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Pete’s hair falls like a golden waterfall down the length of the tower before bouncing to a halt just above the tips of the grass, fluttering slightly in the breeze. Steph eagerly grabs onto the thick rope of hair and begins to climb, her hands slipping a little on the shiny locks and feet fumbling over the rough stones, but still making it to the ledge at the top of the tower in record time. She scrambles over it, breathless and shaking with the effort, but too eager to care.
“Pete! Oh my god.” Steph stumbles into the room, scaring the shit out of Pete who, probably expecting Tinky rather than her, hurriedly reaches for his frying pan before registering who she is. Steph feels an overwhelming sense of déja vu— it feels like years have passed since she accidentally stumbled upon this old tower and discovered through first-hand experience how effectively frying pans can serve as weapons with enough dedication. She’s pretty sure she still has a bump on the back of her head from that.
“ Steph? ” Pete asks in disbelief, blinking repeatedly at her like she’s a hallucination or a mirage, liable to disappear if he looks at her for too long.
Steph grins, realizing just how happy she is to see him again. “I’m back!”
Pete drops the frying pan onto the floor with a loud clank and rushes towards her, covering the distance in a second and throwing his arms around her before she even has time to think. She makes a startled ‘oh!’ sound before hugging him back because, fuck it, she missed him. A lot.
Pete pulls away, looking nervous. “Tinky better not find you here. He’s been uh— he’s been a lot worse lately ‘cause he’s still mad at me for running away.”
Steph sighs loudly, unslinging her bag from her shoulder and letting it land on the floor with a thunk. “Yeah, about that,” she mutters, kneeling down and shuffling through the contents of her bag in search of the Black Book, as Ted had called it. A fittingly ominous name for the old, leather-bound hardcover with weathered pages and a strange symbol painted in white on the cover.
“Huh?” Pete drops to his knees beside her, watching her pull the book out of her bag and set it down on the wooden floor in front of them. “What’s that?”
“Pete, we gotta be quick here. Does this book look… familiar, to you?”
Pete stares down at it, then back up at her, confused. “No?”
Steph drums her fingers on her thighs, the full weight of what she’s about to tell him suddenly hitting her for the first time. She looks at him nervously, and he stares back blankly.
“Okay. You know, uh, Tinky?” She asks, the tone of her voice going a bit too solemn. Pete notices, a hint of concern beginning to creep onto his face. “Uh… yeah?“
“Um,” Steph scrubs her hands over her face, talking through her fingers. “He’s… bad. Like, really bad. You think he’s annoying sometimes, and kind of a jerk, but I mean worse than that.”
“Steph, what are you trying to say?”
Steph drops her hands to her lap, meeting Pete’s gaze. “When I got captured a few days ago, I was thrown in prison. And I… I met your brother there.”
“My brother? ”
“You know about him?” Steph asks eagerly.
“I know that he, uh, abandoned me when I was like four?”
“ What? No, Tinky stole you from him and your parents when you were four, and then hid you from your real family here.”
“ What?” Pete looks at her like she’s crazy, which is a completely reasonable response to being told that your entire life is a lie and the caretaker you’ve known for the better part of your childhood is evil and has been holding you hostage for fourteen years. Unfortunately, Steph really needs Pete to get past the shock-denial-betrayal stage as quickly as possible because they have a ritual to perform— which he doesn’t even know about yet.
“I know, it’s crazy, I get it. My dad tried to have me hanged yesterday, sometimes people aren’t who you think they are.”
“But…” Pete looks back down at the book, face screwed up with confusion, and again, she can’t blame him. “Tinky said… he would protect me.”
“I know, I know,” Steph says, trying not to sound too impatient. “But you have a real family, and Tinky will never let you see them unless we… do this ritual.”
“Ritual?” Pete asks weakly.
“Ted helped me find this book. He said there’s a ritual in it to send Tinky away, uh, forever.”
“ What? ” Pete yelps. “Wh— does it— does it kill him?”
“No,” Steph replies quickly, internally wishing that it would. “It just sends him back to his realm, or whatever. So he can’t keep you here anymore. He can’t do anything to you.”
“Steph— I can’t. This isn’t right. I don’t know who gave you this book, or who told you all that stuff, but Tinky wouldn’t do anything to me. At least, nothing bad enough to send him to another realm.”
“ Please, Pete,” Steph says urgently. “You gotta just trust me here.” She flips open the book and begins leafing through the yellowing pages, flipping past weird drawings and symbols until she lands on a page filled completely with a drawing of a yellow, goat-like demon. His horns are large and waxy, curling around tufts of yellow fur and buck teeth, and his eyes bug out from the page, round and shiny. She holds up the page to Pete. “Isn’t this him?”
Pete stares at it for a second, eyes widening as his gaze moves from the page to the walls painted with murals he’s been working on for years. He grabs the book from Steph’s hands and flips back to the cover, peering down at the symbol with his eyebrows furrowed. He looks back up the walls, and this time Steph follows his gaze. Hidden amongst the animals and flowers is the same symbol, painted over and over, tucked into every image just subtly enough that you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it.
Pete’s eyes are so wide Steph thinks they might fall out of his skull. He drops the book, planting his palms on the ground and staring at the wooden slats of the floor like he’s trying to memorize the grain, his entire body tensed up and trembling slightly. Steph cautiously puts a hand on his shoulder. “Uh… you okay?”
“I… remember,” Pete says hoarsely, his face frozen in a terrified expression. “My brother. I remember Ted.”
“Yeah. He uh, he said he misses you,” Steph says quietly, gently rubbing his shoulder. “They want you back, Pete.”
“Tinky,” Pete says suddenly, sitting up straight. “Oh god, he kidnapped me, Steph. He— he never cared about me.” He sounds completely dumbfounded, then his tone goes angry. “He lied to me, this whole time .” Pete’s eyes go shiny, tears clinging to his lashes before dripping down his cheeks. “ Fuck— I’m sorry, I— I just— god.”
He roughly pushes up his glasses and swipes roughly at his eyes, then leans forward sharply, shrugging Steph’s hand off his shoulder and snatching the book off the ground with so much vigor the ragged cover is nearly ripped off. “Find that goddamn ritual.”
Steph is eager to oblige, flipping through the pages until she finds what she thinks Ted was describing. She smooths out the wrinkled pages and sets the book back down on the floor, squinting to read the faded ink on the page. “Okay. This is it.”
“What do we do?” Pete asks determinedly, leaning down to read the ritual as well.
“It looks like you just sing this, I guess?” Steph points to a single verse written out in a loopy font in the center of the page. “And then we just… see what happens.”
“Okay,” Pete says, nervousness bleeding into his voice.
“Only if you’re sure,” Steph says, suddenly anxious. If this book is what led to some demon coming down to earth and holding a kid hostage for his entire life, she hesitates to assume that anything good can come from it.
“I have to, Steph.” Pete closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and reopens them. Then he starts to sing.
Somehow he already seems to know the melody, something haunting and slow like wind whistling through the rafters and the rushing swell of air before a storm. Steph feels a chill run down her spine as Pete’s hair begins to glow, casting an airbrushed gleam across the walls of tower. The light isn’t it’s usually golden yellow, but a deep blue, then purple, then pink. As he continues to sing, incomprehensible whispers begin to fill the air, giggles and cackles swept up into the song, murmurs behind cupped hands melting into the melody. Steph tenses as Pete finishes singing the last line, hair glowing bright green before going dark.
“Did it work?” Pete asks into the silence.
As soon as the words have left his mouth Pete’s hair gleams blindingly bright, glaring with every color in a garish display that’s almost dizzying to look at. His eyes go wide, flickering wildly all around the room, he curls into himself as his hair flashes like a neon sign. “I— I can hear them. They’re talking to me.”
“ Who?” Steph scoots closer, trying to make out words from the soft whispers and rustles coming from Pete’s hair. The sounds grow louder, like a jeering crowd, almost a shrill scream. Pete looks terrified, and honestly, Steph is too. His knuckles are white, gripping the fabric of his pants and staring straight on into nothing.
“What?” Pete asks in a shaky voice, and there’s the muffled sound of uproarious laughter, hiccuping and squealing with delight. Steph almost feels sick as Pete shrinks back, completely immersed in whatever layer of hell his brain has been transported to. “ What? What the fuck are they saying?” she hisses.
Pete ignores her, just staring with that blank look on his face that digs the pit in Steph’s stomach a little deeper every time she looks at him. “Um— uh, w—we need you to take Tinky back. Please.”
Another crescendo of cackles, and Steph reaches for Pete’s trembling hand before she can stop herself, wrapping her fingers over his. He doesn’t look at her, but his tight knuckles relax ever so slightly under her touch, and he takes a deep, shuddering breath.
“I know he won’t be happy about it b—but please. We’ll do anything.”
“How about a bargain?” Steph whispers to Pete, unsure why she feels the need to whisper when the demons—or whatever they are—will probably be able to hear her anyway.
“A bargain?” Pete repeats desperately. “We’ll give you whatever you want, and then you take Tinky away.”
A cacophony of shrieks sounds from somewhere in the layers of Pete’s hair, and he winces, hunching over further. Steph gently squeezes his hand, watching his face carefully as he listens. His eyebrows squeeze together, his eyes widen a little. He gnaws at the inside of his cheek.
“What?” he asks quietly, his voice so small she can barely make out the word. “What I cherish most, w—what does that mean?”
There’s no tremendous sound, no clashing of voices, just a low whisper like a gust of wind rustling through the trees. Suddenly, all the color drains from Pete’s face, his eyes flicking towards Steph for the first time since they started the ritual, and her stomach twists in alarm. He looks scared , maybe the most scared she’s ever seen him. And he’s been in some pretty scary situations the last few days.
“Pete?” she asks uncertainly. His terror is really fucking contagious and it’s starting to get under her skin, raising goosebumps all along her arms.
“N—No,” Pete says breathlessly into the empty air. “No, no, no.”
“What’s wrong?” Steph demands, her tone going harsher than she intends it to. “What’s happening?”
Pete doesn’t say anything as the light fades slowly from his hair until it’s back to its regular yellow, dull in the dim lighting of the tower. He doesn’t even move for a second until Steph vigorously shakes him, impatience winning over every other urge she has, like to hug him again, or maybe run away. She really, really wants to run right now and she can’t figure out why. “Jesus, Pete, can you just tell me what they said?”
“I—“ Pete gasps, clutching at his chest and taking in several gulps of air. “Th—they said— they said—“
“Okay, breathe, first of all,” Steph says in an attempt to calm him down. She’s not great at dealing with panicking people, clearly. Dealing with emotions in general has never been one of her strong suits. “Can you, uh, look at me?”
“I have to kill you, Steph,” Pete spits out the words like they’re sharp and metal in his mouth. “Steph, they said th—they won’t make Tinky go away unless I— I stab you.“
Steph’s mouth goes dry, her brain struggling to process his words as any previous train of thought she was having is violently derailed. Her panic is clearly betrayed on face because Pete goes even paler and snaps the book shut so fiercely it almost tumbles over itself from the force of it. He scrambles back across the floor as if putting distance between himself and the book will somehow undo everything he just did.
“That’s— that’s okay,” Steph says hoarsely, trying to convince both Pete and herself. “I mean, I was supposed to be executed anyway, right? I should’ve died this morning.”
“I’m not doing it,” Pete says firmly, despite the wavering of his voice. “I— I will put up with Tinky for the rest of my life if I have to, it’s not worth it.”
“Pete—“ Steph starts, but is interrupted by a shrieking giggle from somewhere outside the tower. Pete cowers, and Steph’s stomach drops.
Some sort of half-goat half-man hybrid dressed in yellow from head to toe swings over the window sill—Steph has no idea how he managed to get all the way up to the window—grinning with buck teeth and eyes bugging out of his skull. “Oh, Petey!” he calls in a sickeningly sing-songy voice before stopping short, the grin falling off of his face as he spots Steph.
“Petey, we said no visitors,” the creature says disapprovingly, striding over to Steph and examining her like a kid peering into a fish tank. The hair on Steph’s arms prickles and she cringes away from him, looking to Pete for help. “Is that— him? ” she hisses.
Pete nods but keeps his eyes pinned on Tinky, who circles around Steph and approaches Pete, pulling him out from behind her (she hadn’t even realized she’d moved herself in front of him) and yanking him away, like she’s the threat. “How could you invite this stranger into our tower? She’s dangerous! ”
“No, she’s not,” Pete’s voice is timid but firm. “All my life you’ve been telling me that— that the world is out to get me, but it’s really not.”
Tinky glares at him, face twisting up with anger, and Steph wonders how Pete managed to put up with him for eighteen whole years. “You don’t know that! You’ve barely seen it, Petey, you don’t know anything! ”
“Well maybe if you ever let me see it, I would!” Pete exclaims, voice raising with frustration. He balls his hands into fists at his sides, face flushing with pent-up anger. He looks about two seconds away from screaming, but wouldn’t dare with Tinky’s claw-like grip on his shoulders.
“You know—“ Tinky stops mid sentence as his eyes drift from Pete to something lying on the wooden floor—something both Steph and Pete forgot about. “What’s this?” Tinky crosses the room in a flash and snatches up the Black Book, the pages rustling from the force. “This is a bad book, Petey. Where’d you get this?”
“I— uh,” Pete stands stiffly in the center of the room, panic and guilt practically written in bold across his face. Steph’s heart drops as Tinky advances on Pete. “Did she give this to you?” He asks, eyes snapping to Steph as he resumes his position next to Pete, who looks like he might faint.
“Yes,” Steph says instantly. “That’s mine.”
“Oh, is it?” Tinky asks, a grin spreading across his face. His teeth gleam, large and crooked in his wide mouth. Steph suppresses a shudder, holding the creature’s gaze. “Yes, it is.”
“I don’t know,” Tinky says in a mocking tone. “I think you stole this book. She’s a thief, Petey, I told you she was bad.”
“She’s not! She— she doesn’t steal unless she has to.”
“Really! What’s so important about this book, then? What’s it for, Petey?”
“ Uhhh…” Pete stutters, rocking back and forth on his heels a little and pressing his lips together. “I— I don’t—“
“ Look,” Tinky exclaims, splitting open the book and flipping through the worn pages. “This book is filled with nothing but witchcraft and demons .”
He holds up a page, a grotesque drawing of some hideous monster sprawling across it in black ink, then snaps the book shut and turns to Steph, pointing a stubby finger at her face. “She’s evil. She’s like your brother, and your parents, and everyone else!”
“My brother isn’t evil,” Pete argues, wincing like he’s bracing for impact. “You lied.”
“What’s gotten into you ,” Petey?” Tinky asks, his tone shifting from loud and angry to something more dangerous. “ She is the liar. I should just kill her, right now!” He rounds on Steph, his eyes glinting. She tries her best not to react, but feels her heart trip over itself at the pure malice in his eyes. Seriously, how did Pete not realize this guy was a demon?
“No!” Pete shouts, his voice going louder than it has since Tinky entered the tower. “Tinky, please, I— if you let her go, I won’t ever run away again. Or let strangers in. Or— or talk to her at all.” He directs his gaze at Steph as he says it, and her breath catches at the look in eyes, mournful, but so urgent. Screaming at her to take her chance and run, and god, every muscle in her body wants to answer.
“I don’t know,” Tinky says, staring her down like a predator stalking its prey. It makes her want to rip her skin off. “I don’t know if I can let her get away with this.”
“If— if you kill her I will never stop trying to run away. I know how to get rid of you now and I won’t stop trying until I do,” Pete spits, anger briefly overtaking his fear with Tinky’s gaze directed away from him. “Just let her go. That’s all.”
“Oh, you will never get rid of me, Petey,” Tinky says with a shrieking giggle, reaching over to run his fingers through a lock of Pete’s hair. Steph watches the movement closely, the way Tinky looks at his hair like it’s the most important thing in this world. A sliver of jet black peeks out from behind Pete’s ear as Tinky’s hand brushes over it, then disappears again behind the layers of yellow. “But… maybe just this once, I’ll be merciful.”
“…Thank you,” Pete says shortly, sounding as if he hadn’t actually expected that to work.
“Well, go!” Tinky says to Steph, gesturing towards the window and grinning, like he’s so generous for not murdering her.
“Can I at least say goodbye to Pete first?” Steph asks carefully, meeting Tinky’s eyes and raising an eyebrow as she slowly rests her hand on the hilt of her sword.
Tinky stares at her like she’s fucking insane—and maybe she is—but finally shrugs and goes “Okay then.”
Steph turns to Pete, smiling sadly. “Bye, Pete.”
“Steph…” Pete trails off, looking like he’s trying very hard not to cry, but also like she’s completely stupid for staying even a moment longer than she has to. Steph decides to make this quick. She steps closer and cups his face with one hand, keeping her voice barely above a whisper. “You’ll be okay.”
“Huh?”
“Promise that you’ll be okay,” she vaguely feels Tinky’s eyes on them, but keeps her gaze locked on Pete’s.
“As long as you’re okay, I will be,” Pete whispers back firmly. She just smiles down at him, lingering in his gaze for a moment longer and ignoring the lump in her throat. “I’m sorry.”
“What?”
Steph leans forward and gently presses her lips to his, relishing in the bloom of warmth in her chest and the brief tug of hope just under her heart that naively believes this could last. In the same moment, she deftly pulls her sword from its sheath, reaching forward and slashing it through Pete’s hair in one swift, sharp movement.
He jolts back in surprise as yellow locks fall over his shoulders like ribbons, instantly turning dark as the blade saws through them. The black climbs up his scalp like a burning match, and within a second all of Pete’s hair has gone dark, strands hanging ragged and uneven around his neck as he blinks in shock. Tinky screams in anger from somewhere behind them, but Steph barely notices as she turns the sword around and drives it into her own heart.
She tries to, at least. In her haste, the blade sort of wedges itself between two of her ribs instead, sending blood spraying onto Pete’s face as her body splits with pain. Steph screams—she can’t help it—but instantly regrets it as Pete’s eyes go wide and terrified as he screams even louder, high-pitched and mangled like his vocal cords are ripping out of his throat from the force of it. Steph squeezes her eyes shut, sick from the pain and refusing to look at Pete’s expression of horror and betrayal as she yanks the gore-soaked sword back out of her chest in several wrenching movements, whimpering like a wounded animal as stars shatter across her vision. She lets the sword clatter onto the floor, choking up blood and bile as she starts to slip into unconsciousness.
Pete keeps screaming, over and over like he doesn’t know how to stop, taking her in his arms and trying to staunch what must be a lot of blood seeping out from the gaping wound in her chest. Somewhere in the background, there’s a burst of yellow—like sunlight, Steph thinks—an explosion of giggles, and a shriek of anguish that doesn’t come from Pete. Steph forces her eyes open in time to see Tinky dematerialize into a pile of glittering yellow dust that swirls in the air for a moment before settling to the ground. With the last of her strength, she smiles in triumph.
“Steph!” Pete’s strangled cry keeps her conscious for a few more moments, and she turns her half-lidded gaze to him, taking one last opportunity to look into his eyes before her body gives up on her. She knows it’s coming— she can still feel the sharp, deep pain radiating out from her chest and the warm stickiness of blood coating her stomach, but all her senses seem to be dulled down as she loses her grip on the world.
“Pete,” she breathes, raspy and weak. He looks down at her, eyes filling with tears as sobs shake his body still pressed close to hers. His hands and arms are coated in her blood as he cups her face, so gently she doesn’t even mind the pain anymore. Dying in his arms is infinitely better than dying in a cave slowly filling up with frigid water or strung up in a tree in front of the royal court, and Steph doesn’t regret a thing.
Pete shivers uncontrollably, repeating her name under his breath like it’s all he knows how to say anymore. A tear trembles on the corner of his eye before falling and landing on her cheek, burning for a split second, and then turning warm as sunlight and spreading deep into her skin. Steph is once again pushed back towards consciousness at the peculiar feeling, like roots growing into her veins, golden threads weaving their way through her face and neck and arms, all the way down to her feet until she’s a shining web of fractured parts being sewn back together and she realizes the pain has gone, leaving nothing but a soft pressure behind her ribs and the feeling like she’s lived a life under the sun.
“Steph?” Pete asks again, but this time he doesn’t sound scared, just in awe.
Steph blinks, slowly sitting up as feeling rushes back into her limbs. “Uh… hi?”
Pete laughs a breathless laugh, reaching out to brush his fingers across her cheek like he’s making sure she’s actually there, because for some reason she’s alive and is doing great for someone who had a sword in her chest not even five minutes ago. She almost can’t believe it herself, wiggling her fingers and toes and gingerly pressing her fingers over the patch of skin just above her stomach that’s been sewn back together so perfectly you wouldn’t know anything had happened if it wasn’t for the blood caked over her entire torso.
“You’re— you’re alive,” Pete says at last.
Steph laughs in elated surprise as she’s hit with the full realization that she’s alive , completely fine actually, maybe better than she’s ever been. “Yeah!”
Pete throws his arms around her, a final sob shuddering its way out of his body as he hugs her tight, the kind of hug that only comes after you’ve nearly lost something. Steph hugs him back, closing her eyes and tucking her face into the warmth of his neck, the rough tips of his hair brushing against her cheek.
“Is he— is he really gone?” Pete asks after a moment, his voice muffled slightly.
Steph pulls back slowly, looking around the tower at the locks of shiny black hair lying in a pile around Pete like a slain beast, at the pile of yellow dust in the center of the room. “Oh yeah. He’s gone.”
Pete smiles, and Steph thanks whatever benevolent force decided to let her live so she could see him smile again. “So, my tears are magic too, that would’ve been helpful to know about eighteen years ago.”
Steph giggles, reaching up to brush her fingers through the coarse ends of his hair. “Well, at least you’ve got a new haircut now.”
Pete grimaces a little. “Does it look bad?”
“No, I feel like that extra 70 feet was really weighing you down. You look a lot freer now.”
“It definitely was,” Pete says, shaking his head from side to side a little, getting used to the feeling of having about 60 pounds less hair attached to his head. “I feel very free.”
Steph turns her head to look at the square of sky outside of the tower window, endless blue only interrupted by a few wispy clouds and the tops of trees rustling in the slight breeze. “We are.”
When she looks back at Pete, his expression is identical to when he first set foot on the grass outside his tower—less than a week ago, actually, but it feels like so much longer now. “What now?” he asks.
“Whatever we want.” Steph says, and realizes that this might be the first time she can do whatever she wants, actually whatever she wants without her dad forbidding her or the royal guards intervening.
“Can we— can we find my brother?” Pete asks tentatively. He gingerly picks up the Black Book, holding it awkwardly at arms length like he’s trying to put as much space between him and the demons inside as possible. “And maybe, I don’t know, burn this thing?”
“ Yeah ,” Steph barks a laugh. “Good riddance.“
Pete nods vehemently, directing his gaze to the pile of yellow dust on the floor. “Good fuckin’ riddance.”