The air in Hilda-Burge was thick and still, heavy with a silence that felt less like peace and more like a held breath. The few cars on the street moved with a lethargic slowness, and the houses they passed had their blinds drawn, as if the residents were hiding from the daylight itself. A faint, sour tang hung in the air—the ghost of spoiled milk.
"So," Eris said, her voice unnaturally loud in the hush. "Anything triggering those… tracking senses or skills or whatever?"
Dáinn moved beside her, his head tilted as if listening to a frequency only he could hear. His gaze swept over the quiet lawns and silent porches. "They have been here," he confirmed, his voice low. "The residue is strong. The land feels… off. Tainted by their passage." He looked up at the pale sky, his expression frustrated. "But they are not here now. The trail is cold."
Eris held her chin, her mind racing. "But we're closer than we were. That's something, right?"
Suddenly, Sarah Torbit popped into existence directly in front of Eris, causing her to jolt backward with a startled gasp.
Dáinn's hand went to the place where his sword usually rested. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah, yeah," Eris laughed, a brittle, forced sound. She waved a dismissive hand. "I just… thought I saw a spider. A big one. Really fast." She shot a furious glare at Sarah as the ghost floated past, a mischievous smirk on her translucent face.
Sarah, utterly unabashed, drifted right up to Dáinn's side, peering at his profile. "Ooh, what are you doing?" she cooed, her voice a teasing singsong in Eris's mind. "Walking through a dead town with a pretty girl? Is this a date?"
Eris ignored her, focusing on Dáinn. "If we can't call the hounds, maybe we can attract them. Like with snacks and stuff. What if we can entice them to come out?"
Dáinn considered this, a flicker of interest in his eyes. "A trap. And the scent is strong here… That could work. But we would need a potent lure, something that would call to their essential nature, not merely their hunger."
Sarah, now floating directly in front of Dáinn, made an exaggerated show of fanning herself while ogling him. "You know," she purred, batting her eyelashes, "I may just know a way to bait your precious hounds."
Eris glanced sharply at her, trying to telepathically will her to explain without giving away her secret.
Sarah's smile widened, her eyes locked on Dáinn. "But information has a price, handsome. If I get to look at you a little longer, I might be persuaded to help. Or at least, tell you who can." She winked. "I do so love a man who broods."
Eris's mind raced, a silent scream of frustration directed at Sarah's spectral form. How could she get the information without looking like a lunatic talking to thin air? Her brow furrowed in concentration, she finally looked up at Dáinn, who was watching her with a mixture of patience and puzzlement.
After a beat of awkward silence, she ventured, "What if… what if there's someone who might be able to help us out with that? With the bait, I mean."
Dáinn's own brow furrowed, a mirror of her own. "Who?"
Eris's eyes flickered almost imperceptibly toward Sarah, who was now tracing a ghostly finger along the line of Dáinn's jaw, utterly enraptured. Eris forced a bright smile. "A… friend of a friend. Very knowledgeable about, uh, local wildlife. Unconventional methods."
Dáinn considered this, his gaze shifting from Eris's overly cheerful face to the empty space she kept glancing at. "This 'friend of a friend'… would we need to summon another 'Uber'?" he asked, the word still foreign and heavy on his tongue.
From her vantage point, Sarah shook her head, her form shimmering with amusement. "Tell him no need for his metal boxes. We can walk. It's not far."
"No," Eris said quickly, latching onto the instruction. "They're… close. We can walk."
Dáinn's sharp eyes narrowed slightly, sensing the strange currents in the conversation but unable to see what was causing them. He gave a slow, measured nod. "I do not see that there would be any issue with speaking to them. If they possess knowledge that can aid the hunt, all avenues must be explored."
Eris let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "GREAT!"
A triumphant grin spread across Sarah's face. With a playful spin in the air that stirred not a single leaf on the quiet street, she pointed a translucent finger down a side road lined with sleepy, shadowed houses. "This way, my brooding bounty hunter," she chimed, her voice dripping with theatrical flair. "Don't dawdle, now. The hounds won't bait themselves."
The oppressive, soured-milk silence of Hilda-Burge seemed to shrink away as Sarah led them down a side road, the very air growing stiller, as if the neighborhood itself was afraid to breathe. They stopped before a property that was so violently out of place it felt like a slap to the senses.
Nestled between two perfectly ordinary, slightly weary-looking bungalows was a house that had escaped from a storybook. Its walls were pristine white clapboard, its gables intricately carved with swirling, unfamiliar patterns that suggested vines and strange beasts. A small, meticulously kept garden burst with flowers in colors that seemed too vibrant, too perfect—deep sapphire blues, velvety crimsons that bordered on black, and silvery leaves that tinkled softly against each other like distant chimes in the non-existent breeze. A little white gate, looking as delicate as a sugar sculpture, stood between them and the immaculate gravel path leading to a wraparound porch.
Sarah floated effortlessly through the gate, her form shimmering with glee. "Well? Don't just stand there gawking. She doesn't like to be kept waiting."
Dáinn did not move. His posture was that of a hound catching a dangerous scent. His piercing blue eyes scanned the impossible house, the too-perfect garden, his gaze lingering on the carvings that seemed to shift subtly if you didn't look directly at them.
"This is a… friend of yours?" he asked Eris, his voice a low rumble. The land here didn't just feel 'off' like the rest of the tainted town; it felt old, and it felt wrong, a pocket of another world stubbornly stapled into reality.
Eris let out a laugh that was a little too high and a little too loud. "Friend of a friend! Very… knowledgeable. About all sorts of… things." She shot a desperate, furious look at Sarah, who was now making kissy faces at Dáinn from the other side of the gate.
"The architecture is… anomalous," Dáinn observed, his tone flat with skepticism. "The angles are not entirely in agreement with this plane."
"Yeah, well, she's got a great decorator," Eris babbled, pushing the little white gate open. It swung without a sound, its hinges too perfect to creak. The gravel on the path crunched with an artificially crisp sound under their feet, each step feeling like a violation of some unspoken rule.
Sarah phased through the deep blue front door, her head popping back out momentarily. "Knock, knock, silly girl! Manners!"
Eris, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs, climbed the porch steps and rapped her knuckles on the wood. The door was opened almost instantly, as if the occupant had been standing right there, waiting.
The woman who stood in the doorway was petite, almost childlike, with an ethereal prettiness that was immediately undercut by the ancient, calculating look in her eyes. She was dressed in a sharply tailored cream-colored suit that screamed of old money and a taste that transcended decades. Her smile was broad and white, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Well, hello there," she said, her voice sweet yet carrying a strange, formal cadence. "I have been expecting you."
Eris's own smile felt frozen in place. "Oh, yeah? That's… great."
"I am Camilla," the woman said, her gaze sweeping over Eris before landing, with unmistakable satisfaction, on Dáinn. She stepped aside, a fluid, graceful motion. "Come in, come in. I have tea on. Let's sit and have a chat."
'Tea? We're in the middle of a supernatural crisis and she's offering tea?' Eris screamed internally. Aloud, she just said, "Sure. Thanks."
Dáinn's brow creased deeply, his entire body radiating reluctance. He paused on the threshold, his tall frame seeming to fill the doorway. He glanced at Eris, a silent question in his eyes, but at her slight, pleading nod, he stepped over the threshold. As he moved past Camilla, she watched him with the focused appreciation of a collector examining a long-sought-after artifact, her smile taking on a distinctly predatory edge.
The inside of the house was even more disorienting than the outside. The air was warm and smelled of bergamot, fine tea, and the faint, dusty scent of very old paper. The furniture was a mix of elegant antiques and shockingly modern pieces, all coexisting in a space that felt both vast and intimate. A grand fireplace dominated one wall, its mantelpiece holding a collection of iridescent stones that seemed to swallow the light. On a low table, a silver tea service gleamed, steam curling from the spout of a porcelain pot painted with silver-leafed foxes.
"Make yourselves comfortable," Camilla said, gliding towards the table. "The Assam is particularly fine today. Or perhaps you'd prefer something stronger? The modern world does seem to require it."
Sarah, invisible to all but Eris, had draped herself over a velvet chaise lounge, fanning her face dramatically. "Ooh, la di da. Ask her if she has any ghost whiskey. A girl gets thirsty, you know."
Eris ignored her, perching nervously on the edge of an armchair. Dáinn remained standing, his arms crossed, a dark and brooding statue in the middle of the opulent room.
"Your friend is quite the silent sentinel," Camilla remarked, pouring a cup of tea with unnerving steadiness. She did not spill a drop. "But then, one expects that from the Scion of the Wild Hunt. It is an honor to have you in my home, Lord Dáinn."
Dáinn's eyes narrowed. "You are well-informed."
"It is my business to be," she replied smoothly, handing a cup to Eris. She then looked directly at Eris, her placid gaze turning sharp. "Now, to the heart of it. You opened a door you shouldn't have, and he," she gestured with a perfectly manicured hand toward Dáinn, "has lost his pets. You need bait."
Eris, seizing the opening, leaned forward. "Yeah, actually, we were hoping you might be able to help us with that. You know, bait the hounds, tease them out of hiding."
Camilla took a slow, deliberate sip of her tea, the porcelain cup looking fragile in her grasp. "I think I can," she said, her words measured. "We can come up with some sort of arrangement."
Dáinn, who had been a simmering pot of suspicion, felt it brew to a boil. He furrowed his brow so hard the skin of his forehead folded into a miniature mountain range of distrust. The air in the room grew thicker, the scent of old paper now feeling suffocating.
"Oh?" Eris perked up, a bloom of hope on her face. "Really? Like what?"
A smile, thin and sharp as a razor, cut across Camilla's face. She waved her free hand, and a single sheet of heavy, parchment-like paper appeared between her fingers with a soft whuff of displaced air. It was covered in a dense, looping script that seemed to squirm if you didn't look at it directly.
"Nothing is free, my dear," Camilla purred, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "A favor for a favor."
Everything happened with the dizzying speed of a car crash. Dáinn's arm shot out, his mouth opening to form a thunderous, definitive "NO." But the word was still forming in his chest when Eris, in her ever-chipper, desperately optimistic voice, blurted out, "That would be great!"
The sound that left Dáinn's throat was a strangled, guttural thing, the "NO" dying before it was born. It was too late.
Camilla's grin widened, becoming devious, triumphant. She thrust the paper into Eris's waiting hand. "DONE!" she announced, the word ringing through the opulent room like a judge's gavel.
Eris took the paper, its surface feeling unnaturally warm and slightly oily. She looked down at the cryptic writing, her smile faltering into a dazed confusion. What had she just agreed to?
Dáinn was across the room in two long, furious strides, his boots silent on the lush rug. "Who are you?" he demanded, his voice low and dangerous, the sound of ancient stone grinding together.
Eris looked from his enraged face to the paper in her hand, then back to him, her expression utterly lost. She didn't know what was happening or what she had done wrong.
Camilla laughed, a light, tinkling sound that held no warmth. She seemed to blur and reappear just a foot away, effortlessly out of reach. "So protective," she taunted, her eyes dancing with malice. "And so very, very late."
Dáinn's gaze swept the room, looking for an anchor in this madness, and found Eris staring at a fixed point in the air—a point where Sarah Torbit was now visible, wringing her ghostly hands, her face a mask of sheepish apology.
"Oh, don't look at her like that," Camilla chided, following his line of sight though she saw nothing. She looked back at Eris, who was utterly baffled. "My little minion has served me quite well, girl. As have you."
Eris's mouth opened and closed, no sound coming out. What minion? Served her how?
"I will be seeing you again," Camilla said, her smile sweet and terrible. Then, with a flick of her wrist so casual it was insulting, the world dissolved.
The scent of bergamot and old paper vanished. The opulent furniture, the chaise lounge, the silver tea service—all of it winked out of existence. One moment they were standing in a lavishly decorated parlor, the next they were stumbling on the cracked curb of a perfectly normal, quiet street. The fairytale house was gone, replaced by an empty, overgrown lot between two bungalows. The only sound was the distant hum of a lawnmower and the frantic beating of Eris's heart. In her hand, the warm, oily parchment was the only proof it had ever been real.