Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In his experience, inhuman monsters tended to live in caves or decrepit castles. Swamps sometimes. The pristine manors were more often home to the human monsters, but he’d been assured he was looking for something that absolutely was not human, “no matter what face it takes.” The place almost seemed too clean to be lived in—shelves and chandelier dusted, the fireplace empty of ash. Despite trying to keep quiet, the scuff of his boots still echoed through the empty halls.

Something was definitely there. A scent hung in the air that he couldn’t recognize. That was a rarity after all these years, but it seemed to smell like… cleanliness, like clothes washed in fresh river water and drying out in the breeze. No human or beast smelled like that.

Then again, he was probably just dizzy from the sea of wolfsbane growing outside, likely planted to keep his sort away. Unfortunately, it was not enough to put him off from fulfilling his job. Nothing was.

Getting there had taken over a week even with little sleep, and he desperately needed some clean clothes. He undoubtedly smelled of wet dog even in his human form. There was only so much rainwater and mud he could shake out of his fur.

Checking each room showed him several empty beds throughout the manor despite how late it was. Exhausted blue eyes had to be dragged away from them to continue the search. He couldn’t rest yet, not for fear of whatever lived here, but because he hadn’t done enough to earn sleep. If his feet stopped before he found the creature, the collar would know it was in opposition to his orders.

That would not be tolerated.

A sigh pulled from his lungs as he returned to the main room and the polished wooden staircase up to the second floor. Whatever element of surprise he might have had already ended when he knocked on the massive front doors, but the angry groan of every stair under his weight was enough to make him wince. He and the house seemed to like each other on equal terms.

The strange smell was stronger at the landing, strong enough that he didn’t feel like he’d need to continue up the stairs to the third floor. A lone window peered over from that top floor to let in a sliver of moonlight. Waning, thankfully.

The second floor was made up almost entirely by the biggest library he’d ever seen. So many books. Endless rows of spines rose all the way up to the ceiling. It seemed unlikely that someone could even read so much. One of the books lay open in a chair, and he had to pause, just for a moment, as he squinted at the swarm of letters covering the pages.

How strange for a monster to read at all.

“Stop right there!” The voice behind him shattered the silence with such force that his entire body froze and waited for the metal around his neck to burn.

It didn’t happen, though. No, of course not.

That was a child’s voice.

He couldn’t keep the confusion from his face as he spun on his heel to find her there. A little girl, she couldn’t have been older than thirteen and so small that it was no wonder she’d been able to hide behind the furniture. She’d stepped out from behind an armchair just to tremble like a leaf at him. “You’ll make me lose my place.” Her voice was already less firm than her initial command, certainty draining away now that they faced each other.

He felt the same.

This was not a monster. She was hardly half his size, fear just as present in her eyes as determination.

But she couldn’t have been human either. Those eyes were the bright yellow of the full moon, her hair a shock of pink like a spring flower, and she smelled like clean water. Like icy air. Flawless. Inhuman.

He felt his mouth open before he’d decided what to say, and she reacted like he’d reared back to strike. Granted, he probably should have noticed the mace in her hand sooner, but it seemed impossible for such a small child to even hold a bludgeoning weapon, let alone swing it up over her head.

He raised his hands as the panic in her eyes grew, just to face the palms of his gloves toward her in surrender. “Sorry,” he said, and she froze, still ready to bring her swing down at any instant, though he wasn’t sure what part of him she was aiming at, if any. “I didn’t mean to break in.”

The anger in her eyes wavered to confusion, words failing to form for a moment before she managed, “How do you do that on accident?”

Fair point. “Well… I guess I did break in on purpose, but I did knock first.”

Her mouth screwed to the side in a frown. He was not winning any allies with this line of conversation. “Daddy says I’m not allowed to answer the door,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean you should just come in without permission.”

“You’re right. I apologize, but I can promise that I do not want to steal anything or cause you any harm.”

He kept his hands raised even as a silence stretched between them. The way her brows pinched made it apparent that she didn’t believe him. The realization felt like claws digging into his chest—she’d heard this before. Even if he meant every word, it didn’t matter when she’d been lied to already.

“Have people come here before to try to hurt you?” he asked, unable to keep the worry from bleeding into his voice.

She took a step back, her gaze dropping from him even while she kept the mace held up. Her appearance could have all been a façade, a trick to make him drop his guard. He’d already seen it done before from the kelpies, the sirens, the whisps. And he’d fallen for it before, having to drag his broken body away after an ugly fight.

He desperately hoped he would not have to fight her. Just seeing the way her hands shook made it impossible to see her as anything but a child. He had to bite back the anger threatening to rise from his throat at the idea of anyone who could think of hurting her.

Including himself.

Releasing a slow breath, he let the tension fall from his shoulders before settling himself down to sit on the smooth wooden floor. Hopefully he looked less threatening when she didn’t have to look up at him. If he ended up limping away from here or, ideally, dead, then it would be worth it. As long as he did everything he could to not be another person who’d harmed her.

She continued to gauge him with suspicion, reaffirming her grip on the mace as he bit at the fingertips of his glove to help tug it off. Her arm had to be getting tired by now. “I think,” he said through his teeth and the leather, “you might be like me.” As his claws met the air, he let the glove fall to his lap. Trim them as much as he liked, they always grew back dense, sharp, and obviously inhuman.

The girl’s eyes were alight with curiosity at the sight of them, showing no concern with why he knew what she was or even what he was doing there. He was so accustomed to reactions of fear or confusion at the sight of his hands that he had to fight the urge to put the glove back on under her stare. Instead, he forced himself to continue. “I’ve been attacked more times than I could remember. Once people realize I’m not human they get angry. Or scared. Sometimes violent.”

Her expression softened, and she nodded along to his words. “I don’t understand why they always want to fight me. I don’t want to… I never meant to hurt anyone.” She sounded so small.

“It’s not your fault if you have to defend yourself.” It felt strange for the words to leave his mouth, a belief he’d never afforded himself, but it was so clearly true for her. “Sometimes running isn’t an option. Sometimes you have to fight.”

Sometimes he didn’t get a choice.

Though her brows remained furrowed, the mace began to drift down by her side as though she’d forgotten about it. “Um, I don’t have claws, though,” she said. “Why do you have claws if you’re like me?”

He felt a smile tug at his lips. “We’re not quite the same, but you’re not human, right? Neither am I.”

“I’m just like a human.” Despite the insistence in her words, she didn’t look sure about them. “That’s what Daddy always says.”

He considered asking her what she really was even though he already knew the answer. A homunculus, something that shouldn’t have been able to exist. An aberration, his master had said.

It wasn’t like he was any different.

Without any warning, the girl stepped toward him. He hadn’t even considered that a possibility. No one was supposed to come near him, but by the time his shock gave way to the idea that he needed to back away from her, she was already kneeling in front of him. Her odd yellow eyes held no malice or fear as she reached out to grasp at his clawed hand. Her hand was so small next to his. She examined his claws so delicately, like they weren’t something he’d used to tear people open.

She shouldn’t have trust anyone this quickly, but especially not him. His teeth sank hard into his tongue to stop himself from saying it aloud. That almost cost him the tip of his tongue when she dropped the mace at her side. It crashed to the floor with such force that he was amazed the wood  didn’t crack beneath it.

Not quite “just like” a human then.

She didn’t seem to notice the noise, looking back up at him with the innocence of any normal child. “So you’re a cat?” she asked, much too excited about the idea. “A cat man? Oh, or a bunny! Bunnies have claws too.”

“Close. I’m afraid I’m more of a wolf man.”

Even that wasn’t enough to strike a moment of fear in her. A smile broke out across her face instead, her eyes gleaming. “A wolf man! You’re a werewolf!?”

“Yes.” He wasn’t sure his attempt to smile was working against the concern filling his face. “So you’ve heard of us, then. People aren’t usually so excited when they realize what I am.”

“I read about werewolves in my book!” She hopped to her feet, still grasping his hand as she pointed toward one of the books among the hundreds on the shelves. “Werewolves are like big dogs!”

“That’s not-“

“Can I see your wolf form? Please!” Her hands both clasped onto his as if in prayer. “Do you have a tail? I want to see!”

Eyes wide in a daze, he must have looked much like a kicked dog. No one had ever sounded excited at the idea of seeing his other form, at least, not without sadism painting their tone. He definitely needed to explain to her how to interact with strangers. At least, to his benefit, her book hadn’t explained clearly that he wasn’t supposed to have claws or fangs without a full moon. If it had told her werewolves could transform freely, it had been wrong about all except him.

“I’m very sorry. I’m not the same as a dog or even a wolf,” he managed as he rose back to his feet. “I am a monster in that form.”

Despite her excitement fading to a pout, she still hadn’t let go of his hand. “People say I’m a monster too, but I don’t think I’m scary. I bet you’re not scary either.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it, but you are certainly less scary than I am.” Still, it seemed like a good idea to change the topic before she insisted. “Would it be alright if I asked for your name?”

It did the trick, immediately brightening her demeanor. She finally released his hand to clasp hers behind her back, straightening upright with a smile. “Oh, that’s right! I haven’t introduced myself. You can call me Momo. That’s what Daddy calls me. What’s your name?”

His head tilted, eyes falling to their corners. Always an awkward question to answer. Only his master could have his true name, but mentioning that required him to explain that he had a master. “Most people call me ‘Dog,’” he offered instead. That much was true, regardless of what form he was in.

He may as well have sworn at her for the look she gave him, shock turning quickly to anger. “That’s not a name,” she huffed. “You have to have a name.”

“Truthfully, I don’t like my real name.” Not when he only ever heard it attached to a command. “Even Dog is preferable, but you can call me whatever you’d like.” 

He anticipated further questioning that he would struggle to answer without lying, but she had already moved on to humming in thought. “Okay, I can come up with a name for you,” she said with a sure nod before darting past him to get to the book she’d left lying open. The move put her back to him, and she showed no concern at this, her attention on the book. He wished he could tell her that it was unsafe to drop her guard, that she was not safe around him, no matter what he tried, but then…

His collar hadn’t activated yet. He hadn’t felt the burning pain run through his arms and force them to move.

Strange.

He jolted back to focus as she spun on her toes and held the book up for him to see. “How do you pronounce this?” she asked, pointing to a word.

“I’m afraid I don’t know. I never learned how to read.”

That was common enough where he’d come from that he didn’t think much of it, but it looked like he’d knocked the wind right out of her. “You don’t know how,” she mumbled as she brought the book back down to her eyes. “Gosh, I will have to teach you.”

It was his turn to look startled. Never mind why she would bother with that, it wasn’t like he was going to stay there for long enough to learn something like reading. It wasn’t like he could even if he’d wanted to. Surely, he couldn’t.

Yet the collar still demanded nothing of him. He replayed the command he’d been given over and over in his head. Capture the creature and bring it back. Make sure no one else gets ahold of it. Make sure it does not escape. And if any of that becomes impossible-

He blinked as realization burned through him like the first gasp of air after being underwater.

His master did not give him a timeframe.

Commands usually came with “now” or “immediately.” Over the years, all of his masters had come to understand how easily he could warp a command if the wording wasn’t exact, whether he wanted to or not. This was the first significant gap in his favor in some time.

As long as he did not break any of the demands, he could simply remain there without the collar activating to force his hand. If he stayed around long enough for her to trust him, he could convince her to come with him without having to force her. That had to be better. Then, at least, she wouldn’t have to feel scared. She wouldn’t try to fight him or run. She would be safe, at least until they returned to his master.

The idea made him feel sick to his stomach, but it had to be the better option.

“Seeg- Sigh-” Momo was muttering, squinting at her book. “You know, I’ll just call you Siggy, er- Ziggy! How’s that?”

Admittedly, it was an odd name. He’d never heard something like it, but then again, he’d never heard “Momo” either, and it would probably sound less bizarre than Dog to most.

“That’s fine,” he said.

“Great! Then you’re Ziggy now.” The book slammed shut with a dull thud between her hands. She looked back down at it. “Wait, no, my place!”

As she frantically flipped back through the pages, he debated how far he could stray from the manor without her before the arbitrary magic of the collar would decide he was trying to escape his orders. It wasn’t like he could stay there constantly, but then again, staying just outside was also unsettling behavior.

Before he could decide on the least creepy course of action, Momo spoke up through his thoughts. “Oh, Ziggy, do you sleep?”

“Do I sleep?” He had to take a moment to make sense of the question, having met few creatures that didn’t need some form of rest. “Yes, I sleep.”

She nodded. “You look really tired, so I thought so. Daddy used to look like that a lot.” A moment’s sadness flickered through her eyes, but she was quick to shake it. “It’s really late, so you should take one of our rooms.”

He hoped he looked grateful because he was horrified that a small girl would offer a room to a man who had just appeared in her house in the middle of the night. Even if this was to his benefit, he didn’t think he could accept it. “I can sleep outside just fine,” he said, but the words had barely left his mouth before she was shaking her head.

“No way! It’s freezing out there. We have plenty of beds. Come on, I will show you.”

He had already seen all of them, but he kept quiet as she led him down to one of the many rooms and said, “You can have this room.”

He had to hope that “for tonight” was implied.

It had been so long since he’d stayed in an actual bedroom that his steps dragged with hesitation against entering it. The room was not just nice but affluent, pristine. This was not a space he should have been allowed to exist in. He was bound to get dirt on everything.

“Do you need anything?” Momo asked as he tried to figure out what to do besides stand in the center of the room.

“Oh um, no, this should be fine. Thank you. It’s very kind of you.”

“You’re welcome!” She was beaming, her cheeks tinged the same color as her hair. He couldn’t fathom why unless this was the part where she sprang the trap and killed him. At least that would have made some sense. Instead, she said, “You get some sleep, and we can talk more tomorrow.”

The door closed between them, leaving him to stare at it and wait.

He heard nothing but the settling of the old house against the autumn winds.

And he was exhausted.

Sleeping in the bed was out of the question. The quilt was far too nice for him to get dirty, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept in one anyway. He could lie to himself and say that taking his wolf form made more sense in case things went south, if he suddenly needed to fight, but the reality was that it was just more comfortable to curl up on the floor with his tail keeping his nose warm.

Sleep crashed into him hard enough that he didn’t wake when the door swung back open.

Momo didn’t think much of the cold. She was aware of it, yes. She could tell when it was cold, but the feeling never settled beneath her skin, never made her shiver like she saw her father do on winter nights.

She often sat near open windows in her coziest nightgowns and socks while she read. Sometimes the moonlight was bright enough for her to read without any candles. Tonight was not one of those nights, and the wind was really doing a number on her candles.

Grumbling, she clambered her way off her favorite reading chair to go shut the window. As her hand touched the sill, the icy stone pressed back against her fingers. Her breath came out in a cloud among the outside air.

Oh, she realized as the shutters clattered shut, it must have been cold in the house too. It wasn’t like she ever used any of the fireplaces unless she felt like poking at a fire for a while to cure the boredom. But an important question sprang to mind—did werewolves get cold? Werewolves were just cursed humans if her books were right, so… probably.

And she had left so many of the windows open.

“Oh no, I am a bad host,” she hissed, and after all the etiquette she’d read about too. She couldn’t let herself fail her first guest.

Even running through the house at a sprint, her socked feet made almost no sound against the wooden floors, and she hopped over the creakiest spots to make sure of it. Window after window snapped shut until she felt sure she’d gotten them all.

Maybe that would keep the house from getting colder, but it wasn’t going to help if Ziggy was already cold. Most of the rooms only had a couple blankets. She squished her cheeks between her hands as she wracked her brain for how many blankets humans needed when it was cold.

Sakura… Sakura was under so many and still shivering. Always so cold.

The memory was so hazy that the more Momo tried to reach for it, the more it seemed to slip through her fingers, but she could feel the chill deep in her skin. The weight of the blankets was almost smothering.

If Ziggy could feel that cold, then he must have needed more blankets. Luckily, she had a whole closet full of them, enough for a whole house of guests. Filling her arms with a stack that she could just barely see over, she darted back to Ziggy’s room only to freeze at the door.

If she knocked, she might wake him up. Waking him up was rude. Not knocking was also rude. Brows knitted, she leaned her weight back and forth between her feet to toss the thoughts around in her head until they made sense.

With her hands so full of blankets, it would have been hard to knock anyway, she decided. Leaning her shoulder against the door, she instead called, “Um, Mr. Ziggy?” The door drifted in under her weight. Though little light fell in with it, she was able to see the strange shape on the floor.

Huge. Fluffy.

The blankets dropped from her mind as well as her hands, landing in a heap on the floor.

It was true that he wasn’t a dog. Sort of.

He was a very, very big dog.

And he had a very fluffy tail.

Entranced, she tiptoed around the pile of blankets to get closer. This must have been what Fenrir looked like, she thought. Maybe she’d picked the wrong myth book to find him a name, but then again, Fenrir was supposed to be scary, and Ziggy just wasn’t.

She dropped down to her haunches, balancing on her toes to take a closer look at his pale fur and huge pointy ears. Though his breaths were so deep and slow that they seemed to shift his entire body, he didn’t look relaxed. He was curled up so tight that he looked like a fuzzy pill bug. Just like in his human form, his brows were furrowed, worrying about something even in his sleep.

She reached out to run her hand along his head. The rest of him looked bristly, but the short fur between his ears was soft, and after a few pets, she felt the tension between his brows ease beneath her fingers.

At least, until his eyes snapped open. His gaze flashed to her wide with panic, and she yanked her hand back.

She must have hurt him. Somehow. Again. She always did this. She tried so hard not to. She’d been so careful. But this always happened. It was always her fault.

Dread tugged heavily at her chest as he rushed to stumble back from her, his claws scrabbling against the floor. His ears were flat against his head, round eyes snapping in all directions like cornered prey.

She slowly pulled herself upright, hands held tight to her chest so that she wouldn’t be able to hurt him. They were just about the same height now, but she was the monster again. “Sorry,” she said, taking a slow step back. Despite the cold, her face felt hot, and she couldn’t stop the tears from blurring across her vision. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m so sorry.”

His body froze save for his ears, which shot up at attention.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, okay?” she gasped. “I promise. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

The worry returned to his brow, and he cocked his head to the side. She hadn’t thought much about whether he’d be able to speak like that, but he did breathe a deep sigh through his nose as he took a few slow steps toward her.

“Y-you can leave if you want,” she struggled to say through trembling lips, “but you don’t have to! You can stay!” No one would want to stay when she was like this, but scrubbing at her eyes wasn’t enough to stop more tears from coming. “Please stay. Just for tonight. Please, I don’t want to be alone.”

A large, soft weight bumped against her hand, stopping her from continuing to rub her eyes raw. Sniffling, she found Ziggy sitting in front of her. His brow was still furrowed, but she found no fear in his eyes as he ducked his head back down toward her hand. Once he had her palm resting against his head, he stilled himself in the awkward position.

“Are you… Are you saying it’s okay if I touch you?” she asked, needing to make sure. She was still shaking so hard that he must have felt it through her fingers.

He gave a slow nod while keeping her hand balanced. Now that she thought about it, he looked pretty silly there waiting to be patted when he wasn’t really a dog. It just made more sense to throw her arms around his neck and finally get to feel someone warm and close for the first time in so long. Even if he’d just sat there still like with his hand on her head, she would have been happy, but he let his chin drop to her shoulder, leaning his head against hers.

“It’s been so long since someone came here without getting mad at me,” she murmured as she squeezed tighter, feeling the bristles of his fur against her cheek along with the cold metal of that thing on his neck. His fur hid it better than his shirt had. “I’m so tired of fighting people. I just want to talk to someone. You don’t… have to stay forever, but can you stay for a little while, Ziggy?”

It was hard to know what he would have said if he could talk, but she had a feeling he still would have looked worried even as she felt his head nudging against hers in another slow nod. A relieved laugh bubbled up from her throat. “Thank you, Ziggy.”

Even as another short huff of air left his nose, his tail whapped at the floor beside her.

Chapter Text

Ziggy had watched enough cats stalking mice to know to keep low and to test each step like the ground was a sheet of ice that could crack under him. He also knew that he must have looked incredibly stupid as a massive dog trying to stalk around like a housecat, but there was a reason wolves hunted in packs. He wasn’t built to catch a deer or a rabbit by himself. Fangs as big as arrowheads did little good when prey could generally outrun him and his loping, crashing paws.

All he needed was to sneak close enough, though, and even a buck would die with minimal suffering under the crushing weight of his teeth against its throat and spine. He could eat most animals raw, but that never made the sharp scent and taste of blood any more pleasant as it pooled into his mouth.

At least this time he didn’t have to eat it that way.

Once the buck gave its final heaving breath, Ziggy let it drop to the ground before trotting back to the spot he’d left his clothes and the towel Momo had given him for scrubbing the blood from his mouth once she’d calmed down enough to understand it wasn’t his.

The clothes were borrowed as well, Momo handing him an armful of what must have been her father’s old clothes once she realized he didn’t have anything else to wear. They were nicer than anything he’d ever owned and, admittedly, a bit small, but he had no complaints. If anything, he felt spoiled.

The first morning he woke at the manor, Momo had insisted that she would make him breakfast once she’d gathered enough things to make a meal. The cupboards were filled with fancy tableware but nothing actually edible beyond some dried spices that must have been as expensive and unused as his clothes.

“What do you usually eat?” Ziggy asked, though he had a feeling the answer was nothing.

“Oh, lots of things!” Her eyes were firmly in their corners. “I have a whole book about cooking, so I can definitely make you something. Don’t worry.”

He wasn’t worried until he watched her put the duck he’d caught directly into the fire, feathers and all, while trying to pretend she wasn’t about to cry. “Thank you for being food for us, Mr. Duck,” she said through misty eyes.

Ziggy patted her shoulder and suggested that she could focus on the foraging while he prepped the meat from now on. That was all the convincing she needed.

He found that the collar didn’t make itself known as long as the manor was within sight, and the animals in the area were so unaccustomed to anyone leaving it that they wandered nearby with little concern. Everything was in his favor until the beds of wolfsbane sent him into a sneezing fit and scared off whatever he was trying to stalk. His only solace was that no one was around to see his lousy track record.

There was no garden to speak of around the manor, just whatever the forest provided for cobbling together into a meal. Ziggy would carry back whatever unfortunate creature had crossed his path, already skinned and pieced into something unrecognizable, and Momo would hold whatever she had found up beside the drawings in her books to make sure it was edible.

Though Ziggy hadn’t done much cooking in years, he found an easy rhythm in showing Momo the basics of cutting vegetables, boiling, and roasting. She found all of it fascinating, holding onto every word with rapt attention and copying everything he did with immediate perfection that he couldn’t match. Mushrooms came apart in exact, even slices, and wild onions never made her so much as sniffle. The haphazard meals looked absurd on the fancy plates, and Ziggy felt ridiculous eating at a table at all, but Momo spent every meal bright-eyed and swinging her feet.

“This is good!” she said every time.

“It is,” he’d answer honestly, even if sometimes the spices made his eyes water.

When they ate, she liked to ask him questions about the outside world and what he’d seen of it. They were easy questions to answer because he didn’t have to say much about himself and he’d been around long enough to have seen plenty, though some of the questions didn’t require much in the way of travel.

“So, cows are like dogs but bigger, right?” she asked one morning, breakfast half-forgotten as she waited wide-eyed for an answer.

“Not… exactly. They’re closer to horses.” He paused. “Have you seen a horse?”

“There’s drawings of some in my books. They’re not like dogs either?”

At the very least, they never tired of things to talk about. When Ziggy wasn’t the one trying to find the words to explain what a horse was, how big the ocean was, or how some places did not have trees around them, Momo was holding a book open between them at the library desk and trying to explain to him how letters became words.

He didn’t consider himself much of a student, struggling to parse more than a few short words among a lengthy page of them, but Momo would beam with pride like he’d actually accomplished something. It was sometimes enough to make him feel like he had.

“I don’t understand why the same letter can make different sounds in two different words,” he admitted after several seconds spent glaring at the word “of.”

“Oh yeah, well, you know how you said why some places don’t have trees?”

“‘It’s just like that sometimes?’” Right, not his most thorough answer. He should have known that one would come back around to bite him.

“Something like that. Uh, but there’s something about vowels…” Her head listed to the side like she was trying to hear her own thoughts better before righting herself with a huff. “Sorry, I can’t remember. I wish I could teach you better, but I don’t really remember any of the learning. I knew how to read when I was born.”

He waited for that sentence to start making sense in his head. She looked perfectly serious and perfectly unfazed by it. “How?” The question dragged itself from his lips.

“Well, my sisters learned how to read, and so when Daddy made me, I knew all the things they knew.”

That did not clear up much of anything. All he could understand was that if Momo had sisters, if there had been more girls like her, they were not around any longer. Ziggy had a feeling, settling like a rock in his stomach, that Momo’s sisters were gone in the same way her father was.

He couldn’t tell from her plain expression if she wanted to talk about it, and asking too many personal questions seemed unfair. He didn’t mind talking about animals or the ocean as long as it kept her from asking him about himself.

“They sound very smart, your sisters,” he offered.

She nodded, once again smiling with pride in her eyes, but sadness hung heavy in them as well. “I think they would have liked you, Ziggy. They’re not really here anymore, but I still have parts of them, so they’re not really gone either.”

Her words felt… off. She must have been lying. There wasn’t any comfort to be found in everyone dying around you. As he considered it, cold, empty exhaustion seeped through him. An old friend. Better not to think about it. Better not to remember. He felt himself speaking before he realized what he was saying. “I’m sorry. I don’t think there’s a feeling more painful than being the last one left.”

The near-invisible weight of Momo’s hand settled on top of his glove. She’d told him that he didn’t need to wear them, but he preferred not seeing his claws when he played pretend at being a human.

“Hey, Ziggy, it’s getting cold again,” she said, her fingers curling tightly around his. Maybe a bit too tight. With a little more pressure, she could have snapped his bones in her grip. He couldn’t find it in himself to feel much concern about that, not with how her eyes were now trained on him and swimming with worry.

Ziggy rushed to blink away whatever expression he must have had, though the emptiness remained sharp as knives in his chest. “Oh, it’s fine.” He needed a second to remember what was fine exactly. “I’m pretty used to the cold. Unless- Are you cold, Momo?”

She took a moment to answer, bright yellow eyes raking over his face the way they flickered over her books. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am cold. Here, you go sit in my big chair—it’s very comfy—and I’ll go get a blanket, and then we can keep reading.”

Though he wasn’t sure what her being cold had to do with him moving to the upholstered chair by the window, he couldn’t think of much else to do besides follow her orders while she darted off for a blanket. She wasn’t wrong about it being comfortable, fabric worn soft and frayed by years of use.

Glancing out the window at his side kept him from feeling any comfort, though. He’d been there too long. He’d gotten too comfortable imagining that he didn’t have a time limit.

He always had a time limit.

The moon was so bright. Waxing. Almost full again.

For all the hellishly powerful magic in this world, he’d yet to learn of anything strong enough to stop the full moon from taking over and shredding his mind to pieces.

When Momo returned with an armful of blanket, his expression must have given away too much again. “We’ll read something fun!” she rushed to say, tossing the blanket onto his lap. Ziggy didn’t have much time to puzzle over that before she’d grabbed a book from a shelf and squished herself next to him on the seat.

The chair was clearly not designed to seat two, but Momo seemed to think nothing of it as she draped the blanket over them.

He forced a smile through his wince. “Momo, not that I mind, but it’s not generally proper to do this with someone you don’t know.”

“Well yeah, but I know you, Ziggy.”

It seemed he would need to be a little more specific in his lectures about strangers and trusting people. Even if getting her to trust him was supposed to be the goal, he could find nothing but dread in how much she was starting to.

The book seemed to fall open to the page she wanted, either worn into place or one where she’d memorized the page for the story. “Most fairytales are kind of mean, but this is the best one,” she assured him. Despite initially saying “we,” she set to reading it aloud to him on her own. That was fine with him. Trying to read it would have felt strange when he already knew the tale by heart. He’d heard it plenty of times as a child and told it a few times too—silly misfit animals finding a happy ending for themselves. Made sense that Momo would like that one so much.

Resting his cheek against his knuckles, he found it easy to let his eyes fall shut as he listened to Momo retell a story even older than he was. He was so sure that he’d closed his eyes for just a moment.

He woke with a sharp inhale, finding the air bitingly cold against his nose and his back screaming at him for falling asleep upright. Even before he glanced down, it was hard not to notice that Momo was still there keeping his side warm. The moonlight was bright enough to show her sleeping, balled up under the blanket and leaning all her weight against his side. If homunculi could get cricks in their necks, she was bound to.

She was always awake before him and went to sleep after him. He’d never seen her yawn or look tired, so he’d started to assume she just didn’t sleep. It was nice to know that she could. Sleep was usually the only form of rest he got. Even nightmares were more of a comfort than dealing with the waking world.

Tucking the blanket around her, he scooped her up in his arms to carry her down to her bed. Even if he’d never walked through such a large house for it before, the task was familiar enough, the weight in his arms so nostalgic that settling her down sent a bolt of panic through him.

But it was fine, he had to remind himself. She would be there in the morning. She would be fine.

It wasn’t even the full moon. Not yet.

Still, the anxiety was enough to keep him from finding sleep again. He couldn’t even attempt to hide it when he stepped out of his room in the morning rubbing at his stinging eyes. Momo bounded up to him like an energetic rabbit, gasping, “Oh no, did you not sleep well, Ziggy?” No exhaustion showed in her wide, worried eyes.

“It’s alright. I’ll be fine once we’ve had breakfast. It’s just…” Pinching at the bridge of his nose, he breathed a sigh.

“Oh, tonight is the full moon, right?” she asked. His spine shot rigid. She was both more observant than he’d thought and blind to the consequences judging by her calm smile. “So, are you going to have to be a wolf tonight then? I can put your dinner plate on the floor if that’s easier.”

A smile threatened to cross his face at the absurdity of it. “Momo, it is… kind of you to be so unafraid of my other form.” Incredibly dangerous. Irresponsible of him to allow it. “But on a full moon night, I will be genuine werewolf. I can’t control my actions. I’m not even aware of them. I’ll need to chain myself to a large tree before nightfall, and you should hide somewhere safe. If there aren’t any chains, I can make do with a sturdy rope.”

He was pretty sure her breaking his finger would have hurt less than those big, sad eyes staring up at him. “You can’t be outside all night!” she gasped. “It’s not safe outside, and it’s cold! And tied up!? That’s horrible!”

 He’d never heard of someone needing to learn less sympathy for others, especially for a werewolf. “Momo, this is very important, so let me be clear.” Despite trying to sound firm, his voice couldn’t stay steady. Words turned bitter on his tongue.

No matter his orders, no matter how much he needed her to trust him, she needed to understand why she couldn’t trust him just as much.

He needed to tell her, but he would miss seeing her look at him without fear. “I didn’t understand what had happened when I was bitten,” he began. “I just knew that I’d seen something too big to be a wolf, and…”

He’d been the only one in his hunting party left alive. So much of its bright white fur was stained with blood. He’d never thought a beast could be truly soulless until those empty red eyes stared down at him while shattering his forearm in its maw. No matter how many years passed, he could remember that pain clearly.

He felt his hand reach across to his arm to make sure that it was still in one piece, not held together with fragments of torn flesh and muscle.

“And I went home,” he finished. “I healed from the bite faster than anyone should have.” More than anyone should have. His arm should have been lost to him. “I should have known something was off, but I thought nothing of it. I didn’t have claws or fangs then. I didn’t understand that I was no longer human. When the next full moon came…” His heart hammered so fiercely in his chest that it seemed to shake him with every pulse. It felt like a demand to stop, like that could alter the story. The outcome could stop existing if he just didn’t speak it.  “I was still home. My family was there with me, and I-”

He jolted as Momo’s small hands once again grabbed his, trying to pull him back, but it was so hard to see her through all the blood. God, there was so much blood. The smell was overwhelming, sharp and nauseating.

The grip on his hand tightened until it felt close to crumpling like paper. He took a sharp, pained breath in, and the air smelled as clean as snow. Or ash.

Momo didn’t let go, eyes searching him with near-panic until she seemed sure that he was really looking back at her. “But that’s not your fault,” she said. Her voice was small, but it did not waver. “That’s not fair. You didn’t know. You didn’t want to hurt anyone. It’s not your fault.”

She must have still been in denial. He’d been the same when he first woke up with no memory of the night before, trying to convince himself that there must have been some other beast, that he never would have hurt them.

It was all just wishful thinking, but even knowing that, the thought of arguing that reality to Momo felt unnecessarily cruel. He’d already done enough to upset her. A gentle tug was enough for her to release his hand, and he let it fall instead to the top of her head. “I think you’re too kind to me, but what matters is that you’re safe. I don’t care what happens to me. I won’t remember any of the night anyway, but you should think of me like a real wolf and not as Ziggy.”

The bangs pushed down into her eyes weren’t enough to cover the annoyance in them. “Fine, but I’m not gonna let you be chained up outside. We can lock you in the cellar.”

He let his hand fall away to look at her more directly. “There’s… a cellar?” He’d searched the whole perimeter of the manor when he arrived along with every door on the bottom floor. He would have noticed an entire cellar, surely.

“Yeah, Daddy made it hidden, but it’s okay for me to go in there, so I think you’re allowed too. We just can’t go to the third floor.”

She spoke so casually, like she hadn’t just left him with a bizarre handful of new information rattling around in his head. He hadn’t thought much of the third floor because he’d never seen Momo set foot on the second flight of stairs or mention it prior. It wasn’t like he really needed to know, but…

“What’s on the third floor?” he asked.

“That’s Daddy’s office. We’re not allowed, okay?”

The office of a man who created a homunculus… His orders mentioned nothing about that, so nothing he needed to see was up there. The cellar was more of a concern, at least for him. Momo was insistent on breakfast first, then laundry, and she was sure there was time for books.

“You have something like a chain, right? Or ropes?” he asked at least once per hour.

“Everything will be fine, Ziggy,” she’d respond in turn each time. “I think you should be allowed to do nice things until it’s night.”

But he couldn’t stop himself from glancing out every window to track the sky’s shade. Over the years, he’d gotten too comfortable with having someone nearby who could demand any movement from him or none at all. Even his most unpleasant masters had been wise enough to order him to stay still on full moon nights. If they gave any other commands when he was in that monstrous form, he was glad he had no memory of it.

The sky had tinged a yellow hue by the time Momo insisted that he had to eat something for dinner before she would lock him up. He must have looked as anxious as he felt because she offered a gentle smile along with his plate. “It’s gonna be okay, Ziggy,” she said. “I’m really tough anyway, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

He was supposed to be the adult here. He should have been the one trying to comfort her. Forcing a slow sigh, the tension eased from his shoulders somewhat. “I wish that I could promise to protect you from any monsters so that you didn’t have to fight, but I feel helpless when it all goes dark and I’m the monster. I know you’re strong, but can you promise me one thing?”

Her eyes narrowed with suspicion, which was admittedly fair. “Maybe. What?”

“If I were to attack you, then I want you to promise not to hold back against me. Fight back with all your strength. I can heal from most anything, so do whatever it takes to slow me down or stop me.”

“Everything will be fine,” she mumbled again. “But… if it makes you feel better, then I promise. I’ll defend myself if I have to.”

Even if he wasn’t entirely convinced, at least she understood that it was a possibility. That assurance was on less solid ground the moment they set foot into the odd, hidden cellar.

It was through one of the many guest rooms, a doorway hidden behind a bookcase that had to be heavy. Momo had no trouble lifting it, though. He was certain a werewolf wouldn’t struggle with it either. He made Momo promise to put several more pieces of furniture in front of it.

Down a creaking set of stairs, she lit a series of candles that marked their path and bathed the dirt floor in a warm glow bright enough to see the remnants of odd symbols painted into the dirt. Several of the lines were smudged, breaking the outer circle that would have otherwise enclosed it. Ziggy still wasn’t thrilled about placing his feet within it, but he could tell it wasn’t capable of anything anymore.

Momo made no mention of it, and he was content to not think too hard about why it was there.

The walls were stone, and the only exit was the small door up the stairs. That much was ideal, except…

“Momo, there’s nothing to bind me down here.”

Her smile did look conniving underlit by candlelight. “I think you’ll be less angry if you can run around and dig and stuff. Dogs love that. I will barricade the door plenty and everything, so you don’t get out. I can move that whole bed!”

No matter the panic threatening to tear through him, he didn’t have time to argue. The sunlight would be gone soon, and he had to hope the exhaustion he felt would affect the beast just as much.

“I’ll have to trust you,” he said, trying to force the words into reality. “Please stay safe.”

“I will!” She grinned, a little too pleased with herself for having gotten the better of him. “Um, hey, can I ask you something?”

“As long as it’s quick.” His spine was starting to itch.

“Do you usually chain yourself up by that thing on your neck? Is that why you wear that? It feels… strange when I look at it.” Her eyes must have been reflecting the candlelight oddly. The yellow in them was so bright that they seemed to glow. “It doesn’t look very comfortable.”

She’d noticed it. Of course she had. She seemed to notice everything, and he’d never had much luck trying to hide it completely. “I’m afraid I don’t have time to explain,” he said. That much was true. “But if you’ll leave, I’ll tell you in the morning.” Though he dreaded the thought, every second that she remained there was worse.

“Okay,” she grumbled, turning to trudge back up the stairs. He couldn’t find it in himself to feel surprised or irritated when she paused at the landing to turn back again. A tired smile crossed his face instead.

“Momo,” he offered when she hesitated to speak.

When she did open her mouth, the words rushed to tumble from it. “Um, you know, I don’t think your family would have hated you or blamed you for what happened, Ziggy.”

The thought seeped into him with a cold panic, horrifying to even consider.

Because she was probably right. They never would have hated him, but they should have. Someone needed to.

“Goodnight, Momo,” was all he could find to say.

“I’ll- I’ll see you in the morning, Ziggy!”

Once the door closed, he waited until he heard the groans of the furniture dragging across the floor behind it; then he snuffed the candles one by one until the darkness seemed palpable like a smothering blanket. He didn’t mind. Better than a fire.

His borrowed clothes went in a neat pile under the stairs, and he waited for the first snap of his spine. His skull shattered under his clutching hands.

And it all truly went black.

There was too much furniture in the way for Momo to sit near the door and listen. She had to sit in the doorway to the bedroom instead, perfectly still, silent.

Waiting.

For something. She wasn’t really sure what. Maybe howling? Werewolves had to howl.

Or maybe he would scratch at the door. She was confident enough in her barricade that she almost hoped he would try, but even after several minutes with the moonbeams on her back, she heard nothing.

If he was sleeping, then that was the best outcome.

“Goodnight, Ziggy,” she called. No sound answered that either.

She had to tell herself that there was no point hanging around there. Passing the time with reading was what she spent most nights doing anyway. The storybooks were more fun than all the books with symbols and charts, even if she’d read them all dozens of times. The full moon was bright enough to read by, so she let the window stay open beside her. Every few pages, she’d pause to listen for something from Ziggy.

No sounds reached her from downstairs, but she did hear something—muffled scratching and scuffling from outside. It must have been some kind of creature. She didn’t see many out at night. Hopping up from her chair, she crept over to the window to check. The night air stung against her face as she leaned against the sill, just in time for someone to pop up over the ledge. Blindingly blue eyes met hers, no space to breathe between them.

Socks slipping out from under her in her attempt to jump away, she landed hard on her tailbone beside her chair. It stung, but at least her mace always sat leaning against her chair for this sort of occasion.

People usually broke in through the ground floor, though.

She snatched it up while scrambling to her feet to face the intruder. It was so rude of them to show up on a night when Ziggy was already stressed. Before she could snap in an attempt to look scary, she saw him properly and froze.

The fact that he was holding himself up on the window ledge of the second floor was already strange enough, but his hair was as red as blood, his eyes seeming to give off light like the moon even though it was at his back, and he was young.

She’d never seen anyone who looked young besides herself, at least, not with her own eyes.

Their staring match only ended when a laugh bubbled up from him. “Oh, hi,” he said through it. His voice was bright and snapped like fire, and his cheeks tinged close to his hair. “Gosh, I didn’t realize you were a girl. I was expecting something scary, but you’re pretty.”

She didn’t feel herself bring the mace down until the windowsill crashed into a hail of splinters. Her face burned like she was about to cry, but she was pretty sure she didn’t feel like crying.

The world came back to focus in pieces. She had a bigger window now, but there was no boy in it. Ears filling with the sound of her hammering heart, she remembered once again how high up they were. Panic filled her like too much water in a cup. Could a normal person survive a fall like that? If they did, there was no way all their bones would stay together. Human bones broke so easily that she could barely touch them.

She never wanted to kill anyone, none of them, but especially not someone young. He was so small.

Breaths coming in short gasps, she inched back toward the window. Before she could peer over to see what was left of him, he popped back up. His chin rested on the sill this time, fingers barely gripping the edge. “Jeez okay, maybe you’re a little scary. Uh, please don’t hit me. I’m not here to fight or anything.” His cheeks were even redder now. Boys in fairytales were always mischievous and a little stupid. She was starting to think that was actually true.

The more she looked at him, though, the stranger he seemed. His eyes really did seem impossibly blue, brighter than she’d ever seen the sky, and if anything, he was the pretty one. He couldn’t match her gaze for long, seeming to wilt from it as his words came out faster and faster. “I just heard there was someone else inhuman around here, and so I had to come check, but you’re not- um -who I thought, so I was just surprised when I saw you. I almost never meet someone else who looks my age, you know?”

She didn’t know much of anything. Like his face, so many of his words felt just a little strange, but she couldn’t sort all of them. The fact that he’d heard about her stood out the most because she couldn’t understand how. Ziggy had been the same way when he first showed up. She never spoke to anyone, so it didn’t make sense that people could be talking about her.

She couldn’t just say all that, not to some strange boy hanging onto her window. “I’m basically a human, so there’s not really any reason to come see me,” she said.

His eyes glanced down the line of his nose toward the shattered windowsill. “Yeah, okay, like a half-human. I’ve known a lot of people like that.” He pulled himself up slightly—not that she could understand how—to rest his forearms against the ledge. “So, what’s the rest of you then?”

Her lips tugged toward a pout. There was no way this boy had read any etiquette books. You couldn’t just ask people something like that. Probably. The books didn’t mention this situation exactly, but she’d learned plenty from Ziggy about dealing with new people.

“You’re a stranger, so I will not answer that,” she said, stomping her foot so he would know she meant it.

For some reason, it made him smile. “You’re right. I forgot to introduce myself. You can call me Junior.”

“Junior?” she echoed. “Is that a name?”

“It’s what everyone calls me, but you’re right. It’s pretty rude of me to ask what you are if you don’t know what I am. I’ve heard the word is dhampir, which is a really fancy word for mutt if you ask me.” He hooked one finger into the side of his cheek, muddling his words as he tugged and showed her his teeth. “I’m half vampire.”

Ziggy had some teeth even in his human form that looked a little too big and pointy, and this boy was similar, his fangs slimmer and sharper than Ziggy’s.

She tightened her grip on the mace. Vampires were definitely bad in all her books that mentioned them, but so were werewolves. She’d never heard of a dhampir before.

“Hey, can I come in?” he asked, cutting though her thoughts. “I can hang out here if you want, but you’ve got so many books in there. It’s almost as big as our library, and I’m dying to take a look.

“You have more books?” she asked in a daze. She didn’t realize that there were more. Her father always seemed to know everything, so she’d imagined them having every book filling the shelves. If there were more, then there were new things for her to read.

“Oh yeah, we’ve collected a lot,” Junior said with a grin that showed off both his fangs. “I’ve even got some from across the ocean. I can’t actually read them because they’re in other languages, and some of them come on this weird rolled paper, but they’re really cool to look at.”

If he was lying, that seemed like a strange thing to lie about. Her mind buzzed with the need to know more, and it was pretty cold outside, even if Junior didn’t show any signs of being cold. “Fine, you can come in,” she said, bringing her mace up to point at him, “but I know all about vampires, so you have to behave. No biting.”

His sure expression turned sheepish as he pulled himself over the ledge. “But I’m not a full-blood vampire,” he mumbled. “I actually can’t drink most blood anyway, so you don’t have to worry about me biting you.”

Truthfully, Momo hadn’t been worried about herself anyway. Her blood didn’t look like what she’d seen spill from humans. She was more concerned with Ziggy, but biting him would also mean a mouthful of fur and probably an angry werewolf. It did make some sense that a half-vampire couldn’t drink blood as well as a regular one, but then, he could probably drink tea instead.

Tea was perfect for guests and books.

Once Junior was standing inside, Momo was able to see that they were about the same height. She even might have been a bit taller. She tailed him from a few steps back as he walked along the bookshelves, his big coat flowing out behind him.

“Wow, I’ve seen some of these, but there are a bunch I don’t recognize,” he said.

Hopping up to his side, she pointed to a few volumes beside each other. “These are my favorites.”

“Fairytales, huh? I feel like the morals tend to be too black-and-white, but I guess sometimes they’re entertaining enough to make up for it.”

“Yeah, sometimes they’re so mean to the animals when the animals didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But sometimes the animals are pretty vicious too. Cats eat mice. Foxes are always lying. Wolves try to eat people.”

“They do not,” she huffed, earning her a raised brow from Junior. “I mean, um, they’re just stories.”

Junior shrugged. “Yeah, most of them.”

She waited for another one of his bright laughs or a smirk to finish off the joke, but he just went back to looking at the books. Still, he must have been kidding.

All fairytales were just made-up stories.

But, then again, werewolves and vampires were supposed to be made-up too.

Chapter Text

“So, have I stopped being a stranger enough to earn an introduction?”

Junior seemed interested enough in the books that Momo gave a jolt at the realization that he’d turned his attention back on her. When she didn’t answer right away, his eyes rolled away from the shelves to return to her. Though his gaze was gently curious, she couldn’t help but feel pinned like an insect for display.

She still wasn’t sure if she could trust him. He didn’t seem to be carrying anything that could cause her trouble, no bandolier or sword sheath. In fact, he didn’t seem to be carrying anything at all, but that just made him more confusing. Ziggy had been easy to understand from the beginning, always too tired or anxious to hide much in his expression. Getting a smile out of him was a rare feat.

Even when Junior wasn’t smiling, his eyes seemed to hold a laugh. He felt to Momo like he could already know the answer to any questions he asked. Maybe he was just asking to be polite or to see if she would answer honestly.

It seemed more likely that he had no idea and was just faking.

“You can call me Momo,” she decided, doubting he could cause her much trouble with just her nickname. Besides, she liked hearing people say it.

“Momo?” he drawled as though testing it against his tongue. “Huh, alright, it’s nice to meet you then. Are you the only one here?”

She found herself staring at him instead of answering. If she said yes, that would make her seem lonely and vulnerable and weird. She was, but people didn’t need to know that right away. Unfortunately, now was not the time to tell someone about Ziggy. Weren’t werewolves and vampires mortal enemies or something too? Or immortal enemies?

Whatever the case, mentioning the werewolf downstairs seemed like a bad idea, but she could always try her hand at lying.

“No, there’s a very normal man downstairs too,” she said with a flurry of nodding. “He is sleeping.”

She couldn’t tell if he believed her or not because he ended up staring at her in unrestrained confusion. That quickly gave way to an apologetic smile as he brought his hand up to rub at the back of his neck. “Sorry, you’re right. I guess that question was a little suspect. To be honest, I thought this place was abandoned at first. No lights or smoke. Dead silent. I didn’t think I’d end up facing someone when I climbed up to that window. I was just going to look inside. Sorry for startling you and all that.”

“It’s okay.” Maybe it shouldn’t have been. Though looking in people’s windows was questionable, it was harmless compared to how most of the intruders behaved. She was going to need to get that window fixed, but she’d fixed plenty of damage to the house before. “But how did you climb the wall like that?” she had to ask.

“I dunno, I just grabbed it, and I climbed up. Normal people can do that, right? Is that not a human thing?” The knowing gleam left his eyes as he puzzled over the idea. “Damn, you might be right. I’ve never seen a human climb a wall, but they can climb trees and stuff. I thought those were basically the same. I must have really weirded some people out before.” His cheeks dusted red again, and he seemed to look everywhere but at her.

“You try to pretend to be human too?” she asked. Her best efforts had never seemed to work, people often questioning her hair and eyes, but Junior looked odd to her too, and it sounded like his act worked out for him. “Does everyone else like us do that?”

His gaze fell back to her with some hesitation. “Well, yeah, most of us disguise ourselves one way or another. Some humans will try to kill you otherwise.”

She nodded along, as relieved at the idea that she wasn’t the only one they hated as she was guilty for feeling so happy about it. “Yeah, they have tried to kill me sometimes,” she said.

“Huh? You’ve got to have some kind of monster form. There’s no way people would attack you looking like that.”

“No, I always look like this. I’m pretty sure.” She glanced down at herself, wondering if she could have forgotten ever looking scary the way Ziggy forgot what happened during a full moon. Even if that had happened, she had felt normal when people attacked her or tried to drag her away from home. Forgetting all of that would have been much better.

“I promise they’re not all like that.” Something dark tinted Junior’s voice that made him sound older than his soft, childish face. “Humans can be very kind. I’d trust them faster than any vampire, but any bastards who’d hurt a girl deserve what’s coming to them.”

In a blink, his playful expression reappeared like he’d slipped a mask back into place. He brought his hand to rest over his heart and bowed the way princes did in fairytales, except they were probably taller. “I can promise that no one will bother you while I’m here,” he said.

“Um, thank you.” Even though her cheeks felt hot, it was hard not to smile back at him. She’d never been around anyone who could put on such an easy grin. If it was just some strange ruse just to charm her, she couldn’t deny how exciting it was to talk to someone new. “It’s getting pretty late, so are you going to be alright? It’ll be morning soon, and there’s not much around outside the manor besides the trees.”

He straightened himself just to cock his head to the side. “Huh? Are you talking about the sun? I can go out in daylight, so it’s fine.”

“Then why did you come here at night?”

“Jeez, you really know how to make me sound suspicious. I just wanted to take a look around. I wasn’t planning on coming in at first. I wouldn’t have been able to anyway. You had to invite me in, remember?”

“I did?” She tried to think back through their conversation. Everything since he’d appeared had felt like a whirlwind, but she did recall telling him he could come in. “I kind of forgot that was a vampire thing.”

He breathed a sigh that bubbled with a laugh. “Well, remember that for the future. You never really want to invite a vampire in. If someone can’t cross a threshold without being told, then you shouldn’t trust them.”

“So… I shouldn’t trust you?”

Ziggy did the same thing, describing untrustworthy characters in ways that could have been a description of himself. Momo wasn’t sure if everyone was supposed to be untrustworthy or if people were just contradictory.

“I mean, yeah, you probably shouldn’t,” Junior said with a shrug. “But I’d like for you to, so I’ll work on it. The folks back home would never let me hear the end of it if they found out I climbed up to a girl’s window, so maybe we can forget about that.”

Momo perked up at the mention. “Where’s home for you?” she asked. Ziggy had never mentioned anything about where he was from, though she understood why now. As much as she wanted to learn more about him, every memory he did reveal seemed painful for him.

Junior held no such reservations, instantly holding up his fingers at odd angles like he could draw a map in the air. “Oh, there’s this port city south of here. More southeast. About a five day trip if the weather is on your side. My brother and I own a ship there-”

“You have a ship!?” Her eyes blown wide, she let her mace fall to the floor with a clang and snatched Junior’s hand up between them. “How big is it? What does it look like? Is it fast on the water? What’s the ocean like? Don’t the waves get really big when it storms? That must be so scary.”

He might have looked less dazed if she’d smacked him with the mace, but after a few blinks, he flashed another wide, fanged smile. “The Durandal the fastest! Bigger than this house, and she’s never had any problems in a storm.”

“The Durandal,” she gasped, bouncing on her toes. “Roland’s sword!”

“Oh, you know that story.” His eyes gleamed with boyish excitement. “My ship is just as sharp. She can cut through anything without getting a scratch. I’ll give you a full tour sometime, show you the ocean and everything. If you’ve never seen it, you won’t believe how big it is. Just endless blue. The air smells like salt every time the wind blows.”

Momo had thought about leaving before, seeing what was out there past her home and the line of trees. Even Sakura’s memories showed little of the outside. Sakura spent so much of her life sick and trapped in bed, but Momo knew she’d wanted to leave. Sakura had longed to wander and meet new people, the feeling so strong that it burned in Momo’s own chest when she reached out for a piece of her sister.

Until recently, though, any portion of the outside that entered her small world seeped in like poison. It seemed like it must have been a terrible place with people who only ever threatened her or made demands. Her books must have all been pure fantasy because there couldn’t have been anything like them outside. Better to stay in the house and stay safe. Better to keep the outside safe from her.

But the world Ziggy described, even when he warned of dangers, was filled with curiosities—so many animals she’d never seen, endless open fields like a sea made of grass, and quiet towns of gentle people.

The world Junior described sounded like an adventure.

Momo released his hand, realizing she’d had him trapped for some time, and clasped her hands behind her back instead. “I do want to go see it,” she said. “But there’s no one to watch the house if I go.” The idea of leaving the manor empty made her stomach feel empty as well. If there was no one left in the house, then her family and all their memories were really gone.

“What about that normal guy downstairs?” Junior asked.

“Oh, he would have to come with me. I can’t just leave him.” Unless Ziggy had somewhere else he had to return to. He’d never mentioned if he did, and he’d been so scruffy when she first saw him that he didn’t look like he’d slept in a home or a bed in some time.

Junior raised a brow at this but didn’t offer any questions. “Sure, you can bring along a plus-one. It’s an open invitation, so it’s no rush. You’re welcome to come visit anytime, especially in return for my impromptu visit here. I’ll show you our library too.” Stuffing his hands in his coat pockets, he gave something mocking another bow.

In turn, her back straightened as she remembered that he was technically a guest now. The books didn’t cover guests appearing at the window without warning, but she did want to hear more about his ship and his strange not-quite vampire habits, so she would allow him to stay a while.

“We should have a little late-night snack since you made such a long trip to get here,” she decided with a nod. “You don’t drink blood, so what do you eat?“

His eyes wandered back to the books as he answered. “Most dhampir eat normal food, but you don’t need to worry about me.”

“No, I must!” Now that she had practice with cooking, she could be a better host. Also, preparing meals was just so much fun. She would have cooked all their ingredients in one day if Ziggy didn’t stop her. “I just learned how to make tea, and we have some dried meats and apples and these really tasty mushrooms. I can make something great!”

“Guess I can’t say no to that. Uh, thanks for your hospitality.”

His smile flickered with nerves, but she was confident in her new skills and many spices. “You can come see the rest of the house and the kitchen while I get things together.” A pause struck her as she remembered Ziggy. He still hadn’t made a sound, so she hoped he was having a nice time digging or sleeping. She could introduce him to Junior in the morning. “Just don’t go in any doors unless I say, okay?”

“Of course.” He gave a nod and gestured his hand toward the library door. “Lead the way.”

Momo had to keep her steps from turning to skips at her excitement, Junior following along not far from her side. Being able to see him from the corner of her eye was much more comfortable than having him hidden at her back. She wondered if he had some sense of that.

“Hey, Momo,” he said as they reached the stairs. “Would it be alright now if I asked what you are now?”

She glanced over to find him examining the rest of the house as it came into view. His eyes held no malice nor the disquieting interest some people had when they asked her the same question, like they could tear her open and read her like a book. “Why do you want to know?” she asked.

“Well, I hope this doesn’t sound mean.” He rubbed at the back of his neck again, his eyes flicking toward her but unable to stay still. “It’s just that I’ve known all sorts of people, and I’ve never met anyone like you.”

That made sense. Her father told her that she was special, that no one else was like her. She felt strange and different enough to believe that was the truth. “I don’t like the word,” she said as she reached the bottom step, “but I’m a homunculus.”

Junior’s steps didn’t echo hers to the ground floor. Turning back, she found him frozen there on the second step. His eyes weren’t on her. They weren’t really on anything. He seemed to be somewhere else, dazed and expressionless.

“Junior?” she called.

He seemed to snap back to himself, looking to her with another bright smile. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know hom- uh, you were real.” His lazy hop to the floor skipped over the last step. “Not that it matters any. You’re Momo to me before anything else.”

She nodded, turning back toward the kitchen to hide her blush and the smile fighting its way across her face. She still wouldn’t have said she trusted him, but it was nice to imagine that she could. If he was genuine, then she could meet his friends and more people like them, people who understood her like Ziggy.

Junior’s voice stopped her from moving any farther. “Hey, do you have some kind of…dog?”

When she looked back, she couldn’t see his face. He was looking back too, toward the hallway with the room leading to the cellar. As soon as she opened her mouth, a bang echoed toward them from the hall. It sounded like when people broke in by kicking the front door open. “Oh, he’s awake,” she found herself saying.

Another bang sounded, and Junior looked back at her over his shoulder. “Should we be running?”

“No, that’s just Ziggy!” she assured him in a frantic rush. “He’s really nice, and the door is barricaded, so he can’t get out.”

“Are you sure?” Junior’s voice was taut, and the firm look in his eye wasn’t enough to drown out the worry. “It’s a full moon.”

“Um-”

She didn’t get a chance to answer before a third bang cut her off, ending in a suffering crackle of breaking wood. A series of crashes and scrapes followed. Momo recognized each sound—the bookshelf falling over, the bed shoved aside, the nightstand tumbling. She’d been so confident before that she hadn’t even considered him getting out.

She didn’t have a plan for that, and the realization crept into her with sickening dread that made her legs feel sour, like they would drop out from under her any second. Dying didn’t scare her much. She could feel the deaths of all her sisters in her head whenever she wanted to, and sometimes when she didn’t. But if Ziggy were to wake up to find her dead, and Junior too…

She couldn’t do that to him. It was unforgivable.

The long red sleeve of Junior’s coat flared out as he raised his arm in front of her. “You need to get out of here and hide. Those purple flowers growing outside, run through them. That’ll get him off your trail.”

Her throat was too tight for her to voice her refusal. She’d promised Ziggy that she would fight him if she needed to, and she could. She must have been able to do enough to stop him without hurting him. He was just a big dog. Maybe she could trip him.

What smashed through the door to the bedroom and landed in the hallway was not the big dog she knew. There was something more and less human about him all at once. His front paws were more like furred, clawed hands now, and they were bigger than her head. Even through his fur, the sharp lines of muscle and bone were apparent and explained why her plan hadn’t been enough to hold him. A massive snarling thing, his muzzle was bunched up to show rows of razor teeth, and the growl that emanated from him was so loud and low that Momo could feel it rattle her bones.

She could hardly see the blue of his eyes, dark and empty as they narrowed in on her and Junior. None of his usual tired kindness or sadness reflected in them. He really was a beast.

“Oh, son of a bitch,” Junior spat as he flicked his right hand an odd way. That caused something to click and whir, and Momo had to take her eyes off of Ziggy as she noticed a small crossbow unfold from Junior’s sleeve. It perched itself on the top of his hand like a bird with a shining metal beak. His hand raised to aim it directly for Ziggy.

As the werewolf started to rush for them, his claws tearing gouges into the floor, Momo wondered if the tip of the crossbow bolt could have been silver.

And if it could kill Ziggy.

She didn’t think about much beyond that. The world was quiet. The symbols carved into her back burned like hellfire, and she raised her palm to face Junior’s back. “Don’t hurt him.” The words formed on her lips, but she couldn’t hear them. The light burning in her vision was so bright that it was somehow deafening.

She caught a glimpse of surprise in Junior’s eye and an instant of that impossible, luminescent blue before the light burning through her back consumed the sight of him too.

Then she was breathing hard, each gasp tearing through her lungs and rattling her body. The rasp of her breaths was the first sound that returned to her. She felt like everything had been so loud seconds before, yet she couldn’t actually hear anything. She couldn’t see either, not until she recognized the pink petals falling down around her.

Sakura used to dream about them falling like snow on a perfect spring day.

But these were not what her sister dreamed about. They glowed and burned with the same power that had blasted a hole into the side of the house she was facing. When the petals reached the floor, they singed dark marks into the wood before disappearing. Pieces of rubble crackled and fell from the edges of the hole, as wide as she was tall. She’d seen it before along with the scorch marks of what used to be a person. More than once. Each time she had sworn it wouldn’t happen again, no matter how bad things got.

Her hand began to shake so hard that the tremors crawled up her arm and infected the rest of her body. She could no longer control any of her movements as her arm dropped to her side. She’d only ever killed people who had hurt her, but that never made her feel any less sick with her own skin. Junior hadn’t done anything to her. Maybe he could have hurt Ziggy, but he was trying to protect her.

Now he was gone, erased like the others who had gotten near her.

Her father must have left her there on her own for a reason. That was what was best for everyone.

She jolted when something touched her hand, tearing her attention away from the dark void staring back at her from the outside. An entire werewolf sat at her side, hunched over to nudge his head against her hand. When she looked at him, his eyes were still as dark and empty as the hole in the wall, but his tail wagged hard enough to shake some of the dirt from his fur.

Nothing made sense anymore, but Ziggy was still there. At least he wouldn’t have to wake up to any bodies. That was on her hands this time. Trembling arms reached up to his neck once again so she could hold onto something. “I didn’t mean to,” she said through short, gasping breaths. “I never wanted to hurt anyone. I swear.”

“Oh, hey, I’m not dead.”

Ziggy’s form tensed fast enough that he almost pulled Momo off her feet when his head whipped toward the voice above them. Junior stood near the top of the stairs, perfectly alive and in one piece. With Ziggy’s attention back on him, he winced, taking a step back and up another step.

Another growl rose in Ziggy’s throat until Momo tightened the hug just long enough to cut him off with a choke. “Ziggy, no,” she scolded, her voice and breath slowly coming back to her now that the world had stopped falling out from under her feet. “You be nice to Junior.”

She had no reason to think that would work, but Ziggy halted his growls and let his snarl relax. His eyes didn’t stray from Junior, though.

Still, it was enough for Junior to breathe a sigh of relief. His legs seemed to drop out from under him as he took a seat on the stairs. His smile was wobbly, but it had at least returned to his face. “Sorry, I wasn’t aiming to do any real harm, not that I could have even if I wanted to,” he said. “I don’t carry silver with me. Honestly, even that might not be enough to slow down that thing. Jeez.”

“He doesn’t usually look like this!” Momo called up the stairs, still dangling from Ziggy’s neck. “He’s usually a more normal dog. I mean, he’s usually a man, and he’s very nice. I promise.”

“I guess he must be. I’ve never seen a werewolf that actually listened to someone during a full moon, or are you using the collar to do that?”

“The collar?” she echoed softly. She could feel the cold metal of the thing under her fingers. Touching it made the symbols on her back buzz like insects were crawling on her. It was infused with some kind of magic. That much was obvious from the way it changed its shape to fit no matter what form Ziggy took. He’d said he would explain it to her in the morning, but he didn’t look happy about it. She told herself it was better if he didn’t have to explain, but she still felt a strange pang of guilt when she spoke. “Do you know what it is?”

“Uh, kind of.” Junior dropped his chin into his palm, eyeing what he could of the metal. “I’ve never seen one in person before, but I’ve heard about them. We get requests to find them sometimes, but we don’t mess around with magic like that. Uh, no offense.”

Momo wasn’t sure what she needed to be offended about. Before she could think of a way to ask him what he was talking about, he started shrugging his coat off and spoke again. “I really am sorry about this whole mess. I’ll help you fix your wall… and your window… but you wouldn’t happen to have some spare fabric, would you?” When he pulled the coat up between them, holding it by the shoulders, she could see right through the back of it to his sullen expression. It had a hole just like the wall, edges singed. If the damage had gone much deeper, she would have burned right through his spine and his heart.

She felt like ice flowed through her veins when she thought about it, but Junior didn’t seem to be thinking about it that way. “It’s my favorite coat, so I’d like to patch it,” he said. “I can stitch it up myself if you have the supplies. If I’m honest, I have to do this kind of thing a lot.”

Even if he thought nothing of it, she couldn’t just let this go. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t… I don’t know what happened. I think Daddy wanted to make sure I was safe, but this isn’t what I want. It’s so horrible that I can do something like that.”

Junior let his head fall to a tilt, eying her with such a relaxed expression that she wanted to scream. She’d almost killed him. He should have been scared and angry. Someone needed to tell her that what she’d done was horrible and she deserved to be alone. That way they could be safe from her.

“It is pretty crazy to see something so powerful,” Junior admitted. “But I don’t think it’s horrible. It seems like it could save your life or others if you use it in a pinch. You just need to learn how to use it. Besides, I’m fine. I’m a lot faster then my short legs would have you believe, and I’m pretty annoying to try to kill. Now, if your werewolf friend will let me, we can get started on fixing everything up.” When Junior rose to his feet, Ziggy’s ears flattened against his head, but no more growls left him.

They did find that they needed to work on separate projects, as Ziggy made sure he stood between the two at all times. Junior set to work stitching patches into his jacket with a practiced ease, the same way Momo settled into cutting and shaping boards for the damaged wall. Once Ziggy seemed convinced of the two staying several paces apart, he flopped himself down in a heap on the floor between them. Within moments, he’d relaxed into deep, slow breaths that Momo was sure could knock down any pig’s house regardless of material.

“Hey, Junior,” Momo called while watching Ziggy to see if he would stir. He didn’t move until Junior spoke, his ears flicking like the sound was a bothersome fly.

“Yeah?” Junior said through the needle between his teeth.

“Can you tell me more about the collar Ziggy wears? He had it when I first met him, so I don’t really know what it is.”

Junior’s brows shot up as wide eyes turned from his stitching to her. Taking the needle from his mouth, he let the coat fall to rest in his lap. “So you’re not his master? Then I really don’t know how you got a werewolf to listen to you.”

She shook her head hard enough for her hair to whip at her cheeks. “He’s just my friend. What do you mean? He has a master?”

Master. The word tasted bitter on her tongue.

Junior hesitated, rolling the needle between his fingers and seeming to consider his words. “Well, I’m no expert on this thing,” he said at length. “My brother and I are in the business of trade—information or objects. Like I said, I’ve never seen one before, but they’re basically a binding magic contract that can make you have to carry out any orders given to you from the person who owns it.”

“Can I break it?” she asked without a moment’s hesitation.

“Well…” Junior hissed air between his teeth. “I know you’re pretty strong, but even if you can, breaking a magic contract has consequences. I’m sure it would backfire.” His nose scrunched, expression sour. “Plus, that thing looks like it’s pure iron.”

Iron didn’t seem too strong if it meant freeing Ziggy from that horrible fate, but if breaking it could hurt him, then Momo couldn’t take that chance.

“I’ve never seen him be forced to do anything,” she said. “Do you think it’s possible he doesn’t have a master? Or he managed to run away?”

Junior wasn’t quick enough at hiding the skepticism in his eyes as he glanced down toward Ziggy. “It could be possible,” Junior said. “I don’t know too much about them. There could be some loopholes.”

Momo couldn’t force herself to believe him, no matter how much she tried. Something must have shown in her face because Junior stumbled over himself in a rush to speak again. “Hey, anyway, do you need sleep? I’ve kept you up all night and channeled all that magic. I’m sure you’re tired.”

She sounded just as awkward as him as she tried to think of a good excuse. Her words came out half-formed until she gave up with a sigh. “Actually, I don’t have to sleep, but don’t tell Ziggy, okay? I like to pretend sometimes.”

Though she expected him to laugh or look baffled, Junior nodded as he went back to his stitching. “I do that too sometimes. Beds are comfy. Nothing wrong with taking a rest now and then.”

“Yes!” she gasped loud enough to make him jump. Ziggy kept up his snoring. “I’ve never met someone else who doesn’t sleep. This is so exciting. I’m that way with food too. Do you have to eat?”

“Not often.”

“But food is so good, though, so it’s fun to eat anyway.”

A soft smile tugged at Junior’s lips. “Yeah, it’s fun to pretend sometimes.”

As Momo worked the last board into place to seal the hole, a beam of light bled in through the gap.

Finally, morning.

Spinning on her heel, her eager eyes turned toward the big lump of fur and claws on the floor. Her excitement to see him back to normal slowly eked away as a chorus of crackles emitted from every joint and bone. It sounded like every piece of him was breaking and reforming. His fur seemed to retract back into his skin, leaving him…

Her hands slapped over her eyes “He is naked!” she squeaked, rushing to turn back around.

Junior struggled to stop his laughter from cracking through him with every word. “Wait, what did you think would happen?”

“I thought his clothes came back! He’s never let me see him transform!”

Junior gave up then, bursting into a bright laugh. Even though Momo’s face burned, it was admittedly nice to hear from him.

Chapter Text

Before any single thought could cross his mind, before he opened his eyes, Ziggy took a sharp breath in through his nose to check if the air smelled like blood. At some point through the years, that became an instinct, the first thing he did after every full moon night.

He'd awoken to the sharp overhang of blood in the air plenty of times, though it had never been as overwhelming as the first time. The room had seemed soaked through, everything he touched a muddy-red and sticking to his hands. Despite struggling to breathe against the jagged gash across his throat, blood was all he could smell. It was all he could taste. And it covered so much of what was left of them.

If there was good news, it was that he didn't currently smell any blood. The bad news, besides the usual splitting headache from his reformed skull, was that he also didn't smell the dirt floor he last remembered. A cool hardwood floor stretched out under him instead of damp earth. He'd moved. He'd gotten out.

He should never have let this happen.

As he rushed to sit upright against his aching body, a blanket slipped from his bare shoulders to pool in his lap. He immediately recognized the ground floor of the manor around him, but the smell was wrong, light and sweet like a field of flowers. Actually, it probably was some unpleasant perfume trying to cover the scent of the boy in front of him, but it wasn't enough. Ziggy was plenty familiar with the dull smell of a vampire lying just beneath the floral hues.

The vampire looked young, but that was less striking than how viciously red his hair was, more rose-toned than the usual fiery orange of a red-head. Ziggy felt sure Momo would have mentioned having such a friend if his appearance was in any way normal.

Before Ziggy could speak, the boy had shoved a stack of clothes into his hands. "Cool, you're awake. Put these on."

"Where's Momo?" he demanded in return. With his eyes narrowed, the threat of a growl burned in his throat, but the boy's calm expression remained unfazed.

"Well, not in here. You're naked."

Right… fair point. Most people were not as used to Ziggy being naked as he was. "But she is alright?" he asked, letting the clothes unfurl in his hands.

"Oh, yeah." Turning toward the kitchen, the boy cupped a hand around his mouth to yell. "Momo, tell your wolf man you're alright!"

"I'm fine!" Momo's voice returned, and Ziggy felt as though the chains that should have been there had snapped off of him, tension collapsing from his shoulders. "And I didn't see anything!" she added in a rush.

The boy snorted at that, causing Ziggy's eyes to snap back to him. "Who are you exactly?"

"Junior," the boy said with a smile like that made anything clear.

"Do you have a real name?"

"Do you?"

Ziggy's eyes held the little vampire in a sharp glare as he pulled the clothes on. Nothing good came from a vampire's arrival, especially not one so young in appearance. "So, what are you doing here, 'Junior'?"

Despite the boy's calm smile, his eyes held a cold authority that matched easily to Ziggy's distrust, even as the man stood to tower over him. "I just stopped in to say hi, and then suddenly there was a werewolf attacking," Junior said with a shrug.

"Does Momo know what she let in?"

That was enough to shatter Junior's demeanor, the words hitting him with a jolt. He wasn't quick enough to hide the flash of surprise that cut across his face before covering it with a less convincing smirk. "I did tell her, and none of us are human anyway, so what does it matter? At least I haven't destroyed any doors."

Ziggy doubted the boy was much older than his face appeared. That was good. The less experienced ones were easier to take care of if needed. A glance toward the room Momo had tried to keep him in did confirm that he'd made at least one door into scrap, which explained how he'd gotten out but not much else. With his questions piling up, it seemed best to start at the beginning.

"Momo," he called, "I'm clothed now. Can you come explain exactly what happened last night and where the vampire came from?"

As though she'd been awaiting a signal, the sound of her feet set off in a dash across the floor toward them. "That's Junior!" she exclaimed so brightly that Ziggy could hear the grin in her voice before she'd come into view. He held back a wince. She already liked this new guest. "He's really nice, but he's not a vampire. He's a dhampir."

After a quick glance at Momo's appearance confirmed that she was not injured, Ziggy found himself looking back at Junior, who was trying with all his might to look casual while also looking as far from Ziggy as possible.

Hard to say if a dhampir was better or worse than a vampire. In his many years, Ziggy had never met one. He doubted many had. It did explain the odd scent to the boy, at least.

"I didn't think vampires allowed dhampir to exist," Ziggy said, watching the edges of Junior's ears tinge red.

He responded through his teeth. "Well, you just need one really weird vampire to ruin that for everyone. It's fine, my brother and I have a deal with the council. My existence here won't cause any trouble."

Ziggy didn't care to pay attention to whatever was going on with the vampire council, so that could have been true. For the sake of how troubled Momo looked, he would pretend that it was. "Momo, it's best to let people introduce themselves when it comes to things like that," he said, as much for his own sake as Junior's, though he hoped they didn't gain any extra company to need further introductions.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Momo's hands clasped tightly in front of her chest, her eyes burning with worry. "Junior does already know you're a werewolf."

Ziggy nodded. "It's fine. I think that was a little unavoidable."

That was enough for Junior's stress to ease with a bubbling laugh, not that he ever needed to be concerned about Ziggy reporting his existence to some higher authority. The two of them were equally high on the list of abominations and likely a few steps down from Momo.

They were all better off if Junior had experience in keeping his mouth shut.

Momo forced them all to sit down for breakfast before she was willing to explain anything further. While Ziggy took no issue with this, Junior's assurances that he wasn't hungry and that she really shouldn't have bothered making food for him still ended with him seated at the table, a plate in front of him. He stared down at it like it might rear back and attack him at any moment.

"Sorry we can't serve blood," Ziggy said, not bothering to sound apologetic.

"Junior doesn't drink blood," Momo said.

"Sure he doesn't."

If Junior was used to finer dining, he was going to have to get over it. Momo had worked hard on the meal, and with her feet swinging under the table, she was far too excited to treat another guest for him to turn her down. Luckily, he seemed to understand as much with a glance to her. A smile flashed across his face as he thanked her for the food, and Momo beamed.

Ziggy tried to cover the dread tearing at his guts with his breakfast.

The story Momo recounted of the night before did not ease his concerns about much of anything. He spent most of it with one hand rubbing across his forehead. While he was willing to give Junior credit for putting himself between Momo and a charging werewolf, it was credit for being incredibly stupid. The boy was lucky he had not been torn in half by one or both of them, and the story did little to explain why he'd appeared in the first place.

"The chains next time," Ziggy said as soon as Momo finished praising how well he'd behaved. "I'm glad no one was hurt, but it sounds like we were very lucky, so next time, you're going to chain me up so I can't move or break anything."

There was no chance he could let them stay until the next full moon, though maybe that was for the best. Seeing the way Momo's eyes lit up as she talked about Junior having a seafaring ship was almost as frightening as anything involving a werewolf barreling around the house.

"I think you would be nice if I tell you to be good," she assured him.

Junior did not look convinced, and Ziggy certainly wasn't.

Through all the commotion, she must have forgotten about the collar. She didn't bring it up, and neither did he. He could have told himself plenty of lies for why he let the topic slip by unaddressed, but he knew he was a coward willing to accept any excuse to avoid bringing it up again. Nothing good could come from telling her the truth.

Junior kept to himself through the recounting besides the occasional nod or dull-eyed stare when Momo glossed over how he almost died, but Ziggy was not as willing to let the strange boy off the hook as himself. As helpful for Ziggy's cause as it could be that Momo tended to forget important questions, the benefits stopped short at the addition of the odd boy.

"Junior, why exactly were you poking around the house in the middle of the night?" Ziggy asked, hoping Momo hadn't mentioned him doing the exact same thing.

"The 'middle of the night' thing keeps coming up," Junior said with a sigh. "It's just easier to get around at night without running into people, alright? Less of a risk of trouble."

"That's true," Ziggy offered. He generally traveled at night as well, though he was starting to notice a pattern in how Junior responded to questions, or rather, didn't respond to them. "But what were you looking for exactly?"

Junior didn't look as pinned as Ziggy may have felt in the same situation, but he wasn't willing to look either of them in the eye either. A nervous smile tugged from his lips. "This sounds mean to say now, but there were rumors about something inhuman out here, someone dangerous. I needed to check…" He turned to Momo with a start, his words tumbling over each other. "Uh, but you weren't what I was expecting, and I'm glad I met you!"

Ziggy was glad that Momo appeared to take no offense at Junior's words. He was less glad that word seemed to be getting out about her, and he couldn't have felt worse that Momo started giggling with a splash of color to her cheeks.

"How old are you, Junior?" he asked, a tone of warning in his voice.

Rather than embarrassment or contempt, a deep exhaustion sank into Junior's eyes, the look of someone who had to answer this question with some frequency and was never happy to do it. Ziggy knew that feeling well. "I'm in my twenties," Junior said with a glance down at his small hands. "Dhampir can age. I'm just… lagging behind a little. I'm working on it."

"Aw, I'm sure you'll get there, Junior," Momo piped in. "I don't know how old I am. I'm not sure if I can age, actually. I've never really noticed."

She didn't look nearly as concerned by this as the other two, confusion filling their faces. "You don't know?" Junior echoed.

"Well, it's kind of hard to count my age like most people do. I haven't been 'Momo' for very long, but I can feel my sisters' years too. They're part of me." She threaded her fingers together into a row, offering the men a half-hearted smile. "Sorry, I guess this is kind of weird, huh? Um, how old are you, Ziggy?"

He really should have seen this coming. He was the one who brought it up, after all, and now they were both looking at him expectantly. Though he was curious to ask how old he looked, he wasn't sure the two of them would give very flattering answers. Lying about his age was usually easy enough, but after they'd both been so honest, it would have felt bitter against his tongue.

"I haven't kept track well, but I suppose I'm around a hundred-thirty now," he admitted.

Momo's eyes blew wide with amazement. "Really!? That's so neat! I didn't know werewolves lived so long."

Junior said nothing, but it was clear from the way his eyes narrowed that he knew werewolves were not supposed to. Whatever his thoughts, he was kind enough to keep them to himself.

Having someone else around should have been strange, but Momo was far too happy with the two of them there for a single uneasy moment to pass between them, even while they cleaned up the doors and furniture Ziggy had torn through.

"Creepy basement," Junior said upon seeing the hidden room. "What kind of magic runes are those?"

"Magic?" Momo considered the word like she'd never heard it before, though it came up in her books plenty. "Daddy doesn't use magic. I think they're alchemy."

They were the same untrustworthy beasts in Ziggy's eyes, but Junior offered nothing more than a hum of acknowledgment before bringing up some book to ask Momo about instead. The two could certainly pass time talking about books, and Ziggy found it easy to listen as long as they didn't talk too much about that library of Junior's.

The last thing he needed was for one of them to respond with just the wrong words in just the wrong order; then it would all be over in an instant.

When Momo requested for Ziggy to catch something for a "nice" dinner, Ziggy nodded and dropped his hand to the top of Junior's head.

"Junior, you know how to hunt, right?"

Junior tensed but seemed to understand that he was not to move. "Not really."

"Then you're going to learn."

Momo and Junior absolutely could not be left alone together again, not even if Junior had been the most pure-intentioned boy in the world, and Ziggy had no reason to believe that was the case.

Oddly, Ziggy found Momo's eyes gleaming at the idea. "Okay! I'll get started on prep. You two have fun!"

That hadn't exactly been the plan, but they at least had to pretend if that was what she wanted. "I believe she thinks we're friends," Ziggy said once the front door was closed behind them.

Junior combed his messed hair back into place with his fingers, grumbling, "We're not enemies, are we?"

"Not unless you give me a reason to be." Grinding his heel in the dirt, Ziggy turned and started off. "This way, there's a pond. We can get a duck there." For each of Ziggy's long strides, Junior rushed three steps to keep up.

"Hey, I've been pretty honest here! What's your deal, century-old werewolf?"

"What does it matter to you? Why are you still here? You sated your curiosity."

"Well-!" Junior gave a sharp huff. Despite his stated age, he sounded much like the child he appeared to be. "I don't really know how to turn Momo down, and she keeps wanting me to stick around."

If anything, Junior was being modest. Momo was thrilled to have him there and was bound to be disappointed the moment he left. Ziggy's only hope was that she would get bored of him, but that didn't seem likely. She hadn't gotten bored of Ziggy yet.

He stopped before the pond was in view, grabbing the collar of Junior's fancy tailcoat to keep him from stumbling ahead. Before Junior could bark in offense, Ziggy forced a moment's honesty from his lips. "I do appreciate that you tried to protect her, even if I don't think that little crossbow would be enough to make a werewolf flinch."

Junior's brows rose along with his hand. "It can if I aim well enough." With a flick of his fingers, the contraption snapped up from his sleeve, and a cocksure grin broke out across his face. "I'm a pretty good shot. I bet I could shoot down one of those ducks before you, old man."

"That's very likely. I catch them with my teeth."

Blinking, Junior looked at Ziggy's mouth before his eyes rose back to meet Ziggy's with the dull expectation of a joke. Unfortunately, Ziggy had never been much good at comedy.

"I usually change to my wolf form around this area so the birds don't get scared off by my bones cracking, and then I try to chase one down before it can fly off. I'm not always successful."

"Sorry, your 'wolf form'?" Junior's own hands messed through his hair this time. Cowlicks sprang up like weeds. "Are you saying you can change any time? Werewolves can't do that."

"That's correct."

Junior's burning stare may have been intimidating coming from someone who reached higher than Ziggy's waist, but it was hard not to admire the effort. "You could just ask if you want to know," Ziggy said with a shrug. "You don't have to try scaring it out of me. It's true that I'm a werewolf, but I'm also a corpse. I've been dead for a hundred years. I just happen to also walk around."

He'd seen enough reactions over the years that terror or disbelief didn't faze him, but the explanation made the tension in Junior's face vanished like the cogs in his head had started spinning once again. "Oh, you're a construct! I've seen a couple but they usually look, uh, bad. All rotting and stuff. Maybe the werewolf part helps." If anything, Junior was now too accepting of him, gaze flicking over him with a bright-eyed curiosity far worse than any suspicion.

"I'd just prefer you don't tell Momo about this," Ziggy said, causing Junior's brows to raise. "I'm sure she wouldn't be afraid or bothered, but I think it would… trouble her that I'd died." Especially if she wanted to know why. "Sometimes knowing less is better."

"Oh… yeah." With a laugh that sounded bitter with anxiety, Junior's eyes darted to their corners. "I understand. She seems to worry so much about everyone but herself."

Hating the kid would have been so much easier if he didn't say exactly what Ziggy felt. With a huff of a breath through his nose, he turned back toward the pond. "Come on, let's see this impressive aim of yours."

As though he'd instantly forgotten his worries, Junior darted after him with all the brash excitement of an immature hunting dog. "Okay!"

"Don't make too much noise or you'll scare off the game."

Not that it mattered. With the two of them stomping around the falling leaves, they had no chance of being quiet enough to keep the birds from scattering. A large twig snapping under Junior's expensive-looking boots was enough to set off the crash of water under frantic wings. They hadn't even reached the pond, a dense row of trees cutting between them and the sight of it.

As he tried to think of their second best option, Ziggy only had enough time to catch a flash of metal out of the corner of his eye before an arrow whistled off into the trees. The telltale sound of a drake's cry cut short. "There!" Junior barked as it crashed back down into the water. Eager blue eyes turned up to Ziggy, likely waiting to hear how impressive he'd done.

"I hope that landed on the bank," Ziggy muttered. It was getting too cold out for a swim.

Luckily, he didn't have to wade in beyond his knees, a swirl of blood marking the bird's location under the water. It must have sank fast under the weight of the arrow sticking through its breast. "Can I have that back?" Junior called from the pond's edge.

Yanking it free from the bird, Ziggy found the metal arrowhead far heavier than the length of an arrow could ever hope to balance. "You can actually aim this?" he asked. "It must drop so quickly."

"Yeah, but I'm used to it. Hits hard when you need it to."

The mud tried to bite down on Ziggy's boots as he slogged his way back through the chilled water. "If you don't hunt, what do you need to hit that hard?" he asked as he dropped the arrow back into Junior's awaiting hands.

It was easy to imagine Junior as young as his face appeared when his nerves got the better of him and twisted his expression in a moment's pain. "Well, that's… I don't hunt game, but sometimes-"

"Did you plan to kill Momo before you saw her?"

"No!" Junior said with such horror that Ziggy felt a pang of guilt for suggesting it. "There was actually… someone else I was looking for. I thought maybe the rumors were about him instead."

"Then you are looking to kill someone."

Ziggy meant no malice or judgment. He certainly had no right to either, but the statement was enough to make Junior's eyes flash with an unfiltered rage. His small hand curled so tightly around the arrow's shaft that Ziggy could hear the wood splintering.

"I don't want to kill anyone." The low, dark tone sounded so odd in a child's voice. "But sometimes someone needs to die."

"I think you're right," Ziggy said, which must not have been the response Junior was used to because it snapped through the spell of anger that had gripped him. Trudging over to a grassy area away from the muddy bank, Ziggy plopped himself down on the ground and set to work cleaning the duck of its feathers. "But sometimes," he added, "the people who claim to be the arbiter of that decision are wrong. I've seen that plenty of times."

Junior stayed silent and still for a few breaths before seeming to jolt back to life just like his odd crossbow snapping open. Dashing over to Ziggy's side, he stared down at the duck like he could punch another hole through it that way. "I would never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it," he said with such insistence that Ziggy wondered who he was saying it for. "He's… The person I'm looking for has killed so many people." Though he continued glaring, the anger in his eyes was a poor mask against the sadness underneath. "So many of my brothers and sisters... and my twin."

"Then I hope you find him," Ziggy said as he returned his attention to the duck. "I hope you kill him."

He'd made every effort to do the same to the person who killed his family, but it turned out to be surprisingly difficult to commit suicide as a werewolf. Would have been nice to learn about silver sooner.

When Junior said nothing in return, Ziggy spoke up once again. "Do you have a silver arrow?"

"Oh, no, they're all iron."

Ziggy's brow puzzled at that, but if the boy was half vampire, then silver may have hurt him too. Neither of them was much use for carrying it around, then. "Well, if you do happen on anything silver you can attach to an arrow, it won't kill me, but it can slow me down enough that killing me might be easier for a moment. If all you have is iron, the joints of my arms and legs are best to slow me down. My eyes too if you can hit them."

Glancing up, Ziggy found Junior now staring at the duck like it had sprung back to life in front of him. "Okay. Cool," he managed after a moment. "Why are you telling me this?"

"In case you need to kill me," Ziggy said with a shrug. "If I'm ever out of control again and a danger to anyone, I would appreciate if it were you rather than Momo, though I don't think she would be willing."

With a laugh that sounded far too stressed to have any humor in it, Junior dropped down to sit in the grass beside Ziggy despite his fancy clothes. "I don't think she'd let me kill you either. Even if I could, I'd hate to see her that upset. But I guess I'd have to give it a shot if there wasn't any other option."

"Thank you." There was always a chance they'd be backed into that corner without the work of the full moon, and while he had his doubts Junior would be able to kill him, it was nice to know that Junior cared little enough for him and enough for Momo to try.

His gaze still fixed on the bird, Junior let silence hold the air only briefly. "You really have to take off all the feathers?"

"Yes, unless you want to eat them. You've never had to clean a bird?"

"No, they're usually already bald and cooked when I see them."

Somehow, Ziggy had found two kids in a row with no idea how food worked. He had grown up far too poor to make sense of that. As soon as the bird was clean, he forced the rich boy to forage for some wild onions after showing him what their stems looked like. Junior's eyes shone bright at the sight of the little onions like he'd just seen a magic trick.

"You just eat stuff from the dirt? Wow."

"Yes, that's how most fruits and vegetables work," Ziggy drawled, starting to feel like this was some elaborate joke or personal torment. He opted against having Junior forage for any mushrooms for fear that might kill them all. Luckily, Junior at least had a knack for spotting the onion stems. He was less adept at noticing the bright purple flowers until he'd landed himself in a swarm of them.

Curious, Ziggy failed to mention the predicament until Junior started to blink hard and shake his head as though to throw off sleep. Good to know. "Watch the wolfsbane," Ziggy offered then. "It's everywhere around here."

"Oh, I hate this stuff," Junior grumbled as he stumbled out of the patch. "Makes me dizzy. Isn't it supposed to kill you? Or are you immune because you're already dead?"

The question was at least funny enough to not be annoying, and Ziggy couldn't hide a smile as he answered. "It's fatal to werewolves if they consume any more than the smallest dose, but that's true for most creatures as far as I'm aware. It's a pretty strong poison. The smell just messes with our senses more than a human's, though it seems to get you pretty well."

"I'm still half vampire," Junior muttered.

"Yes, we all have at least one flaw."

The sun was setting by the time they made it back inside, and Momo eagerly showed off the prep work she'd done for dinner. It was enough for a dozen guests at least.

"Oh wow, are more people coming?" Junior asked.

Ziggy sure hoped not.

Momo was also quick to show the room she'd prepped for Junior to stay in, and Ziggy hoped he was able to keep his expression free of the exhaustion and dread that seeped through his body like he had eaten that wolfsbane. To Junior's credit, he had enough sense and manners to try insisting that he would find somewhere else to stay the night. He just didn't stand a chance against Momo's big, pleading eyes and insistence that there was nowhere else nearby he could stay.

After all, how would he get back in time for breakfast?

Inevitably, Junior gave in with a sigh. "Alright-alright, I can stay here. But you have to know how strange this looks, right? You can't just go around inviting weird guys to stay at your house for the night."

"You're not weird," Momo said, pointedly ignoring the way Junior stared in unrestrained disbelief. "And besides, I think Daddy would be fine with it."

Ziggy had some doubts about that, especially when the first of his rules Momo had mentioned was that she shouldn't answer a knock at the door.

Once the duck was roasted and plated to Momo's over-seasoned specifications, Ziggy once again found Junior staring down at his plate like he'd never seen food before. After poking at the duck for a moment, he took a bite with all the enthusiasm of a poison tester.

"Is it good?" Momo asked.

"It's great!" Junior said with a smile that was far too perfect. Though he was definitely lying through his pointy teeth, Ziggy would have been more annoyed if he didn't.

"So, if you don't drink blood, what do you normally eat?" Ziggy had to ask. Regret hit him the moment Junior's eyes lit up.

"My brother and I import all sorts of things, so I've seen a ton of different fruits and spices and dried meats. You should really see how weird some plants can look. We bring in some wild-looking animals too, but they're usually not for eating. Some people want to keep strange pets."

Momo leaned in, hanging on every word. "What kinds of animals?"

While Ziggy needed to be more careful about what he asked, there was some advantage to Momo gaining more interest in the outside world. More than that, though, it was hard not to smile at how excited she was at the idea of every creature Junior painted for her.

Despite his initial insistence that he shouldn't stay, Junior just seemed to remain for the next few days. Ziggy couldn't find enough of a reason to remain bothered by his presence. Even if neither of them were really children, it was hard for Ziggy to see them as anything else when Junior explained a kid's game to Momo or excitedly showed her how that contraption up his sleeve worked like it was a new toy.

They also had the endless energy of two kids. Sometimes, Ziggy felt like he was the only one in the house who needed sleep. He was just starting to doze off to one of Momo's after-dinner reading lessons when Junior looked up from the book he had balanced open in one hand and spoke, "Hey, when is your father supposed to get back?"

Ziggy jolted back to wakefulness while Momo blinked. "Get back?" she echoed in a quiet daze.

Eyes widening in horror, Junior was quick to realize his mistake. "Oh! Is he not-? The way you talked about him, I thought…" The book in his hand slowly rose to hide his face.

Under her troubled brow, Momo managed a weak smile. "I guess I do talk about him like he's still here sometimes, but he died some years ago."

Ziggy dropped his hand to the top of her head with a gentle pat, and Junior muttered an apology from behind the book before dragging it back down from his face. "I, uh, lost my parents too, so I kind of get it." His words were still more toned with stress than any grief.

"Well, I think Mommy is still alive somewhere," Momo said, her eyes down on the book she was no longer reading, "but I don't know where. She probably doesn't want to see me. I don't think she likes me very much."

"How could your mother not like you?" Ziggy asked, though it wasn't the main question blaring through his head. How did she even have a mother? The same way she had a "father"? She'd never mentioned her before, had she?

"I can't imagine anyone not liking you," Junior added.

"I never actually met her, not as Momo." She let the book fall shut to the cloth cover embossed with flowing script and a winged fairies. The tips of her fingers traced along the letters as she spoke, keeping her eyes down and away from both of them. "My oldest sister was human—Sakura. Mommy and Daddy loved her very much, and they were so sad when she died. Daddy started to make my sisters, but Mommy… I don't remember everything from my sisters' memories clearly. I just remember how angry she looked when she saw them. There was a lot of yelling, and then she was gone. That was a long time ago, so I hope she's still okay."

The huff of breath from Junior made him sound like a bull rearing to charge. All of his embarrassment was forgotten for a glare that darkened his eyes. "I dunno, she doesn't sound like someone you should be worrying about at all."

It was as easy for Ziggy to understand his anger as it was to understand the way Momo shrank back from it. It was just easier to comfort her when he was a big, fluffy dog she could pat. For now, he kept his hand atop her head and listened.

"Maybe I shouldn't, since she doesn't want to be here, but I know she's a good person. She was just very sad. Sakura loved her so much, and I love her too. She's still my Mommy."

Junior's attempt to hold onto his anger broke under a sigh. "Yeah, I get it. sometimes you can't help who you still love."

At least the boy was honest. Someone needed to be.

"Are you sure you wouldn't want to go find her?" Ziggy asked. This was the most unpleasantly perfect opportunity he'd gotten to suggest leaving, even if saying it made him want to chew through his tongue. "Grief never goes away, but time does help. I'd imagine you could at least talk to her now."

The glimmer of interest in her eyes as she looked up at him only made him feel worse. "I don't know how we could find her," she said. "I think Daddy put all of her things away, or maybe they're all gone, so I don't know very much about her or where she could have gone."

"Well, what do you know about her?" Junior piped in.

"I remember what she looks like. Oh, and her name is Juli. Juli Mizrahi."

The name hit Ziggy like she'd turned and stabbed it through his chest. The pain made his breath stop short. His only saving grace as he tried to collect his panicked thoughts was Junior taking no notice. "I mean, it doesn't matter in this case, but you don't really want to give out people's true names in full like that."

Junior kept talking, thankfully, but Ziggy wasn't listening. Blood filled his mouth as he sliced a fang through the side of his tongue. Looking pained was preferable to chancing Momo seeing the horror on his face.

This didn't make sense. Right?

He ran his orders through his head once more, remembering the look on Juli's face as she said them. If Momo was his master's daughter, wanting her back made sense, but that was the only part that did.

"Jan Sauer, I need you to do something important," she'd said. The collar began to burn against his neck with a warm red glow that reflected in her tired eyes and the wine glass held limp in her hand. "Capture that creature and bring it back. Make sure no one else gets ahold of it. Make sure it does not escape. And if any of that becomes impossible, then you need to kill it. If it refuses, use force. Whatever's necessary."

Ziggy raced scenarios through his head, trying to imagine one that didn't end poorly. Maybe Momo would be thrilled to learn that Juli owned him- No, definitely not "owned." She wasn't going to like that. Maybe if he just pitched it as some elaborate coincidence where he just happened to know her, and it had nothing to do with why he was there.

"What about that room upstairs?" Junior asked, and Ziggy blinked himself back into the present. "You said you don't go up there, right? Maybe your father put your mom's stuff in there."

"No one is supposed to go in there," she corrected. Her attempt to sound scolding couldn't hold out under the guilt weighing heavy in her shoulders. "I know he's been gone a long time, but I don't think I can break that rule. I don't like being near that room anyway."

"Then I can look for you," Junior said. When Momo's expression didn't change, he rushed to add, "And the old man can come with me."

Ziggy found the kid smiling expectantly at him. He wasn't entirely sure where this had come from, but it wasn't a terrible idea, and he sure couldn't let Junior go poking around in things without supervision. "Well… if Momo's alright with it," he decided, and if he found something to help convince her to leave, all the better.

With a hum, she looked between the two of them like she could spot any shady business they might be up to. "I guess that's okay," she decided, "but you have to promise not to touch too much or break anything. Ziggy, make sure Junior behaves."

Junior's grin faltered. "Wait, why just me?"

"You have to promise!" Momo demanded.

They both rushed to assure her that they would be on their best behavior, for all Ziggy's word was worth. For now, she seemed fine enough with it, flashing a triumphant smile.

At least he meant what he said this time.

Chapter Text

Once they were inside the dusty room, and he was done with his sneezing fit, Ziggy started to wonder what they were even doing in there. The "office" itself was massive, about the size of the library, and hadn't been touched in some time. The moonlight gave it a rough outline of messy table placements. Cabinets and shelves filled to bursting lined every wall.

Junior, looking like a small ghost in the dark room, set right to shuffling through things while Ziggy sniffled and fought with bringing the old oil lamps back to life. When the glow of the fire started up, it bathed the many scattered papers and glass vessels in a yellow hue. Ziggy didn't consider himself entirely stupid, but he wasn't smart enough to make sense of any scribbles on those papers.

He had his doubts they would find anything useful up there, but Junior seemed determined. The kid hadn't said a word since they'd set foot in the room, just rifling through shelves and cabinets with a frown taking over his face.

"You seem pretty interested in this place," Ziggy said as he managed to kick on another of the lamps. "Are you looking for something in particular?"

Junior didn't bother to look up. "Huh? I don't know anything about alchemy. It's just, well, you have to be curious about a room no one's allowed in, right?"

"No, not really." Curiosity with these sorts of things—alchemy or magic or whatever—never seemed to end well. Junior was young and could afford to be a little stupid, so Ziggy didn't see any reason to be too bothered as long as it didn't cause any problems for Momo.

The last lamp sat at the corner of a frame mounted on the wall. The moonlight was enough to show the telltale outline of a painted portrait, but the light of the lamp brought up the image of a girl who stared back at Ziggy just like the girl downstairs.

The same smile. The same shine to her eyes.

But this wasn't a painting of Momo. This girl's hair was brunet like her mother's. Her eyes were a striking shade of green. "This must be Sakura," he said, and the sounds of Junior shuffling around stopped.

"Oh wow, that's really weird," Junior called from the other side of the room. "She looks just like Momo."

Or really, Momo looked just like her.

Though Ziggy tried to imagine how it would feel to see a boy identical to his son, how it might hurt to even look at him, he couldn't remember Joaquin's face clearly enough.

"Do you think Momo would want us to bring that down?" Junior asked as he returned to digging around in a stack of papers.

"Maybe. We can ask her."

Besides the painting, there didn't seem to be many personal affects. At least, there was nothing outside of all the strange equipment and tools and notes, and every single thing Junior touched kicked up more dust. When the kid yanked open the largest cabinet, Ziggy was too busy sneezing to do much about Junior jolting back and smacking into the edge of a table. Despite a clatter of the glass atop it, everything trembled back into place without cracking.

Junior didn't take his wide eyes off the cabinet in front of him. "Fucking hell," he spat.

"Please don't say things like that in front of Momo," Ziggy said, not that he could blame the kid. The wardrobe-sized cabinet was filled with sealed jars of various sizes. Each was full of some piece of a body, everything from bones to organs to eyes and hands, all suspended in some unpleasant-looking liquid. Ziggy reached up to a jar with a hand inside to compare. It was just as small as Momo's hand next to his.

Junior released an unsteady breath and dragged himself back toward the cabinet. "I don't think these are from any humans. Not sure if that makes me feel better."

Looking closer, Ziggy could see that the eyes all shared the same yellow shade as Momo's, but some had odd, sharp pupils or no pupil at all. The jarred heart had a few too many valves. He'd seen enough insides to know that. Including his own.

"Momo lost all of her sisters," Ziggy said. "I guess it makes sense that her father had several failures before her."

"Well, he could have been less weird about it," Junior grumbled. "You can't just keep bits of people in jars."

A realization sank in to pinch Ziggy's brow enough to threaten a headache. "Momo mentioned having 'parts' of them with her along with some of their memories. I'm starting to think she meant that literally."

"Oh, yeah that's… Hm." An odd blankness overtook Junior's expression, his eyes distant. "So you really can put more than one person in the same body."

That didn't sound quite right to Ziggy. "But Momo is still her own person. I imagine it's more like if someone could give you their leg to replace yours… or something." As absurd as that sounded, it may have been correct in this case.

"She's got their memories, though, so she has their minds too," Junior said. Without his usual smirk, the flickering shadows left him looking exhausted. "She seems happy, so I think it's fine for her, but what if you were trapped in your own head with someone? No way out."

Ziggy had spent enough time trapped with people against his will that he almost felt like he could answer that question. "I think you're in a strange rabbit hole," he said instead.

Seeming to realize how odd he was acting, Junior let a smile crack across his face. "Yeah, guess you're right. We should probably finish looking around here before Momo gets mad about how long we're taking."

The whole escapade seemed to be a waste of time to Ziggy, but Junior managed to find yet another book to flip through. Half-seated on the desk, the kid frowned at each page. When Ziggy looked over his shoulder, he found a journal with much cleaner writing than any of the scattered notes. None of the letters formed any words he could read.

"Did you get that out of that desk drawer?" he asked. "Wasn't that locked?"

Junior shrugged. "I didn't have any problems opening it."

Ziggy really needed to keep a better eye on the kid. "Do you think Momo would want it?"

"Uh, probably not. I think it's about how she was made, but I can't make any sense of it."

"Probably best kept in a locked drawer." Or burned, but Ziggy wouldn't be able to bring himself to destroy anything there without permission from Momo. "Put it back. I think we've seen enough. Let's leave before I start sneezing again."

He heard the drawer snap shut behind him as he headed for the door, Junior racing to catch up. "Maybe Momo's mom took all her stuff with her. Or she was the one who collected all those blankets. This house has so many blankets."

"Or some of the books," Ziggy offered. Juli didn't have nearly as many as the library here, but she often read when he sat nearby playing guard dog. That was how they found Momo as well when they returned to the second floor. At least, she was trying to read. Her knee was bouncing so quickly she might as well have been buzzing, and she stared down at the page like the text offended her to the core.

Her head snapped up as soon as they entered the room. "Hi!" she said in a tone far too forced to sound happy. Scrambling out of her chair, she raced up to them and held the open book up for Ziggy to see. "Look! This one explains all about growing different crops. Maybe we can grow some different foods. I want to try potatoes!"

Ziggy could at least parse a few phrases in this book as he took it from her hands, but he couldn't share her enthusiasm. "We would need seeds for something like that, and with winter setting in, we're not going to have as much around here to eat. It takes time for anything to grow." And what was he saying anyway? They couldn't stay that long. He struggled to fake a smile for her as he continued. "Maybe you could visit where I live. There's a market in town. I'm sure they sell plenty of different seeds. We could try to find your mother…"

A frantic, hammering drum, his heart felt close to exploding in his chest, and he couldn't meet whatever expression he feared to see in her eyes.

Ever his pain-in-the-ass savior, Junior butt in. "Look, you can go hang out with your antisocial old werewolf whenever, but you're also welcome to come visit where I live first. Lots to do in a port town. We get pirates sometimes. They're pretty cool."

Actually, for his own sake, Junior needed to stop talking now. If he tried to suggest he and Momo would go anywhere, they were all going to have a problem. Plus, Ziggy didn't much care for the idea of letting pirates near her.

There was still the option to tell her the truth, always roaring at him from the back of his mind. If she understood and went with him, then no one would get hurt. Surely Juli wouldn't have him bring her back just to hurt her. If he kept holding off on explaining, then he was chancing losing his will and killing her friend in front of her. There was no coming back from that.

So, he would tell her. He had to.

Just not tonight.

They had something else important to do tonight.

"Momo, about the office," he said before Junior could continue pitching his suspicious living conditions. "We didn't find anything that seemed like your mother's, but we did find a couple of things I would like to ask you about if it's alright."

Eyes swimming with anxiety, she folded her arms around her middle but gave a nod. "Okay."

"There's a painted portrait of a girl who looks like you-"

"The portrait of Sakura!" she gasped as her worries vanished. "I remember sitting for that! Well, I remember her sitting for that. It took forever. I didn't know it was here."

"Would you like for us to bring it down?" he asked, unable to keep from smiling and she squished her palms against her cheeks and nodded.

"I think Daddy would be okay with that, right?"

"I'm sure he wouldn't mind." Or if he would have, Ziggy didn't care. He needed to give her something nice in return for what else he felt he had to ask. "My other question may be more upsetting, but there are some… remains from your sisters. Would you like for us to bury them?"

He'd expected some disagreement from Junior, which was why he hadn't asked the kid's thoughts on it, but Junior only winced and kept quiet. Though Momo's expression softened with her sorrow, no surprise or shock touched her. "I don't think Daddy meant anything mean by it," she said with her best attempt at a reassuring smile. "My other sisters just weren't very stable, so they would fall apart, and he would use some of the parts to put us back together again until he could find what worked. He probably kept some pieces in case he needed them for me."

Junior gnawed against his lip with a fang, a glare locked in the corners of his eyes. "Pretty cruel to make a person just so they can die. Over and over."

"But… Daddy didn't want to hurt them," she insisted, "and everyone who's born has to die, right? I wish my sisters could have lived longer, but I know Daddy was trying his best."

"I'm… sure he was," Junior said, shrinking back from her stare. "At least he was trying."

Ziggy dropped a hand to both of their heads with a soft but insistent pat. "You're both too young to be this stressed."

"I'm an adult," Junior grumbled. Even with his shoulders bunching up by his ears, he didn't duck away from Ziggy's hand.

"A young adult." And even then, barely.

"Um, I would like to bury my sisters," Momo offered, possibly to distract Junior from biting back. "We have our family plot outside. I can't make a nice gravestone for them, but I think they would like it there."

Ziggy had passed by the cluster of family graves a few times without looking at it too closely. Most families with enough land buried their own there, usually marked with little wooden crosses. Most of Momo's family had been afforded proper headstones, though one was much larger and more ornate than the rest. Seeing Sakura's name engraved on it was no surprise.

All of the graves had flowers planted over them, but Sakura had the most by far, dozens in all shades. They spilled over to the grave beside hers, the only one without a proper headstone. Ziggy had to guess that was the newest one, but he didn't want to think too much about how it had gotten there if Momo was the only one left at the manor.

"We can bury them here next to Sakura," she said, patting the right side of her sister's headstone. "I think this was where Mommy was supposed to be, but I'm not sure if she wants it anymore. Besides, I think my other sisters would be happy here, even if Sakura isn't really here anymore." She paused, her head tilting. "Well, some of her might still be here. I'm not sure how much."

Junior squinted at the headstone, his lips pressed tight to a thin line. "And that's because… you've got parts of her," he said at length.

"Yep! She's with me like my other sisters."

It was nice to know Momo felt so happy about it, even if it was unpleasant for Ziggy to imagine how that had come to pass. Burying his son had been hard enough. Digging him back up in pieces sounded like a nightmare.

"So, can you, like, talk to each other?" Junior asked as he jammed his shovel into the dirt.

"Not really, but sometimes it's like if you yell really loud, and you hear an echo come back. I can look back at what they thought about things and what they saw, and a lot of times, we feel the same way."

Then, maybe it was worth it, if her father could bring even part of his daughter back. It still didn't sound like the workings of a sane man, but Ziggy was far from sane after losing his family. He had no right to judge, and he was happy he'd been able to meet Momo, even if he wasn't happy she'd met him.

It wasn't the easiest ground for a grave site, and their panting breaths turned to mist in the cold air with each crunching strike of a shovel against dirt. Momo sat by Sakura, pouting because they'd refused to let her have one of the two shovels, and taking turns with each of the jars in her arms. She had looked baffled when Ziggy suggested covering them with some old sheets so she didn't have to see them. Organs and eyes failed to upset her at all, and she held them with such affection that Ziggy would have found it admirable if it weren't also so concerning.

They didn't dig quite as far down as Ziggy's height because he was starting to worry that Junior would fall down dead in the grave himself. "I suppose you don't do much manual labor," Ziggy said, watching the kid's arms tremble from exertion as he leaned over, clinging to the shovel. "I probably should have made you take a break."

"I am fine!" Junior said through his wheezing. "I am so fit! I do stuff like this-" Another wheeze. "-all the time!"

Ziggy hoped he did not dig graves all the time, but Junior was at least willing to take Momo's spot and sit leaned against Sakura's headstone while Momo handed down each jar to Ziggy to place in a careful pile. If they were lucky, whatever odd concoctions were in those jars wouldn't do any harm to the soil, so Momo could have more flowers grow over them.

If they were really lucky, she'd be there to see them.

On the way back to the house, Junior's tripped on his own feet hard enough that Ziggy had to grab the collar of his coat and haul him back into a standing position. Junior's thanks was a quiet grumble as he fixed his coat.

The second time he tripped, Momo grabbed him by the arm and held tight to keep him from crashing to the ground. "Damn," he said with a thin, pained laugh, "how embarrassing. Haven't been this bad off in a while."

Ziggy was too irritated by how worried Momo looked to mind the swearing. "What's wrong?" she asked, a note of panic in her voice. With both of her arms wrapped around one of his, she half-carried him back toward the house despite his attempts to reassure her.

"It's fine, I swear. It's not going to kill me or anything. I just, uh, haven't been eating like I'm supposed to."

Once she'd dragged him into the lights of the foyer, she forced him to sit so she could stare down at him. "Is my cooking bad?" she demanded. "You don't have to eat it if it's bad!"

"No, it's good!" Junior rushed to say over her. "I mean, I'm not supposed to eat it because it makes me sick, but it's good food!"

"Not supposed to eat what?" Ziggy asked. Junior did look pale, but surely he'd always been that way. He must have always looked exhausted.

Ziggy tried to remember when he woke up and saw the kid for the first time, brash and annoying with his eyes bluer than any sky. They looked so dull now, framed with dark circles that only made the pallor to his skin worse.

"Um… I'm kind of allergic to most foods," Junior admitted quietly, and Ziggy recalled the way the kid would wince when he swallowed. "And I'm overdue to drink blood, so-"

"You don't drink blood," Momo and Ziggy said overlapping. Momo sounded far more convinced of it than Ziggy.

"I never said that," he hissed, his eyes as far from them both as possible. "I said I can't drink most blood. I can drink blood that isn't red."

Ziggy couldn't remember the kid saying anything specific, but he hadn't disagreed when Momo had spoken up for him. "So you can't eat most food or drink most blood," Ziggy said, too confused to decide how angry he needed to be.

"Yeah, we all have at least one flaw," Junior said through a poor attempt at a smile. "There's a reason some things aren't supposed to exist. I'm usually a little spoiled because my brother has some contracts to get blood for me, but I don't need to have it all the time. I'm just little groggier than usual if I go too long without it."

"My blood isn't red, so maybe you can drink that."

Silence gripped the room as they both stared at Momo. Junior's wide-eyed panic was enough to bring a burning streak of color back to his cheeks before he choked out a frantic refusal. "I can't do that! I already said I wouldn't bite you, and I'm fine! Really! I just look a little pathetic is all."

Momo was starting to look more annoyed than Ziggy felt. "I can put my blood in a cup, and then you don't have to bite me," she huffed.

Junior's face dropped into his hands with a desperate, "No!"

At this rate, she would likely be the reason he wasn't fine anymore. The situation was all a bit too absurd for Ziggy to find any of it suspicious. Neither the lie nor what appeared to be the truth seemed to benefit the kid. Maybe a vampire could be allergic to most normal foods, but a human couldn't be allergic to their own blood. There was no way those two halves would twist into such a terrible outcome.

But then… Junior never said anything about being human.

"Momo," Ziggy cut in before she could stress out Junior further, "it might help to draw him a bath and get him some fresh clothes at least. It's pretty late, and we would all do better after some rest."

"Oh, okay!" She perked up right away, always excited to be the dutiful host.

Junior watched her rush off through his fingers and breathed a sigh into his palms. "The only clothes in my size here are dresses."

"I'm sure she'll get you a nightgown. Better than wearing those muddy gravedigger clothes all night," Ziggy said as he placed the back of his hand to Junior's forehead. The kid tried to jolt back, but Ziggy just let his hand follow.

"What-?"

"I just need to make sure you're not lying about how ill you are. Momo's already worried enough. I can't have you getting worse." Thankfully, Junior didn't seem to have a fever, but he may have been cooler than he was supposed to be. "If you tell me what you can feed from, I can try to catch it, but I can't go too far from the manor."

Junior shook his head and was polite enough to not ask why Ziggy couldn't leave. "Thanks, old man, but I can't drink blood from someone unwilling. I'd feel pretty terrible even if you could catch something."

"You can find someone willing to give you blood?" Ziggy felt odd asking after Momo had suggested herself. He wouldn't have cared about giving his own blood either, but even though it wasn't red, he also wasn't really living. It probably would have been toxic to anyone.

Junior shrugged. "We've got funds and stuff to trade, and I don't take enough blood to do any harm. It's not too hard to make it worth their while, but my brother is the better talker. He usually does the negotiations."

Someone they could talk to—barter with—who wasn't human. Whose blood wasn't red. Ziggy frowned as a possibility crossed his mind, but it was far too late at night for any more excitement. He needed to take his own advice and let things lie for now. It was another thing they could deal with tomorrow.

Junior did not seem to agree. "Well, I can't keep Momo worried." Hopping back to his feet, he glared down at them until he seemed sure they would stay put. "I'll go see if I can find someone I can offer a fair trade. It'll give me something to do to pass the night anyway. I always feel weird just taking up a room here."

If the kids could stop giving Ziggy so much new information in one day, he would appreciate it. "You… don't sleep," he drawled.

Junior's head snapped up. "I mean-! Uh, I can sleep. I do sleep. I just don't need to most of the time. But I can sometimes!"

"Good for you," Ziggy muttered, more exhausted than usual. No wonder Junior always seemed to fall asleep after him and wake up before him. Momo as well.

She reappeared then with a pile of clothes in her arms that must have been at least five outfits. None of the articles appeared to be pants. "Okay, the bathwater is heating up," she said, "but make sure you don't leave the fire on too long, or you will start cooking."

Junior must have been hoping to make an escape before she returned because his nerves filled his face as he took a slow step back. "Uh, thanks a ton, but I need to go back outside for a while, so I don't want to take up a bath if I'm just going to get muddy again. Ziggy can use it. He probably needs it more anyway."

Ziggy shrugged. He'd heard worse.

"You can't be out alone at night," Momo gasped, leaning in as much as she could over the clothes. "It's cold and dangerous."

"And I do it all the time. Look, this is nothing new for me. I just need some time, and I'll come back looking normal again. I promise."

"I can go with you." The words had barely left Momo's mouth before both men refused the idea in a rush.

"Honestly, you don't have to worry," Junior said as he placed his hand over hers, stuck holding the clothes. "I'll get back as soon as I can, okay?"

Her gaze traced back and forth for a solution like she could read it from a book, but she had to give in with a a sigh that sank her shoulders. "Okay, but can you come back in time for breakfast so I know you're alright? You don't have to eat it, but you need to come back."

Ziggy felt like he was watching a chess match where all the players could do was sacrifice piece after piece until only two kings remained on the board. "Fine, yeah, I promise," Junior said even though he looked like no part of him wanted to.

Ziggy debated if he should have argued in Junior's favor only until the kid was gone, and Momo held her hands in front of her chest, kneading her fingers over them. "Do you think he'll really come back?" she asked. "No one's ever come back."

"He said he would, so he will," Ziggy offered. "He's not a good liar. His sort never are."

Junior was not back by the time the sun came up, and that was fine. Momo never made breakfast that early anyway. Of course he wouldn't be back yet. That was perfectly okay.

Rolling herself over on the foyer armchair, she muttered about how okay it was. Maybe if she started breakfast early, he would also come back early, and he would be okay again like she hadn't been poisoning him for days. Or was it better to start breakfast later than normal? That way he definitely couldn't be late, and he couldn't break his promise.

She let her face drop against the armrest. Her hair fell in a curtain around her. There in the darkness, she wondered if she could sleep if she tried really hard. Letting the time pass without having to think sounded nice.

At least it was finally daylight again, and Ziggy reappeared from his room looking as sleepy as usual. She tried to sit up in the chair and look normal, the way people always sat alone in their foyer doing nothing. Right.

She couldn't pretend it was working, and she let herself sink back into a pout when he patted the top of her head. "He's not back yet," she said.

"I figured. Things haven't been this quiet since before he showed up." Ziggy didn't look worried, so everything had to be fine. Ziggy looked worried about so many things all the time, and even if he pretended like he didn't like Junior, he worried about him too.

"Should we start making breakfast?" she asked.

Ziggy breathed one of his slow, sleepy sighs as he took a seat on the other armchair. "I'm not hungry yet. It's alright. I'm sure he'll be back soon." Looking toward the door, he dropped his chin into his palm. He still didn't seem worried, but his eyes were heavy with something that made anxiety itch across Momo's skin. "There was something I wanted to talk to you about," he said. "I never did tell you about the collar I wear."

She froze, back so straight that her spine ached. He hadn't told her, but Junior had. She didn't need to know any more than that. She didn't want to. Ziggy looked so sad about it that nothing she learned could be good.

"You don't have to," she said, feeling smaller than usual. "I mean, if you don't want to. I can make some tea, and we can start working on breakfast."

"I'm afraid it's important, Momo." He still couldn't look at her, which made her fingers dig against her knees. "I need to explain. I haven't even told you why I'm here-"

"That's okay! You don't have to!"

He finally let his eyes fall back to her, and she could see nothing good in them. There was only sadness and exhaustion and regret. "Please, Momo-"

This time, a knock at the front door cut him off for her. She jolted so hard that it felt like her bones had all rattled against each other. The last time someone had bothered to knock, it had been Ziggy. She'd almost forgotten it could happen at all.

"It must be Junior!" Excitement and relief buzzed through her as she shot to her feet and rushed toward the door.

"Junior wouldn't need to knock," Ziggy said, getting up to follow her. "Wait, at least let me get it."

Sure, she wasn't supposed to answer the door, but it was fine if it was Junior. With some effort, she managed to yank the door open without breaking it off its hinges, and her excited greeting stuck in her throat.

He was very obviously not Junior, and he met her confused smile with his own curious smirk. Most obviously, he was far taller than Junior and almost as tall as Ziggy. His coat was black as night, the same as his hair.

But he had Junior's smile, the same mischievous tug at the corner of his mouth, and his green eyes were so bright, the same way Junior's had been when she first met him.

He was also very handsome, like Junior.

"You must be Junior's brother," Ziggy said before Momo could remember how to speak.

"Oh, he's mentioned me? Then that makes things easy."

Momo nodded in a flurry. Junior had. A lot.

"You smell like him," Ziggy muttered, which was probably rude to say. Glancing up, Momo found Ziggy frowning, his eyes flicking over their new guest with even more irritation than she'd ever seen him direct at Junior. "He never mentioned your name."

The man didn't show any bother. If anything, there may have been more amusement in his eyes. "Then you can call me Gaignun," he said. A moment passed between them while Momo tried to remember all the important steps for having company. She didn't even have any food ready. "May I come in?" he asked.

"Oh! Yes, of course!" Momo said just as Ziggy's hand latched onto her shoulder. He was back to looking worried again, so she gave him a smile and patted his hand like he patted her head. Maybe once she knew Junior was alright, she could listen to what he wanted to talk about, but for now, she was thrilled to have someone else they could focus on.

"I'm Momo, by the way," she said as she stepped out of the way to let him in. Ziggy stepped out of the way less so that he was between them. "And this is Ziggy."

"Momo and Ziggy," he echoed. "Strange names."

"Coming from a Gaignun," Ziggy grumbled.

Momo rushed to talk over him while also slipping past him. "They're nicknames! My real name takes too long to say anyway. Junior's a nickname too, isn't it?"

Breathing a laugh, Gaignun took a seat in the same armchair she'd just been in. "Something like that." He rested the ankle of one leg on the knee of the other and let his foot sway as his eyes trailed the house. Momo wished she had it a little cleaner. He was probably used to much fancier places. His clothes looked a lot like Junior's but much less worn. His shoes were still shiny, no patches or dirt on his coat. "Where is my brother anyway?" he asked.

"How did you know he was here?" Ziggy shot back before Momo could answer.

"Well… I never said I did, but you seemed to know him." He shrugged. "Though I'll admit, I do have a sense of when he's close. He'll know I'm here too."

"He's out right now," Momo said before Ziggy could go back to interrogating their guest. Though Ziggy remained at her heels, she managed to place herself back in front of Gaignun. "He went to go find some food because he hadn't eaten anything that he's supposed to in a while." She poked the tips of her fingers together and hoped Gaignun didn't ask anything else about that. "But he'll be back any minute!"

Gaignun's brows shot up, and his smile vanished for the first time since he'd appeared. "He's been starving himself? He's not likely to find anything around here."

"Did you come here to check on him?" she asked in hopes he'd brought something Junior could eat. Like Junior, though, Gaignun didn't seem to have much with him. She wondered if he also had a weapon hidden up his sleeve.

"Him being here was a nice coincidence," Gaignun said with another smile. "But I was actually interested in you."

"Oh, I'm not very interesting." With his eyes now focused on her, she found herself trying to laugh off his words, but the twittering sound cut off as she felt the tips of his gloved fingers just under her chin. A gentle pressure made her tilt her face up, her cheeks burning. It also let her see Ziggy out of the corner of her eye tugging his own gloves off. That was strange for him, but it seemed like they were all aware of each other being inhuman, so Gaignun seeing Ziggy's claws was probably fine.

"You're underestimating yourself," Gaignun said, letting his hand fall away. "A homunculus of your caliber is unheard of. I can see why my brother would risk running off on his own to see you. Rare for him to run around without any protection."

"I don't think he came here to see me, but why would he need protection anyway? He's really good with that crossbow."

"Ah yes, he fancies himself quite the crack-shot, but there are all sorts of dangers in the world. Like angry werewolves."

Momo didn't need to look to feel confident Ziggy was glaring up a storm beside her, but Gaignun just smiled wide enough to flash one of his fangs.

"Are you going to take Junior home then?" she asked, trying not to sound too disappointed. "That might be good, so he can eat something."

"Why? Would you miss him?"

Momo's cheeks burned again, so hot she was sure they would start to smoke. Of course she would miss him, but she couldn't seem to bring herself to say it for some reason.

When she didn't answer, Gaignun dropped his cheek against his knuckles. The smile remained at his lips, but it didn't shine in his eyes. "Will he miss you?"

She felt like she should laugh off everything. If she could just get herself to laugh, she wouldn't have to feel like his gaze was going right through her. This time, it was a relief when Ziggy spoke.

"You look much older than your brother. How old are you exactly?"

Gaignun's eyes finally flicked away from Momo to pin to Ziggy. "It's considered rude to ask a vampire that, you know."

"Junior answered it fine," Ziggy said.

"Then you already know the answer. We're actually twins." Amusement returned to his eyes with a flash. "Can't you tell?"

"What? Really?" Momo asked. She didn't feel herself leaning in to look at him closer until Ziggy's hand dropped to the top of her head again.

"Momo, shouldn't you make tea for your guest?"

"Oh!" Smacking her hands to her cheeks, she righted herself. "Of course! I'll be right back!" Her socks almost slipped her feet out from under her in her rush toward the kitchen. She could never seem to get the tea thing done right, and she hadn't even asked if she could take his coat!

She'd barely made it into the kitchen when she heard Gaignun's voice, low and dense with amusement. "Oh, did I misspeak?"

"Junior said his twin was dead."

Ziggy's voice was just as low and dripping in an anger Momo had never heard from him. An icy cold sliced through her from her scalp to her fingertips. Her feet dragged her back toward the doorway as she struggled to make any sense of what either of them had said.

Neither of them had moved, but Ziggy's hands were so taught at his sides that they shook, while Gaignun still looked so relaxed.

His smile was far too wide. "Is that what he's telling people now? How cruel. I'll have to punish him."

A bang sounded through the house as the front door burst open, and there stood Junior covered in mud and sweat. His skin was white as bone except where it was splotched red across his cheeks. Every breath sounded like it was tearing through him.

Momo felt like she needed to yell a warning to him, but she wasn't even sure what she was warning him about. Whatever was wrong, he seemed to know it better than she did. A wild fury blazed in his eyes, locked on his brother. His crossbow followed, arm snapping up before anyone could speak.

The bolt raced for Gaignun's heart. Momo didn't have time to decide how to feel about it before he'd snagged it from the air and began twirling it between his fingers. "There you are," he said, all of Junior's fury matched by his eyes with joy.

"That's enough!" Junior's voice wavered against his best effort to sound commanding. His whole body shook along with it. "Drop the illusion, Albedo."

The name felt loud somehow. Momo was sure it hadn't been, yet it hit like her pulse drumming in her ears. Junior's eyes seemed to shine like they were full of stars.

Gaignun—or Albedo—laughed. A sharp, biting sound as the green seemed to melt from his eyes, replaced with a purple that could have been beautiful if it didn't look so cold. "I thought I might need to disguise myself to get through the door," he said, "but it doesn't seem like your friends would have known the difference. You really shouldn't keep such important things to yourself."

The black in his hair and clothes then seeped away as well, like ink could run out of a page. He was left in a shimmering, regal white that made Junior flinch to see. Momo watched Junior flick his pinkie finger and thumb down the same way he'd done when he'd shown her how the crossbow worked.

Another arrow knocked into place, but in a blink, Albedo was no longer in the chair. Momo could see him, but her eyes struggled to grasp how he could be so far from where he'd been. Standing behind Junior.

Junior knew instantly, shooting his hand up above his head to aim the tip of the arrow at Albedo's chin.

"Relax, Rubedo."

Albedo spoke so gently, yet once again, the name hammered against Momo's ears.

And Junior froze. Like he'd somehow fallen asleep there, the rage in his eyes faded to emptiness. When Albedo took hold of his wrist, Junior let his arm be lowered. Albedo's other hand coiled around Junior's throat with such a light touch that it almost seemed affectionate. "You really have been starving yourself, hm?" Albedo said. "It's almost cute to see you this weak."

"Stop it!" Momo felt herself scream as her legs finally listened to her enough to take off running toward them. She still hadn't worked out what she was going to do, but she had to do something. That man needed to be away from Junior. She didn't need to understand what was going on to know that something horrible was happening, and she had to help Junior.

Instead, she found herself being yanked back by a hand on her wrist. Her feet would have fallen out from under her entirely had Ziggy not pulled her back behind him and set her down like she weighed nothing.

Anger snapped through her. She could do that too if she wanted, and she was almost ready to shove him out of her way when she heard the low rumble of a growl coursing through him. He was definitely still person-shaped, but his lip twitched with a snarl and showed off his fangs.

Admittedly, he was much more intimidating than she was, at least until she could get her mace back. "Let Junior go!" she demanded. "Or Ziggy will bite you."

Albedo's brows rose with interest instead of any concern. "Sounds exciting, but you should really worry less about Rubedo. If he didn't desire this, he would have worked harder to prevent it." Tilting Junior's chin back, he forced his brother to stare up directly into his eyes. "Isn't that right?"

Junior's eyes twitched and trembled, but he said nothing. Momo wasn't even sure if he could hear them.

"Like I said," Albedo continued like he hadn't asked anything, "I came here for you, little homunculus. My brother being here just seems to be fate. How nice to feel his blood so close again, absolutely roiling under his skin."

Momo grabbed tight to Ziggy's hand. "We have to help Junior," she hissed. "Please, Ziggy."

He looked back at her for just a moment. Always so worried. As he faced Albedo again, he nodded.

"So, you plan to take Momo away?" Ziggy asked, his growl still rattling at the edge of his words.

Albedo bothered to drag his eyes away from Junior's just to look at Ziggy with disinterest. "Take her away? I suppose you could say it like that."

A bright, burning red flashed into Momo's vision, strange symbols shining through the the dark metal of Ziggy's collar like candlelight through a keyhole. Looking at them made her feel so heavy she thought her knees might fall out from under her.

"That works," Ziggy said, the growl filling his throat now and rattling every word. "I really should have realized sooner what Junior is, what you both are. It feels so obvious now, but it shouldn't be a problem." The red glow burst into his eyes, stealing away any blue, as a smile or snarl with too sharp of teeth cracked across his face. "I can kill a fae."

Chapter Text

With a barking laugh, Albedo's eyes flared with wild glee. His grip against Junior's throat turned crushing. "Alright then, dog, let's see how long you can entertain me."

Momo had always imagined that Ziggy's transformation took time, but this did not. It ripped through him like his skin was paper. Bones snapped and shattered so quickly that he didn't need to take another step toward Albedo. He leapt onto all fours in that same monstrous form he'd had the night of the full moon.

Momo hoped it wasn't as painful as it sounded.

Even a huge, snarling werewolf barreling toward him wasn't enough to bring any worry to Albedo's face. Tossing Junior one way, he let his lazy steps fall toward the other. Ziggy's claws raked against the floorboards in his rush to turn and follow.

Momo wasn't sure how to bring her magic to her hands. It just appeared, whether she wanted it or not, and she usually didn't. For once, it would have been useful, but only if Ziggy wasn't in danger of taking the hit too. No matter how close his claws seemed to get to Albedo's throat, the man kept himself one light step out of Ziggy's reach.Her furniture took far more hits than anything. "Come on, surely you have more than this," Albedo called, while Momo rushed over to Junior. "Or are you just a mindless beast now? How pitiful."

Junior's attempt to pick himself up off the floor was cut short by Momo's arms scooping him up into a carry. He blinked hard against the haze over his eyes as she carried him to the kitchen. There at least needed to be a wall between him and Albedo, as if that could be enough to keep him safe.

"I forgot how strong you are, jeez," he said, his voice worn rough and quiet like he'd been screaming.

She had so many questions, and she needed to help Ziggy, and she needed to make sure Junior was okay, but her heart was racing so fast that she could feel it shaking her entire body. Dropping to her knees, she tried to prop Junior up against the wall with her trembling hands until he caught one in a weak grasp. His fingers were icy against hers, from being out all night she hoped.

"Sorry." He looked at her with so much pain in his eyes that he must have had some kind of injury. "I should have been more careful, but I didn't think-"

"You're a fairy?" She felt the question fall from her mouth. That wasn't what was important right now, but in all the chaos, it was what made the least sense to her. Junior and his brother clearly had fangs. She caught a glimpse of one as a smile flickered at Junior's lips.

"Not a fairy, not like in your books, but I am fae. Just half. Wasn't lying about the vampire part." He seemed to be struggling to keep his eyes on hers. They were such a dark blue. Desperate. Hungry. His hoarse voice dipped to a whisper. "I'm so sorry about this. I just need-" She felt his breath on her wrist. "I can't have him control me again."

As his fangs sank into her skin and his eyes fell shut, she felt like she should want to fight or pull away. She was confident that it was supposed to hurt. But none of that happened. There was no pain, only a warm pulse that ran from the bite up her arm to the center of her chest. Her body felt like she was under a big, soft quilt, so comfortable and heavy that she had to force herself to keep listening to the Ziggy's snarling in the next room.

Color returned to Junior's skin in warm tones that Momo had forgotten used to be there. When his eyes flashed open, they were such a clear, blinding blue that they must have had light behind them. The moment he released her wrist, she felt like sunlight had just flooded the room. The quilt slipped from her shoulders, and she blinked herself back to her worrying reality.

Junior didn't let go of her hand right away, instead brushing his lips to the back of her fingers. He whispered a thank you that she felt against her skin more than she heard. Before her cheeks could start to burn, he was on his feet, shoving off the wall to race back toward the foyer.

"Wait!" she yelled after him, less with any expectation of stopping him and more with a need to catch up. Luckily, he didn't get far ahead, stopping dead in his tracks in the center of the room. Momo saw why before she'd reached his side.

"Ah, you're back," Albedo said with no concern for the claw marks raked deep across his chest. The blood seeping into his tattered shirt was the pale, shimmering silver of a sword's blade. A few other slashes marked his arms, but Ziggy's successes didn't appear to have had much of an effect, his growls now smothered under the heel of Albedo's boot crushing his throat.

One of Ziggy's furred arms, twitching and trying to wrench free, was caught at the wrist in Albedo's hand. The other was not moving, bent wrong. Momo's face felt so hot that her eyes burned along with it. Her heart raced with anger just as much as terror.

"Looks like you've eaten," Albedo said, the excitement in his eyes fading as he looked from Junior to Momo. "How nice."

"You can just fight me." Junior tried to force his voice steady, but desperation seeped through. "Leave them out of it."

"Why not just command me? You've got some blood now. Go on, say my name again. I want to watch it tear apart your throat." To punctuate his words, he raised his boot from Ziggy's neck only to bring it back down hard as soon as the werewolf tried to move.

Junior's cry of "Don't!" played over Momo's ears along with the side of Ziggy's chest crunching under Albedo's heel. Ziggy's eyes remained red even as they trembled in pain, and he didn't make a sound beyond the renewed growling, now filled with a wet, bubbling sound from his throat. Something like ink, glossy and black, seeped out from between his fangs.

Momo had never really needed to breathe. It was just something that came naturally and felt best to her. At that moment, though, she felt like she'd forgotten how. Her throat stuck tight against any air or sound. Her back was burning so hot that she felt like the back of her dress might melt against her.

"Dammit," Junior hissed as he tore the slotted bolt from his crossbow.

Before Momo could listen to the fire running through her, Junior had vanished from her side. Like Albedo had before, Junior appeared in an instant at his brother's back, holding the bolt like a dagger.

That was bad. He needed to stay at range. He needed to not be in her way.

Without a glance behind him, Albedo took a light step out of the way and let Junior stumble forward. "You're slower than the dog," Albedo sighed as he grabbed hold of Junior's forearm. "I can't believe how soft you've become."

In a quick snap of movement, Albedo wrenched Junior's arm up behind his back. Something gave way with an ugly pop, twisting Junior's expression with pain and shock as he let go of the bolt. It found its way to Albedo's hand instead as he let Junior drop to the ground prone, his knee pinning between Junior's shoulder blades.

Momo's hand trembled against her as she raised it toward them. If she was careful enough, she wouldn't hit Junior or Ziggy. She just needed to stop shaking, and she needed them both to stop trying to get up. Tears burned in her eyes no matter how hard she tried to blink them away to see.

"You're awfully brave to carry these around," Albedo said as Junior struggled to find some purchase against the floorboards. After another twirl of the bolt between his fingers, Albedo struck the tip down through Junior's shoulder. Junior froze, tense as a startled rabbit. A scream broke from him muffled through gritted teeth as steam rose from the wound with an angry hiss.

When Albedo tore the bolt free, Junior's silver blood seemed to be boiling from the wound.

"But you're still so weak." Albedo spoke so gently that it should have been kind, even as he jammed the bolt back down into Junior's thigh. Junior kept his jaw clenched tight against a sob as Albedo hummed by his ear "Imagine what we could be together."

Momo's shaking ceased with a painful tension holding her body sharp and still. A cold fury burned through her. It felt like poison, like rot in her stomach.

Even with the light searing across her vision, she knew exactly where everyone was and where the blast would hit. Ziggy was still trying to find some way to keep himself standing, a black pool forming under his teeth. Junior reached back an unsteady hand for the shaft of the bolt.

And Momo finally understood what it meant to hate someone. She would make him vanish like all the others, purposefully this time. Whatever it took to keep him away from the people she cared about. The last thing she saw before the light blinded her and tore through the room was curiosity in those purple eyes as they turned to her.

The sound was as overwhelming as it had always been, her pulse roaring through her head along with the blast. She strained her eyes and ears against how long her senses usually took to return until she could see the pink lights drifting down around her in a flurry.

With a hiss from his teeth and the wound, Junior managed to wrench the bolt from his leg without Albedo's weight holding him down. But Ziggy was still growling. His eyes were still a bright, burning red.

Of course it hadn't killed Albedo, Momo realized, just like it hadn't killed Junior, but she could fire another blast. And another. However many-

Junior's eyes snapped toward her with panic. She saw him open his mouth, but if he said anything, she didn't hear it. There was only a sickening agony filling her senses, so much that she wasn't sure what part of her was hurting until she looked down to find the hand protruding from her stomach.

Her blood almost matched Albedo's glove, white with a pale pink and blue shimmer in the sunlight as it poured off his fingertips. He leaned over her shoulder as though inspecting the damage and gave his fingers a flick.

She felt like she'd been ripped in half, a whimper tearing from her.

"I don't really need you," Albedo said. "I need what's keeping you alive, so where is it? Your chest? Your head?"

Even a slight shift of his arm sent a red-hot agony rippling through her. She couldn't see much through her tears blurring her vision, but she could tell that Junior's red smudge of a form was trying to reach her. He just wasn't as fast as the snarling ball of fur and fangs that slammed past her, tearing Albedo away.

With his arm ripped from her back, Momo dropped hard to her knees. Every piece of her felt so heavy. Exhausted—the word floated to the front of her mind like one of her sisters had passed it to her. This was what it felt like to be truly tired. The world felt so dark around her. Forcing her head to turn took all of her focus.

And there was Ziggy, still looking so much to her like a big, soft dog with his jaw locked on Albedo's arm. The bones had been crushed between his teeth, but Albedo looked at him with nothing more than irritation. When Ziggy tried to swipe with his working arm, Albedo caught it with his own.

"Dogs should know their place," Albedo said with a dull disinterest, "and I'm done playing with you."

There was a sound that reminded Momo of the time Ziggy showed her how to break down a duck into its pieces. A snap and a tear.

Ziggy's jaw remained locked on Albedo's arm even as the red faded out from his eyes, even as Momo watched his arm fall to the floor next to her. Black blood poured down his side over his fur and the tattered remains of his clothes.

"Ziggy," she said in a voice so hoarse that it didn't sound like hers. "Let go." Her hand was shaking again as she dragged her arm up. She could hardly stay conscious, let alone aim. There was a chance that trying to use the ability again could tear her in half, but she had to help Ziggy.

He still didn't move, not even as Albedo reached for his neck.

"Ziggy!" she screamed. Dropping her hands to the ground, she tried to find the strength to push herself up, but her arms became pinned to her sides as Junior wrapped his around her chest and pulled her back against him.

She didn't have the strength to fight. The best she could do was try to lean away until his frantic whisper hit her ear. "Stay down."

Albedo must have noticed something too, his eyes flicking to their corners and his movements pausing just before a whistle cut in over Momo's head. She saw it for no more than an instant—an arrow twice as long as any of Junior's and shimmering red in the sunlight streaming in.

If it was aimed for Albedo, it wasn't a very good shot. He needed only lean his face to the side to stop it from cutting the edge of his ear. It smashed instead into the wall beside them, but there was no dull thunk like Junior's arrows meeting a tree when he wanted to show off.

The shatter of glass filled the air along with drops of pretty red liquid. Some of both flew back and cut into Albedo's face.

With the burning hiss of meat dropped into a searing pan, steam rose from Albedo's skin everywhere the red touched. "Oh, you bastard!" he roared, rushing to scrub his hand across his face. "Disgusting, disgusting, how dare you!?" A rough swing of his injured arm was finally enough to throw Ziggy from him, the werewolf crashing to the ground in a limp heap.

From behind them came a soft whine that Momo recognized. She'd heard it before from people who had arrived with weapons—a taut longbow string being pulled. Letting her head fall back to Junior's shoulder, she looked toward the hole in the wall to find a young man standing there with the ring of sunlight at his back. He wasn't familiar at all, but he had a longbow string held back against his lips and was aiming another shimmering red arrow at Albedo.

"You should leave," he said, his calm, distant voice that matched his face but not his eyes, sharp with determination and yellow as a songbird. She'd never seen someone with eyes like hers before. She'd also never seen someone hold an arrow at the ready for so long.

"You think a human has any right-" Albedo's snarl cut off as the arrow loosed with a snap of bowstring. This one cut a precise line toward his eye. Like with Junior's bolt, Albedo reached up to steal it from the air before it could blind him. His hand closing around it had no better effect than the wall, minute pieces of glass bursting between all of them along with a bright, metallic smell.

Blood, Momo realized. It was human blood. If Albedo and Junior reacted to it the same way, then Junior using the word "sick" was so obscured from the truth that he might as well have lied.

Even after the pain Albedo had put them through, Momo couldn't help but wince at the sight of his eye and cheek melting between his fingers as he howled in pain and fury. "I'll kill you. Oh, I'll make you hurt!"

"I'm sure you could, but it wouldn't be smart," the strange man said as he pulled a dagger from the bandolier across his chest. The blade was the same gray, foggy metal as Junior's arrowheads. Though his expression didn't change, his eyes darkened a shade as he raised the dagger between them, or rather, the hand holding the dagger. Squinting, Momo spotted some sort of crest emblazoned on the back of his leather glove. "These three are under the protection of my king's court. I know your allegiance. You'd do well to stop this now."

"Oh, it's you," Albedo bit out. "Just another pet. I don't answer to anyone." If that were true, he must have found some other reason to hesitate. A snarl tugged at his lip as his remaining eye flicked over the man with a hungry fury. "So much interference," he finally snapped. "We'll finish this later."

The front door creaked as though brushed by the wind, and he was gone, the room empty of him. Momo couldn't make much sense of it, of any of it. The room around her felt like a distant, ugly dream, like if she closed her eyes long enough, it would all go away.

Keeping her eyes open was so hard.

Her back propped up against Junior was all that was keeping her from dropping to the floor, and every movement felt like it was ripping her open further. Despite that, she couldn't help but reach out as far as her leaden hand would allow. Still so far from where Ziggy lay. Her attempt to call his name was less than a whisper that burned through her throat, and he did not move or react beyond the slow reversing of his transformation crackling through his body. His arm, several paces away, matched the change like it was still part of him.

Footsteps approached from behind them, and all Momo could manage to do was let her arm fall and hope this strange man meant what he said and didn't want anything from them. She had nothing left. None of them did.

When he reached them, he knelt at their side and glanced them up and down. She couldn't tell if he was frowning or if that was just his usual expression, but he was a very pretty man. The yellow of his eyes was partially obscured with a splash of striking orange hair like the hues of a marigold. "I'm late," he said. The way his brow furrowed seemed more confused than apologetic, but as he rose to stand again, he reached out to give her and Junior each a brief, light pat on the head. "If you're both still alive after all that, I think you'll both heal."

Seeing him move toward Ziggy still sent a stab of anxiety through Momo until she watched the odd man shrug his coat from his shoulders and drape it over what was left of Ziggy's shoulders, pale and human once again. Though his eyes were struggling to remain open and shallow breaths rattled through him, Ziggy didn't respond if he felt or noticed anything.

"I don't think this will be enough to kill you either," the man said. Kneeling at Ziggy's side, his hand hesitated a moment before he let it fall to the top of Ziggy's head as well. "The girl will be alright. You don't need to keep going."

Maybe Ziggy heard that much because his eyes finally fell shut as the man patted him like he was still in his big dog form. The man was shorter than Ziggy by enough that Momo could tell without seeing them stand together, but he still settled his arms under Ziggy and picked him up into a carry without any sign of difficulty.

"Should have been faster," the man muttered, looking down at Ziggy, and Momo saw what a real frown looked like on him.

"Where are you taking him?" Momo asked in such a small voice that she was surprised the man turned to look at her.

"To his room. It would be best for you all to rest. Probably. If that's something you do." Everything he said sounded somewhat distant, like his thoughts were elsewhere, but he didn't seem to be unkind.

It was strange, though, that he walked directly toward Ziggy's room without asking which it was.

"Sorry," Junior said, his voice low and flickering, a candle burning out. "I'd carry you too if I could, but you're all that's keeping me upright."

In the corner of her vision, she could see a pale, gray shade to his cheek. His breaths were sharp and thin near her ear, and she imagined hers would sound the same if she were breathing. It was just too painful.

"Would my blood help you?" she asked.

He flinched like she'd put weight on his wounds. "I can't take more of your blood, Momo. You've already lost so much. I shouldn't have taken any in the first place. This is all my fault. Sorry… Shouldn't have stayed. Shouldn't have come here. Didn't think… Should have…" His words fell to such a low murmur that she couldn't understand them anymore; then his face dropped to her shoulder, and he went quiet. His arms slipped from his grip around her, hands falling to her lap.

"Junior?" she called, unable to bring herself to move to check on him. A new wave of panic only made it harder to keep her eyes open. Junior didn't need to sleep, and neither did she. If they slept, maybe that was the same as dying.

"It's just iron poisoning," the strange man said as he returned. "Doesn't look serious. It'll work its way out of his system." When he reached their side once again, he untangled Junior from her and settled him down to lie on the floor. "You look worse," he continued as he scooped her up into his arms. "A wound like that would have killed plenty of the creatures I've seen."

His movements seemed swift and careful, but it wasn't enough to keep every slight shift and step he took from biting into her stomach. "You can tell me if it hurts," he said, but she didn't see a need to bother him with it when he'd already done so much to help.

"Can you tell me who you are?" she asked instead, her voice thin and tight.

"Oh, right, you wouldn't know me. You can call me Canaan."

It wasn't much of an answer, but she couldn't bring herself to say anything else until he'd returned her to her room and did his best to settle her gently into her bed. Having him not know her room might have been preferable to avoid staining her blankets with her blood, but she was at least able to let the last of the tension collapse from her body. The pain didn't ease much. It was just better to have to exist as little as possible.

Canaan started to leave, but she stopped him with another weak question. "Is someone actually protecting us?"

He crossed his arms, seeming unbothered by the different shades of blood that had drenched his sleeves. "Fae can't lie, but I'm not a fae. If I say something on behalf of my king, it can't be a lie." He shrugged. "If he wanted different results, he should have provided more specific instructions. He gets what he gets for sending me out here to watch you."

Maybe his words would have made more sense if she were less tired. For now, she couldn't seem to line them up in her head. "Okay," she said, giving up on it. "Can you look after Junior and Ziggy for me for a little bit?"

He gave a slow nod, his eyes flicking around the room. They settled on the spare blanket at the foot of her bed, and he nabbed it to toss it over her. "Get some rest," he mumbled before taking his leave without any further hesitation. The blanket was over part of her chin and didn't feel great against her stomach, but the warmth made up for it.

Over the years, Momo had tried to sleep a few times and sometimes pretended to, but her only real understanding of sleep came from Sakura's memories and watching people who could. She hadn't been able to tell the difference at first when Daddy didn't wake up.

After she closed her eyes, an even blacker darkness fell over her like another blanket. Heavy. Comfortable.

Whispers played along her ears, the voices of her sisters. She couldn't quite understand what they were saying, but she had a feeling they were reassuring her.

It was alright to sleep. She would be okay. They would fix her.

Being conscious was awful.

If there was a part of Ziggy that wasn't in pain, it was only because he hadn't tried moving it yet. Each breath felt like he was sucking in burrs instead of air and covered half his vision in black splotches of various patterns.

All in all, he'd had worse.

Letting his head fall to the side, he found himself back in his bed. That was already strange enough, especially when he seemed to be wearing fresh clothes. The a young man seated in corner chair was a confusing bonus. His arms were crossed, chin down as he dozed in a position that did not look comfortable. Ziggy had some recollection of that fiery orange hair. Right, this man had shown up… and then Albedo had disappeared…

Those two things were probably connected, but this man smelled incredibly human. Like flesh and dirt and the comforting smoke of a fire used to keep warm. He must have been cold, even in the house, sleeping out in the open like that.

Traces of Momo and Junior's scents were in the air as well, but they drowned in the dense, sharp smell of blood. Blood that wasn't red didn't have the same metallic smell, and every odd shade he'd run into had notable differences, but there was something all of them shared, a distinctly raw wrongness of a living thing torn open. No matter what it came from, it was lifeblood.

Both the kids had been wounded. Viciously. He remembered that much, watching them suffer while his useless body refused to move even with the insistence of the collar and his own desperation trying to push him forward. Nothing Albedo could have done to him was as painful as that.

What he couldn't remember was if both of them were alright after that. Lying there did him little good to that end, so he took a deep, unpleasant breath and forced himself off the side of the bed.

He'd forgotten about his arm being torn off until his attempt to sit up failed to place the feeling of the bed under his hand. "Ah," he said in too late of a realization that there wasn't a hand to push him up at all. He may have been able to save himself had he not found his other arm stuck in a splint.

Crashing to the ground was bound to be more painful to his pride than his already-broken body as the sound brought a sharp, rousing intake of breath from the man in the corner.

The sound of the dull voice that greeted Ziggy brought back a few more pieces of the moments before he'd passed out. "Why are you moving? Stop."

"Okay," Ziggy said mostly into the floor.

The man's arms slipped under his chest and legs, making Ziggy wheeze as he was tossed back into bed. Changing tactics seemed to be his best option for now. "Are the kids alright?" he asked, his throat scratched thin from all the growling.

"They're both resting off their injuries in their rooms."

That wasn't a yes, but it at least confirmed that they were alive. Ziggy's relief was enough to allow his exhaustion to smother him once again, but he needed to make some sense of what was going on before he could sleep again. "Thanks," he breathed with a sigh. "You wouldn't happen to be a reaper finally here to collect, would you?"

The man's head tilted. "No, do you want to see the grim reaper?"

"Could be nice. I imagine he's a pretty sight."

It seemed Ziggy's inability to create levity hadn't improved, the man's lack of expression remaining despite the pink shade that tinted his cheeks. "I'm fairly human," he said, "and despite your interests, I believe you'll survive."

"In that case, would you be able to fetch my arm and a needle and thread? The faster I stitch it back on, the faster I'll regain use of it."

The man blinked at him. "Strange that you can do that."

It may have been the most polite way anyone had ever responded to that request, but the man didn't make any moves to fulfill it, still staring down at Ziggy with an unreadable lack of expression.

"Do you have a name?" Ziggy asked

"I do, but you can call me Canaan."

"Ziggy," he offered in return.

"Yes, I'm aware."

Strange way to respond, but he must have heard it from Momo during the fight. "You must deal with fae often," Ziggy prompted, trying to drag something a little clearer from the man.

"I do. I work for them."

Ziggy's brow pinched. Humans did not "work for" fae. No one did. Not willingly. "Work for them how?" he asked. "Do they pay you?"

Canaan hummed in a moment's thought. "Never thought about getting paid. I should ask. I'm usually referred to as the king's dog." He paused. "Is that rude to say to you?"

"What? Dog?" Ziggy had to bite back a laugh to keep his chest from breaking to pieces. "No, not to me."

“Good, my king says I can be rude sometimes. He says I can’t ‘read a room.’ I'm working on it.”

Everything coming out of Canaan's mouth was suspicious enough that Ziggy needed to be concerned, but Canaan was also so forward that it was hard to find any reason not to trust his honesty. It was charming in the oddest, least charming way possible.

"Is there a reason a fae king's dog is here?" Ziggy asked.

"I don't know. He asked me to find that half-breed boy. Something to do with one of his contracts. When I sent back word of the boy being here with you and the girl, he asked me to 'watch over' the three of you for a while." His eyes dulled with irritation. "He did not provide any additional explanation."

Canaan definitely should not have been willing to give out so much information, but that was the least baffling part of everything. "You're saying you've been spying on us?" Ziggy asked, feeling like he'd taken a hit to the head along with the rest of his injuries. "There's no way. I would have smelled a human nearby."

"Through the wolfsbane?" Canaan asked, though it didn't really feel like a question.

"Right, the damn wolfsbane," Ziggy huffed. "I should have kept a better eye out."

His frustrations did not seem to bother Canaan at all. It seemed there were few things that did. "What do I smell like?" Canaan asked.

The question was strange, but it was far from the first time Ziggy had gotten it. People rarely appreciated an honest answer, though. "Like a human."

"That's interesting. You smell human too."

Ziggy couldn't fathom what that could mean. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before any words left him. "Thank you?" he asked more than said.

"You're welcome," was all Canaan offered in answer.

Chapter Text

Momo did her best to keep her movements slow and careful, stopping when her stomach felt stretched too tight. Her skin was sealed with a shiny pink scar back and front, but she wasn't sure just how sturdy it was yet or how her guts were doing. Whether standing still or trying to move, she was still sore.

It was just hard not to rush through washing up and changing when she wanted to check on Junior and Ziggy. The blood that flaked off of her skin had dried from the pearl color to a very itchy black. Her old clothes were likely beyond saving and had been horrible enough to peel off that she didn't want to look at them anymore anyway. After scrubbing herself clean with water, which was close enough to ice that she was surprised it wasn't frozen, she pulled on a clean nightgown that was light enough to flow around her scars.

She needed to look as nice and normal as possible when Ziggy saw her so he didn't have to worry.

Since Junior's open door was the first one she reached, she poked her head in to check on him. That didn't seem too rude since it was her house, and he was smothered face-down in the blankets. She had to watch his chest to make sure he was still breathing. His arm hung off the side of the bed, so Momo rose to her tip-toes to try to see the wound in his shoulder. He was still in all the same clothes, and they might have been in worse shape than hers.

Momo thought everyone's blood dried black, but his silver blood, which would have looked pretty if she didn't know what it was, still shimmered even when dried into the red fabric. Before she could sneak away to let him sleep longer, he spoke through what sounded like a mouthful of blanket.

"Hey, Momo."

She righted herself in the doorway, cheeks burning. "Hi, Junior! Um, how are you feeling?"

He gave something of a groan or sigh into the blankets before turning to rest on his cheek. His skin still held a gray undertone, but his eyes still had some hints of brighter blue. "I've been better, but I think I got out the best of the three of us, so I can't complain."

"I think you would feel better if you took a bath and changed into some clean clothes," Momo said with a sure nod.

A smile flickered at Junior's lips before he set to work dragging himself out of the bed. "That sounds awful, but I think you're right."

She eyed both his shoulders and wounded thigh to make sure he wasn't straining himself as he moved, but she must not have been as subtle as she thought. "I'm alright, really," he said as he dusted his coat off like that would do anything about the bloodstains. His arms seemed to move normally, and no limp touched his gait when he approached her. When his eyes took their turn to flick over her, she took a quick step back from the room. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"I'm fine!" she rushed to say in hopes it would make him stop staring. "I'm almost completely back to normal! I'll go heat up some bath water for you. It's really cold. Do you need help getting your clothes off? I had a lot of trouble with it."

That did successfully make him look away, which only made Momo feel better until she realized what she'd said. "No," he said, his voice thin and hoarse again. "No. No, I'm good. No. Thanks."

Mumbling something about bathwater that may not have been coherent, she darted off to get a fire going. Once the water was heating, she dropped the pile of clothes she'd gotten him the night before nearby. Actually, she wasn't sure if that had been the night before anymore. It was still daylight outside when she woke up, but it may have been a different daylight than when she fell asleep. She couldn't say how much time she'd lost to sleeping. Keeping track of things like that every day sounded exhausting.

Doing her best to pretend that last conversation did not happen, Momo did not look at Junior once while letting him know the bath was ready. She'd already started toward Ziggy's room when he called a thanks to her back.

His door was open too, and Canaan was just inside leaning against the wall. He appraised her with a quick glance from the corners of his eyes. "You're supposed to be resting."

"Oh, okay, I can do that." Having never needed to rest before, she wasn't sure how it was supposed to work, but she didn't want to do it wrong. On her tip-toes, she went to Ziggy's bedside to find him awake as well, though looking at him made her understand what needing to rest meant.

His eyes were heavy shadows against his pale skin, and his arm—the one he still had—was wrapped up with strips of cloth and straight pieces of wood. Or, it had been. He had part of the cloth in his teeth and was trying to tug it loose until he spotted her at his side and managed a lopsided smile.

"What are you doing?" she asked as she clambered over him to settle at his other side on the bed.

"He says the break is already healed," Canaan answered, "and he said he could do this himself, so I'm letting him."

Setting Ziggy's arm across her lap, she set to work unknotting the end of the fabric, her brows pinched tight. "Ziggy, you don't have to do things by yourself," she scolded.

"Sorry," he said, letting the strip fall from his mouth. "Are you feeling alright?"

"I'm fine. Are you okay?" She already knew he wasn't. He couldn't be, not after all that, but she couldn't let him see her hands shake, so she rushed to spiral the length of fabric around her fingers.

"Unfortunately for the people who try to kill me, I can heal from just about everything, and I heal quickly."

"You still got hurt, though." And he'd almost died, but her throat tightened against an attempt to say it. Unable to look at his face, she stared hard at his arm as more of it was freed to the air. A tense line ran through her shoulders and made her stomach ache. "You shouldn't have had to get hurt. He was only here for me, and I can fight. I've done it lots before."

As soon as the wood pieces were loose enough that he could bend his elbow again, Momo found his hand dropped to the top of her head. "I know you can fight," he said. "I just wish you didn't have to because I know you don't want to hurt people."

"I wanted to hurt him," she grumbled.

"That's understandable, but I don't think he counts."

"It was a decent effort," Canaan cut in. He didn't sound like he was just trying to be nice, but he didn't sound like he was very impressed either. "You would clearly have done better if you'd worked together. He didn't have much trouble picking you off one at a time."

Releasing a sigh, Ziggy looked up at the ceiling. "I definitely should have had a better contingency plan, but a fae mixed with a vampire is a new one even for me."

"The twins are the only ones we're aware of," Canaan said with a nod. "I hope there aren't more. They're hard to kill."

"You aren't going to kill Junior, are you?" Momo asked, bundling up all the bandages into her arms.

Canaan stepped over to take them from her as he answered. "Not unless he gives me a reason to. Even then, I suspect the king would have some complaints, so I'd prefer he didn't give me a reason. Weren't you going to rest?"

"Right!" She wished he hadn't remembered so she could ask more questions, especially about the fae. And the king! A fairy king! Her mind raced to come up with a picture of him as she settled herself down into the crook of Ziggy's arm. A fairy king must have had big, pretty wings, but she couldn't decide if he was tiny or person-sized.

Though she didn't feel like she needed to keep sleeping, Ziggy was warm and cozy. Pretending to sleep against him was always easy.

"Is that uncomfortable?" Canaan asked after a stretch of silence.

"Well, I'm a little sore." Ziggy's deep voice rumbled in his chest and against her ear. "But if she can relax, then it doesn't bother me any."

Momo was careful not to put too much pressure against Ziggy while she waited and listened in hopes they would talk some more about fae things. Failing that, she would have liked for Ziggy to get some more sleep too. Unfortunately, silence held for some time before Ziggy spoke again.

"I don't mean to imply I don't appreciate all the help, but do you have somewhere you're supposed to be, or are you just… assigned to us now?"

"I do have somewhere I need to be. You do too, so you'll all need to be fit to move first."

"Alright…" Tension laced through Ziggy's voice. "I may need you to hold off on mentioning this further until I've explained a few things."

"I understand," Canaan said, which was very strange to Momo. None of it made any sense to her.

"You do?" Oddly, Ziggy sounded just as confused.

"I've been around fae a long time. You have to watch what you say with them. There's a great deal of magic in words—promises and requests and names. It's all irritating, and I prefer to avoid it."

"Oh, I'd never thought about it before, but I guess that is similar in nature."

They were both talking around something, and Momo was starting to get annoyed enough about it that she was a few more vague words away from sitting up and asking what was going on. A nagging thought told her that it was probably her own fault if this was part of what Ziggy had wanted to talk to her about.

Luckily or unluckily, they said nothing else for a handful of steady beats of Ziggy's heart. When the light sound of the floorboards whining under footsteps reached her ear, she understood why they'd gone quiet.

"Uh, good morning," Junior said from the direction of the doorway. Momo cracked one eye open to see which outfit he'd picked. She'd been right to think her clothes would fit him well, both in size and how nice he looked. Even with the gray in his skin and his hair messed from a towel, her favorite pink dress with its puffy sleeves looked great on him.

"It's past midday," Canaan muttered. "Why do you all insist on moving so much when you're injured?"

"I just washed my clothes. They are drying," Junior rushed to say, his eyes burrowed as far away from all of them as possible.

Canaan cocked a brow. "Okay."

"You look fine, Junior," Ziggy called. "It's rude to act like Momo's clothes aren't worth wearing."

"I-I didn't-!"

Raising her head, Momo cut him off with a bright yell. "Junior, you look cute!"

It was nice to see him a little less gray even if it was his ears and cheeks burning red. He slapped a hand across his mouth, his shoulders scrunched near his ears. It was hard to tell what he said from between his fingers, but it sounded like a thanks to her.

"You're welcome. You can borrow any of my dresses if you want."

He gave a rushed nod before letting his hand fall along with his gaze. "Since everyone's up, I uh… I should probably explain some things."

"You don't have to," Momo said, her head sinking back to rest on Ziggy's side. "Not right now. You should at least wait until you're all healed and feeling better."

"That's nice of you, Momo, but Albedo can heal faster than I do." A smile pulled at his lips but didn't make it to his eyes, and he kept his head down as he crossed the room to the chair in the corner. "I don't know when he'll show up again, but he always does. I'll… try to make this quick." He dropped himself into the chair with his knees far enough apart that it was obvious he wasn't used to sitting in a dress. Momo was glad it was one of her longer ones. With a glance up at Canaan, Junior sighed. "I guess you're going to listen too, huh?"

"Yes, I'd like any information that I can get," Canaan said. "I can kill a fae or a vampire, but I don't fully understand what can kill you yet. I'm glad those blood arrows worked. They're so hard to get. I would have hated wasting them."

Brow pinched, Junior squinted up at him. "You didn't know that would work? What would you have done if it didn't have an effect?"

Canaan shrugged. "Died probably. I wasn't sure he would care about a demand from a court either. As far as I'm aware, neither of you has pledged loyalty to one, but we've had reason to believe he has some alliance, so it was good that worked out."

"So, you were really just bluffing the whole time?" Junior said. Momo couldn't tell if he was impressed or just baffled.

"You could say that, but nothing I said was a lie. Not exactly." A sharpness cut through Canaan's bright eyes as he stared Junior down. "Can you and your twin lie?"

"Always such a weird question to answer," Junior grumbled. "Yeah, we can, but it takes some effort. Feels unpleasant. I think Albedo is the same way with that, but we're not the exact same." With a huff of breath, Junior tugged at the bow on his chest. "I guess I should just start at the beginning. So, I've heard this happens with humans and animals too, but sometimes, very rarely, twins are born attached together."

Everyone else in the house slept. It made for pretty boring days. Or nights. Hard to tell. Except a couple of cracks in the walls where they could peer through just enough to see if it was daylight, the house had no windows. The walls were a thick stone, and the only door to the outside was through their father's room. His room was always locked along with about half of the others throughout the massive house.

They had endless, dark hallways of locked doors and bedrooms that were steadily losing occupants. Games of hide-and-seek could go on for hours.

When it was just Rubedo and Albedo left awake, there was little to do but sit in the library and read. Nigredo would stay up with them until he couldn't anymore, passing out with his cheek on a stack of pages. Though they'd been told he was younger by a few days, he always had the thickest, most complex books opened on the desk in front of him. They seemed to make for good pillows.

Rubedo could read pretty much anything, but he spent most nights with one of a dozen storybooks open over his face while Albedo laid with his head on Rubedo's chest, making it as difficult to read aloud as possible and paying attention to little of it.

"Why do you even ask me to read you these if you're not listening?" Rubedo asked, poking Albedo's cheek.

His eyes closed, Albedo gave a soft hum. "I like the way your heart speeds up during the exciting scenes. It sounds nice, and I can feel it in my chest too."

The hardcover book thunked against Albedo's head. "It's embarrassing when you say weird things like that," Rubedo huffed.

Wide, purple eyes were already rimmed with tears when they flashed open to look up at him. "Why is it weird?" Albedo asked like Rubedo had changed the end of the book into a tragedy. Before Rubedo could try to find any words to explain, Albedo was sitting upright over him, small hands digging into equally-small shoulders and pinning Rubedo to the lounge chair.

"That's how we're supposed to be, isn't it?" Albedo continued. His eyes sparked with just as much excitement as pain. "Doesn't your back always hurt? Mine hurts just like the day we were cut apart. I remember it. I remember how much it hurt. It only feels a little better when we're close, but Father said we could be fixed again. Father said he can put us back together so we're not just two halves anymore. There's an alchemist-"

Rubedo reached up and grabbed Albedo's face, cheeks squished with gentle but firm insistence between both palms. "Stop listening to anything Father says," Rubedo demanded. "He's a liar. He's the one who cut us apart in the first place anyway. We're going to get out of here, and then we'll find a better way to fix the pain, okay?"

"But how will we get food outside?" Albedo asked, eyes wide like a scared rabbit.

"I'm… still working on that, but I'm sure we can figure it out."

Not that he didn't love Albedo. Really, he did, but that didn't mean he wanted the two of them sewn back up together or whatever weird plans Father had up his sleeve.

There must have been a better life outside, some other way to get the shimmering gold drink their Father metered out in small doses the same way he let the other dhampir have blood. They were always a little tired, a little hungry, and very irritated with each other on the best of days. Nigredo's attempts to convince everyone to get along long enough to plan an escape had received no enthusiasm at the beginning.

"You're just a child. What do you know?" one of their sisters had snapped at him. She still looked like a child herself, though it was hard to say how old any of their siblings really were. "Once we're old enough, we get out, and I'm almost there. I've served my time, and you will too. Don't try to mess this up for me."

Taking Nigredo's side only made things worse. In their minds, Rubedo and Albedo were the "favorites." The special ones. The ones who'd survived. They'd had the privilege of being allowed outside on more than one occasion, checks to see how they fared in the sunlight and a snowstorm. He'd made them go out one at a time in case the first one didn't come back.

To Rubedo, it felt like being a favorite lamb awaiting slaughter. No affection ever touched their father's eyes. At best, the twins were interesting to him. He'd take notes on how they responded to a variety of foods or how real Albedo could make an illusory glamour look. The trouble was always trying to convince him to make himself look like someone other than Rubedo.

Rubedo's illusions lasted as long as his interest in trying to cast them. He had better things to do, like trying to figure out if their flash-step could get him through the wall to the outside. It could not. He ran face-first into several walls before he had to accept that.

The worst test was their names. Hearing Father say them aloud was strange just because it was him. He rarely said them past when he first gave them names. Paired with a command, there was a slight ring in Rubedo's ears at the sound of his name, but he had no trouble ignoring it.

When Albedo was asked to say the same command "like he meant it," Rubedo gave him a confused smile and a nod to go ahead. Whatever this silly test was, Father would get fed up with it soon enough if they just played along.

Albedo, tensed with nerves, held his fists tight at his sides and spoke in as much of a yell as his whispered panic would allow. "S-sit down, Rubedo!"

Like his legs had snapped out from under him, Rubedo dropped to the floor. His ears rang so loud that he had to clutch his head between his hands to keep it from splitting. Albedo's hand was at his own throat, pain and shock written across his face.

Then Rubedo had to take his turn. Back and forth, over and over, they gave each other and some of their siblings commands in trembling, hoarse voices. The orders their father requested became more and more specific, and each one was carried out by their target to exact specifications until silvery blood dripped from Albedo's lips, and he couldn't make another sound.

Once they'd been released, Rubedo knew he spoke for both of them in the tattered remains of his voice as he held Albedo close and promised they would never command each other like that again. Never. No matter what.

Nigredo kept detailed notes as well—lists of the brothers and sisters who had gotten old enough to leave. He asked their eldest siblings all the names they could recall from before he was born. There must have been hundreds. So many half-breeds, most mixed with humans, but there had been plenty of attempts at other crosses. It just didn't seem like any of them had gotten old enough to leave.

As far as anyone could remember, not one of their siblings had ever returned to the house, not that Rubedo blamed them, but it would have been nice to know what it was like out there.

There must have been some point to all of it, some reason for their father's weird games.

Nigredo spent years trying to piece it together until one night in the library, as he scanned the list of names again, he spoke in a voice that seemed lost somewhere else. "He just wants one of us who's perfect, right? Or… ideal. The best possible outcome. Even the half-human ones of us get different traits from him. There must be an exact result he's looking for. Maybe that's the two of you. Maybe that's why I'm the youngest and there haven't been any more."

"Why would he want that?" Albedo asked.

"He always checks to see if we can withstand the sun," Nigredo murmured as he crossed his arms atop his book and rested his cheek against them, "but then we're all stuck in here away from it for so long. I miss it, don't you? Seeing the sun. I bet he misses it too."

Rubedo struggled to find much meaning in Nigredo's words. Maybe their little brother was just getting kind of loopy after staying up too late. "What has that got to do with us?" Rubedo asked.

"Hm, well, I guess it's a pretty ridiculous idea." Green eyes fell shut as his words started to trail off. "Maybe I've just had to hear you reading too many of those fairytales."

"Yeah, if he likes the sun so much, he should go walk out into it himself," Rubedo grumbled, "instead of only letting us go out to see it once he thinks we're old enough."

"Come on, Rubedo, don't be silly." Nigredo's words were almost whispers, slow breaths dragging toward sleep. "No one gets out."

Of course not. Rubedo knew that. He'd known it for a long time, and he had a feeling the rest of them knew too. If they admitted it to themselves, though, then there really was nothing. There was a dark, creaking house, and then there was an end.

Nothing else, not unless they made an escape for themselves.

All they needed was a bright, sunny day, the thinnest of the stone house walls, and to convince the rest of their siblings that it was worth the attempt. The first two were easy enough. Even with winter howling outside like some ravenous beast, there were still days with sun.

Enough of their oldest siblings had seen a similar attempt go poorly that the boys had to give up on getting everyone. Most would have to be enough. They scratched out any favors and promises they could with each of their brothers and sisters until their remaining siblings trusted them. Trusted them to be honest, to lead them safely.

Nigredo. Rubedo. And Albedo.

The first time Rubedo had ever woken up in his life, his head swam. His shoulder ached against him for having lain with all his weight on it against the floor, though not nearly as much as the scar pulsing painfully at his back. Nigredo was shaking him so hard that it wasn't helping him see straight and hissing something frantic. The words were slow to piece together into coherence in Rubedo's mind.

"Come on, get up! We need to go!"

"Okay, did I die?" Rubedo's words slurred against him into a mess, but Nigredo hauled him to his feet and forced him to try keeping them.

"No, you were just unconscious. I think your food was drugged."

Blinking hard, Rubedo stumbled between his feet until they were willing to stay in one spot under him. The room they were in wasn't familiar, which left him with a roiling unease in his gut. They must have been in one of the locked rooms.

"We're in the upper east wing," Nigredo whispered as he placed his ear to the door. "We need to get to the break wall. Run as quietly as you can."

"Wait, we're going? Where's Albedo?"

Nigredo flinched like the question had bit him. Pulling himself from the door, he grabbed tight to Rubedo's wrist. Desperation burned bright in those green eyes as they stared Rubedo down. "Albedo is… gone. Please, just listen to me."

"No, he's not. I can feel him."

It was rare for them to separate at all, but the one comfort they shared was that they could always feel each other's heartbeat elsewhere in the house. It felt like a knock rapping at Rubedo's scar, and it was racing now.

"That's not Albedo," Nigredo insisted, his grip so tight that Rubedo felt his wrist could shatter at any moment. "You need to believe me. We have to go now."

It all felt like a strange joke. Nigredo was playing around, which really wasn't like him, or he didn't know what he was talking about. "No, it's fine," Rubedo said with a smile that couldn't smother the strange fear eating through him. "I'll go get him. I'll be right back."

Before Nigredo could say anything else, Rubedo blinked away, ripping himself from Nigredo's grasp and appearing at the door. Once he'd yanked it open, it was easy to quick-step down the long hall and far from Nigredo's reach.

When he reached the stair landing, he looked at the floor below for an instant too long. It didn't matter, he told himself. It didn't matter whose blood coated the floor. It didn't matter whose arm that was lying separate from its owner. Didn't matter who was slumped dead against the wall.

He couldn't save any of them anymore, so it didn't matter.

He'd failed all of them, but Albedo's heart was still beating. He could still save his twin from all this, and they could leave.

No matter how hard he tried not to look at what remained of his other siblings, he counted them off one by one in a trail of blood and carnage until he reached Albedo standing at the end of it.

The knife in his hand was such a bright, gleaming silver that it almost hurt to look at. Blood dripped from it and hissed against the skin of Albedo's hands. "Oh, Rubedo!" he greeted with a smile that seemed to split his face. "You're awake already! I'm almost done, and then Father says there will be enough material to fix us. With this, we'll get one body for just the two of us! It's a good thing you got so many of them to think they were friends with us, or this would have been a lot harder. Do you know where Nigredo is?"

Maybe Nigredo had been right. This wasn't Albedo. Couldn't have been. It had his voice and his face, but this wasn't Rubedo's twin. Unable to speak or move, Rubedo searched those wide, purple eyes for something familiar and hoped to find nothing.

But he knew that endless affection far too well.

"Albedo, you didn't have to… I didn't want…" Tears burned at his eyes and swelled his throat against him, but it didn't matter. None of it mattered. There was no changing any of it. The only one left he could save was his twin. "Albedo, we can still go!" he yelled as the tears warmed his cheeks. "We don't have to be here anymore!"

"Why would we do that?" Albedo asked, confusion weakening his smile as he reached up to cup Rubedo's face in his hands. Blood seared against Rubedo's cheek in a vicious sting, but he couldn't bring himself to pull away. "We're better off here. We'll have everything we need. My heart will be yours again, and yours will be mine."

"I don't… want that," Rubedo said in a whisper. "I don't want that." A snarl. "I don't want it!" A scream.

Albedo's head fell to a tilt as he laughed. Confusion and rage blurred together with amusement. "Of course you do, Rubedo. You just don't understand yet. You'll get it when we're together again. Don't worry. I'll put us back how we're meant to be." His grip tightened on Rubedo's face, the hilt of the knife digging against Rubedo's cheekbone and jaw. "I think it would be best if you went back to sleep for now."

Whatever plan he had to make that happen was cut short when a board cracked hard enough against the back of his head to shatter. Before Rubedo could fall under the weight of Albedo tumbling forward, Nigredo's hand grabbed his wrist once again.

"Come on!"

Even though it felt like his chest was a gaping, empty wound, Rubedo ran as soon as Nigredo tugged against him. It was pointless to try running like this, he knew, but he kept letting Nigredo lead him along until Albedo blinked into their path and caught Nigredo by the throat.

"There you are." Silver poured from Albedo's forehead and framed his grin. "Last one."

"Let go of him, Albedo," Rubedo said, his voice calm and certain for the first time that night, even as he struggled to breathe against the pain in his chest.

A tremor rippled through Albedo's arm as he tried to fight the command, but his fingers loosened from Nigredo's throat. His eyes widened with the same childish fear Rubedo had seen so many times. "Rubedo, you can't. You promised," he whimpered.

Rubedo had never been much good at lying. It made him feel like his throat was full of needles, but if it tore his throat apart to get Nigredo out of there, then he would swallow the blood and the needles and the horrible, panicked pulse he felt at his back.

"Albedo, you have to let us leave," he said. "Drop the knife, and stay here." Once they were far enough away, the spell would wear off; then he could do what he wanted.

But they would be too far to catch.

The knife hit the floor with a clatter, and tears filled Albedo's eyes as he struggled uselessly against the weight pinning his feet to the floor. "Rubedo, you can't. You can't leave me! Don't leave me, Rubedo!"

His own name struck against his head, feeling as hard as the board, but Albedo must have been so tired from all the fighting. Hissing air between his teeth, Rubedo clutched at his head until he could force the ringing to quiet down. When he blinked, he found Nigredo's hand in his, and he let himself run once again.

Albedo sobbed at his back until he couldn't feel the heartbeat racing against his anymore, and Rubedo felt so sure his twin was dead. Maybe there was someone back there, but it wasn't Albedo. He'd lost Albedo, and nothing mattered.

He and Nigredo ran through snow until every breath stabbed through them and the sun cut a blinding, beautiful ray across the horizon.

Rubedo hated the sight.