#Elena lupu x oc

[arimakafu]

Her name's Rhein Alejo! I ship her with Elena since I thought the trope "People pleaser + Overworker x Nonchalant + Coffee shop Barista." is kind of cute. (⁠•⁠ ⁠▽⁠ ⁠•⁠;⁠)

[saintsofwarding]

BURIAL

Epilogue

"Hello, Karl."

"Hey, Donna. A corpse! Is that a present for me?"

"No. She is not a corpse." A pause. "Is that a piece of my front gate embedded in your skull?"

"...Or am I just happy to-"

"Don't be disgusting."

"Heh." He yanked it loose with a wet crackle and tossed the bloody chunk of wrought iron into the snow. "So why are you hauling her around, then, huh? Can't be for the sentiment."

"You're much better at matters of the flesh than I am."

"Oh, I see. So you want me to put her back together, not saw her apart?" He snorted. "Waste of a good body is all I'm saying."

"Can you help me or not?"

"Guess it was you, then?"

"Me?" Donna asked, all innocence.

"Mommy Dearest went up the mountain but she never came down." A long pause. His glasses shone in the first of the dawn light. "Did you do it?"

"Yes."

Heisenberg smiled. There was none of his former gleeful malice in it, no bared teeth or mania edging madness.

"Huh," he said.

He seemed, for a heartbeat, to waver, as if unmoored, as if overcome. Perhaps to compensate, to do something, anything, with his hands, he reached up and hooked his finger over the arm of his spectacles, tugging them down from his face.

Donna lifted her brow. His face. Strange; she'd never taken him in, not really. He was covered in scars, a cross-hatch of them over cheekbones and forehead, glistening white through his beard-scruff, one nearly slicing his face in half. Had she ever seen his eyes before? She didn't remember. They were deeply shadowed, bruised, sockets nicked with scar tissue. And they were pale blue-gray, nearly colorless, clear as water when the light hit them.

"So many goddamn years," he muttered. "Feels strange. Too quiet."

"Yes. I know."

He wouldn't thank her. She didn't know if he was capable of such things. But he looked down at Elena lying still and cold on the rug Donna had used to drag her body from the house. The candlelight from Claudia's grave flickered over her face, her parted lips, her closed eyes. Her hand was curled around the remnants of the yellow flower that had saved them both.

"It's not worth it, you know," Heisenberg told Donna.

"What?"

"Giving yourself over. Surrendering yourself to what you can't control. It'll make you weak. And that'll be what destroys you, in the end."

Donna gave him a look. "Bold words for a man who let himself be thrown off a cliff."

He jabbed a finger at her, dangerously close to her nose. "Mention that ever again and I'll crush your fuckin' skull."

"Are you going to help me or not? She's dying."

"Yeah, yeah..."

"Karl."

"What?"

She set her hand, lightly, on his arm. "Thank you."

He didn't pull away. "...Whatever."

***

Breeze, dawn sky.

The rustle of leaves.

The distant sound of birdsong.

She thought for a moment her eyes were closed, and she was seeing the veins in her eyelids. As her vision focused, she realized they were not veins, but branches.

She lay on the ground, on a nest of blankets and rugs and throw pillows from the house, dusty green velvet incongruous amidst the snowdrifts and fallen branches. And graves. She was in the garden, deep amidst the hedges, and gravestones rose from the snow, candlelight playing over the rime of frost that covered them.

Her mouth tasted of bitter herbs and medicines. Her whole body ached, but it was a good pain, a healing ache, and when she lifted her hands to the light she saw even her palm had been bandaged. She moved her fingers through the light. It felt real.

This felt real.

"You're awake."

Elena looked up. Donna knelt at a nearby grave, a candle cupped in her palms. She'd draped her mother's green velvet dressing-gown over her shoulders, and the earth at her knees was fresh-dug, loamy and dark as the night.

A recent burial. For whom? Elena licked her lips. "Well. I couldn't leave you like that."

"I'm grateful. Do you feel all right?"

"...Compared to what?"

Donna laughed softly. The sound was hoarse, lovely. Elena pushed herself to her knees. The wind stirred her loose hair. Someone had combed it out, had cleaned it, had sponged the blood from her face and hands. It all felt so clean. The air, the wind in her lungs, her mind. Like a great weight had been lifted from it.

"I do," she said. "I feel...lighter."

"He helped," Donna said, nodding toward the treeline. Elena followed her gaze. Heisenberg's familiar broad silhouette stood there, smoke twining from his cigar.

Elena paused. She lifted a hand. A careful, neutral wave.

He didn't approach. He just reached up to touch the brim of his hat, then turned on one heel and sauntered away, soon lost in the mist.

"He made sure your head was all right," Donna went on. "I do hope he didn't dig around too much while he was back there."

"I'll live." She rose, carefully. Her body creaked and protested; she felt ninety years old, full of aches and shooting pains, but she managed the few steps to Donna and settled by her side. "Who are you burying?"

"Violeta, and Angie. They deserve a grave."

Elena swallowed, remembering Angie's scream of anguish. "What you did...I don't know what to say, how to thank you, but-"

"No." Donna put her hand on Elena's knee. "No mourning. It was time. Now it's my turn to be alive."

She set the candle by the gravestone, and together they watched it flicker and dance in the breeze.

"Donna," Elena began. "I...um."

"Yes?"

"I should have said why I was there, back at the beginning. When you first saved my life. I should have told you everything. Maybe then, I could...I don't know, have saved my father. He was the reason for all this. Miranda offered this assignment in exchange for sparing his life."

"Your father?"

Elena nodded. She swiped tears from her eyes. "Now he's gone, and it's all on me. Saints- I'm sorry, I don't mean to..."

"Go ahead and cry. It's all right."

"No. No, it's not."

"What happened to him?"

"She took his memories. Did something to him...inside, I don't know. I don't know."

Donna seemed to consider this for a while.

"Well," she said, "perhaps I could help."

"...What?"

"I am good with matters of the mind. And with Miranda...missing, perhaps her influence might wane. Who knows."

She paused.

"We can all begin to dream again," she said.

Elena tipped her head back. Light had begun to spill into the sky, and it was clear as glass, all watercolor blooms and opalescence, clouds clearing from what would surely be a perfect winter morning.

"What will happen to all of them, down in the village?" she said. "Without her? We've been Miranda's for so long, I'm not sure any of us know how to survive without her."

"I do not know. I suppose...we'll all have to find our own way."

Elena nodded.

"Well," she said, "I know where mine begins."

"...Oh?"

She brushed a strand of Donna's hair, tenderly, behind her ear. "Don't play smart, Beneviento. With you."

"Hush," Donna murmured, smiling as she lifted her hands and pulled Elena's face to her own. "Quiet, now."

"My lady," Elena whispered, and captured her smile with her lips.

***

(Are you happy, out there?)

(Never mind. Don't answer. Let me tell you a story)

(You told me so many of your stories)

Once upon a time, as never before- because if there wasn't, we wouldn't have to say it- there was a mountain valley hidden from the world. The rivers and the wind spoke of crystal cities, and sleeping gods, and saints with wolves' heads, and conquesting heroes from a glittering past. Blood queens, and fish kings, and great sorcerers who sing to metal, and who can heal the dying, too, despite all evidence to the contrary...

(You held me like a sleeping child. My white limbs reassembled, broken and mangled. My gift all crystal in my skull. You gathered my pieces from the deep belly of the house and you took me through the forest, a procession like you once had performed for little lost Claudia. A funeral for a doll. And you buried me in the dark earth and at last there was silence)

...And of warding-saints, carved in stone, guardians of the valley borders for so many centuries, watching all who entered and left these lands. So many had not left for so long. But they were patient, and were content to wait, deep in the Black God's dreams.

A long time this valley had slept. A long time, trapped in amber. A long cold wait for the saints, a long time spent in only the company of their god. But they smelled the bonfires, at last, the smoke rising from the village at the valley's heart to fill the morning sky with the scent of ending.

Of beginning?

Perhaps they're one and the same. A moon sets, and a sun rises. Should you know the rest? Perhaps, perhaps. Though I think you already know the whole story.

(I hope you are happy)

(I miss you)

(But I see now it always had to be this way)

(Nothing lasts forever. Not even us)

(And in the end, you found a way to live, and I can't help but be glad of that. That was all I wanted, really, when it comes down to the meat of the matter.

Besides. I can't be angry. You're a part of me, little mouse, like I was a part of you.

So go on.

Live.

For the two of us)

[azne09]

Resident evil village fic exept the villagers are all alive and the 'survivors' of the game are important characters.

Im having so much fun writing my fic because there's so little infos about theses characters, I can make lots of headcanons about them :)

If anyone's interested, I might drop a quick resume of the fic since it's still a WIP

[highlifeboat]

Your top 5 non-canon ships on this blog😁

I dunno if it's okay to include the OC ships. I'm assuming it is because that technically counts as non canon and considering you're saying on this blog specifically, of course I'm gonna.

(Ranked from Most Fave to Least Fave)

Number 1 - Daximus. This ship makes me FERAL, I fucking love them. Arguably the healthiest ship on this blog, too. Like Daniela and Max have open communication, they cater to each other, there's no feeling of "One protects the other", they put in equal effort. (Plus their Start Point to Relationship timeline is my favourite)

Number 2 - Zia. A classic. Two women just trying to live their lives during/after a horrifically traumatic event. I love this ship. It's full of angst and major hurt/comfort. I have so many thoughts about it. Plus I just think Mia and Zoe are cute together and I'm upset they don't really get to speak to one another in canon. (I like to think they were talking while Lucas had them tied up in the boat house).

Number 3 - Miacina. The classic. The ship that started me on this crusade and still goes hard. Love it. It's cute, it's sweet, and I think Alcina deserves a wife and so does Mia. I forget… why I started shipping them, but that doesn't matter. Has kind of a strange "Beauty and the Beast" vibe imo. Also lets Mia have a bit of a corruption arch (very attractive) (On par with Zia, but slightly lower)

Number 4 - Belena. Adorable, beautiful, they deserve happiness. I know they kind of just exist in the background of things, but I really do love the pair. I feel like they're the most "domestic fluff" of all the ships. Which is probably why they don't get brought up much (considering the blog runs on angst and I just haven't thought up any good Bela or Elena angst in a while)

Number 5 - Mecassa. Again, adorable, very sweet, I love the "Tough bitch is emotional for her smol girlfriend" thing. This one's the lowest because... I dunno. I guess I haven't thought about them a lot. Still love it, though. (Canadian AU Mecassa is THRIVING in my head more than Main AU Mecassa. No I don't know why.)

[blu3pers]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/38327263/chapters/95947945

My friends are starting to be concerned about my newest fixation and how much I write. Little do they know that this only fuels my powers >:D

[saintsofwarding]

BURIAL

Chapter 9

Elena laughed.

Donna flinched backward. "Is something wrong?"

"Wrong? Saints, no! It's just- this isn't really dancing music."

"But-" She sounded indignant. "This is Rêverie. Mr. Claude Debussy. He's one of my favorites."

"And it's beautiful, make no mistake. But did you ever hear proper dancing music, fiddles and tambourines and firelight flickering?" Elena clicked her fingers and assumed the first position of her favorite festival reel.

Donna stared.

"...No?"

"No," Donna murmured, a little wistful.

"Well...all right, let's see..." Elena flicked through the stack of records. Classical, mostly, but near the bottom... "We're in luck. Take a look at this."

She held it up. It was a vinyl pressing of local folk tunes, its paper slipcover so worn and faded the writing was almost illegible, but when Elena put it on the turntable and set the needle to its grooves, the music emerged clear and strong: a peasant song, sung in the old-tongue the village elders spoke in, the language learned at grandmothers' knees and almost without effort, as endemic to Elena and her peers as the blood in their veins.

The song spilled forth, filling the dark corners and shadows of the old house, stirring and warming the air to life.

Donna was still shrunk back, her hands laced together, but Elena began to dance, slowly, clicking her fingers and spinning in place, the dusty folds of the velvet robe belling out around her legs.

"You see?" Elena said. "It's easy."

"I- what are the steps?"

"Like this." She showed her, back and forth. "No, your hands like-" She took her hand almost without realizing, savoring the cool, callused feeling of her skin. "-Like that. Yes! Got it. Now..."

She took both Donna's hands in her own, and with a whispered "One, two, three-" swung Donna into the first step of the dance. A whirl of skirts, a gasp from beneath the veil, and they were dancing. Donna fell into the pattern of the steps like she'd grown up with them. She was a quick study. But Elena felt her stiffness, her shoulders held rigid, her movements almost too-quick, too-precise, like she was copying the steps from a book.

"It's okay," Elena told her. "It doesn't have to be perfect."

"But-"

"Nope!" She released her, without warning, spinning her down the length of her arm and out; Donna's fingertips slid along her wrist, her palm, catching her by the hook of her pinky finger, her skirts like a black blossom. Elena glimpsed a flash of patent leather boots, of slender legs in black stockings, and at last when Donna came back to her, grabbing onto her free hand, she felt her shake loose her stiffness and fall into place, and dance, really, truly dance.

She threw herself into the reel, each step confident, letting her skirts spin and flash through the firelight, gleaming with a dark iridescence. She seemed to burn as she danced, all her stillness and poise cast off, and Elena saw what she might have looked like had they grown up together, had they met not under the pretense of threats and lies but as peers, two girls in the light of a bonfire dancing together until the snow turned glassy, until their faces were red from wine and heat and the sheer joy of being alive together.

The record spun on, the crackling music singing out into the night-bound house, its bones warmed by the sound, by the creak of their weight on the floorboards, the song changing to the next. This dance was slower, stately, and Elena stood back to curtsy low to Donna, who dipped into a curtsy in return.

"This one is performed with the dancers closer," Elena told her, softly, and Donna nodded, stepping smoothly to take Elena's hand again.

"Like this?" she said.

"Yes." Elena paused. "You don't need to know the steps as much for this one. Just feel it."

"Feel...it?"

"You know when...something is so beautiful you don't need to think about it, or take it apart, you just need to trust it with you, that it'll do something beautiful to you, in return?"

Donna nodded.

"Like that. Let it in. Let it move you."

"You know so much."

Elena sputtered a laugh. "Do I?"

"I always wanted to go. To join you down in the village, when I was a child. I watched from up here and imagined what it would be like to be with all of you. I imagined it so hard it was almost like it was real."

"Imagining things isn't quite the same thing as it being real." Elena thought of the projector, the resurrected memories. The glimpse of the world beyond the village. She took a short breath. "No matter how much you might want it."

Donna's hand, pressed lightly on her shoulder, slid down over Elena's collarbone, just over the point of her fluttering pulse.

"Do you ever think about it?" Elena asked her. "The world outside?"

"It's forbidden. No one can protect us there. That's what Miranda says."

"Do you ever think Miranda might be wrong?"

She heard the faint hiss of Donna's inhale. Had she said the wrong thing? But Donna didn't pull away. They swayed together, now, heedless of the music. They were very close.

"Yes," Donna whispered.

"You have so much power. All alone up here...so far away from her control..." I suspect she thinks far more than she allows me and the Black God to know, Miranda had said. "You could...I don't know. Break it."

"There's no breaking her control," Donna said quickly. "She...she is absolute."

"We can figure out a way. Together. Get it all back, everything she took from us. I feel stronger here. More myself. If...if I ever even knew myself. I don't know how, but..."

"I might," Donna cut in. "Perhaps the distance from her, something about the flower spores in your brain crowding out Miranda's influence, the repeated nightmares changing your cerebral chemistry..."

She paused. "My brother knows the fleshy pathways of the human brain far more fluently than I do, but I know nightmares well enough."

"So we figure it out. We-" Elena had to stop, take a breath, center herself. Her blood felt like lightning inside her. Impossible, to be talking of this, to even consider it. "We escape. We get away. We can be free."

"I can't," Donna said. "I can't because there's nothing else. Nothing else. I had to go to her. I had to. There was nothing left."

"There was you."

"I'm not...I'm not whole. I'm not right. I- I-" Her voice became high and childlike. "I hurt things, Mother says. I'm a pair of rusty scissors. Dangerous because I'm broken. So I must always always do as Mother says because I could hurt people but she can make me be better, she can make me be right, I must do as Mother says."

"Donna..."

"Quiet. Quiet. You mustn't say, she'll hear."

"She's not here. I'm here. You're here." She reached up. Her heart thudded in her throat. The darkness pressed in, but she didn't notice. Donna smelled of yellow flowers, bittersweet as tears. Elena tasted the faint rime of the scent on her lips, on the backs of her teeth. A monstrous taste, birthing nightmares.

It was in her now, and she should have been scared. She wasn't. In a mad flash of an instant, she was glad of it, that she carried Donna now inside her, a part of her, of this place, of her most precious quintessence, within herself.

Her hand brushed the lace of Donna's veil.

Donna didn't move. Elena lifted her hand, and with it came the edge of the veil. Donna's clothes beneath came into view. A revelation. Jet buttons winked in the light. Then came a neat collar. A triangle of white throat.

The edge of a jaw.

Elena paused. She felt Donna's heartbeat, they were so close, her hipbone pressed to Donna's. The pulse was somehow strange, unsettling, doubled. It didn't frighten her as much as it should have. She didn't stop drawing the veil up.

The corner of her lips. The shadow under her cheekbone. The tuft of brittle black-gray hair escaping the veil.

An eye, black-lashed, bright gray, fastened unblinking on her.

Elena's hand quivered. Her heart pounded like she'd been running. The look in Donna's gaze. The feeling of her, at last warm, and real, not a shadow, not a ghost, but alive. The two of them, alive, so close to being in one another's arms.

And wouldn't it be so good, a relief indescribable, to stay with her like Donna had once begged her in what now felt like a dream? To forget the world, to vanish, to be forgotten in turn, except by one beloved person, except by her, because who else mattered?

But the world would never forget her.

The world had its claws in her mind, its claws in her heart, gripping so tight she'd already begun to bleed.

Miranda knew. Miranda always knew. And she'd already betrayed her. And she'd already betrayed Donna, by being here, by even fucking touching her, by laughing with her and being her friend and listening to her deepest sorrows, because what choice did she have?

Horror rippled through her, sickening and awful. She'd have to make a choice before the end. She'd have to choose between Donna Beneviento and her own father.

She'd have to choose which one to betray.

Elena saw Lord Heisenberg's grim face, again, in her head, heard his bitter words. It's always gotta end this way.

And it would. One way or another Miranda would get what she wanted.

"Elena?" Donna asked, softly.

She tore away from Donna, a sudden spasm of movement, her breath harsh in her throat, her eyes hot. All of her, too hot. She clenched her hands as she backed off, as Donna stood there, hands still lifted, veil settled once again back into place, hiding Elena's one precious glimpse of her face.

"I-" Elena rasped. "I'm- I'm sorry, I'm so sorry-"

She turned and hurried away. Still such a coward. Still such a frightened little thing. She couldn't tell her the truth, because that would mean she'd made her choice and her father would suffer. She went not for her room, full of reminders of Donna and her father and herself, but for the attic, tearing down the ladder and scrambling into the dusty darkness.

She collapsed in Donna's old playhouse, full of dolls and childish things, and there she pressed her hands over her face and she screamed until her throat was raw, until she didn't feel anything, much less guilt, or shame, or fear.

And the worst of it was she knew Donna was down there, confused, abandoned. And she couldn't make the love go away, no matter how much she screamed and cried, how much she wished it would leave. Because Miranda would find it, too.

And when she did, she would take it. Steal it. Just like the rest.

***

When at last she emerged later- a day, she thought, though it was difficult to tell in the attic- the house was silent. She crept through the hallways, eyes aching, hair limp and bedraggled, but found nothing. No Donna, no Angie. A clock ticked in the reading nook, overloud in the silence. Motes of dust drifted in the air.

"I'm so sorry," Elena whispered, to the empty air.

She cleaned herself up, brushed out her hair, dressed in clean clothes. The gramophone and all its records had been put, neatly, away. Everything was neat, in fact, like the house of someone preparing to go away for a long, long time.

Had Donna gone away? Was she not coming back? Elena's whole body ached. She rubbed her hand down her face and groaned. She desperately craved tea, but she didn't think she'd be able to force anything down. She tried to make it anyway and her hands shook so bad she dropped the stupid teacup and shattered it all over the floor. Fumbling up the shards of crockery, she almost didn't notice the bud vase containing a single sprig of yellow flowers on the table, and the envelope set against it.

Her breathing stilled. She rose and took it, slitting it open with a thumbnail. Inside was a pressed flower- a blue gentian, delicate as rice paper.

The mountain garden?

Had Donna retreated there? Feeling ebbed back into her hands, stilling their shake. She was beginning to understand Donna's methods of communication, her inability to state some things directly, to leave clues and puzzles in place of words. If she...if she had left, or was too angry to talk, she wouldn't have left a clue like this, would she?

Elena chewed a loose scrap of skin on her bottom lip. She didn't really deserve such kindness, but saints, she'd take it.

She changed into her boots and buttoned up her coat. Trailing her fingertips over her rifle, she considered bringing it in case of lycans on the mountain path, then decided against it. They didn't seem to intrude past the borders of the estate grounds, and, besides, she was confident Donna would have dealt with them on her way up, if any got cocky.

Mist swirled down from the slopes as she left the house, curtains of fresh snowfall glimmering in the air. She blinked up at the sun, a pale circle glimpsed through cloud. After her hours crying in the dark attic she'd become sensitive to light. Maybe after long enough here she'd become like Donna, colorless and photophobic.

As she began climbing up the long mountain pathway up to the caves, she shook her head, trying to dispel her grogginess. She should have tried to drink some tea after all.

By the time she reached the cave and made her way through the darkness, the flickering lamplight guiding her way, the snow had thickened to a steady fall, already beginning to mound on crags and pine branches. The air thinned, her breath tightening in her lungs.

What do I say?

Sorry really wasn't gonna cut it.

Tell her the truth.

She'd understand. Wouldn't she? She'd get Elena's impossible situation. They could think of a way out, together. That way neither one of them had to be alone. At least if she got angry they could be mad together.

At last, Elena pushed her way through the unlocked upper door and into the garden meadow. Wind rushed her, a freezing gush that left her shivering and icy, the grass swept with endless waves of rippling mist. The colorless day had dimmed the flowers, reduced the ruins to looming, abstract shapes, like wrecked boats cast up against the reservoir shore. Elena squinted through the snow, holding her loose hair out of her face with both hands.

"Donna?" she called. She didn't see any sign of her, no black shape through the snow. She waded forward, damp, frigid stalks of grass slapping at her legs and dragging at her coat like a crowd of dragging hands.

"Donna!" She picked up her speed. Had something happened to her? Oh, saints, had she fallen? Her heart pounded. Had she slipped, and was she now lying broken and hurt? Like her parents, her sister, whatever had happened to Claudia.

"Donna!" Elena screamed. "Please, I just want to know you're okay- Donna-"

Around her, through the blizzard, came the croaking of crows. One dived through the snow, a ragged black tatter; she gasped and stumbled. Another, then another, until the air seemed full of darting, cawing shapes.

They swirled into a column, then into a form, coalescing before her as she turned colder than the next gust of wind.

"Looking for someone?" Miranda said, eyes glowing golden through the mist. She wasn't alone. One taloned hand rested on Andrei's thin shoulder, the boy shivering at her side, his arms wrapped around himself as if he couldn't get warm enough in this desolate, lonely place.

***

"Mother Miranda," Elena whispered.

She fell to her knees. All she could think is I should have brought my rifle.

"Stand," Miranda said. "Greet your friend. He's so excited to see you."

"She showed up at the door to your pa's house," Andrei burst out. "Can you believe it, Elena? She said if I behaved myself she'd let me come down to the sanctum where the priests bring all the offerings to the Black God! Can you imagine?"

"And he's been such a good lad so far." Miranda lifted her hand and stroked his hair, blond curls combed between her talons. "Now, Andrei. We mustn't do anything to change my opinion, must we? None of us should."

"No," Elena said. Her throat was dry. She swallowed and tried again. "I- I received your summons, Mother Miranda. I came straight away."

"Don't lie to me, Elena. You came for Lady Beneviento. My erstwhile daughter. How comforting, that you're so concerned for her safety. Have you been so vigilant with what I asked you?" Her talons went on stroking Andrei's hair, her other hand still gripping his shoulder. A crease appeared between Andrei's brows. How hard was she holding him?

"I've been doing just as you asked, Mother Miranda."

"Have you found what Lady Beneviento has been hiding from me?"

"I- no, Mother Miranda. She holds onto her secrets with all her power."

"All her power?" She cocked her head. "I control her power, child. I gave her her power."

Elena spoke without thinking. "I thought the Black God gave her her power."

Too hard. Red blossomed under the points of her talons, wicking through Andrei's white shirt. Elena heard him gasp; she stepped toward him on reflex, then jolted to a halt. Ice twined through her mind, scraped at her optic nerve.

She shuddered violently in place, tears welling in her eyes.

"Child," Miranda whispered. In reality. In her head. She wanted to claw at her own eyes, get her out, get her out, but she was locked in place, rigid as a statue. "All that time? You must have learned something."

I will hunt it from you if you don't tell me. I will tear into this boy and you will see the color of his blood on the snow. I will rend him limb from limb and stitch him back together and tear him apart again, just to make you talk, I will do this and show you the might of the Black God and you will fall on your knees in wonder and in fear. You know this.

Deeper, deeper. A black tendril, burrowing in.

I will find it and rip it loose. And I will not care what it takes along. Your name, perhaps. Your memories. Your very identity, and leave you empty as one of those dolls my daughter so dotes on.

And then I will move on to your father.

Shall I show you now?

"No," Elena spluttered out. Bloody froth spackled the snow. She lifted a trembling hand to smear it from her mouth. "No. No. She...she's afraid of it. Of her abilities...she can't control it properly but it's strong, it's so strong, it's...it's her memories. They're too traumatic. She can't...she can't make them go away. She can't make them leave her alone. That's it. Now please don't hurt Andrei, let him go, saints, please!"

The icy talons released her and she collapsed to her knees in the snow. Miranda approached her, still leading Andrei like a lamb. He no longer looked enraptured; now his gaze was hollow with fear.

"The thing you're trying to protect," Miranda told her, gently, "is a dream. A mask she wears because- you're right. She can't face herself. She never will. And beneath it...well."

She smiled. "Perhaps you'll find out."

"Tell my father I love him," Elena whispered.

Miranda nodded.

"I love my adoptive daughter," she said, "like I love all of you. What I ask is hard, child, I know. But I do it for those I love. Just like you."

Crows scattered, cast to the winds, taking Andrei with them. Elena knelt there until they were gone. She sniffed, hard, and scrubbed off her nose. It was running bad, snot tinged with blood. Miranda really had torn something loose.

You will fall on your knees in wonder and in fear.

Far away, a lycan began to howl.

***

Something had changed in the air of the house by the time Elena returned. She stood in the entryway, her shadow long across the polished floor. The lights were dimmed, the fire burned down to coals. Somewhere, muffled, she heard music, but it was scratchy and garbled, coming in on a bad signal.

She felt it again. Down, down, deep. Winding passageways. A great darkness, a hole in the world, pulling all things toward it.

"Donna," Elena whispered.

She stepped into the house. The silence didn't break. The music played on. She heard the clock ticking from the kitchen. The faint creak and groan of the old beams settling. The rumble of the falls underfoot, which she'd almost grown used to.

Almost.

She made her rounds, like she usually did. Looked in the kitchen, in the reading nook, peered under the sofas and in cabinets, like a child searching for monsters under her bed so she might sleep at night. She cleared away the tea things she'd gotten out earlier, and closed up all the cabinets for night. She shut doors, pulled curtains. She made the slow trip upstairs, to her room, and slung her rifle over her shoulder, where it pulled at her, the slight rub of its strap over her shoulder granting her something like comfort. She returned to the mezzanine just as the music cut off with a snarl, and the true silence rushed in, the emptiness that felt like a presence.

Bitterness in the back of the throat. Elena knew from hearing the village physicians talk that a sure sign of a head injury was the taste of blood on the tongue. Had she been injured? Had Miranda broken something in her, inside? Had Donna? The walls rippled around her as she descended the stairs, but it might have been her own fear, warping the world just the same as the pollen from the yellow flowers.

She reached for the chain at her neck and tugged it loose of her collar. The two keys jostled each other, silver and brass. She took up the brass one as she turned down the corridor papered in cabbage roses. It might have been her imagination, but the hall seemed darker than before, the wallpaper peeling at the corners, exposing black mold beneath. Her hair moved; a draught of musty air breathed up at her, from the elevator at the end of the hall. It was lit, brass gate gleaming bright as ever. As she approached, the light inside flickered.

Elena stopped before the grate. The music had come from there, she was certain. She stared into the elevator for a long time, psyching herself up.

You already faced your dead exsanguinated mother.

She'd gotten through that. She'd done the worst already. Right?

You can do this. You promised to help her.

Her palm was slick. She didn't move. The key weighed heavy in her hand, heavy down her arm. The same arm Donna had sewn back together. Bitterness filled her mouth.

Coward.

"You ran away."

Elena turned. The doll floated in the dark hallway, white lace glowing in the gloom, seemingly unsupported.

Elena cringed back. No, she wasn't alone. She was being held. A shadow. A specter in silent black silk, veiled and lightless and seeming to swallow all the light with her presence.

Donna.

The doll, Angie, flung up her hands, eyes rolling with the click-click of marbles against porcelain.

"Ohhh, she looks shocked!" Angie cackled. "That's funny, isn't it? You ran, and now you creep back with your tail between your legs and you have the stones to look surprised! I could just scream! I could just die laughing!"

"I- I didn't run away. Donna, please-"

"Donna, pleeeeeease," Angie mocked. The hallway shook. Tendrils of black mold twined from beneath the peeling wallpaper, radiating from behind Donna and Angie, reaching down the walls and toward Elena. Her back hit the elevator grille; it screeched in its track. "You. Ran. Away. You promised you wouldn't and now you broke that promise. You've been naughty! Naughty, naughty girl! I thought I taught you a lesson already."

"I'm a slow learner," Elena managed. "Donna, you can fight it. Fight her. Whatever she's doing to you, making you like this-"

A cascade of screeching laughter burst from the doll as she kicked up her spindly legs. "Making me?" she sputtered. "Oh, that's the funniest joke of all! This isn't the mask, Little 'Lena, this is the real me! Both of us together! Can you fight that?"

Elena's nerve broke. She brought up the rifle, intending to blast Angie into shards, but the gun dissolved in her hands, drifting away into curls of crow feathers. She yelped and spun for the elevator doors. Too late. Before she could so much as move, Donna and Angie rushed her, a patter of feet and billowing black fabric, porcelain hands grabbing and catching at her hair. She was wrenched back round, body moving like a puppet, each joint straining against the force gripping her.

Angie's hands caught her wrist and yanked it upward. Elena stared in horror; the seam down her face was cracking; it split open and tendrils writhed out, wet and pinkish-gray. They went for her hand and latched on, nosing against her for a moment before they burrowed in.

Panic seized her, a gibbering scrabble of terror and disgust. The tendrils turned dark and she realized the horrible doll was feeding on her, drinking her blood, the thing inside Angie's head gorging on her body and on her fear.

"Get off!" Elena yelped. "Saints get it off, get it off me-" Her other hand flailed upward, catching Donna's face. Catching the veil. The force ripped it clean off her head. It fluttered to the floor, revealing, for the first time, Donna's face.

The left side was as she'd seen. Beautiful as the portrait in the attic.

The right was a pulsating, swollen, tumorous mass of flesh. It ruptured from her eye socket, veined and slick, tendons and stretched skin warping the area from jaw to hairline out of shape. Short tentacles wriggled from the mass, the movement like maggots feasting on a dead animal.

Elena's mouth fell open. "Is- is this what you were hiding?" she whispered, somewhere past her terror.

Donna's brow creased. Her single eye blinked. And for an instant, Angie's hold on Elena loosened.

Enough. She ripped away from the doll, tearing the tentacles from her hand. Blood spurted from the punctures and over Donna's face; Elena tasted it in her own mouth. She shoved forward, the world rippling into indistinct smears of colors around her. Her hand collided with Donna's shoulder, and it was like being thrown- the floor lurched, the entire house tipping forward, tipping her not against Donna but through her.

And then sunlight pierced the world like it was no more than a veil. It poured over Elena and consumed her, pulling her, mind and body, into the nightmare.

[saintsofwarding]

BURIAL

Chapter 11

(You know it's gonna hurt. Don't you?)

"It's...it's not true. I know it's not."

(Don't be stupid, Donna. Everyone leaves you except me. Everyone betrays you. And it always hurts)

"Even you?"

(Silly Donna. I'll never betray you. I only want what's best for you)

"No you don't. She's what's best for me. She makes me feel-"

(Don't you dare say whole)

"She makes me feel in control."

(You think control is what you need? The guilt will eat you alive! Your dreams protect you, dummy! You won't be able to handle living when they're gone)

"And neither will you."

(Careful, Donna. I can put you somewhere far away. You know I can. You said it yourself. I'm stronger than you. But-)

A brush of porcelain fingers, cold as a corpse's.

(-we're so much stronger together)

"She's not working for Mother."

(They all work for Mother)

"Not like that! She's not her spy. She can't be, she can't, she helped me, she stayed. She came back-" Her thoughts scrambled and stuttered. She rose and paced back and forth and back and forth. The well yawned before her, its depths endless. It might have gone down forever. "She cares about me. She's not like Violeta- she accepts me. All of me."

(Silly little mouse. Caught in a trap)

"Shut up shut up shut up shut up-" She reached up, grabbing fistfuls of her own hair. Strands broke off between her fingers like wires. The tentacles on her face began to writhe and slap against her own skin, responding to her agitation. The pressure in her head built. She gripped tighter as her voice rose to a scream. "-Stop stop stop stop, I'm not listening, I don't hear you-"

(Yes you do)

"No I don't!"

(Yes you do, yes you doooo)

"No no no!" She slammed her fists into the wall, hard enough she felt her palms split and shear open on the rough stone. Blood trickled down her arms, twisting into her flesh. Her palms grew warm. She knew without looking they'd already begun to heal over. "No! No! No! Bad girl, bad Angie, bad ME!"

She railed and screamed and beat the walls and when she was done, her throat raw and scraped, she turned and collapsed back against the stones, breathing hard, clutching at her upper arms. A strangled keen escaped her, a weird animal sound, echoing through the darkness. The pulse inside her head went on, sickening, comforting.

Angie drifted before her like a small ghost. She nudged Donna, who opened her arms to let the doll settle in them.

(She doesn't know the half of it yet. It'll be just like last time, that ridiculous blonde creature with her stupid little shoes. You can't change the past, Donna. No matter how hard you try. Even if she showed you differently, it's only a dream)

"I can't hurt her," Donna whispered. A warm tear streaked down her face.

Angie leaned forward and licked it from her cheek. She chattered her teeth. (You won't have to. You have me)

Donna hugged the doll to her chest, half-wishing she could drop her down the well and watch the darkness swallow her.

"And what would I do," she whispered. "Without you?"

(You'll see)

(They always betray you)

(And we always have to kill them. Each and every one)

***

Elena heaved aside a heap of old furniture in the attic and found it. It stared back at her, lenses filmed with dust and tinged green. She'd seen a few around the village, left over from a great war that had, a long time ago, raged beyond the valley's borders, a war that Miranda had claimed to have protected the Black God's followers from, keeping the horrors of the outside world at bay.

A gas mask. She'd never worn one, but she knew its function- some of the workers Lord Heisenberg employed at the uppermost levels of his factory, processing the junkyard detritus he unearthed from the land around his domain, were issued the same sort. This one looked to be in much worse repair, its leather strap cracked and peeling, its olive green casing scarred-up. But, examining it, Elena found no holes in it, and when she fit it over her face and inhaled, the air tasted musty, hissing in through its strange elongated filter.

Let's hope it'll be enough.

She removed it and set it in a basket, along with the other things she'd gathered from the shack out in the garden. A set of long chains, and a pair of manacles, secured with a stout padlock.

Elena climbed down the ladder. She descended the stairs. Her shadow crept beside her, silent on the gleaming wood walls.

Donna waited below, Angie in her arms.

"I...I don't know," Donna began.

"It's going to work."

"If it doesn't, she'll kill you," Donna said. She squeezed Angie tighter. "She's told me. She'll hurt you. She'll trap you so deep inside yourself you'll never find a way out."

"So fight her."

"I'm not-"

"You'll have to be. If you want this to end." Elena gripped her hand, tight. "It's okay. We're in this together."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Donna nodded, her brow creased. She stood aside, showing the curious objects she'd assembled on the small table by the rocking chair. A collection of long taper candles. A lighter engraved with a strange many-headed beast. A black mirror, small as the palm of a hand, and so highly-polished it seemed like a perfect darker double of the world. A sprig of yellow flowers in a vase.

Elena heard her small inhale.

"It was easier," Donna said. "To be dead. To be a part of the dreams, not the dreamer. It was like sleeping forever. I told myself none of it was real. But now I must wake up."

"Some say the whole world is a dream," Elena said. "The Black God's dream. Or that we're all heading toward its dreams when we die."

"So then I really have been dead all these years."

"Then you're even more miraculous than I thought," Elena told her. "It's easy to die. Harder to return from death."

Donna faced her. The look on her face had changed. Still afraid, of course. Still so afraid, that nameless fear that was the undercurrent of all their lives, and yet something in it had settled. For the first time, Elena saw resolve in her single eye.

Donna reached forward, suddenly, and caught her by the hand. "Elena," she said.

"We should get-"

"Hush," Donna whispered, and leaned forward, drawing her hand up Elena's arm, to her cheek. Drawing her face to her lips.

Her mouth brushed Elena's.

Cold, still. Just a touch.

Once, twice.

And then again. Elena's hand came up to hold Donna's face, pulling her to her; the touch of her lips became something harder, became a kiss like falling. Her fingers in Donna's hair; Donna's hands at her face, cupping her jaw, pulling her in.

Her strange cold skin took on Elena's heat as she touched her. Finally, she felt alive. Her mouth tasted bittersweet like her flowers, the faint writhe of her face against Elena's somehow, against all odds, exactly what she wanted to feel.

She wouldn't have it any other way. Wouldn't have Donna any other way than this, now, monstrous and bitter and warm in her arms.

She pulled back, a little. Elena's lips felt bruised, her face flushed; Donna's eye was bright as she looked at her and gave a nod.

"Now we get started," she said.

"Yes, my lady," Elena told her, and at last Donna broke out in the smile she'd been waiting for, full and sweet, nothing held back.

She pressed her hand to Elena's chest, then turned, gathering up the candles. She gave half to Elena, and, together, they traced out a circle on the floor, around the rocking chair. Elena lit them one by one, and soon the darkened hall was full of their light, a sphere of flicker and glow that threw strange shadows on the far walls, made them seem to leap and dance as if they had minds of their own. Elena dropped the lighter in her pocket as Donna took a seat in the rocking chair.

Slowly, methodically, she lay the other objects down at the pointed toes of her boots. The polished black mirror, laying on the rug like a thing cut out of night, and, by its side, the vase with the sprig of yellow flowers.

Pollen drifted in the gloom and underlit Donna's face, throwing harsh shadow over the fine lines of cheekbone and jaw and eye socket. Elena imagined she could see the shape of Donna's skull beneath the skin, and shivered, at once cold.

Donna exhaled, settling Angie in her lap.

The candle flames lengthened, reaching toward the ceiling, long enough to snap.

"Now," Donna whispered.

Elena took up the chains. One manacle went around Donna's wrist; the other went around Angie's midsection. She wound the long chains around and around them both, around the rocking chair.

"Tighter," Donna told her. "I can escape this."

"I don't want-"

"Tighter," Donna hissed. In her lap, Angie's teeth began to chitter, her porcelain fingers clicking against one another.

Elena pulled the chains tighter; their links bit deep into Donna's clothes, leaving smears of rust on the black taffeta. Donna closed her eye; her lips fluttered.

The candle flames spat and flickered.

The padlock clicked in place. Throat tight, Elena knelt before Donna and touched her cheek. "Hey," she said. "You still there?"

"I'm here."

"Good." Elena stood back. "Okay. What now?"

The air pressure dropped. The temperature plunged; her breath became visible in the air, and a high scream sounded in the back of her skull, a buzz-saw through bone. She gasped and flinched, but stayed rigid, stayed where she was.

It's not real. None of it is real.

"You..."

Elena looked down. Donna's voice scraped from her. "You...know this will never work..."

"So prove me wrong. Come on."

"I'm...not strong enough...we...we're stronger together, she tells me so..." A burst of manic laughter escaped her. "She whispers to me at night, all about you, all about the way your skin tastes, the salt off its surface..."

"Come on, Angie, don't be disgusting," Elena said. Her hands tightened into fists at her sides. "Donna, you can fight it. Fight her."

"You don't get it. How can we look in a mirror and not see our whole selves?" Another course of laughter. It echoed around Elena, circling her; she heard pattering footsteps, the scrape of porcelain against wood. A sharp metallic ring, like a chorus of knives drawn.

Whispering.

Little tiny voices.

The dolls are watching.

She saw them staring from the windows of the dollhouse.

Something's inside.

"Break the mirror," Donna-Angie said. "Break the mirror and keep your eyes on what you can see in front of you. Break it and you never have to cry again. Break it all and forget!"

"Don't listen to her, Donna," Elena commanded.

Donna screamed; the sound tore from her, a physical force; it raked through Elena, shaking the foundations of the house. Wood creaked, walls groaning, dust sifting from the ceiling as Donna howled and twisted in her chair. The chain links strained and screeched. In her lap Angie woke, a malevolent light glittering in her eyes, kicking up her limbs as she twisted in turn against the manacle holding her in place.

"Not fair!" she screeched. She slapped at the manacle. "Not! Fair! You don't play nice, Lupu, not nice at all!" "Well, you started it." Elena pushed forward; her limbs shook, joints turned to water. It took effort, like walking against a ferocious wind. Another wave of screams burst from Donna, black liquid spurting down the sides of her mouth, dripping from her eyes and onto the floor. It writhed like worms. The black mirror shone in the candlelight, searing-bright. "Don't make me smash you into bad memories."

"And kill Donna?" The doll lowered her head. "You wouldn't do that, now, would you?"

"It wouldn't-"

"Oh, yes, it would." Her mouth fell open. "Ohhh, poor Elena. Thinking you might be able to...what? Save her from herself? Save that sad severed little piece of Donna Beneviento from the big bad monster made by her mind? Well, tough luck, sweetie! You get the whole deal...or you get nothing! Nothing, nothing, nothing!"

"Donna," Elena called. "Donna, listen to me. She's nothing. You said it yourself, she's just an old doll your father made, and you're all grown up now. You don't need her anymore. Tell her to go! Tell her to go away so far she'll never get out again!"

"Nothing, nothing, nothing." Angie had made a little song out of the word. "Nothing, nothing, nothing at all. Shhh."

Donna slumped backward, suddenly, her face so covered with black liquid Elena couldn't see her skin anymore; her neck was twisted back at a painful angle.

No- Elena stepped forward, heart pounding, but- her hands were still moving, twitching on the chair arms.

She stopped, breathing hard. Don't fall for it. Don't lose control.

Angie tittered. "Baby's sleeping."

"Donna," Elena said, between clenched teeth. "This is...this is just light, it's just memories. Like the projector. It isn't real."

"You're lying."

"I'm not-"

"You are. I know you are. You can't love her. You're going to leave her. Everyone does. You have to understand that I'm the only one she needs." Angie leaned forward as far as the manacle would allow. "You have to get that she's too weak for anything else."

Elena took a sharp breath. It hurt. The walls shimmered around her; on the edges, in the back of her mind, waited golden sunlight.

Donna was retreating. She'd regress again, so far away that Elena couldn't reach her. Reality was agony; that place, that dream, was far easier. Again and again she'd gone there, retreated there, leaving the rest of herself to wreak nightmares on the world beyond the borders of her mind.

She'd killed, Elena understood. She didn't know how many. She'd visited horrors on the innocent, on Violeta. On her. And still she couldn't leave her. Still she stayed, her body shaking with terror, not of Donna but for her, wishing she could go to her again and kiss her face and see if she'd wake up that way.

She wouldn't. Elena had run out of options. Only the truth remained.

I'm sorry.

"It was Miranda," she said.

Angie's mouth snapped shut.

"It was Miranda," Elena said again. Heat welled in her eyes; her throat was so tight she felt like she was being strangled. "Miranda...sent me here to spy on you. Or she would have killed me and my father. I...I could only think of him...too scared for anything else. And, saints, I'm sorry. I'm so, so, sorry, Donna, I told her about you. About you not being able to control your powers. About...what you told me, your secrets, your fears..."

Donna was lifting her head, black liquid streaming from her. Her eye was wide, shining. Angie began to laugh, low and dark.

"You did?" Donna whispered.

Elena couldn't speak. Tears streamed down her face as she nodded.

"It's true?"

She nodded again.

This time, Donna's scream tore through her like knives. The house erupted into darkness, a storm of screams and howls and shattering, the shadows rising in monstrous form, wolves and witches and nameless things with too many claws, too many eyes, crawling toward the ring of light as if they might extinguish it.

But Elena was ready. She was fast. She'd gotten fast.

She slammed the gas mask over her face and tugged the straps tight. It sealed around her face, and her next inhale tasted not of bittersweet flowers but stale air, swirling through her lungs. Nausea rippled through her; she doubled over and retched a mouthful of black slime into the gas mask. It spattered the inside of the glass, but it didn't writhe like before, no, didn't move at all.

Breathing hard, straightening, Elena stared out through the mask. It was already accumulating a rime of yellowish dust. That must have been the pollen. The house wasn't a chamber of nightmares anymore, just a hall with a ring of candles on the floor, and, before her, twisting and tearing at her chains:

Donna.

Her hair had come loose and hung around her shoulders in lank ropes, veins standing out against her pale face as she screamed and shrieked, black tears streaming from her eyes, the doll on her lap yelling abuse at Elena.

"Cheater!" she screeched.

"You shut up," Elena snapped at the doll. She looked at Donna. "I said I wouldn't leave you. I'm not lying. I know you'll get loose from those chains eventually. And when you do..."

She swallowed.

"Whatever you choose to do, I'm still gonna help you," Elena told her. "I trust you. I love you. Hold on."

She turned, already tugging the keys from her bodice, and ran. Down the darkened hallway, straight for the elevator.

Straight for the basement.

***

(You see? You SEE?)

"This isn't funny anymore, Angie!"

(Oh, I'm funny? How flattering)

"Just leave me alone..."

(To mourn? Poor Donna. I know you thought she'd be the answer to your loneliness but your answer was right in front of you all along...)

"I...I don't care."

Angie's eyes sprang wide. She drifted before Donna in the murky darkness, lace veil billowing around her.

(What)

"You can't bully me anymore."

(How dare you talk to me like that. After all I've done for you!)

"I...I know. And I used to need it. I used to want it. But I know now I can survive alone. And I don't care what you say."

They faced one another, now, like they had so many times before. The echoes of Donna's hoarse voice spilled around them, surrounding them. Surrounding her; for the first time in a long time her heartbeat spiked- not from fear, but from anger.

No: rage.

It boiled through her, a white-hot sear through her veins. Rage against Elena, against Miranda, against her parents, against her own weakness and silence and terrors. She wouldn't turn it against herself, not this time. Angie wasn't the issue here. Angie was a part of herself, always had been, a part she'd rather not face. But now here Angie was, looking her in the eye, commanding her body like a puppet. She saw, dully, as if watching a badly tuned television, her own body twisting and screaming in the chair, throwing herself against her chains so hard they'd leave bruises. Felt Angie's righteous hatred against Elena standing before her, dark eyes wide and focused on her with a ferocity Donna hadn't seen for a long time. If she had, ever.

She was so beautiful. She'd become so beautiful to her.

Fight it, Donna, she said. Come on. Fight it. Was it real? It didn't matter.

(No, Donna. She betrayed you. Now do to her what you did to everyone else you loved. Feel nothing. It's safer that way)

"I can't..."

(Let me do it. Let me hurt them. I can dream up tortures that would make even Dimitrescu shudder, just you wait and see! Prisons of nightmares. Endless. Glittering. Full of teeth. You know I can. I'll keep you safe)

"I...I don't need you to protect me."

(Don't do this, Donna!) A note of panic entered the voice. The sound of it changed, becoming more childlike, less sinister, a little girl's voice crying out for her. Claudia's voice. (Please, please don't do this to us-)

"No." Donna grabbed the doll in both hands. She writhed and gnashed her teeth but she hung on as tight as she could.

"I," she said, through grit teeth, "Don't. Need. You. Anymore!"

Angie began to laugh. The sound eclipsed the echoes of Donna's voice, the flare of her defiance burning through her; the darkness pressed in, twining up Donna's skirt and over her skin like tendrils of black mold. The doll's eyes gleamed as she leaned in.

(Little Dolly Donna. Then you leave me no choice)

She realized it an instant too slow. A call. An echo ringing down the mycelial connection that weaved around her, a web across the whole of the village, a web that connected them all. Donna, more so than most. And wasn't Angie a part of her?

"Angie, no," Donna choked, but it was too late.

(Better tidy up, Donna.

Mother's coming)

***

Elena didn't dare remove the gas mask. Tears dripped down her face, salty on her lips. She tried to steady her breathing, slow her heartbeat.

Just stay calm.

The elevator slid downward, downward, the rumble of its mechanism shuddering in Elena's gut.

Just keep going.

The sound of Donna's screams and Angie's cackling had long-since faded, and the silence had rushed in, the loudest noise that of Elena's too-fast heartbeat, thudding in her ears like a ceremony drumbeat.

She'd spat up a couple more mouthfuls of black liquid. It smelled floral. Was that the pollen's effect on her body? She had no doubt spores were deep in her brain, now. Maybe...maybe Donna had retracted her control once she'd put on the gas mask. Maybe a tiny part of her had recognized that Elena wanted to help her, and had relinquished control over her.

It was a small hope, a foolhardy one, but Elena would hang onto it with everything she had. She'd believe it.

Down, and down, and down, into the depths. The weight pressed on her mind, a surface tension easily snapped. The air chilled, like before, and the darkness came up to meet her, and then the light slid up from her feet to her scalp and the elevator was grinding to a halt with the wheeze of gears. Ding, it went.

Elena slid open the gate. Her first step creaked on the dusty floor. She paced ahead, past the door to the study, past the door that was locked. She tried it again, and it creaked open at a push. Inside was a storage room, shelves full of an enviable stock of fabrics, filing boxes, broken furniture, stacks upon stacks of old film reels for the projector. Nothing moved in the shadows; nothing was out of place.

Elena moved on. Her shadow moved alongside her. She felt a faint rumble underfoot- water? Surely not the falls, this far down. How far belowground was she, anyway? She'd tried to count during her descent but lost the numbers after she reached fifty. Deep in the cliffside.

That's where the Black God lives, the priests had said in church, once, reading from Miranda's tomes and treatise. Far, far below us, for the world is its womb, and the divine is birthed in its endless dreams.

These didn't feel like divine realms to Elena. The air was damp, crawling against her skin. Black mold dripped down the walls, infecting the antique furniture, the comfortable chairs, worsening the further down the hall Elena went. Deeper, deeper. She kept track of the hallways, the turns, but it all looked the same, whitewash and wood panels, gloom and flickering lights held within glass sconces on the walls. She passed the phone on its stand. It didn't ring. She hurried by and on, turning a corner, facing a hallway so pitch-black she could not see more than an arm's length ahead, even with the lit sconce behind her.

Her breathing quickened. The darkness seemed to shift before her- movement? Her fear making monsters where there were none? She reached for her flashlight and clicked it on. It illuminated, harshly, the whitewashed corridor, the darkened sconces, the cracked floorboards. Something skittered away from the light. She shone it up and flinched.

It glanced off doors. A pair of them, heavy wood with brass handles.

Elena clenched her teeth. There's nothing here. All your nightmares, they were inside you the whole time. A mirror, remember?

But still she felt it. Like a memory, forgotten. A terrible act, remembered not by her mind but with her body, with her nerves and her breath and the drone of dread in her gut. A weight, deep inside. A weight, warping the world around it out of shape, so heavy it pulled all things toward it.

Somehow, her foot moved. She stepped into the darkness. The sound of her breathing quickened inside the gas mask, the haze of pollen thickening on its lenses. The doors came closer. One was cracked, a gap of light shining from the far side.

She pulled open the doors.

Elena remembered this room. She'd seen it only through a haze of drugs and pain, when she'd first glimpsed Donna without her veil. Arm flayed open, being stitched back together. A low-ceilinged stone room, walls supported with rock arches. An ogre's kitchen from a fairy tale. The table was there, stout wood scarred like a butcher's block. From racks on the ceiling hung not corpse limbs but half-finished dolls, some missing eyes, some limbs, some their clothes, naked and sexless. Others were just heads, their wire armatures dangling below them like viscera. On shelves around the room waited doll parts, a sewing machine, a workbench arranged with paints and colorless glass eyes.

Through a bank of windows to her left Elena saw, lit with a blinding greenish light, what looked like a medical room, brown glass jars of chemicals lined up on counters, syringes and scalpels gleaming hungrily.

Something waited there, on a steel tray, on the countertop. A gleam of gold.

Elena moved closer. She stepped into the greenish light and stopped, staring down at the thing in the tray.

It was hair. A long, braided hank of blonde hair, attached to a scrap of bloody skin. The braid was secured with a red ribbon.

Violeta's hair.

The dread deepened. Elena felt it in her chest, on the back of her throat. Her heart pounded. Her nerves trembled, on the verge of fraying.

No. Don't you dare lose your nerve now. She could still be down here. Somewhere. She could still be alive.

Elena backed from the medical room, turned from the workshop, and stepped down an adjoining corridor. The hallway changed around her, transitioning from whitewashed walls to stout stone, slick with damp. The lights were now naked bulbs on wires, buzzing, releasing a faint wash of amber light that rendered all shadow twice as dark.

Strange objects waited on shelves. Broken dolls and odd little ornaments, music boxes covered in grime as if unearthed from a grave. Primitive statuettes with pits for eyes, carved from wood or crystal.

Elena clicked on her flashlight. It hit a door before her. This was different than the rest of the place. It looked ancient, wood warped and blackened, clinging to dark iron hinges that spiraled like goat's horns. The handle was dark iron, too, and carved into the door's center was the Beneviento moon and sun. It looked, like the statuettes, more primitive than Elena had seen before, as if this place was far older than the rest of the house. It looked older than anything Elena had ever seen before. Was this part of whatever had come before the house? Whatever had rested on this land centuries in the past?

She didn't know. But she recognized the metal of the handle, of the empty lock below. She reached for the keys around her neck and for the first time took up the small iron one, the key Violeta had seen fit to hide away.

It fit and turned. The lock dropped with a heavy thud. Elena felt it in the pit of her stomach. The hinges sang as she pushed the door wide, as it fell open to complete darkness.

She'd thought she'd seen dark before. Nothing like this. Nothing like this emptiness. Away, and away, echoes fanning into the void. She lifted her flashlight before it overtook her. Steps stretched downward, a descent into a black pit. Hand-chiseled, flagstone, slick with damp and years of grime. The dread deepened to a pulse.

You can't do it.

She did. Her foot slid onto the first step, and she kept going. Down, and down, and down. Her flashlight beam flickered; she gave the flashlight a smack and it steadied. Was it dimmer than before? It's your mind playing tricks. She couldn't let the fear win.

On and on through the wending halls.

The heavy mineral smell of the place was thick in her head, even through the gas mask. The smell of a deep world, decomposed.

Soon her hands and feet were numb. She kept going. Water dripped from somewhere ahead. An end to this purgatory of stairs?

Don't look back.

The flashlight beam caught on the jagged arch of an empty doorway and the slimy flagstones of whatever lay beyond. Elena stepped from the last stair and onto flat stone. Dust drifted in the air. Echoes plashed around her. She heard, again, water, and felt the humidity of the air on her bare hands.

The walls curved inward. A circular room? In the middle, something rose from the floor- a low stone wall?

No. A well.

Elena's breath caught. She stepped closer. It opened before her, a mouth, an empty eye. A yawning circle of perfect blackness. Rusty rungs were bolted into its sides. Elena moved to its edge, then stopped. Her flashlight beam had touched something on the far side of the room. Something slumped. A flash of gold.

She lifted the beam.

For a moment she wasn't sure what she was looking at. A mannequin, surely. Its white legs were sprawled, one bare foot twisted to the side. Fine black lines circled its ankles, its knees. Elena's gaze traveled up the legs, past the long skirt embroidered with red silk flowers. The matching bodice, the dangling, boneless arms, the hands curled against the floor. The head, twisted sharply to the side. Long ringlets of blonde hair fell around its face.

Glass eyes stared off into nothing.

"V...Violeta?" Elena whispered.

It was her. But it was a doll, too. Those weren't lines on her limbs, they were joints, as if each part of her body had been disarticulated and put back together. Her skin was glossy like porcelain, two red circles painted on her cheeks. Her hinged mouth hung open, her eyes wide and sightless, one cracked down the middle.

Elena began to shake. No. No. The doll's chest was split open as if with an axe chop. A curled, tentacled shape waited inside. Maybe it had once been fleshy, fetal, but now it was white crystal, glimmering amidst patches of sticky dried gore.

Elena couldn't move. She felt locked in place, unable to so much as breathe. Somewhere, her mind screamed at her to run, get out. But all she could do was stand, locked in place, and stare at the thing slumped there against the wall, half-waiting for it to move.

But it wouldn't, would it? Violeta had said so herself, in her journals. Donna had tried to give her the gift. And the gift had rejected her.

"Poor, poor Violeta."

A lightning-sear. A crack through Elena's whole system. It brought her back to life, broke her paralysis. She whirled. The flashlight beam fell on Angie and Donna, standing in the doorway behind her.

"What did you do to her?" Elena's voice grated from her throat.

"To her? Tried to save her, ungrateful thing. She saw Donna's face and oooh, didn't like that very much. So shallow." Angie chattered her teeth as she raked her hand down the cracked side of her face. "Called us a monster. So I showed her what monsters do. I showed her Claudia. Just to scare her. And it did!"

She let out a cackle. "We thought she was gone for good but she came back. Said she wanted to talk. But talk was not what she wanted, oh, no. She had a knife, smuggled out in her skirts, and she almost got us, too. Nasty, nasty. So we showed her something else scary and in the struggle and the screaming she fell down the stairs and cracked her head right open."

Angie shrugged.

"So...Donna gave her a piece of her gift," she went on. "It didn't work. She didn't come back to life. But look at her now! Isn't she pretty?"

"It-" Elena's mind raced. "It wasn't you, then. It was only a mistake. She wasn't supposed to die, was she?"

She looked at Donna, holding Angie, silent behind her black veil. "None of it was your fault! Not your parents and not Violeta. You wanted to save them all-"

"Not our fault?" Angie's shriek echoed off the walls. "I'll show you what's our fault! I'll show you right now!"

She sprang from Donna's arms and into the air, smacking into Elena and hanging on with hooked porcelain fingers. She was surprisingly heavy; Elena screamed and swung round, but the doll clenched down. She felt her scrabble at the back of Elena's gas mask, felt the gnawing of sharp little teeth-

"Get off me!" She swung round again, for the wall this time, hoping to scrape the little monster off, but-

Oh, saints-

Cold air rushed over her face. She held her breath, but maybe it was too late, maybe breathing it didn't matter. Maybe it had been in her all along.

The dream rippled before her, through her, and she slumped as Angie leapt from her and back to Donna's waiting arms.

Elena panted, breathing lungfuls of the pollen-filled air. What was the difference now? She lifted her eyes to Donna, understanding. A hole in the world. A weight that pulled all things down with it.

"You killed Claudia," she said.

[saintsofwarding]

BURIAL

Chapter 10

She collapsed into deep grass, lush and golden, the air full of the warmth of summertime. She rolled with a gasp; a sky swirled overhead, bright white, tinged with gold. Trees waved in a breeze. Birch trees, she saw, their trunks smooth and pale and scabbed with black markings like eyes. Their yellow leaves whispered, whispered.

Insects droned in the grass. Elena spat out a strand of her hair. It felt real. Everything- the wind, the grass, the sun's warmth on her face- felt as real, more real, than the world she'd left, a scrape of darkness and blood, rapidly retreating. She lay and breathed for a moment, her brow creased, her hand leaking blood from its puncture wounds. Then she shot to her knees and stayed there, staring into the too-real forest around her.

Where am I?

It rippled as the wind blew, a swirl of leaves and sunlight. Yellow flowers grew in abundance, their pollen drifting through the birch trees and around her. It settled on her hands, her shoulders, numbing her skin. In the distance, Elena heard the faint sound of laughter. It rang through the woods, through the pathways of her mind, hazy and warped.

Elena got to her feet, pollen and leaves raining from her and to the ground. She glanced back, but there was nothing, no gateway back to reality.

Nothing but more forest, more flowers.

She followed the laughter. Around the trees, down a short slope, the flowers thickening, the sunlight brightening as the trees thinned and a meadow appeared, spreading on and on before her. It was almost entirely yellow flowers, such profusion that they seemed an ever-shifting, ever-glowing carpet of light. On its far side, a house rose from the woods, abandoned and empty and falling apart, its red door hanging off its hinges. She recognized, as if from a half-forgotten dream, the look of the roof tiles, the shape of its silhouette, though she'd only seen it before from above. The sky above was white, impossible to tell the time of day. Maybe it would never change.

Pressure swelled in her head. Her ears popped, then rang. She shook her head, swaying a little in place.

The air shimmered. Now there were two figures in the meadow, sitting together on a blanket spread over the grass.

Elena's lips parted. She recognized Donna, veiled once more, her knees drawn up to her chest. By her side, her long, wavy hair shining in the strange timeless sunlight, was Violeta. Her round face was alight with a smile; she wore the beautiful clothes from the wardrobe, the intricately-embroidered blouse and skirt.

They spoke, though Elena couldn't hear their words. They were garbled and chopped-up, not words at all but the memories of words, of conversations, maybe dozens, played out over time. She crept closer, all the way to the edge of the meadow.

The air shimmered with prismatic reflections. The birch eyes blinked and quivered around her, their irises slick and shining. She didn't look at them. She didn't want to see what might be reflected in them.

She watched as Donna leaned closer to Violeta, as she lifted a hand. It shone in her palm: the amber clip, a chunk of the honey-colored stone huge as a bird's egg, moth trapped at its heart.

Violeta gasped, then took Donna's hand, clasping it between her own.

Stay with me.

The words rose from the garble of sound, clear and sharp.

Stay with me forever.

Violeta reached out. She took the edge of Donna's veil, and began to draw it up.

Let me tell you everything.

Elena stepped backward. A twig crackled underfoot.

Donna's head snapped round.

"You."

The word hissed to her core. Donna rose; Violeta stayed frozen behind her, trapped in time like that moth within the amber.

Donna stalked forward. The wind picked up, a swirl of pollen and petals; the trees leaned in, the limits of the forest darkening. Elena stepped back again, but the darkness rushed toward her, mist and gloom eating up this beautiful golden place piece by piece.

Cries shuddered from the trees; black tears began to ooze from the birch eyes. They were real eyes, now, gray eyes, bright and beseeching.

"You- ruined- everything!" Donna lunged for her. Elena screamed, but it wasn't her voice. This wasn't her body. The hair falling down her shoulders was golden, her skin paler; she clenched the amber clip in one clammy hand.

"Donna- please-" but as her hands closed around Elena's throat, the darkness rushed in, and the world twisted sideways.

***

Cold plunged through her. She dropped to her knees, choking and gasping for breath, the feeling of Donna's fingers still sharp around her neck. Black fluid spattered the snowy ground. Snow, and stones, and yellow flowers sprouting incongruously from the dead earth. She looked up as blizzard wind swirled past.

The village rose around her. But it was changed. Wrong. Mist drifted through empty windows, past the points of broken glass. Things howled into the darkness, the houses crooked, dilapidated. Torn, fading, like photographs left out in the rain. Something dripped, somewhere, and the wind was full of the sound of creaking metal, the rhythmic thud of an unlatched door, like a heartbeat.

Elena rose. The village looked...ruined. Apocalyptic, subjected to unimaginable calamity. Like the crystal city, from Donna's story. A perfect paradise, destroyed.

She stepped forward. Her boot crunched on something- a sharp brittle snap. She looked down to find her jawbone amulet, broken cleanly in two.

"It was supposed to protect you." She looked up with a gasp. Her father stood before her in the snow, hunched and gray, knotted old hands clutching at his upper arms. His eyes were so deeply shadowed she saw them only as twin points of light.

"No," Elena told him. "I left it to protect you."

"It's all a trick." Her father's hands tightened on his upper arms. "A game, 'Lena. A shadow play, like the animals I used to make for you on the walls. Birds and wolves...you'd laugh but you always looked round to see the shapes my hands made. We cannot be protected. There is no end to this. Only darkness. For all of us."

"I can't beat her, Pa, I can only play her game..."

The howling drew closer, the snarls and tearing sounds of animals fighting over meat. The wind blew cold, and as it swirled around her the mist rose, and her father began to fade into it, to be drawn back into nothingness.

"Wait- no!" Elena scrambled forward, broken necklace falling from her hands. It's only a trick, a game. "Wait, Pa-"

She skidded after him, through the mist, the buildings looming from the fog. Houses and stores, the Maiden of War jutting at an angle from the gray. The world seemed skewed, wrong, things all in disorder. Like a dream. Elena whirled- one way, another. Her breathing echoed back to her, reflected off the fog.

"Pa!" she screamed.

Her voice faded into nothing. She made herself breathe, made herself think. Yellow flowers still grew around her. She bent and touched one, rubbing her pollen-sticky fingers together.

It's only a trick.

She straightened, letting out her breath, and began to walk. The village melted away, and the mist rose like waves, until she walked through a wasteland, a void of snow and mist and endless gloom, nothing but her own breathing and her own footsteps and the yellow flowers to keep her company.

Until she saw it. Dark, rising. It drew nearer as she kept walking, taking on form. Familiar towers, familiar finial. The great empty eye of its attic window staring out over the mountainside, the same blind view it had stared at for so many long years.

The house. She was back at the house. A specter looming through fog. But it was wrong, too, the pieces warped, shuddering as she watched as if through uncertain vision. The windows seemed too large, and at them she glimpsed pale doll faces staring outward with glassy eyes.

A dollhouse.

The rest of the world took shape. Mountains and forest and gardens. The waterfall rushed and rushed, at at the parapet, at the very edge of the world, stood two figures arm in arm.

Great gleaming dolls, she saw in a gutless instant. Porcelain, their jaws hinged, their fingers jointed and lifeless, each one dressed in outdated, childlike style. A boy doll in breeches and tailcoat. A girl one in lacy petticoats, a bow at her neck.

"W...wait-" Elena struggled to rise. As she did, a scream echoed out. A little girl, standing close by, staring at the two dolls in anguish. Pale, she saw, but not like she was now; there was color in her cheeks, her hair not yet brittle but black and braided down her shoulders.

"Don't look," Elena cried.

But the little girl didn't look away, and when the dolls tipped backward she reached out. But black roots twined from the earth, roping her to the ground, and she could only watch as the dolls plummeted off the edge of the cliff and into the nothingness beyond.

Elena ran for them. Too late. They were lost in the mist. A dizzying drop. Her head swam. It opened before her: the drop, the darkness, circling round and round and round again. It yawned, a black circle, the mouth of a well, a hole in the world.

Young Donna was beside her, now, her gray eyes wide, flickering back and forth as she too searched the mists.

Blood on the rocks-

Put them back together. Put them together again. That she couldn't see, no, no, she didn't want to see, didn't want to look. How long had she tried? So long the blood was cold. She couldn't find all the pieces. The teeth were the hardest part. So small, and so many of them.

-so thick I smelled it on my clothes for days on end. Not even washing would do-

"I saw them," Donna whispered.

Elena looked up at her. "What?"

"Leave the house. I saw them. That morning. Hand in hand. Like children walking to school." Still she stared down into that hole, that well. "I knew. Something in me...some instinct. But I didn't go after them. Not until I saw them at the edge."

"You were a child."

"But I knew. And I didn't stop them. That's like I did it. That's like I pushed them."

"Did you?"

"No."

"Then you're not responsible." Will you be responsible if Miranda kills your father? "You didn't kill your parents, Donna. It isn't your fault."

"Maybe." A whisper. "But it never changes. I wake up and they're gone and I can't stop seeing it and thinking what if. What if I had called out. What if I had just been faster..."

What if I had stopped my mother. What if I had gone with her, warned her. We didn't want her to go, me and Pa. If we had just tried, if we had just begged...

"I know," Elena whispered. "Out there...nothing changes. But in here..."

Donna met her eyes. She still had both hers. Even as a child, she'd looked peaky, ill, a strange plant grown up far from the sun.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"In here it's a dream," Elena told her. "In here you can see what you want to see. You already do. Your parents weren't porcelain. They weren't...they weren't dolls. They were people. You made them dolls so you didn't have to look at them. But...you have to now. So that you can do it again. And you can see that it's all a dream. The idea you could have saved them. The idea that it was your fault that you didn't."

Donna's brow creased. She licked her lips and looked down again, over the cliff's edge.

"It won't be different," she said. "Out there."

"It might be. For you."

"You ran away."

"No. I didn't. And I'm so, so sorry it seemed like I did." She took a breath. "Do you need my hand?"

"Yes." She held it out. Young Donna took it. Her grip was cold inside her glove.

"So do it," Elena told her. "Make it all happen again."

"I...I can't control..."

"Don't be scared." She squeezed her hand. "Yes, you can."

The well yawned. It rose. The darkness returned to the world, and cascaded over them, and when it cleared Elena stood by Donna once more. Two ragged figures stood at the cliff's edge. Donna's hand trembled in Elena's. She stood rigid, eyes wide, reflecting the figures.

A tear broke down her cheek.

"Wait!"

Her voice split the silence, ragged and raw. The figures stopped. "Wait," Donna said again. "Please, just wait- please don't fall."

They looked back. They weren't dolls anymore. They weren't Donna's parents, either. One was Donna herself. Older, paler, growth swelling from her eye socket. The other was smaller. A little girl, nine or ten years old, a mirror image of Donna as a child.

The spray from the waterfall whipped her black hair round her shoulders. She smiled back at Elena, far too sunny a look for her situation.

A pulse in the world, in the pit of Elena's gut.

"I'm sorry," Donna whispered.

Claudia turned. The other Donna dissolved, crumbling away into a cascade of yellow petals. Claudia stood alone at the cliff's edge, a sprig of yellow flowers in her hand. She held it up.

"Look, Donna," she said. "Look what I can do."

"Claudia..." Donna whispered.

Her sister laughed. It echoed through the fog. "It always has to be this way," she whispered.

Donna brought up her hands. The sky split open. Sunlight blazed, dense and golden, and consumed them both, devouring the dream whole.

***

Donna stared at her with her single eye. A heartbeat. Another.

Then she crumpled. Angie fell first, clattering to the floor, all limp limbs and hanging mouth. Elena ignored her and dived for Donna, catching her before she went down. She was surprisingly heavy, her limbs cold and dense as cement. Elena gasped for breath, the visions still swirling behind her eyes. Is this real? Is this real?

But the hallway didn't change. Angie didn't move. And the minutes stretched, and nothing happened, and Donna lay slumped in Elena's arms.

At last Elena felt her own limbs again. She couldn't think. She could only do. Up on your feet. Yes, that's it. She dragged herself upright. Her hand dripped blood; she'd deal with that later. She toed Angie aside and heaved Donna down the hallway, into the main hall. There was nowhere good to put her down here so with immense effort she got her upstairs and into her own room and half-shoved, half-dropped her into her bed.

Her head went clunk against the railing- "Shit," Elena hissed, diving to replace it somewhere more comfortable. A pillow, yeah, that would do. She put her feet onto the bed, one by one, then pulled off her boots and set them by the foot of the bed. Her stockings were ancient, full of holes, so much so that one toe poked through. Surprising; Elena would have thought Donna would keep her own things in perfect repair.

Her vision shone white around the edges. Was she about to pass out or something? She didn't. All her strength was gone. She slid to her knees by the bedside and stared at Donna as she lay there unconscious.

Her breathing was deep and even. Nothing looked damaged. Except for her eye growth, of course. Fascinated, slightly repulsed, Elena watched its pulsating movement, the slick translucent gleam of it in the light, the complex tracery of dark veins that connected it to the rest of her face. Did it go all the way down into her skull or was it surface-level? She wanted to get a pencil, gently prod the little tentacles, but she figured that would be pretty rude.

"You loved her, didn't you?" Elena asked. "Violeta."

Donna went on sleeping.

"What happened to her?" She reached up. Her hand shook from exhaustion, but she managed to stroke Donna's hair. It had come loose in the scuffle, and she gently twisted it back into place with its jet clip. "Where did she go? You know, don't you?"

Her face was so still. Almost calm. But there was a line between her brows that did not ease. Elena brushed her thumb over it. It didn't go away.

"Where are you, in there?" Elena murmured.

She ended up sleeping there, slumped at Donna's side, a highly insufficient throw pillow wedged behind her head. She woke, bleary, sometime later. Her view of the sky outside her window told her nothing- it could have been early morning, late evening, afternoon. Snow whispered against the ledge. Her eyes felt like they'd scarred over as she slept, but she knew if she didn't get something to eat and drink she'd probably pass out for real and never wake up again.

So Elena dragged herself to the kitchen and made tea and assembled a kind of crude sandwich from bread and various leftovers and brought it all back upstairs. Her beautiful clothes were covered in blood and black fluid so she changed from them and into her old skirt and blouse, the fabric now roughspun to her hands, but worn and comfortable. She bandaged up her hand between bites of food and slowly began to feel stronger, more centered. But not more herself. She wasn't sure she'd ever feel like herself again.

What had she seen, deep in Donna's mind? She tried to sort it out, tried to get it all straight in her head. Her closeness with Violeta. Her guilt surrounding her parents' deaths. But...Claudia had been there too, and Donna had seemed so frightened of her, so horrified to see her. That didn't go with what she knew about Donna's sister.

She'd loved her, hadn't she? She'd been broken by her death, so broken it had forced her to turn to Miranda.

Saints, this is all so messed up. She couldn't keep it straight. Her thoughts felt like a basket of tangled wool, skeins so snarled there was no hope of picking them loose again. She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead and concentrated on eating. All this turmoil of the mind, it wouldn't do to neglect her body.

She must have dozed again. When she woke, it was to Donna, awake now, sitting in Elena's bed with a blanket over her legs, a cup of tea in her hands.

"Hello," Donna said.

Elena blinked.

"...Hello," she said.

Donna's lips twitched. "You look tired," she said. She was one to talk; she sounded tired. Something else, too. A quality of her voice. Its rasp had deepened, its enunciation slightly softened. She sounded more...real, that was it. Less like she was reciting words, more like she was just saying them.

"Yeah, I feel awful," Elena said.

"Mm. I can imagine."

"You have any herbs for that?"

"I can probably scrounge something up." She paused. "I attacked you."

"You sure did."

"We...attacked you."

"Is there a difference?"

"No."

"All this time," Elena said. "I thought Angie was doing this. That she had you under some kind of...enchantment, or something, that she was keeping you on her string. Now I see. It's the other way round."

Donna gave a faint laugh. "Is it?"

"You tell me!"

"I meant what I said," Donna told her. "She's a part of me. She is me. She always has been. She...we...together...as one..."

She paused.

"She's stronger than me," she said, haltingly, as if trying to explain was difficult. "She's...become stronger than me. And when she's in control she gets mean with her games. I shouldn't be surprised. I made her that way."

"You made her?"

"So that I could live. Otherwise I would be dead. She's the piece of me that's the most alive. That wants to be alive."

Elena blinked. She took a hearty swig of tea, wishing for the first time she had her father's dreadful bottle of homemade whiskey to mix with it. "Well," she said, "she almost murdered me, and succeeded in drinking my blood, so."

Donna's face quivered. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Look, I-"

Donna babbled over her. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't want to lose you. I always ruin it." She pressed her fingertips to her mouth. "Because it's me. I try but it's all me. It all keeps being me. Everything, all torn up."

Her hand slid over her face as if to hide herself from Elena. Elena stayed with her as she sobbed, curled at her bedside, saying nothing. What could she say? What could she do? At last Donna's weeping subsided and the silence came in.

"I'm sorry," she said again.

"You don't need to apologize."

"You probably want to leave."

"See, that's the thing of it," Elena said. "I don't. Does that make me as messed up as you?"

Donna laughed, suddenly, hiding her mouth with one hand. "Yes, probably."

"I think so too."

"And...and this...?" Donna gestured to her facial growth. "What about this? Does this bother you?"

"I...uh. Does it hurt?"

Donna's expression softened.

"No," she said. "It did, when it first came to be. It swelled and grew from my skull, and my eye...I felt it burst like a piece of rotten fruit. I had to snip it, you know. The nerve. With the tip of my scissors. The remnants of my eye crystallized in my hand and I knew it was another piece of myself I would never get back. But it was all right. My vision had long since gone dark, and the dead eye would have festered if I hadn't."

Elena slowly set aside her cup of tea. "Why do you have it?"

"It came with the gift. Mother's gifts always come with a price."

"Even Lord Heisenberg's?" Given what she'd seen he could do, Elena couldn't imagine a downside to his abilities.

"Oh," Donna said, "his very much so. He came here, you know. Many times. After I became Miranda's daughter. I think he came on Miranda's orders."

Elena shifted in place on the floor.

"To watch me," Donna went on. "Spy on me. Perhaps it was for his benefit too. He has a...curious mind. But I...oh, I didn't want visitors. So I did things to him. He did not yet know the form my gifts took so he never saw me coming."

Her eye brightened, the gray of its iris pale in the gloom. The look of her face in the half-light would stay with Elena for a long, long time.

"I trapped him in his nightmares," Donna said. "I showed him horrors that would crack any lesser mind. And at their core, deep, deep down, I found him. The real him. A scared child, stolen and cut open and betrayed. Just like we all were."

Her words sent a shudder of cold through Elena. She thought of the Four Lords in the church, ensconced within candlelight and gold, revered and feared all at once. Demons, and protectors, and monsters in the night.

"The other lords?" she said.

"Yes."

"That isn't..." Elena started. "Even...even Lady Dimitrescu?"

"Once," Donna said. "Yes. She was lured and given her gift by force, yes, but that was not the beginning, no. It's love Mother starts with, once the sinew is snipped and the organ is freed. Love, so that we do not want to run away. And once we realize our mistake, it's too late."

She smiled a little.

"That's the secret of it all," she said, her voice soft. "My true power. I know things. I know far, far too much. All the things they fear. All the things they hide, so deep they can almost pretend they are not there at all. My power isn't a knife, it's a mirror, and I see all that it reflects. And I lock it all away. Here."

She gestured to the house. "And here." She pressed her finger to her temple, then let her hand drop to the blanket, a curled white spider.

"And by the time people get close," Elena murmured, "you've already got them snared with the flowers."

Donna's smile widened, showing a hint of incisor, then fell.

"You face the mirror too."

Donna nodded. "Sometimes I do not know what's real and what's not." A pause. "This is real, right?"

"I'm fairly confident."

A hint of a smile returned to Donna's face. "I faced it," she said. "Didn't I? Inside. I faced my parents."

"You did."

"You helped me face it."

"Uh-huh."

"Thank you."

Elena took her hand and squeezed it, like in the dream. "Sure," she said. "Now will you tell me something?"

"What?"

"Where's Violeta?"

Donna tensed. For a handful of heartbeats, Elena thought she might strike again, might come back with the face she'd used the night before, might send her into another dream. But she simply slid her hand from Elena's and faced forward.

"What happened to her?"

"She's gone." Her voice was tight.

"Did she die, too? Like your parents?"

"I don't want to look. I don't want to."

And Elena didn't want to argue. She hurt too bad, inside and out. "Fine. I'll go...I'll go find an armchair to curl up in or something.."

"Elena."

She looked up.

"You helped me," Donna said, simply. "You risked everything to help me. You didn't have to, and yet you did. I'm so grateful for that, and for you. You are...you are the best thing that has come to me for so long. The best thing."

Elena nodded.

"Are you afraid of me?"

Elena nodded.

"Thank you."

"For being afraid?"

"For not lying."

"You're the best thing that's come to me, too," Elena told her. "And I'm not gonna stop helping you. There's a way, now. Not to change the past but stop it from killing the future. It's not dead. It doesn't have to end- well. The way you think it's gonna end."

"I don't want you to get hurt."

"I've already gotten hurt."

"I don't know if I'll be able to stop- us. Next time."

Her, and Angie. The thing they were together. The thing they were once two were made whole. Elena glanced toward the door, then back to Donna.

"Sleep now," she told her.

"Dream?"

Elena laughed wearily, lifting Donna's hand to press a kiss to her knuckles. "Not if you can help it."

***

She set out into the deep winter evening, heading through fresh snowdrifts, through falling snow, for the glimpse of the ruined house she'd seen from the attic window, and again in Donna's nightmare. Her rifle was slung over her shoulder. This time, it wasn't going anywhere.

She'd almost forgotten it in the deluge of images she'd seen in the dream, but the more she thought about it the stranger it got. Everything else she saw had been significant to Donna, so why had it appeared with her and Violeta? There was little point in speculating. She had to see for herself. She descended through the gatehouse and into the clearing that held Claudia's grave.

The snowfall had extinguished most of the candles, and Elena paused at the grave's foot to give it a moment of inspection. Now the writing on the slab made sense. -a Beneviento. Where was the rest of it? Maybe Donna herself had broken it, so she wouldn't have to remember. Now its epigraph- a Beneviento- became anonymous. Any one of her dead could be buried there.

Even herself.

Elena fished a box of matches from her coat pocket and knelt to relight the candles. Soon they shone again, making the yellow flowers that surrounded them seem to shift and glow. Beautiful, as it always was, even knowing.

She turned away from the grave, facing the gardens, and set off. They sloped upward, a gradual incline, a thickening of trees and falling-away of fences and statuary until the undergrowth became wild, unkempt, the path almost lost underfoot, obscured by snow and briars.

A cold wind winnowed down from higher up; Elena tucked her chin into her scarf and squinted through the mist, looking for the first glimpse of a dark, looming shape. Lycans howled in the distance, but they sounded far-off, all the way back down in the valley, and she didn't think they'd scent her up here.

Still, her fingers curled tighter around the strap of her rifle. She wasn't about to trust everything she heard nowadays.

A creaking sound echoed from the mist. Elena glanced up- a birdcage, hanging from a lower limb of one of the trees. The fence came into view, then, a scrap of old wood and rusty nails clinging to life. The gate hung off it, wrought-iron, the Beneviento moon and sun worked into its design. Elena pushed it wide, then released it, and it thudded back into place, buffeted by the wind.

The house rose beyond. A ghastly old thing, abandoned, wind-haunted. Its brick walls were nearly black with damp and decay, with twining creepers. Briars nearly obscured its lower floor; they twisted through the windows and massed over the ground. Thorns snagged at Elena's skirt as she picked her way up the front path, watching for the first sign of any movement. The warm, sunlit place she'd glimpsed in the dream was gone, if it had ever been real at all. This place was dead.

But not empty. She tasted a hint of bitterness on the wind. Her imagination? Didn't matter. She'd find answers here of one kind or another.

Traces of red paint still clung to the door. Elena tried the handle, braced her shoulder against it and shoved, but it was locked; she stood back, grit her teeth, then aimed for the keyhole. The rifle blast echoed down the mountainside, shattering the lock to shards of metal and wood. Elena gave the door a push with her foot, paused, then stepped over the threshold, keeping within the wedge of light filtering in from the fading day.

Gloom washed over her, thick and grimy. She pushed a brick up against the door to keep it from falling shut and took her flashlight from her pocket, shining the beam over the shambles within, but it made little difference. The darkness here seemed heavy, opaque, the milky beam barely giving her a better sense of the place.

It was a two-story cottage, bigger than most houses in the village but nothing compared to House Beneviento, and yet as she made her way through it the walls seemed to twist and move around her, doorways opening in walls, hallways twining off through shadow, its layout warped by years of decay. Floral wallpaper clung to the walls, and all the furniture was still in place. Elena peered into a front room, armchairs arranged around a low table and a fireplace, statues of saints and a framed image of Miranda in pride of place on the mantelpiece. A pair of carpet slippers still sat by an armchair, as if waiting for their occupant, and coats still hung in the hall closet. Moths fluttered in the gloom, disturbed by Elena's presence, by the unwelcome intrusion of her light. They danced through the beam, wings gray as dust.

Black mold dripped down the walls, and damp squished under Elena's boots, rugs eaten away by the elements. The kitchen was much the same, and the small study, its shelves stocked with illegible books. Dead plants in pots were set along the windowsills. Elena thought she recognized the husks of Donna's yellow flowers. So she'd come here, once, or at least knew this house's occupant. Who could it be?

She found something of an answer in a photograph hung in the corner of the study, over a roll-top desk now encrusted in dust and lichen. A family- a kindly-looking bearded man, a plump woman with red cheeks and a kerchief, a pair of children. She peered closer. The man had a pin on his lapel, and though it was difficult to make out for sure, she was fairly certain it was the Beneviento house crest.

A gardener, then, or groundskeeper? The photograph looked old. Elena turned it over to find a date written in the upper corner. It was some twenty-five years in the past. So...judging from what Donna had said regarding herself and Claudia, it was far before she'd become head of house Beneviento and its sole surviving member alike. Had these people served her parents? Or...

Her skin crawled.

Had they served Donna, too, and died because of it?

When Angie's in control, she gets mean with her games.

Elena replaced the picture. As she did, something thudded against the floor upstairs. She whirled, shining the flashlight toward the ceiling, her nerves at once alight. Eyes wide, she waited, one, two, three. Another thud made her flinch. After it came something like- the rattle of a chain?

She unslung her rifle and cocked it back, a sharp, decisive snap. Enough with chains. With an exhale, Elena headed for the stairs. They wound up, and up, the spine of the house, and spilled her out onto a landing. Wood creaked, the howl of the wind sharper up here, fluting past shards of broken glass still clinging to window frames.

Elena paced forward; a moan rippled through the air, over the sound of the wind. She pressed her hand to a door.

It swung into a dark room, curtains drawn. Elena made out the glint of gilt spines, the glister of rotting wood, before she reached out and before she lost her nerve, whisked the curtain back. The fading daylight illuminated the room, illuminated the old sofa upholstered in deep green velvet, the bookshelves, the storm lantern and the clutter of writing tools on a desk, and the thing chained to the floor in the far corner of the library, almost out of the reach of the light.

Elena's breath caught in her throat, her rifle up, aimed for the thing. The monster. Humanoid, emaciated, its flesh dried and blackened. She thought of a body she'd once seen exhumed from the church graveyard once; the cold, dry dirt hadn't allowed the corpse to rot but had instead preserved it, darkening its flesh to the color of burnt wood, sucking all the moisture from the corpse so it had lain twisted and open-mouthed in its coffin, hands crooked into fleshless claws. This thing looked much the same, but, impossibly, it was moving, curled fetal against the wall. A manacle was clamped around one ankle, chain snaking to a ring bolted deep into the floor. Eyes glistened from its sockets, glimmering green like a lycan's. Rags still clung to its body, the remnants of trousers and waistcoat.

It wheezed as Elena stared across the room at it, a pained, ragged sound.

"Don't you move," Elena told it. "Don't you dare move."

"You..."

She barely registered it as a word. But, no, the thing was speaking, expelling a spray of fine blackish liquid from a mouthful of broken teeth. Her hands clenched down on the rifle.

"Y...you...you're different....different one..."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

It lifted one trembling finger, nail hardened into a curl of filthy keratin. Elena noticed bright scars on its manacle, matching the shape of its vestigial claws. How long had it been trying to scratch its way loose?

"You were...blonde," it rasped. "Last time."

Elena blinked. "I-" she started. "When was I here last time?"

The creature gave a slow shake of its head. "Don't...know." Its hand dropped to the floor with a thunk. "Hungry."

Licking her lips, Elena stepped forward. "Was it before the big snow?"

"Big...storm. Yes. Yes. Long time before."

So Violeta had come here, but she hadn't done so for roughly a month. Probably longer, considering her conspicuous absence from the village. Elena adjusted her grip on her rifle, looking the ghoul over. Something glittered on its lapel. A pin, made with the sun and moon crest.

Oh, saints.

"Did you live here?" she asked. "A long time before?"

The thing's head dropped. It emitted a low moan, the sound shuddering through her, awful and pathetic all at once.

"It's...it's all right," Elena said quickly. "Don't worry about that right now. When I...when I was here last time was there anything I did? Anywhere I went?"

"This room."

"Where in this room?"

The ghoul lifted its head and stared across the room at her. Had its eyes brightened? Maybe it was just the light. "You...always did the same thing."

"Yes?"

"Writing. Writing. I begged...let me go. Hungry...but you never did. You smell like flowers. Pretty flowers. Like Mistress Donna..."

Writing. Elena's eyes fell on the clutter of pens on the desk. It wouldn't be her ideal choice of location for getting some journaling in. How long was the ghoul's chain? Would it reach the desk? It hadn't tried to get her yet. She took a short breath, then edged across the room, rifle still trained on the creature, toward the desk. They were there, in the top drawer. A stack of books. Diaries. She pulled one out, and as she did, an object slid from between the pages and fell with a clunk to the desk's surface. A key, she saw. Small, and simple, and made of iron blackened with age.

She held it up.

"What does this go to?" she asked the ghoul, but it just went on staring at her, still curled in its corner.

Elena turned her attention back to the journals and flipped the first one open. Neat handwriting covered the pages. She skimmed the entries. They were dated several years in the past, and seemed to detail Violeta's life at her home. Her excitement about the tithing-festival. Her elation at having been chosen to go into service. Elena flipped through the book, heart pounding, but the journal ended; she moved on to the next.

Empty house...feel like something's watching me. Where is the Lady, anyway? Maybe there's never been anything up here in this creepy old place after all.

Just the wind.

Elena moved ahead, heart pounding. The darkness settled outside, the light leaching from the sky, and soon the only light left came from her flashlight beam. She hurriedly lit the lantern on the desk. Luckily, there was a little oil left. It guttered to life, filling the room with an amber glow, reducing the ghoul in the corner to a ragged heap and twin points of green.

Elena kept reading. Violeta described her time at House Beneviento. Donna, making herself seen. Donna, and Angie, tormenting her. They'd treated her much worse than they had Elena, if that could be believed. But Violeta, amazingly, had stayed- she was scared of the lycans, according to the journal, and she was certain they'd get her if she bolted down the mountain path.

But she began to see small things. The way Donna sewed, the way she tended her gardens. Her small kindnesses. There's pain there, Violeta wrote. Pain and suffering. Maybe if I show her some kindness in return this will all end?

She told me about Claudia.

Elena's heart seized. She held the journal up to the light.

She told me about her death. She's so sad. How did she die? I asked and she went still, like a rabbit in the woods. I think it still affects her to this day. However it happened, it must have been traumatic. So traumatic it split her mind in two.

She then went on to talk about her baking habits and the next few pages were covered in dessert recipes. Elena flipped forward.

She gave me some of her mother's jewelry today. This was meant to be for me, she told me. But I can't wear it. It would look better on you.

I wonder what she looks like.

I think it might look good on her, too.

She likes me, I think. The way she talks to me. The way she is around me. Like the boys around the well. If I saw her face I'm sure it would be blushing. Does she like me in the human way or is it more in the way a cat toys with a mouse? She makes me see things, in the forest. When I'm with her the world seems to have so many more colors in it. I know it's the flowers. I know it's not real. But I can pretend it is. It makes all of this so much easier.

...I don't want to write this in the house...

...The dolls see everything...

...There's something so wrong here.

Elena's heart pounded. She glanced at the ghoul to make sure it was still in place, then pushed onward, skimming the pages faster and faster.

Had Violeta not returned Donna's affections? Had she felt she had to hide her true thoughts out here, where no one would find them?

The dolls in the basement...all over the house...there's something inside them. I hear her snipping and sewing all through the night. Singing, like you might do for a baby. They watch me...I can hear something moving in their heads...she said she learned a way to make them do as she says, to be her friends, that I'm her friend, too.

And I want to be. I want to be so badly. But I can't...

She cut one open for me.

Elena stopped. She held the journal closer.

A doll. Inside was...it was like an organ, maybe a fetus? I don't know. It started to screech, and she just cooed to it and soothed it, stroking it with a finger. She said she was the one who figured it out. How to put it inside things and make them move.

She can't control when she gets like this but it frightens me.

She told me through Angie that she wants to try it like her brother does, putting the pieces of her gift inside dead people. She said it might bring them back.

I don't want her to. I want Angie to go away.

She showed me, today. Her face. Now I understand why she wears the veil. I ran away in disgust. I couldn't help it. That thing...I couldn't face it. I hid, and waited until she was gone. Angie was out in the hall, in the rocking chair. I bit back my fear and searched her and I found this key, hidden in the lining of her skirt.

I think I know what it goes to.

Elena turned the next page, eyes wide. But there was only one sentence on it, written in a shaking hand.

I know what happened to Claudia.

Elena flipped the page, but the next was blank, and the next. The whole rest of the book. "No-" She flipped through the others but that was it, that was all, she'd written nothing more.

"Damn it," she muttered. The key was still in her hand, small and unassuming. A key Donna had hidden, that Violeta had stolen. Why?

What was it for?

"You were scared."

The ghoul. Elena jumped, then looked at the creature. "I...um. I was?"

"So scared. I tasted it in the air. Mmm...saw it in your eyes. You said you were...going back. Had to...finish things." Its lips stretched back in a rictus grin. "You're scared now."

It flipped onto its hands and knees. Its chain grated across the floor. Elena backed off a step. "I remember," it rasped. "Mistress Donna and Mistress Claudia. Hand in hand...skipping rope. Such pretty flowers...but one grew taller, yes, Mother noticed, Mother wanted, and what Mother wants she always gets..."

"Miranda wanted Claudia. Yes. I know."

"And Mistress Claudia liked it. She liked...being Mother's special girl. Liked it better than...better than Donna's love. So much better..."

Elena stopped. "What?"

"You know what happened," the ghoul said. Its voice turned sly and wheedling. "You wrote it down. Stupid mouse...stupid then and stupid now..."

It was in that instant that Elena saw how close the creature had crawled. How long its chain really was. It had hidden it, she realized, a whole loop of chain hidden under its bony leg, and she'd just run out of room. Her back was almost to the wall.

The creature's eyes brightened, feral with hunger.

"So stupid," it moaned, and lunged, whipcrack-fast. Elena clawed out of the way, nails to wallpaper, half-tripping over an upturned chair; books crashed to the floor as the creature thudded into the shelves behind her, as it turned, jaw hanging wide, black slaver pouring from the depths of its gullet. It moaned again, crawling over the desk, skinny haunches quivering.

Elena grabbed up the lantern and as it leapt for her, she swung it. An arc of fire. It smashed into the creature's cheek and sent it sprawling, a tangle of bony limbs and rags. Smoke billowed; flesh sizzled. The smell of burning meat filled the library, rank and awful, and before the ghoul could recover Elena had scrambled to the door. She heard it rising, heard its moan sharpen to a keen, and in one movement whirled and brought up her rifle and fired.

Its chest exploded in a spray of black blood. Something writhed inside the cavity, something pale and tentacled. The keening sound grew louder. Elena didn't stick around. She slammed the door and turned the latch and bolted, not stopping until she reached Claudia's grave.

A stitch pulled in her side. She slowed to a halt and bent over, hands braced on her knees, breathing hard. She dropped to the graveside, grateful for a chance to sit down; the last few days had done a number on her.

She held up her hand, the black key cold in her palm.

It went with the others around her neck. Violeta had been afraid. She'd tried to run away, in the end, unable to reconcile within herself the truths she'd discovered at House Beneviento. Now, here, draggled and exhausted, Elena could do the same. Run away. Leave Donna behind, accept she was nothing more a monster that could not be saved. Leave with her mind intact and her questions unanswered. Miranda might hunt her down, yes. Would kill her family. And then, in a way, Elena would be free.

Or she could keep her promises.

Or, she could save a life.

Two lives. Sort of. Depending on how she looked at it.

She looked at the grave with a small smile. "Once I got to know her, did I ever really have a choice?" she told it quietly.

Then Elena got up and headed toward the red gatehouse, back to House Beneviento, back to Donna.

It was high time they found a new game to play.

[saintsofwarding]

BURIAL

Chapter 2

Poor rabbit, Elena thought, both eyes open as she centered her shot down the rifle barrel. Never stood a chance.

The gunshot split the clear morning in two. Birds burst from trees, scattering plumes of frost, a squawking, flapping mass taking to the skies; snow scattered the ground in a fine haze of white as blood burst crimson over the frozen field. Elena lowered her gun with an exhale, watched the stillness for a moment as all settled, then slung the battered old hunting rifle over her shoulder and made her way toward the fresh kill.

Blood wicked through the snow as she approached and knelt over the rabbit. Dead. Very, very dead. A shot through the eye, a scattering of skull fragments and brain matter. Good; she didn't want to have to wring its neck, she always hated that kind of suffering.

And she had to eat, didn't she?

"Sorry," she told the dead rabbit, picking it up by its back legs. "If it's any consolation, bunny, you're gonna taste delicious."

It went in the sack. The woods were silent, now, even more so than before, unbroken by the chatter of crows or the rustle of small creatures in the bushes. Usually, this kind of quiet filled her with dread; animals didn't like lycans, the holy wolves of Mother Miranda's command, of the Black God's whispers calling them from the endless dark, and when they were about the forest was ever quiet, untouched creatures shrinking from the bitter scent of the Black God's power.

But this time Elena was the hunter, and it was only thanks to the gunshot that everything had scattered. She made her rounds, checked the snares- empty, save for a spray of viscera and feathers that meant a lycan had likely found the unfortunate victim before she did- then made the turn back homeward, old boots quickly finding the narrow deer path she'd walked so many times before. Pale gold light filled the woods with its faint haze, but the sun not yet shown itself above the mountains and the forest was dense with shadow, deep blue, unbroken.

Elena tipped her head back as she walked, letting her headscarf fall back from her hair, and took a deep breath of the clear, frigid air. Always so clean out here; even the faint scent of blood from her game sack was a part of it, part of the deep loamy scent of the trees, the tang of pine sap and frozen earth, of the coming daylight, gathering and falling through the needles to pool on the fresh snowdrifts. She'd never come out here at night, not for her weight in lei and wool, and saints knew she'd never leave this place-

Even if you could-

But it was so beautiful out here, and so quiet, and sometimes if she spent long enough in the clear air and the trees her dreams seemed clearer, too. But that, she told herself, was blasphemy. She should be glad of the Black God's dreams. There was nothing beyond the mountains, after all, nothing but endless woods and endless monsters, and holy though they were, they were hungry, too.

Starving. Elena's stomach gave a snarl, and day was coming, and there was always, always, so much to be done.

Her pace slowed as she caught sight of it through the trees.

Not far off the path. It loomed from the tangle of trees, built on a rock-ridge that thrust from the snow like the back of some sleeping creature. A statue, crumbling, ancient, hacked of pale rock spotted with lichen and chapped by centuries of wind and rain, listing to the side on its stacked stone plinth. A saint, wolf-headed and snarling, a human heart cupped in its lupine hands. A warding-saint, a wolf-sick holy man, a servant of the Black God. Elena's breath caught, as it always did; she was close to the edge, here, and past the warding-saint was-

Was forbidden. Forbidden. Mother Miranda would find her if she stepped foot past the border, would find her like she'd found so many other faithless over the years, would do worse than wring her neck for her blasphemy.

Nothing there. Nothing but monsters.

Her heart hammered; Elena bowed her head and gripped the goat jawbone at her neck as the wind picked up, as howls rippled through the silent forest, carried long on the cold, clean air. The morning light spilled through the trees as she forced her gaze away from the saint, away from the village border, and picked up her pace toward home. So much to do, and today so important. Today she'd-

-Saints, protect me-

Today, she'd prove useful to Miranda, if the Black God willed it. Today she'd finally be of service.

Today, everything was going to change.

***

The smell of smoke and animals filled the air as she approached the fence, ducking through the loose section of chain link and into the churned, muddy yard; chickens flapped away as she crossed the yard, shaking snow from her old wool skirt, and shouldered her way into the house. Dusty, shabby, patched holes in the walls, mismatched curtains at the windows. Rugs covered the floor, and tapestries nailed to the walls covered up the holes. Charms jangled, hung from rafters alongside bunches of drying herbs, the walls of the old house much-painted with blood red and deep lapis blue, darkened by time and smoke. A fire flickered in the grate, statues of Miranda made of crow-feathers and carved wood set alongside gilt icons on the mantel.

A photograph of Elena's mother as a young bride gazed down from a wall, sepia age-spotted and bloomy. She and Elena were alike as beetle shells, plain-faced and dark-haired, brown eyes set wide, ears a little too prominent. Elena touched the picture, let her fingertips trail over the glass, resolved to bring her flowers when spring came. For now, prayers would have to do.

"Pa!" she shouted, into the gloom of the old house. "It's me! Not a lycan that crept in through a window, don't worry!"

"Is Andrei stealing my swedes again? I'll...I'll kill that little bastard, I swear, I'll shoot him and string him up to bleed out..."

"No, Pa, your garden's untouched." She stoked the fire, then cleared a mess of carving tools and wood shavings from the kitchen table before throwing wide a window. Morning light streamed in; the sun had showed its face above the distant mountain peak, illuminating the snow that veined down its crags. The village spread beyond, the steeple rising from the sea of dark roofs as if to impale the sky. And past it, past everything, Castle Dimitrescu.

Cold filled Elena's gut; she tried to look away, but the castle could not be ignored, could never be ignored, towers and turrets and vast curtain walls, shadowing the village, shadowing the entire valley, turned blue and misty at this distance.

Something winged launched itself from a high spire and glided away, its cry echoing the howls she'd heard deep in the woods.

It was worse at night. It always was.

I'll see you again, 'Lena. Won't I? You'll barely have time to miss me. Candlelight, warm hands. Her mother's scent, rosemary and lemon. She wore her best clothes, her traveling-cloak, all her things in her small, battered suitcase. And the money I'll make! They say the Lady showers her servants with gold and silk. A soft laugh. She should; she wears enough of it.

But...mama, my friends, the other girls, they say-

They tell stories. Don't you believe all of them. Her mother had stroked her cheek, her mouth trembling. Mother Miranda is wise. She's sent me to the castle because she knows I'm ready, don't you understand? It's an honor. It's a gift. It really is.

And when you're ready, Elena...

And when you're ready...

And when it came time for her to come back, to come celebrate Milk Moon, and Elena had made her mother's favorite jam tarts and sour soup and cabbage rolls, the door had remained empty, the chair, empty, and the photograph had smiled down upon her and her father, and the silence then was not a peaceful one.

They'd gotten the suitcase back, eventually. Delivered to them by a pretty young maid dressed in black and white. All her mother's clothes were there; a photograph too, much-creased, of little Elena held in her father's arms. Her prayer-book; her saint's medal. All that was missing were her shoes, and a single slip.

And a body, of course. But they didn't talk about that. And Elena had cried all her tears a long, long time ago.

Mother Miranda was wise, after all. She'd known what was best. And if this was best...

Elena whispered a swift prayer to Mother Miranda and made herself turn back toward the table, toward her game bag. Focus. She concentrated on skinning and gutting the rabbit, flinging its guts out for the crows to squabble over, save for its heart, which she kept. She'd bury it in the garden later. Water, and herbs, rabbit and potatoes, and before long the house filled with the rich smell of cooking meat and baking bread. Her father had long since gone quiet, and, tapping off the wooden spoon, Elena wiped her hands off on her apron and retreated through the doorway into his dark bedroom.

The house had only two rooms; ever since she was a child, Elena had slept in a cot in the kitchen. She preferred it; with the stove and the fire it was never cold, and she liked the glimmer of gilt on the saints' icons, the scuffle of chickens against the door. This was her parents' room, once, and now it was just her father's. He lay in the carved bed, wool blankets drawn up to his chin, white-bearded and older than his years. A red kerchief was knotted at his neck; he stirred as Elena sank down to sit on the edge of the bed.

"So," he grumbled. "You crawled back, I see."

"Hush, you." She gave him a light smack on the shoulder. "You'd be dead without me."

"Hm. Is that rabbit I smell?"

"Yes. Stewing."

"You got a rabbit? Yourself?"

"Don't sound so surprised, Pa. There's stew, and there's bread in the oven, and some of the honey cake's still left. Oh, and cheese, don't forget or it'll go bad. You won't starve today."

"Such treatment. I feel like one of the kings from the old stories, bathed in sugar and butter. What are you doing, a young girl like you taking care of an old man like me? Shouldn't you be married yet?"

"And leave you behind?" Elena tipped her head to the side, leaning on one hand. He had a point; Elena had turned twenty-four that year, and most of the girls she'd gone to school with, had fidgeted alongside in church with, were all married off, on their second or third child, at Miranda's bequest. The more children, the stronger the village, the more they honored the Black God. "Let's see. What can you cook?"

She made a face of mock concern. "Eggs? Maybe?"

"Quiet, girl."

"Can you hunt? I don't think so."

"I can still give you a hiding with my cane."

"Terrifying." She smoothed his hair back from his lined forehead. Leonardo Lupu had an old man's face, so old, so worn and gaunt; she didn't remember him this way when she was a child, strong and blond-bearded, making jokes that elicited groans of disgust from her mother, whittling statues of saints and wolves and whatever Elena fancied, so long as it all looked a little like a donkey. Her rifle was his by rights, like it had been his father's, and his father's, its once-finely carved stock- said to have been made by the great Norshteyn himself- now worn down to smooth satin by decades of touch. He'd used it well, had headed hunting parties and felled wolf-sick stags with two heads and vast, branching antlers. Had showed her how to hold it, how to aim it.

And now...

Well. Whatever he'd been, whoever he was now, he was still her pa. Elena helped him to drink, helped him sit up in bed, helped him open the window so the stuffy room might air out. The faint sound of music and voices echoed in; her father glanced toward the village.

"Tithing-day," he remarked.

Elena busied herself with a heap of his laundry. "Yes."

"You going to wear red?"

"I have to wear red."

"Your mother's red?"

"If it fits."

"Don't you get it dirty."

"Well, I was planning on rolling around in old Anca's pigpen in it..."

"Don't you dare, girl." He shook a gnarled hand at her, clad in a fingerless mitt she'd knitted for him. "It's...after we had to sell the rest, it's all I have left of...of..."

"I thought I was all you had left," Elena teased, gently.

"Suppose so."

"Do you?"

"You're much more useful than a dress."

She gave him a flat look. "Oh, I feel so appreciated. Thank you, thank you, dearest father of mine. Now, I'd better go start getting ready, or your stew will burn and I'll be late and then where would you be?"

He grunted. "Well, fine. See you tonight."

"I might not be back tonight. Not if I'm chosen."

"See you tonight, Elena," he repeated, and his voice was an old grump's, as usual, but his hands clenched the blankets, knuckles white, like bones bleached clean by the sun.

They were cold, and quivered against Elena's skin as she gripped his hands, as they sat, together, hushed like the forest, watching the sunlight strengthen as the sun made its climb toward the peak of the sky.

Later, after she'd made him have a slice of bread slathered with butter, after she'd forced herself to sip at some tea, she went to the chest beneath her cot. She unlocked it, unfolded the tissue paper swathing its contents, sat back on her heels to lift forth the dress.

The red silk glowed in the morning light, bright and unfaded, untouched by dust. Her mother had embroidered flowers all down its skirt, over its waistband, on the short jacket, heavily-appliqued with soutache and beading. A muslin chemise matched it, voluminous sleeves embroidered, too, and a sash completed it, hung with tassels six inches long.

Elena laid it out on her cot; she caught its scent, lemon and rosemary, and lifted the skirts to her nose, letting her eyes drift shut. It fit; it fit beautifully, heavy and cool against her skin, and when she braided up her hair and tied a red kerchief over her head she couldn't help but smile, to think of her mother in these clothes, her mother, chosen, honored.

Your mother, who never came home-

Your mother, whose last remains were an old suitcase and a photograph and a hole in your heart that will never be filled, a bloody wound inside you that will never be healed, will never be made right, never, never, never-

It began, then. The ringing of the castle bell. A great, slow pouring of sound from its bronze throat, pealing out to fill the valley with its voice. Other, lesser bells joined it, the church bell and the shepherds', and Elena felt the ringing, felt it like the pounding of her heart against her ribs, the sweat slick and cold on her hands.

Don't be a coward. Go. Mother went, didn't she?

It was time.

She went to her mother's photograph. She kissed her fingers, then pressed them to the glass. She went to her rifle- she wouldn't bring it, not today- and ran her hands over its familiar smooth stock, only hanging it up on its peg when her hands stopped shaking. She went to the mantel and set coins before the saints, lit the stub of candle at Mother Miranda's feet. A conflicting set of prayers, she knew, confusing to the Black God listening, but today she'd need all the help she could get.

***

Tithe meant sacrifice. It always had. And sacrifice was how you showed your devotion, at least in Mother Miranda's eyes. Whatever she saw, the Black God saw. She was its emissary, its most devoted servant, and to obey her was to obey the divine. There was no resistance. There was no question. It was answered before it was asked.

And the Black God provides for the rest, Elena thought as she joined the stream of villagers moving toward the square, toward the statue of the Maiden of War atop her plinth, sword upthrust toward the great tower of Castle Dimitrescu. Elena remembered the old story, one of the ones her mother used to tell her while they worked at knitting or needlework on nights by the fire. A great demon had threatened the valley, such that all four kings working together couldn't defeat. But a girl rose from the cowering ranks, sword in hand, and struck down the beast with a blow to the heart. Elena could scarcely imagine such- maybe Mother Miranda could do it, but she was all.

One girl against all the monsters. Imagine that. Striking them down once and for all. An impossible task, like Clever Ioachim and his ever-filling chalice.

Still, it made for a good story.

She lowered her eyes to the churned mud of the road, falling in alongside the baker and his wife and their daughters, four girls all younger than Elena and dressed in red like she was. Farmers led goats clad in red flowers and ringing bells; tassel-dressed pigs snuffled and yanked at their leads, heedless of their swineherds. Women carried baskets of bread, jars of milk, slabs of butter golden as the morning sunrise, jars of preserves like clinking jewels.

Mother Miranda's priests walked alongside the villagers, swathed in dark robes and mantles of crow-feathers, the Black God's fetal symbol on chains round their necks, their feet black from walking in the God's presence. Their songs, deep and sonorous as the ringing of the castle bell, filled the air, along with the rhythmic jingle of bells on the ends of their staffs.

Elena didn't miss, either, the knives at their belts, the riflemen posted on the surrounding roofs, cut stark against the sky. No one would get away from the tithe this time. Her father would be all right; only one member from each household had to attend, so long as said attendee was of service. Her pa was too old and too sick to be useful to Mother Miranda; he wouldn't serve as tithe. Elena shoved her hands deep in her skirt pockets, longing for the weight of her rifle at her shoulder. What's useful about you? Your own flesh and bones, Lupu.

She thought of blood wicking into fresh snow.

Just like the rabbit.

"Elena! Hey!"

She looked round as Andrei pelted to her side, flinging mud, inciting shouts and curses. He skidded to a halt, holding his hat to his blond curls.

"Elena," he panted.

Thirteen, freckle-faced, a tooth missing, he was the source of her father's missing vegetables, and a lot more besides. His parents had been taken into the endless dark of the Black God's dreams a few years prior- their skeletal remains found by a forest warden, not much left but gnawed bones cracked open to get at the marrow. Lycans. Wasn't it always? Now, he got by with whatever work he could find, doing odd jobs for farmers and craftsmen, helping haul freight for the jolly merchant that came each spring to hawk his strange wares at the Giant's Chalice.

"What the hell you want?" Elena said, already digging in her pockets for sweets. She found a paper bag of barley sugars and offered him one.

He took two. "Look at 'em," he said, nodding toward the priests. "All stocked with the biggest and baddest. You think they'd cut me?"

"I think they'd turn your skin to leather and give your eyes to the crows if you so much as twitched. Much less stole vegetables."

He plucked another sweet from her hand. She yanked the bag away. "Hey, now, all I took was a rotten cabbage or two," Andrei protested. "Come off it, Elena, I'm hungry."

His voice dropped, conspiratorial. "Hey, did you hear about one of 'em, the priests I mean, not cabbages, I heard he got locked up in one of the old Stronghold cells-"

Elena shuddered.

"-'cause he got wolf-sick, and Mother Miranda got really, really happy-"

"You don't know anything about Mother Miranda. Much less if she's happy about something."

"No! I heard from one of her men, that a lot more were working out, I dunno what that means but..." He shrugged, staring at the procession around them. Elena began to hear the drumbeat- the slow one-two, one-two vibrating deep in the pit of her chest. Tambourines, horns, the brazen clamor of the old-song sung in the old-tongue, the language of this region older than the rocks, older than the village walls, even older than the castle itself.

But not older than the Black God. One, two. One, two. Like a heartbeat. Elena dreamed, sometimes, of a heartbeat, far below, in black tunnels distant from the sun. The heartbeat of the valley, of the village, of the mountains.

We're all part of it. All part of its grand plan, its deep dreams.

That should comfort her. Instead it made her cold, like she'd felt when she stared at the statue of the warding saint in the woods, the border of the whole world.

"It means," Elena made herself say, "that she's thrilled with us. And maybe she's got enough people to spare, so she won't choose us this year. I mean, we've never been chosen before. And that means today's gonna be fun!"

"Fun," Andrei grumbled.

"After the tithe...I'll buy you some more candy."

He perked up. "Really?"

"Yup. We'll eat until we're sick. And then we'll dance until we vomit."

She grabbed him by his shoulders and he shook himself loose with a scoff as the procession, humming with chatter and clamor and anxiety and excitement, spilled into the square and the full force of the music and the heat of a raging, crackling bonfire.

It burned behind the Maiden of War, illuminating her set face, her goat-headed shield, the dais set up before her, as if for her entertainment.

Castle Dimitrescu rose in the background, the perfect backdrop for the stage, Elena had to admit; Andrei's eyes got big, and he elbowed her, chattering as he pointed at the offerings, the food and the handiwork and the medicine, the animals and the game and the great, shining fish, pulled fresh from glacial rivers, their eyes not yet dulled.

More food than any of them had seen for months, and all of it surrounded by a sea of red. Everyone wore it, spilled blood bright in the midmorning light, and Elena's breath caught, heartbeat kicking up a notch. She clenched her hands tight in her skirts as she and Andrei hurried to the side of the square filled not with produce but with people, other young women, other boys pale-faced and wide-eyed, staring at the dais, waiting.

"Where is she?" Andrei stretched his neck, peering above the crowd. Crows circled the square in lazy circles, riding the high winds.

"Shut up," Elena hissed.

"Where's Violeta?" whispered another girl.

"Gone," her friend whispered in turn. "She got called to service, remember?"

"I thought she was supposed to come back for the festival..."

"Do you think Mother Miranda's gonna come in on a chariot pulled by crows?" Andrei said.

"Shut up-"

"Miranda! Miranda!"

The cry filled the air, plaintive, exultant, ringing over the sound of the crowd; a priest fell to his knees, and another, and another, the instruments falling away save for the drumbeat. Elena went to her knees as the crowd began to fall, as the crows swooped and dived and alit on roofs, as the ground quivered below; Elena swallowed, a bitter taste in the back of her throat; her hands clenched tight, so tight they hurt.

Without warning, the ground erupted; a geyser of dirt and snow blasted toward the skies, and shining black chased it, a glistening, ropy mass like the roots of some vast tree. It plunged down, snaking over the cobblestones, twining past Elena's feet to write and pulsate, iridescent, translucent black. The mass boiled from belowground, forming a tumorous growth that arced above the stage, then fell, peeling apart into the form of a woman. Her black robes settled around her, slicking into the form of countless feathers, swathing her face; gold glowed in the firelight, her mask and her talons and her holy symbol, the pinpoints of her eyes.

The Black God's prophet. Its emissary. Its beloved, its chosen. The protector of the village, and the mistress of them all.

Elena gasped, pulse hammering. She grabbed up her jawbone tight and whispered as many prayers as she could remember.

Miranda, the crowd murmured. Mother Miranda. Mother Miranda.

She lifted her arms; her mantle peeled away, becoming wings, dark and glorious, a fan of them unfurling around her. Elena could scarcely breathe. She could only stare, unable to tear her eyes from the living saint before them.

She wasn't alone. Behind her, another silhouette slouched to the base of the dais, crowd shuffling back. Broad shoulders, sturdy build, trench coat. Elena, only a few yards off, smelled the tang of rust and oil, the acerbic richness of cigar smoke as he blew a stream of it over the first few rows of worshippers. Embers glowed hot orange off the round lenses of his glasses; over his shoulder was slung a hammer, massive, scrap metal and cannibalized machine parts welded together into an improbable weapon.

Elena's throat tightened. Lord Heisenberg. She glanced sidelong at Andrei, but he was transfixed. Elena couldn't blame him. Not just Miranda, but one of her Four Lords, too! Elena should have been overcome, but she couldn't suppress a seed of dread, deep inside her. She'd heard the songs about Lord Heisenberg, about what he did to the faithless after he hunted them down like animals in the woods. Seven times we join our hands, seven times fall down...seven heads will turn all red when Lord Heisenberg's in town...

Miranda lifted a hand. All sound dropped, all prayer, all music. Even the drumbeats stilled. The fire crackled; the wind rose, then fell, a glimmer of snow in the air around them. Lord Heisenberg flicked ash onto the snow and grinned with all his teeth.

"My children," Mother Miranda began, voice ringing over the crowd. She lifted her other hand, breeze stirring the long, ragged feathers of her sleeves. "My followers. Faithful, devoted, obedient. How long it has been. How many years I've looked out upon your faces, and those of your fathers, and mothers, and grandparents."

A smile curved her lips, visible beneath the golden beak of her mask. "Nearly a century has passed since I brought to you the power of the Black God, nearly a century of protection, of my sacrifice to you granting you safety from the horrors of the most holy wild. The books tell us the wolf-sickness sets us free, and it does, but only to the most faithful. And you must learn faith before you surrender yourself to it."

She gave a little shake of her head.

"This place was nothing before me," she said. "And before you, it was empty and lifeless. I raised you up to give you the lives you lead. And now, now..."

She lowered her arms, and her wings furled, too, rustling and melting into nothingness as they touched her shoulders. Her mass of roots behind her writhed slickly, a constant, entrancing movement.

"Now," Miranda went on, "you give back. Back to me...back to the Black God. And what a small price it is to pay."

"A small price to pay," chanted the crowd; a beat too late, Elena joined in.

"A small return from whence you came," Miranda said. "A gift."

"A small return," the crowd echoed. "A gift." This time, Elena was right on time.

"Stand," Mother Miranda commanded. "And bring me your gifts."

Elena scrambled to her feet, the crowd already narrowing, pushing forward. First the farmers, as was usual, bringing their goats, their swine, their cages of chickens and geese and pretty, cooing doves with red ribbons round their necks; the cheese, the honey, the bread and meat and vegetables were next, then the fabric, the embroidery, the weaving and metalwork, the medicines and chemicals and strange bottles of spirit.

"What do you suppose she does with those?" Andrei said, his eyes still saucers.

"I don't know. Her rituals. Divining the Black God's ways, I expect." Elena's hands were slick, disgusting. She searched for a handkerchief.

All of these she accepted; all of these were led away by her priests, looked over by the riflemen atop the roofs, guns trained down upon the penitent. All the while, Heisenberg stood at the foot of the dais, hat brim tilted down so all Elena could see of his face was gray scruff and the occasional flare of cigar embers.

He's not going to do anything. No lightning, no thunderous rages, no displays of his terrible, miraculous power, that which was the beating, living heart of the great factory that poured smoke and ash into the sky without ceasing, east of town. With each passing minute, Elena relaxed. He was there for ceremony, she told herself, to honor their Mother and the Black God. A devoted son and lord. Not to quell the crowd, not to hunt anyone down, saints, that would be barbaric!

Elena let her eyes drift shut as the first of the girls stepped forward and into Miranda's gaze, her chin held high, the red ribbons in her hair fluttering.

"Castle Dimitrescu, I think," Miranda said, with a flick of her eyes.

The girl's face colored, and she bowed low, trembling, stammering her thanks. The next joined her, and the next, young women, each no older than eighteen. Not as old as Elena by far.

She won't pick me for that. She'll never pick me for Lady Dimitrescu, I'm not...right.

But her momentary relaxation drained away the closer she got, the more she neared the base of the dais, the reek of cigar smoke burning the back of her throat.

Another, another. A young woman was turned away entirely, not given to service, and her friend, too, the two of them heading with heads bowed to their families on the far side of the square. A young man went to Lord Moreau- "He needs a new...ditch-digger," Miranda said, slowly, thoughtfully- and then there was only one left, an older man Elena recognized as a farmer, and whom she had not seen for several months.

He didn't wear red- just his usual dirty workwear- and when he approached Miranda, he pulled his cap from his head, his eyes shining with tears.

"Mother Miranda," he said. His voice shook. "M...Mother...I beg your forgiveness..."

"You aren't Anna," Miranda said. "Where is your daughter?"

"I...she..." He glanced at the crowd, at the priests, at Lord Heisenberg, who hadn't stopped smoking and had instead kicked back against the Maiden of War's dais with a decidedly irreverent slouch. "She's...at home."

"At home," Miranda echoed, her voice, at once, steel and bitter ice.

Silence. All eyes were on the farmer. He swallowed, then went on, "My wife, she. She's ill. Very ill. She...can't rise from bed, and...the farm, there hasn't been any crop. Anna was meant to make up for it, but...but I need her help, to get the farm running again, to grow crops to bring to you, Mother Miranda, to honor you. Please. I have no tithe now, but I will. I promise you, I will."

"No tithe." Miranda's talons clicked against one another as she tilted her head to the side. "Well, well. This cannot do."

"Give me...a season, three months-"

"Tithing will be over by then. And nothing to show for it but your empty promises." She lowered her head, sorrow in her eyes. Leather creaked as Heisenberg's glove tightened around the grip of his hammer. "You have to pay. The Black God demands it. That is how the village grows. That is how we all thrive."

"Please," the man whispered.

"You have something to give," Miranda said. "You forget. Yourself."

"No. No." He began to back away. "Please, no, my family-"

Glistening black roots burst from the ground at his feet. They wound around him, snaking up his legs, around his waist, around his arms, around his throat; with a yank they wrenched him down, to his knees in the icy slush.

Elena flinched forward, whole body shaking; Andrei had pressed his hands over his eyes. Yelps and prayers filled the air.

"Heisenberg," Miranda said, softly.

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "I know the fuckin' drill."

He flicked his cigar into the snow and ground it out with a boot heel, then strode forward. The farmer began to yell, to wail, to beg; someone in the crowd cried out, but the priests had advanced forward, ringing the crowd, pressing them back. Bodies crushed against Elena; she strained to see; she couldn't look away- this wasn't right- but he hadn't paid, had he? Had he?

Her father's face flashed before her. Had he tried to stop them when it was her mother taken, when it was her mother chosen, oh, Black God-

The priests began to chant, slowly at first as Lord Heisenberg advanced on the kneeling, bound, begging man, then faster, higher, harsher, until their songs spiraled around them, mad and frenzied; Heisenberg stopped before the bound man and lifted his hand. Blue light pulsed around his hand, and then- power. A thrumming surge of it that lifted snow from the ground, scattering grit like a storm wind. Elena's ears popped, electricity crackling through her nerves, lightning dancing from barrel to barrel on the riflemen above, sparking blue-white off the tip of the Maiden's sword.

There was a hum, a snap, and he lifted the massive hammer, cataclysmic, into the air, as if it weighed nothing.

"Mother Miranda!" Andrei cried, lifting his hands in prayer.

Elena's pulse hummed. She looked up and saw Miranda staring at the scene, nothing in her eyes, nothing but a kind of dead calm. She had seen this before, Elena realized. She had seen this a hundred times. And Elena knew what would happen. An arc. A swing. Bone would split; brain-matter and blood. She saw the rabbit kicking, cooling in the snow. A shot through the eye. Sorry, bunny, sorry, sorry, sorry-

Heisenberg lifted the hammer, preparing for the blow, preparing to crush the man's head into the dirt, and before she could think, before she could do anything but move, Elena stumbled forward with a strangled cry of "-Papa, no-"

She tripped. She fell. A priest made a grab for her but she was past him and sprawling into the snow, inches from Lord Heisenberg. He paused, hammer still raised, staring down at her with a faintly put-off expression, like she was something he'd found rotting in the woods. She thought he was staring at her, anyway; hard to tell, behind the glasses.

Blood sloshed in Elena's ears; she heard nothing as she stared back up at him, as what she'd done settled into her bones, as she realized that this was going to be the last thing she ever saw. Lord Heisenberg, pissed off, and then his hammer, and then nothing.

His lip curled back from his teeth. "Two in a day," he said. The snarl unfurled into a full-fledged grin. "Better than average."

Shadow fell over Elena. The shadow of wings. She flung her face into the snow in a full-body bow. No, this was how she'd die. On her knees, face in the dirt.

"Child."

The voice was soft, cold, sliding into her. Into her.It was inside her, a foreign object in her mind; Elena choked, wanting to shake her head, to tear at her own hair, excise it like a shard of glass. But this was...this was Miranda's voice, this was the buzz at the edge of her consciousness that she'd always felt, the tug that kept her from crossing beyond the warding saint's line.

The shock of it tore her gaze from the ground. She looked up, right into Mother Miranda's golden eyes.

The Black God's emissary stood over her, wings shadowing them both. She seemed to study her from behind the lattice of her bird mask.

"Do you want to die, child?" she said, in her mind, and in her voice, twofold and echoing.

Elena blinked back tears.

"No," she whispered.

Miranda inclined her head. "Good," she said, "Because I have a far better use for you than death."

She nodded at her priests. They hurried forward, one with a bag; a length of chain snaked from the snow as if flung, crackling with blue sparks, lashing around her wrists and ankles; Elena yelped, but it twanged tight, humming against her skin, binding her in place.

It turned out the last damn thing Elena would ever see was Lord Heisenberg leaning back against the Maiden of War, expression now inscrutable, glasses flashing in the flare of a match flame as he lit another cigar, as he took a deep drag, as he exhaled blue into the clear morning sky.

[saintsofwarding]

BURIAL

Chapter 14

On and on.

A fall through darkness.

Elena didn't let go. She wound her fists into Donna's jacket and held on. Glass rained around them, cold against her face, and then nothing at all, both of them drifting in the dark like it was water, like they were sinking, not falling.

Hours, seconds. Elena couldn't tell how long, just that they had at last reached some kind of bottom. Elena's boots sank into water, calf-deep, cold and dark as ink. They settled, together, wound around another, Donna's hand still clenched around the scissors deep in Elena's shoulder.

Each breath hurt, but it was a real hurt, not a spectral one, red and raw, tearing a little. Elena's eyes filled with tears as she curled to her knees, Donna draped over her, her breathing sharp and ragged.

For a moment- silence.

Then, a thin voice-

"Where am I?"

Elena lifted her hand and cleared the veil from Donna's face. She stared into the dark with her single eye. "I don't know. The bottom, maybe."

"Are you real?"

"I hope so."

She buried her face again in the crook of Elena's shoulder. She felt like a drowned thing saved seconds from death, shaking and shuddering and bony and pale. Elena's hand stroked down the channel of her spine, settled against her waist.

She felt her ribs against her palm, expanding and contracting with each breath. Fragile, but they'd served her this far.

"I stabbed you," Donna said.

"Yep. It really hurts."

"Oh-!" She pulled back and with a single sharp jerk, yanked the scissors free. Elena yelped; blood pulsed from the puncture, but it slowed after a moment. It wasn't as bad as she'd thought, just a gash to the top of her deltoid.

She heard fabric tearing and looked round to see Donna pull her veil from her head and tear a strip off the front panel, antique black lace ripping like paper. Deftly as a trained nurse, Donna rolled up Elena's sleeve and bandaged the wound.

"Better?" she asked, tying off the silk.

"Yes...sure."

Donna pressed her fingertips to her lips, then to the silk, over the wound. "There's nowhere else to go," she whispered.

"Out."

"She's out there. I hear her." She slid her fingers into the matted gray-black tangle of her hair. "Waiting for the right moment. Like a blood clot in the brain. "

"Then..." Elena let out her breath. "We'll just have to go back past her. Together."

"...Together?"

"You're stuck with me, Lady Beneviento," Elena told her. She touched Donna's face, brushing her thumb over her eye growth. Its pulse fluttered at her skin, calming as a lullaby. "Whether you like it or not."

Donna gave a weak little laugh. "Good thing I like it."

"Now think. This is the bottom. The end. The deepest dark. Where do we go from here?"

"We don't," Donna said. "It's safe in here. It's good. She won't bother us in here. Nothing will. We're so far down it's like we don't exist at all."

Light speared the dark. Elena looked up. A beam. It made a circle on the darkness, a circle of white light, and in it: shadows. They were gray, indistinct, blurry as a reflection. Elena watched they sharpened, becoming not shadows but two girls, black-haired and pale, as alike as beetle shells. They played in a sunlit birch forest, laughing and dancing hand in hand, braiding flowers into one another's hair. All in silence, save for the faint click-whisper of the film.

Donna watched it with a soft look in her eye. A smile touched her face.

"I loved her, you know," she murmured.

"I know."

"I wanted only to protect her. Like Mother tried to protect us. But I learned my ways from her, and Mother only knew fear. So she taught me that fear in turn. And in the moment, the last moment before I realized she had stopped struggling, you know what it was I felt?"

"What?"

"Perfect love. Pure and innocent. Because I knew I would do anything to protect her. And I had. I took her from Miranda. I took her far away. And she can never be touched now, can she?"

Elena shook her head. Young Donna and Claudia whirled through the sunlight, a day lost forever, a day that was a memory, an echo. Again, and again. Around, and around. It would never change. It would always be perfect.

"She's dead, Donna," Elena told her, gently.

Donna's mouth quivered.

"She's gone," Elena went on. "You're not. Don't die with her." She took her cold hands in her own. Her fingers were rusty with blood, dark crescents trapped under her nails, her palms a mess of scrapes and scabs.

"I can't do it," Donna said. "It's too much. It's too heavy."

"Not between the two of us."

"Us...? No. No...just leave me here, you can't want-"

"Shut up," Elena said. Donna flinched and looked up at her. "You don't tell me that. You don't get to tell me that. Like you don't know me. You think I'm going to abandon you in this hole?"

She gave Donna a little shake. "Can't you see I want it? All of it? All of you? I want to see you in the sunlight. I want to see you dancing, any way you please." She gripped a handful of Donna's sleeve. "Now listen to me. You think I'm going to decide, now, that I don't want anything more than to drag you out with me even if it kills us both?"

Donna blinked. "...No."

"Good. Because I didn't fight my way up here for the fun of it. I came back for you. For you. Understand?"

"I think I'm beginning to."

"We're getting out of this together, you and me," Elena said. "Or not at all."

Donna blinked. She gave a tiny nod.

"You control this. This is your power. Your dream." Elena looked toward the circle of light, the children playing in it. "So change it."

Donna lifted her eye. The light flickered in it. Her lashes fluttered shut, spiky against her cheek. A wind picked up, warm, not cold. It smelled bittersweet. Like flowers.

The circle of light brightened. It eclipsed the memories of Donna and Claudia; they faded into the brightness. It intensified, carving into Elena's vision, so bright she had to look away, so bright it was like looking into the sun.

"She knows," Donna said. "She'll find us. So hurry."

"Come on, then."

They dragged each other to their feet as the sunlight grew. The edge of the circle bit into Elena's palms; it felt like glass. She clambered over, tumbling down the far side, into the light. Donna fell by her side, a flutter of black fabric, then nothing, her vision reduced to a field of pure white.

They landed ankle-deep in snow. Elena's breath shot from her; she stumbled a little. Donna steadied her.

"Where is this, now?" she asked, her voice prim and puzzled.

Elena looked around as the last of the spectral light vanished, the white void smoothing over into snowy sky, frozen ground. Mist lay heavy over the snow, over the ramshackle fences rising around them, painted in peeling red and blue and deep green. The houses rose beyond, shutters creaking in the wind, bone charms jangling as it soughed past them. Past the low-hanging mist, an impression of Castle Dimitrescu loomed, but it was distant, unreal, more like a child's watercolor painting than the real fortress.

All was bitterly cold, but clumps of yellow flowers still grew at the base of fences, at the corners of houses.

"It's..." Elena's mouth was numb. "It's home, it's the village, it's..."

She trailed away. Donna cast her gaze around. "Is this the village? It's been such a long time since I've seen it. It's..."

She paused.

"This is your dream," she told her.

The world shuddered; snow flurried in the aftershock, the wind picking up. On it, echoing from all around, came Angie's laughter and her taunting little song. Fear jolted Elena and she grabbed for Donna's hand.

"We have to get inside," she hissed.

"Elena-"

She jerked Donna forward before she could say more. Through gaps in fences, under trees, around corners; she ducked and weaved through the maze of the abandoned, misty streets. Her heart raced. She knew what she was looking for, at last. Where was it?

Searching your whole life...

She skidded round the next corner.

...never seemed quite right, did it? The way things happened.

It was there, at once. Firelight lay golden on the snow. The windows were illuminated, and past her glimpse of the familiar lace curtains Elena heard the echo of voices, the smell of cooking. Ciorba and sweets, bacon sizzling in the pan, cabbage rolls and spices and baking dough.

Tears filled her eyes. She ran through the gate, pushing herself along on a fence post, up the front path. The door opened at a touch, and she spilled inside, breathing hard, Donna at her shoulder.

"Elena..." Donna whispered.

"We'll be safe in here." Elena stepped over the threshold and into warmth. Firelight, candle-glow, deep shadows. Her home, familiar in a way that it no longer was. This was her memory of the place, a child's recollection, colors too bright, no grime or cobwebs or disrepair. No poverty here, nor grief. Nor loss. The table stretched before her and it was full of people.

Her mother, alive and smiling, crows' feet crinkling at the corners of her kind brown eyes.

Her father, younger and unbent, a red kerchief knotted at his throat.

Andrei, fidgeting in his chair, and Violeta, her long golden hair shining like beaten metal.

Other people, too, strangers she didn't recognize at first. A man and a woman, dark-haired and pale and smiling, dressed in shabby finery. And a little girl, a reflection of Donna, her long plaited hair swinging as she told a story, using her hands to make shadow puppets on the wall.

"We'll be safe in here," Elena whispered, her mouth quivering. Her eyes were warm. Her mother looked up and beamed, lifting her hands.

"Darling," she called. "Elena. There you are. Come in, come in, you must be freezing."

Elena's feet were already moving. Donna's hands clenched down hard on her wrist, tight as a manacle.

"Elena, no," she urged. "This is a trick, it's all a trick."

"What are you talking about? She'll never find us here."

"Who, darling?" her mother said, brows drawn together.

"No one, Mama," Elena whispered.

But Donna yanked at her, so hard she tottered back a step. "This is another trap-"

Elena wrenched her hand from Donna's grip. "Elena!" she cried, but Elena stepped inside, her voice melting away, her terror and her pounding heart and the ache of all her wounds fading as the firelight enfolded her, as she took her place at the foot of the table. It was spread as if for a midsummer feast, an impossible bounty- all the good things she'd smelled, the porcelain glister of egg wash and the deep caramel tone of perfectly-baked bread, stews and bright crisp vegetables and fruits like she'd never before seen, shining like gemstones on intricately-painted china.

Yellow flowers were arranged in vases, and the air glimmered with their pollen. It winked like small stars.

"I'm so glad you could be here," her mother went on.

"She's a good guest," Claudia said, pausing in her shadow play. "Isn't she, Mother?" The dark-haired woman stroked her head, but did not speak.

"The very best," Elena's father said, with a wink. "The best daughter anyone could ask for. Isn't that right, 'Lena?"

"I try, Pa." Elena reached for his hand, but he sat a little too far away, and her fingertips grasped at nothing. She lowered her hand.

White flickered in the corner of her eye. She glanced over. A curious doll sat on the sideboard, long and spindly, dressed in aged white lace.

"Do we have another guest?" she asked.

"Darling, don't you remember?" her mother said. "Your father made you that doll."

"I...no, he didn't. Did he? I don't...you never made me any dolls." "He made so many dolls," her mother went on.

"One for every day of the year," her father said.

"That's too many dolls," Violeta muttered, plucking a sprig of yellow flowers from one of the vases.

Had he made her dolls? Her memories felt like water in her hands. What did it matter, anyway? Elena smiled.

"Elena, please, listen to me."

"Come," her mother urged. "Have something to eat. Rest here a while. Doesn't that sound good?"

"Yes," Elena admitted.

"You can. We don't have to talk...about the past, about anything. You've done so much talking, so much pleading, bargaining, begging. It's good to be silent, to not say anything and simply allow yourself to be loved. And you are, my sweet girl. You're loved, here. Everything precious is here. Everything that was taken from you, that should have always been yours. Doesn't it feel that way? Like your future was stolen from you before it even had a chance to exist?"

Elena inclined her head. "Like a dream," she murmured. "Like it was waiting for me. Beyond the borders...beyond the...the warding-saints..."

"Hush, now. You don't need to worry about running," her mother said. "About what waits for you beyond. Why would you need to run? It's here, it was always here. Deep down. And now you've arrived, and we're all so pleased to have you, so pleased you've joined with us at last. We can catch up in the morning, and for now..."

"Rest," her father said.

"It's safe here," Claudia told her.

"It's good, here," her mother said.

"Nothing to frighten you in the night," her father said. "Nothing waiting in the dark beyond the door. Only what you know. Isn't that right?"

"This is the way it should be," her mother said. Red shining in the darkness. The drip of heavy liquid against stone. She smiled, softly this time, her face a mirror for Elena's in the candlelight. "This is the way it always should have been."

***

"Let her go."

(Let her go? But this is what she wanted!) Angie gave a derisive snicker. (Look how fast she fell for it)

"No. You tricked her. You didn't play fair."

(Nothing's fair, Donna. She's an interloper. A cuckoo. A traitor. She messed it all up and this is really her just desserts, mark my words)

"This...this isn't what I want!"

(I don't care what you want! You stupid, silly little thing, I care about what's best for you! And I know best!)

Donna paced back and forth, back and forth, tension building in her every nerve. The darkness of the well room shivered as if caught in an earthquake

(The well room? Naive Donna, this has been inside your mind all this time, how you cling to the talismans that make you safe and destroy you all at once)

and all the while, Angie perched on the lip of the old stone well, eyes rolling back and forth, following Donna's movements.

(Come back to me, Donna. We can be together again. You and me hiding away. That was good, right? That was the way it oughta be, really. We don't need anyone else. Anything else. That useless old groundskeeper and his nasty little children, poking and prodding like they could be of any help. Simpering Violeta who couldn't handle a couple parasites. And now this one. E-LAAAAAAY-na. A plain brown mouse caught in a trap. Crush its head under your heel before its squeaking gets too shrill)

Another shudder. The stone walls seemed to writhe and squirm around her, the darkness full of eyes and teeth and horrors beyond imagining, all that she feared. Donna clutched at her own arms, her black nails biting deep into the fabric.

(Let me take care of her)

(Feed her to the flowers after)

(All can be like it was before, Donna)

(All can be like it should be)

Donna lifted her head and looked at Angie, right in the eyes. Like looking in a mirror. She lowered her arms.

"All like it should be," she echoed.

She stepped forward.

***

"Do you remember?" Elena asked quietly.

Candlelight, warm hands. Her mother's scent, rosemary and lemon. All good things, none of the shadows.

At the head of the table, her mother blinked. "What, darling?"

"When you left. You said...you told me I would barely have time to miss you." Elena lifted her head. "But I did. Every day you were gone. And every day since your suitcase came back without you. I looked for you everywhere. Not just...not just searching, I mean, I knew you'd died in the castle. In other ways. In the smell of fresh herbs, cut from the window-box, like all of summer contained in the palm of my hand. Another woman's laugh- not quite right, but almost, so close I might pretend it was yours. The sound of footsteps on the front porch. The peace I felt the moment before I fell asleep. Like you'd just finished telling me a story. Like you had just left the room. I thought nothing could touch me there."

A smile touched her lips.

"And in my own face," she murmured. "I watched it change, and I was glad, because as I grew older I looked more and more like you. And in that small way, I could keep you alive."

She met her mother's eyes. The others, her other beloved ghosts, shifted and whispered alongside her.

They were thin, like painted paper.

Like moth wings, trapped in amber.

Like shadows on the wall.

"But you're not," Elena said. "You're not. And you never will be again. I think I never stopped searching for you. Like I could fix the world if only I could make what happened to you right. But it won't, will it? It's not right. You'll stay dead, and gone. It'll all stay empty. Trapped in that circle of light."

"Elena..." her mother murmured.

The smell of rot and damp. The thick, sweetish fug of decaying organic matter. The dring of thick liquid grew louder, and in the corners, where the light didn't touch-

None of this was right.

None of this was as it should be.

"I miss you so much, Mama," Elena said. Her voice trembled, her eyes warm. A tear broke down her cheek. "I don't want to go. I don't want to leave you."

"Then don't, sweet girl." Her voice was soft, a soothing whisper, the way she'd told Elena stories to lull her to sleep. "It's cold outside. Stay with me. Stay with all of us. You said it yourself. It's safe in here."

"I know," Elena said.

Her fist tightened on the arm of her chair.

"But it isn't real," she said.

Her mother's pale gaze hardened. Had her eyes been that color before? They glittered like glass in the candlelight, and when she smiled, something was wrong with her teeth.

"Wrong move, Elena," she said, and Angie began to laugh.

***

(It's too late, anyway, Donna. She's lost. Buried so deep she'll never get out, no matter how much she digs)

"I know you were trying to help me, Angie."

(...What?)

"All these years. You, taking me far away. You, by my side, in my arms. Whispering to me the right thing to do so I stayed safe. I know I made you this way, Angie, and it's not fair of me to turn on you now."

She shook her head, wistful and wan. "How else could you be? This was the way you were supposed to act. You did everything right. But now it has to end."

Angie cocked her head.

(Don't be stupid)

"I'm not," Donna told her. "I know all you did was out of love."

(Don't do this, Donna)

"I have to."

(You're not brave enough-)

"That's not going to work on me anymore. I am more than enough. And I think you realize now what I'm truly capable of."

(Please Donna please, I'm sorry, I'll let her go. Okay? She can live in your house and I won't bother you again. Oh, please, please, please, you can make her doll clothes and give her flowers and anything you want and I'll be quiet, I'll be good, I promise)

"Oh, Angie, my dearest," Donna told her. "You and I both know that's not true."

She stopped before the doll, hesitated, and reached out. She lifted her, then cradled her to her chest, rocking her back and forth, humming to her under her breath, a slow, sweet lullaby. She felt the pulse of the Cadou in Angie's head, the way it harmonized with its elder sibling implanted deep in her chest cavity, its tentacles twining like strangling vines round her ribs.

It had been there so long it was a part of her, nested deep. How cold the scalpel had been, parting muscle and fat, cracking through bone, carving a place for the gift to take root. But now all she felt was warmth, the soft hum of the tandem pulses, the way Angie's comforted her. In all her monstrousness, in all her mutilation, she would never be alone.

(Donna)

"Yes?"

(Do you love me)

"With all that I am."

(Don't go)

A cold hand traced the line of Donna's cheek.

(Don't leave me to the dark)

Donna bent. She pressed a kiss to Angie's porcelain face. "It's all right," she told her. "You're a part of me. You always will be. And I will never, never, never go away."

And she whirled, and opened her arms, and she flung Angie into the depths of the well.

***

"Elena!"

She stood. The shadows around her rose, too, glittering doll eyes trained on her. The view outside the windows was one of blazing golden light. Underfoot, the house began to shake. Her mother stared back at her, Angie's cackle going on and on and on, ringing deep into her skull.

Elena jerked back, but her father reached out, hand snapping over her wrist; his fingers bit down.

"Stay with us," he said.

"Stay," Claudia said.

"Stay," Violeta echoed, tipping her head to the side.

"No- let me go-" She twisted at her father's grip, but he was strong, too strong for her to break free. She reached for her rifle, but it was gone, too; the cutlery on the table melted under her touch. The walls began to melt, too, the world swirling into haze at the edges of her vision. Only her mother's grin was real, slick and red.

"Elena!"

That voice. It was so familiar. Elena remembered in a burst like a kick to the gut. "Donna!" Her voice broke from her, raw and ragged. "Donna, I'm here."

"Hold on-"

And she was there. Her pale hands on Elena's. The house around them broke apart, Elena's ghosts swirling away into nothingness. Her father's grip vanished, and she stumbled against Donna. She was stronger than she looked; she held Elena up, kept her from falling. Angie's laughter became a shrill scream like a buzz-saw; cracks shot through the house, through the table and floor, bright white light streaming through.

"Are you real?" Elena mumbled.

The whisper came against her face, between kisses to her cheek. "Yes."

The dream broke apart. The light seared over them. A swirl of yellow petals, a swooping wrench in the pit of her stomach. She wasn't standing, she was laying down on something hard. A table? Her arms and legs wouldn't move; something restrained her. A vase of yellow flowers was placed by her head, the smell of their bittersweet perfume sticky on the back of her throat. The light stabbing into her eyes- that wasn't dream-light. It was a lamp, hanging over her face. She recognized it in an instant as the lamp in the doll workshop.

It caught a thread of silver light on the edge of a blade.

Elena took it all in. Angie, standing over her. The doll's mouth open in a gleeful, sinister grin. Her arms raised.

The scissors, clenched in her hands.

Elena gasped. Her eyes sprang wide.

The scissors arced down.

The crack was like thunder, like an old land mine had gone off behind Elena's eyes. The side of Angie's head exploded in a spray of porcelain fragments and pinkish, glutinous flesh. It calcified in midair, shards of crystal raining over Elena as she stared, mouth open, unable to move.

Angie screamed. The sound sheared through Elena's skull, on and on- no, that wasn't just Angie, it was the thing in her head, fetal, curled, pulsating, tentacles whipping free to claw and writhe at the air. The scissors spun and clattered to the table as Angie swayed back and forth, tearing at the hole in her cranium with her fingers, like she could put it all back together.

With a sound like crunching glass, the thing in her head turned cloudy, then gray, then to glittering crystal. The scream sharpened- then died. It trailed off in a wheeze, and Angie shuddered, and stilled.

She collapsed. A marionette with strings cut. She fell to the table with a clunk, nothing more than a heap of old lace and lifeless porcelain.

Elena looked back. Donna stood behind her, Elena's rifle aimed at the place where Angie had just been. A wisp of smoke curled from the barrel.

"Oh," Donna said, her voice small.

Elena made herself speak. "Are you sure this is real?" she managed.

Donna blinked, then tossed the rifle aside and rushed to Elena. She scrabbled at the ropes binding Elena to the table, then went for a knife and sawed her loose. She was crying, Elena saw, tears streaming down her face from her single eye, turning her cheek red. "Sorry, sorry," she kept saying. "This dratted old rope, it's so tough- sorry-"

And then she was free, and Elena grabbed for her, and Donna flung her arms around Elena's neck. She was crying, now, in earnest. The both of them were, and Elena began to laugh when she realized yes, this was real, this was happening, and she felt all at once unable to comprehend the moment, the pure, drowning relief of it.

Elena felt something crunch under her hand, and lifted it to find the remnants of the yellow flowers crushed against her palm. She must have knocked over the vase in the struggle.

"Where is she?" Elena asked, brushing the crushed petals from her skin. They left smears of pollen behind. "Angie?"

"Gone."

"Oh, saints- Donna-"

Donna gave her a shaky smile. "It's all right," she said. "I don't need her anymore."

***

They limped up together, arms over one another's shoulders. A four-legged beast, hunched and haggard and bloodied. Donna's beautiful black mourning clothes were all ruined, a couple buttons torn from her jacket, the skirt in tatters. Her veil was gone, hair hanging loose around her sweaty face. Elena couldn't stop looking at her.

"What?" Donna panted, as they collapsed against the side of the elevator, on their way up from the basement.

"Nothing. You're so beautiful, is all."

"Oh." She picked at her skirt, a little smile playing over her face.

"It's true." Elena took a short breath. It hurt. Her vision was ringed with black, creeping in from the edges. "Don't...don't...tell me I'm..."

She crumpled. Donna swooped to catch her up again. "Shh. Just breathe. I'll fix you up. Make you feel all better."

"Just a minute to sit down."

"Yes, that's right. And a cup of tea."

"That'll fix me right up. Do you have any whiskey to put in it?"

Donna stroked her hair back from her sweaty forehead. "I think I can figure something out."

They limped from the elevator, down the corridor, heading toward the main hall. Elena's body was too cold, too heavy. White danced through her lashes as the hallway whirled around her like she was dancing. She tasted blood on the back of her throat. Little wonder, considering all she'd been through in the last few hours. Her fall down the well, her fight with Heisenberg, her flight through the nightmares. What time was it? Near dawn, surely. The long, long night, nearly spun itself out.

Maybe they could watch the sunrise together.

"It'll look..." she started.

"Hmm?"

"...beautiful, coming over the mountains..."

"Hush. Save your strength."

"Donna. I want you to know-"

"I love you, too."

Elena let out a hiss of a laugh. "How did you..."

"I've been inside your head, Elena," Donna told her. Her smile swam in Elena's vision. "I know all your secrets."

She pushed through the door and into the front hall.

It wasn't empty.

Feathers rustled, and spread, unfurling in a glistening, glorious fan of iridescent black. Eight vast wings, the bitter reek of mold, the glow of gilt in the firelight. She had removed her mask, her face beneath pale, beautiful, composed.

Miranda.

Donna jerked to a halt with a sharp gasp. Elena hung from her grip, arm hooked around her neck. She quivered from the exertion of staying conscious, but inside, calm settled down at the pit of her stomach.

"Child," Miranda said. Her eyes settled on Donna. "I've been waiting. And you've been far more interesting than I could have ever anticipated."

"Mother." Donna's voice sounded small, crushed down to a whisper. "I...I did not expect a visit from..."

"Quiet." Her voice rang through the house; it shuddered, like it was frightened, too. Mold glistened in the corners, snaking over the walls. She faced them, fully, those impossible wings radiating from her back. The Black God's prophet, come to do her holy work.

"Leave, Donna," she commanded. "Wait for me elsewhere. Do not wound yourself by watching as I take your servant's life."

Donna lifted her chin. "No."

"Child." Miranda's eyes brightened. "You've defied me enough. Don't you understand? There are no more of your flowers in here. Nothing for you to fight with. And without your dreams, what are you? Not a monster. Not a god. Not one of the Black God's chosen, no longer. Just a frightened child, her time swiftly running out."

"No," Elena said, softly.

Miranda's head whipped toward her. "What?"

Elena could no longer speak. Her strength was gone. All she could do was lift her hand, dripping with dark sap.

And the golden haze of pollen drifting around it, winking like stars in the gloom.

"Poor Miranda," Donna said, sing-song, a ferine grin curving over her face. "Never stood a chance."

The air turned bittersweet: a sudden flare of floral scent, overpowering in these confines. Pressure dropped. It crackled in Elena's ears, aching in her bones. Miranda snapped rigid; her eyes were wide, staring, darting from side to side. She quivered, drawing in her taloned hands. They gripped at her upper arms. Her lips fluttered. A prayer, maybe. Or a plea.

"Deeper," Donna whispered. "Deeper."

"P...please...child..."

"Hush," Donna breathed. "Further down, Mother. Safe down there. Warm down in the dark. Shhh."

The bittersweet smell of flowers strengthened. Prisms refracted in Elena's eyes. She watched as Miranda shrank back, as she curled in on herself, crumpling down to the floor. Her wings curved over her as if they could shield her, but they melted away like ice in the sunlight, becoming a pool of black mold that squirmed and writhed around her.

Fear shone in her eyes. "I...I'm not done...such a long time, such a long way still to go..."

"Shhh," Donna said. She stepped forward to stroke Miranda's hair. It was blonde, Elena saw, under the ornate black and gold veil. Pale blonde, perfectly ordinary. Strange, to find that out, here at the end. "Rest, now. Oh, I see her. Do you see her?"

"...Yes," Miranda said.

"She's with you?"

"Yes." A hint of a smile touched Miranda's face. Her arms moved, as if to cradle an infant to her heart. "My little Eva."

"Good. Now. Sleep. Dream." Donna let out her breath. "Forever."

Miranda slumped from under Donna's hand. The look in her eyes emptied. The pollen swirled in the stillness, the silence, drifting to settle on Elena's skin.

***

"What..." Elena breathed, at last. "What did you do to her?"

"I put her away. Hid her deep," Donna said. She let out a long breath, the look in her eye bright, far away. So far Elena thought she might not come back.

But she did. Her eye focused, and turned to Elena, full of warmth. "I buried her so far down she will never get out. She won't bother us anymore."

"Oh." Elena nodded. "Good."

"Very clever, with the flowers."

"...Donna."

"Yes?"

"I- I think I'm-"

She never finished. Elena's legs gave out. The last thing she saw was Donna reaching for her, Donna's face, her wide eye, her mouth shaping her name.

And darkness fell.

[saintsofwarding]

BURIAL

Chapter 13

This time, she walked. Stumbling, shoved shaking through the snow and the mud, back toward the lonely mountain path that led to House Beneviento.

My father's gone.

The village was silent now, empty, everyone fled inside. Heisenberg's hand still clenched in her hair, he and Elena made their way through the gate and up the frozen, snowy slope. The village fell away as they ascended far from torchlight and lamp, through the stone circle that guarded the Giant's Chalice.

Her foot twisted under her. She half-fell, but Heisenberg yanked her back upright. He walked rigid and staring straight ahead, with none of his brazen slouch from before.

Pa's gone. It's all my fault. None of it mattered, nothing at all, because he's gone and Donna will be, too, soon.

"You can't," she managed, through numb lips. "She's your sister."

Heisenberg said nothing. Elena twisted at his grip. "You're supposed to be the strong one, the one everyone's afraid of. Aren't you? And look at you now. Pathetic."

Another twist; hair tore, bringing tears to her eyes. "Just kill me now, get it over with! Saves me another second with you and your weak-"

"Enough!" It was Heisenberg's voice that snarled from him, but Miranda's intonation, her arch coldness, her grandeur. Elena's head was yanked back, hard; she gasped, the pain crackling behind her eyes. The stars shone cold overhead, a glittering blanket of them. Elena raked in a deep lungful of the clear, pure air, tears pricking her eyes.

Everything at once became like water, through the haze of her father's broken mind, his blood on the floor, the emptiness it all had left behind. Everything was so clear. She really would die, if she did nothing. Donna would come for her, and she would die. And all would stay as it was. On, and on, again and again, until Miranda was done or the world burnt itself out.

She had to do something.

She had to.

But what? What?

Feeling rushed back to her, a punch to the gut, so hard the tears came at last and streamed down her face. Her lungs felt crushed inside her. It was all so hopeless. Even if she tore herself free and ran, he- Miranda- would hunt her down, or send a shard of metal through her, deadly as a bullet. She slid and staggered up the mountain, scalp aching, Heisenberg snarling and muttering through his teeth.

Every so often he gave his head a shake. Was he aware of all this, Miranda allowing his mind to still see through his eyes even as she rode him like a mule? Could he feel his own hands taken and used for her benefit, pushing Elena through the deep snow against his will?

Past the graveyard, the plague pits, up the hill, flocks of crows cawing and wheeling against the stars. The forest ended and the ravine opened before them, suddenly, a plunge into rushing darkness, and Elena was shoved onto the bridge.

Her feet shook against the planks, her step unsure on the icy wood. The bridge creaked alarmingly as Heisenberg marched after her, his trench coat flapping in the wind that rocked the whole structure back and forth.

Elena grabbed for the rope railing. Her heart pounded. She could see the Beneviento estate gates on the far side of the bridge, dark wrought iron stark against the snow. She didn't have much time.

A sob of pure frustration rose in her throat. He was a Lord, the Black God's chosen who sang to metal and could not be slain by bullet nor blade. She was unarmed, injured, halfway to shock. What could she do? Saints, what the hell could she do?

"Lord H-Heisenberg," she stuttered. "Did she take you when you were a child, too?"

His gloved hand flexed in her hair.

"Just a frightened little boy. You must have been so small- did she take you from the village? Were you a nobody like me? Or...or did she steal you away from your noble family, like Claudia was going to be stolen from Donna?"

"Shut up-"

"No." Her nerves frayed, and snapped, and all at once the frustration plunged through her, gutless, searing, and curdled into rage. Red ringed her vision, crackled through her blood. All her aches and pains, her exhaustion, her father's blood on her hands, in her mouth. All these weeks of fear and slow understanding, a life of servitude and sacrifice, but she'd once welcomed the chains, she'd embraced them. She'd wanted them.

And what had been accomplished? What holy work had Miranda wrought, all in the Black God's name? A village of people crying out for the thing that would kill them and devour them like a wolf in the woods, that would grind them up and use them and forget their names because, in the end, to her, none of them mattered. They were all a means to her ends, some grand scheme, likely important, likely lofty.

And it didn't matter. Not Miranda's plans, not her desires. Because she had broken Elena's father to do it. Because she had hurt and betrayed those she called her chosen, her gifted, her children. She had made them love her because they had no other choice.

A body that was not a body but a weapon. A mind that was a means to control. A living thing that had broken both, just to escape, just to feel something they could pretend was real.

The frayed strands of Miranda's control on her dug in. Icy claws. But at once they felt like ghost hands, weak and boneless, and it was no effort at all to break them.

It doesn't have to be this way.

It never had to be this way.

"No!" Elena screamed. "You're not gonna take this, Lord Heisenberg. You're not going to let her do this to us. You know what she is. What she's done. Is that how you're going to die? On your knees, bowing to her?"

"That's enough." Miranda's voice echoed from him, through him, through her, too, reverberating deep in her skull. Elena tasted blood.

Heisenberg threw his head back, scarred face twisted in a snarl.

"Shut up, you brainwashing bitch," he roared. Blue light hummed; energy rippled through the night, clearing a sphere from the mist. Elena felt the crackle in the air, the shift in the wind. Loose hair whipped around her head, blue sparks dancing from strand to strand.

A thrill coursed down her spine. It felt like the moments before a storm, before a lightning strike split the sky in two.

"Get out!" Heisenberg yelled. "Both of you! Get the fuck out of my head!"

"Fight her," Elena cried. "Come on. Don't give in."

A low, mocking laugh; the shadows of crows clattered around them, a whole flock of phantom wings ripping and tearing at them.

Heisenberg let out a snarl and raked out at them, Elena dangling from his other hand by a hank of hair. She felt like a doll whipped around by an angry child. "I said shut. Up!"

Without warning, he turned and flung her, hard. She left the ground and tumbled, head over heels, slamming to the snow on the far side of the bridge; cold burst into her mouth as she rolled into an ungainly heap of skirts and loosed hair, fallen from its braid.

Elena shoved it back and herself to her knees, staring with huge eyes at Heisenberg on the bridge. Magnificent. Awful. The air around him rippled, coursing and shimmering with arcs and flashes of blue-white lightning. It crackled, searing the snowfall to steam.

He seemed to be grappling with himself, one hand pressed to his head, the other clenched around his hammer grip as he swung the massive thing in great sweeps around him. The whole of the bridge screeched and shuddered, nails jumping in their settings, each one thrumming with every wave of his terrible power.

Elena's ears popped. She skidded backward at another blast of power, ripples of energy carving the snow into waves around her.

Sorcery, she thought, breathless, watching the blue glow cascade across her hands.

Her next thought was-

Run.

She flung herself to her feet. The snow skidded beneath her boots; she fell against a tree. A hand gripped the back of her coat and spun her round. He loomed before her, glasses lit blue-white by his power. It wreathed him, blue shimmer, crackles of energy spitting into the cold night air. Blood trickled from his nose, over the scar that nearly bisected his lower lip.

His hand snapped forward, around her neck.

He lifted her off her feet. Elena wheezed and grabbed at his wrist, but she might have been a kitten for all she could do; his hand squeezed, black spidering into her vision. She raked in a breath. It wasn't enough.

"We had a bargain, Elena," Heisenberg- Miranda- said, between his teeth. "We made a deal. We all must make sacrifices to get what we most want. Even me. You don't seem to understand that. You chose defiance. You think you know betrayal but you know nothing, nothing of the world, nothing of devotion, and this- this is your just reward-"

Heisenberg slammed Elena back against the tree. Her skull cracked against frozen bark. Stars burst in her vision; she gasped, eyes snapping wide. He dragged her back and slammed her again, again, spitting words-

"Useless, mortal thing-"

Again.

"-Tear you apart, throw your corpse to the lycans-"

Again. She felt her blood seep, wet, down the back of her skull. White splintered in her lashes, and all at once, like a beacon, Donna's face burst into her head.

Donna's face, a smile light on her lips.

Donna's face in the sunlight, lit golden by the first of the coming day.

I'm not gonna die here-

With the last of her breath, the last of her energy, Elena's knee came up, hard, where it counted. Miranda's words cut off as Heisenberg let out a yell of pain, as his hand opened and Elena dropped to the snow at his feet.

She raked at the ground, dragging herself away as he spun, as she rose, as they faced one another, both of them ragged and panting and bloodied just the same.

The forest reeled around her with each slosh of her heartbeat. Blood dripped cold down her neck. She stared at Heisenberg, hands open at her sides, waiting for him to move, to do something, to strike the final blow.

He didn't.

He didn't move at all.

"What the fuck," he said, with feeling.

"I'll kick you again," Elena yelled. "I swear to- to the Black God-"

"Why the hell do you want to live so damn badly?"

"I have to get to Donna."

"Donna."

"Yes, Donna! Haven't you been...weren't you listening?"

Still he didn't approach her. He straightened, slowly, gray-white hair ruffled by the night wind. Strange. His hair was an old man's but his face wasn't. The gift that gave him his power, the things that had been done to him- that had been done to all of them- must have aged him, added the gray to his hair like it had done to Donna's. Now, in this deep winter light, he didn't look like a Lord, not like a holy thing at all. Save for the little crackles of energy that spat from him each time he moved, he almost looked human.

"You know what she did?" Heisenberg growled. "To...to that kid? Claudia? Her own fuckin' sister?"

Did he fight off Miranda? Did I snap him out of it? Elena blinked, then nodded. "I- I know. She showed me."

"Showed me too. I felt it. Every second of it." Leather creaked as his hand wound into a fist. "She showed me. Depths. Endless. Dark like you wouldn't fuckin' believe. You're right, sweetheart, you got me. We were all children. I was half hoping Claudia's Cadou would take, make her as powerful as Miranda was gunning on her to be."

He let out a bitter snarl of a laugh. "Maybe then Claudia would have torn her head off and did what I've been wanting to do ever since I woke up on an operating table with half my mind missing and a scar like that fuckin' ravine carved into my back."

He gave his head a hard shake. The wind stirred, snow glimmering in it, and echoing in came the distant calls of crows.

She's coming back.

Elena scrubbed her palm over her mouth.

"I need to get to the house," she said. "I need to get to Donna. If you help me I'll- I don't care, I'll let you look at my brain, okay? Whatever the hell it is you want to do to me, you can do it, just- just tell me, is..."

She paused, hardly daring to hope. "...Is Miranda listening now?"

He shook his head slowly.

"I think she can stop her," Elena pressed. "I think Donna can stop Miranda for good. But she's trapped, and if I don't get to her there's no chance at all."

Heisenberg stared at her for a heartbeat. It was the same look he'd given her in her father's house, that same calculating, hungry, haunted intensity. And when he grinned, it might have lit the night.

"Yeah, little martyr," he said. "I know. So you better stop me fast." He tapped his temple. "She's coming."

A rush. A shard of ice through Elena's mind. It was a thousand times worse for Heisenberg; he recoiled, both hands hooked into claws. He raked at the air; power boomed, blasting a circle on the ground clean of snow.

Behind her, Elena heard the iron gates rattling, screeching against their hinges. She hazarded a look back. They began to shake, humming faster and faster, a vibration she felt in the backs of her teeth. As she watched, a bolt pinged loose, and the bottom of a gate curled upward with a shriek.

Saints, he was going to rip them free from their hinges, tear them up like it was nothing.

A crack; Elena flung herself down. Just in time. Half of the massive gate tore loose and sheared past her head, so close the wind sliced at her cheek. It rocketed toward Heisenberg and he caught it in midair, hands splayed.

He crunched them down into fists. The massive gate crumpled like an empty can. In a chorus of teeth-biting twangs it broke apart into its components. With a slice of his hand they orbited around him, a humming, crackling storm of iron rods and chunks of curlicued iron, sparks jumping from piece to piece.

It took effort. Catching it made him stumble back, back, against the bridge and onto it. The whole structure creaked under his increased weight- not just of him, but a good half-ton of iron, too.

But something about it was- off. Wrong. The way he held his hands wasn't like him, but like Miranda, and when he'd stumbled back it was like he was off-balance, unused to this. Lord Heisenberg's power was a part of him, like Donna's was a part of her.

But it wasn't a part of Mother Miranda, even as she puppeted him like a marionette.

She was out of her depth.

Oh, saints.

"There's no need for your legs, child," Miranda cried, through Heisenberg. Elena heard the echo of her voice alongside his, a beat out of sync. "You can crawl to the steps of House Beneviento on broken, bloodied stumps. I should have removed them before your father's eyes as he bled out on the floor of your filthy hovel!"

Elena straightened. Tensed. Her eyes flicked to the rope bridge supports. The handrail was attached to the pole by a loop of rope, jouncing and scraping with each movement of the bridge.

Heisenberg lifted his hand. His massive hammer, flung aside on the cliff, flickered with blue glow. It began to hum.

"My only regret is not doing this myself," Miranda snarled.

In a crackle, the snap of blue-white lightning illuminating the snow like day, the hammer whirled into the air. Elena sprang. She pelted to the bridge and grabbed the rope. The hammer smacked into Heisenberg's hand with a clang, its huge head lifted as if to arc down, to smash Elena apart-

Elena yanked the rope.

The loop slipped off the top of the frozen pole.

For a weightless instant,

nothing happened.

Then-

With a creaking, a crackling groan of ancient boards, the bridge twisted to the side; without the support the whole thing corkscrewed, tipping toward the ravine. A couple loose planks slid off and into the abyss. Heisenberg stumbled, other hand raking out for the railing. Miranda might have done it, might have kept them both on the bridge, if not for the hammer.

The massive, top-heavy hammer.

He might have used his power to lift it, but that didn't negate its weight.

"No-!" Miranda roared as Heisenberg slid right off the bridge, hammer pulling him down, down, down into the mist. He plunged from the boards and out of sight, gone in an instant.

Lightning flickered through the mist, once, twice, then went dark.

Silence fell.

Elena stared, breathing hard. She stood there, still gripping the pole. The rope had scraped up her hands, and the back of her head felt cold. She reached up and touched the blood-stiff hair, numbly. Red glistened on her fingertips.

The sight of the blood and the reality of the situation crashed down on her, like he'd really used his hammer on her after all. Heat shocked through her body. Fingers, feet, yeah, all there. She made herself move to the cliff edge. The mist cleared, enough for her to see the rocks at the bottom, the river rushing beyond. Heisenberg lay sprawled on the rocks. Dark fluid pooled around his head.

He wasn't moving.

"Oh, fuck," Elena whimpered. Was he dead?

Saints, had she killed him?

No. No. He'd wanted her to do this. He'd hoped she'd...well, if not exactly fling him off a cliff, something like it, anyway. Maybe it was to further his own ends, his obvious hatred of his so-called Mother, his vengeance against Miranda for what she'd done to him as a child. Elena doubted her own well-being came into it all. But still, there he was, and here she was, alive against all odds because of him.

She gave her head a little shake, a manic half-laugh bubbling out of her like a mouthful of blood. Who the hell would have thought.

Then she turned from the cliffside, pushing herself into a limping run off the bridge post, toward the ruined gates and the gardens and House Beneviento.

And Donna.

I'm coming.

***

She half-expected the elevator to not work, for the power to be cut, but it glowed through the cave gloom as she made her way to it and clambered inside, slamming her palm to the button, gripping a cage bar as the contraption ground its way toward the manor above.

The elevator reeled around her. Elena pressed her eyes shut, swallowing back the acid that crept up her throat. Keep it together.

She stumbled from the gate, into the short passageway, into the snow. The storm had come up here, had hit the mountainside with sinister intent. Wind howled and raked at her, whipping her bloodied hair round her shoulders, into her eyes. She held it aside as the house rose before her, rippling from the blizzard, from the thundering spume kicked off the waterfall.

It might have looked empty, a great mausoleum in the storm, dead and buried. But she felt it again, stronger than ever- that gravity well, that pull, that inexorable yawning darkness telling her come closer. Fall into me. Never leave. Never leave.

Never leave.

And maybe she wouldn't. But Donna was there, she knew. And she staggered forward, hands numb and clenched at her sides, letting the pull draw her in. Blood in her footprints. She ignored it and kept moving, past the gardens, up the front steps, to the porch and the doors.

One was open. Just a crack.

Golden light spilled through.

The windows were all dark. It's not real. Whatever you see in there, only she's real. Remember that. Elena stopped outside the doors, her hand poised on the handle. The metal was cold under her palm. Then she grabbed hold.

She pulled the doors to House Beneviento open and stepped through, letting them settle shut behind her with a soft boom.

The sound reverberated, on and on through the winding halls of the house. Down through her, an endless spiral into the depths of her skull.

The darkness rippled. For an instant Elena saw it as it must be- gloom and a cold hearth, the remnants of the chair Donna and Angie were chained to, now torn apart, candles scattered like old bones- and then it washed past her, over her, melting into sludge and slurry and golden light. Flames burst to life in the hearth, and the light swept over the burnished panels of the walls, the china ornaments, the comfortable chairs and paintings and baskets of knitting-wool and pretty dolls smiling from cabinets and bookshelves.

The air tasted of tea, of furniture polish. Of an old house, dust and grime. And of flowers, bittersweet in the back of Elena's throat.

She took a short breath.

"Donna," she called. "Will you come out, please?"

Another step, silent on the rug, the worn floorboards, chapped by so many generations of feet. A whisper flickered past her- gone in an instant. She thought of her rifle, in her room. Leaning against the wall, such a comfort over her shoulder.

No. She wouldn't face Donna with a weapon. No matter what happened, she wasn't going to make Donna feel like a monster.

"Donna," she called again. "Please come out. I just want to talk to you." She paused. "Angie can come, too."

Nothing.

Silence.

Golden light fluttered, through the doorway to the kitchen. Like a candle flame playing over a distant wall. And in it, an echo, a memory-

Laughter. Though whether it was Donna's, or Claudia's, or Elena's own, when she was a child, before all this, before understanding, she didn't know.

She picked up her speed, limping to the door and through it. She left a bloody handprint on the frame. The kitchen was empty, the fire banked. Fragments of burned fabric smoldered on the stones. Green fabric. Elena's clothes, the clothes Donna had so carefully made for her. She picked up the burned pieces, clenching them in her hands, then let them fall.

Another flutter of light. Down the hall, against the cabbage roses. And a scrap of singing, a childish lullaby-

-Little Dolly Donna, quiet as a mouse...hunting for Elena as she creeps about the house...

"You think that's gonna scare me?" Elena mumbled.

Who the hell was she kidding. It did. She scrubbed the back of her hand over her mouth and pushed herself onward. Down the corridor as it twisted around her, as she felt it ripple and shudder and slope, downward, not flat.

Was the whole house sliding off the cliff? Had the waterfall come up to claim it?

She felt the rush of cold, like the falls had broken banks and leapt to devour the house, icy water rushing through the halls, tearing and leaping and rumbling with incredible destructive force. She felt its rumble all around her, its impossible, unstoppable power, down to the marrow of her bones. Eat you up. Devour you alive. Come on, Elena, none of us can be protected. None of us can be saved...

"Shut up," Elena snapped. "I'm getting real sick of your bullshit, Angie."

Round and around and around again.

The hallway twisted on. Shouldn't she have come to the end by now? Elena looked back, but the door was gone, lost in the turn.

She blinked.

Wait- hang on.

She turned round and pulled herself back. The rose wallpaper felt soft under her palm, like living flesh, like skin, giving a little under her weight. The corridor slid around her. She made the turn, but- no, there should have been a door- there was nothing, nothing but-

A silhouette. Hazy, hunched, holding the wall. Elena drew closer. It was herself. No, a reflection of herself. The mirror stretched from floor to ceiling, age-spotted, a web of hairline cracks mapping over its surface. In it she looked like a corpse already, her eyes deeply shadowed, her olive skin so pale her face seemed to drift from the darkness, independent of her body. The blood had dried strands of her hair stiff. Elena drew closer, closer.

Behind her, over her shoulder-

She whirled, but the corridor was empty. No. She was in it. Her own reflection, behind her now. Elena's pulse ticked in her throat.

"Enough of your games, Angie," she said, and hurried forward, toward the mirror-

Over her shoulder-

Again she whirled, this time a scream trapped between her teeth. She'd seen her. She'd seen Donna. A figure shrouded in black, glimpsed out the corner of her eye, but- maybe- no, was it only her shadow? Only herself?

She stared into her own eyes in the mirror. A mouse, caught in a trap.

Panic rose in her, a mindless scrabble of terror that clawed at her throat, tightening her lungs. White trembled in her lashes.

"Donna," she said. "Donna! Let me out!"

She slammed her palm on the mirror with a scream. Her reflection echoed her, mouth gaping in a silent echo. Blood smeared the glass.

"Donna," Elena said. Her heart hammered against her sternum. "I'm not here for Miranda. I'm here for you. I came back. For you. She's...she's coming to get you, take you...somewhere, I don't know. It can't be good."

She made herself breathe.

"Heisenberg helped me," she went on. "He's angry with you. I can't blame him. The things you showed him...I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But he helped me. Do you understand that? He wants this over, too. You aren't alone. You never were. And you never will be again. Not if you don't want to be."

She bit back a sob.

"You must be so angry with me," she said. "I betrayed you. I wish I could take it back. I wish I'd said, back at the beginning. But I didn't think I'd...I didn't think I'd come to feel this way about you. And now all I want is to see you again so I can tell you this face to face."

Silver gleamed.

Elena whirled. Her eyes widened. Leaning against the wall, beneath a darkened sconce, picking up a thread of light over its worn carvings:

Her rifle.

She stared for a heartbeat, then sprang and took it up. It fell into her hands, and she snapped back the bolt, like she knew best, and fired. A crack like thunder. The mirror exploded; the sound of shattering glass filled the air, shards raining around her- but they became petals, a storm of yellow petals fluttering in the phantom wind.

As they spiraled away, brass glowed in the dim gaslight.

The elevator.

Elena let out a shaky laugh of pure relief.

"Thanks, Donna," she whispered.

She slung her rifle over her shoulder and hurried to the elevator. The mirror frame melted away behind her, the mousetrap receding into the murk. She raked aside the gate.

Beyond there was no elevator. Only a tunnel plunging straight down, curved walls made of ancient stacked stones, and bolted into them were rungs. Elena could not see the bottom. But she heard it, down there- music, played on a gramophone.

Not a dancing tune. Violin, aching and somber, as if for a funeral.

Elena eased her foot onto the first rung, then lowered herself down. She shuddered as the grimy air enfolded her, as the darkness rose, as her arms shook with the effort. She descended, rung by rung, her breathing echoing around her. The light receded, the circle of illumination. It wasn't reality up there but it felt more like it, felt closer to it, as if she was descending not only deeper into this dream-maze but deeper into the gullet of some great devouring beast.

At last her boots hit the ground. The bottom of the elevator shaft, or the well shaft. The trace of light spilled out into the sitting room, but it was different now. It was the room but after a hundred years of rot, the walls overtaken with thick, squirming black vines, wet like viscera. Elena thought of skinning rabbits, cleaning them, slitting open their stomachs to allow their intestines to spill out over the table. The floor was a great mass of black mold and slime, furniture slumping into heaps of decay, books and ornaments strewn about in the mire like strange small artifacts from some ancient, lost ruins.

Elena held her breath as she stepped out into it, boots squishing deep into the morass. The doorway deeper into the basement rose from nowhere, a great maw leading her on and on. She wound through the hallways. They snaked and looped and folded around, spiraling into impossible corridors, following no logic, no layout she'd seen before.

"Donna?" Elena pushed through hanging tendrils of rot. Somewhere ahead winked golden light. "Donna, listen to my voice. Follow me. Not her."

The music played on. She moved ahead, moved on. The mold-tendrils moved with her, pulsating with each beat of her pounding heart. Down the halls. The music grew louder. The mold thickened, a briar-tangle of roots and veins, until they were so thick she could not see through them at all.

Elena pushed her hands into the mass; it squirmed against her; she thought of Donna's face, the feeling of her mouth against her own, the way she hadn't been disgusted by it, the way she'd only thought of the next time, and the next-

The mold parted, and she stepped through.

Her next step was onto snow.

A great frozen field, a sweep of white void. Her breathing echoed out, through the mist. She could not see the limits of the place, but she felt them, the ringing silence, the vastness, the emptiness. Crows circled somewhere high above. She heard their calls in the mist.

"Donna!"

Her shout rang and fell apart. "Donna!" She turned, but she was alone, no way back to the basement. Shapes swam from the mist- rotting houses, village houses, falling apart. Statues of warding-saints, gravestones, crusts of walls. There were no flowers here anymore.

Child.

She turned. The shape before her was not a building, not a ruin. Great wings fanned at the frigid air. Mother Miranda, and a young woman, straight-backed and slim, no older than fourteen or fifteen and dressed in black. Mourning clothes of taffeta silk, jet buttons winking in the light.

So you've come to me at last.

Yes. Donna lifted her head. Her face was clean of tears, her gray eyes lightless. There's nothing left.

There is me, child.

Nothing left.

Miranda set a single gilt talon to the girl's cheek. Her right cheek, just below the eye that would one day go missing.

She drew, delicately, a line down Donna's cheek. Blood welled in the cut, fine as a strand of red silk thread.

There is always me. And I will love you, Lady Beneviento. I will love you despite what you've done. The only one to do so. The Black God is merciful, and teaches tolerance, but its teachings only go so far to the unworthy.

Do you understand me?

They will look on you as a monster if they learn the truth. Not as a god, but a monster, a real monster.

That's what real monsters are, child, you understand.

The ones that truly come for us in the dark.

They aren't the wolves, not the beasts that claw at the door. They're girls like you, who kill their sisters to take their place. Do you understand me, child?

Donna didn't move.

Come here, sweet thing. How beautiful you are. And how cold.

She opened her hand, and after a hesitation, Donna set hers into it.

"No!" Elena's cry split the silence. The crows scattered. "No, don't- please, Donna, follow me. Not her. Follow me!"

Mother Miranda and Donna began to fade, walking away together into the mist. Elena sprang after them. Echoes fanned through the mist- crows, and her own ragged breathing. She looked this way, that.

There they are. Two figures hand-in-hand. Elena made herself run again, despite the bruised ache of her exhausted body. Miranda and Donna approached an old stone wall, a line of goat heads impaled on spikes above it. Their blood had dripped down, thick and dark, and dried in streaks down the stones.

In the wall was set a door, red paint peeling from its surface.

Come with me, child, and you will never have to fear the outside world again.

The door creaked wide. Beyond was golden light, streaming onto the snow. Elena picked up speed, rifle jouncing at her shoulder.

Come with me and forget.

Come with me, and belong.

They stepped through the door together.

"No-" Elena forced her body to move, to lunge, even as the door swung shut. Her fingertips snagged its edge, and she slipped through sideways, scraping her cheek on her way in.

She fell into the dark, tripping, collapsing hard onto her knees. The door slammed, trapping her in-

Where?

She forced her head up, raking deep breaths of the cold, still air. She blinked. The room consolidated around her. Her own room, the servants' quarters tucked beneath the eaves of House Beneviento. The small window showed a glimpse of the night sky, spangled with stars. There was her mother's suitcase, her day clothes hung up on the wardrobe, her shoes placed at the foot of the narrow bed. And on the bed, sitting with black-nailed hands folded over her knees, was Donna.

She was veiled. Alone. Angie was not in sight.

"Donna," Elena gasped. She pushed to her knees. "Saints, are you-"

"Shh." Donna lifted her finger to where her lips would be, under the veil. "Quiet. She can hear you."

"She- Angie?" Elena blinked. "Is this where she put you?"

"I move. But only a little. I can't get out." Her hands quivered. "This place feels safe."

"How can I get you out?"

"I...I don't know. She's hunting you. I can feel her. Coming. Let's stroll in the woods while the wolf is not here...if he was here...if he was here he'd eat us."

"Hush." She went to her and knelt by her knees. "Save it."

"How did you escape Heisenberg?"

Elena smiled, despite everything. "I kicked him in the balls and pushed him off a cliff."

"He must not have liked that." Donna's hands laced together so tight it blanched away what little color was in her fingers. "I'm so afraid. More than ever."

"I'll get you out-"

"No. No. I'm afraid for you. For you. What we will do to you."

The house shuddered. Donna tensed as the doorknob rattled. Elena spun, her rifle raised. It rattled again.

Shadow flickered under the door.

"Donna...you know what you've gotta do..."

"No," Donna whispered. "Elena, you have to go. You have to get out."

"How? Where?"

"I..."

"I don't want to leave you." "You have to!" Donna rounded on her, springing from the bed. She grabbed Elena's wrist and clung on. "You have to! She's- agh-"

She clapped her hand to her head. "No, no, go away, I said go away-"

Shrieking laughter echoed from behind the door. The handle rattled again, harder, and then- impact, a slam against the door from the far side so hard the hinges screeched against the wood. The room groaned, the bones of the house constricting.

Again came that song, sung in a high, wheedling voice, a child's and not a child's. "Little Dolly Donna..."

"No!" Donna screamed.

"...quiet as a mouse..."

"Fight it, Donna," Elena urged. "You did before. You can do it again."

"...Looking for Elena as she creeps about the house!"

With the scream of metal against metal, the door burst wide. Elena braced, but there was nothing. Empty space. Darkness.

"Found you," Donna whispered.

Elena whirled. Donna had- oh, saints, she had a pair of scissors, long silver shears, the ones she used for her dollmaking- they were lifted, points glittering-

They sheared down. Elena flung her hand up; Donna's wrist slammed against her palm. The scissors gleamed, poised, quivering, inches from Elena's eyes. She could only stare, transfixed, as they seemed to hover over her. Donna strained against her. Laughter coursed again, echoing from the air, from Donna herself, from the empty darkness just outside the door.

Elena's arm shook.

"Don't," she managed. "Please. Donna. Listen to me- just listen- you heard me before, you freed me from her trap-"

"Games, games, games," Angie hissed. "Fun enough while they lasted. Now it's time to see who wins."

Elena couldn't stand it; pressure built up in her arm, in her shoulder muscle, already overtaxed. Her arm spasmed. She gasped as the scissors jabbed an inch closer. She could almost feel the point in her eyes. Cold. Sudden. No please saints no-

"Take me!" she cried. "You can take me, trap me, just let Donna go!"

A snort. "Why would I want you?"

Elena's arm gave out. The scissors arced down. Her scream burst from her; she twisted, hard, to the side. Silver sheared past; cold gashed her cheek. She collapsed to the ground as Donna stumbled, scissors in hand, dripping with Elena's blood.

Her cheek. They'd gotten her cheek. She scrambled away, toward the open door, but the room around her changed, it melted, like the walls before; her bedroom became a low vaulted space, floors flagstone, the ceiling now hanging with hooks festooned with doll parts. The light became dim, amber, a single lamp near the beams.

Donna's workshop. Angie was there, perched atop an antique radio that was now playing a merry dancing jig, kicking up her little heels as she laughed and laughed. Donna herself crouched on the far side of the butcher's table, like an animal, veiled head weaving from side to side as if searching. Hunting.

For her.

"She's right the-ere, Donna!" Angie sang. She jabbed her finger at Elena in the corner. "Right there right there right there!"

Elena's rifle lay by her hand. Elena snatched it up and swung it as Donna's head snapped round, as she turned on her and lifted the bloody scissors.

The sights squared up with her chest.

She stopped, breathing hard. Her veil fluttered. Elena's hands shook, but at this range it didn't really matter. If she pulled the trigger, she wouldn't miss.

"You wouldn't kill me, Elena," Angie said. Her voice dropped to a low, sardonic purr. "You wouldn't kill Donna."

Elena heard Donna's breathing, she was so close. Little gasps like sobs. She searched the veil and glimpsed, like she had so many weeks before, the bright gleam of her single eye behind it. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

"You're right," Elena whispered. "I wouldn't."

She lifted the rifle. Donna lunged. Elena pulled the trigger, and the lamp burst into a thousand glittering shards of glass.

The scissors sliced down.

Darkness fell.

And as Donna struck her, as the scissors entered her shoulder, the well opened up beneath them, and they plunged together into the black.

[saintsofwarding]

BURIAL

Chapter 12

Come find me, Donna!

A little girl, running through the sunlit garden, her black hair flying behind her as she raced through golden birch trees.

Come and find me!

No. It didn't have to be this way. But it always was. She crushed her hands over her eyes. The yellow flowers were all around, clustering against her, roots twining deep into her skin. Deep, deep inside her, like a parasite.

Don't look don't look don't look.

It squirmed in the back of her skull, spasming in time with her heartbeat.

(It's you and me. Always was! Don't deny it. We only need each other, don't we?)

But it was always her hands, always her that felt it. Always her that did it. She took her hands away. She couldn't help it. She never could.

Claudia stood before her grinning, hands full of flowers, torn up by their roots. They dripped not dirt, but blood, bright and raw and gushing to the grass.

"You found me," she said.

Hands over the eyes. It always has to be this way. And when she looked again, as always, the little girl was gone.

***

"You can never go down to the village," Donna's mother told her. "You set foot past the gates alone, you even think of crossing the bridge, and I'll break your legs myself. I'll take a hammer to you like Lord Heisenberg and break them so badly you shall never walk again. Do you understand?"

She seized Donna by the shoulders.

"She'll come for you," she whispered. "She knows. Who you are, what you're capable of. And if you let her she'll worm into your mind. Like she did when I was a child."

Her eyes fluttered shut. "Bernadette, she called. And I went to her, and my memories after are black pits full of weeping. Years and years and still she has me. I can hear her, even now. She calls to me. She'll call to you. And to Claudia."

The baby slept in their mother's arms. Donna looked at her, the little girl, so precious and so innocent. What did she dream about? What had Donna dreamt of, once, before she became aware of the birdcage world she lived in?

She remembered her parents. Lord and Lady Beneviento in their finery, standing on the manor steps as Mother Miranda came to view the infant. She'd cooed and hummed to little Claudia, laid her clawed hand on the child's head, golden eyes glimmering with something that was almost love.

Donna, hiding behind her mother's legs, had stared up at the Black God's prophetess with furrowed brow, and Miranda's eyes flicked and lit on her.

"Such a serious little thing," Miranda told her. "Don't think I've forgotten about you, Mistress Donna."

Donna blinked. "Forgotten about what?"

"Your potential. You have it. Strong as anything. You carry the blood of the Black God's chosen, child, and never forget. But your sister..."

Still she stroked the baby's head.

"What about my sister?" Donna piped up. "What's wrong with her?"

"Wrong? Nothing. On the contrary. She has great affinity. The greatest." Miranda looked back to Donna's parents, their faces pale and drawn.

"She may prove perfect," Miranda told them.

And her mother gripped her shoulder, so hard it hurt. Later Donna counted the bruises left by her fingers in the bath. One, two, three, four, five.

"You must stay away," her mother warned. "Far away. You and Claudia, always."

Maybe that was why. They leapt from the cliff and Donna screamed and screamed, hiding Claudia's eyes, hugging the little girl as she sobbed into Donna's chest. Later, Donna crept down the cliff path to look for them on the riverbank. Maybe they would be there, springing up between the rocks like marionettes, saying surprise, darling, here we are! It was only a trick!

But she found them, and it wasn't a trick. She gathered their pieces, walked gingerly through the blood. She tried to put them back together but when she was done they didn't look right at all. Some parts were smashed out of shape. Some were missing. Some just...didn't fit. Maybe if she sewed them together, then they'd fit again.

She didn't try. She sat with them, holding her mother's hand. It was one of the few pieces that was still recognizable.

Maybe Miranda had whispered to them. Fly, like I do. Maybe she had wormed her way into their minds and simply unmoored them. Maybe they had only realized they were falling after their feet had left the cliffside.

Either way, it meant there was no one left to protect them. Donna and Claudia, all alone in the big, empty house.

***

Elena moved through the house like a sleepwalker. It loomed around her, a darkened reflection of the real thing, as if she'd stepped through Donna's obsidian mirror and into the shadow world on the far side. Dolls clustered everywhere, on furniture, in corners, sitting at the dining table as if waiting for her to join them, chittering and whispering and giggling to one another.

She heard their footsteps in the echoes of her own, felt their little porcelain fingers plucking at her skirts as she passed by.

She was silent, drawn along as if by a string.

She looked into the kitchen. Donna and Claudia huddled by the stove, Donna no older than nine or ten, tucking a blanket around Claudia's shoulders. They looked like a pair of urchins, clothes ragged, hands gloved, noses red and chapped, crouching over the meager flames.

"I'm cold," Claudia whispered.

"I'll find more wood. Later. Right now, look what I have for you." With a flourish, Donna produced a doll- a crude clay thing dressed in scraps of lace.

"My own Angie!" Claudia took the doll and hugged it. The real Angie sat on the windowsill. Her face was uncracked, her dress clean. A pretty thing, made for a child.

Claudia held the little doll up to the flames. "I wish I could make her warmer."

"Worry about yourself first, Claud."

"Then I wish I was warmer."

"This is just like our ancestors did, a long time ago," Donna told her. "Berengario and his family and apprentices...deep in the snows with the monster wolves howling, crouching in the ruins of an ancient monastery for warmth and protection. They made shadow lanterns with scraps of paper and told stories on the walls. Hands and paper and their own minds, imagining it even as the cold chewed at them."

She stroked her little sister's hair with one thin, pallid hand. They all looked one of a kind, she and Claudia and their mother and their father, cousins bearing the same surname, the scions of an anemic branch. Now they were the last.

"Do you remember what Mama said about Berengario?" Donna asked.

Claudia nodded, fiddling with her new doll's dress. "He cut off his own hand," she murmured. "To feed the starving. So they wouldn't have to go for the children."

Donna nodded.

"Is that what Mama and Papa did? Leaped from the cliff because they were starving, to stop themselves from eating us?"

Donna shook her head. She didn't know how to answer that.

Claudia looked up at her. "Can't you go down into the village? Find more wood for us?"

"No. Remember what Mama said? We don't go past the ravine."

"If...if we only asked for help, maybe Mother Miranda would-"

"No!" Donna's voice was too sharp for such a young child. "No. We don't go to her. We don't ever. Understand?"

Claudia looked away, pouting.

"Ever," Donna repeated. "She'll...she'll forget about us eventually. She will. We just have to be quiet as mice. Can you do that, little mouse?"

Claudia nodded, silent, and even Elena could see the hurt in her eyes, the confusion. The yearning for safety, for an end to the cold. For someone to come save them, someone stronger than her older sister, barely more than a child herself, despite all her best efforts.

"Just think of summertime," Donna told her. "We can go dance in the woods. We can light candles and pretend we're forest spirits."

"...That sounds nice."

"Just imagine it really, really hard. The sun on your skin. Then it's almost like you're warm. If you try hard enough it almost feels real."

***

The dark closed in. Claudia was a child, bright and sunny, laughing in the garden amidst yellow flowers. She raced ahead, pigtail whipping over her shoulder.

Come find me!

***

Elena drifted to the next room. Donna and Claudia faded, and then reappeared; Claudia ran into the room, older, now, and dressed in a lightweight summer frock the color of buttercups, matching ribbons tied in her hair.

"Donna! Look!" She whirled, the dress's skirts flying. Donna descended the stairs, a skinny teenager with black hair drawn into a severe plait. Her eyes widened as she took Claudia in.

"Where did you get that dress?" she snapped.

"Mother left it for me!"

"Mama's dead."

"No! Not our mother. I mean Mother Miranda." Claudia dipped a low curtsy. Donna dashed down the steps and shoved her little sister, hard.

"Hey!" Claudia yelped.

"You're so stupid. Don't you ever listen? Where is she?" "She brought it to the bridge. It's a present."

"You don't accept her gifts. Ever."

"Why not? It's so pretty. She said I was growing up strong." She frowned. "She said I was even more perfect than before. What does that mean?"

"Nothing. She's a liar. If you want a stupid dress, I can make you one. A better one."

"No you can't," Claudia told her, frankly. "You barely have any fabric left. You have to take apart all Mama's pretty clothes to make anything new."

"I can...I can take apart the green velvet robe. You always loved her green velvet robe. Please, Claudia, please." She fell to her knees in front of her sister, gripping her hands. "Please don't ever go to her again. All right?"

"Because of what Mama told you?"

"Yes."

"Mama's dead," Claudia said, an echo of what Donna had just told her. "She jumped and left us. I don't care what she says anymore."

"Please," Donna said. She drew her sister closer. "Please, Claud, please. You're all I have left, you're all I have in the world. Don't leave me. Don't leave."

She pulled Claudia into a hug, her face pressed into her sister's shoulder, her arms wrapped around the child's body, holding her tight. Too tight.

Later, Claudia would count the bruises in the bath.

***

Donna covered her eyes, then peeked, and Claudia was there, face bright with mirth. She took after their father in that way.

Don't look, Donna!

***

The children faded into shadow. The house darkened around them. As Elena climbed the stairs she heard the echo of voices down the halls, through the mezzanine, small ghosts chasing one another in the dark. The dolls thronged around her, more of them than ever. Donna walked from the darkness and back into it, carrying a lit candle. Claudia followed her, laughing, arms full of cut flowers.

Years and years, flickering against the walls. Elena glimpsed it all. Shadow plays and forts built from broken furniture in the attic. Their father's old puppets scavenged from storage and made to chatter and dance. Dress-up in antique ballgowns and paper crowns, festooned with wildflowers gathered from hedgerows and ditches. Scraped knees and lost teeth. Bird's nests and amber earrings. Overgrown gardens and hiding in cupboards to giggle and argue and shush each other, in case the ghosts overheard. A groundskeeper and his family came to stay in the house on the hill, but they rarely saw the two Beneviento heiresses. Sometimes, Donna and Claudia almost forgot there was a world past the ravine at all.

Two young girls, like lost princesses in a fairy-story, wearing balding velvet and ragged satin, little beaded slippers all covered with mud. Somewhere came the rustle of wings; the wind rose and fell, stirring Elena's hair.

"She says I'm ready."

Claudia stood in the darkness. Around her, House Beneviento had ceased to have any structure; it was all cut up and pasted back together at wrong angles, more like an impression of a house instead of the reality. A memory.

There was a small bed near her, and a window, looking out into a starless night. Donna stood opposite, at the door.

"She says it's a gift from the Black God," Claudia told her. "She called it the Cadou. It means present. It gives you powers. Miracles! Like Lord Moreau and Lady Dimitrescu. And Lord Heisenberg. I know you like him. You think he's funny."

"He's not very nice."

"But funny-not-very-nice."

"We talked about this, Claud. We've always talked about this." Donna drew closer. "Why do you want to go to her so badly? It's enough up here, right?"

"It's cold."

"I...I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"I miss them. Mama and Papa." She hugged her arms around herself. "Miranda said...when I accept her gift I'll be in a family again. She'll be my mama and I'll be in her family."

"Claudia, you have a family. I'm your family."

"You keep me trapped up here. I don't want to be trapped anymore. I want to go to the village, I want to dance! And Miranda will let me. She'll give me all the dresses I want."

"I know- I...I wanted the same thing, when I was little. But it's not safe. She's like a witch in that old story. She'll lure you away and trap you in a mirror and use your power for her own." Donna stepped closer. "I'll do anything you want, Claudia. I'll...I'll make you things. I'll find a way for us to get out. We can go through the forest, there's wolves but I can find a way. Just please, please stay with me. All right?"

Another step closer. She held out her hands. "Just say yes."

"She's coming tomorrow," Claudia said, shortly. "I told her I was ready."

Donna dropped her hands. "What?"

"I sent her a letter. I told her I'd made my decision. I want the gift, Donna. Maybe she'll give you one too."

"No."

"You're not Mama! She's everyone's mother. She told me. Inside. In my dreams. I can see it. Everything she promised. She can do that, Donna, and you can't!" Claudia stamped her little foot. "I don't want you anymore. I wish you'd go away! Jump off the cliff like Mama and Papa!"

"Shut up. That's enough."

"I hope Miranda makes you disappear," Claudia screamed. "You know, when I have my power I'll make you disappear. I hate you. I hate you-"

And then Donna was across the room, grabbing Claudia by the hands. The little girl kicked and screamed, but her sister was older, stronger; Donna threw Claudia onto the bed and shoved her face into the sheets- "Shut up, shut up, I'll tie you down if I have to so you can't run to her like the stupid little mouse you are-"

She cut off with a yelp as one of Claudia's heels clipped her on the chin, throwing her back. Red dripped onto her hand.

"You kicked me," she said in disbelief.

"Miranda!" Claudia's scream split the silence. Dolls whispered and whispered, eyes shining in the dark. "Miranda! Help me! Come find me! Come find-"

Elena tasted Donna's terror, bitter in her mouth. Donna was back on her knees, leaning over the girl in the bed. She needed to stop screaming. Nothing else mattered but that she needed to stop screaming. "Quiet," she whispered. "Quiet, please be quiet." Her hands pressed over Claudia's face. The girl struggled and kicked.

Donna pressed down harder, over her little sister's mouth, until she wasn't screaming at all anymore.

***

She buried her alone.

***

The dream washed through her like waves, and receded, and left her.

A flutter of heartbeats, a decade of years. The lives of two sisters, lived alongside them, gone in seconds. Reality smoothed over and settled. Elena drew breath, a sharp gasp of the subterranean air. Donna stood before her, Angie in her arms.

She'd gone back. Elena understood. Gone back alone and by the time she reached the house she knew she had to put it away. Donna Beneviento was a survivor. She'd mangled her own mind to do it. She'd buried Claudia so deep inside herself it was like she'd never died at all. Like it had been another girl's hands that had pressed over her mouth, another girl's hands that had smothered the life from her little sister.

Break the mirror, and you never have to look at your whole reflection again. Elena still felt the dirt beneath her own nails.

The grave, dug in the mud. Hacked out with shovels and then with hands.

The still cold body of the child lain to rest within.

"You went to Miranda," Elena said.

Donna nodded.

"You went to her because there was nothing left. You took her gift. The...Cadou."

Another nod.

"Oh, Donna," Elena whispered. A tear slid down her cheek. "I'm so sorry."

Angie gave a little snort. "Not as sorry as you should be," she said, and flung her arms forward. She shoved Elena right in the chest. Elena, who was right by the edge of the old well.

Elena yelped. She tottered backward. The small of her back struck the lip of the well. No- It opened before her, a black pit into nothingness.

She didn't even scream. She tipped backward and fell.

A plunge through empty air, through darkness, wind rushing in her hair. She didn't even feel the bottom, just a crack of cold through her whole body, and then-

-nothing at all.

A darkness absolute.

Unconsciousness like death.

She came to slowly, with the second realization in a far-too short amount of time that she wasn't dead.

Elena floated in a good foot and a half of water. It had gotten in her mouth; she spat it out, plashing noisily as she righted herself; she was soaked through, filthy, so frigid she felt none of her extremities, her gasps echoing around her in the small stone space. She tipped her head back, but the well's mouth was a circle of black slightly lighter than the field of black around her. A sob tore at her throat, and despair clamped down, overwhelming, worse than the cold.

That was when she remembered the rungs.

A small hope. A foolhardy one.

She could hardly hold onto the first rung. It was only through an immense effort that she managed to lever herself to her knees at all, and she chewed down on a wail as the enormity of climbing all the way up to the gray circle struck her.

You have to, or you're going to die here.

She really would, she realized. Never before had it felt so real, so close. All she had to do was close her eyes and let the cold take her. Not so bad; that's what her pa said, anyway. Not so bad, to let the cold creep in, to let Father Wolf latch his kindly teeth in you. The cold would get unbearable, and then she would grow warm, and she would drift away.

Like going out to sea, like fading into the circle of white light, the window to the world glimpsed through old memories.

Nothing, then. No more revelations, no more hardship. No pain and watching people she loved suffer. No more reliving nightmares of dead children and guilt so profound it split the soul in two. The question of the world would be answered, then, her life drawing to a close with a whisper. And all would stay as it was, except that she had driven Donna to hardship, had put her father in danger. Except that she had made all things worse by her actions. And they would remain that way. For everyone. For herself. And there would be no resolution. No remedy. Nothing good, ever again, nothing in all the world.

She wouldn't be able to find Donna, to see if there was hope for a future together. And maybe she was a fool. And maybe none of it was real. Maybe the thing she loved was a shadow, already fading, already lost.

But, saints. She still had to try.

You're not going to die here.

She held on. Her foot went on the rung below. That's the way. She hoisted herself up. Her entire body shook, but she didn't let go. All she had to do was concentrate on not letting go. Another foot followed, and then the next.

It took what felt like hours, an eternity of shaking and freezing and darkness, but that gray circle grew closer, brighter, and the water retreated, the bottom of the well in the pit of House Beneviento, and when she reached the top she let go at last and spilled over the side, collapsing in a heap on the damp flagstones. She'd never felt anything better. Anything, she realized, going forward, was going to be better than the feeling of falling into that blackness, of lying there looking up at all the nothing above.

Donna...

She was nowhere to be seen. Elena crawled upright. Her shake had grown worse. She only had a limited amount of energy before she gave out entirely. She'd have to be fast. She looked up the steps and-

No, don't think, just do.

They were almost worse than the rungs, there were so many of them, and she couldn't see the end, but at last she was up them and in the doll workshop, in the basement of the house proper.

The air was almost warm in here. She half-limped half-crawled down the halls, supporting herself on the wall, leaving a smear of dark, watery filth behind her. She almost cried in relief when the elevator came into view, its interior light so warm and golden. It splintered in her vision.

She shoved herself along the last few steps and collapsed inside. The up button went click. She fell to her hands and knees, breathing hard, feeling like she might be sick.

Ding, went the elevator at the top.

Someone yanked back the gate.

Elena struggled to her feet at the dark silhouette before her. His beefy shoulders almost filled the hallway, round glasses reflecting the elevator light. Lord Heisenberg? Elena's exhausted brain struggled to comprehend.

"What are you doing here?" she burst out.

"Oh, wow, you look like shit," Heisenberg said. "Miranda sent me. Something about you getting up to some world-class fuckery."

Electricity sparked and spat, leaping from bar to bar on the gate. The chain that had secured Donna and Angie in the front hall snaked from nowhere and twanged, tight as a noose, around Elena's leg. With a wrench and pulse of blue energy, it yanked her bodily off her feet. She hit the ground with a thud, then swooped skyward, the hall spinning upside down.

Blood rushed to her head and she let out a strangled yelp, eyes wide as Heisenberg dangled her by the ankle like a hooked fish. He sauntered up to her, grinning, and cocked his head, bending to look her right in the eyes.

"Where's Donna?" Elena spat.

Heisenberg shrugged. "You should be worried about yourself, sweetheart. Guess what? You've won yourself a free trip back down to the village!"

***

He didn't make her walk, but wound the chain round her body and hoisted her into the air with his power, floating her along with one upraised finger. Blue energy crackled and spat round his body, wreathing him in its eerie glow; Elena's body prickled and hummed each time the sparks cascaded down her chains.

"You don't have to do this," Elena stammered. "I'm not trying to take down Miranda. Just free Donna. She's tortured by her power-"

"Good!" Heisenberg looked up at her. "She's inflicted it enough on others, why not have a taste of her own medicine? You wouldn't think it to look at her, would you? Looks kinda sweet, but she's just as fucked as the rest of us in the cranium." He let out a bark of laughter, pressing his finger to his temple.

"That's...that's the point. She told me about what she did to you...what happened to all of you. It's just the same as what Miranda does to all of us in the village-"

The chains tightened with a crunch. Elena gasped, white trembling behind her eyes. Heisenberg's face had gone still and cold.

"You shut your fuckin' mouth before I throw you off this goddamn cliff," he snarled. "You don't know a thing about it. Whatever the little blackbird sang to you she's a fuckin' liar, just like Mother. Understand?"

Elena choked out a wheeze, but nodded.

"Thought so." The chains loosened. He didn't look at her again, or speak another word, all the long way down the mountain path.

Elena smelled the village before she saw it- mud and bonfires and the smell of cooking, familiar spices bringing tears to her eyes. People scuttled out of the way as Heisenberg threw open the gates from the Giant's Chalice and strode into the village itself, not sparing a glance to the townsfolk dropping to their knees in the snow around him. He'd lit a cigar, and the blue smoke billowed into the dark night sky, the snow descending once again in veils and gusts.

Donna, please be okay.

Through the familiar streets and byways, past yards of goats and children staring silent from behind fences, clutched to their mothers' legs. Elena knew where they were going, and stifled a sob. All of this had gone so wrong. By the time her father's house came into view, she'd begun to shake again, a full-body quiver she couldn't hold back. Heisenberg kicked open the house door and flung Elena through- she smacked the ground and rolled, coughing, coming to a halt face-up before the dining table.

Her father sat at one side, dressed in his best clothes. Andrei sat at the other, eyes wide and shining in the warm firelight. And at the table's head, wings spread, resplendent in black and gold, sat Mother Miranda. She smiled down at Elena on the ground, still trussed up like a midwinter goose.

Behind her, Heisenberg set his hammer against the ground with a clang and leaned on it, expression unreadable. The hearth flames flickered on the lenses of his dark glasses.

"Well done, my son," Miranda said, after a moment.

"Thank you, Mother," Heisenberg said. If Miranda detected any trace of mockery in his tone, she didn't show it. She spread her gilded hands, a giving saint glowing in the firelight.

"You've given me far more than I thought possible, child," Miranda said. "Showed me my control can be...shaken. Showed me there are far fewer believers in the fold than I assumed. Not only you, traitor, but my own daughter, too. Hiding her fears and weaknesses. Hiding her secrets, her abilities. All this time, locking her true capabilities away in that tomb of a house, and herself the corpse at its heart."

Elena's father threw a terrified glance from Elena to Miranda. Andrei began to pray, hands clasped together on the table, Elena's jawbone amulet clenched between them.

"She's...she's not your daughter," Elena managed. She coughed; blood slicked down her chin. She must have bitten her tongue when Heisenberg dumped her on the floor. "You stole her real parents. All of them...stole them from their lives...made them your...your devotees when they didn't want any of it..."

"Do you realize how mad you sound, Elena? Me, steal those who are already beholden to the Black God's protection? I give them the power they were born to hold. The strength they were made to wield! Who would deny that?"

"An unwilling child!"

"Enough." Her voice was ice, and Elena felt it, her own control slipping, Miranda's talons gripping the edges of her mind. She was so strong. Terror slid up her throat, bitter and acid. "We had a deal, Elena. And you broke it."

"Please, Mother Miranda," Elena's father broke out. "I'm begging you. Take me instead. Don't take her. She did this all for me, like you said. Right? She's just being a loyal daughter. And she is. She always was."

He looked down at her, eyes crinkling as he gave her a shaky smile. "Best I could have asked for."

"Hush, Pa," Elena managed. "You just be quiet. It's all right."

"A loyal daughter," Miranda echoed. "Dutiful and true. You're right, Leonardo. She is. So she will understand the weight of a promise, won't she? And a promise must be kept. Or broken."

Gold flashed in the firelight: claws.

Heisenberg bowed his head as Andrei cried out in horror.

Elena could only watch, paralyzed, silent, her mouth open as if she might call out for her father as Miranda's gilded talons closed around his head.

"Forget," she breathed.

There was a wet cracking, a snapping; her father gasped as blood burst from his mouth, spattering the table in a spray of dark red. Miranda's eyes glowed. Power rippled, bitter in the firelit air. Elena's father shuddered; his eyes rolled back as Miranda's talons dug into his forehead. With a curl of her lip, she released him.

He slumped to the tabletop, right in the blood. Splack. Elena's vision shocked white, red, black around the edges. Her father was so still. He stared into nothingness. He was breathing, but- his eyes, what was wrong with them, there was nothing in them.

"A body is a body," Miranda said, "and yet has use. But his mind had run its course. He won't remember you, child." She flexed her bloodied talons. "Never again."

Pa- Elena's voice caught in her throat. She struggled to her knees, but weight dropped onto her shoulder, holding her in place. Heisenberg's hand.

No, let me go- let me go to him, let me put him back together- Like Donna had tried with Violeta, but it could never be put back in once it was gone, could it? Lost, Donna whispered. Lost forever.

"Now," Miranda said. Her voice was a little unsteady, full of a weird, sharp thrill. Her eyes were bright behind the mask. "This unpleasantness could have all been avoided, Elena. What a shame. Heisenberg, where's Lady Beneviento?"

"Fuck if I know. Didn't see her skulking around the house."

"She'll be there. Hiding from me. She won't reveal herself without provocation. Take the traitor and lure her out."

"And her?" He gave Elena a little shake. She hardly felt it.

"Kill her in any way you see fit."

His grip tightened on her shoulder. He was quiet for a long time. Elena's father's blood dripped to the rug. He lay there like a corpse, his brow slightly furrowed, staring at her sightless.

Why couldn't she feel anything? It was like a great silent nothing where just moments before had been a storm.

Come on. Cry. Scream. But there was just emptiness. She wished she could pass out, never wake up. She wished all of this would just go away.

Heisenberg still hadn't spoken. Elena glanced up and found him staring down at her. She wondered, fleetingly, distantly, what his eyes looked like under the glasses. What was he thinking? She remembered what Donna had said about him. A scared child, stolen, cut open, betrayed. No one ever stopped being a scared child, not deep down inside.

"Heisenberg," Miranda snapped.

"Hm," he said at last. "Nah."

Miranda blinked.

"...What?" she said, her voice pure ice.

"She's too valuable to kill," Heisenberg said. "How long's she been up there in the house of horrors? Month and a half? All that time, her brain and system soaking up Donna's acid trip flower juice. Donna doesn't usually let go of her playthings while they're still breathing, but now? Here one is, ready to go! Look at her. She's marinated like a lamb chop. Give her to me, and I'll saw open her skull, get a good look at her internal workings. Fascinating, to see how she ticks when she's tripping out of her mind on hallucinations."

He grinned. "A hell of a weekend, at any rate."

Miranda said nothing, but Elena felt the surge of power, the bitter smell of mold gusting through the room. Darkness snaked across the walls: black, glistening tendrils, roots or veins. The fire extinguished with a hiss. Feathered shadows filled the room, glorious, ghastly, as Miranda rose from the table and unfurled her wings. Andrei pressed his face into his hands, rocking back and forth in his chair.

Heisenberg snapped rigid. He gasped, the sound scraping from him like a knife against stone. Lightning crackled round him, unearthly radiance, underlighting him ghastly from beneath, but Miranda had him. She had him without having to lift a finger.

"Take her," Miranda said. Her voice echoed through the bones of the house, through the depths of Elena's still, cold mind. "Kill her. Bring me Beneviento. Now."

And Heisenberg's hand slid to the back of Elena's head, fingers winding through her hair. He yanked her off her feet and marched her stiffly to the door, shoving her without ceremony back into the frigid night wind.

[saintsofwarding]

BURIAL

Chapter 8

(You really think this one's gonna up and do what you say?)

"Shut up."

(That's not very nice, Donna)

"Bold of you to say that."

(Am I wrong? Look at her. Creeping through our house. Heavy and clumsy and full of so many fluids! Ohhh, she's a curious one, Donna, a curious little mouse, and you know what happens to mice around here)

"Don't you hurt her. If you do, this time, I'll-"

(You'll what? Say it. Say every terrible thing that's been festering so long in the black pit of your skull. Go on. You can't, can you? That's up to me, isn't it? I can do it, I can always do it, so you don't have to)

A cackle, ringing through the damp gloom.

(You did so much already. Poor little Donna. All alone once the silence came back in)

"Shut up, shut up!"

(And if I did? Would you be able to survive on your own? Little Dolly Donna, quiet as a mouse. You'd go insane with the weight of it. Well. Insane-er)

"Shut up!" She rushed forward with a howl, agonized, scraping up her throat; she tasted blood, felt her ruined face writhe in agitation, the fleshy pulse fast as her racing heartbeat. She gripped Angie's neck as the doll laughed and laughed and laughed, echoes ringing through the darkness until it sounded like she was surrounded by a hundred more of her, a chorus of cackles jabbing and tearing at her like crows' beaks.

She couldn't take it. She stuffed her fingers into the doll's mouth as far as they would go. Angie's teeth scraped at her knuckles- real teeth, real human ivory, milk teeth like a baby's- but the laughter went on and on. Of course. It always would. It didn't come from the doll, not really. It never did.

(Don't hurt me, Donna! You can't! You know what happens if you hurt me-!)

"I could do it. I could crack you open, smash you all over this floor-"

(Is that what you said the first time? Is this how it went?) The voice almost sounded frightened, almost hushed. Donna's hands began to shake. (You see? You can't survive alone. You can't. Donna, please, see reason. You need me. I need you)

The rage left her all at once. She slumped in a rustle of black fabric. The cold of the stone floor began to seep into her knees. She didn't cry. Her head hung. A puppet on strings. Her grip slowly loosened on Angie, and then she gathered her to her, suddenly, pulling the doll to her chest and hugging her as hard as she could.

Cold fingers stroked the sides of her face as she shook, rocking back and forth, feeling the faint warm pulse within Angie's head against her throat. A match to her own. Like it always was.

(I need you)

***

Peace had once been a church. An altar, a gilded portrait, kneeling in reverence to light candles before Mother Miranda's most holy and beloved icon. The knowledge, simple and unspoilt, that Elena was protected, that her father was protected, her neighbors, as long as they did what they were told. As long as they stayed obedient, their afterlife would never come to harm.

And how could it, when the Black God remembered all things in its infinite dream? It had been of comfort to Elena, after her mother had died, that she was remembered by the Black God, that one day Elena too would join her in that endless dark, comprised of everyone she had ever known and ever loved. That whatever pain would come to her, she would always have that to look forward to in the end.

And now?

Not peace. Never fully. Not when her father was held hostage by her obedience, not when she'd seen the horrors that lurked in this place. But the house seemed out of time, adrift, and there were days when Elena almost forgot to be afraid. Days of polishing tarnished silverware, or clearing snow from the porch, or of working in the garden, or listening to records, turning the gramophone volume high to allow the music to reverberate through the halls.

Days with Donna Beneviento somewhere in the house with her, mostly unseen but, at last, present.

She never removed her veil. Never went anywhere without her doll, Angie, the thing always perched in the crook of her arm, or sitting near her on a chair, or opposite her while she worked, and talked to it. Sometimes Elena overheard- well, listened, to be honest- entire one-sided conversations with Angie, Donna murmuring to her endless monologues about the weather, about the food, about Donna's projects, her dolls and her knitting and her intricate botanical illustrations done in ink and watercolor.

Elena liked to examine these when Donna wasn't in the room, liked to follow the exquisite lines of the drawings with her eyes like a maze in a puzzle-book, letting her eyes unfocus so the illustration became a chaotic blur of color and line, then focus again, allowing it all to make sense. They were beautiful. Everything Donna made was so beautiful.

They worked together when night fell, and it fell so early up here. The days shortened, Donna gradually spending more of her ever-lengthening evenings with Elena. They rarely spoke more than a few words to one another, but it wasn't awkward, wasn't unnatural. They simply sat in silence unless Donna had a question of aesthetics- "Yellow floss or white? Border it in black or leave it loose? What do you think?"- or Elena needed the definition of a word in a book she was reading. While she'd been well-educated enough, some of Donna's library was so esoteric she hardly understood what the books were even supposed to be about. Histories of people she had never heard of, waves of conquering invaders, a pagan people ensconced within this valley, beset on all times by distrustful neighbors, kings conducting rituals of sacrifice and enlightenment.

And Elena slept through midnight. Donna, it seemed, was done with her weeping. For now, anyway. Maybe she was wrong.

Maybe the monster really was gone.

Elena knew it was never good to hope, but she did, still, clinging on past reason, like she had such a tendency to do.

***

The blizzard having, for the moment, retreated, it became necessary to take the opportunity to get hold of more food. A mundane concern, but necessary- Elena didn't want to have to make do with canned things if another snowstorm hit unexpectedly. Donna had the same idea.

"My usual delivery will be on its way," she told Elena. "I put the flag up in the ravine."

"How do you...?"

"Get it to the house? You wouldn't mind doing it, would you? I have so much work to do."

What work, she didn't say. But Elena took the enameled box full of neat stacks of lei, the delivery list, and Donna's directions past the estate gates and set off through the pale gray mists. The day was white on white, pale sky, pale snowdrifts, only the vague shadows of trees to cut the sensation Elena was moving through a strange, echoing world, empty of all life except for herself.

The sound of eerie cries echoed from downslope- the direction of the castle, she thought, though she couldn't make out its spires through the thick clouds. She passed through the gates and to the bridge posts. It swung before her, buffeted by the light breeze, each creak echoing down and down through the ravine. Far below, she heard the by-now familiar sound of rushing water. A faint icy spray spackled her cheeks, numbing her already-cold face.

She made her way along the cliffside. For a while there was only trees, snow, and the edge, but eventually a shape swam up before her and consolidated into a structure, a single lantern hanging from a hook. A dock, as if for boats, but built right onto the edge of the cliff. A winch was built into it, and hanging from it on stout ropes was a large wicker basket. It swung back and forth, big enough to hoist a cow. A crank arm in the basket and on the winch told Elena its purpose. She peered down and saw an identical lantern glowing below. A black pennant snapped from a pole, sewn with the moon and sun, and behind a nearby tree a handcart waited under a tarp.

Elena figured this was hardly the way, but she needed to talk to someone from town. She clambered into the basket- it began to sway alarmingly back and forth, but didn't tip, it was nice and deep- and grabbed onto the crank arm, giving it a good push. Gears ground, and with the faint crackle of rust the contraption kicked into movement, and she glided downward.

The crank had a little horseshoe stamped into it. Had Lord Heisenberg made this? He didn't seem the type, though he did have a workshop in the village. Elena had never seen him use it, but no one went there all the same, and kept the gates well locked. Lords, however holy, tended to bring monsters with them.

Donna, too? Her most of all, Elena had to admit, though hardly the monsters she'd expected.

She still felt a sense of disbelief when her mind inevitably turned to Donna. She's Lady Beneviento? She's one of the great Four Lords? It didn't seem quite right, didn't quite add up. She kept waiting for Donna to grow teeth- so to speak- but as the week had stretched to two, then to three, and winter tightened its grip on the manor and its grounds, she never saw more than what had already made itself seen. Never saw more than a lovely, lonely young woman.

The lower lantern grew closer and closer, and soon a second dock came into view, built on the banks of a rushing river seamed with whitecaps. A boat rose and fell on the rapids, engine chugging for life. The man aboard gave a little start when he saw Elena, and whisked off his cap.

"Begging your pardon, Miss Lupu," he stuttered. "I...there's never a person what comes down in the basket."

"First time for me, too, Cosmin." He was one of the reservoir workers, usually busy trawling the deeps for flotsam scavenged from the sunken village, drowned years ago by an accident with the floodgates. Elena gave him a smile. "I thought I'd come down with it. Say hello."

"We...well, I'm glad to see you alive. We all thought you were dead, see."

Elena blinked. "Not yet."

"Good. That's good."

"How's my father? And Andrei? Are they all right?"

"Last I saw them. Your pa was out feeding the chickens and that boy was bothering him like he wanted both his ears."

Elena laughed. Heat pushed at her eyes and she hurriedly scrubbed them with the back of her hand, shaking her head. "Sounds right to me. Good. I...listen, Cosmin, I'm here for Lady Beneviento's delivery, but...would you bring this letter to them?" She held it out. "So they know I'm all right too."

"Of course."

"Good." She looked at the crates and sacks in Cosmin's boat. "Now I suppose this is what you really came here for?"

Loading took less time than Elena expected, with two pairs of hands at work. Soon the basket groaned under the weight of supplies and Elena was cranking it skyward, the mechanism hardly strained by the increased weight. She looked back down. Cosmin lifted a hand in farewell. Elena returned the gesture, but she wasn't sure, in the mist, if he'd seen her.

We thought you were dead.

That was how it worked, she saw. Once the villagers were chosen, they were dead, even if they still breathed. Because it was far too dangerous, far too unlikely, to hope otherwise. Better to usher them out with festivals and ceremony, with feigned gratitude and fervor, instead of grief. That way the inevitable death to come would never seem quite real.

But to be killed by Donna Beneviento? Loading the supplies into the handcart, Elena gave her head a disbelieving shake. Donna was weird, yes, sometimes inscrutable, sometimes almost childlike with her rhymes and her little tantrums, but she wasn't monstrous. She wasn't a nightmare.

This wasn't a nightmare.

Movement stirred on the far side of the bridge. Elena straightened, tense, in case it was one of those winged creatures that sometimes circled from the direction of the castle, a racket of leathery flapping and distant screeches, like some vast bird of prey. The reality was little better. He stood in the snow, smoke twining up from beneath his hat brim, hammer over his shoulder. There was no way he didn't see Elena, but Lord Heisenberg didn't acknowledge her. He just stood there, watching her, smoking, the scent of cigar smoke bittersweet on the still, cold air.

Doesn't he have anything better to do? He'd spoken about Donna with a strange mixture of contempt and fear, hadn't gone past her gate before. But on the riverbank...honestly, Elena didn't remember the events on the riverbank with anything close to clarity, but she remembered his use of Donna's name, the familiarity with which he'd addressed her. They were a family, holy and united, according to the books of the Black God Elena had listened to each week in church, so of course they would know one another above all others.

Still.

Elena didn't approach. He didn't move. Elena gave the handcart a shove, teeth grit as she heaved it and all its cargo through the snow and onto the road. She felt his gaze on her back for a long time, until the trees and the mist closed over him and he was gone again, left to the far edge of the ravine.

"You nearly had a visitor, today," Elena told Donna once the supplies were all cleared away. "The great Lord Heisenberg."

Donna stiffened. "What did he want?"

"I don't know. He didn't cross the bridge."

A soft exhale. "He never does."

"Why not? Don't you all confer with one another?"

"Mother calls meetings, which we all attend. Twice a year. That is when we take care of the business between us, officially."

"And...unofficially?"

Donna said nothing. She stood, silent, then all at once left the room in a swish of skirts. Music blared minutes later- the gramophone, played at full volume. As Elena did her nighttime chores, the music played on, complex symphonies and simple piano nocturnes and tunes for which she had no name all played one after the next without cease. And when Elena joined Donna in the sitting room to sew and mend and chat, the gramophone was off, and Donna mentioned nothing of it, nor of her visitor, not all that evening, nor the next day, nor any of the days after.

The next time Elena went down to the bridge- an evening free of chores, when the sky was a rocket-fall of colors like a festival skirt- the far edge was empty.

She checked for days on end, but Lord Heisenberg never returned.

Those weeks seemed almost like a dream, almost shameful, as if Elena had stolen them from time. She was healthier than ever, stronger than ever now that she was eating regularly and had access to such better quality food. No stones in the grain, not in Donna's bread, and the meat wasn't half gristle like the stuff left over from the village tithes. And more than that, her mind felt clearer. Cleaner. She'd seen so much more than she'd ever thought possible, had stepped past some invisible limit and into darkness. It was full of terrors, sure, but she couldn't help but feel a glittering thrill at the newfound unknown. The newfound horizons, not only of the world but of herself. Her own mind, her own thoughts.

There was something else, too, some undefinable change to her face. A fading of the dark bruises under her eyes, a softening of the hollow stare she shared with most people in the village. Once, she might have called it impassioned, but she now recognized it for what it was: starved.

Here, she didn't have to be hungry, or afraid of the lycans she heard howling from the lower slopes of the mountainside.

Here, Lady Dimitrescu wouldn't come a-hunting for her in the night, red grin and skin like a corpse's, made young again by a steaming goblet of fresh-spilled blood.

She didn't have to walk for hours through knee-deep snow in the hopes of sighting a single skinny rabbit, or listen to her father wheeze in the early morning when he thought she couldn't hear him.

I'll come back for you, Pa. Her hands clenched on her mending. I wish I could bring you here. The air would do you good. I wish you were safe. I wish all of you were safe. Oh, saints, oh, saints, when she thought about him, about the look in his eyes when she'd left him, it felt like she would burn, or burst, or tear her own skin off.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't right.

But it was the way it was and Elena had no idea how to stop it, even how to slow it, and caught up in these simultaneous realizations she froze, hands hooked into claws, heart hammering, paralyzed with terror and with rage. Miranda would eventually figure it out. She'd know, if Elena went on feeling this way.

Miranda always knew.

And then-

She couldn't help but admit there was curiosity amidst her fear. And hunger. A new kind. Not just to survive, but to discover. This place was not done, yet. The question of Violeta, where she'd gone and who she was to Donna, remained unanswered. And this house, this mountaintop, severed from the rest of the world, its only connection a single, thin bridge clinging to a cliffside- when she pictured it, Elena saw a jewel-box, dusty and elegant, filled with gems and with hidden needles, sharp enough to draw blood.

Something deep inside.

The picture was incomplete. Blurred. She needed to bring it into focus. That was the only way forward.

But how?

The basement had to hold the answer. But Donna had warned her away from it, and somehow Elena knew she'd figure out if she had disobeyed her and went down there again. Many times she stood before the elevator grille, holding the brass key, telling herself go. Go. Who are you loyal to, anyway? The shadow keeping secrets from you or the Black God's prophet herself, keeping you safe all these years?

The answer should have been easy. Would have been, once. But always Elena found herself walking away, leaving the elevator behind.

***

One such time, she opened the door that led from the elevator room and into the kitchen and almost ran right into Donna.

"Oh!" She looked up, big tin box in her hands. She'd been rummaging through it. "Drat."

"What's the matter?"

"I can't find it." More rummaging. "I had such a beautiful packet of red silk embroidery floss. It was a gift from Mother."

"Your mother? Lady Beneviento?"

A pause. "No." A longer silence. "Mother Miranda."

"Oh."

"She adopted me. After..." Her words ground to a halt, her body stilling, too. Elena thought of a clockwork automaton the jolly merchant had once brought to some springtime market. He'd whisked off its velvet covering to reveal the torso of a little boy rendered in gleaming silver, clockwork find as beetle wings visible in the seams of its joints.

It had held a pen poised over a blank sheet of vellum, and when the merchant turned the key sprouting from the boy's back and wound him up, he sprang to life, fluidly writing out a bawdy poem onto the thick paper. But when the poem reached its end, and the mechanism wound down, and down, the silver boy's movements became jerky spasms, then stilled altogether, his glass eyes open and staring, all life gone.

The other children watching had clapped and cheered, and Elena had joined in as the merchant smiled and bowed and accepted their coins, but later that night she lay awake, staring into the corners, unable to close her eyes in case she'd see that boy again, see the way he shuddered into stillness. A thing alive that should not be.

"The dolls helped me act it out," Donna whispered. Behind her, at the table, Angie rustled; an echo of ghoulish laughter hissed through Elena's mind. She didn't look. "They stood around me. In a circle. One-two-three and then they all fell down."

"Act what out, Donna?"

A little shiver. She looked up. "Red silk," she said. "A present from my mother. Will you help me find it, please?"

"Donna, are you-"

"Will you help me? You said you'd help me before. Please will you?"

"I- yes. Uh- where did you see it last?"

"I thought it was here. But this is just buttons." She shoved the tin back on the shelf. "I think...maybe the attic? Or in the downstairs storage room...I'll look in the storage room if you look in the attic."

"There's not-" Elena took a breath. "Are there any surprises in the attic?"

Donna looked as aghast as someone could without their face actually being visible. "Good gracious no!"

Elena gave her a look.

"No," Donna pressed. "I'll give you one of my personal favorite special biscuits if you look in the attic."

"I don't respond well to bribes."

"Two biscuits."

"Done."

There was a flashlight in a kitchen cabinet, on the top shelf, so furred in dust Elena was half afraid it wouldn't work. But it clicked on and shone well enough, so, after untying her apron and arming herself with a broom, Elena made her way up the stairs and down the short hallway to the trapdoor that apparently led to the attic. She knocked down the ladder and pulled the light cord, but this one didn't work, and the square of darkness breathing cold and dust down on her remained absolute.

Elena clenched her jaw and climbed up the ladder, poking the broom handle through first and rattling it around in case any ghouls were lying in wait for her head to come up. She didn't want to lose any eyes or parts of limbs today. Nothing happened, so she climbed all the way into the attic, coughing at her first inhale full of dust.

She clicked on the flashlight and shone it around. The weak beam played off endless stacks of cardboard boxes, rolled rugs and broken lamps, a rack of moldering old clothes, a jointed dressmaker's dummy spattered in dark liquid. It stretched on and on, a maze of detritus and black mold and endless dust, shockingly-mundane.

Elena groaned. Of course Donna wanted one packet of embroidery floss. Why couldn't she have needed...dunno, an old chair or...or a piano? Both were there, the piano the more interesting of the two, shoddily clothed in a slipcover that left its keys exposed. Elena stood and went to it to press down a key, the antique ivory yellowed as bad teeth. The note twanged into the darkness, discordant and sour.

It faded as Elena faced the mess again. This place was as chaotic as House Beneviento below was neat. There was no obvious form of organization so she crept forward, stepping over boxes and buckets and old shoes, making her way toward a faint glow near the back. A window, she realized, a half-moon fan of stained glass so thickly-coated in dust it was almost rendered opaque. It would be gorgeous if it was clean, the glass all shades of deep midnight-blue and pale gold. Moons and suns, she noted. Again.

She drew the tip of her finger down the dust, clearing a stripe from the glass. Through it she made out the front gardens, the cliffside below. She was looking at the entrance to House Beneviento from above. This must have been the uppermost middle of the house, the very furthest away from the basement she could get. She could see the roofs, too, missing many of their slate tiles, a couple crows' nests clinging to the gables and turrets.

In the distance, amidst trees, she made out the glint of another roof- it looked like an outbuilding, somewhere in the direction of the gardens. A groundskeeper's hut, perhaps. The mountainsides looked beautiful from up here, cascades of blue-green pine trees sweeping down from great runs of untouched snow.

The urge seized her to throw the window wide, to bring the clean mountain wind into this still, dusty place. Would the window open? She found a latch, but it was fused shut. Maybe with some grease, some cleaning. She'd have to come back later.

Turning round, she nearly stepped on the dolls. She flinched back with a gasp, but they didn't move or jump out at her or start giggling. One was tipped over, but the rest were still in place, half-hidden behind an old steamer chest with a lantern set atop it. The chest was dragged out, away from the wall, forming a kind of nook with an old bookshelf and a rack of antique silk ballgowns.

The dolls helped me act it out, Donna had said.

Four dolls. Dark-haired, dressed in little gowns or harlequin ensembles, melancholy faces staring into the dust. Black mold dripped down their cheeks, like tears. They'd been up here a long, long time.

Elena stepped around the chest and knelt by them. There was more, she saw- a moth-eaten tartan blanket, rumpled as if someone had been sitting on it. A stack of books. A china plate with crumbs on it, and an old teacup, a sticky dark rime clinging to the bottom. A collection of dried petals was scattered around the skeletal remnants of a flower sprig in a vase. Maybe, Elena fancied, they had once been yellow.

A playhouse? She could see this as being an ideal hideout for a child. With the window, the old things, the darkness, it felt disconnected from the rest of the house, the rest of the world. With a little imagination it might be a treehouse, a cave, a ship full of heroes of legend, questing boyars hunting for the strange monsters of these pagan mountains, like she'd read about in Donna's history books. She tapped the dolls on their heads, lightly.

"One," she whispered, "two, three. Four."

The last doll lay face-down. Two others faced away from it, but one of them, a little girl doll in a black dress, stared at her fallen companion. Two dolls. Two girls, holding hands. To Claudia, love always.

So Claudia was Donna's sister. And she was dead. Elena thought of the big grave beyond the gatehouse, the dolls, the sweets, the candles.

A burial, for one beloved, a long time ago.

How old must Donna have been? Not very. Elena's throat tightened. Poor thing. Poor, poor girl. To lose a mother was bad enough. To lose a sister, a companion close to her own age, the only other child in this lonely place...she couldn't fathom. No wonder Donna didn't speak to anyone, isolated herself. A loss like that at a young age was like a blow to a developing bone. It left its marks, even when the healing seemed to be done. After that must have been when Miranda adopted her.

Why not adopt both girls, after their parents' deaths? She wished she could ask the dolls themselves. After what she'd seen it would seem like no unnatural thing for them to start chattering back at her.

But she thought she had an answer, or part of one, anyway. We all must play our part, Miranda had told her, back in the village church. Elena knew what that meant. We all must have a use. Or we become useless.

And then, like a rotten limb: cut off.

Had those two Beneviento girls been, at first, a useless commodity? The last scions of a dying family, left to die alone in this house that had become a tomb? But Donna Beneviento hadn't proved useless. She was a Lord, possessed of miraculous power. One of Miranda's chosen.

Right?

Oh, she didn't know. She rubbed her temple and rose, brushing the dust from her skirt and taking up her flashlight again. The dust was making her head ache. She turned, rummaged through some boxes, searching for anything that looked like embroidery floss. She found some old magazines, some dead insects, a taxidermied deer head with an extra eye swelling from its cheek, but no sign of floss.

There was a collection of old paintings leaning against a wall. She pulled one back to peer behind it in case the floss was hiding back there.

And stopped still. Even her breath shrank to a whisper between her teeth.

A face stared back at her, enclosed in an ornate gilt frame. A woman's. So pale the artist had rendered her in grays and pale greens, dressed in high-neck black with jet buttons, her hands set, gently, on the skirts of the bride doll in her lap.

A finger of light from the dusty window touched the paint, illuminating one of the woman's high cheekbones. Her black hair was pulled back from a heart-shaped face, lips set in a slight smile, dark eyes canted upwards at the corners. Fine-featured, poised, arresting. On one glance she seemed sweet, earnest, and on the next she became arch, that enigmatic smile slightly sneering. But whatever the look on her face, there was no mistaking her.

This was Donna, under the veil.

She was so beautiful. "Why hide this?" Elena whispered. She knelt before the painting, reached out, stopped, took a short breath. Her heart clattered against her ribs, a caged bird. Her fingertips trembled.

There was no one here to see.

She brushed her fingertips along the line of Donna's painted cheek. Along the loose strand of hair, falling from her fringe, as if she might tuck it back into place. Along her lips, as if she might feel their warmth, as if she might feel, for a gutless moment, the smoothness of them, the way they might feel against her own skin.

Elena withdrew her hand. Her head swam. Her whole body panged, electric, all sensation both distant and too-bright, too-strong. She knelt there and breathed, drinking in the portrait, every detail of her lady's hidden face.

Then she stood. She leaned the portrait back into place, got her flashlight, and retreated from the attic, closing the trapdoor behind her.

Donna was gone from the kitchen. Elena found her in the front hall, gathering up a large handbasket and a pair of shears.

Elena licked her lips. "Did you find the floss?"

"Oh!" Donna looked round. "Yes! It was in the storage room after all. Silly me. How was the attic? Any surprises?"

"...No. Where are you going?"

"This?" Donna held up her basket. "I must gather more herbs. For the medicines and chemicals I use in my work." "May...I come?"

Donna looked at her sideways. "I was hoping you might."

"I'll just be there to hold you accountable. I was promised sweets, you know."

"You're sweet enough already," Donna said, with a laugh, and mercifully turned away before heat flooded Elena's face, enough she knew she'd be a red, stuttering mess. She hurried to grab her coat and scrub her face and drink some water to cool herself down, half-afraid Donna would be gone by the time she got back.

She wasn't, and together they set out into the clear winter day, walking side-by-side, Angie nestled like a baby in Donna's basket.

Donna headed not down toward the gardens, but took a left, slipping between two rock crags and onto a path Elena had not noticed before, a thin trail wending upwards through the forest that descended down the mountainside to nearly encroach upon the manor grounds. The waterfall thundered somewhere amidst the snow-mist, great plumes of icy spume glittering in the sunlight. They ascended a short flight of stone steps chiseled into the path, worn-down and slick with ice. A rope handrail was bolted into the rocks, which didn't reassure Elena much.

As they turned a bend, Elena saw what they'd been climbing toward. Another red gatehouse, paint chipped and faded, a studded oak door leading, seemingly, straight into the mountainside itself.

"Where are we going?" Elena called over the sound of the falls.

"You'll see. Stay close," Donna said. She unlocked the doors with a chatelaine she produced from somewhere in the folds of her skirt.

Inside, the thunder of the falls faded to a vibration underfoot. The passageway echoed ahead, a natural stone cave reinforced with wood beams. Donna unhooked a lantern from a hook and lit it, the shivering light illuminating the cave some thirty feet on.

"Follow me," Donna said, and began ahead. Elena did as she asked. The darkness was full of the sound of water, the steady dring of it from the ceiling, rivulets trickling over the flagstone floor. After a few minutes of silence, of climbing flights of steps, of long passageways of nothing, she began to notice the niches along the walls, the black roots twining from cracks in the walls. Candles stood in the niches, burnt down to puddles of wax. Stacks of lei, too, and dried flowers, and chunks of crystal, like offerings given to the warding-saints.

Is this a holy place? The priests spoke of the inner sanctum of the Black God, and Elena had herself seen the ruins that surrounded the town, filled with the snarls and howls of lycans come night but safe to walk in during the day. Painted with images of the saints and glorified by shrines to Miranda and the Black God, they had the same still, reverent air as these hallways. But there were no images here, no shrines, at least not in the way Elena was familiar.

"What is this place?" she whispered, not wanting to break the hush. Her voice chased her anyway, echoes at her heels- is this place, is this place.

"There was once more to the Beneviento estate, Elena. Much more. My family...the family I had before Mother Miranda adopted me has been in these mountains for a very, very long time. Since the days of Berengario."

"Who?"

Donna paused at a fork in the passageway, then took the right-hand path. Elena memorized the intersection on the off-chance she'd have to make a swift exit. "We didn't always live here, in the valley, you know. Once there was a great crystal city, far, far underground. Such magnificence. Spires to scrape the skies, and living gemstones, and rivers of light, bright as the sun through stained glass. There was no hunger there, no pain or suffering. Paradise. But there came calamity, a terrible apocalypse, and the crystal city was sundered. Broken. Swallowed whole by the earth that had for so long embraced it. And all good things were lost."

She lifted her head in the darkness. "So the four kings of the city led their people from their shattered paradise and into the dark and the cold of the world beyond. One of them was Berengario. They say it was his cleverness that convinced the Black God to help their people. His words painted wonders of worship and the Black God lifted its power and made the valley. A safe place for the refugees to live."

"It made the valley?"

"That's right."

"How?"

A soft laugh. "I don't know. I wasn't there. It was a very long time ago. Thousands of years." She paused. "Before Miranda."

"Before- wait. No, Miranda has always been here. The Black God's chosen, that's what she says."

"She says a lot. Whispers a lot. But I've kept books from her, locked them away where she can't find them. History books, of the wars that shaped the valley, drew its borders. And she's not in them. She only comes later."

Elena let out a laugh of disbelief. "I...I don't know..."

"It's true. Maybe not the crystal city. That might just be a story. But it's a nice one. Can you imagine a place without hunger...without sadness?"

"No." Elena paused. "That's what Miranda wants, for this valley. A perfect place for us, one where everything is useful."

"Miranda wants many things," Donna said, so quietly her voice was almost lost amidst the echoes. "A perfect place for us is not one of them."

Elena looked sharply up at her, but Donna didn't say anything more.

They were winding up, and up, and up a long, corkscrew set of steps. The atmosphere had changed as they climbed, the air becoming softer, the darkness tinged with gold. Sunlight came into view, shining down from a narrow slit window above. They rounded another turn and came face-to-face with a rickety wooden door, chained in place with a padlock. Donna unlocked it and gestured Elena through.

She stepped from stone, and gloom, and echoes, and into sunlight, dense and warm on her upturned face.

The snow had melted here, the mountainside given over to the falling sunlight, and away and away, as far as Elena could see, spread an endless field of grass and wildflowers, swept by the wind like her glimpse of the sea. On and on, rhododendron and edelweiss, gentian and dianthus, countless flowers clinging to stony soil, cut by the glimmering thread of a few small streams flowing from some higher, hidden source. A few craggy upthrusts broke the surface of the grass, the remnants of old towers and stone walls, crumbling and wind-chapped and weathered by centuries of storms. They would be the first to feel it, up here, the first to drink the rain, to feel the sun.

Elena's mouth was open in naked awe, the wind pricking tears from her eyes; the wind rushed, and tore her hair from its pins, and filled her lungs, harsh and thrilling, full of the taste of ancient ice, of growing things, of a wild place far from the reach of the world.

She watched Donna step into the grass, parting it. She was the sole spot of black within the landscape of sun and grass and stone, but she wasn't a hole in the world, she was the focus, the linchpin. She waded into the knee-high field without hesitation, and Elena could do nothing, after a moment, but follow.

Through the grass, to the base of one of the ancient towers. It shadowed the landscape, one of many; the clouds moved across the sky, their great slow shadows rippling over the liquid expanse of the field. There were no rooms left, no halls, just the decayed echoes of what had once been buildings, but as Donna bent to the wall Elena saw the tangle of deep red plants growing there, heart-shaped leaves nodding in the wind.

"How do they all grow?" she asked, her voice hushed. "It's winter. Shouldn't they all die in winter?"

"I help them stay alive." Donna clipped them with the tips of her shears. "Take one..." she began. She placed the sprigs in the basket, leaving the rest of the plant in peace. "...And leave the rest to grow."

"What does this one do?"

"Many things. Poisons, cures. It all depends on how you treat it." She bent to the next plant, harvesting it with a few deft snips of her shears. "Want to try a leaf?"

"Trying to poison me? Are you sick of me that soon?"

"No," Donna said. "Never."

She moved on, and, eventually, silently, gave Elena a second set of secateurs. Elena fell into the rhythm of the work, her eyes soon sharpening to the bright spots of red amidst the shadows of the ruins, the heart-shaped leaves with their scalloped edges, their undersides like velvet. A sharp, spicy scent rose from them when they were cut.

Inhaling it, Elena's head swam, her mind drifting to distant places, to candlelit rooms, to glimpses of dark skies blazing with stars. There were other herbs, too, green ones with a scent almost like peppermint, and even blue ones, their leaves edged with a color so vivid it mirrored the sky. Each one seemed like its own small wonder, perfect and complete, the natural denizen of this impossible place.

And, later, she and Donna sat together in the lee of an old stone wall, sheltered from the wind, heads tilted back to watch the clouds move across the sky.

"I think I found what you sent me to the attic to find, after all," Elena said, after a long silence.

Donna didn't speak.

"I think I understand, now. About Claudia. You couldn't tell me about her. So you showed me." She paused. "Thank you."

"I wasn't strong enough to tell you."

"Are you now?"

"Yes." Silk rustled as she shifted. "She died."

Elena turned her head to look at her. Again, that glimpse of her profile through the silk, the shape of the nose she now knew, though had never truly seen. Of her full mouth, which she at once longed to see smiling, really smiling, full and sweet and true.

"She was my sister," Donna went on. "My younger sister. My only. I was five when she was born. And, oh, she was perfect. My mother doted on her. My father too. He even stopped making his dolls and puppets to spend time with her. And I...I slept by her cradle so I could listen to her breathing all night, so I could see her first thing in the morning when I woke up. And she grew, and she was so...right, so good...not right for this place. For that house. I always knew she was special."

She paused.

"And so did Miranda," she went on. "She came to us when Claudia was three. She wanted to give her the gift, even then. But she said she was too little. That she would come back. My mother...she was so afraid. But I didn't see what was so bad. When is a gift bad?"

When it comes with a price. But Elena didn't say anything. She suspected Donna already knew that.

"Mother Miranda wanted her," Donna went on. "And what Mother wants, she gets. She returned when Claudia was six, and by then she was sure. But let her grow, she told me. Let her grow a little longer. Like a flower in the sun. And Claudia was so happy, so honored. I tried to protect her. I tried. When Mama and Papa, when they...they fell..."

"Oh, Donna," Elena murmured.

"We weren't bad daughters. We weren't. That couldn't have been why. I saw them." She paused. "They jumped. Claudia cried. But I still had her. I still had her..."

Her voice faded.

There was more, Elena knew. And that was where the wound was, the real wound, the one that had made her. The one she was so afraid of, locked herself away from. The horrors she still could not face.

"Well," Elena said eventually. "You have me."

Donna turned her head so they looked at one another. "I do," she murmured, and reached out, and trailed the back of her fingers over Elena's cheek, her touch soft and warm as the afternoon sunlight, and just as keenly missed once it was gone.

***

That night, Elena woke not to the sound of weeping, but of music.

She reached for her shawl, paused, then reached for the green velvet dressing-gown in all its decaying finery and belted it over her nightdress. She left her hair loose, falling in waves and tangles down her shoulders.

She left her room and followed the music to the front hall, where it poured from the old gramophone player, filling the darkness with the warm hiss of its sound. Soft, meandering piano. It made her think again of the wind through the grass, the cloud-shadows and the sky. One minute it became melancholy, the next discordant. The next, unbearably sweet.

Donna stood by the gramophone, her hand poised on its casing. She looked up to watch Elena come down the stairs and stood at their foot, breath held, waiting.

Waiting.

Not for long. Donna lifted her hand.

"Do you dance?" she asked.

[saintsofwarding]

BURIAL

Chapter 7

The key was still clenched in her hand. She lifted it to the light to get a better look. Its head was decorated with a geometric pattern to match the elevator, its teeth well-used. She clenched her fingers around it, the slight pain of it digging into her palm helping center her, bring her back to herself, slow down the racket of her heart.

What the hell was that?

Something was in the house. But- it couldn't be what she'd seen. It couldn't be her mother.

My mother's ghost, following me?

But why would she be here, and how? If any part of her mother's corpse still existed, it would be somewhere in Castle Dimitrescu. And the doll, Angie...it was like the monster was another game to play, like she'd thought it was funny.

Like she was controlling it, and it was Elena's role in the game to figure out how to get away. Or maybe it was her role to get eaten.

Her head swam. She sank back against the wall as the elevator trundled further downward, brick walls transitioning, after a time, to dull stone. The air cooled, and by the time the contraption shuddered to a halt, Elena could see her breath in it.

The doors went ding, and opened. Beyond was a small, comfortable atrium with padded chairs and the same polished wood decorating scheme as the rooms aboveground. Not at all the torture dungeon Elena had fancied was waiting down here.

But there was something...shabby about it, too, something a little cracked along the corners. The green leather of the chairs was dull and creased. The cabinets were filmed with dust. Everywhere: cobwebs, and a faint dampness to the atmosphere, manifesting in thin trails of black mold visible in the seams of the walls.

She wasn't about to go back up. So instead Elena made herself exit the elevator and stumble out, shaking, into the basement of House Beneviento.

"H-hello?" she called. Her voice echoed away and away. "Lady Beneviento? It's here, it's...it's in your house, I think it's the doll, I know you don't believe me but I saw her, she was moving..."

She crumpled. Her legs didn't feel like they'd support her weight if she walked much longer. She caught herself up against a chair and levered herself against a wall, crawling toward the hallway. She passed a cabinet with an old telephone- she picked up the receiver but all she heard from the other end was a dial tone- and tried the first door she came across.

Locked. The hallway led off into darkness. Another door on the other side of the hall swam into view.

"Lady Beneviento?" Elena croaked.

She tried the handle. It turned, letting her through and into a warm, dim room. She collapsed back against the door; it slammed shut, and she breathed, hard, nausea clawing at her throat, pulse shocking in her eyes.

At last, she felt like she could face the world again. She let her eyes open and adjust to the gloom.

She was wrong about the desk above- that wasn't Lady Beneviento's study. This was her study. The dark wood walls gleamed in the faint light from the banker's lamp on the desk, illuminating the gilt spines of countless books shelved along the walls, and stacked on desks, and on the floor, and on the myriad chairs in the room, as if their owner had run out of space for them and carelessly stacked them wherever there was room.

Dolls, too, a few of them scattered in corners or sitting on the stacks of books, blank-eyed and slumped. The same as the ones grouped around the big grave, Elena noted, with identical black hair and prim dresses, lace-collared and ruffled.

The glow of brass and copper, glass sconces and writing instruments faced Elena everywhere she looked, and everywhere, too, were strange, curious objects in cases. Beetles pinned on velvet, their shells a shocking iridescent green, a color Elena had never seen before on a living creature. Taxidermy birds perched on branches, so lifelike she half-expected them to flutter into the air. Shells with pearly throats, spiraled like goat horns, so delicate they looked as if they'd been molded from porcelain. Bizarre saintly figurines carved from milky crystal stood together, wolf-headed, collared in red cord and sinew. Even part of a skull grinned from the gloom, a mass of crystal shards growing like a tumor from its braincase, its canine teeth pointed as an animal's. There were antique books, and a gold locket on its own little pillow, and a fossilized fern framed in silver, the delicate frond preserved forever in the silver-gray rock.

And on the central desk, most curious of all, rested a mechanism. It looked to Elena like a truck engine in miniature, but far smaller, and delicately-made from copper, glass, and polished wood. Twin wheels were embedded in its back, and a strange telescope-like lens extended from its front, pointed to a sheet hanging from a hook on the far wall.

Elena's curiosity overtook her nerves. She crept forward and examined it, brow furrowed, looking for any clue as to its purpose.

She touched the lens, brushing her fingertips along the casing. A switch extended from its side. She pushed it down.

With a chunk and a soft whir, the wheels along the device's top began to spin, and a beam of light shot from its front lens, painting a circle on the sheet. Elena flinched back with a gasp as shadows began to play over the sheet, in the circle of light, but nothing was casting them- ghosts, she thought, but, no, these weren't ghosts, they were gray people, scratchy and moving in unnatural jerks and starts, their mouths fluttering as if in silent speech. Elena stared as two of them- a man in a suit, a woman in a long, glittering dress- clasped hands and began to dance, whirling through the circle as if trapped within the light.

Were they inside the machine? Inside the beam? Elena didn't know. Slowly, she sank into the desk chair, enraptured, watching them dance, then part, then kiss, their bodies dissolving into a view of a lake. But this one was massive, not like the village reservoir but rather a plane of waves going on and on forever, a great empty nothingness of water.

Elena's nerves prickled. Was this- no, that's blasphemy, she told herself, but Miranda was not there, and her mind trembled and grew at the possibility that this was outside the village, that she had found a magical window that peered through the impossible, over the borders, over the mountains that had protected her people since time immemorial, and into the great heretic unknown beyond.

She watched in silent wonder. For how long, she didn't know. Slowly, she became aware she was no longer alone.

The bittersweet scent stung her nose. With a gasp, she looked up.

Lady Beneviento stood in the shadows, hands clasped before her, as if she'd always been there.

"My lady," Elena gasped. "I'm so-"

"Please don't apologize." Her hands fluttered as if in agitation, like two pale spiders. "I heard you shouting. I thought you might be hurt."

"No, I'm not hurt, I'm- I'm scared, I- it's up there. The thing I was talking about. It's...some kind of monster, I-"

"You're wrong."

"W...what?"

"You're wrong." Lady Beneviento stepped closer. "You said I don't believe you. I do. But...I'm scared, too."

Elena stared. "Are you also hiding down here?"

She nodded.

"That thing, that monster- it looks like...like someone I knew."

"Does it? That's what you see?" A tilt of the head. She glimpsed, again, the glint of what might have been an eye beneath the veil. "Interesting."

"If you're scared, can't you stop it? Make it go away? You're a Lord, aren't you?" Elena snapped. "One of the Black God's chosen?"

Beneviento flinched a little. "No," she whispered. "I can't. I'm not strong enough."

Elena fell silent, her brow furrowed. She faced front again, watching the gray figures, the fantastic landscapes, all trapped within the circle of light.

"Is this real?" she asked at last.

"This...?"

Elena pointed at the light. "Is this sorcery? Your power? Is this what you can do? Make windows into another world?"

"No, this is a projector," Beneviento said, as if speaking to a child. She gave a soft laugh. "It's not magic, it's light. You see?"

She touched the spinning wheels. A fine translucent ribbon stretched between them. "This is film. There are pictures on it. Thousands of pictures. Each is a moment in time...a memory. The light shines through them and it makes them come alive. And you can see the past, the memories, like they're happening again."

"This makes the past come alive?" Elena watched the memories with a renewed fascination. "Like...a photograph?"

"Like many photographs."

"Can you make dead people come back on this? Can I see...someone I knew?"

"Only if I have the film. And if one was never made...then they're lost." A soft exhale, a lift of the head. Her profile became outlined by the thin black silk, for a moment, and Elena glimpsed the contours of what must have been fine features, a high-bridged nose, the trace of lips. Just for a moment.

She looked away, just as quickly.

"Lost," Beneviento said again. Her hand rested on the projector, thumb rubbing small circles on the polished brass.

"You said you weren't strong enough."

She looked up.

"To face that thing." Elena pointed toward the ceiling. "Whatever it is. But you saved me from the great Lord Heisenberg himself. Come on, it can't be any scarier than he is."

"Then why don't you face it, if it's so easy?"

A challenge? Beneviento's voice was playful. Elena blinked. Fine, then. "Because I don't have powers, that's why."

"Oh, but you do. You forget." Her voice turned faintly sarcastic. "That's very powerful, to be able to forget."

"What? Forget what?"

"Your friend who you lost. In the garden, you said they were no one. You lied."

Elena leaned back in the chair. She closed her eyes for a long moment. "Got me," she muttered. "I...it's. The monster...I see my mother."

Lady Beneviento said nothing.

"She died," Elena went on. "It wasn't a friend I meant. It was her. When I was eight, she was called into service and went to the castle, to work. She never came back."

The circle of light burned into her eyes, but she didn't want to look away in case her mother was there in it.

"A place of blood and death, that's what everyone calls Castle Dimitrescu," Elena said. "I always thought it would be different, for her. Because she was my mother, and because that couldn't happen, not to me. But it did, like it did for everyone. And...I dream about her. Sometimes. What she must have looked like, at the end. What must have been done to her."

Silence fell. They watched the film play itself out. The figures, dancing soundless, trapped in time. Elena flinched as cold brushed her hand. She looked down to find Lady Beneviento's fingertips against hers. Her skin was callused, no warmth in it.

Elena looked up at her.

"Was she nice?" Beneviento murmured.

"Yes."

"My mother wasn't nice. But she loved me. Loved...us."

"Us?" Elena thought of the drawings in the tower room, the two girls alongside their parents. The little chant Beneviento had done in the garden, patting the flowers down. And once for obedient girls. One pat each.

"A sister?" Elena asked, quietly.

Lady Beneviento slid her hand away. But she wasn't angry, or offended; Elena knew that brittle way of walking, that clenched-down rage and suffering. She went to the far side of the room, in the dark, and curled into a chair, her shoulders hunched in, her hands gripping her upper arms.

"Lady Beneviento," Elena said, getting up. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." She went to her side and hesitated.

I fear you may fall victim to her traps, Mother Miranda said. Don't trust her. Don't trust what you see, Mother Miranda said.

But Elena couldn't help it. She saw what she saw, saw it like blood gushing from a wound, saw it like she saw herself in the spotted sliver of mirror, almost twenty years older but still that child crying in the night, smothering her tears because she didn't want to face it, didn't want to face that much pain.

And she couldn't walk away from it. Not when she could stop it. Not when she might make a difference.

Elena touched Lady Beneviento's shoulder, gripping it tight. It felt as sharp as a bird-bone beneath the black silk taffeta. Beneviento didn't pull away.

"Donna," she said.

"Excuse me?"

Her head turned. Elena sensed a smile. "Donna," she said. "Please call me Donna."

"Okay," Elena said. "Donna."

She let her go and pulled back. The film had come to its end. With a whirring clatter, the picture seemed torn away, the circle of light clean again. Donna reached out and switched off the machine. The whir died, and silence filled the study.

Elena heard nothing from above- no moans or screams.

"Is it gone?" Donna asked.

Elena shook her head. "Not yet." She thought she was beginning to understand- if not the whole, then the fringes of the whole, the edge of that circle of light. It shines through the pictures. It makes them live again. Whatever power was in this house, whatever monster lurked here, controlled or manipulated by that horrible doll, it was a burrowing kind. It got inside and shone outward.

"That nasty doll, Angie, she's up there too," Elena added.

"Nasty? Nasty? No! Angie's my friend, she's a part of me!" Donna was at once distressed, hands fluttering again. "No, she's not bad, she's...she's a little angel, that's what Papa said, that's what he told me when he gave her to me. She's a little angel and she'll always be there to protect me and we never, never will be apart."

"Okay, all right," Elena said, as much to get her to calm down as anything. "She...she's not helping the situation, then, how's that? She was moving around, you know."

"Yes. All my dolls move. But her most of all."

"No way."

"Yes."

Much to think about. Elena reached out and clasped Donna's hands to stop them from quivering. After a few moments, even her cold skin began to feel warm.

"I'll go back up," she told her. "I'll make it go away."

"No-"

"Yes." Elena gave her hands a squeeze. "Then you can come upstairs." She smiled. "I'm here for you, remember?"

***

She clenched the brass key tight in her fist as she watched Donna standing beyond the grille, watched as the rectangle of light slid downward, watched as it was subsumed by the darkness of the elevator shaft. Soon she was trapped in a stone box again, trapped in that inexorable climb back toward the house.

Back toward the dead thing waiting for her.

Breathe. She did. The air began to taste of blood. Just breathe. Just light through pictures. She closed her eyes, and once she opened them again, the elevator had ground to a halt, and the hallway stretched beyond. Bloody and slick. Contracting like a diseased organ.

She pushed the grate open.

It was there, at the far end of the hallway. A stretched, melting figure, sloughing endless bloody slime. It almost looked like a woman, now, almost like her mother, as if it had learned.

"My...sweet...girl..." Its voice wheezed toward her. "I...I came back...at last..."

"No, you didn't," Elena murmured. "You never came back. You died."

She stepped into the corridor. Splack. Another step. Splack. Its wheezing, strangled breaths grew louder, and so did the smell of blood, so thick it choked her. A slaughterhouse. A draining-pit. Its arms lifted as she approached, its hair parting from a face beginning to detach from the skull beneath, skin and muscle and connective tissue loosening once the blood was gone and the rot set in. Its jaw dropped, mouth gaping wide, teeth red as pomegranate seeds.

"My...girl," it moaned. "Elena..."

"Hey, mom," she whispered.

Its hands closed around her face. Cold and slimy and rancid. Its words tightened to a mewl as it drew her in, as its rubbery lips dragged over her cheek, as it gathered her to its chest, and Elena was rigid, every nerve in her body screaming- but she had to do this. She had to face it.

Its flesh parted, its cut throat widening, and in a ripple of loose bloodless skin it pulled her in and consumed her whole.

"Love...you..."

Darkness.

She drifted in it. Her eyes were shut, her hair whipped around her head in a phantom wind. Don't look. Don't look. But she forced her eyes open, and her feet touched ground. The slick flagstones of a cellar.

A flicker of pollen danced in the gloom. By its glow, Elena made out the iron bars around her, the cell doors hanging open. Chains swung, silent, and somewhere ahead came the steady dring of liquid.

She paced ahead. Splack. Splack. Her slippers were soaked through. The trail of blood on the floor led on, and on, through the darkness of the dungeon place. The pollen followed her, dancing round her.

She began to see it, taking shape in the dark.

A mass, hanging from one of the great meat hooks bolted to the rock ceiling. It swung back and forth like the chains, trailing hair barely brushing the floor, white hands curling and uncurling with each swing.

The body might have been her own, they looked so alike. It was so pale it was tinged with blue, lips bruised dark, nails ragged, as if she'd spent her last hours scratching at the wall like she might dig her way out. Her throat had been cut with a single deep, clean slash. Elena saw the glint of white trachea within, something that might have been bone.

A mercy killing.

The blood flowed from her, thick and dark, dried stiff as old leather. Nearby on a chair was strewn a ruined white slip, a pair of shoes, placed neatly together.

Their surroundings faded. Soon it was nothing but the dark, Elena and her mother's corpse lit by the golden glow of pollen. She'd been chained, Elena saw, round the ankles, fastened with a heavy padlock.

She lifted the bronze key. It fit in the lock. Like it had been made for it.

The padlock clicked open. She caught her mother's body before it fell; the weight of the corpse brought them both to the ground. Elena's arms trembled; she knelt, her breath coming in short, quick gasps, her eyes hot.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She scrubbed at her eyes. "You should have been a warning."

But she wasn't like her mother, was she? She was faithless, down at the core. She didn't look at the warding-saints with fear and respect. She looked at them with longing. The glimpse of the sea, in that circle of light. A nothingness unbroken. A horizon, without mountains, without forests, without anything at all.

If she was truly devoted to the Black God, truly its loyal servant, she would never question, would never yearn.

Would never have comforted Lady Donna Beneviento, whom Miranda had told her to fear.

But she wasn't afraid. Not of her. Just of herself. Because Miranda would find out. She always did. And when she did, more than Elena would pay the price.

She held her mother's body, and the darkness closed in, cool and soft as well-worn black silk.

***

Elena woke in a patch of hazy sunlight.

She lay on the floor in the main hall of House Beneviento. Someone had placed a blanket over her, tucking her carefully in. Her mouth tasted bitter; when she touched it her fingertips came away slick and black. She lifted her head with a soft groan. The view through the windows was bright, morning sun reflecting off snow.

The smell of tea and breakfast filled the air when she maneuvered herself, with effort, onto her knees. The blanket slid off her. Her joints creaked, her muscles winched tight enough to snap. But there was something else, too- music, played on a gramophone, a bright fiddle song echoing from the direction of the kitchen.

Something hard and metallic was in her hand. She lifted it: a brass key. There was no blood on it anymore. No blood anywhere; she remembered the way it had squished in her slippers, but they were clean.

She was clean. She felt cleaner than she had in years.

Elena smiled, a little. She unhooked the string from her nightgown bodice and added the brass key, where it dangled alongside its silver companion, winking in the light.

She climbed to her feet and limped into the kitchen. Donna sat at the table, teacup in her hands, Angie alongside her. Donna looked up as Elena approached.

"Is that your power?" Elena asked.

"What?"

"Making things...appear. Memories. Like the projector. Is that what you do?"

She fiddled with the cup handle. "Memories," she echoed. "Sometimes."

"Can't you control it? It's all you, isn't it? Making me see things, making me think it's all real?"

Her knuckles were white. "I...I don't..."

"But what else could it-" She stopped in realization. The bittersweet taste, the pollen winking in the air. It had been in her vision, too, her dream inside the monster, at the core of her fears.

"The flowers," she said. "The yellow flowers. They cause the visions, don't they."

"You lay down in a field of flowers and sleep on and on forever," Donna said, sing-song, as if quoting something. "Poor Dorothy and all her friends."

"Can't you make it stop?"

"Me? Alone? No." A rustle of her veil like a shaky exhale. "Can't you help me?"

"I- yes. I'll sure as hell try."

"Thank you, Elena."

Elena nodded.

"What did you see?" she asked, after a long pause. "The monster, I mean. You were scared of it just as much as I was. So what did you see it as?"

"It's gone?"

Elena clenched her teeth. Talking to Donna Beneviento felt a little like wandering through an endless labyrinth- more dead ends than answers. But her voice trembled with so much hope she couldn't help but reassure her.

"Yes, it's gone," she told her.

"You did it?"

Elena nodded. "I did it. It's over."

Donna's hands tightened on the teacup. "No," she whispered, and set down the cup to pour Elena her own. "It's never over."

And maybe she was right, but Elena still sat down with her, and they drank their tea and listened to the music companionably together as the morning sun brightened into day.

Eventually Donna rose from the table. Her fingers brushed Elena's shoulder.

"Elena," she murmured.

"Yes?"

"The basement is dangerous," she told her. "Please don't go down there again."

[saintsofwarding]

BURIAL

Chapter 5

The next week passed without any more games, and the bride doll didn't move, not even once. Elena sure wasn't about to touch her. She stayed where she was at the head of the table, hands folded on its honey-colored wood surface, as if waiting to be served tea.

The blizzard fell in earnest, and each day the view beyond the windows was a blank, unbroken whiteness, a scrape of sideways snow and howling wind. She was fairly confident no one was getting up the mountain in this, not even lycans; she tried not to think about just how isolated that made her. For her part, Elena did her chores. She kept the house clean, the fires lit; she scrubbed the floors and polished the wood and dusted the ornaments and took inventory of the larder and the kitchen cupboards.

There were spices, she discovered, rare and precious, ones she never thought she'd even see, much less taste. Cinnamon sticks, and golden turmeric, and black peppercorns like insects' eyes. Extract of vanilla, an entire shriveled black pod suspended within its jar of cloudy liquid. When unstoppered it filled the air with the lush scent of flowers growing in some far-off place. Even saffron, worth more than its weight in gold, each thread the red-brown of maple leaves beginning to turn in autumn. In a green-painted cupboard with carved doors and little brass scrollwork hinges, Elena found Lady Beneviento's tea collection. This was truly something to behold, rivaling even the stock of a merchant's caravan. For herself each morning, she used the big, plain jar of black tea, but even that had an orangey perfume. Each sip tasted like summer.

And every night, she woke deep in the darkness to the sound of weeping. It always trailed away the moment she became conscious of it, but sometimes it lingered a few more seconds, and Elena always listened, cheek against the pillow, staring into the dark. It sounded like a little girl, sometimes. Other nights it was a woman, maybe her own age, crying and crying.

She didn't try to find it again. It echoed from somewhere faraway- the basement, perhaps? The place the locked elevator led to? Besides, she didn't want a repeat of her night locked in the tower room, shivering and sick with fear.

But her heart ached each time the weeping went silent. It was worse, somehow, than if it had gone on for hours. At least then the mysterious source of the sound would feel empty, cleaned-out, exorcised of their grief.

Elena remembered nights of smothering her own tears in her palms, crushing her hands over her mouth to keep her father from hearing in the next room. Had he done the same, mere yards away? They'd lived in the same house, eaten the same food from the same table, joked and snipped at one another good-naturedly for so long, but after her mother's death, both of them infected with their own grief, they might have been a thousand miles apart.

It hurt to think about her father. But...maybe, maybe, the shadow had taken the letter to Andrei. It was addressed to him; where else could it have gone? And that meant he was caring for Pa. They could take care of one another. That was what the people in the village did- they took care of each other, helped one another, even in the harshest winters.

That was enough to help her sleep again.

She finished her book from home. She read another. There was no end to books and bookshelves, filled with novels and histories, books of maps, books of theory. Some were written in languages Elena could only guess at; she had to make do with the pictures. Beautiful, mostly- intricate pen-and-ink diagrams of plants and animals, both local and exotic. Others made her stomach churn, anatomical drawings of creatures twisted and dissected, lolling tongues and gaping ribs, viscera and eyes impaled with needles. An eclectic library, the collection of a conspicuous eccentric. Was Lady Beneviento a scholar? She had a small desk off the kitchen. Would Elena find any of her secrets or schemes there? Was that what Miranda wanted her to look for?

To hell with it. What else did she have, anyway? She could tell Mother Miranda about the vanishing children's drawings on the wall. That would go over really well.

So, on the morning of the sixth day, she bit back her trepidation and at last approached the desk.

Ordinary. Pleasant. Honey-colored wood, a brass pen set, a lamp with a green glass shade. A sheaf of papers was shoved under a small pile of books; heart thumping, Elena flipped it open, but it was full of nothing but a few half-finished botanical sketches. She tried the drawers to find them unlocked, but there was nothing in them, either. A dead spider. A sweet wrapper. A dried petal. It left a dark, waxy smear on her hand when she rubbed it between her fingers.

Hsss.

A small, dry sound. Elena looked up. The only other thing in the room was the doll. It still sat in place at the head of the table. It hadn't moved.

"And you better not," she muttered. Maybe there was something on the backs of the drawings? She turned them over one by one. Blank. So much for her bright ideas.

Hsss.

What was that? It sounded somehow familiar, somehow mundane. Elena jerked her head up again, faster, wanting to catch the doll's movements. If it was her making the noise, anyway. Nothing. Staring at the doll, Elena pushed back from the table and approached one slow step at a time, as if sneaking up on a chicken with the intent to catch it.

She realized what the sound was, then. It hit her like a gush of icy water. Silk against silk. Rustling.

The doll?

Nausea rippled through her gut. The room swayed around her. She pressed her hand to her nose; it felt warm, wet. When she brought her hand away, black fluid glistened on her fingers; it seemed to shift and squirm, like maggots, it seemed to stretch and melt and the room around her groaned, wind rising, ghosts howling at the walls-

Someone banged on the door.

Elena shrieked; she whirled, eyes wide. Impact slammed the doors again- someone going at them with both fists. A voice, too, yelling from outside.

"Elena?" it called. "Elena! Are you in there?"

She recognized the voice. She'd heard it laughing, chatting with her friends around the well. Violeta.

She wasn't dead. She was just outside the door.

"...Violeta?" Elena said.

"Elena, you're there! Saints, you have to help me." Another storm of banging; her voice sounded ragged, panicked, raw with terror, audible even over the howl of the blizzard. "They're coming, they're gonna get me- Elena!"

Elena rushed for the doors and grabbed the handle. She pulled, hard, but the wind or something, maybe the hinges were frozen, pushed back against her, holding the doors in place; she grit her teeth and yanked back with all her weight; a slit of white appeared between them, the wind slicing against her face like a knife. A face thrust itself into view, just a slice of it, a wide, terrified hazel eye, a lashing curl of blonde hair.

"Elena," Violeta's voice echoed over the wind. "Let me in!"

"What's chasing you? What is it?" She didn't see anything past her.

"Please let me in, they're coming, now-"

"You have to help me. Push on the doors." The damn wind. "Come on! Violeta, please!"

"They're here! No-" Her voice cut off with a strangled yelp and she was yanked back from the doors as if someone had grabbed her by both shoulders and flung her into the blizzard. Finally, the doors relented; they burst wide, and Elena went stumbling onto the frozen porch.

"Violeta!" she screamed. She searched the blizzard, the line of churned footprints leading away through the snow. "Violeta!"

No. No. No. Her pulse pounded with mingled relief and confusion. She almost went running off, but caught herself. She'd freeze, and if it was lycans, she didn't want to get caught unarmed. She pelted into the house, fumbled her arms into her coat sleeves, tugged a scarf round her neck and thick leather gloves on her hands. She grabbed up her rifle and plunged out into the storm once again, heedless of the open front doors behind her.

Damn the rugs. If Violeta was alive, and something had her, there was no time to waste. She took the steps at a run.

The garden was invisible, buried under snowdrifts, and she could barely tell the difference between land and sky. It was all one big white blur. Snowflakes smacked her in the face. Elena spat them away and yanked her scarf over her mouth and nose, setting her eyes in a hard squint. She could do this. Sometimes the forest got bad, the farm; she'd gotten through hard weather before. She searched the whiteness for any sign of movement, anything besides snow and thrashing tree limbs, spare conifers clinging to the mountain crags above.

Lycans? If it had been monster wolves after Violeta, they hadn't stuck around. They must have dragged her off.

Elena's stomach dropped. The furrow of footprints and churned snow led not into the woods or up the mountain, but straight to the edge of the cliff. Crusts of old stone walls and balconies, the remnants of a crumbled gazebo, even part of an ancient flagstone courtyard clung to the edge, the cliff inexorably crumbling away year by year. Once, this property must have been far larger. Now, the waterfall had eaten it up.

It raged through the blizzard, the sound of it like thunder as Elena stopped at the cliff's edge and, swallowing the remnants of her nausea, looked over.

Impossible. A sheer drop. But- the more she looked, the more she made herself find pockets and folds and ways, she saw the path. So narrow. A switchbacked track winding down the mountainside, sometimes almost vanishing amidst rock crags and exposed roots. And down, down, down, almost past visibility, she glimpsed color fluttering from one of the roots- a scrap of red ribbon. Her breath caught.

Don't be such a coward. She steeled herself and stepped onto the path.

Scree skidded under her boot; she clenched her teeth, heart pounding, then broke into a half-jog, half-skid, scrambling down the switchback and toward the gloom and mist below. The air was wet, filled with icy spray, and soon her hair clung like wet reeds to her cheeks. Another scream rippled through the wind, chased by a ragged howl.

Now that was a lycan. Her pulse kicked up a notch. She reached the ribbon and yanked it from the root, stuffing it in her pocket before unslinging her rifle. Its stock pressed against her shoulder as she swung the weapon back and forth, searching the blizzard for her first glimpse of eyes.

"Violeta!" she yelled. "Where are you?" Her vision trembled, white around the edges. She shook her head hard. "Violeta!"

Another howl joined the first, and another, a chorus of them rising through the storm and up her spine, catching her heart in their claws.

Where are they? It sounded like the lycans were right on top of her. Violeta wasn't screaming anymore.

"Vio-" she started.

The ground shifted under her feet.

Stones crumbled. Her gut swooped. She clawed out for a handhold, for anything to grab onto, but the roots and stones slid from her grip as the path crumbled from beneath her feet, and then she was falling.

The world became white, became scraped black and blur and screaming. She smacked loose stones and briars hard, bounced, rolled head over heels to a grating, skidding halt. She coughed hair out of her mouth, her entire body ablaze with pain. She'd skinned her knees and her face prickled with countless cuts and shards of embedded stone. Groaning, she found her hands and knees and curled over, breath harsh in her lungs.

She forced her head up. The mist swirled behind her; she could see the scar down the cliffside where she'd fallen. She knelt on a rocky riverbank, the river beyond all black water and whitecaps, frigid mist rising from its rapids. The waterfall's river. The base of the falls themselves roared a short distance upstream, a massive churning plume of white water.

Rocks combed the river's surface, sharp as teeth. If she'd fallen onto them-

Don't think about that. You made it. Her rifle lay a few yards off, strap twisted. She pushed herself toward it.

A snarl sliced through the rumble of water.

Elena froze. Her breathing sharpened as acid crept up her throat. The snarl rippled around her, deep and timbrous, sliding from ear to ear. Circling her. She stared one way, the other. Mist swirled. Eyes glimmered green in the darkness.

Stones scattered- the weight of a vast, monstrous body against the riverbank. Gathering its weight. Preparing to lunge.

She pushed herself forward.

Her hand brushed the rifle strap-

And grabbed it.

Her gun was in her hands and she swept it round, cocked and leveled, her eyes wide. The lycan rose from the fog, a massive, hunchbacked form. A pelt of matted gray hair sprouted from its back and shoulders. Human, she thought. Almost. A mouthful of jagged, broken teeth glistened in the light. Its eyes flashed green-gold, black slaver dripping from jaws that looked like they'd grown faster than the skin that covered them, warping its almost-human face out of shape, mangled and misaligned. It perched atop one of the huge boulders alongside the riverbank, staring down at her, starvation in its eyes.

"Stay the fuck back!" Her hands shook, but her finger was calm on the trigger; would she miss? It was so close. It would kill her if she missed.

Its jaws parted. Hot breath plumed into the wind. Tentacles, pink and fleshy as tendons, wriggled from the mats of its mane, writhing over its shoulders.

Elena's gorge rose. Saints forgive me. "I said stay the-"

The lycan leaped. Elena squeezed the trigger. The gunshot lit the riverbank like noon; it kicked her shoulder and sent her stumbling back. Her head slammed a rock and she saw stars, hands limp on the rifle. The lycan shrieked as one eye erupted in a spray of black gore; it clawed at itself but it wasn't stopping, wasn't slowing.

It lunged for her and before she could do more than bring up a hand to fend it off it sank its teeth into the meat of her forearm.

Cold and pressure and tearing. She screamed, agony splintering through her; her vision whited out but she could still feel the lycan ripping at her, shaking its head back and forth like a dog worrying at a rat. She was the rat. Its teeth. In her arm. Poor rabbit never stood a chance- It wrenched its head back and took half of her arm with it. Pinkish bone glistened in the light, and she tasted her own blood in the air as it began to pour from her, to gush over the snow, spurting in heartbeat pulses from a severed ulnar artery. Her screaming was muffled, now, faraway, another person. The snow was black. The lycan smelled the blood. It began to whine. Its claws closed in her coat, tearing the wool. Its next bite would take out her throat.

A hum of power.

A ripple of blue light.

Sparks flickered across the snow.

The piece of rebar sliced through the storm like a javelin, crackling with energy; it impaled the lycan to the rock with a crack and a burst of blood. Behind it, balanced on two river rocks, stood Lord Heisenberg. His hammer was over his shoulder, his hand lifted, still humming with that faint bluish glow.

Elena stared.

"Trying to get away?" he called. The lycan had stopped thrashing; its jaws still snapped, eyes staring dully into space. Heisenberg crooked his fingers. The piece of rebar shot from inside the lycan, and the monster slumped to the ground, already crackling apart into chunks of white crystal. The rebar stopped short and hovered in midair, aimed now for Elena.

"Thought you could cut and run?" Heisenberg went on. He made a tsk-tsk sound and waved his finger. "Naughty, naughty. But Mother sees everything."

He shrugged. "Not bad though, kid. Not bad. I gotta give it to you, you're a tough little bitch if I ever saw one. You almost made it past the warding-saint."

Elena lifted her eyes. The statue stood on one of the boulders, another bestial saint like the ones in the forest. This one held a rusted lantern on a ring. It creaked back and forth in its clawed hands. She turned her eyes back to Lord Heisenberg and thought she might rather have taken her chances with the lycan.

"Wasn't...trying," she whispered. Her body didn't want to obey her. She knew she was going into shock, knew she didn't have long, but it seemed more important than anything to plead her case. "Not trying...to...escape. Trying to...save..."

Her voice faded. She couldn't manage more.

"Excuses, excuses. I admire your chutzpah, I really do," Heisenberg went on. He lifted his hammer from his shoulder. "But you and I both know it's gotta end this way."

A ripple in the wind.

That smell, bitter and floral.

She was there.

A slim figure draped in black. She seemed to part the snow, the flakes never touching her, as if the world did not want to draw too near. Her hands were folded down her front. She had no face. Elena's mind began to melt and run. The woman in black lifted her head, the panels of her veil fluttering in the wind. There should have been the sound of rustling silk, but instead there was only silence.

On his rock, Heisenberg lowered his hammer. His expression was grim.

"Hey," he said, quietly. "Donna."

"Leave."

Her voice was the echo of an echo, a rasp in the wind. Heisenberg's hands tightened on the grip of his hammer.

"Just doing what Mother says," he told her. "But, heh, you know all about that. Don't you?"

The woman in black said nothing more. Another burst of that bittersweetness filled the air; it twined through Elena's head. Golden light glimmered on the edges of her vision. For a moment she almost wanted to laugh. She was floating away. Drifting on the mist. The snow was black and slick beneath her.

Where's the rest of my arm?

Ha, ha, she was 'armless. Get it? Harmless...

You're gonna die here.

Heisenberg grinned, sudden and hard. He tipped his hat. "Message received," he said. "She's all yours. What's left of her, anyway. But you can fix her, can't you? You can fix anything. Well. Almost anything."

Another glimmer of gold, warm as sunlight.

The snowflakes brushed her face. Or was that the touch of cold fingers? She wasn't sure.

Sorry, Pa.

She fell.

***

An empty house. Coals in the grate. The suitcase waited on the table, and in the corner a woman stood. She wore a silk slip, a pair of polished black shoes. Her long brown hair fell loose down her shoulders in slick, ropy mats, hiding her face.

Come closer, Elena.

Creeping ahead on little mouse feet. The room was close, warm. The air smelled like meat, like metal.

Come closer, my darling. I'm home. A grin, beneath the hair. It glistened red in the firelight. Red seeped down from the matching bloody smile of her cut throat. They hung me by my ankles and bled me upside down until I was white and empty and then they drank me up and licked their teeth clean. You're just the same now, just like we all are. Fed to a monster.

Don't be scared.

Look inside.

She didn't want to look. But her hands were already gliding forward, as if on strings, her fingers already on the suitcase latch. It snapped open with a soft click.

Look inside, my darling-

She screamed and screamed and screamed.

***

"I'm so sorry about all that."

Pressure tugged at her arm. She was warm. Dull. Heavy, and yet unfeeling, a great wooden nothing hanging off her eyes. She could see- just a slit, but enough to make out the flicker of a fire in the corner, the rough flagstone floor, the rock walls. Limbs swayed from hooks on the ceiling like a cannibal's larder. She'd been stripped to her slip and her bare skin scraped against a wooden table. Her mouth tasted of herbs and heavy drugs, unfamiliar medicines, chalky and strange. Visions swirled behind her eyes, the remnants of dreams.

A figure sat at the tableside, Elena's arm in their hands. A smeared pale oval. A face? She couldn't focus on any details. Thin white hands gripped her arm, their nails necrotic black, the skin cold as a corpse's. Elena's arm was livid with bruises to the elbow, the flesh mottled black and violet and pulsing with dark veins.

The chunk of flesh torn out by the lycan was back in place, and her caregiver was sewing it on with small, neat stitches, a curved needle dipping in and out of her skin, its flicker and flash hypnotic in the firelight.

As Elena watched, the torn flesh sealed together with a slick crackle, hiding the exposed bone, the snapped tendons. She still couldn't feel her hand.

"We don't mean to," her caregiver whispered. "We never mean to."

She dropped the needle into a kidney dish and took up a soft cloth, soaking it in thin greenish liquid from a bowl. She began to gently wash the stitches, cleaning off the blood rusted to her skin. Elena expected the liquid to be cold, but it was warm as bathwater, soothing any pain and pressure away.

Music played some distance off, fuzzy, as if from a badly tuned radio. A folk tune on fiddle, merry and made for dancing.

Soon her caregiver was done and laid aside the cloth. Elena's arm looked like a doll's limb, motionless and stiff. The stranger waited, lips fluttering as if counting down, then at last took up a long silver instrument. A knitting-needle?

She prodded Elena's hand with it. Elena's fingers twitched.

"Hm," her caregiver murmured. Elena sensed a smile. She was beginning to fade again. Her vision darkened; she sank backwards, gratefully, into unconsciousness.

***

"Please," someone whispered to her, in the dark. "Never run away again."

***

Come find me, Donna!

A little girl, running through the sunlit garden, her black hair flying behind her as she raced through golden birch trees.

Come and find me!

No. It didn't have to be this way. But it always was. She crushed her hands over her eyes. The yellow flowers were all around, clustering against her, roots twining deep into her skin. Deep, deep inside her, like a parasite.

Don't look don't look don't look.

It squirmed in the back of her skull, spasming in time with her heartbeat.

(It's you and me. Always was! Don't deny it. We only need each other, don't we?)

But it was always her hands, always her that felt it. Always her that did it. She took her hands away. She couldn't help it. She never could.

Claudia stood before her grinning, hands full of flowers, torn up by their roots. They dripped not dirt, but blood, bright and raw and gushing to the grass.

"You found me," she said.

Hands over the eyes. It always has to be this way. And when she looked again, as always, the little girl was gone.

***

Elena woke in her narrow bed.

Morning light streamed in through the window. She stared up at the ceiling, feeling each part of her body, and realizing, after a moment, that not only was she not dead, but the fingers on her right arm were noticeably not missing, and could in fact feel the sheets.

And, more insistently, she was ravenously hungry. Her stomach snarled as she took a deep, sudden breath of the cool air, then blinked, and looked around, panic rising.

Her rifle was there. Her clothes. Even the silver key, missing for the past week, was set on her folded skirt like it had never vanished from round her neck. Only her blouse was missing. Little wonder- nothing less than a miracle could get that amount of blood out. Her coat was hung on the wardrobe; massive gashes in the fabric showed where the lycan had grabbed her. Even her shoes were there, set neatly by the bedside. Elena paused, then moved her legs over the side of the bed. Her joints creaked, bones grinding; she winced, but she felt far better than she'd expected. She still tasted traces of medicine.

My arm. She shook it free of her nightgown sleeve and hissed in a breath. While it was bad, a bite-shaped chunk of flesh held in place by rows of tiny black stitches, the skin around them marbled with red irritation, it was...well. Better than it could be. The torn skin had begun to knit together, and the pain was barely more than a bad ache, no worse than when Elena had fallen off the neighbor's ploughhorse as a child. Her head was the same where it had hit the rock, the wound already sealed up. Even her skinned knees were treated.

She turned her hand back and forth in wonder, curling her fingers to her palm, then flexing them again. What kind of medicine had her benefactor used on her, anyway? She'd never heard of the like.

She got to her feet, searching for her shawl. In its place was a dressing-gown. She didn't recognize it. Lush old velvet, bottle-green and balding but exquisite all the same. She hesitated before pulling it on. It's okay. Clearly, someone had left it for her use. Still, she'd never worn anything nearly so nice. Who did it once belong to? Some one-time denizen of these halls, silent, black-haired, and lonely?

The door was unlocked. Elena left her room, limping only a little, and went to the balustrade. Below, the rocking chair creaked back and forth, slowly, stilling as Elena watched. In its seat waited a parcel tied with yellow ribbon.

Elena licked her lips. She glanced around, then made her way down the stairs, gripping onto the railing; she felt more fragile than she'd realized, as if a sudden shock might shatter her whole body like glass. The smell of food emanated from the kitchen, but she only had eyes for the parcel on the chair. There was a card tucked under the ribbon. Elena was written on it in that same elegant script she'd come to recognize.

Inside were clothes. Clearly brand-new, and just as beautifully made as those that had belonged to Violeta. A new blouse, a green skirt, a matching bodice with neat brass buttons, a set of silk stockings and of wool. It all looked to be her size.

Exactly her size. These had been made for her. Elena examined each piece, then turned the card over.

There was more writing on the back.

I hope you're feeling better, it read. I am in the garden.

[saintsofwarding]

BURIAL

Chapter 4

She dreamed of dark tunnels beneath the earth. Winding passageways, lit only by the faint golden glow of pollen clinging to her hands. Slick stone and dripping water, the heavy mineral smell of a deep world, decomposed-

-she could find a way out, she knew she could, if only she kept walking, she could find a way through-

-but always she knew she was drawing closer to the same place, it was inevitable, and it opened before her, gaping like a mouth, like an empty eye socket, a shriek of terror building in the back of her throat-

***

Elena woke with a start to the sound of weeping. It rose, then fell, muffled through walls and empty space, and trailed away as she fumbled for the matches and struck one with a hot spurt of chemicals and flame.

She lit the candle then went still, and so did the air around her, the silence, once again, absolute. Her face felt dry and hot, her eyes scratchy. How long had she cried? She didn't remember falling asleep, only that once she did she'd slept like the dead.

Except for the dreams. She tried to remember them, but they slipped from her, sinking once again into nothingness. Like the crying.

Was it part of the dream?

The blankets were warm, so cozy all she wanted to do was curl back into them and put her head under the pillow and drown out everything. She didn't. She got to her feet. The cold air stung her skin as she went to the door, nightgown belling around her legs like a ghost's shroud, and pulled it open a crack, shining the candle as close as she dared.

"Hello?" she whispered, as if the weeper might hear her. It had sounded so far away.

Nothing. Silence. The crack between the door and jamb was so dark it might have been an abyss, no house beyond, just blackness.

A finger of cold touched her spine, lifting the fine hairs on her arms.

"Lady Beneviento?" Elena whispered.

But of course there was no answer.

You're alone here.

Alone.

She closed the door. The doorknob and plate was old copper, green caught in the carved grooves. It took Elena a moment to make out the pattern. Flowers, like the yellow ones that grew so plentifully outside. The same, she realized, as the flowers that decorated the big tombstone outside the gatehouse.

So that really must be someone important buried there. Clearly the flowers were dear to the Lords Beneviento, even before their daughter had been blessed with the Black God's gift. Elena had never seen them before, not in any garden in town, not on any of her hunting trips in the woods, no matter how far she ranged. Maybe the great family had cultivated them, had bred them over the centuries into their current perfect form, a bright gold blossom resistant to even the harshest winter cold.

Everything dies in winter, Elena thought, idly, and shivered. It was an unnatural thing that didn't die when it was meant to.

Here, they twined round the same sun-and-moon crest she'd seen on the gate, the moon eclipsing the sun, devouring its twin. Elena traced the sun's sorrowful face, the curve of the devouring moon. The copper grew warm with touch, like human skin. The feel of the satiny metal helped center her, helped put the remnants of the dream, of the sound of weeping, into the past.

It wasn't real.

None of this felt real. This place, the floor under her feet, even the skin on her body, crawling with nerves. Her mind was addled; she was overwrought. The house stretched away and away from her, all the empty planes of it, the rooms filled with dark.

Silent,

lifeless.

You're alone here.

Still. She paused, then turned the bolt. It fell into place. Elena crawled back into bed; the blankets were still warm.

The house settled around her.

She fell into uneasy sleep.

***

The larder just off the kitchen, Elena found, was fully stocked, the food fresh and good. Better than anything down in the village, better even than milk moon festival. Butter, and cheese, eggs wrapped in muslin, a ham like a slab of polished wood, its salty flesh rich and dark-pink and sweet to the nose. Jars of honey, lots, and fruit preserves, gloriously-colored and suspended in sugary syrup. She set about stoking the fires, filling the air with heat; a few cobwebs lingered in corners, and she dusted them away, polished the tables and banisters, and swept the floors before she got to work cooking breakfast.

She sang as she worked- another dancing song, this one about a pretty girl in a field of flowers, picking up her feet to avoid stepping on all the bees. Pale fingers of dawn light stretched through the windows, touching the tiled floors and hanging copper cookware with patches of dusty glow. Elena made bread, set it to rise in the warmer by the stove, covered with a cloth, then sliced thick rashers of ham; eggs followed, boiled in salty water, shells clinking against the sides of the pot. Last came tea, made in a pretty antique teapot painted with birds of paradise, scooped from a tin that looked older than Elena's father. The tea itself smelled fresh enough, though.

Elena wiped her hands off on her apron and got busy frying the ham in wedges of the gorgeous golden butter she found in an icebox. There was a lot of canned food, too, vegetables and things, but the labels were ancient, and when there was this much fresh she wanted to use it up as quickly as possible.

While she cooked, she kept glancing toward the doorways, the windows. No one made an appearance. No one approached her.

No one, but the doll.

She was gone from the rocking chair when Elena made her way down at dawn, and she was back now, the little bride, perched on a bookshelf in the reading nook. Elena kept her eye on the thing, but it didn't move again. Lady Beneviento must have moved it. She must have come in, and moved it. There was no better explanation.

So where is she? Hard at work, perhaps? There was, after all, the elevator. It only went down. Elena had checked. There was nowhere in the upper levels of the house for it to go.

Well. Wherever she'd come from, she must have been gone again. She didn't appear even when Elena served breakfast, setting the plate at the head of the table, where the chair cushion was the most worn.

"Lady Beneviento," Elena called.

Her voice echoed through the house, fading into silence.

She moved slowly through the many rooms, the homey smell of breakfast receding the further from the kitchen she went. "Lady Beneviento!" Through the cold upper levels, through the locked doors. She even checked the storage closets. Nothing in there but empty laundry baskets and spare linens and yet more books.

"Lady Beneviento?"

She stopped by the elevator last, aiming her call down into the gap between gate and shaft. It echoed, down and down, sounding like she was yelling into a well. How far down did it go? She thought of the cliff, the vibration of the falls she felt, faintly, even now, though the house walls did a decent enough job blocking it out.

Her hands tightened into fists. She didn't like the idea of being trapped down there, under the house. The weight of it, of the water. Of all that rock and dirt. Like being buried alive.

Mother Miranda had said Lady Beneviento had secrets, and that Elena was supposed to find them, uncover them, keep them and return them to her. Unease prickled at her. She...she didn't love the notion of picking someone's mind apart, of taking what they held close and giving them to another. But...they were Miranda's by right, weren't they? They were the Black God's, and Miranda spoke for the Black God. So Lady Beneviento was being faithless by keeping Mother Miranda's rightful knowledge from her.

Think about your pa. Think about him. He's waiting for you. She forced his face into her mind, but all she could see was the hollow way he'd looked when she told him she was leaving.

Please, let him be all right. She'd do anything to ensure it.

Anything? she asked herself.

Yes. Anything at all.

Inside the walls-

Something scuffled.

Elena's head snapped up. She searched the cabbage rose wallpaper for holes. Mice? She hoped not. They'd wreak havoc on the food storage. She kicked the wall with the toe of her shoe but there was no more sound. Her stomach grumbled; she hadn't eaten yet. She hadn't eaten, in fact, since the previous day.

Lady Beneviento's breakfast was rapidly congealing on the plate by the time she returned to the kitchen. She let out her breath, glanced around, then sat at the table and attacked it. She cleared the plate in minutes; she hadn't eaten like this in- saints, since midsummer, god, this was so good. She'd nearly eaten the painted birds off the porcelain plate when she noticed something was different.

The doll, once empty-handed, now held a small, neat envelope.

Elena stopped chewing. The ham and bread tasted like putty in her mouth. She rose, slowly, and approached the doll. Silk rustled as she prised the envelope from her hand, staring into its eyes. The crack on her face.

Was it the light?

Was the crack wider?

The crack was wider. Wide enough to see into.

Inside-

The slick gleam of-

Her sight rippled. She blinked rapidly, swaying in her sensible shoes. What? No. Nothing. She was imagining things. The crack was sealed, as before. The envelope was heavier than it looked. Something was inside.

"What's this?" she said, lightly, half to the doll, half to herself. "Something for me?" She turned it over.

On the back,

In elegant, spidery copperplate,

Words:

A game.

Despite the sunlight and the warmth of the fire, ice crept through Elena's veins, her fingers numb. She took a small letter-opener from the desk and ripped the envelope open.

A key fell into her palm. Silver, delicately filigreed, like the fronds of a young fern. Pretty, but odd. As if it had been broken-off at some point.

She held it up to the light. Flecks of dark tarnish covered it, rubbing off on her fingertips. It gleamed as she turned it back and forth.

"What's this go to?" she asked the doll.

She half-expected her to answer.

"A door?" she went on. "A box?"

She lowered the key. A game. She faced the empty house. Locked rooms, locked doors. She set her teeth, then untied her apron and went looking. Someone wanted to play a game with her? Well. Then she'd play.

The enameled boxes in the main hall, the cabinets, the closet doors- none matched the key, but she tried them anyway. It fit none. Nor, too, did it go to any of the closed doors in the upper levels of the house, nor the elevator grille. Elena poked her head out through the front doors of the house, then plunged out into the snowy morning to do a quick jog around the balcony, looking for any kind of side door or cellar.

Nothing.

She paused on the front steps, head tipped up, eyes narrowed. The sky rippled above like a stormy sea, the veils of snow gusting lower and lower. This looked like it was going to be a ferocious blizzard. Whatever else, it would trap her inside for days, maybe weeks. Good thing there was so much food.

"Good thinking, Lady Beneviento," Elena said in a sing-song voice, tapping her temple as if speaking to a small child.

The oncoming blizzard must have been why Lady Beneviento was gone, not showing her face, whichever. Maybe she didn't like the cold, like the three daughters Dimitrescu, kept inside the castle walls whenever autumn winds began to blow.

-Buzzing flies, a gibbering shriek of laughter, fanged grins and screams and sickles descending- they'd never found him, the young man from the stables, they'd only found pieces of his scalp, torn at the seams and wet with blood, as if they'd been ripped from his skull, as if an animal had been at him and eaten him alive-

Elena shook her head, thrusting her hands into her armpits for warmth. Don't think about that. Some memories were best left in the past, locked in the dark.

She found a long piece of string and looped the key through it. Key and string went around her neck. There were no other keys; she'd have thought, as Lady Beneviento's apparent only servant, she'd have been provided a ring of them, a chatelaine to hook on her belt like her mother had once worn. Perhaps this game was about finding all the house's keys?

Not much of a game, then.

"Come on," she told the house. "Do better."

The fire popped, sending an orange spray of sparks into the air.

When she re-entered the kitchen to clear away the breakfast things, a lady's breakfast eaten by a servant, the doll was gone.

Elena felt less alone than ever.

The day passed, timeless and long. Stretches of silence, of the swick of Elena's broom. She cleaned, she mopped, she beat the rugs. They were dustier than they looked, and made her cough. Things skittered in the walls. Definitely mice. She'd have to look for poison or traps.

Feeling bold, she tried out the gramophone. It crackled and spat and squawked before the needle fell into the grooves of the record. Chopin, the label said, Nocturne no. 20 in C-Sharp Minor.

Music poured forth.

Elena stood, transfixed, dustcloth limp in her hand. It was so rare to hear music that wasn't the desultory twang of a lone cobza, or a rough field song belted by farmers at work. This was different, melancholy, aching, piano unaccompanied. A dusty song, a weeping song. It flowed around her, filled her, filled the ribs of the house, at last not so empty anymore.

Mama, you would love this. Had she heard music, in Castle Dimitrescu, before...? It was said the Lady loved her music.

At last the record spun into silence. Chunk, it went, and ended. Elena lifted the needle and put the record away. Her eyes were warm, but it wasn't with the usual grief, no.

Her fingertips lingered on the records. Another? No one would hear. And she had nearly finished with the cleaning...

Deep in the house-

Deep inside her-

Something shifted.

A skipped heartbeat. A bitterness on the back of the tongue. Elena froze, then spun. She searched the mezzanine. Nothing. Nothing. Had there been- No. Imagining things. Put it away. A skitter in the walls. Damn mice.

She quickly finished her cleaning. She was done before afternoon, the house shining, smelling of polish and lemon. She paused in the kitchen, looking for something to do, but she'd done it all. She stoked the fire, fed it another log.

She went upstairs to her room to look at a missing girl's clothes.

None of her things were out of place. Her rifle still leaned in a corner, a friendly presence. She let out her breath, then opened the wardrobe. She hadn't hung up any of her own clothes; they were still in her case. It didn't feel right, her things intruding on Violeta's. But would she want to be remembered, even if this way, if she was gone, too?

Elena didn't know. She couldn't ask the dead. If Violeta was, in fact, dead.

She removed Violeta's clothes, piece by piece. The skirts were beautifully-embroidered, the blouses covered with intricate smocking and pin-tucks, the buttons mother of pearl that flashed in the light like cats' eyes. Exquisite, all. Handmade, all, French seams so delicately-stitched the garments appeared to have been born whole from the mind of their maker. Whoever had constructed these pieces had done so with immense skill, or immense love. Maybe both.

Elena ran her thumb down the seams, as if she might, somehow, feel a crumb of that love, the intensity felt toward this young dead woman, as if somehow it might linger here, through time and suffering.

There were shoes in the back of the wardrobe, brogued leather and high heels, made for someone with small feet. Elena held them up to her own feet; hah, no such luck. She set them down again and reached into the far dark corners of the wardrobe.

Her fingers encountered soft suede. She pulled it forth: a pouch. It was full of hair things, tortoiseshell comb and silver-backed brush with boar bristles. Ornaments and clips, glittering with jet stones and amber, one particularly-large clip holding, in its heart, an entire preserved moth, dead for countless millennia. Silk scarves with rolled hems, patterned in glorious color.

A long honey-colored hair was caught in the fringe of a kerchief. Elena caught it between her fingers, then coiled it, swiftly, clasping it close to her heart. She tucked it in a drawer on the bedside table, wrapped in her handkerchief.

She sat back on the bed, hand rising to toy with the key round her neck. Violeta was a girl from a poor farming family, like her. She was a bit older, and Elena hadn't known her well, had only seen her from afar with friends flocked around her, her golden hair shining in the sunlight. Gorgeous, laughing, full of life and light. Elena's cheeks had ever felt warm around her, arms gawky, hanging off her like hams. But she'd been poor, despite her beauty and charm. And these things...they looked old, valuable. Treasures of the nobility.

Had Lady Beneviento given them to her? Had she stolen them? Was that why she'd gone missing? Killed in retribution, like so many given to Castle Dimitrescu, fed to those red, bloodied halls...?

Her thoughts trailed away. The wardrobe...had it been that far away from the wall before?

Definitely not. It should have been flush, pushed up against the paper. Now there was a gap, a finger's width of space, only visible from this position on the bed. Elena frowned, then leaned forward, sliding her hand into the gap.

Dust; grit; the sharp edge of a nail. Her finger snagged; she hissed in pain, but didn't stop digging, and within moments she found it. Another envelope. She tugged it free, red and wet from her now freely-bleeding hand. She sucked on her fingertip as she read the script on the back of the new envelope.

Found me.

She slit the envelope open. Inside was a piece of silver filigree. She saw what it was, suddenly, and took up the key, sliding the filigree into place. It fit with a soft click. Another tooth slid from the body of the key, changing its shape entirely. It must have been hidden in the handle. A masterwork of silversmithery.

The complete key rested in her bloody hand. Elena's heart hammered. The possibilities stretched before her. Which lock did it fit? One of the locks she'd tried that day? A door? A box? The elevator? She rose, at once filled with wild energy, and it was then she remembered.

My father. Andrei. In her shock of the day before, she hadn't told the boy to take care of her father in his absence. Shit. She shoved the key down her blouse and rushed downstairs. There was paper on the desk, ink, and she scribbled a swift letter, blotting it with sand from a jar, already folding it into an envelope before she realized it was pointless, she'd never make it down the mountain in this weather, and no one was coming to help her.

Something clattered from the main hall.

Elena froze. She stared at the doorway, then, gathering her courage, she rushed toward it, grabbing the frame with both hands.

"Raghhhh!" she bellowed, like a child playing lycan with her friends, trying to scare them, but there was no one in the room.

Stupid. Empty of course. But- wait.

By the door, a brass flap dangled open, revealing a narrow slit. A mail slit? This place had a mailbox? Elena blinked, bemused. It had been latched shut. Someone had flicked it open.

Panic burst in her chest. "Is someone in here?" she yelled. She whirled, grabbing up the poker. Her bloody finger gave a throb of pain. "Answer me! Come out! I'll find you, I swear to all the saints I'll thwack you senseless, I'm not joking."

No one emerged. A mouse skittered in the wall. Elena gave it a smack with her poker, heat flooding her cheeks. She made a round through the house, but there was nowhere for anyone to be, unless- maybe they were hiding in a spare room? Watching her, biding their time, toying with her? If so, why hadn't they come for her the previous night? Maybe it was that spooky bride doll.

If it is, I'll smash its horrible little face in, Elena thought sourly.

She set the poker back in its stand and posted the letter. She felt a little stupid as she heard it smack the bottom of the tray. Like the mailman would come get it. She peered through the slit, wondering if she should get a coathanger and fish it out again, but it was too far back.

"Damn," she muttered.

Would her father be all right? She twisted her hands together, stepping back. Surely Andrei would creep by, looking for rotten vegetables to steal. He'd see her father needed help. And the blizzard would end eventually, and she could get down to the village herself.

It didn't make her feel any better. She paced the house. She treated her cut finger with a bandage and phial of herbal tincture she found in a tin box in the kitchen. She should have saved some of the cleaning so she would have something to do. She supposed could make dinner for herself, there being no one else to cook it for. She did- just a slice of leftover ham on the bread- and munched it with tea, watching the thickening snow outside, the wind a living force against the window. This kind of wind was called Father Wolf in the village, because- so the old grannies claimed, waving canes from stoops, their tales taller with each repeated telling- it could strip the skin off anyone too stupid to be caught out in it.

It certainly sounded like a wolf. The sound strengthened; the entire house groaned under its onslaught. It'll be all right. This house had survived centuries of winters on this cliffside. It would survive an early-winter storm. But Elena couldn't help but feel the way the planks and walls, plaster and stonework shifted and shook. She imagined it sweeping the whole manor off the cliffside. The falls would swallow it whole.

Darkness. Entombment.

Buried down deep-

A flash of darkness. A moment of dreams. A deep place. Winding, deeper, deeper. A constant vibration like a vast heartbeat, such that it might drive you mad...

She couldn't try the key today. Remembering her father's plight had taken with it all the momentary burst of energy the 'game' had given her. Night fell, and the lamps burned down, and at last Elena retreated to her room to listen to the blizzard, to read one of her books by candlelight and try and think about nothing else, at least for a little while.

***

She woke again, her foot kicking hard against the iron railing at the foot of the bed. She lay there, rigid, staring at the ceiling. No weeping this time. A small, neat clicking, echoing from the direction of the main hall.

She recognized it. It was the sound of the mail slot being unlatched.

Elena tipped out of bed. She opened the latched door- this time, she'd locked it right when she went to bed- and pushed it open inch by inch, not wanting hinges to squeal and alert anyone or anything else in the house.

She paused, then grabbed up her rifle, wrapping herself in her old shawl before she padded out onto the mezzanine. Cold air and snow billowed into the darkness, painting an icy streak across the entryway rug. The front door hung open a few inches, breaching the house's silence, letting the night in.

Elena hurried down the stairs and slammed the door shut. She didn't look outside. If something out there looked back-

No. Don't think about these things.

Would Miranda want her to look?

There's always another you, Lord Heisenberg purred, glasses shining orange in the light of his cigar.

The silver key bit into the skin over her collarbones. She held it, then turned, searching the darkened mezzanine.

A whisper traced the surface of her mind. The echo of weeping, on and on and on...

She ascended the steps, fingers trailing over doorknobs, moving like a sleepwalker. She paused. Of course. The only lock that glimmered with silver. It lined the keyhole, bright as a star in the gloom. The key fit. It turned.

Dust plumed from the keyhole as she slid free the key.

The knob ground under her hand. Elena set her weight against it, her not-inconsiderable strength. Farming took muscle. She yanked, and the door opened with a crack like breaking bones; dust and grit rained to the floor. She'd have to clean that up in the morning. Cold air breathed over her, grungy and grimy, coating the inside of her mouth as she inhaled. Black mold snaked over the walls and bloomed on the once-pretty wallpaper, patterned like the lower corridor in huge cabbage roses.

Steps rose before her, a narrow whitewashed staircase ascending into gloom.

Elena licked her lips. In the morning. Leave it. But her slipper was already sliding onto the first step.

She began up the stairs, climbing, leaving the warm mezzanine behind. Up, and up, and up, and at last she reached another doorway, so coated in dust the wood looked gray. The silver key opened this one, too. The knob was made of the same tarnished silver, formed in the shape of a closed eye.

Beyond was a room. The walls curved before her. The tower. She'd seen it from the outside; the finial crowned it, a spike like a dagger. Wallpaper curled from the walls like strips of flayed skin, exposing the bricks beneath.

One of the windows was cracked; the wind whistled through it, ruffling Elena's hair back from her face. She crept in, stepping over a scattering of grit, an empty mousetrap. She noticed again the bricks beneath the peeling wallpaper. They'd been drawn on, she saw, probably when the new paper was being freshly applied; she'd done much the same to the walls of her father's house, scrawling things on the bricks when she knew her mama wasn't watching. She traced the childish figures, the animals- one was a deer, she could tell, and another was maybe a fox. There was a sun in the sky, and a moon, crude tears dripping down its face. And people. One, two, three, four. Two tall, two small, three with long, trailing black hair.

Elena smiled softly. A family. Mother and father, perhaps, and two girls. Two daughters. They held hands.

One of the daughters was partially hidden under the paper. Elena fit her thumbnail under it and peeled it, gently, back.

Her breath caught. The next image had color. It was...different. It looked newer, somehow, less childish, the figures rendered in proficient detail. Clearly, this artist had talent. Elena recognized the house, the tower room. The cliff. One of the girls stood at the edge of the cliff, her long black hair streaming around her. Her hands were pressed to her face, her mouth a black, scrawled O.

A howl of horror.

Of grief opening inside her like a wound.

At the bottom of the cliff, two figures lay broken. Smashed apart. Heads twisted backward, broken like rotted fruit. Limbs torn away. Crows descended on them. The artist had used red paint. So much red paint it had dripped and smeared onto the floorboards, staining the wood.

Elena backed off. She swallowed, throat tight. She faced the room again, trying to slow her breathing. A small bed was shoved against a far wall; a pile of books made their gradual descent into unrecognizable rot. Still, Elena could make out the titles on one of the leatherbound covers. A volume of fairy-tales, local and lovely.

She knelt to flip open the book. A message was inscribed on the flyleaf in the same elegant handwriting from her envelopes.

To Claudia. Love always.

"Claudia," Elena whispered.

She closed the book and straightened. As she did, movement fluttered through the cracked window.

Below, stark through the gusting white and gray and deep blue of the storm-

A shadow stood at the mouth of the cave leading to the elevator.

Elena didn't move. She stared. Her mouth was dry. Her pulse ticked in her wrists. Her rifle was at her shoulder and yet she was petrified; she couldn't have moved to unsling it if she'd tried. Flapping black fabric. Slim, straight-backed, arms at its sides. Nearly formless in the blizzard. She could barely tell if it was a person. It seemed more like a smear on her vision, a trick of the dark.

Bitterness on the back of her tongue. A ripple in the snow. She blinked, hard, and when her vision focused once more, the shadow was gone.

Elena backed off. Down the stairs. Back to bed. Now. As she faced the door, it slammed shut. "No-" she flung herself toward it; the knob jounced under her hand. Locked. Locked, damn it, again, why the hell did this keep happening? She reached for her key but it-

It was gone, missing from around her neck.

"No!" she cried.

She hammered on the door. Fists and knees and kicks. Her finger wound reopened; she barely noticed blood pouring down her hand until it left a long, vivid streak on the door. She paced back, back again, shaking in her slippers, nearly tripping over the pile of rotting books, and sat hard on the bare bedframe.

She drew breath and screamed at the top of her lungs until her air ran out.

The sound echoed through the house.

Yeah, no one answered.

She lay back on the bedframe. It creaked under her weight. The ceiling was painted with a celestial scene. Stars and planets, moon and sun. Always that moon and sun. Two halves of a whole. On the ceiling, they were separate, both smiling placidly, like saints in their icons. Elena cupped her bleeding hand to her chest and closed her eyes.

Let this be another dream. Let me wake up and this is all over.

No such luck. When she next opened her eyes to the morning sunlight, the door was still shut, a red handprint smeared down the wood, and when she turned her head she saw the childish drawings were gone. Like the shadow.

Like they were never there at all.

"Saints," she said hoarsely. Her mind whirled.

I didn't...I didn't imagine...how could I have imagined all of that...?

The door went creak. Elena turned. Her whole body ached; she felt like an old woman. She needed some willow bark tea. The door was open.

Unlocked.

"Okay," she whispered. "Okay."

She made her limping way downstairs. She checked the mail slot and was only barely surprised to find that her letter was gone from the tray.

Elena went into the kitchen.

A fire crackled in the grate. A place was laid for breakfast, and the bride doll waited at the head of the table, porcelain lips set in a smile that had maybe, once, a long time ago, been pretty.