The world snapped back into place with a jarring finality. One moment, they were in a pocket of perfumed, otherworldly elegance; the next, they were standing on a sun-baked curb, the scent of cut grass and hot asphalt replacing bergamot and old paper. The fairytale house was simply gone, leaving behind an empty, weed-choked lot that looked as if it had been neglected for decades.
Eris blinked, her brain struggling to process the empty space. The only anchor to what had just happened was the piece of parchment in her hand, which felt unnaturally warm and left a faint, oily slickness on her fingertips. She looked up at Dáinn.
He looked like a thunderhead about to break. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and his hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides. The air around him seemed to crackle with a silent, furious energy.
"What just happened?" Eris's voice was small, a confused whisper in the suburban quiet.
That was the spark to the tinderbox. Dáinn spun on her, his movement so swift it was a blur. He gripped her shoulders, his hands firm enough to make her wince. His blue eyes, usually so cool and observant, were blazing with a mixture of fury and something else—a kind of desperate, ancient alarm.
"Who or what are you?" he demanded, his voice low and rough.
Eris blinked up at him, completely bewildered and now genuinely scared by his intensity. "Stop it! You're hurting me!"
The raw fear in her voice seemed to pierce through his rage. He took a sharp, hissing breath, his grip relaxing, though he didn't let go entirely. He stared at her as if seeing her for the first time, searching her face for answers she clearly didn't have.
Eris stepped back, rubbing her shoulders. "Um, maybe we shouldn't…"
"We have an agreement," he cut her off, his tone leaving no room for argument. It was the voice of a general, a hunter, a lord who was not used to being questioned.
"Yeah, but…" Eris began, gesturing weakly with the parchment.
Dáinn sighed, a sound of profound exasperation that seemed to carry the weight of centuries. He dragged his hands down his face. "This," he growled, gesturing at the empty lot, at the contract in her hand, at all of it, "This is why the gate should not have been opened. Too much time has passed. Too much has been forgotten by those who now walk this world."
He took an audible breath, visibly forcing himself into a state of strained calm. "Once an agreement has been made with one of the Fae, a contract has been struck. You are bound to its terms until it is fulfilled. There is no 'maybe we shouldn't.'"
Eris's stomach plummeted. "And if it isn't?"
He gave her a flat, grim look. "There are always consequences."
"Like what?"
"Compensation is required," he stated, as if reciting an old, brutal law. "Paid with either loss of life, a lessening of life, loss of limb, or something of equal value to the favor owed."
Eris gasped as the realization struck her with the force of a physical blow. The cheerful, naive "That would be great!" echoed in her mind, now sounding like a death sentence. "The favor," she whispered, her voice trembling.
Dáinn nodded once, a sharp, grim motion. "Yes. To be collected at any given moment, at her whim. You have made a deal with a power you do not understand, and now you are a debtor in a court that shows no mercy."
Eris could only nod, a cold dread seeping into her bones.
Dáinn studied her, his head tilted. The initial fury was banked, replaced by a deep, probing curiosity. "I will ask you again. What are you? What was she? Why would a being of such age and cunning wish to bind a… a human girl in such a way?" His eyes narrowed further. "And who was that specter? The one only you could see."
Eris's head snapped up. "You could see her?"
"At the end. When the witch wished me to. She allowed the veil to drop."
"Oh," Eris said, a hysterical little chuckle bubbling in her throat. "So, can you see all of them? The dead people, I mean?"
Dáinn's brow creased in confusion. "The dead are… elsewhere. They do not typically linger here as that one does."
Eris chuckled again, the sound shaky and unhinged. She waved a hand vaguely. "I see dead people," she quoted, her voice a poor imitation of the famous movie line.
Dáinn's eyes narrowed into suspicious slits. "You… see what?"
"It's a line from a movie. You know, a… never mind." She shrugged, the gesture hopeless.
"Movie?" Dáinn shook his head as if to clear it of buzzing insects. "You see the dead?" he pressed, forcing the conversation back on track.
Eris nodded, hugging herself. "Yeah. Always have. It's why I thought I was crazy for a long time."
"But you are human," Dáinn stated, though it sounded like a question. "Can all humans see the dead now?"
"No! God, no. Just me. It's my… weird thing."
"But I was able to see that spirit," Dáinn countered, his mind working through the puzzle aloud. "That was not your doing. That was because Camilla wanted me to. She revealed the ghost to mock me, to show me how thoroughly we were being manipulated." He looked at Eris, a new, unsettling understanding dawning in his ancient eyes. "But you… you saw her without any assistance. You have been seeing her all along."
He fell silent, his crossed arms and brooding posture suggesting a complete recalibration of everything he thought he knew about the cheerful, baffling, and now deeply indebted girl standing before him. The hunt for his hounds had just become infinitely more complicated.
The silence between them stretched, thick and heavy with unspoken questions. Dáinn stood like a statue carved from suspicion and ancient grievances, his mind clearly racing through centuries of Fae lore and treachery, trying to slot Eris into a category that made sense. She didn't fit.
Eris, meanwhile, fidgeted under his gaze, the oily parchment feeling like a live wire in her hand. The initial shock was receding, replaced by a gritty, pragmatic need to do something. The weight of the contract was terrifying, but sitting on a curb feeling sorry for herself wouldn't make it go away.
"So," she said, her voice cutting through his brooding silence. "This whole contract agreement thing."
Dáinn's eyes, sharp and narrowed, slid back to her. He said nothing, waiting.
Eris pressed on, a flicker of her usual defiance returning. "When I said I would help you find your hounds, you said you would help me with the gate. Right?"
A faint, almost imperceptible smirk touched Dáinn's lips. Whatever she is, he thought, she is a quick study. He gave a single, curt nod. "Yes."
Eris mirrored his smirk, a little spark of triumph in her eyes. "Just checking." She waved the parchment between them. "So, should we maybe take a look at this stupid paper, or are you still stuck on the whole 'I see dead people' thing? Because, I gotta tell you, that's been my Tuesday since I was like, six."
Dáinn let out a short, sharp scoff that was halfway to a laugh. "Your preoccupation with the mundane, even now, is… remarkable."
Eris shrugged, the motion deliberately casual. "I mean, nothing's really changed, right? I still see ghosts, you still need your dogs, and that house is still gone. And she," she jabbed the paper toward the empty lot, "is bound by this thing too, right? As long as it's legit?"
Dáinn sighed, a long, weary exhalation that seemed to carry the fatigue of ages. His conundrums—what Eris was, why Camilla wanted her bound, the true nature of the specter—would have to wait. The immediate problem was tangible, and it was in Eris's hand. "The contract is legitimate. Its magic is old. She is bound to provide the knowledge, as you are bound to the favor."
"Great. Teamwork," Eris said, her tone drier than the dust on the road. She carefully unrolled the parchment, its surface crackling faintly. The script wasn't written in ink, but in something that looked like dried, crushed silver and ash, the letters looping and angular all at once.
She began to read aloud, her voice gaining strength as she navigated the strange words. "The Ritual of the Hounds. To call the Cŵn Annwn from their hidden paths, you must speak to the wild in a language it understands."
Dáinn moved closer, his tall frame leaning over her shoulder to read the text. His presence was a solid wall of heat and focused intensity. The scent of old forests and cold night air that clung to him was a stark contrast to the suburban smell of cut grass.
"A shard of a shattered yew," Eris continued, "from a tree struck by heaven's fire, taken from ground where the long-dead sleep."
"Yggdrasil's kin," Dáinn murmured, his breath stirring the hair by her ear. "The tree that spans life and death. It is a fitting key."
Eris shivered slightly but kept reading. "A shadow-heart stone, worn smooth by a river of tears, collected under a blind moon's eye."
"A stone from a place of great sorrow or violence," he interpreted, his voice low. "It holds an echo of the turmoil that calls to the Hunt."
"The blood of a creature that walks between," Eris read, her nose wrinkling. "A fox, a raven, or a hare as black as a starless night. It must be a gift, not a theft; a life already given."
"The black hare," Dáinn said, a flicker of respect in his tone. "A clever choice. A symbol of the moon and of witches, a creature that knows the secret ways."
"And the breath of winter," Eris finished, squinting at the text. "A cold that does not belong, captured in a vessel of lead. What does that even mean?"
"It means the air from a blizzard in spring, or the chill from the heart of a mountain," Dáinn said, straightening up. His expression was grimly satisfied. "It is a true ritual. Dangerous, and steeped in the old ways. She has not cheated us in this."
He looked from the parchment to Eris's face, which was a mixture of fascination and horror. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, but the image they formed was of a deep, dark wood from which there might be no return. The hunt was on, but the path was lined with thorns and shadow.
The silence that fell between them was different now. The air of furious accusation had dissipated, replaced by the heavy, shared weight of the task before them. Eris became acutely aware of how close Dáinn was standing, his lean form towering over her as he'd leaned in to read the parchment. She could feel the warmth radiating from him, a stark contrast to the chilly dread sitting in her own stomach.
His scent filled her space—not just the clean, sharp aroma of pine and cold night air, but something older beneath it, like the deep, quiet dampness of stone moss and the subtle, metallic tang of a storm waiting on the horizon. It was the smell of ancient woods and forgotten paths. She, in turn, knew he could probably smell the cheap university laundry detergent on her hoodie, the faint trace of her citrus shampoo, and the sharp, human scent of her anxiety.
She swallowed hard, the sound uncomfortably loud in the quiet street. Her eyes, wide and still shadowed with confusion and fear, lifted to meet his. The deep blue of his irises seemed to see right through her, past the bravado and the jokes, to the trembling core of a girl who was in way over her head.
"So," she said, her voice a little unsteady. She cleared her throat, trying to inject some of her usual cheek into it. "Shopping list for a cosmic dog whistle. What do we do first? Hit up a mystical grocery store? Do you have, like, a supernatural GPS for 'rivers of tears'?"
Dáinn didn't smile, but the intense focus in his gaze softened by a fraction. He looked from her face down to the list, his expression turning analytical, the hunter assessing his quarry.
"The yew," he stated, his voice a low rumble. "It is the anchor. The tree that stands between worlds. Without its shard, the rest is noise." He glanced around at the mundane neighborhood, the well-kept lawns and silent houses. "The ground where the long-dead sleep... this town has such a place. I can feel its silence from here. A pocket of old grief."
"Right. The cemetery," Eris said, connecting the dots. "The Mag Mell Memorial Grounds. It's right by the pub." The familiarity of the location was a small, shaky comfort.
He gave a curt nod. "At nightfall. The energies will be stronger." His eyes flicked back to her, a new, calculating look in them. "The stone from the river of tears... that will require lore. Local history. The blood of the black hare..." He paused, studying her with an unnerving intensity. "That may require your... particular talents."
"My talents?" Eris squeaked. "You mean my ability to run fast and quote anime? I don't think that's going to help us find a dead rabbit."
"Not a rabbit. A hare," he corrected, his tone implying the distinction was vast and important. "And your sight. The creature that walks between. It may be drawn to you, or you may see its passage where I would not." He was piecing it together aloud, treating her not just as a liability, but as a potential, if unorthodox, tool. "The breath of winter will be the final piece. A deep, cold place."
Eris hugged herself, the bright sun feeling suddenly insufficient against the chill of his words. "So, graveyard first. Then a depressing riverbank. Then we go roadkill hunting. And we finish with a spelunking trip. Got it." She tried for a smirk, but it felt wobbly. "This is definitely weirder than my organic chemistry lab."
Dáinn simply looked at her, the ancient, wild truth in his eyes a stark contrast to her forced humor. "The hunt has begun," he said, his voice flat and final. "The path is set. We move at dusk."
The simple statement hung in the air, more binding than any written contract. The easy part—getting the instructions—was over. Now, the real work, and the real danger, was about to begin.