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Clare sat at the edge of the cliff watching the creature below.
The woods were haunted here. Perhaps they were haunted everywhere. She could not be sure. She hadn’t ventured further than the mountain. She didn’t know whether she could, and she hadn’t felt the need to try. Her soul did not yearn anymore.
At first the creatures in the forest terrified her. They tormented and taunted, biting at her heels as she dragged her twisted legs. She didn’t know a ghost could feel pain, but she did. She wondered sometimes why the dark-haired faerie had taken away her pain as the others broke her bones and clawed at her flesh, if it only meant that in death it would be all that she could feel. She supposed she couldn’t hate him too much. What would an immortal know of what it means to die?
The creature slithered through the underbrush. She thought at first it was a panther by the way it stalked from tree to tree, but as it got closer, she could see its powerful muscles, uncovered by fur or skin. This was unlike any of the monsters that resided here. For the first time in a while, she felt chilling fear constricting her chest. What horrors would this one bring?
She remained on her cliff, dangling her feet over the edge, waiting for it to come to her.
****
He was as hideous as she imagined. At one point he was a wolf, she thought, with his long snout showing his sharp teeth. He had no lips to cover them as his tongue panted and slipped between the crevices, drool dripping down from his jaws. The sinewy muscles gleamed and glistened, still moist with blood. As he paced around her, she could see pieces of connective tissue clinging to the creases of his anatomy. The worst part was his eye. Without eyelids, she could see the bulging orb, the white sclera unnerving. It was such a human trait. It was actually a blessing that his other eye was missing.
He was a ghost like her, that she was sure. He died like this. Someone had shot him, killed him, and then skinned him. Likely taking his pelt.
“You’re a sad sight,” she said.
“As are you,” he replied.
He could speak. A wolf who could talk? Now this was a curious development.
“What are you?” she asked, pushing herself up to her feet to stand even though her joints screamed in agony. At this height she at least could have the advantage of being taller.
He sat on his rump. She squeezed her fists in alarm as his body morphed. His muscles and bones snapped and popped, his snout disappearing into his face until what stood before her was not a wolf at all. But a man. Albeit, a skinless man, but a man all the same.
“You’re human?” she asked.
“Fae,” he corrected.
She flinched, backing away towards the cliff.
“Afraid of faeries, little ghost girl?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Your kind did this to me.”
“And your kind did this to me,” he gestured down his body, all red meat on bones.
Clare stared and stared, studying him. She hobbled forward, dragging her twisted ankle behind her. Maybe he had come to seek revenge, but Clare was a monster of these woods too. She had learned to bite.
“How could humans do this to you?” she finally asked. The faeries she met were more powerful than anyone she’d ever known. Even her own father wouldn’t have survived them. He didn’t survive them, she reminded herself.
“I let her,” he said. “It was the only way to break the curse.”
The curse. Clare remembered them speaking of it as they whipped her back. They wanted to break her, to tell them how she did it. But she had nothing to offer but desperate cries. Even though the dark one took her pain away, she was still terrified. Even with him inside her head, telling her exactly how to scream, was a torture. The curse was the reason they had come for her, killing her family and taking her to this horrible place. And the curse seemed to come for him too, in its own way.
*****
Clare learned that his name was Andras, and he would not leave her alone.
He had been stuck on the other side of the wall, but he told her that the wall came down and he had traveled from the mortal lands. Something swelled inside of her, hearing that. Maybe it meant she could leave this place too. If she wanted to. She didn’t know where she would go. She had no family and no home.
Andras talked a lot. He told her about his home in Spring Court. He had gone there first, but what was left was a desolate place. It no longer looked like the Spring he lived in for centuries. Something had changed there. The magic was dying. So, he continued north.
He didn’t ask her immediately why she was here. But when he did, Clare found that speaking about what happened was much harder than reliving it in her mind every day. He let her linger for several hours, dragging her ankle back and forth as she paced, picking at the slashes across her chest with her bent fingers, still moist with blood as the day they were carved into her skin.
But when she finally told him, she told him everything. She told him about her home and her family. About Thomas and how he was supposed to propose soon. About that night and the sounds of the dogs howling, trying to warn them. She heard their cries as the faeries snapped their necks and then that’s when she smelled the smoke. She told him about her family, bound to their beds, unable to escape, and how the faeries that grabbed her poked and prodded at her skin, tearing her nightgown to get a glimpse at her human body. It took her all night to tell him what happened under the mountain. And he stayed silent through it all, watching her with that bulging eye and listening with the holes in his head and no ears to cover them.
“We are the same, you and I,” Andras finally said once she had finished her story. His voice creaked with the wind. “We were the sacrifices that saved everyone from her. But it seems we have been forgotten.”
Clare blinked her eyes, “Did it work? Did they break the curse.”
Andras smiled. He had no lips, but she could tell when he did by the way that strappy muscle across his cheek pulled taut. “They did. And I know exactly where they are.”
“Who?”
“The ones who murdered us.”
*****
“I can’t. It hurts too much.”
“I will carry you.”
“You’ll carry me hundreds of miles? It will take forever.”
“It’s a good thing we have forever then.”
They had had this conversation several times. For days Andras tried to convince her to leave with him. And each day she told him no. She belonged here now, trapped in this place. She told him to go without her as he had all the drive, but he wouldn’t leave. He stayed close to her, never truly leaving her sight.
She tried to explain to Andras that she couldn’t walk very far. She could move her twisted limbs, her joints poking out in directions they weren’t supposed to, but she could still move. Everything hurt. The times she did walk was when the pain of moving sounded more bearable than the pain of staying still. Andras, of course, had an answer for everything, and he was willing to walk for the both of them. She told him that she didn’t want to be a burden, but the truth was that Andras scared her. He had become her friend during their time together. He told her stories and made her laugh. But she was still afraid to touch him. He was ghoulish and she was grotesque.
Andras was intent on waiting and changing her mind.
*****
One of the forest haunts came after them one night. They didn’t need to sleep, but they still liked to sometimes. Andras was a gentleman and kept his distance, inhabiting a spot several feet away that put his body between hers and the rest of the woods. His snarl was what alerted Clare to the danger.
She looked up and saw the eyes of the entity. It towered over them, a looming, haunting presence standing between the trees. Its eyes were two vacant holes, endless vacuums in the swirling darkness.
Andras was a wolf now, growling and snapping his jaws, his back arched in warning. He tried to scare the beast away, but it lingered, staring at them, unmoving. Clare could feel the danger in the air. It throbbed around them like a beating heart. She dug her hands into the dirt, rooting herself to prepare for the assault.
She screamed as Andras launched forward, attacking the darkness. He disappeared into the void, the sounds of ripping and shredding echoed through the canyon. She sobbed, knowing that the sounds were not of the beast but of Andras being torn to bits. When the cracking bones and hissing cries finally died, so too did the thudding doom. It slipped away, creeping across the forest floor, moving onto its next victim.
Clare dragged her body into the woods, her limbs shaking too hard to stand. Her hand grabbed damp flesh, and she pulled herself forward, seeing pieces of Andras scattered across the ground. She wiggled through the carnage until she found his head. He had somehow managed to shift back into his Fae form, his face flat and his skull round.
She knew he couldn’t die. What’s already dead can’t die again. His ghostly existence would stitch this material back together. It had happened to her in the past. But she still wept all the same. She rested her head next to his, pressing their cheeks together. And she waited.
*****
Andras had a more compelling argument after the incident. He told her once they left these lands, then they wouldn’t have to worry about those kinds of beasts again. The High Lords controlled what sorts of monsters wandered their woods.
“But that could mean us,” she argued. “We are ghosts, Andras. Look at us!”
She gestured down to herself, her naked body covered in blood and gore with holes through her limbs where Amarantha’s goons had pinned her to the wall. They were stuck perpetually in the states that they died.
“We won’t go looking for trouble. It’ll be fine.”
“Until we reach the Night Court that is.”
Andras nodded his head.
Andras slept closer to her, which Clare now welcomed. Since she touched him, all she wanted to do was touch him more. As he lay next to her, she would stroke the tendons of his neck and run her fingers that remained across his teeth. Sometimes he would nip at her and then nuzzle her hand. She realized after a time it was his way of showing her affection because he couldn’t kiss her. You needed lips to kiss.
Some of the fairytales she read as a girl were about human women being seduced by Fae males. In some of them, they kidnapped the women. Others, the women ran away with a Fae prince. But it was always the same. Their love ended horribly and tragically, solidifying that should their minds ever wander, women should know that they should stick with their own kind. The Fae would only use and discard them. Before her death, she had a morsel of doubt. But once her life ended, it solidified for her that Fae were the monsters that the elders told her about.
But Andras was different. Andras was kind and brave. He treated her gently, escorting her through the forest by her hand, letting her use him as support. Each day she grew a little more encouraged, and each day she started to wonder what if they did leave this place.
One day Andras sensed a disturbance nearby. The magic in the air changed. He told her he would be back soon and shifted, taking off through the trees. Clare waited for several hours for him to return. As she waited, she began to question if maybe he had decided to leave without her. Her heart ached at the thought. He was her knight. Her fae prince. He was her only hope not to spend forever alone.
She heard leaves rustling. Whipping her head around, she feared the worst, but through the brush trotted Andras, still in his wolf form. She let go of a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. The stress that had built inside of her during the hours that she waited released instantaneously. As he got closer, he shifted into his Fae form and kneeled in front of her.
“I have great news,” he said, and she could hear the excitement by the way his teeth chattered. “I saw Rhysand’s Illyrian general and Shadowsinger, as well as Feyre’s own sister, Nesta.”
Clare widened her eyes, “Are you sure? Nesta Archeron was there?”
Andras nodded, “Before the wall came down and I was trapped in the mortal lands, I spent many days and nights stalking Feyre’s sisters. I know their faces well.”
Clare’s mind raced, “What was Nesta doing here? With them?”
“She’s High Fae now. That must be what happened when the sisters disappeared. All of the sisters are probably High Fae and staying in the Night Court with the High Lord’s inner circle.”
Clare frowned at Andras, “I’m not sure I understand. Why is this great news?”
“Don’t you see, Clare? They changed from human to High Fae. They toy in magic that can change your very existence. I watched Nesta today. She went into a bog and came out wearing a golden mask. I felt the pull of the mask. It whispered to me, demanding that I follow her. Whatever the Night Court is doing, they have accumulated a considerable amount of power. And we are going to demand that they help us.”
“Help us?” she whispered. “In what way?”
Andras licked his teeth as he bounced on his toes, “We will show ourselves to Rhysand and Feyre. Show them what we have become. And we will tell them they must make it right. By changing us.”
“You mean… bringing us back to life?”
“I’d settle to at least have skin and clothes again,” Andras grunted out a laugh.
Clare felt tingly all over. Would this be possible? Could she be alive again? Or if not alive, freed from this painful existence?
“Andras…” she whimpered. “I… I am scared.”
“Why, Angel?”
He had started to call her that recently. He said since they were dead, that she must be an angel sent to him by the Mother. It made her feel lovely, even when she knew she was a repulsive sight.
“What if it doesn’t work? I’m too scared to hope.”
“Something will work,” Andras insisted.
“But what if it doesn’t? What then? What happens to us?”
“Then we continue as we are now. But at least we won’t be in this wretched place.”
“And we will be together?” she asked, her voice a small whimper now.
“Of course,” he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in close. His muscles squelched as she laid her head against his chest, his exposed collar bone resting next her forehead. “Like calls to like. It’s something we Fae believe. And you and I, Angel, are one in the same.”
Clare pulled her head back to look up at Andras’ face. It was a white skull covered in strips of muscles wrapping around to form the outline of what a face would be. His missing eye was dark, hollow, and bloody, much like the holes where his missing nose had been. Ghoulish as ever, but now instead of disgust, all she felt was love. She leaned up, placing a kiss upon his teeth, wishing he could kiss her back. That was what made her decide. She would go. She would travel north until it felt like her bones would fall out of her body. She would endure the pain and the fear of the unknown. She would do it all, just for a chance to kiss Andras in true.
*****
They waited for the right moment before making themselves known.
Rhysand and Feyre had left their mansion on the hill. They were taking a stroll together through their woods. Andras had told Clare that it was best to face them when they were alone. Clare had asked if Rhysand would be able to enter her mind again, and Andras could not say. He didn’t know the boundaries of a daemati’s power.
Hand in hand, they crossed the path that the High Lord and Lady walked. They stood before them with ghostly stillness. Recognition and horror paled their features as they stared back. They stayed silent, waiting for their killers to speak first.
“Clare,” Feyre finally squeaked out. “Clare… are you… I’m sorry.”
A fiery rage filled her. One she had not allowed herself to feel until this very moment.
“You gave them my name.”
Feyre’s face crumbled, “I know.”
“Why?”
Her anguish did nothing to soothe Clare’s ire, “Your name was the first that popped into my head…”
Rhysand spoke up, and his voice was dark as midnight and cold as steel. It was the last voice her living self ever heard and she would remember it forever.
“Tell us what you want.”
Andras had been right. She could see their fear and their guilt so plainly. Clare had felt like a monster for years, but she never felt the power in her heinous existence until this very moment.
“Andras and I want our bodies back. Our real bodies.”
Feyre’s eyes flickered to Andras, her chest heaving as she studied him. “You’re… Tamlin’s sentry? The one he sent…”
Andras chuckled darkly, “The very one. Tell me, how much did you sell my skin for?”
Feyre turned around and stumbled towards the bushes, vomiting as she fell to her knees.
Rhysand narrowed his eyes to the two of them.
“What does this mean? You want your bodies back? Are you asking me to turn ghosts into living beings?”
“That would be ideal,” Andras answered. “We can start there.”
*****
Feyre invited them into her home out of guilt which was a mistake on her part. Once they were inside the walls, they were bound to remain until otherwise banished.
Mostly they stayed in the room Feyre offered them. It had been so long since Clare had slept in a bed, and this bed was nicer than any she had ever seen. Everything about the house was grand and impressive with wealth. There was a coziness too, but Clare could not help but feel vile jealousy slinking up her spine. She was from the same town as the Archerons. Her family had a little more money than theirs at their poorest, but they were not rich by any definition. The Archeron sisters were living a true rag to riches fairytale, and Clare was still dead.
When she and Andras weren’t snuggling in bed, they haunted the halls of the River House. Only Feyre and Rhys could see them. They’d pass by a guest and the person would shiver, darting their head around to see what grazed against their side. But their eyes would look directly at Clare and Andras and there was no reaction to their hideousness. They would look right through them, unseeing. Feyre and Rhys were a different matter. They’d turn a corner and see Clare lying down in a hallway, resting her twisted limbs, or Andras leaning against a wall, his face plastered in a permanent, ghoulish smile. They’d freeze, their lungs releasing all their air. Andras kept tabs, asking them if they had found a solution, and the answer was always no.
One day, while they walked across the second floor to leave bloody footprints for Feyre and Rhysand to find, Andras jolted at her side, releasing her arm as he leaned over the banister to peer down.
“Lucien,” he said as he grinded his teeth in excitement. “Why is Lucien here?”
Clare remembered that name from Andras’ stories. He was the emissary to Tamlin who often was featured as a partner in crime to Andras’ antics.
“I need to get a look,” he stated. He took her by her arm again and guided them down the stairs.
Feyre and Lucien were chatting a few feet from the bottom of the staircase. Lucien’s back was to them, and Feyre eyed their descent, her expression stricken and sickly.
Lucien seemed to notice the change in her demeanor and where her eyes lingered. He turned around just as they reached the bottom step.
And to their surprise he jumped backwards, his eyes widening as the sounds of his gold, mechanical eye clicked and whirred furiously. Andras had told Clare all about Lucien’s eye, and how he hoped when they got their bodies back, if they couldn’t heal his eye, maybe he could have one like Lucien’s. He said Lucien could see things with it that others couldn’t. And apparently, their ghostly apparitions were one of those things.
“Lucien,” Feyre grabbed him by the arm. “It’s okay. Just breathe. I can explain.”
Lucien’s eyes focused on Clare, and she could see that he recognized her. He must have only known her corpse because she didn’t recognize him.
Andras stepped forward, approaching Lucien carefully. “You can see me, but can you hear me, old friend?”
Lucien darted his eyes between Feyre and Andras, and Clare imagined the way his heart would sound fluttering with fear.
“Can you hear him?” Feyre asked.
Lucien shook his head, “I can only see them.”
Feyre’s face fell, realizing she would have to translate between them.
“This is Andras,” she explained. “And Clare Beddor. They have traveled a long way to find me and Rhys.”
“An-Andras?” he stammered. He hadn’t turned his eyes back to him. It was as if he was too afraid to see again.
“Yes, the same one.”
Lucien gulped; his golden-brown skin pallid. He finally turned to look at Andras just as Clare managed to drag her way to his side.
Lucien slowly examined him, starting at his feet and moving his gaze slowly up. When he finally reached his face again, his brows furrowed in agony as he shook his head with a sigh.
“You look like shit,” he finally said.
And Andras cackled.
*****
Months passed. To their credit, everyone tried their best to find a solution, but, in the end, Andras and Clare could not be resurrected. They had to have something in the physical world that tied them to bring their souls through. They existed in an altered plane. Here but also not. Forever tied to the land where their lives ended too soon, but never able to be one with the living again.
But what the High Lord and Lady were able to do for them was what Andras said he would settle for all along. They were able to find a way to change their ghostly, ethereal forms to reflections of what they wanted to look like, rather than what their bodies were, buried and rotting in the ground. Andras and Clare both decided they wanted to look like themselves from before: a High Fae Spring Court sentry and a young human woman. When the magic wrapped its burning tendrils around them, Clare screamed as her bones snapped back into place. This time, Rhys could not take away the pain.
The first thing Clare looked at when the transformation was completed were her hands. She had grown used to seeing them mangled, some of her fingers bent back at the second knuckle and others missing completely. Now her hands were smooth and intact. She wiggled her fingers, and there was no pain in her movements. She looked down at her body next. Her gory nudity was covered now by a lavender sundress. It was the same one that her grandmother gifted her when she came of age. It was the nicest garment she ever owned, and she always felt beautiful wearing it. She peeked down the front and saw no more gaping wounds in her chest. Just two breasts and clean skin.
She had to see him next. She turned her attention in front of her and her gasp seized in her throat. Andras had his skin back and so much more. Before her stood the most handsome gentleman she had ever seen. He had long, light brown hair that was tied back at the nape of his neck. His clothes were refined but understated, perfect for a casual picnic and afternoon stroll with a lady. He reached for his face, patting the area around his eyes in search of the mask that had once been sealed there. But none existed. Clare had an unencumbered view of his face. His real face. And she could see beneath his lovely skin, the shapes of his bones and muscles that she used to stare at for hours and hours. She realized then she had been looking at his real face all along, just with a few layers taken away.
With that, she took the necessary steps forward to stand in front of him. Her legs were now straight and aligned with her hips, and she almost cried at how good it felt to move with fluid grace and not the rickety shaking of her knees. She reached out her hands to Andras, and he looked down at her with a smile as he pulled her in close.
Clare wasted no time. She lifted on her tiptoes and pulled his face down to hers. She pressed her lips against his and sighed at the soft, heavenly flesh.