too have not crossed into fae territory,” they said stiffly. “I do not intend to return, and came here to help Dandelion prevent war as well. This woman we have captive here is one who would cause it. Would you drag me back kicking and screaming, knowing that?”

“Perhaps so. Your people have been managing, and I have for now taken them under my care but you know they deserve a leader who would love them properly,” the fae lady said grimly.

Ferthur spat blood to the side—nearly hitting Star, who hissed an angry kazoo cord in his direction. “What nonsense are they speaking? All I see is a fae traitor who wanted to cause war between us, and a fae runaway who abandoned her people, some innocent they have captured, and some common, solitary fae they have roped into helping them. Surely you don’t believe this absurd tale, his claims that he, a man who would attempt to cause war between us by interfering with the tithe from your people to mine, would now try to stop it?”

“Ferthur, enough, be quiet,” the fae lord said. He drew a breath. “I do not know what to make of this, no, but I do not like that he is encroaching on our territory. We cannot see the truth through his eyes as we could from a human’s, since he is still a lord even in exile, but perhaps we could find more inventive ways to get it from his companions. We can deal with this situation once we’ve taken them all prisoner.”

Viv had to do something. She could hide here and not be seen—but who knew what would happen to her friends below, to her love below, if she did that? Would Dandelion be accused of breaking exile and punished or killed? Would Thysania be kidnapped and returned to the fate they’d once escaped? Would the Merry Gentry band get tortured in the name of truth? 

She couldn’t sit by and let it happen.

Besides which, she knew she couldn’t hold onto this cage forever. She had to decide what to do with the captive shadow woman soon—and if she had to chase after the fae to try to help her friends, she wouldn’t be able to hold the shadow woman as well. Whatever she said or did to convince these fae nobles, she had to do it now, and she had to do it quick, before everything fell apart entirely.

[Please suggest an action in the Comments.
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Depending on the time I have available to write tomorrow, I will either post the full
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Dandelion and Thys immediately leaped into their role as distractions, trying to keep the fake Thys occupied. “We’re a bit busy here,” Dandelion sighed, draping his arm around Thys and drawing them in. “Can’t you take another way?”

“The fastest way is in front of me, my lords,” the fake Thys said with exaggerated patience. “I hardly wish to push you aside, or through, but I will do so if I must.”

“How rude!” the real Thys sniffed, in a much snottier voice than they were generally given to. “Who gave you the right to barge up to us like this?”

It was a perfectly good pretense that they were just rich assholes, but Viv knew it would only work so long before the lanternfish would get suspicious at the delay. She made eye contact with Caoihme and held up three fingers, two fingers— 

The lanternfish sighed and said, “My lords, I assure you, it’s fine. If you’d just move aside—” and the area flickered. The shadows in which their motley team were hidden grew deeper, and a light appeared in front of the lanternfish, pulsing, a soft, uncanny blue.

Both Dandelion and Thys stiffened, staring at the light, and the illusion over Thys flickered and vanished as the hypnotism hit Dandelion, undoing his focus.

Viv flipped her last finger down in a hurry and crammed the breakfast bar into her mouth. It was pretty good—mostly honey, cranberry, and nuts—and she could only pray that it worked. After all, the guy had said there might be some side effects.

The area lit up in a bright light, completely illuminating what felt like the nearest half-mile, the ground itself glowing so that shadows weren’t cast anywhere. It also removed the cover for all their allies except Varsha, who was hiding in the leaves overhead, but Viv had to hope they’d be able to do their parts on their own now.

Viv couldn’t do too much more herself, not yet; her feet had lifted off the ground and she was floating, she was glowing, light emanating from her skin, the focal point that was creating the light in the area. The energy rushing through her made it nearly impossible to focus. She saw Caoihme’s hands moving and the lanternfish’s blue light flicker, then go violet briefly, sputtering back and forth between the two colors as they wrestled for control of the lure. Dandelion and Thys were released, and Thys braced themself, wings opening to their full width as if they could block the lanternfish from going forward with their body alone.

“You’re alive,” the lanternfish said, voice going vague and quiet. Their black eyes widened, then widened further, impossibly large as they began to dissolve into tendrils of void-black traveling through their face, the skin peeling away. “Are you a moth or a cockroach?”

“I am whatever I must be to remain myself,” Thys spat.

A loud kazoo song started up from across the clearing—it sounded like Megalovania, which was almost as wild by itself as trying to figure out where Star had gotten that kazoo from, considering—and Viv felt a rush of energy run through her, helping to pull herself back to herself. She saw Dandelion and Thys straighten as well. 

The lanternfish began some kind of attack, their arms rising, shadows gathering at their palms—and then Adrien let out a loud cry and headbutted the lanternfish hard, ram-horns slamming into their back and causing it to stagger forward. 

Viv could hardly focus for the light pouring through her body, but the music helped, and besides, she knew she had to. She’d studied attack magic just for this; she tried to remember the incantation for lightning, the forms to spell out in gesture and power. Thys was looking up at her, and she nodded at them. Just hold the gate. Don’t let it through.

Thys nodded back, arms wide, wings wide, feet planted.

Dandelion pulled a sword out of thin air; it sparkled into being with a flash as the silver of the blade abruptly began reflecting the light that glowed from all around, making it look like the blade, too, was light. The kazoo tune was circling now and she saw a green horse tearing around the clearing; Dandelion reached out without looking, snagging Star’s mane and swinging himself up, a mounted combatant now.

The light felt like it was getting brighter inside her, stronger. She was at the final lines now, her hands drawing it out, as Dandelion wheeled Star around and began to bear down on the lanternfish.

Skin and wings peeled off entirely, Thys’s body melting away from the lanternfish’s form and leaving only shadow behind. The person who was there looked exactly like Lithway—it wasn’t them, she realized a moment later, was a distinct female silhouette instead of that masculine beauty that Lithway favored, and her features were less defined than Lithway’s were.

But whatever the lanternfish was, it was the same thing that Lithway was. Not something separate at all. One of the shadowfolk, a monster’s monster, universally feared, whose origin and powers were drenched in mystery. 

Hopelessness seized Viv, briefly.

“Enough,” the shadow person said, her voice soft and bored and melodious. Shadow slammed off her in a tidal wave; Adrien stumbled back, and Star was brought to his knees, nearly throwing Dandelion. Viv felt the shadow pouring over her own spell and thought that it was trying to block her off, to dampen her light. The light spell was still there in the broader area, still preventing shadows that would permit escape—but this clearing itself was darkening with the shadow woman’s own amorphous body. “Please. You must understand the good I’m doing.”

“Ah, I must have missed it in the two times you attempted to murder me?” Thys spat.

A grin split the shadow woman’s face like ink spilling. “You were a convenient excuse. Your living or dying means nothing to me except that you’re a loose end. If you’re willing to keep hiding, we could come to an agreement. The fae and demons deserve each other, and yet they have held themselves at arms’ length for millennia of careful alliances. And for what? Do you care for the fae realms so much? You know what they do to people. The tithes, the command over the commoners, the casting out of anyone who does not fit with their courts, the suffering. And you certainly don’t care for the abyssal realms and the things the demons do, which is far worse, far darker. Let me rule in your place, let me direct a war. Do you think either of these people deserve more than that?”

“I know what they are,” Thys said. “But war will benefit no one. Those who suffer under harsh rulers will suffer more if they are commanded to the front to die.”

“Do they do better, left leaderless? You abandoned them, so how can you care about what they do? Let me go.”

Viv felt the power inside her, knew she had to do something, but didn’t know what. It wasn’t that she bought into the shadow woman’s argument, but could she attack someone who was trying to parlay, even with such a horrible goal? Just strike someone down who wasn’t actively fighting?

It was hard to see, darkness coating her eyes. She strained around, pulling at the power in herself, and heard Varsha hiss next to her ear, “She’sss right below uss.“ 

Relieved, Viv reached out and squeezed Varsha’s shoulder in thanks. She focused again, trying to find that darkest patch of shadow, straining to hear what the shadow woman was saying to the others to convince them or lie to them or take them off guard—and in doing so, she heard the sound of distant footsteps and hooves coming from the direction of the gate.

People were coming this way up the path from the fae realms. A lot of them, from the sounds of it. They weren’t here yet, but they’d be here any moment. Viv didn’t know if any of the others had noticed, or if they were too focused on what the shadow woman was saying. After all, they were all fae, all had some investment in a potential war.

Whatever she wanted to do about this, she had to make the decision on her own and had to do it now.

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