Fuck all this planning, Star thought frantically. He had one specific need, and that was getting this demon the hell away from his boys.

Anything else might not work. This one definitely would buy time. And if he regretted it, he’d only regret it for himself.

Still surrounded by glamour, moving as stealthily as he could, Star gathered his courage and stepped in through the door frame. He managed to make it to three feet away before Ramullin saw through his glamour, even distracted; all those eyes inside their skin snapped toward Star, looking at him. But they hadn’t turned yet. Good. Star needed them to be facing the other way to have any chance at this.

“Guess what, motherfucker,” Star said, transforming and lunging forward, planting his shoulder hard into that cracked and burning back. “It’s time to go.”

The moment he felt the impact, he willed Ramullin to stick to him. It burned—it wasn’t poisonous, like touching iron was, but he imagined this was what it was like for a human to put a hand down on the stove top. But humans could survive without a hand if needed. He gritted his teeth and whirled around, beginning to tear down the hallway, dragging Ramullin with him. 

Star kept up a babble as he ran; it was always easier to run his fastest if he talked to himself as he went, and it drowned out the imperious, furious demands that Ramullin was making. He didn’t want to hear this guy. He didn’t want to give them a last speech or anything.  “It’s time to go now! You have to go, we’re leaving now, say goodbye, we are on our way!” 

He tore through the clubhouse, kicking open the door and slamming his way through. To reach humans moving at a slow walk for eight minutes, it would instead take him, what, forty-five seconds at a full gallop? That sounded right, and if he pushed himself enough to do himself injury—which he might as well do, he thought, he wasn’t getting out of this without injury—he might do it even faster.

Witches could move pretty fast if they had encouragement, too. They’d need something they could make a big ring around, something that could fit all of them, which wouldn’t happen on the street. It would at the clubhouse. But…

He made it to them in just over forty seconds, panting and sweating. It felt now less that he’d stuck Ramullin to his side and more that Ramullin had burned to it, melted to it, fused to it. He wondered how much muscle and bone was showing and sort of hoped he didn’t find out.

The group of witches recoiled as he reared up in front of them, a flailing demon lord stuck to his side. Since he’d got Ramullin from behind, the demon wasn’t able to get a good grip to do too much to him; even if their wings and eyes were battering Star from the inside and even if Ramullin was pulling every ounce of water from his body, they couldn’t target him with the worst of their skills, which they’d need to be properly facing him to do. Then again, they didn’t need to. Star was going to run out of water in his body soon, and then he’d die no matter what. He’d have to release Ramullin before that happened, and then Ramullin would be able to turn and do worse things than simply dehydrate him to death. 

Star gulped. “This way,” he screamed at the startled group of witches. 

And then he spun back around and took off back toward the clubhouse—and the flooded track. “C’mon, Rammy! C’mon, bud, we’re going back to your girlfriend, don’t you want to see your girlfriend, it’s girlfriend time!!”

He estimated that he had less than a minute to get himself into water before he, a water spirit, would simply be unable to keep functioning. He ran, heedless of sprains or injury to his feet, forcing himself to just pound the pavement at top speed. Behind him, he smelled two dozen flares of magic going off all at once, the witches realizing the urgency and casting whatever they needed to pick up the pace. A few times, healing energy washed into him, and he spared the moment to be grateful to whoever had done that, through it wasn’t going to matter much in a few seconds.

Up ahead, Georgio and Seerose were still fighting. Both of them looked pretty badly injured, though he thought Georgio yelled something cheerily when he saw him. Star couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t hear very well. But he saw Seerose finally break away from Georgio, starting to run towards him and Ramullin, the horrible fused creature they’d become.

Star couldn’t run towards Georgio. That would be too far. Star hit the water seconds before he hit his limit.

Immediately, relief. Oh, it hurt—it hurt more than when he’d been outside, somehow, the gritty water hitting injuries he hadn’t known he had and the coldness hitting his burn wounds with a terrible intensity. But the water rushed into him, filling him even as Ramullin kept sucking it out.

Star dove, swimming down toward the center of the track. He swung around as he went, aiming the creature attached to him at the tree, and impacted it hard. He drove Ramullin down along one of the branches, releasing them from his side even as he did so, ripping them free. It wouldn’t be enough to stop a demon—would barely harm one—but it might take them a moment to free themself, and that’s all Star needed.

Seerose was swimming toward them, and he took a gamble, turning his back on her and swimming back out of the track, staggering to shore. She didn’t grab him or chase him; as he’d suspected, she must have gone to Ramullin instead to help them.

Somehow, Star made it out of the water. He wasn’t sure which form he was in at that point, and realized it must be his humanoid one only when just two legs gave out, not four. He hit the dirt, gasping, and saw several people step over him and past him, forming a circle. They were chanting in unison, a huge drone. Banishment, probably? It was a good thing they’d stepped over him, he knew distantly, because then he wouldn’t get banished too, but it was hard not to feel abandoned despite it.

Everything was blurry. He felt several arms come around him, which hurt, a familiar voice sobbing something in his ear. Another familiar hand, strong, one he knew as guiding, took his own hand, holding it. He couldn’t see or hear them; he was trying to see what was happening as his vision grew narrower and narrower. Everything hurt. The last thing he saw was the familiar track reappearing as the demon boiled it dry. He thought his sister was screaming as she hauled the demon off the branch, but Ramullin likely was pulling the water out of her along with the track. He hoped, distantly, that she survived it.

And then they were gone. The water was gone. The track was dry. Star tried to find his tongue, looked up hazily to the silver shape holding him. “Did I fucking do it?” he managed to say, or hoped he managed.

He had one more moment to have a bit of genre-aware horror—whenever anyone asked that in the movies, it meant the bad guy wasn’t really gone—and then everything went black.

[Tomorrow, the EPILOGUE will go up, along with an Author Q&A!

Rather than the usual general suggestions, please tell me the characters you
definitely want to make sure get covered in the epilogue. Not “what” —
whatever’s happened to them will be based on all your choices to date
— but if you want to see what’s happened to Georgio, Viv, or a favorite minor
NPC like Matthias or Antoine, list their names here to make SURE I get ’em!]

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Star quickly discarded most of the plans. 1 or 3 were the only ones that made sense to him. “I should be the one to go to the flooded track,” he declared. “Yeah, Dandelion can, but it’s not his territory or anything, and it is mine. I’ve already run it while it was flooded once already, and I think I’ll be the fastest in and out. So I figure, anything else is up to you two. Dandelion will have to work on the circle in here. Dom, do you want to be out there standing watch, or do you want to stick together? I can see pros and cons in both.”

Dom made a face at that, slowly nodding. “…Listen, I get that it might be useful to have a warning sign if something were coming, sure. But… frankly, I don’t want to stand watch alone. I’m just a human dude and the thing we’re dealing with is a demon, right? I might get off a warning to Dandelion, but… like, what’d happen to me after? This is how the Black guy dies first in horror movies.”

“That is… that is a good point,” Star said. “Yeah. Please stay with Dandelion.”

Dandelion gave Dom a quick smile at that. “I’d be glad for the company. This situation is frankly making my skin crawl.”

Shoulders relaxing a little, Dom nodded. “Okay. Then… Dandelion and I will stay here and work on the circle here. Dandelion plays communicator. And… you go out to the track, Star. But… promise you’ll try to be safe? We don’t know if the nixie stayed behind or went with the demon to go check on things. Like, it’d be fantastic if she did. But…”

That wasn’t Star’s favourite thing to think about, but it was valid. “Good point. Dandelion, can you spare me some glamour? Nixies can’t use it well against each other.”

“I’m sorry,” Dandelion said, brows furrowed. “I want to and wish I could, but I’m going to need everything I have while working on this, especially if I’m going to try to communicate with you in the meantime. Which I’ll have to do.”

“Which you’ll have to do,” Star echoed, resigned. “Well, I’ll apply my own glamour and move quietly.” He couldn’t even use his bardic abilities, not until a fight broke out, because stealth and song did not go well together. “Wish me luck.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Dandelion said, and stepped closer, kissing him slow and long and deep. “Come back to me safely,” he said, when it broke. “I couldn’t endure losing you.”

Then he stepped back and, of all things, looked toward Dom like he was expecting him to take a turn on Star. Dom immediately flustered, grabbed Star’s hand instead, and squeezed it. “See you soon.”

Star licked his lips, unable to quite help it, and then pretended not to notice Dom’s eyes flicking to that. “See you,” he agreed, and peeled himself away before he wouldn’t be able to convince himself to go.

It was just around the corner and down a short hallway to hit the side door they’d crept into originally, and from there, not so far to the north end of the flooded track, the far turn. He was fairly sure he was moving stealthy, pale and quiet, barefoot across the dirt.

Yet, the moment his foot hit the edge of the water, a hand shot out of it and wrapped around his ankle, trying to drag him in.

Had he been unaware of the possibility, he’d likely have been swept off his feet. As it was, he nevertheless yelped like a dog whose tail had been stepped on, swinging a panicked kick at the hand. It connected, and he hauled back as the grip slackened.

He didn’t free himself, but he did haul the other nixie out, naked and furious. She bared her teeth at him—teeth that were more familiar to him than the rest of her face after the bite, a tragedy he decided was best left for his therapist to dissect—and growled, “You.”

“Me,” Star said. He drew a shaky breath. He didn’t have time for this. “You’re my younger sister.”

“Hah,” she laughed, a sharp tone. “You don’t get to claim me as any kind of kin, whatever your birth-herd and whoever your dam. Not when you altered the herd forever with your fracturing of it.”

She was posed with hands up and fingers curled into claws, ready to fight and grab, though the real risk would be her feet, especially if she transformed and came at him with hooves. Her flank when transformed would also be bad; if she stuck him to her, Star wasn’t sure he’d be able to fight her enough to change the circle underwater. He raised both hands as if trying to assuage her, though he was calculating his chances of getting around her and underwater fast enough to get anything done. “I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t fracture anything. They fractured me, by torturing people in front of me, by forcing me to eat those I wanted to release. I’d have stayed forever if they’d just let me choose who not to eat.”

“Humans are prey,” she spat. “And you didn’t just walk away and leave us unchanged, did you know? Every single colt and filly raised after you were under extra scrutiny. Constant judgment. There was no interaction with anyone outside the herd, only each other and prey. Should we get away long enough for a solo hunt and not come back with a feast, we’d be grilled and questioned and made to go to sleep hungry, no food shared to us. Any interactions we had were always suspect.”

Star could see how that would happen, admittedly. He licked his lips. “Okay, but,” he said, “that’s not my fault. You see how that’s not my fault, right? I left. I didn’t turn a hand or a hoof or my teeth on any member of my own herd. I simply left. What they decided to do after it was on them.”

Another laugh at that, bitter. “Blaming them, really? You made yourself into a cautionary tale. You were a loss. A grief. A horror. A fear. You stood for all the dangers of letting humans tame you, letting other fairies own you. If we feared bridles before, now we feared wilful submission. You did that. I thought I’d never escape it.”

And yet… “But here you are?” Star pointed out. He tried taking a step to the side, but she moved to block that too.

Any luck? It was Dandelion’s voice, not in his head but crawling through his brain and blood. Even being alright having Dandelion in those places didn’t make it easy to take. He could see why communication magic might be a bit odd, and tried not to visibly react to it. He sort of thought back the exact scenario he found himself in, unsure how else to communicate, and Dandelion responded with, Okay. Understood. But Ramullin just crossed my spore circle and the jig is, as they say, about to be up, if it’s not already. Hurry, if you can. If not, I’ll try sending Dom out with a halter.

Don’t, he thought back quickly. Not after what she’d just said. I’ll deal with it. “You’re here,” he said again; only moments had passed since his last words aloud. “You’re in Branwin’s Valley and have been for a while. So you must have got out.”

“I met Ramullin on a solo hunt,” she admitted. “They… cared for me. As much as they’re able, at least. They saw my resentment and met it. We talked about the things others can do to you by getting away, and our anger and fury found a home in each other. It did. So I went with them, and—”

“Wait,” Star said. “Hang on. You’re just like me, then. That’s what happened with me and Dandelion. I met him, and he offered me empathy to what I was going through, and I just went with him.”

“I’m nothing like you,” she shouted, and launched herself at him.

Star began singing to himself as he dodged, trying to increase his own speed rather than his strength, dodging and weaving. But even so, she was forcing him back, away from the water, and he found himself looking around wildly as he blocked and ducked and punched in return, as he kicked out, as he took a foot to the knee, and then she was changing, her weight increasing into her equine form as she slammed into him, and he thought, Fuck, she’s going to stick me—

But before she could, she was torn away from him.

He looked around wildly at the blur of black fur forcing her away from him, and realized that it was Georgio, forehead set into her neck rather than her side. She’d barely avoided getting gored by his horns, which were on either side of that neck, but he was forcing her to sidestep unsteadily up the slope to avoid being taken down under his bulk.

Star could have cried. “Georgio!”

“I GOT YOU, BUDDY,” Georgio panted. He was slick with sweat—how long had he been running? “Whaddya need?”

“Keep her occupied!” Star yelled, running for the water. “I’ll explain later!”

The water was miserably dirty, though not as cloudy as it had been earlier, but he felt nothing but relief as he broke through its ice-cold surface. He swam for where he remembered the center of the track to be. There’d been a tree there, he recalled, so it may have marked the spot.

Sure enough, at the base of the tree was a structure carved into the flooded turf. It had been cut out, but Star grabbed the tree, planting his feet on the trunk and throwing his weight back to haul a pointed branch off it.

Star— he felt/heard.

I’m here, he yelled back to Dandelion in his head. Hurry! What parts?

The next part, as Dandelion had implied, was relatively easy. Dandelion described a line, and Star used the branch to scribble it out, break its structure. Then another, and Star did it again. A third, and—

Star felt the growing energy just release, draining out like a plug had been pulled. He thought a tone of wordless celebration at Dandelion. While they still had the rest of this to deal with, at least the demon couldn’t activate a city-wide attack at a moment’s notice.

Dandelion did not return the celebration. Instead, crawling through Star’s blood, was: I need you back here, now. Then, as if he’d just changed his mind. No, maybe you’d better run away. It’s not safe. Ramullin must have set up a teleportation circle elsewhere in the building. They’re here now. Get away while you can. I’m sorry.

Star, obviously, was not going to get away. That wasn’t even a choice to him. Both Dom and Dandelion were in that room. He would never just run away.

He pushed off the tree with both feet, speeding through the water until he hit ground, and ran up the bank again. As he did, he saw that his sister and Georgio were still fighting; Georgio was stuck to her side now, but pound-for-pound was stronger than her, the same way he was stronger than Star. They were currently having a horrible tug of war over their own skin, while trying to kick and pummel and headbutt each other.

Star wished he could help, but the less time he gave the demon to work, the better. “Keep it up,” he called to Georgio. “I’m sorry! Keep her busy! There’s a demon in there, I have to deal with this somehow!”

Georgio let out a bellow instead of an answer, and Star sang him a brief bar from All Star as he passed, trying to increase Georgio’s stamina. 

As he passed, he saw up the road in the distance and noticed a large group of people, lit up by starlight and moonlight. The Twilight Council was on the move, and was on their way here. But they were a good ten minutes away, still, at the gentle walking pace in which they were moving. Star wasn’t sure that they’d make it in time.

Star slammed the side door open again, then switched to a jog, and a crawl, as he approached the office. He wasn’t sure what he could do—get the jump on the demon, maybe?—but he was sure he’d have less of a chance to do it if the demon saw him coming.

As he rounded the corner, he saw that the office door was open. He pulled all the glamour he had available to himself to hide himself in shadows, creeping up and peeking in.

Dandelion stood in front of the office desk, the magic circle currently deactivated, his arms spread. Star couldn’t see Dom from here, but could hear him, feel him; Dandelion must have shoved him under the desk for cover. If Star could tell he was here, though, the demon could too, if they bothered to have eyes for anything but Dandelion.

Whatever hopes Star had of getting the jump on this demon shredded in his chest as he looked at Ramullin for the first time. Black hair cascaded down a long back; they were a good seven feet tall, with an additional foot in horns that nearly touched the office ceiling. Their arms were bare, and they weren’t arms. It was like some sort of clay mannequin that cracks had appeared all over the surface of. Inside was a mass of eyes and wings, glowing brightly, dripping in and out of the gaps like lava bubbling. Star had met plenty of demons before down here, and even had met Ferthur when they cut through Abyssal territory a year ago. But Ferthur was untitled, and Ramullin was titled. Ramullin of the Wastes, who had legions under their command. Ferthur was just some sort of border guard, from what Star had seen of him.

This was nothing like Ferthur. There was an ancientness to this one that felt like perhaps the humans were right and that demons were fallen angels. Star had never seen an angel or heard of a way to a celestial realm, and didn’t know if they were real or not. If they were, this was whatever happened when one of them went wrong.

“The city is safe, Exile, but you are not,” Ramullin was saying, in a desiccated voice that sounded like wind that was too hot to breathe. “I can do quite a bit of harm here regardless of having that circle up. For example, Exile, if I were to dehydrate that human you’re hiding. I can take every bit of moisture from his body slow and steady so he feels every moment of it before it kills him.”

“Grotesque,” Dandelion said. He was keeping his tone conversational, trying not to goad Ramullin, most likely, but Star could detect the trembling horror and outrage behind that. “You could always not do that.,”

“I could always not do that,” Ramullin agreed. “My associate Seerose is likely killing your nixie right now, as we speak. That he got into the water there doesn’t mean he’ll ever get out, not by himself. But I can have her spare him. I can spare the human. I can not set fire to this building and all those around us. You could just come with me and accept the torture I’m owed for the things you’ve done. I believe it’d come with interest, at this late point.”

Dandelion said, “You understand that I’m reluctant to do that.”

“I understand your reluctance will have its costs,” Ramullin said evenly. The room heated up by a few degrees, near instantly; Star, who’d been soaking wet from his swim at the track, found himself dry.

Dandelion was trying to delay, but—it was obvious the moment he gave up on that, his shoulders sagging. And why would he delay further? He’d told Star to run, not to come here—and for good reason. What could Star do against this demon? And Dandelion didn’t know if or when the Twilight Council was coming. There was no indoor window here to show that they were a mere, what, eight minutes away now from surrounding the building and starting a banishment, was there? He had no reason to keep fighting.

“All right,” Dandelion conceded. “I see the point you’re making. But I won’t consent without setting terms.”

“That’s fair and valid,” Ramullin said. “Though you understand that I won’t let you put protections on yourself.”

“I understand that. But there are threats you made I will need to negotiate,” Dandelion said. “If I go with you, will you still harm this human? Any other nearby human? Will you reset the circles and damage the city? Will you call Seerose off or keep her attacking my nixie? These are the things of concern to me, and which my health will need to be traded for.”

Dandelion might be able to buy a little time with this, and having the demon agree to these things would be useful, but Star didn’t think he’d be able to buy a full eight or nine minutes of it. Star swayed back against the wall outside the office, trying to think.

Compared to a demon lord, Star was largely powerless. He had his own ability: His weak glamours, his bardic buffs and debuffs, his ability to transform into a horse and stick something to his side. He could kick and bite. That was not enough to deal with this power, not by itself.

So what should he do? He wasn’t strong enough to take this demon on in a mano-a-mano fight. He could think of several possible plans, yet again:

One: Should he let Dandelion barter himself away in the hopes that he was doing it because he secretly had a plan, and then try to rescue Dandelion before Dandelion could actually get taken away?

Two: Should he jump in right now and interrupt somehow, try to get that last few minutes of time back through his own actions as a decoy and if so, what should he do, what should he say? It’s likely they’d all get a bit hurt, but it might give time for the Twilight Council to get here.

Three: Should he get the demon out and away from his boys? That was possible, actually. He could stick Ramullin to him, and then drag him somewhere. But if he did, where? And Ramullin surely would be doing their best to get away and harm him back, and he’d just have to endure it.

Four: He could try to offer himself up instead of Dandelion. He wasn’t sure if this would work—Ramullin seemed pretty fixated—but it’d hurt Dandelion to have Star get taken more than it would hurt him to go himself, and pointing that out might win Ramullin over. It wasn’t a safe plan, but it might do something.

There was also the ambiguous fifth option which is that he’d somehow magically think of something he hadn’t already considered in the few seconds before he’d have to act. 

[Which plan sounds good, and how should he execute it?
Or do you have another idea in mind?
Leave a suggestion in the comments!]

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Another thought occurred to Star, as if some of his previous planning had fallen behind and got stuck behind a wall or some such. “….Ugh, could we have rigged the building to blow and delay the demon more? I don’t suppose you already did that before we came back, Dandelion?”

Dandelion laughed. “No, a spell like that, on a delay and over a wide area, is hard enough to do under good circumstances. There was enough iron in that building to bend almost any working I tried, since I use fairy magic, not witchcraft.” He paused, then added. “Also, we agreed we didn’t want to execute the folks in the truck, at least not while they were trapped and helpless, and that would fundamentally just be doing that, if it had enough force to harm a demon of that one’s power.” Another pause. “…Also, I’m rich, but I’m not rich enough to pay for the building and all its contents, and if I used a spell that large they would find my magical signature when they investigated.”

Star waved a hand at him. “Point taken, I guess,” he said, in a drawled voice of disaffected annoyance he put on in the hopes that it would get a laugh out of Dandelion. “We can’t go back in time and do spells we didn’t do, I get it, I get it.”

“Well, I did do a spell, though,” Dandelion said, and if he hadn’t laughed he did sound pleased. “I put a quiet marker down in front of the truck door so that it’d send me an alarm when someone stepped into it—that’d include the demon. If they don’t go to the truck rear doors to open them, we won’t get a notice of when the game’s definitely up, but if they do, I’ll know.”

Dom gave Dandelion a startled look. “Didn’t you just say it’d twist all your magics? How do you know it’s fine?”

“Because I didn’t interact with the building,” Dandelion said. “I spored a mushroom circle in the ground beneath it, instead. It won’t survive long, not buried, but it’ll last long enough for our purposes. And I couldn’t do anything else with it, sadly, no binding or damage or anything else, it’s too weak to act on anything. But it can at least tell.”

“That is,” Star said fervently, “such a help actually, I’m glad to know it. Anything else, like—with your magic, is there a way to communicate with Georgio? There’s no iron here.”

Dandelion made an apologetic moue of his mouth. “Well, it’s not quite so simple, no,” he said apologetically. “Communications are extra difficult magic, though not impossible. It has to send a sense, whether a voice or sight, from one person to another despite the hundreds of individual signatures out there. And then it of course depends on the style of magic someone can use. A fairy magic like mine relies on sympathetic magic, so we’d have to have some part of the person on us to call to them with. Hair or nails, oaths, things like that. Witches can use that too, but also can use identifiers, like names or appearance. We can’t use that, but it’s why witches are good at binding demons or fairies they know the name and shape of.”

Star saw Dom shift, and glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, noticing that Dom was a little enraptured with this magical explanation, with Dandelion having shifted into a calm, knowledgeable figure like this. Star knew that Dandelion was hiding his own anxiety with it, and tried to quell a jealous swell in his chest.

“So that’s a no,” he said, instead of any of the irrational things that tried to be said.

“No, without finding a witch who either knows Georgio well enough to contact him, or is strong enough to do so without that,” Dandelion said. “Since he’s a public …mount? Figure? …that might be possible, but we just don’t have the time. Alas, we cannot coordinate with the Manotaur.”

Well, whatever. Star gave up on would-haves could-haves, and shook himself. He put the rest to the side and drew a rough outline of the track layout on the table with the dregs of his coffee. “So here’s what I think. I think we should come in the far side here, through the stables. We can try to find Halle—”

“Shit, Star, that’s a great idea,” Dom said, startled. He turned to Dandelion. “She’s a gargoyle, she’s always somewhere on site. Like Star said, usually the stables.”

Star nodded. “If she’s there and we can find her, she can at least stand guard, or maybe even help out. She’s part of the track, so it’s probably nigh-impossible to ward her out of anything on the track. Anything that affected the building would also affect her, right?”

“Makes sense,” Dandelion agreed. “So we try to find her. Just move on if we can’t, though.”

“Right,” Star said. “We circle around the flooded track to the north, and enter the side entrance into the building up on the north end there. That way, we enter closest to the offices. Fewer traps than we might have to deal with crossing through the building itself.”

“Good call,” Dom said. “And when do we go?”

“Now,” Dandelion said, and rose.

Nerves seemed to catch all three of them as they headed down the street to the track. They walked quietly in the dark, not chatting, like their voices alone might attract too much attention. Coming in from the north took them down the back road into the stables area, and while the door into them was locked, Dandelion confirmed that they weren’t magically locked. Since it was the barn side, it was a fairly simple padlock, and Star picked it quickly. 

“In we go,” Dandelion murmured, and led the way. They took 3 steps into the dark before realizing that Dom wasn’t following and, yeah, probably needed light to see.

That was fair. “Maybe fine if we keep it low and only inside here,” Star suggested. “There’s more windows in the actual clubhouse so it should be easier to see there.”

Dandelion focused and grew a plant from his hand; he blew, and seed-heads flew up in a flurry, beginning to glow and float around them, making shadows swim and flicker. Dom made a noise that didn’t seem exactly happy about it, but he stepped in to join them, and the three of them proceeded down the main stable hallway.

It was in this uncanny, shadow-flickering horror lighting that they found the body.

Halle had been smashed into several large pieces. Dom and Star sucked a breath in simultaneously as they recognized what this strange combination of shapes was, and Dandelion shifted closer, bringing the dancing seed lights in. “This was your friend?” he asked, soft.

Was. Was. Star’s gaze traced over the torso, shattered into a Y shape, the hunched legs over in a far corner, tail nearby, both arms broken in two different places and flung away. He saw, after a moment of searching, that Halle’s beaked, bald head had rolled into a stall.

“Is there anything we can do?” Dom asked, numb and hopeless.

That made the shock leave, at least. This wasn’t a fairy. Not a human, either. Her body being broken to pieces didn’t mean she was dead for certain. If it were any of the three of them, that’d be the end. A soul torn out of a body, or a soulless body torn so what energies animated it dissipated.  “Maybe,” Star said, shaky. “I think it’s possible to repair gargoyles.”

“It’s possible,” Dandelion agreed in a murmur. “Magically, we’d need a witch with a strong alignment with stone. You can repair them physically, too, with a talented enough stonemason, but with that number of fractures, a witch might be the best choice. It still might fail, though.”

Star swallowed. “Well, we can see what the Twilight Council says once we get through this.” Not if. If they died, well, a lot more than just Halle would be down and out, that was for sure, so no point thinking about that. Fury pounded through him harder than grief, now; this was his friend, for all that she was hard to talk to sometimes. This was his track they were using to harm his city in the name of cornering his lord, and this had all kicked off because they’d decided to use his jockey to do it…!

He took a few deep breaths, trying to at least focus enough to not fuck this up entirely. “No point sticking around here, then,” he said shortly. “Let’s go.”

They headed out of the stables and, as planned, sneaked low and quiet across the lawn to the north side of the flooded tracks. It was nerve-wracking and uncomfortable; Star kept finding himself glancing at the flooded pond as if looking for something there. It might just be paranoia after what had happened last time he was here, though, his old drowning trauma rising up and all that. He didn’t see anyone or anything out there whenever he checked, at least.

Still, it was with some relief that they left the track behind and huddled around the side door to the north of the building. This was also locked, but not warded, which made some kind of sense; the road was off that way, and passersby might notice if something were unusual. Any traps would be inside, instead. 

It was fairly easily picked, at least.

It let them into a hallway that went first past a set of bathrooms, then the offices and conference rooms. As soon as they stepped out to face the offices—while of course keeping careful eye out for anything that seemed odd—Star spared a moment to be grateful that they’d brought Dom.

Every single office had a horseshoe over the door: a ward that prevented entry from the fae. Star or Dandelion wouldn’t even be able to approach those doors.

Beside him, Dandelion hissed out a breath. “All the doors are magically locked, as well as physically, as well as the horseshoes,” he said. “Likely only one room would be used for this, but I don’t know as there’s a way to tell which. The stench of demonic magic fills the hallway due to all the locks.”

Star could pick up the aroma, but clearly not as well as Dandelion could. “Hell. I can pick any of the locks, but that takes time too.”

Dom looked between them and the doors. He clearly recognized the horseshoe thing—Star had told him before, given the number of horseshoes in a place that had horses. “What would the room need to be appropriate for the ritual? I’ve been in all of these at one point or another.”

“I doubt any of them have sinks,” Dandelion said, “But if they did, great. Otherwise, some sort of closeness to running water. Demons, like fairies, use a lot of sympathetic magic in their rituals.”

“No sinks,” Dom agreed. “…One of them has a pipe that runs under it.”

Dandelion’s eyes lit up. “You’re sure?”

“Fairly sure. Whenever someone flushes those toilets back by the entrance we came in, there’s a big clunk and a rushing sound under the floor in that room,” Dom said. “None of the other offices get that.

“Ahh, bless older buildings,” Dandelion said happily. “All right, show us which one, and if you can remove the horseshoe…?”

“On it,” Dom said, seeming a bit pleased. He got a chair from a bit further down the hallway and put it in front so that he could take the horseshoe down easily, then just sort of tucked it into the seat and shoved that across the hall. “Good?”

Dandelion nodded. “Good. You’re incredibly helpful,” he said, and he went down on a knee to examine the lock. “Star, can you pick this? I can work on the magical side of the lock while you do.”

“Maybe get the magic first. Just in case,” Star said.

It didn’t seem worth arguing, Dandelion just shrugged and nodded. He focused for a while, and Star became uncomfortably aware of the time passing, but there was no helping it. It wasn’t fairy magic, so lacking the connection, he probably had to do something else to understand and counter the spell. Probably find its intention and then work around that in some way.

“Aha,” Dandelion said, after seven minutes had passed—a seven minutes they wouldn’t get back. “The spell’s looking at the lock to confirm that it’s in the right position, and if it isn’t, it forces it back to that one. Since it’s essentially looking, I can just—”

There was a glimmer of glamour, not of magic, and Dandelion rose. “The spell’s still on it,” he added. “It’s just blind right now, so it won’t see the lock change. Easy.”

“Easy,” Star echoed back, and picked the physical lock. It was a Kwock, which was actually horrible security for the offices themselves, but then, he supposed anyone here had already gotten in the building. He opened it in seconds. As he turned, he caught them both looking impressed and decided that unless they asked, they did not need to know how easy these locks actually were.

Star stepped back and let Dandelion take this one too, as the most powerful one and the one most likely to be able to identify the exact moment that something went wrong. Nothing happened when he stepped through, and it turned out that they also wouldn’t need to rely on Dandelion’s senses to find the spell.

The entire office was covered in a giant magic circle, painted all over the walls and down to the floor. “No harm entering,” Dandelion promised, and stepped in.

It was hard to feel so sure, but if Dandelion was going, so was he; Star followed, and Dom followed Star with equal reluctance.

Dandelion went back into the same semi-trance, focused attention on the new spell in the same way as he’d done outside. Although this spell was significantly better, Dandelion already knew the intention for it, so Star figured it’d take faster.

It did, but not by much. Around five minutes later, Dandelion said, “Ohhhh,” in a tone of sudden understanding.

“Oh? What’s oh?” Dom asked. He’d been standing really still the whole time, as if afraid that moving might trigger anything, seeming more and more agitated. The grief and fear had come back onto his face. Standing still had left him thinking unpleasant thoughts about what they’d already seen, Star thought, and let his hand brush Dom’s reassuringly.

“The reason it was hard to recognize is that half the symbols are in a second circle,” Dandelion said. “It’s not normally split like this, but he’s connecting the surface to the water and dirt in a way that—well, it’s unusual, but it’s harder to remove, which is why they probably did it this way.” 

Star did not like that. “Do we need a specialist?”

“No, we just need to access the second circle, and to undo them simultaneously. It’s simple. You don’t even have magic to undo this. Erase or scuff this line, then this one, then this one,” Dandelion said. “All the symbols in either circle will come undone. But it has to be done simultaneously and in the same order, or the power will overflow. That’s why it’s more of a challenge.”

“So should we start checking other offices?” Dom asked.

Dandelion shook his head. “I should have recognized it when we passed. Based on the angles of writing and the pull of the spell, and what I felt outside… the other circle should be underwater in the middle of the flooded track.”

Not done in paint, then, but built in some other way down there. Star made a face. “….so two circles that have to be dealt with at the same time in two different places. Can you communicate with whoever goes out there? We talked about communication magic earlier.”

“I could send a short message to you without any difficulty given how close you’ll be and that you’re my vassal and lover,” Dandelion told Star. “Dom would be a bit harder. Might be easier if we made out.”

“Here? Now?” Dom yelped.

“Sharing saliva is powerful,” Dandelion said. “Regardless, we have three people, so we’ll have to decide who goes where. Two people in one place and one in the other. Or, I suppose, one for each circle and a third to stand watch, if we felt that was important enough to risk our strength in numbers that way. I shouldn’t stand watch, though, if I’m supposed to communicate with the other to time the line-erasure. I’d at least have to watch what was happening. I need to be at one of the circles.”

“You and I can both handle water easily,” Star told Dandelion. “So either or both of us could go there. Dom?”

Dom didn’t look pleased. “I mean, if you could enchant me to breathe water, I’d try if you said I had to, but I don’t do a lot of swimming. I think I’d be best to be out on watch or in the office undoing the lines there.”

“Okay,” Star said. “I can go anywhere, though watch is boring. Let me think.” As far as he could determine, since Dandelion couldn’t be on watch and Dom couldn’t be in the water, there were then five possible options to pick from:

1: Dandelion and Dom stayed together in the office and worked on the removal of lines there. Star would go into the water at the track alone.

2: Star and Dandelion could go underwater together, and leave Dom in the office after setting things up so Dandelion could communicate with Dom. 

3: Star could go to the water, Dandelion could stay in the office, and Dom could head out into the main clubhouse to keep watch.

4: Dandelion could go to the water, Star could stay in the office, and Dom could stand watch. 

5: Star could stay on watch while Dandelion went in the water and Dom stayed in the office and the two talked secretly with magic while saving the city together, and Star himself just waited outside on the boring job and was left behind forever.

What seemed to make the most sense for them to do, though?

[So which option are we going with?
Who at which circle (water/office),
and do we have anyone risk standing watch?
Leave a suggestion in the comments on this for sure
but also anything else you think is relevant at this late stage!

Story is not ending tomorrow; the final part will most likely be on Nov 02.]

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When the question was put to him so bluntly, the answer was obvious.

Star wanted Dandelion there. 

It wasn’t just his own wants, though. He could overcome that in his fear for Dandelion, that much he knew. He did want to keep Dandelion safe however he could—but Dandelion was powerful. He was strong, much stronger than Star would ever be, and in a situation like this, it wasn’t just that Star was in danger. (Though he was, he thought helplessly, he was being personally targeted. He didn’t know what had happened with the nixie that they went with using Vayne to get Star instead of her, and that felt like a mine buried and ready to explode if he put too much weight on it). It wasn’t even that Dandelion or Dom were in danger. 

This whole city was in danger. He couldn’t afford not to make use of Dandelion, and if it meant he would have the comfort of being able to see him, being able to reach out to and touch him, to die with Dandelion at his side if this all went badly—well, that wasn’t selfish when it was for a good cause, right? 

“Come, please,” Star said, and squeezed Dandelion’s hand between both of his own, raising it and jamming it awkwardly against his own chest. “Please. Please. I need you there. We might all need you there. I just didn’t want—I just wanted to explore the option, in case it was best, but…”

Dandelion’s expression warmed again, and he seemed to relax into the touch, swaying forward toward Star. He winced almost absently as that put strain on the injury to his shoulder, and Star panicked, digging around and pulling out the remainder of his loaf of bread. “Eat some bread,” he ordered. “It’s healing bread. Speeding healing. Fast. Injury go away more quick.”

A blink, then Dandelion laughed. Eyes glittering, he took the bag from Star, then leaned in again insistently and kissed him.

Star made a whiny little sound as fireworks went off behind his eyes, and he wound his arms around Dandelion, holding on hard until the kiss broke.

Dandelion licked his lips, then drew a piece of bread out of the bag and handed that bag back. “You eat one too, then.”

“I was gonna,” Star complained, taking one out before putting the bag away again. “Don’t tell me to do things that I was already going to do, then I don’t wanna do ’em.”

“Okay,” Dandelion said gently. He wrapped an arm around Star’s shoulders, and they walked the rest of the way to Beanheadings like that.

It was much busier at this hour, which tracked with Star’s memories of the place. It was always doing some kind of business, but the evenings and early night were when it was the most active. Matthias was back on the till, or maybe still on the till—Star had to wonder if he ever left or if he lived here, and what kind of deal he’d made with Kearney Dillon, if he did—but he’d been joined by a human and a glaistig as servers, replacing the ‘get orders from the counter’ service by having them run to various tables as the coffee shop opened up the kitchen for slightly larger food orders and got the bar open for drinks that had a touch of something extra in them.

Good. What they needed right now was cover; if someone were to glance into the window while passing, it wouldn’t need much glamour to hide that they were there if the place was bustling. Star gestured to a table for Dandelion, then headed up to the front. “Hey, Matt! How’s it going?”

“Oh, can’t complain,” Matthias said back, equally cheerful. “What can I do you for?”

Star did not miss the innuendo. Now was not the time for reciprocation, though. “Just three americanos; a friend’s meeting us here but we can’t stay long.”

“Will do. Looks like you’re at table 8, I’ll have someone drop ’em off.”

Star inclined his head, then headed over, sliding in next to Dandelion, who was getting his phone out. “Ready for your first prank call?”

“I am always ready for a prank call,” Dandelion said. His phone shimmered as he shifted his outgoing number to Vayne’s, and he dialed. “Hey, boss.” Suddenly his voice was rough, Vayne’s kind of slimy tone sliding through. “Deal’s done, I have a freaky horse in love with me. I’m just gonna keep him in this form and hope he doesn’t get too frisky if it’s all good with you.” A pause. Star strained to hear the demon’s voice on the other end, but couldn’t make out any words. “Yeah, yeah. Okay. You better keep your end of the deal. See you.”

He hung up and let out a breath. “Good?” he asked Star, winking.

“Sounds like the guy I know,” Star agreed. 

Dom slid in across from him right then, brows lifted. “Why are we pretending to be Vayne?” he asked.

Star upped his glamour so the sound of the crowd would cover his voice, and nodded to the human—whose nametag said Gray (they/them)–as the coffees were dropped off. “One of these is yours. We need you to be alert,” Star said, and then threw himself into it, explaining everything they’d learned and found so far that he hadn’t been able to cover in previous messages.

Dom let out a wincing breath. “Well, I came dressed in dark colours for a stealth mission, but I gotta say I’m a bit nervous about getting caught breaking into the track,” he said. “You sure this isn’t gonna backfire on us in mundane ways?”

Star shook his head. “I mean, anything can happen, but Viv’s gone right to the Twilight Council to explain what’s happening and that we’re heading in first to try to defuse it. It’s as close as possible to getting permission in advance. But… I’m glad you came,” he added, putting a hand over one of Dom’s. “You know the place really well, and besides, there’s ways to ward against fairies. There’s no way to ward against humans.”

“I’ll help however I can,” Dom promised. “I’m just grateful you got me involved. If I sat on the sidelines while you were putting yourself at risk… I don’t know, it’d suck. They tried to use me to start all this and get at you and Dandelion, you know?”

“Yeah. I know. You said you wanted to,” Star said softly. “I listened.”

Dandelion shifted, and Dom abruptly cleared his throat and lifted his coffee with his free hand, downing it. It had taken awhile to explain everything, and it seemed like it was now cool enough to chug. Star shrugged, and did the same.

“Shall I do the last call?” Dandelion asked. “Once I’ve checked in as Yuree, we’ll just have to wait for a few minutes to give time for the demon to head out, and then we’ll want to head in ourselves as soon as possible.”

Star’s heart was suddenly pounding too fast. Maybe he shouldn’t have slammed the coffee after all. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

Dandelion’s phone shimmered, and he called again. “Heyyyy, babes,” he said, in a flirty feminine voice that wasn’t his own. Star wondered what kind of power Dandelion had where he could do that—had he met Yuree sometime before? If she’d dated Adrien, he may have. Or maybe he was just picking her voice and speech up through his own strength of glamour. “All good here, the satyr is just taking a liiiiiittle nap now. Looks like we got all three of that bard’s bitch babes tied up nice and tidy.” A pause for an answer. “Yuuuup, just like that. You probably wanna come out here asap, though, babes, Queef or whatever her name is, she’s looking kinda sick from the iron cuffs, and Vayne might be in danger from too much stallion.” Another pause. “Yeah, uh-huh, see ya in a few, then!”

Shoulders relaxing, Dandelion hung up. “They should be on their way in just a minute. They seemed eager to get out and get control of the situation,” he said mildly. “Now, we wait.”

It turned out that waiting—for a demon lord that you couldn’t see leaving the premises of a place you couldn’t directly watch on a timeline of their own choice—sucked. The three of them sat in silence but for Dandelion’s occasional sips of his coffee, which, after about half a cup, he handed to Star. Star drank the rest, even while regretting his first coffee. No point letting it go to waste.

Whatever happened, Star decided to embrace it. He was going with two people who, if they weren’t his boyfriends, were something to him. Beloved of him. And soon there’d be no more waiting at all.

He tried to plan in those few minutes they had before leaving, running over his mental map of the track. The clubhouse was on the immediate west side of the track itself. It was a 10,000 square foot building with a large dining hall, event space, and kitchen. There were terminals all over the building for the betting, with large windows overlooking the patio that then faced the track.  To the north of the building were the conference rooms and offices. The offices were the place that Star considered most likely to have the spells set up in them as the most private areas; plus, he remembered finding several of them locked and smelling of sulphur. That probably wasn’t unrelated.

Detached from and just north of the clubhouse were the stands: the grandstand and the judges stand. That’d overlook the track, but as an outdoor space visible from a bunch of angles, he doubted much would be happening there.

Annexed to the south side of the clubhouse was the enclosed paddock, with temporary holding space for the mounts, various places to clean and pick and saddle up and all that, and of course the main indoor exercise area for warm-ups and teaching lessons to students. This was where Star and Georgio had been when Star had seen Ramullin walk by on the clubhouse side and the track had flooded just outside.

To the east of all that was the track, a long oval space that was now fully flooded. From what Star had heard, it sounded as though it were currently standing water and had not yet drained. 

On the far side of the track, again further to the east, were the on-site stables where horses could be boarded and cared for. Halle, who couldn’t leave the area and thus would definitely be at the track somewhere, usually stayed at the stables so she could watch the horsies, but since the horses who stayed there would probably have been moved elsewhere after the incident, it was hard to say if she would be there or somewhere else on-site. Unless she’d been enchanted or bound by the enemy somehow, she’d probably be on their side and willing to help.

Entrances to the clubhouse were: the main public entrance on the west, a side entrance near the grandstand to the north, and then the patio entrance from the east, overlooking the track. It could also be reached through the attached paddock, which had two entrances of its own: one from the side to the south and the larger barn-door style entrance to the east near the track. 

What was the best way to enter? Where should they go first? Was it as simple as going in through the front door and heading right to the offices, Star wondered.

And was there anything else he could reasonably do or prep in the last couple of minutes before they headed off to the track?

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Obviously, Star had to be really sure of the situation before deciding any of the specifics. He shook himself again, uneasy. “Éabha, you didn’t answer Dandelion directly. They are setting up at the track.”

“Yes,” Éabha said. She tensed as Dandelion approached with his sword, but he was carefully cutting a gap in the fallen shelving so she could step out of the ring they’d formed. Still, she waited until he offered her a hand before letting herself be guided out. “It’s in a good position in the web of magics. Part of why the magical leagues are held there, apparently? And then after flooding it, they’ve created a connection through the concept of ‘flood.’ They have to set up some destructive demonic magics before they can do anything with it, but then they can trigger it. Like a fuse.”

Star thought, cartoonishly, of a pump on TNT getting pushed down and then water exploding out of the dynamite instead of fire. Ah, yeah, there was the hysteria, he thought. “Cool. Great. And the timing is… you said soon. How soon is soon.”

“I don’t have that information,” Éabha said. “I wasn’t exactly in close with my captor. But it sounded like, if this attempt at a hostage situation failed, they’d step it up and do it ‘as soon as possible’. It could be tonight at the earliest. It could be later if we’re lucky. You still have a few hours before they decide it’s failed, and then it’s up to whatever ‘as soon as possible’ means to them. Once they have it set up, I imagine they’ll contact Dandelion to show their threat.” She slowly dropped Dandelion’s hand, standing awkwardly holding her harp, which seemed to thrum softly even without the tuning pegs.

Caoimhe croaked, “A few hours?”

“Well, they were giving their agents time to bring everyone in,” Éabha murmured. “I checked in once I captured you. Vayne wouldn’t have, since he failed to capture Star. I don’t know whether or not Yuree got a chance to call after capturing Adrien.”

“She didn’t,” Miette said, putting their fingers up in a V.

Adrien let out a weak laugh. “You know, you’re pretty cool,” he told Miette. “Saving me like that. If the world doesn’t end tonight, I’d like to get to know you better.”

“Hey now,” Star said. “We’re talking about the city, not the world. Don’t go heaping even more pressure on.”

It was bad enough as is, especially if they had so little time to act before Ramullin moved on to worse things, as Éabha was implying. He eyed the rest of his group. Everyone was tired and some degree of injured. He and Dandelion were the best off, but both had several wounds from the bone pegs. Adrien and Caoimhe were iron-burned and iron-poisoned. Éabha was battered and burned from the iron shelves collapsing as Dandelion had corralled her. Viv was uninjured, but at the end of her magical reserves. Miette was fine, but hadn’t been volunteering more help than taking the injured back to the Lindwyrm.

If they had more guaranteed time, Star would for sure suggest everyone just go back and rest, contact the authorities, get other people better suited to it to act. But there wasn’t enough information there. If it could be so soon, they couldn’t rest.

Well, if they didn’t have strength to lean on right now… “What about deception?” he wondered aloud. “Maybe we could use Éabha to bring us all in as captives and then we… I don’t know, attack while they think we’re harmless?”

“I don’t think… I mean, perhaps,” Éabha said dubiously. “But there was a set plan. Without the others checking in, it’ll look very suspicious, and I imagine they’d want to make sure you’re all well and truly helpless when I brought you in. Besides, the plan was for the demon to come here to deal with the hostages. Not for me to bring the hostages there.”

“It might still be possible to use this whole thing as a base for trickery,” Dandelion said, warming visibly to the idea. “With my illusions and glamour, I might be able to set up a distraction rather than an ambush. If that demon lord plans to come over here after you all call in, we can make you all call in. That way, we guarantee Ramullin’s out from their headquarters for a short time, which might give us a chance to undo the magics they’ve set up.”

“But even if we woke Yuree and convinced her, Vayne is gone, and his phone with him,” Star pointed out. “Unless—”

“I can magically spoof a phone number,” Dandelion said. “That’s easy. Simple fairy trickery. Star has Vayne’s number, and we can certainly get Yuree’s phone off her. And you must have that demon’s number yourself, Éabha.”

“…I do,” she agreed. “So your plan is to pretend to be Vayne and Yuree, call in as them, and send the demon here to make sure they’re away from the track when you have to go in?”

Dandelion nodded. “It might give us a better chance. Turn their own plan against them.”

“You’d have very limited time,” Éabha said, “before Ramullin realized that it was a trick, and headed right back to the track.”

“We would,” Dandelion said. “Which is why I wouldn’t suggest we actually make it an ambush—that’d put whoever we left in grave danger, and besides, the goal here is to get rid of their leverage by undoing their spells and rituals. We have a few hours still, as you said. So I believe that Star and I should go to a safe place near the track, and call in then. It maximizes our time at the track while the demon’s away. We just go in, find the setup, erase the magic circles. In and out.”

Star brightened. This was starting to seem workable. “Maybe we CAN use this as a chance to get some additional power, too. We get Miette to take our injured out and to the Lindwyrm for protection, as planned. But, Viv, instead of going with them, can you go to the Twilight Council? I think they’d have a pretty strong reason to get involved here ASAP.”

“They’re infamously slow-moving,” Viv said. “But yeah, if I can impress on them that some demon is actually trying to put the whole city under threat, I imagine I can call an emergency all-hands. They’d still have to vote, but I imagine they wouldn’t want to take too long doing that. I wouldn’t wait for them, you should go in anyway, but I hope I can convince them to move in to support you after you’ve gone in to erase the magic circles and all that.”

Star nodded. “And the Twilight Council are involved with the Branwin governing forces, right? They can decide if it’s worth going to the human police or if it’d just raise new problems.” The humans in the city above the Valley found them dangerous, so sometimes things like this were better swept under the rug. But with the city at danger, they might risk it. Regardless, if the Council was in the know, they could make that call, not Star.

“In the meantime,” he continued, “Dandelion and I can go down to… hmm, Beanheadings, maybe. It’s just like a 10 minute walk from the track. Faster on horseback, and it’s relatively protected and neutral. A good place for it. Dandelion can call pretending to be Vayne. I’ll get Dom out to join us; he knows the track really well, and knows the offices and so on better than I do. I don’t usually handle that side of things. Then, after we’ve waited for a bit and caught Dom up, Dandelion can call pretending to be Yuree. Say all the prisoners have been got, and encourage the boss to come on out. Then we wait a few minutes for the demon to leave, and we head over.”

“Got any bruisers in case there’s guards?” Viv asked.

Star had one in mind, and he pulled out his own phone, dialing the stable again. They picked up quickly, sounding harried. “Hi,” Star said, in a chipper voice. “I wanted to see if Georgio had been sent back?”

“Well, about that,” the stable-hand said, tense. “We told him that he’d been asked for and he just… hauled ass and began running down the road. Hopefully he knows what way the city is. And hopefully you have a place to put him up for the night.”

Star winced. “I’ll deal with it,” he said, and hung up. “We might,” he answered Viv. If Georgio showed up, he showed up. There was no contacting him if he was busy running in a random direction on the freeway. “But we might not even need a bruiser. The two of us have glamour, and the stables have way less iron than a warehouse. Plus, since it’s shut down, it should mostly be empty. I’m confident we can sneak better without a bruiser anyway.” 

“The plan sounds good to me,” Dandelion said. “You go ahead and call Dom, Star. I’ll get the phone numbers I need and see everyone else to the door.”

Star did, and his heart leaped when Dominic picked up on almost the first ring. “Hey.”

“Hey. Everything okay?” Dom sounded worried.

All of a sudden, Star felt weak and tired. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. He could have a meltdown later. Just someone asking after him so sweetly didn’t need to be a cause for one now. “I’m good. Things have kind of got more intense, though, and we have to break into the track tonight. I could use your help. You know, knowing your way around, not being a fae in case there’s anti-fairy traps, being moral support. Come meet us at Beanheadings, if you still want to…? I’d understand if you didn’t. If you couldn’t—”

“I’ll be there,” Dom said softly, his voice low. “Thank you for asking me.”

“Okay. I lo… love… that… you’re doing that,” Star said, and hung up.

He practised mindful breathing, and soon enough Dandelion rejoined him. “We’re leaving the guards locked in the truck,” he told Star. “We don’t want them getting out and warning that demon, and we decided against executing them; it’s likely more than one of them was coerced. Maybe the demon will stop to get their story and it’ll buy us a little more time than if they got here and simply found the whole place empty and trashed.”

“Fair enough,” Star said. “Ready? Dom’ll meet us at Beanheadings.”

“Ready,” Dandelion said, and took his hand. “The others have all headed off in a group. Viv will peel off to go talk to the Council and call for an All-Hands. The rest is up to us.”

Star swallowed. Dandelion’s hand felt cool in his, fragile, almost tacky with silvery blood. Together, they carefully picked their way around the fallen shelves and headed for the door; Dandelion had somehow left them a path out. He was almost too skilful, Star thought.

For a long while, they walked in a tired silence, Star occasionally stealing glances up at Dandelion. It was getting dark, and the street lights were coming on; they caught in the white hair haloing his head and lit it up. He really was uncannily beautiful. 

Star found himself squeezing Dandelion’s hand a little too hard. “Do you think you should actually come with me to break in?”

“That’s… the plan, isn’t it?” Dandelion looked at him a bit askance, glancing down at him out of the corner of his eye. “My powerful glamours and all that.”

Swallowing hard, Star put his head down and kept plunging forward. “Yeah. But there’s a chance it’s a trap. We’ll do the phone calls and all that like we planned, but maybe you should stay in Beanheadings? What if they set up something for you personally if you came? On the other hand,” Star found himself babbling, distressed at the way Dandelion’s hand tightened on his, “I want you there. You’re so strong. Your ability with magic is real, too, you don’t just have glamour like me, you actually have magic. And you’re cool. And you’re… comforting. Of course I want you there.”

“I do not want to stay behind and let you and your human go on without me,” Dandelion said, voice falling into a more formal cadence, which was a surefire sign that Star had hurt him. “In a worse case scenario, I should be there, because if Ramullin can activate those spells already, I might be the only one who can stop them. And… if everything went to the dogs, I’m the one they want.”

“That’s true,” Star said, grabbing Dandelion’s hand harder as if to reassure him. “And I do want you there.”

“I doubt it would be a trap. After all, this was a trap. Why trap both places, but keep them separate? And they know you’ve been sniffing around the track, probably, so there could be a trap there for you. If there is, I may be able to defeat it. But… the truth is, I might be too close to the situation to say what the best option is,” Dandelion said, tone aching.

“Dandelion…”

“Should I leave it in your hands, Star?” Dandelion asked, voice low and rough in his distress. “What does your heart say? Should I go with you when it’s time, or wait nearby for your return?”

[Should Dandelion come with Star & Dom to the track,
Or should he stay behind at Beanheadings?
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