Waiting, it was all the faeries did anymore. Here, in the shadows of the Holókaustos, trapped between this world and the next for seventy orbits with nothing to stir them but thoughts of retribution—human concept they had had to learn the hard way.

But the wait was nearly over.

The clearing buzzed with anticipation. Faeries, each a slender reed rising from the barren forest floor, were gathered at the edges, whispering in a tongue the larger world had all but forgotten. Every so often, one would look to the night sky where particles of light, burning balls of pure magic, flitted in and out of a hazy disturbance in the air, a ripple that made the stars beyond it dance. It was a tear made by old and powerful magic, a tear never repaired that suckled at their souls even now.

The werelights reminded Tres of lightbugs.

He dispelled the childish thought and stood a little straighter, feeling Alastor's eyes burning into the side of his head. Between Tres and the Faery King, a white glint as the methuselah grinned at Tres' expense. Not even that bloodsucker could ruin Tres' mood, not tonight.

Born to a human mother and raised by her for his first dozen formative orbits, Tres had always been a thing apart, shunned all his life by his own. Even during the Great War, they hadn't trusted him to do more than build walls to keep the mortals out of the Holóspiritus. In a sick twist of fate, it had been his lovesick father turned traitor who set fire to the forest and tore open that portal so that oblivion might swallow them whole.

Tres had killed Aelfric himself before he could complete the spell, but the damage had been done—it took everything in them to quell the inferno and what remained of their magic to conceal themselves from the humans.

The war was lost and the Holóspiritus did not survive. Ash and soot and burned limbs grasping like drowning men up at an indifferent sky were all that remined. That and the faeries, ghosts of their selves.

For orbits, Tres poured over the grimores in Alferic's study, searching for a way to seal the tear that continued to sap at their power. Only recently had he discovered how to end this hellish purgatory, and tonight, he would see it put into motion.

The insignia etched into his chest flared at so many thoughts of the traitor who had carved it, a parting gift, so that Tres might be the sole survivor of the Holókaustos.

He fought the urge to itch it as a hush fell over the crowd and Tres' white-pelted solthus Hurgo trotted into the clearing, tongue lolling. Close behind followed a human woman, barefoot, in nothing but a shift. The only hesitation was on her face, framed by golden tendrils shorn short. Hurgo went straight to Tres and sat back on his haunches. Not a word was spoken. Not a noise made as the woman stepped over the lip and into the crater the size of a one-room hut covered in white flowers with golden centers, looking around like she couldn't see them but knew someone was there. She hiked up her shift, got on her knees and started ripping flowers up by the roots and shoveling them into her mouth.

Tres' heart knocked against his ribcage as her slavering picked at the quiet. Tears ran dirty trails down her plumped-up cheeks. Her fingers and lips were quickly caked in pollen. Once she had grazed half the crater clean, she began to choke. She clutched at her chest, retching between gags as all that green started to back up her throat.

Tres took a step with the intention of thumping her on the back to ease the load when she swallowed and bent back to her task, gorging on stems, roots and all.

She would not remember this. He'd make sure of it. Still, he wondered as she inhaled the very last one how aware she was now. Was her conscience curled up, looking out at the world, waiting for the door open? Or was it screaming, tearing itself to shreds as it tried to gain control of a runaway body?

Mouth agape, she craned her neck to look up at the rippling patch of sky. He eyed her lips for the trace of a prayer, but none come. Help was beyond her now.

Her orchestrated will spent, she fell forward into the dirt.

Only then did the faeries stir.

Tres slipped over the rim, scooped her up and carried her out of the cavity. The others stepped from the shadows, wanting to touch the liberator he promised. As he moved through the crowd, they caressed her bulging belly.

Her head lulled and when his eyes flitted to hers, he was surprised to find her staring back. By instinct alone, his face crawled and his ossueta scrambled to hide his fleshy countenance.

She didn't scream. Didn't cringe away. She likely thought herself dreaming.

Tres followed Hurgo as he looped around the ashen trees to another clearing, though he knew the way.

The small house was a blip in the dark. She had left the front door open.

Hurgo trotted in first, leading the way through the foyer and the kitchen. Tres tsked as the solthus slowed to sniff a dirty bowl atop the table. With a snort and lick of his chops, he turned tail and trotted through a small hall beneath the stairs and into a bedroom where a man snored under a heap of furs.

Hurgo began exploring, thrusting his snout in corners not his as Tres laid the woman beside her lover. The simple act brought her around with a start; like a switch, horror flooded her eyes and she cringed away from Tres with a pained mewl.

He put a single finger where his lips would be and dragged his fingers over her eyelids, putting her to sleep.

The insignia bit and burned and he ground his teeth against the pain. Tres placed a hand on her swollen abdomen where a faint pulse at war with hers thumped against his palm, and all at once, the pain lessened to a murmur.

Hurgo bumped into the bedside table, sending a mug teetering. Tres looked at it, willing the liquid inside to anchor it, and the mug went still. He got up, flicked Hurgo's ear and walked out. He had nearly passed the stairs when another's snores tickled his ear.

Wait here, Tres told Hurgo who whined before sitting back on his haunches.

Tres moved up the stairs so light-footed that not even a single creak crackled the quiet. He peered into a side room off the landing filled with books and wondered if they would make it the child's room. There was only one other kitty-corner with a cracked door. Tres stuck his head in to see hair the color of carrots sticking out from a pile of furs.

You're going to be a brother.

The boy stirred.

Tres looked in desk drawers, ran his fingers along the hides of books with titles that promised anatomical experiments and scientific exploits, and lifted a lid on a clay jar to find it packed to the brim with dead bugs. His lip would have curled if it could. He recalled a time he saw the boy in the yard, poking the underbelly of a mouse with a sharp stick as it squealed until its insides spilled out.

Will you love the little monster or treat her like one of your creatures?

Having seen enough, he let himself out, Hurgo following close behind.

By the time Tres returned to the clearing, the faeries had slunk back to their earthen dens beneath the boughs. Only Alastor remained, moonlight glinting off his bald head as he stared down at the churned dirt where the woman had toiled.

"And so it begins," he said in Faen, without looking up as Tres approached, his ossueta peeling back. "Now we must wait some more, until it is grown and has a mind of its own ripe enough to pluck."

It wasn't a question, so Tres gave no answer.

"The child will need a confidant, someone to mold it and ensure those humans don't start to consider it one of their own."

"They won't," Tres said. "The child won't look like them, and if the Great War taught us anything, it's that they cannot tolerate—"

"Make sure."

Tres gave a slight bow but Alastor was already melting back into the shadows, leaving Tres to look down at the crater, pride swelling in his chest—

The slightest change in air pressure announced the methuselah a heartbeat before the bloodsucker materialized at his side.

"Well done," he said with that bored drawl that seeped out of him like chilled honey. "The bastard halfling found a way to save the faeries. And what do you think will be your reward should your little seed succeed?"

Tres was in too good a mood to let this treasonous leech spoil it. Hurgo growled, hackles raised.

"You should thank me, methuselah. If the faeries get out, maybe Alastor loosens your leash."

That cold smirk returned.

"Yes. And as they make a ceremonious spectacle of grounding you into dust, I'll make my escape. You think snuffing out the burden your own father strapped them with is enough to forgive you for all his transgressions?"

"Harsh words from a fellow sympathizer. You, too, turned a soft eye on the mortals in not a dissimilar fashion."

"Yes, and only one of us lived long enough to learn his lesson. You will never be anything more than that traitor's bastard to them."

Tres turned, tongue sharp, but the methuselah had already gone.

I hate it when he does that.

Hurgo ran his big head against Tres' leg. Reaching down, he ran his hand through his fur and looked up at the whisper of the tear. His insignia had quit pulsating altogether; the end to the curse was nigh.

The mortals would rue the day they tore a hole in the atmosphere and rode in on their airships like black stallions with all the grace of titans. They went about their brief, insignificant lives out there, wearing this planet like the skin they were born into while the faeries who existed long before humanity was even a thought in the universe and had never wanted anything but to be left alone rotted away in here. Being on the receiving end of an attempted genocide and seventy orbits of nothing to do but ponder it was enough to change minds, even faeries'.

Tres smiled to himself in the dark.

All wicked things must come to wicked ends.