Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Crystal was having the dream where she was with Niko again. 

One moment she’d been fighting to keep her eyes open. She distinctly remembered crouching on the floor of the agency while Edwin handed her another tome about banshees. It had been well past four in the morning, but their most recent case was time sensitive. She’d kept herself awake with coffee, a Queen record playing on loop on the boy’s ancient record player, and pinching her cheeks whenever she started to feel the faint buzz of sleep washing over her. 

It felt like she blinked and she was opening her eyes to a vast emptiness, nothing but her and the infinite dark and the watchful eyes floating above her head. When she turned around there was Niko, dressed just as she had been when Crystal had last seen her—a dark patch of blood staining her sternum and all.

“You’re back,” Niko said, smiling. “Do you remember what I said last time?”

“You asked how I was going to distract Esther,” Crystal said. The words still rang in her head whenever she sat still long enough to think, the last real words Niko had spoken to her: How are you gonna do that? 

Let’s find out, she’d said. Maybe if she’d had a plan she wouldn’t only get to see Niko in her dreams.

“No, not out there. In here,” Niko said, pointing at the ground. Or, she would have been if there was a ground to point to. 

“I miss you,” Crystal said. “I’m back in London with Charles and Edwin and I— it's fine. Everything is fine. Charles is, y’know, he’s always aces , or whatever. But Edwin is different, he’s tired all the time and he’s been— nice . It’s been awful, without you.”

“I thought everything was fine,” Niko said.

“That’s just it, it's like, none of us will say it's not fine. None of us want to be the first to break. Technically it's over. Esther is gone. The Lost and Found Department are letting the boys stay in London. I have my memories. But you’re not there and it feels like— like there’s this hole that none of us are looking at. We’re all tiptoeing around it.”

“But I’m not gone, remember? I said last time, I’m in the—”

“Crystal?” 

Crystal sat straight up, and realized her face was inches from Edwin’s. They were both on the floor of the office. At some point, Edwin must have draped a blanket over her because it had pooled in her lap when she sat up. There was still a book open in her hands, like she’d fallen asleep reading.

“Are you quite alright?” Edwin asked.

“Yes. I mean, I was just sleeping,” Crystal said, as Edwin put some space between them.

“You were talking to yourself,” Edwin said, pursing his lips. 

These days, it always felt like he was holding something back from her. At first, it had rankled—like they’d taken ten steps back from the tentative friendship they’d formed in Port Townsend. There was an old, cruel part of her that wanted to poke and needle at his nerves until he snapped at her like he used to. At least when they’d been fighting, they’d been getting somewhere. 

But then she remembered Monty’s betrayal and Hell and Esther telling her Edwin was going to hurt more than anyone had ever hurt, and she’d look up at Edwin. Really look at him. 

He was still pale from what had been done to him, almost three months later. Dark bags curved under his weary eyes, other than that he kept his posture meticulous and there was nary a wrinkle in his blazer, she’d never even witnessed his bowtie gone crooked, but he always seemed tired these days.

If he could just sleep, she thought, maybe he’d start to heal. But sleep was a privilege saved for the living. 

So she didn’t poke and needle him, she didn’t comment on his clear exhaustion, and she didn’t question when he was unfailingly polite to her, and she told herself, over and over, that maybe this was just Edwin now. Maybe Hell for a second time, being used as a battery, and losing Niko had changed him this much. 

When Crystal still didn’t say anything, Edwin added, “It was as if— Your eyes and your voice, it was like when you were visited by your demon.”

“It wasn’t David,” Crystal said. “It was just a dream.”

“Well, in that case, we’d better crack on,” Edwin said, turning back to his book. “This banshee is not going to banish herself.”

Crystal studied the side of his face for a moment. In some ways, he looked as unruffled as always, but she was starting to recognize some of his tells. His hands, in particular, always gave him away. He was clutching the sides of his book as if it might try to get up and flee.

If there wasn’t a little girl’s afterlife on the line, she might have suggested a break. As it was, she knew solving the case was the only way to get Edwin to take a breather. She looked down at the tome still in her lap and found where she’d left off.

As they researched well into the morning, slowly but surely, Edwin’s posture loosened. 

+

“C’mon, mate,” Charles wheedled Patty. “We just need a pinch of dragon’s blood for the invocation. You’ll still have plenty left for the daft wizards who frequent your establishment.”

One of the daft wizards in question, a sweaty man in his twenties who looked to be in his forties, glared at Charles over the mortar and pestle display. 

“Not you, Hector, you’re brills,” Charles assured him. He turned back to Patty, who was sweeping behind the cash register and looking less and less interested in his entire being. “Pretty please, Patty. When have we ever asked for a favor?”

“Last October, the fairy wings,” Patty said. “The black salt a couple years ago. Cleaned me right out. How about the jar of sacred dirt in two-thousand six? You never did pay me back for that, you still owe me fifty-seven pounds. I could go on, if you’d like.”

Charles stared at the ceiling to gather himself and then focused his winningest smile in Patty’s direction. Patty was the proprietor, sole employee, and purveyor of the best occult goods shop in London. Charles and Edwin had been visiting her at all hours of the day to replenish their store of magical goods nearly since the very beginning of the agency. Before Patty there had been a whole host of shady magic dealers, including a vampire that had tried to take a bite out of Edwin—in more ways than one. Patty was the far superior option. 

The problem was, Patty—a storm swept former witch, whose age Charles had never been able to correctly guess—really only had a soft spot for Edwin and had had it out for Charles ever since he’d knocked over a sacred fountain in the front window over a decade ago. 

If Edwin could have come, he would have, but he was currently up to his neck in translations for their banshee case and had only emerged long enough to point at Charles and demand dragon’s blood and graveyard dirt. 

After a trying hour or so trawling graveyards for a good dirt specimen, Charles had the graveyard dirt covered, but dragon’s blood—real dragon’s blood, mind you, not that resin white witches loved to use for medicinal purposes—that was a bit harder to come by. It was rare and expensive and also a highly sought after ingredient for a popular wizard, ahem, enhancing potion. 

“It’s for a banshee , Patty,” Charles said, his smile feeling brittle on his face. “Do you want a little girl to get wrongfully dragged to Hell by a bonkers banshee just so lads like Hector can get a leg up?”

“Hey!” Hector protested behind him.

“Oh, shut it, Hector,” Patty said, dragging a hand down her face with a sigh. Then, “Fine. Fine. you can have a smidge of dragon’s blood if it’ll get you out of my shop.”

“Patty, you’re the dog's bollocks,” Charles said, smiling as he leaned both elbows on the counter.

She shoved him off with her broom and disappeared behind a curtain that led to the storeroom.

“Kiss arse,” Hector grumbled.

When Patty reappeared moments later, Charles was making a rude gesture at Hector while Hector discreetly tried to hex him—his hexes kept falling to the floor in a sad shimmer of sparkles because he really was a bloody awful wizard.

“Here,” Patty said, handing Charles a vial half full of brackish blood.

“What do I owe you?” Charles asked.

Patty shrugged, not meeting his eyes. “Just keep a close watch on your boyfriend, would you? Can’t be too careful these days.”

“Aw, Patty, you big softie,” Charles said. “You can just say you’ve missed Edwin. I can relate, he’s properly missable.”

Properly missable was a hell of an understatement. Charles had only left the office a few hours ago, but it was the longest he’d been without Edwin in his eyeline since Port Townsend and he felt like he was vibrating out of his skin. If he hadn’t wanted to make sure Patty didn’t dust off her cauldron and curse the both of them into oblivion for their growing debt, he would’ve stepped straight into his reflection on her glass counter the moment the vial was secure in his hand.

Edwin was fine, Edwin was whip smart and cautious and highly capable. The fact that he had, very obviously, not bounced back from being used as a witch’s battery three months ago, preoccupied Charles’s brain like a loose tooth, but Crystal was with him, and if there was anyone in the world Charles trusted with Edwin, it had to be Crystal. Even so, his fingers clacked on the counter as he waited for Patty to respond so he could make his polite excuses and hurtle himself through the nearest reflective surface. 

Then Patty had to go and say, “There’s been talk, at the Night Market.” Charles leaned closer to hear her, as her voice dropped to whisper, “About a machine that uses ghosts' pain to make power.”

If Charles was alive, he might have thrown up at this pronouncement. He still felt rather sick as he said, faux casually, “Well that sounds like a load of tosh. Who’s spreading that rubbish around?”

Patty shrugged. Charles could see her eyeing Hector, who was lurking behind them, from the reflection of them both in the mirror just behind Patty’s desk. 

“Whoever it is, they’re not from around here,” Patty whispered. “Americans. And they’re looking for a ghost who has escaped from hell.”

“Well,” Charles said, slowly. “It's a good thing we don’t know any ghosts who’ve done that.”

“Just right,” Patty said. “You best be getting along, dear. That dragon’s blood needs to be kept over an open flame or it’ll spoil.”

Charles wasn’t sure what was more disturbing: Patty’s warning, or her calling him “dear.” Her message dripped like melting ice down his spine as he spun on his heel towards the nearest mirror. He was so preoccupied with his maelstrom of thoughts that it took him half a dozen tries to find the office. By the time he stumbled through, soaking wet from a downpour in Thailand, Edwin was pacing the length of floor behind the desk.

“Finally,” Edwin said, plucking the dragon’s blood from Charles’s hand before Charles could even utter a greeting, and immediately poured the entire vial into a sludgy concoction he’d started brewing above his Bunsen burner. Then he held a hand out to Charles.

Charles stared at it, for a moment, untethered from time, as he observed Edwin’s fingers, pointed towards him, splayed palm up. 

“Well?” Edwin asked, jiggling his hand expectantly.

“Right,” Charles said, digging in his backpack for the graveyard dirt. He handed it over and tried to get his head in order as Edwin stirred the dirt into the mixture, counter-clockwise.

The sludge turned a vibrant shade of orange-y red, looking like a far less appetizing version of a soup Charles’s mum used to make him when he was ill. 

“There, that should do it,” Edwin said, spooning some of the concoction into a small jar. “We’re finished. Crystal!”

Crystal, who Charles hadn’t even realized was in the office, popped up off the floor blinking dazedly like she’d been mid-dream. 

“Time to set this banshee to rights,” Edwin said, slipping his coat on. “Charles? Are you coming?”

“No— I mean, yes— I mean, Edwin,” Charles plucked the jar out of Edwin’s hand. “Maybe you should sit this one out, mate. Crystal and I can handle it.”

“Don’t be absurd, Charles,” Edwin said. “I have to recite the invocation in Old Gaelic. Unless you’ve become fluent in the past several hours, my presence is required for the ritual.”

“Right, but—”

“Come along,” Edwin said, stepping through the mirror without a backwards glance.

Crystal sighed deeply as they watched the tail of Edwin’s coat disappear behind him. 

“He forgot I can’t mirror travel again, didn’t he?” she asked.

“Looks like,” Charles said, apologetically.

“Y’know what? That’s fine, I’ll be right here,” she said, laying back down on the floor.

Charles left her nestled among the books and papers. He hoped while they were gone, she got some sleep. He had a bad feeling brewing in his stomach, and at least one of them needed to be rested for whatever came next.

+

It wasn’t until the banshee was properly banished that Edwin noticed how tense Charles was. 

He’d been distracted since he’d returned from his outing, standing, if possible, closer to Edwin than normal. His hands kept twitching—in a familiar way—where they were curled around the straps of his backpack. A way that meant trouble.

Edwin did them both a favor and didn’t mention it until their client had returned to her preferred haunt, a tree house behind the home she’d grown up in. Once her bouncy curls had disappeared through the tree house’s trap door, Edwin spun on his heel and walked towards the water. 

Their client lived—or, rather, resided—by the ocean in Southend-on-Sea, a fair distance from their office in London. 

Charles jogged to catch up with him and they knocked elbows when he did. He was fiddling with the payment their client had promised them for banishing the banshee, a brass pocket mirror that she claimed was able to project a reflection of a ghost across a room. 

“Where are you off to?” Charles asked. Normally his tone would have been casual, relaxed as they’d just wrapped up a case and didn’t have another on the horizon, but at the moment it was laced with caution. “Shouldn’t we head back to the office? Crystal is still there.”

“Crystal is sleeping,” Edwin said.

“So you did leave her on purpose.”

“Of course I did,” Edwin said. “She’d been up for nearly twenty-four hours. I do remember that living humans need to sleep once in awhile. With the proper materials, we had this well in hand.”

“Still, we should check in on her.”

“Is there a particular reason you’re in such a hurry to get home?” Edwin asked.

“Uh,” Charles said, and not much else. He was habitually clicking the pocket mirror open and closed, with so much force Edwin was half-worried he would break the clasp. As if sensing Edwin’s disapproval, Charles slipped their payment into his backpack.

They’d made it to the sea wall and Edwin looked out over the ocean, his hands folded behind his back. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to have this conversation here, the gray sky and foggy water reminded him viscerally of Niko, but there was no turning back at this juncture.

Edwin didn’t say anything for a long moment, giving Charles time to collect himself.

“Patty gave me some concerning gossip, when I got the dragon’s blood from her,” Charles admitted. 

When he didn’t say anything else, Edwin turned to him with a single eyebrow raised. That method had never failed to press Charles into continuing his train of thought and it didn’t disappoint him now.

“There’s been talk at the Night Market. Of Americans. They’re looking for a ghost who’s escaped from hell,” Charles said, tightly. “I think they have Esther’s machine.”

“Ah,” Edwin said, squeezing his fists together behind his back.

“We have a lot of contacts in London, and—”

“And many of them know my history,” Edwin said, with a tinge of mirth. “I haven’t exactly been discreet.”

“So I’m thinking we lay low for awhile, grab some essentials from the office and pop over to Germany or Norway. I hear Australia is nice this time of year.”

“I’m not hiding ,” Edwin said, incredulous. “Really, Charles, we only just got home.”

“Edwin, mate, multiple someones are scouring the streets of London looking for you,” Charles said, sounding incredulous right back. “We’re ghosts, we could skive off to Beirut for a few years and it wouldn’t make much of a difference to us.”

Edwin didn’t like that Charles’s first instinct was to flee. That wasn’t like him at all. 

When Edwin had first come back from Hell he’d struggled not to run from location to location. Like he was still being hunted. His stride had always been purposeful, but by 1989 it was punishingly fast. When Charles had joined him, he had sometimes struggled to keep up, which hadn’t sat well with Edwin either, as he didn’t like the thought of Charles falling behind. What if that monstrosity he’d been sold to was still hunting him? What if he turned his back and it took Charles instead? 

So he’d slowed his stride. He’d stopped sprinting from shadow to shadow. He’d kept Charles within arm's length. Always. 

And here Charles was, fresh from Hell himself, running at the first sign of danger when normally he’d brandish his cricket bat and stand firm.

“That was before Crystal,” Edwin said. “And Jenny. And the Night Nurse, who I’ll remind you, is meant to be our minder. That means we can’t just—”

“So we’ll take them with us,” Charles said. His fingers curled softly around Edwin’s elbow, like a plea. “Edwin, I can’t just wait around until you’re taken from me again.”

“Charles,” Edwin said, dislodging Charles’s hand. “We already have a backlog of cases. We have people here, in London, who need us. Who are counting on us. I won’t run.”

Charles closed his eyes briefly, as if bracing himself for the worst. Edwin wouldn’t lie to him and say they would never be separated again, that Edwin would never again be dragged to Hell, that the Americans weren’t a threat. 

There was no way to know any of those things for certain, just as there was no reason to dread what they could not control. 

“Now that that’s sorted, come along,” Edwin said, turning to march along the water.

“ Now where are you going?” Charles asked, jogging to catch up.

“I’ve heard tell there’s a pier hereabouts. I thought we might go for a stroll while Crystal is resting,” Edwin said, carefully not meeting Charles’s curious gaze.

Charles was quiet for a moment before he huffed. There was a brief scuffle as he looped his arm through Edwin’s, pulling them into step with their elbows interlocked as if they were two fine ladies out for a promenade.  

“It has been a tick since we had alone time,” Charles said. He was smiling, but he wouldn’t meet Edwin’s gaze. In the early morning light, his profile appeared ethereal, as if Edwin might blink and the past thirty years would be nothing but a dream.

Charles kept talking, offering up suggestions of activities to partake in along the boardwalk. Edwin listened to it all and also to the erratic phantom thumping of his long-dead heart.

+

Crystal woke to a knock on the door. 

She tried to shake off the groggy pressure in her head and then, when that failed, shook off the books and stray notes she’d fallen asleep under. 

She took stock of her surroundings as the knocking persisted. She was in the office. It was a day of the week, one of them, probably a Tuesday, Tuesday was always a safe bet. Niko had been dead for three months. Jenny was moving to London soon, but not soon enough. She didn’t see the boys anywhere.

Someone knocked on the door again, this time impatiently.

“I’m coming, I’m coming, jeez,” Crystal said, pushing herself to her feet. She kicked some of the books under the boy’s grody couch and could almost hear Edwin’s scandalized gasp as she did so. When she opened the agency door, she didn’t see anyone at first. Then she looked down.

“Crystal,” Emma said, pushing past her into the office. “I am terribly pleased you are no longer eating out of dumpsters.” She shot a look back at Crystal to survey her up and down, her gaze vaguely judgemental in a way Crystal had become accustomed to since moving to London. “You are no longer eating out of dumpsters, correct?”

“That’s right,” Crystal said. “Thanks for hiring the boys to get rid of David.”

“I paid those twats with a one-of-a-kind book on Ancient Demonic Horticulture to banish a demon from your body. Manners might have demanded a thank-you card, at the very least.”

Emma wouldn’t meet her gaze, she was staring at her gown intently as if it had wronged her, but not a single ruffle was out of place. Crystal had known Emma for years, she’d met her when she’d been just a lonely kid, terrified of seeing ghosts around every corner. She probably knew Emma better than she knew any of the so-called friends she’d made in London. And right now, Emma looked hurt. 

“I’m sorry, it’s been a crazy few months. I was going to visit, really, I just— Forgot,” Crystal said, trying to imbue her voice with sincerity. 

“Rather,” Emma agreed. She’d crossed her arms over her chest and turned her face to regard the messy state the office was still in. “Where have those two run off to?”

“A banshee, I think.”

“You think?” Emma said, she blinked as if she’d come to a realization. “What are you still doing here? They did banish the demon, correct? As improper as it may be, I’m not above demanding restitution if they did shoddy work.”

“No, they did, he’s gone. Well,” Crystal paused. “He is still technically in my head, but they banished him, originally. And by in my head, I mean, I buried him. Under my tree. So I’ve got it under control.”

Emma squinted at her, scrutinizing her forehead as if she could look through her skull and past her brain and actually catch a glimpse of David buried under her mind tree. Maybe she could. She did have a magical squid as a pet.

Before she could say anything else, the boys came tripping through the mirror. 

“—told you, Charles,” Edwin was in the middle of saying. “Just because it's a hall of mirrors doesn’t mean it works any differently than a regular old mirror.”

“I dunno about that, there was an odd light in the middle there. Felt like I was at the disco— Emma!”

“Emma?” Edwin asked, spinning to look at Crystal and Emma, standing amongst haphazard piles of books and notes. His fingers twitched as he took in the state of the office, Emma’s standoffish body language, and Crystal’s rumpled sweater. Eventually he ventured, “Is this a social visit?”

“Not at all,” Emma said, taking a seat in the chair reserved for clients. “I’ve come with another case for you two.”

“Three,” Charles said cheerily. 

“Three?” Emma said, spinning to look at Crystal incredulously.

“Three,” she confirmed, guiltily.

“Well then,” Emma said, turning back to the boys. “With a psychic on your payroll I expect quick work, and perhaps you’ll waive your fee considering I did find you said psychic.”

“That is out of—”

“We’ll take it into consideration,” Charles said, sitting backwards on the desk and tugging Edwin into his chair. “What’s the job?”

“It’s regarding a friend of mine, another ghost,” Emma said, her hands clenched in her lap. “She’s gone missing.”

+

The facts were this: Emma’s friend Beth had been missing for fifteen days. 

Beth had died in the early nineteen hundreds in a factory fire two days before her eleventh birthday. She usually haunted a cemetery in the countryside. It was where the memorial for the factory fire was located and Beth had made it her death’s work to make sure it was looked after. There hadn’t been a day in over a hundred years where Emma couldn’t find Beth perched on her memorial, or thereabouts in the cemetery playing games amongst the headstones. But Emma had been looking for Beth, to no avail, for just over two weeks.

“Perhaps she moved on?” Edwin had ventured, carefully.

Emma had sent him a scathing look at that suggestion.

“She wouldn’t have moved on without saying goodbye,” she’d insisted. 

And, well, Edwin was all too familiar with having a friend whose parting was unfathomable. He’d slid a sly look at Charles and when he’d looked back at Emma, Crystal had been watching him knowingly. He really wished she would stop doing that.

So here they were, spending what should have been a relaxing evening debriefing from their banshee case, stomping through a derelict cemetery. Emma had been judiciously specific when describing the cemetery to them, so even though it seemed no living person had stepped foot on these grounds for decades, they managed to find Beth’s memorial with little trouble.

“Here stands a memorial to those who died on March 17, 1906, in the Derry Textile Factory fire,” Charles read from the placard on the statue of a rather incensed-looking angel. He ran a finger down the list of names beneath the description and stood with a nod. “Yeah, this is the one, alright. Beth’s on there, just like Emma said.”

Crystal stepped forward and placed her hand on the statue, but her eyes remained their natural shade of brown and no vision seemed to overcome her. She ran her fingers along the wing of the angel, before putting her hands back in her pocket.

“I’m not getting anything. How are we supposed to find a missing ghost in an abandoned cemetery?” Crystal asked.

“We could ask the locals,” Charles said, gesturing to the headstones. 

Crystal wrinkled her nose. “What? Is Edwin going to summon another Shelby Kahn? It doesn’t make much sense to me to call up a ghost who doesn’t frequent this place, just for them to tell us they don’t even know Beth. Look around. No one’s here.”

“You’re right,” Edwin said, studying the memorial. 

“I am?” Crystal asked from behind him, sounding incredulous.

Really. She needed to work on confidence in her own assertions if she had any hope of being a good detective. He opened his mouth to say just that, but stopped himself. 

He’d been trying, however much he was able, to not antagonize Crystal since she’d officially joined the agency. He could still sometimes hear Charles, by the beach in Port Townsend, demanding to know if Edwin was going to be the one to keep spirits up. However much Charles had assured him since that he hadn’t meant what he’d said, Edwin knew those words held a kernel of the truth. 

So he did his best to reign in the first retort that came to mind, and said instead, “Quite. It seems this place is rather abandoned.” He pointed at the unruly grass and vines nearly overtaking the once stalwart rows of headstones, that now looked like a mouthful of crooked teeth. “Except for this memorial,” Edwin said, placing a hand on an angel wing, freshly scrubbed of mold and moss. 

With the tip of his boot he prodded a rotting bouquet of flowers at their feet, then he pulled out his notebook, to take down his observations, while he spoke them aloud. 

“It seems Beth has been the sole dogsbody of this memorial’s continued preservation. If she’s the one who left the flowers, I’d say it's been well over two weeks since she’s been missing.”

“Well then, where did she go?” Crystal asked, looking around their immediate vicinity. “Are there, like, ghost kidnappers?”

“We dealt with a demon who was eating ghosts once, remember the Case of the Apéritif?” Charles asked.

“Of course,” Edwin said, wiping a gloved finger over the memorial’s placard. “But I don’t see any sulfuric residue. If a demon was here, there would be more overt signs. There’s not even evidence of a struggle.”

“Right, you know what this calls for?” Charles asked, catching Edwin’s eye only to direct a wicked grin at him.

“Good old-fashioned shoe leather,” Edwin said, closing his notebook with a flap.

“Got it in one,” Charles said, throwing an arm around Edwin’s shoulders.

As a group they trudged further into the cemetery. The murky fog lingering in the air around them made the early evening appear as dark as twilight. It was a charming spot to be laid to rest. If Edwin had had a choice in the matter, he could have done much worse than the small, woodland area. A large forest came up on one side of the cemetery’s low brick barrier wall, and an abandoned church brought up the other. They were several miles from any sort of neighborhood traffic and a peaceful quiet rang crisp and clear around them. 

Several feet away, Crystal had stopped to stoop in front of a small headstone. She placed a hand to its weathered surface and her eyes turned milky white.

When she pulled away, she was crying. She stood, still wiping the tears from her cheeks.

“Crystal? Are you alright?” Charles asked, pulling away from Edwin to approach her.

She waved him off, but it took her a moment to collect herself.

“This is Emma’s grave,” Crystal said, pointing at the headstone. 

“Did you see anything—” Useful, Edwin stopped himself from saying. He pursed his lips and then said, “recent?”

Crystal shook her head. “Nothing about Beth.” She pressed her hand to the headstone one last time and said, so low Edwin wasn’t sure if she was speaking to them or not, “Her family plot is in London. Why is she all the way out here?”

They continued on, winding a path through the cemetery that led to its furthest side, where the forest had begun to overgrow the barrier wall. Vines pushing bricks apart, weeds poking through cracks in its cement base, moss covering its exterior so thoroughly it looked to be draped in a plush green carpet.

Edwin held out a hand to Charles and Charles procured his magnifying glass. With his tool in hand, Edwin crouched by the moss to inspect it for any supernatural properties. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it looked to be verdant but entirely mundane. 

“Did Emma say how long this place had been deserted?” Charles asked.

“A couple years,” Crystal said. “Since the church closed.”

Charles whistled. “This looks like quite a bit of growth for only a couple of years.”

“Indeed,” Edwin said, standing and dropping his magnifying glass in Charles’s waiting hand. “We should perhaps—”

But he bit off whatever he’d been about to say when he saw the lights dancing through the trees. 

“Edwin?” Charles asked, closing the miniscule distance between them by squeezing Edwin’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Ignis fatuus,” Edwin said in a low voice, gesturing towards the forest. He saw Crystal, out of the corner of his eye, standing on tiptoe to see what he was looking at. He stepped out of Charles’s grip so he could stand between her and the lights. “No, don’t look at them.”

“Why?” Crystal asked, petulantly. “What the hell is ignis flatulence?”

“They’re will-o’-the-wisps,” Charles said, before Edwin could get sidetracked correcting Crystal’s pronunciation. “Dancing lights in the woods. They lead humans astray. One look at them and you could get properly lost. Wouldn’t see civilization for who knows how long. Seeing them usually means—”

“The fae are close by,” Edwin said, gesturing at Crystal to turn around and head back the way they’d come. “Come along, we’d do well to avoid any interaction with the fae. They’re— easily insulted creatures.”

Crystal didn’t move an inch. Just continued to stare at what she could see of the forest over Edwin’s shoulders. 

“Crystal, come along, we must look for more clues as to what happened to Beth.”

“But what if Beth went into the woods?” Crystal said, looking between both of them. “She might not have known about will-o’-the-wisps like you, maybe she followed them.”

Edwin shared a measured look with Charles. If Beth had followed the will-o’-the-wisps, there was no telling what had happened to her. The fae weren’t famously merciful and they were easily offended. If Beth had so much as kicked a stone out of place in those woods, it would be less a matter of finding her and more a matter of finding out if she still existed on this plane.

“Oh come on,” Crystal said, waving her arms to get their attention. “Stop having private discussions with your eyebrows! Let’s skip the part where you pretend to tell me no and then I remind you that a little girl’s soul is at stake and we all come to an agreement to rescue her. We don’t have that fifteen minutes to waste.”

She pushed past Edwin and began climbing the wall. 

“You’re not going to stop her?” Charles asked, watching Crystal as she tried to scale vines in an ankle-length skirt. They really had to have a discussion about proper forms of dress for detective work.

“You wanted a human in the agency,” Edwin said primly. “If she perishes in the forest, I won’t hear a word about your innumerable regrets.”

Without looking back at Charles’s undoubtedly amused face, he phased through the brick wall, and had the pleasure of listening to Crystal’s creative cursing as she attempted to follow him. It gave him the opportunity to survey the wooded area past the cemetery.

Somehow, it was even quieter on this side. Darker, too. That didn’t bode well for how deeply in the fae realm this place was. 

The air felt thick with energy, like the moments before a thunderstorm. When Edwin looked up from considering the lichen growing on the side of a tree, he saw a footpath he hadn’t before. It was lined with mushrooms and unerringly led into the darkest part of the forest. 

He wondered if whatever lived in these woods was having them on.

“Well, that’s not creepy,” Charles said, coming up beside Edwin. 

Crystal was still patting dirt and debris off herself from her ill-fated climb.

“Creepy or not, if we’re to find Beth, we may want to obey the designs of our— hosts,” Edwin said. Around them the wind shivered through the trees, raining acorns and leaves on them.

“That’s a yes, then,” Charles said. “We go forward, we stay on the path. I’ll go last, yeah?”

He didn’t pull out his new cricket bat, but Edwin could tell by the flex of his fingers that he sorely wanted to. Entering the woods armed, might be seen as a sleight. They wanted to appear benevolent, humble, and gracious.

Edwin nodded tightly, trying desperately not to remember the Case of the Weeping Willow.

“Off we go,” Edwin said, putting one foot on the path.

The next thing he knew he was falling.

Chapter Text

Crystal woke up in bed and for a moment, she had no idea where she was. 

“Are you still sleeping?” a voice said.

Her mom was standing in the doorway, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. She was wearing an apron and shaking her head, her disappointment was familiar but what wasn’t familiar was the way she was smiling. 

“Get a move on, it’s time for breakfast,” her mom said, leaving the room again. When Crystal still didn’t move, her mom peeked back in. “Five minutes or I can’t guarantee there will be any pancakes left.”

Despite her reservations, Crystal got changed and left her room. Only in the hallway did she remember which apartment she was in, the one in Soho with the gaudy light fixtures. She couldn’t remember her parents ever staying here with her, but there they were at the dining room table. Both of them smiling over cups of steaming coffee.

They hadn’t had breakfast together in— years. Maybe, ever. Crystal had mostly stayed in this apartment by herself, while she went to private school, and then she hadn’t been here much at all since she got her GED. The last time had been a month ago, with— Someone? She couldn’t remember. 

Someone had come with her to help her get some of her things, someone had held her as she cried into a purple faux-fur pillow, someone else had berated her folding technique and took it upon themselves to refold all of her clothes before she put them in a suitcase. 

“Here,” her mom said, interrupting Crystal’s quiet meltdown. She put a pancake shaped like Mickey Mouse on Crystal’s plate. Crystal hadn’t even realized she’d sat down with them at the table. “I made your favorite.”

Crystal stared at the pancake and then looked back at her parents. They were watching her expectantly. Her mom was still wearing that ridiculous frilly apron, she hadn’t even known her mom could cook. Her head started to pound, a steady beat against her temples.

“Thanks,” Crystal said, making no move to eat it.

“You don’t like it?” her mom asked, frowning. “I can make you something else, what do you want?”

“I’m not hungry,” Crystal said. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean, sweetheart? We live here,” her mom said, looking genuinely perplexed. “We’re your parents.”

“No, you— Well, yeah, sure, I guess,” Crystal said. “Technically. But you sure as hell don’t act like it.”

“Oh honey,” her dad said, putting a hand on her elbow. “Where is this coming from?”

Crystal pulled out of her dad’s grasp with so much force that her chair hit the ground behind her. She stood before them, both of their faces the picture of concern, but she couldn’t make their presence here make sense. And her head wouldn’t stop pounding . It was almost like someone was knocking, demanding to be let in. 

“Crystal!” a voice shouted suddenly. Her parents didn’t seem to hear it, their faces didn’t flinch from their frozen expressions of worry. “Crystal, it's not real!” 

“Edwin?” Crystal asked, though she had no idea where the name had come from. 

She turned around and the room dissolved around her, like the entire apartment was a backdrop that had fallen to the floor. There were no more pancakes or concerned parents, no more gaudy apartment or empty platitudes.

Instead, there was the most beautiful sight of all: Edwin Payne with an impatient frown on his face.

“There you are,” Edwin said. “Come along, we must find Charles.”

He spun on his heel and started walking as if he’d only paused for a moment so she could catch up, and not dragged her bodily from a false reality.

“Edwin, slow down. Where are we?” Crystal asked, matching Edwin’s stride.

He was walking so purposefully, it was as if he could tell up from down and right from left, even though there was nothing to see in any direction around them. Just darkness. Not even the watchful eyes that were usually present in Crystal’s void. Which could only mean they were somewhere else, entirely.

“We’ve been taken hostage,” Edwin said, not slowing his stride. “It’s really quite rude, we didn’t even break any bylaws that I’m aware of, we’d only just stepped on the path they provided.”

“We’re prisoners? Of who?” Crystal asked. 

Edwin turned to look at her as if she’d grown three heads. “The fae, of course. Keep up, Crystal.”

It was as if Edwin had pulled the plug on a tub. Crystal remembered the case. Emma and Beth. Charles— God, where was Charles?

“Charles!” Crystal shouted. “Charles, are you—”

She was cut off by Edwin grabbing her shoulder and pressing a hand to her mouth.

“While I sympathize with your objective,” Edwin said, in a low, serious voice. “You should know that we are not alone in this place. We cannot afford to divulge our intentions to our spectators.”

“What is this? A peep show?” Crystal demanded, as soon as Edwin had removed his hand. “Why won’t they show themselves?”

Edwin sighed, hanging his head for a moment before collecting himself. “The fae are not exhibitionists, they are deities. We,” he pointed between them, “are nothing more than chess pieces to them.”

“How did you get out?” Crystal asked, as he continued walking. “I knew something was wrong, but it would have taken me ages for it to occur to me that I could escape. You must have known right away, for you to get to me that fast.”

Edwin didn’t respond for a long moment. Crystal noticed that his fists were pressed together, the leather of his gloves creaking as he rubbed his knuckles. 

“Our hosts show you something you wish to see to lull you into a false sense of calm. You were with your parents,” Edwin said. “You likely wish for them to— show you attention. Correct?”

“Yes,” Crystal agreed, reluctantly. It was more like she wished they were home at all, that she wasn’t left to her own devices in a strange city at sixteen, but sure, they could call that attention.

“My wish is far less— likely,” Edwin said. Crystal wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light, but for a moment she could’ve sworn it looked like Edwin was blushing. “I knew it must be a trick.”

“I wouldn’t call my mom making me pancakes likely, I don’t even think she knows how to use a stove,” Crystal said.

“Yes, well, your parents are alive and it’s reasonable that they might come to their senses and behave like responsible guardians in the near future,” Edwin said. “My wish was far outside the realm of possibility, a nearly laughable bit of counterfeit. That is, if I was in the mood for laughter.”

“What, were you, like, alive again?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Edwin said. “I hardly see how it’s any of your business—”

“You saw my wish,” Crystal said. 

She was unsure why she was needling Edwin about this so much. They’d gotten along so— Well, not perfectly. They still bickered daily, but they hadn’t had a real argument since Port Townsend. There was something about this subject, though, like there was something Crystal didn’t know. She hated not knowing things, being left in the dark made her feel like a child. 

And Edwin had seen her wish. Against her will he’d seen straight inside her head to the thing she longed for the most. She wanted to see what was hidden inside of him too.

Edwin sighed, gustily. He’d stopped walking, his brows pinched together like one long, angry caterpillar.

“If you must know, Charles was there and he— kissed me,” Edwin stuttered. And that was a blush on his face, dusting his cheekbones a peculiar rosy shade of red. 

Crystal was surprised. She didn’t know why she was surprised. As the feeling washed over her, her first thought was: Of course that was Edwin’s deepest, darkest desire. But still, the surprise lingered, widening her eyes and making her mouth fall open before she could stop it.

“Did you really not know?” Edwin asked. “Charles didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” Crystal asked. If they’d been dating this whole time and Charles hadn’t told her, she didn’t know how she’d feel. She braced herself for whatever Edwin might say, but still, for some reason, wasn’t prepared for:

“In Hell, I told him I was in love with him and he rejected me,” Edwin said, so matter-of-fact it was as if he was telling her it was raining and to bring an umbrella.

“He did?” Crystal asked.

“He was very gentlemanly about it all, of course,” Edwin said, defensiveness creeping into his voice. 

“Yeah, no, I mean, I’m sure he was, it’s just—” Crystal didn’t actually know what it was just. Maybe it was just that Charles, for all he’d flirted with her and kissed her and intrigued her far more than any boy she could remember—and she could actually remember , now—hadn’t denied Edwin anything he’d asked for since she’d met them. At the moment, sexuality and attractiveness and disparate needs didn’t factor into her rationale at all, it was just that she could hardly conceive of Edwin asking for something Charles wouldn’t give him. “Right, so, Charles kissed you and you knew it was fake because he rejected you, like, a few months ago. Was that so hard to say?”

Edwin was looking at her like she was a particularly vexing puzzle. It was almost flattering.

“I didn’t want to— I consider you—” Edwin pursed his lips as he stared hard at the paint splattered artfully on Crystal’s jacket. “I care about both you and Charles and I know how you both feel for each other. I wanted Charles to know how I felt, but I didn’t want it to appear as if I was trying to come between you.”

If Edwin would have let her, Crystal would have hugged him. That was probably the most considerate anyone had ever been of her feelings. She felt tears pooling in her eyes unbidden, and turned to blink them away before Edwin could see.

“Yeah, well, thank you,” Crystal said, trying to sound casual even as her voice wavered. “Charles and I though— We’re just friends.”

“Be that as it may,” Edwin said. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

I’ve seen the way he looks at you too , Crystal wanted to say, but she bit the words back. She didn’t think she and Edwin were in a place to speculate about the sexuality of the boy they both had a crush on. Maybe one day, when they weren’t traversing a magical void.

Crystal’s gaze was distracted by a light over Edwin’s shoulder.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing. 

Edwin turned and reached back to shield her. “That is what we’ve been looking for.”

 “Charles?” Crystal asked.

“Indeed,” Edwin said, taking hold of her hand. “Brace yourself.”

Crystal didn’t have time to ask, For what? The light sped forward to meet them, whiting out Crystal’s vision so thoroughly that for a long moment she could see nothing at all.

Edwin squeezed her fingers. 

“Blink, Crystal,” he instructed.

And she did, with each blink their surroundings slowly resolved around her, like a developing Polaroid picture. First the outline of shapes, then color and texture. 

They were in a small bedroom. It was homey, lived-in, unlike many of the Architectural Digest catalog homes her parents had set her up in over the years. There were quilts on the bed that looked handmade, pictures on the walls of real people and trips they’d taken, even a small vanity with perfumes and jewelry. A finger painting, likely done by a child, was tucked into the vanity mirror. 

“Charles,” Edwin said.

When Crystal turned she realized they weren’t alone. There was a man on the bed, sitting with his head in his hands. His hair was gray and his exposed forearms were lined with wrinkles. A wedding ring gleamed on his finger. She wouldn’t have guessed this was Charles, but when he looked up she realized Edwin was right.

It was Charles if he was her parent’s age. He looked good like this, reading glasses tucked into the front pocket of his shirt, deep grooves in his cheeks right where he smiled. 

Charles frowned at the two of them for a moment, he opened his mouth as if to ask them who they were. Edwin’s hand in hers began to squeeze, she didn’t think Edwin could take Charles not recognizing him. Luckily, she didn’t have to worry much further than that, because the confusion melted from Charles’s face so quickly it was as if it hadn’t been there at all. 

He jumped up from the bed and threw his arms around Edwin. Edwin let go of Crystal’s hand to steady Charles from tipping both of them over.

“Oh, thank god,” Charles breathed. He looked up from where his face had been pressed to Edwin’s neck just long enough to find Crystal, so he could pull her into their hug. “I knew something was wrong, felt like I was losing my mind.”

In the other room, if there technically was another room, Crystal could hear the faint, ordinary sounds of someone cooking. A child giggled. In their arms, Charles shuddered.

“What in the bloody hell is going on? Where are we? What is this place?” Charles asked.

“The fae,” Edwin said, smoothing a hand down Charles’s arm. “You must wake up, Charles.”

“Wake up, right,” Charles said, closing his eyes. “Wake up.”

When the room dissolved around them this time they didn’t emerge in the void. Instead, they were in a small clearing. It was beautiful, dotted with wildflowers and patches of rich green grass. The moon overhead lit up the trees so bright it almost could have been mistaken for the middle of the day, and the stars peaking through the treetops looked nearly like lights wrapped around the branches. 

They were alone except for a single red fox.

They were still tangled together, but at the sight of the fox Edwin drew back from Charles’s grip and straightened his suit jacket. 

“Edwin, don’t,” Charles said, looking between Edwin and the fox. He was back to his normal, sixteen-year-old self. Except now, there was something sad about the pristine youth of his face, something Crystal didn’t presently have the heart to investigate.

“Do you object to making amends with the keeper of the forest you’ve trespassed in, little ghost?” a voice said, and it took Crystal a beat to realize it was coming from the fox.

“Who do we have the pleasure of speaking with?” Edwin asked, formal as ever, even when addressing a woodland creature in a magical clearing.

“The Fox Queen,” the fox said. 

Charles sighed softly and Crystal knew exactly what he was thinking: The last thing they needed was more animal royalty.

“Your majesty,” Edwin said. “We entered your woods to find a soul that has been lost. She resides in the cemetery your woods abut. Perhaps you’ve seen her?”

“If you mean that little girl who tried to steal our flowers, then yes, we are familiar,” the Fox Queen replied. “She is being rightfully punished in our kingdom as we speak.”

“Ah, well,” Edwin said, clearing his throat, likely appalled at the prospect of a little girl being punished for stealing flowers . “We apologize for her transgression. She is just a child, you see, and likely wanted flowers to adorn the memorial of her passing. Is there anything we can trade you to win her freedom?”

“What would you give us?” the Fox Queen asked.

“We have all the traditional forms of payment: stories, fresh cream, bread and butter—”

“We have no use for stories, and our kind can hunt for our own food,” the Fox Queen began to turn away, her bright red tail swishing through the air as she stood. “The girl is worth more to us than your offerings.”

“No, wait,” Edwin said. The Fox Queen paused and inclined her head curiously. Her eyes were a startling gold that reminded Crystal too much of the Cat King. “What would be worth your while?”

The Fox Queen smiled, as much as a fox was capable of smiling. “An equal trade, a soul for a soul. If one of you three remained here, we could part with the girl.”

Edwin didn’t respond, but he took a step forward in a way that Crystal knew could only spell trouble. Before she could freak out, Charles grabbed the back of Edwin’s coat. 

“Me,” Charles said. “I’ll stay.”

“Charles, what the fuck?” Crystal demanded. She’d thought he was going to stop Edwin from doing something stupid, not do something stupid himself. It wasn’t, like, a shocking turn of events, but it was an infuriating one.

“Yes, Charles, what the fuck indeed,” Edwin said, turning to glare at him. 

“Trust me,” Charles said, lowly. He reached into his pocket and flashed something at Edwin. Edwin’s eyes widened and he nodded, both tells nearly imperceptible. Charles turned to look at Crystal and smiled. “It’ll be okay, yeah?”

If Edwin trusted Charles’s plan, she could too. That didn’t mean she had to like it. Crystal glared at him. She hoped it got the message across.

“If you’re finished negotiating, we agree to your terms,” the Fox Queen said. “Come forward.”

Charles stepped away from them, squeezing their arms as he went. He slipped his backpack off his shoulder and handed it to Edwin. Edwin took it like he’d been handed a baby and he’d never held a baby before, so Crystal took it from him and shouldered it.

“Right,” Charles said. “Bring out Beth.”

“She will be on the other side of the wall, when your companions return to the cemetery,” the Fox Queen said. “You have my word.”

“If she's not—”

“Do you not trust my word?” the Fox Queen asked. “Should I not trust yours?”

Charles didn’t say anything at all. His back, without his backpack, looked small and a little naked.

“If that is all, let us depart,” the Fox Queen said, trotting towards a gap in the trees.

Charles turned to look back at them. He was fiddling with something in his hand, something that reflected moonlight back at them like a magnifying glass. 

“Don’t wait up—” Charles said and then he’d vanished. Charles, the clearing, the Fox Queen, all of it was gone. 

Crystal and Edwin stood alone at the beginning of the path, where they’d been when Edwin disappeared and Charles ran forward before Crystal could stop him and they’d ended up on a different goddamn plane of existence. Everything was the same, except for the fact that Charles was nowhere to be found.

“Edwin,” Crystal said, trying to remain calm. “What do we—”

“Climb the wall,” Edwin commanded, turning away from the woods. 

“But—”

“Crystal,” Edwin said, his eyes hard and uncompromising. “We can do nothing for Charles until we have left the Fox Queen’s realm. Climb the wall.”

She climbed the wall. It was easier this time, because she basically threw herself over it. On the other side, Edwin was staring down at a little girl. The girl was blinking at them, as if dazed. Her brown hair was pulled back by a linen cap, tied at the base of her neck. The apron she was wearing was stained with grease and dirt as if she’d only just stepped away from her work. She must have been Beth, because if she wasn’t Crystal was going to start throwing punches. 

“Beth?” Crystal asked, when words didn’t seem to be forthcoming from Edwin. He was vibrating in place like he wanted to be pacing, shouting, solving something, but he was trapped by the niceties that came with handling a small girl who had recently been kidnapped by fairies. 

“Yes, do I know you?” Beth asked. She had a thick Irish brogue. Crystal had been expecting her to sound like Emma, so it took her a second to make Beth’s question make sense.

“We’re friends of Emma,” Crystal said. “We were hired by her to rescue you.”

“Oh, what a dear,” Beth said, pressing her hands to her chest. “I don’t know how to thank you. If they haven’t been looted, I have some doubloons buried around here somewhere, for your trouble.”

“No need for that,” Charles said, appearing at Crystal’s elbow with a maddening grin. “We’ve been paid.”

“Charles!” Crystal shouted, punching him in the arm.

“Ow!” Charles yelped, but he didn’t protest any further when Crystal threw her arms around him. From over Charles’s shoulder, Crystal could see Edwin breathing out a long-held breath of relief.

“That was quite a gamble, Charles,” Edwin said.

Crystal pulled back from Charles and looked him up and down. He appeared all in one piece, but she had no idea how he’d pulled it off.

“Yeah, well,” Charles said, pulling something out of his pocket. It was the pocket mirror they’d received as payment for their last case. “It turns out this thing can actually work across planes, which is brills.”

“I thought that thing just reflected you across the room, like, made a body double,” Crystal said.

“It does, but the original turns invisible, watch,” Charles said, opening the mirror and turning it towards himself. The Charles standing next to her vanished. She blinked in surprise and had no idea what she was looking at until she heard Charles calling, “Over here!”

She turned to find him a hundred feet away, waving at her cheerfully from between two ostentatious headstones. As if he’d pulled off a magic trick. 

“Right but that’s my reflection, innit?” Charles said, except he was saying it directly into her ear.

She yelped. The Charles she’d been looking at shimmered and then dissolved as if he’d been made of mist. When she turned around, Charles was still standing next to her, pocketing the mirror with no small amount of satisfaction. 

“That’s going to get old really fast,” Crystal said.

“The Fox Queen won’t like that you’ve tricked her, Charles,” Edwin said. He was standing with his hands behind his back, a stance that Crystal had quickly learned meant he was freaking the fuck out but didn’t want them to know about it. “She will likely return for payment.”

“And we’ll be far away when she does,” Charles said, throwing an arm around Edwin’s tense shoulders. “Besides, what was I going to do? Get you back from Hell and then let you get spirited away to Faerie? I don’t think so.”

“Hell?” Beth asked, which is around when they all seemed to remember where they were and who they were with.

“Beth, is there anywhere you can go for a bit? You shouldn’t be here by yourself right now,” Crystal said, leaning down to meet her eyes. 

Beth looked like she wanted to protest, but after a long moment she steeled herself and said, “I’ll call on Emma in the city.”

“We’ll escort you,” Charles said, magnanimously. 

Crystal, just glad they’d all agreed to finally leave this goddamn cemetery, pulled out her phone to see if Uber would consider picking her up in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.

+

They dropped Beth off at the cemetery where Emma spent most of her time, and legged it before Emma could turn up. It occurred to Charles that it was strange Emma spent most of her time at her family plot in the city, when she wasn’t even buried there. From Crystal’s reaction upon finding Emma’s headstone, he figured she didn’t know why either. He was going to bring it up, but decided against it. Crystal looked knackered. She was swaying on her feet as they walked her the last few blocks to the office. 

As soon as they’d returned from Port Townsend, it had taken them about two weeks to haunt a couple of knobs who lived on the first floor of their building to the point that they moved out. A new record. Then they’d helped Crystal round up some of her things and moved her in under the nose of the bellend who owned the place. They’d gotten away with her squatting for now, but Edwin had been working on a spell so hopefully that wouldn’t be necessary much longer. 

“Alright, here we are,” Charles said, leading Crystal up the back stairs by her elbow.

“I can walk,” Crystal protested, seconds before tripping on her own skirt.

“You sure about that?” Charles chuckled, looking to Edwin to share an amused glance but finding Edwin walking past both of them with purpose. 

Crystal may not have noticed her own hem, but she certainly noticed Edwin’s chilly attitude.

“You going to fix that, or am I gonna have World War III on my hands when I wake up?” Crystal asked.

“I can hear you,” Edwin said, from the landing above them.

“Sorry to have spoiled you, yes there was a second World War,” Crystal said.

Edwin’s face appeared over the banister just so he could roll his eyes at them, then he disappeared again. 

“Okay, here we go, you go on to bed, I’ll uh— handle the debriefing,” Charles said, ushering Crystal inside her apartment. 

“Good luck,” she said, with a yawn. “You’re gonna need it.”

Charles sighed as the door closed in his face. He knew Edwin wasn’t happy with how he’d chosen to resolve things. But they’d saved the little girl and made it back in three whole pieces, certainly he could get his best mate to see the benefit of that. He prepared himself to argue his case, to endure a few hours of a lecture, to redirect Edwin’s frazzled energy to a few rounds of Cluedo. What he wasn’t prepared for was to enter the office and see Edwin sitting at his desk, writing up a case report, like all was well.

“You alright there, mate?” Charles asked, approaching him warily.

“Of course,” Edwin said, not even glancing up from his work. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

The Night Nurse had dropped off a stack of those forms weeks ago and disappeared again before Edwin could convince her the amount of detail they required wasn’t truly necessary for their kind of work. He’d avoided them like the plague ever since, filling out their reused cardstock with an almost righteous vindication. Yet here he was, filling out paragraphs of paperwork he had vocally despised instead of looking Charles in the eye.

“Edwin,” Charles said, trying to entreat his partner to look at him. “Come on, what’s this about?”

Edwin put his pen down with a sigh. Charles had never known what to do with silence. He knew what to do with fists and shouting, with a belt being wrapped around split knuckles and hair yanked out of his head. Violence always had a clear answer: either take it or fight back. Silence was trickier.

“Charles—” Edwin started, but was cut off by the office door banging open.

Charles reached for his cricket bat before he was fully aware of what he was doing, but he felt it slip out of his hands as soon as he saw who had flown through their door.

It was Beth. Beth who they’d seen a little over an hour ago, who they’d left in perfectly fine condition, off to find Emma and give her the good news of her rescue.

Beth who now was hyperventilating in their doorway.

“Beth? Whatever is the matter?” Edwin asked, coming round the desk to stand beside Charles.

Charles caught Beth by the shoulder when she came closer to steady her.

“It’s Emma,” she said, between hitching breaths. “She’s gone missing.”

+

The sun was coming up by the time Charles and Edwin made it back to Emma’s family plot. They’d left Beth in Crystal’s living room, which Charles hoped wouldn’t be too big of a shock when she finally woke up. From there they split up to ask the locals if they’d seen Emma recently, but everyone they asked told them the same thing Beth had. 

Emma hadn’t been seen or heard from in three days. The last time anyone had spoken to her was when she was headed to their office, to hire them to find Beth. Unlike Beth, Emma was pretty well known in the ghost community. It wasn’t like her to skive off without telling anyone, especially when she’d just hired detectives to work a case for her. 

Not only that, but perhaps most damning of all, one of the ghosts they spoke with—an elderly woman who had been stoned in the early nineteen hundreds—had found Emma’s pet squid meandering by himself in the middle of the cemetery.

“We find one, we lose another,” Charles said, kicking a rock. “I don’t fancy telling Crystal we lost one of her only friends.”

Edwin was beside him, scribbling in his notebook, but he didn’t acknowledge Charles at all.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Charles said, reaching out and flipping Edwin’s notebook shut.

Edwin spluttered, looking up at Charles as if he’d only just realized he wasn’t alone. 

“Let’s hear it. What are you mad about?”

“I’m not mad,” Edwin said, pocketing his notebook. The way he couldn’t meet Charles’s eyes said otherwise.

“Sure, pull the other one,” Charles said. “What is it? Did I do a bad job? I can handle a negative performance review.”

“Of course not,” Edwin said. “You did admirable work, as always.”

“Then what?” Charles pressed. 

“Charles,” Edwin said, finally meeting his eyes—albeit with a serious tilt to his brow. “You cannot honestly think the Queen of the Foxes will not punish you for deceiving her. Did you learn nothing from my— situation with the Cat King? I am simply— concerned, that this whole affair is not as settled as you seem to think it is.”

“That wanker wanted to get frisky with you,” Charles said, watching the indignant flush rise in Edwin’s cheeks. “I doubt the Fox Queen has the same intentions, considering.”

“The fae are not moved to punishment solely by a desire for amorous relations,” Edwin protested. “Charles, the Fox Queen and the Cat King may not have the same motivations, but they are the same kind of creature, and neither abide by deception.”

“You should listen to your friend, little ghost,” a familiar voice said.

Charles was startled, not only by the voice but to realize how close he and Edwin had gotten. Their faces were so close that their noses were nearly touching. He took a step back and turned to find the Fox Queen, sitting atop a headstone and watching them serenely.

 “Your majesty,” Edwin said. “We both offer our sincerest apologies for any—”

“I have no quarrel with you, child. Begone.” 

Between one blink and the next Edwin was no longer beside him. Charles whipped around, scanning the cemetery for the familiar shape of his best mate, but he didn’t see him anywhere. 

“What have you—”

“Your friend is safe. He is waiting for you outside the cemetery,” the Fox Queen said.

“If that’s not true, I’ll—”

“While your dedication is honorable, I don’t have all night to dole out penance,” the Fox Queen said.

If Charles was living he would have felt a cold sweat begin along his spine at this pronouncement. As it was, he did feel dread’s cold fingers tickling his vertebrae.

“Are you the one who took Emma? Because it was my fault you didn’t get what you bargained for. Not hers.”

“The Kingdom of Foxes is not harboring your friend," the Fox Queen said.

All of the righteous anger left Charles in a rush. He felt unsteady on his feet, though Edwin would be the first to tell him he was a ghost, he could not lose his balance. He licked his lips and tried again, “Listen, I really am sorry I tricked you, but I couldn’t let you hold that little girl prisoner. She just wanted some flowers.”

The Fox Queen tilted her head. She really was a magnificent creature, her coat gleamed a burnished red under the early morning sun. 

“We all want things, Charles Rowland,” the Fox Queen said.

“How—”

“But that doesn’t mean they are ours to take,” she finished. She surveyed him carefully, a predator sizing up her prey. “A geas should suffice. Until you can learn to tell the truth, you will learn what it's like to be bound to the rules of the fae.”

“What— Bloody hell,” Charles said, cutting himself off with a hiss. His arm felt like it was on fire. When he pulled his sleeve back he saw what looked like a tattoo forming around his wrist, burning its way across his previously unblemished skin until the ends met in the middle, almost like a bracelet. 

Oh, he was never going to hear the end of this. 

He looked up to demand to know what the Fox Queen had meant, but she was gone. For the first time since he could remember, he was utterly alone.

Chapter Text

“Tell me again, why is Bender brooding while Charlie Chaplin junior draws on the wall with chalk?” Jenny asked.

“Jenny Green, I know for a fact you are apprised of our names,” Edwin said without looking up from his work. “Also, I’m hardly a vaudevillian. I think you are making a poor anachronism.”

Crystal sighed. She almost wished she hadn’t woken up this morning. 

She’d been dreaming of Niko again. They’d sat in Crystal’s void and talked for what felt like hours, about their parents and so-called friends, about how they’d never quite fit in at their schools and their favorite subjects. Niko had reenacted almost all twenty-six volumes of her favorite manga, making Crystal double over with laughter at her impressions. But of course, it wasn’t really Niko, just the Niko in her head. The one she wished she’d gotten to know.

She’d woken to Beth sobbing in her living room and Emma missing. As if that wasn’t enough, minutes after she’d gotten Beth calmed down, Charles and Edwin came swanning into her apartment mid-argument. 

Charles had a swanky new tattoo, courtesy of the Fox Queen, and none of them quite knew what it did. Crystal had tried to read it, but gotten nowhere. Edwin must have tried a dozen spells on the thing. He made Charles lay in a rune circle and fanned incense over him until Charles sneezed. Then he’d dragged Charles through a mirror to Port Townsend to consult Tragic Mick and come back looking like he was about to explode. Mick hadn’t had a clue either, only told them that the rules of a geas were specific to the desire of the caster.

Only the appearance of Jenny had derailed Edwin’s inevitable meltdown. Apparently there was something or other he’d been working on for Crystal and Jenny that he couldn’t do until Jenny was present as a witness. 

That left Charles laying on the boy's couch. He had his feet up on the armrest and his own arm over his face, as if he was trying to visualize himself anywhere but in London, in his office, with a geas on his wrist. He didn’t even flinch when Jenny called him Bender. And he hated The Breakfast Club . 

“There,” Edwin said, stepping back from the wall. He’d drawn what amounted to a door, with runes around the edges and an eyeball where the handle should have been. “I’ll need a hair from both of you, if you please.”

“Excuse me?” Jenny asked, not moving from where she was leaning against the desk. 

Crystal reached over and plucked a hair from Jenny’s ponytail, ignoring her affronted yelp. She tugged one of her own strands free and passed them both to Edwin. 

“Thank you, Crystal,” Edwin said, while looking pointedly at Jenny. Then he spun on his heel and proffered their hair towards the chalk door, as if he was holding out a bouquet of roses. He proceeded to say something in a language Crystal didn’t recognize, but assumed was very old, and their hair went up in flames. 

“What the fucking—” Jenny started, she was cut off by the door Edwin had, again, drawn on the wall with chalk, swinging open to reveal a long hallway behind it.

“Your new living quarters,” Edwin said, looking pretty pleased with himself. 

Jenny’s jaw was hanging open. 

“Is that— What is that?” Crystal asked, eyeing the entrance warily. There was a skylight in the center of the hallway, brightening the dark fixtures that lined the walls. There were four doors that she could see before the hallway veered around a corner

“It’s a flat,” Edwin said, and began ticking things off on his fingers, “Four bedrooms, a kitchenette, a parlor, a dining room, two water closets— What? Is there something missing? I didn’t paint the walls garish colors if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ll leave the decor up to you.”

“It's for us?” Crystal asked, amazed. A flat. Edwin had made them an entire flat. 

“How does it work?” Jenny asked warily. 

She looked less than thrilled, but then, she’d only just arrived in London and probably hadn’t been expecting to live in a flat that adjoined a teenage detective agency. It was almost the exact opposite situation that Crystal and Niko had had living above her butcher shop.

“Think of it like Charles’s infinite backpack. It’s a pocket dimension. It is— What does that chap on the telly say? Bigger on the inside,” Edwin said. He was making elaborate hand gestures as he explained. That and the small pleased quirk of his lips made Crystal confident he was pretty proud of himself. He should be, this was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her.

Crystal restrained herself from hugging him, but only because Jenny kept badgering.

“No offense, but I don’t think I love the idea of walking through your agency everytime I want to leave my own apartment,” Jenny said.

“There is a backdoor that leads to the street,” Edwin rebutted.

“The commute to my new shop is—”

“Twenty-seven minutes via the tube, hardly a chore.”

“And maybe I don’t want to live with a sixteen-year-old and two teenage ghosts.”

“It’s free,” Edwin said.

“Good enough for me,” Jenny said, striding past Edwin down the hall.

“Thanks, Edwin,” Crystal said.

Edwin’s gaze flicked away from watching Jenny explore their new apartment, to Crystal. 

“Oh,” he said. “You’re quite welcome.”

To give Edwin a break from genuine emotional connection Crystal looked over at Charles, who was still laying with his arm over his face. She walked over and kicked the leg of the couch, causing Charles to startle.

“What about you? Are you just going to lay here all day or are you going to help move me and Jenny in?”

“I’ll help, but I don’t want to,” Charles said. He frowned as soon as the words left his mouth, like he hadn’t meant to be so honest.

“Okay, jeez, stay put then,” Crystal said, turning towards the door so she could start getting her stuff.

“Wait a tick,” Charles said. “Ask me something.”

“Ask you what?”

“Anything, the weather, the time of day, just ask me a question,” Charles said, popping to his feet.

Edwin was watching him with a neutral expression that was teetering on the edge of dread. He looked at Crystal and raised a single eyebrow, as if to say, Well? You heard him.

Crystal swallowed and asked, “What color is my hair?”

“Red,” Charles said, then again, “Red.” He wrinkled his nose and began chanting, “Red, red, red— Fuck!”

“Charles, what’s the issue?” Crystal asked, tugging on a freshly dyed tip of her red curls. “That is the color of my hair.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t trying to say red, I was trying to say blue,” Charles said. He looked elated and fearful all at once. “The Fox Queen, she said, until I can learn to tell the truth, I will be bound to the rules of the fae. The fae—”

“Cannot lie,” Edwin said, looking nauseous. Though he’d be the first to tell her ghosts couldn’t get nauseous. “Charles, you cannot lie.”

“Right,” Charles said, likely realizing what they all were: That half their job was strategic lying. He brought his wrist up to his face, his tattoo resembled thorny vines and when he moved his arm it almost looked like they were twisting tight enough to draw blood. “Bugger.”

+

Moving Crystal and Jenny into their new flat took up the rest of the daylight. By the time Crystal was settled in her bed and the flat door firmly closed behind them, at Jenny’s insistence, the streetlights were casting long shadows across the floor of the office. 

Edwin flicked their lamp on and Charles watched him buzz about tidying. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence, the tidying, but it was rare enough to make it obvious that Edwin was avoiding a conversation. He’d had no trouble loudly proclaiming his dissatisfaction when they’d been reunited outside the cemetery, but he’d been avoiding Charles since Jenny had turned up and it was beginning to feel like salt in a wound.

God, Charles had been so daft. Cocky, stubborn, brash. He knew what the fae were like. They’d come up against them before. After the Case of the Weeping Willow Charles had left most of the negotiating with the fae to Edwin—that was, unless the negotiating turned into fisticuffs. That was Charles all over.

But for some reason he’d tried to pull one over on the Fox Queen, the very animal that emblemized tricksters. He still wasn’t sure why he’d done it. The pocket mirror had been heavy in his jacket, he’d still felt bereft from the hours he’d spent in his own delusion, with a perturbing cookie cutter family, sure that something vital was missing. Then the Fox Queen had said ‘a soul for a soul’ and Edwin had taken a step forward and all Charles could see was the Doll Spider. 

If he was being honest, the Doll Spider was on his mind more than it wasn’t. 

Sometimes, in the dead of night, while Edwin was reading and Charles was feigning sleep with his head on Edwin’s thigh, he fantasized about walking back down to Hell and driving his sword through the Doll Spiders’s carapace. He vividly imagined the squelch of its head, and wondered if the baby dolls that adorned its exoskeleton could bleed.

And now he was fucked, wasn’t he? Because so far, he’d kept all of those thoughts in his head. His bouts of violent rage and irrational brutality, his obsessive fantasies about slaying anyone or anything that looked at his best mate funny. And now he’d gone and cursed himself to tell the truth. 

He couldn’t lie anymore. He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t lied about something to someone.

He’d tell his mum he was fine, he’d tell his teachers he’d taken a tumble at cricket practice, he’d tell his cricket coach he’d fallen down the stairs. He’d tell his mates at school no really, he did find their jokes funny. He’d told girls he liked that it was fine when they liked one of his mates better than him. 

He’d told Edwin he was aces with people, no really, I can take a hit, I can fight, I can hold your spells and your books and your Bunsen burner, just please keep me around. Please need me as much as I need you.

If he was being even more honest, he didn’t know who a Charles Rowland who couldn’t lie even was.

Edwin flipped a book open with a sharp sound that roused Charles from his melancholia. He was sitting at his desk, his head tilted down to read something as his long fingers traced the words on the page. 

He wondered if Edwin would still love him, at the end of this.

“Edwin?” Charles asked. 

Edwin looked up, his eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. He was likely confused as to why Charles was standing in the middle of the office. Usually by now they’d have both made themselves comfortable, but Charles couldn’t sit until they’d sorted this out.

“Edwin, I’m sorry,” Charles said. “About the Fox Queen. That was proper daft and now I’ve gone and buggered everything up.”

“What are you talking about, Charles?” Edwin asked, his expression taking a turn for perplexed. “We’ll get the geas off in due time, if that’s what you’re worried about. It says right here—” He looked down at a section of the book in front of him and read aloud, “A geas is similar to being under a vow or a curse, the observance of which can bring power and blessings. It can also be used to mean a specific spell which prohibits some action.” Edwin looked up from his book and added, “The action yours prohibits being lying, but I wonder if the blessings from observance still apply.”

“That’s fascinating, mate, but unless we can figure out how to get this damned thing off my wrist in, oh, the next thirty seconds or so, I’ve only put you in danger by getting this— this hex put on me,” Charles practically spat, rubbing the tattoo as if he could wipe it from his skin. 

“How exactly have you put me in danger?” Edwin asked, a dangerous tilt to his brow.

“I—” Charles spluttered. “Well, isn’t it obvious? I can’t properly protect you like this, I can’t protect any of us. Edwin, those Americans are—”

Edwin huffed, turning back to his book. “Really, Charles, I’ve survived Hell twice. What could some Americans do to me?”

“If they did do anything, while I’m like this, I— I don’t know what I’d do. I’d go bloody mental,” Charles said.

“An inability to lie hardly prevents you from stabbing our adversaries,” Edwin said. “I won’t hear anything more about you apologizing. You were— I admit I was not fond of your methods, but you did save our client. That is what matters, Charles. It was a job well jobbed.”

“How can you be so okay with this?” Charles asked, collapsing on their settee. “I fucked up.”

“Welcome to not being perfect,” Edwin said, with a rueful smirk.

Charles’s heart panged in his chest, an ache so physical Charles nearly clutched his ribs. Instead, he stared at Edwin’s mouth, right at the corner where his lips quirked. 

Oh, he wondered. Is this what it felt like to be loved?

Before he could say anything else, there was a rap on their door. 

“Anyone in?” a man’s voice called from the hallway. “I have to speak to the Dead Boy Detectives posthaste.”

They shared a glance and Edwin called their visitor inside. It would appear they had a new case.

+

As soon as Crystal opened her eyes in the void, Niko said, “Did you figure out why those rich people are vanishing mysteriously?”

Everytime Crystal saw Niko here, she was filled with a warm rush of relief. She was never sure which time would be the last time her brain conceded to putting off her grief a little longer. Crystal still hadn’t mentioned it to Edwin or Charles. She had a feeling they’d be too sad—or even jealous, on Edwin’s part—that she could still see Niko somewhere when she’d so utterly disappeared from their lives. 

Not to mention, they had enough on their plates at the moment without worrying about why Crystal had been having hours-long conversations with her dead friend nearly every time she closed her eyes. 

She settled beside Niko on the ephemeral ground of her void, under the murky light of the eyes overhead, and updated her on their latest case.

As she spoke, Crystal focused on Niko’s eyes in an effort to not stare at the patch of blood on her sternum. There were speckled beauty marks along her cheekbones and Crystal wondered if they’d existed on the real Niko or if Crystal had made them up. Either way they framed Niko’s face like miniature constellations. When it came down to it, there really was plenty of Niko to look at besides the blood.

“No, okay, so, you know how our client is their butler who died in a carriage accident, like, before Edwin was even born?”

Niko nodded, seriously.

“So, at first Edwin thought the butler was double-crossing us, making the living family disappear one at a time so we’d be forced to stay at their country estate and maybe stumble upon their family treasures for him, or something,” Crystal explained. “Charles and I were more of the opinion that the family was just dying regular, weird, deaths, and moving on before anyone could talk to their ghosts.”

“But none of you are right, right?” Niko asked.

“Yeah, so the butler vanished this morning along with the Cassity family’s youngest son and when we asked Nanny— Oh, uh, did I tell you we’re calling the Night Nurse Nanny? She nearly shanked Charles when he tried to call her Charlie— Anyways. Nanny told us one of the first Cassity’s to disappear was a little girl and her soul hasn’t been processed. She hasn’t moved on, she’s not on the grounds, Edwin did a tracking spell and it didn’t lead anywhere. We’re back to square one.”

“Huh,” Niko said, tapping her chin with a nail. “This sounds just like an episode of Scooby Doo.”

Crystal put her chin on her knees, to keep her gaze level with Niko’s. 

“If this were Scooby Doo, what would you do?”

“Well, first I’d have a Scooby Snack,” Niko said, with a giggle. 

Crystal guffawed and shoved her shoulder, just a little, just enough to feel the starchy fabric of her clothing under her fingers.

“What? They always looked pretty yummy, like cookies,” Niko said. “And then, well, I guess I’d ask the staff.”

Crystal tilted her head. “Like, the maids?”

“Yeah,” Niko said. “They see everything.”

 +

“We should ask the maids,” Crystal said when she arrived at the estate the next morning.

“Why in the world would we do that?” Edwin asked.

Crystal had been staying in the small hamlet nearby when they weren’t investigating this case. She already missed her bed in her and Jenny’s flat. She wasn’t sure if it was because the flat technically existed in a pocket universe, or because Jenny was a fairly silent roommate, but the flat was blessedly quiet at night. A hamlet abutting a farming community, where most people rose with the sun to feed their livestock and till their fields, was anything but quiet. 

“We’ve been peeking in on the staff while you’re not here,” Charles explained. When Crystal shot him an affronted look, Charles added, “Not like that! Just listening to gossip and the like. Making sure none of them are disposing of any bodies after they’re done with their shifts. They all seem like decent folks.”

“Quite,” Edwin agreed.

“I don’t think any of them are murderers,” Crystal said, shaking her head. “But the maids know everything about this family. Probably more than they know about themselves. They might know who’s been taking them, even if they don’t know they know. Y’know?”

Edwin was watching her with narrowed eyes. Crystal tried not to waver under his scrutiny.

“Very well,” Edwin said. “You and Charles question the staff. I will pop over to the apothecary. We are missing a key ingredient to a spell I found that would show the last object a person touched. I’m not sure how helpful it would be, in this case, but it never hurts to replenish our supply of kelpie hair.”

“Maybe I should go with you, mate,” Charles said, looking vaguely panicked. “I’m not sure you should be hanging out so close to the Night Market by yourself.”

“Don’t be absurd, Charles,” Edwin said, turning on a heel. “I’ll just be a tick.”

Before Charles could voice any other concerns, Edwin had phased through the front door of the estate, likely to use the mirror in the foyer. Charles sighed gustily, his hand tightening on the strap of his backpack. 

“Don’t look so dejected. Is it that bad to get stuck with me?” Crystal asked, shoving him gently. 

She’d been trying for levity, but wasn’t expecting it when Charles replied, “Yes.” He immediately followed with, “Wait, Crystal, I’m—”

“Wow,” Crystal snapped, shoving past him and circling the exterior of the main building. “Just what I needed today, thanks Charles.”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Charles exclaimed as he chased after her. “I meant—”

“You can’t lie , Charles,” Crystal said, turning on him. Her heart felt heavy in her chest. She knew intrinsically that she was never anyone’s first choice, that the only person who had chosen her first was a demon, but she wasn’t quite sure why Charles’s reminder of that stung so much. There were tears springing to her eyes as she said, “So obviously you meant it exactly as it sounded.”

“No,” Charles insisted. “I didn’t. And I can’t lie about that, right?”

When Crystal didn’t say anything else, Charles reached for her cheek, likely intending to wipe her tears on the sleeve of his jacket. She stumbled backward out of his reach.

“Then how did you mean it?” Crystal demanded.

“I’m worried about Edwin,” Charles said. “Letting him go somewhere alone— especially somewhere with so many supernatural folks around— I’m worried these Americans will find him. And if they do, who knows what they’ll do to him. They might have Esther’s machine. They could take him and lock him up somewhere and hurt him and we wouldn’t even know about it until he was well hidden.” Charles shook out his shaking hands. “So, I’m not upset to spend time with you, I’m terrified to let Edwin go gallivanting off by himself.”

Crystal was sure that was what Charles thought his problem was, especially because he couldn’t exactly make shit up at the moment. But all these months after meeting him, she liked to think she could see past some of his usual bullshit. 

She poked a finger to his sternum and said, “Edwin told me what he said to you in Hell.”

Charles’s jaw dropped open, for a long moment he stared at her gaping like a fish which Crystal took some satisfaction in. 

“He told you that?” Charles asked.

“Yes,” Crystal said, feeling defensive all of a sudden. It wasn’t like she and Edwin never talked.

The other night he’d broken into her bedroom at four in the morning to give her a book about generational psychometry. He hadn’t left until she finished reading the section he’d annotated and then argued with her for half an hour about the tree in her head. She’d thought it was a nightmare until she’d woken up cuddling the book he’d brought her. She was reluctantly starting to think of him as the sibling she’d never wanted.

“He told me your response too,” Crystal said. “Don’t you think he might need some space mere weeks after you rejected him?”

“But he—”

“He can protect himself, Charles,” Crystal said. “Besides, I don’t think this has anything to do with keeping Edwin safe.” When Charles spluttered, she amended, “Okay, knowing you, maybe a little to do with that. But mostly? I think you’re worried he’s gonna go off and get himself some hot new ghost boyfriend now that you’ve rejected him.”

Charles closed his eyes briefly, like he was bracing himself. “If Edwin wants to date, that’s his business. I just wish he’d—” He cut himself off with a sigh and ran his hand through his hair. 

“Wish he’d what?” Crystal asked. 

“I wish he’d have better taste in guys,” Charles bit out. “If any non-asshole, non-animal folks wanted to date him, all the better. But that has yet to happen.”

Crystal briefly closed her eyes. If there was a wall nearby, she would have been banging her head against it, but they’d come to a stop on the estate’s garden path. No walls in sight, only winding cobblestone walkways, lined with effervescent seasonal flowers and meticulously trimmed hedges. God, these people really were needlessly rich, and that was coming from her .  

“Does that include you?” Crystal asked, knowing the answer.

“Yes, of course it does. Edwin deserves better,” Charles said, so quickly it was as if the words had been ripped from his throat. And maybe they had been, he immediately looked regretful that he’d said them. 

For an instant, Crystal felt bad that she had pressed him into this conversation when he didn’t have a choice but to be truthful. But, honestly? Knowing Charles for even a short while, she wasn’t sure she’d have gotten an answer from him if he hadn’t been cursed.

“Okay, you’re wrong for the record, but I don’t think I can be the one to have this discussion with you,” Crystal said, hanging her head. A last question beat itself against her temples, demanding to be spoken, until she couldn’t hold it back any longer. She looked up at Charles, her arms crossed protectively across her chest, and asked, “We were never going to work out, were we?”

Charles worked his jaw, she could imagine him parsing out his answer, and still not sure if the words that would come out of his mouth would be the ones he wanted to say, and felt bad. But she couldn’t go on, not knowing.

“I really wanted us to, but no,” Charles said. “I think we’re just in different places.”

A laugh was startled from Crystal before she could stop it. 

“What? What’d I say?”

“Different places, Charles? Really?” Crystal asked.

“Well, we are,” Charles said, waving his hand straight through a hedge. “Different lifestyles, huge age gap, separate planes of existence. All that jazz.”

Crystal guffawed and couldn’t help but shove Charles the rest of the way through the hedge, if only to hide from him that she was crying again. While he was out of eyesight, she wiped her face. She shook her head and afterward, felt a little lighter.

“Are you talking to yourself?” someone asked. 

Crystal spun around and found herself face to face with one of the family’s staff. A small redheaded woman, who she’d seen working around the estate. Today she had a load of dry sheets under one arm, likely taking them in from the clothesline.

“Oh, you’re the girl who’s friends with Margaret, right? Are you okay?”

Right, Crystal had told the family she’d been friends with the oldest son’s adult daughter, Margaret. She’d been one of the first to go missing, so it was an easy enough deception.

“Yeah, no, I’m fine, it’s just,” she summoned some more tears to her already wet eyes. “I’m just so worried about Margaret, you know?”

“Oh of course you are, dearie,” the woman said, putting her basket down on the walkway. “But that’s no reason to talk to yourself in the garden. The family will think you’ve gone round the bend.”

“She was talking to me!” Charles said, emerging from behind the hedge in one of his disguises. For some reason, he’d made a version of his generic older male disguise that was wearing a gray checkered suit. She wondered if he thought it made him look like he belonged at a rich family’s country estate. In reality, he looked like he could have been Edwin’s prep school teacher.

The woman clutched her chest, her eyes had gone wide at Charles’s appearance. Crystal had half a mind to push Charles back behind the hedge in frustration.

“I’m a detective, hired to look into the missing family members,” Charles said. Which was the truth, even if it didn’t include that he’d been hired by a centuries old ghost.

“Oh my,” the woman said, bustling past Crystal to stand closer to Charles. “You’re a private investigator?”

“Technically, yes,” Charles said.

“How long have you been a private investigator?” the woman asked, fluttering her pale eyelashes at Charles and— Oh no. Who knew middle-aged PIs would do it for lonely household staff?

Charles shot Crystal a panicked look and answered, “Thirty-five years.”

“Goodness, so much experience,” the woman said, sidling a little closer. Charles nearly fell off the walking path in an attempt to stay out of arm’s reach. “And how did you come into that line of work?

“I died,” Charles blurted, his eyes widening. He shot Crystal a panicked glance. “I mean, I, uh—”

“He had a near death experience,” Crystal interrupted. “He was just telling me about it. Very traumatic, it's hard for him to talk about, let alone twice in one day.”

“Oh you poor thing,” the woman said, finally getting a questing hand on Charles’s arm. She didn’t seem to notice that he jumped at her touch.

“Well, if there’s any way I can help with your investigation, any way at all ,” she trailed off suggestively. 

“Actually,” Crystal said, drawing the woman’s attention back to her. “We did have a few questions.”

+

“Patrice,” Edwin said, flagging down the proprietor of the best occult goods shop in London. “This cannot possibly be the best kelpie hair in your coffers.”

Patrice—who frequently insisted he call her Patty, like some kind of scoundrel—sighed as she put down the unicorn horns she’d been sorting and joined him by the wall of meticulously labeled ingredient jars Edwin had taken to calling her apothecary. He waved the jar of kelpie hair in her face and they both watched as its meager contents disintegrated further. 

Kelpie hair really should be kept wet, preferably in a solution of pond water and mildew, for it to stay at its freshest, but there was so little left to offer that the water had evaporated and the hair itself was brittle and dry. More like twigs than the magical tresses of a virulent creature.

“That’s the last of the stock at the moment, lad,” Patrice said with a sigh. “It’s triathlon season, you know how it is.”

Edwin pressed his forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. Triathlon season. How patently ridiculous. For three weeks of the year all of London’s daftest witches and wizards gathered to race from Paris to London. There were three sections of the triathlon: flying, transmogrification, and running the length of the Strait of Dover, underwater. And, of course, kelpie hair was a sought after ingredient in a popular underwater breathing enchantment.  

“Do you have any credible substitutions?” Edwin asked.

Patrice pursed her lips. “I suppose you could try loon feathers.”

“Do you have any in stock?” Edwin asked.

She pointed at the loon feather jar, which sat empty on the shelf. 

“Bollocks,” he swore under his breath. “Patrice, you really must stop catering to incompetent, daft, presumptuous wizards.” He turned on a heel to put the kelpie hair jar back on the shelf and walked straight into a tall figure. “Apologies, I—”

“Oh, no worries,” the man he’d run into said. He shot Edwin a playful smile. “Perhaps I should be apologizing to you. After all, I’m one of those daft wizards.”

The man’s hand had circled Edwin’s arm to steady him. Edwin could feel all five of his fingers pressing into his coat, but there was no warmth as he may have felt if Charles was touching him, just a dull pressure. He ordered himself not to visibly react as the man’s unfamiliar accent registered.

“Are you American?” Edwin asked, trying to make the question seem affronted and not quietly alarmed.

The man smiled at him with all of his teeth and answered, “Canadian.”

“Caius,” Patrice said from behind Edwin. “What do you want?”

Caius released Edwin’s arm and turned his smile to Patrice. Unlike when Charles smiled and his infectious joy spread to whoever he favored it with, Caius’s smile only seemed to make Patrice glower harder.

“Oh, Patty, don’t act like that, you know I’m your favorite customer,” Caius said. He was taller than Edwin, broader too. His shoulder-length hair shone a tousled gold under Patrice’s warm shop lights. On the outside he looked as if he could have passed for Edwin’s age, but there were faint lines on his face that belied how old he seemed. 

Patrice may have pretended to still have it out for Charles over the sacred fountain he’d knocked over a decade ago but she had never truly blamed Charles for that incident, nor any indiscretion since they’d started frequenting her shop. Her soft spot for Charles was a secret she kept close to her chest, but Edwin had spent thirty years attuned to Charles’s every interaction. 

If she had treated Charles poorly, Edwin might have done something disreputable, like discretely poisoned her collection of medicinal plants or left her a scathing review on the Night Market’s community engagement board. Instead, Patrice had teased Charles mercilessly for ten years, but never so much as intimated he was a hooligan. She also always slipped trinkets into Charles’s coat pockets when he wasn’t looking, like he was a particularly amusing schoolboy.

The look she was leveling at Caius presently was altogether new. She looked at him like she wanted to wipe him from this plane of existence, but had no idea how to go about it. Fascinating. 

“I need more moth wings,” Caius said. 

“They’re in the storeroom,” Patrice said, oddly she was looking at Edwin. “Shouldn’t you be on your way, dear?”

“Right, I should be getting back,” Edwin said, placing the kelpie hair jar hastily in the incorrect spot on the shelf. He sidestepped Caius on his way to the mirror at the front of Patrice’s shop.

“Now, hold on,” Caius said. “I’ve been stockpiling ingredients for the triathlon for weeks. I can spare some kelpie hair.”

Edwin examined Caius with a skeptical glance. “What would you ask in exchange?”

“Dear,” Patrice interjected. “I’ll put in a good word for you around the market. Come back tomorrow.”

“Now, now, no need for that, Patty,” Caius said, smiling at her somehow wider than before. He was indisputably handsome, but there was something about him. Something familiar that Edwin couldn’t put his finger on, but which worried at his brain like a scream heard in the distance. “I think Edwin and I can come to a…mutually beneficial agreement.”

Chapter Text

“You’re back,” Niko said, frowning at her. “Isn’t it, like, the middle of the day?”

Crystal sighed. Even in her magical void, her head was still pounding from being thrown into a wall. She could only imagine the holy hell Charles and Edwin were bringing down on their attacker and part of her was anxious to get back to them. Another part of her wouldn’t trade time with Niko—even a Niko who was a figment of her imagination—for anything.

“Yeah, get this, it turns out, the thing killing the Cassity's was a crossroads demon,” Crystal said. 

Niko’s eyes widened, she slapped the toe of Crystal’s boot until she began spilling the entire, gruesome story. After a few pointed questions, the redheaded maid had told Crystal and Charles all about a mysterious visitor who had come to stay with the family seven years earlier. After his visit, the family’s luck had seemed to flourish. They were making money hand over fist, marrying the loves of their lives, getting movie deals and fame, notoriety in spades. 

When Edwin had returned from the apothecary, he’d done a spell to show the last thing the last victim had touched, which turned out to be a safe where they found a picture of the mysterious visitor. One who Edwin was intimately familiar with. 

“Alistair is fair-minded as far as crossroads demons go, which isn’t saying much for his character,” Edwin had relented.

Charles had nearly torn the picture in half, likely imagining, as Crystal had been, everything Edwin wasn’t saying about how he personally knew a high-ranking demonic entity. 

“So they sold their own souls,” Niko said. Crystal came out of the memory to the sight of Niko’s nose scrunching in confusion. “Then why stay? What more could you do for them?”

“Ah,” Crystal said. “Well, it turns out the family also sold the souls of their staff and their unborn kids. Without their permission, obviously. Edwin was trying to negotiate a new deal for them with Alistair, but I got thrown into a wall by one of his hellhounds. Hence,” she waved at their surroundings. The eyeballs above their heads followed her hands with rapt attention.

“Are you okay?” Niko asked, grasping her arm. Her skin was shockingly cool to the touch. It wasn’t like when she touched Charles or Edwin, which always felt like taking hold of a stiff breeze. It wasn’t even like touching someone in a dream, where the sensation barely registered in her brain. It was like Niko was actually sitting beside her and she was freezing.

“What—” Crystal began staring at Niko’s hand. Niko began to draw away from her but Crystal chased her fingers, holding her icy hand between both of her own. “That’s weird.”

“What is?” Niko asked. The expression on her face wasn’t confused, it was expectant.

“It’s almost like you’re really here,” Crystal said.

“Crystal, remember, please. I’ve told you, I am —”

+

Crystal jerked awake on the settee and Charles sighed in relief. She’d been out a tick longer than he would have liked. Long enough for Edwin to negotiate a new deal with a bloody crossroads demon for one thing. Even long enough for Charles to stuff her in his backpack, carry her through to the office, and lay her out on the settee with her feet in his lap, all before she’d so much as stirred.

“There you are,” Charles said. “You feeling alright?”

“Well, I’m alive,” Crystal said, making no move to get up. She stared into the distance, her eyes not quite meeting his.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you want to hear how we saved the day yet again?” Charles asked. 

Crystal finally looked at him, though her eyes looked dull. He wondered if she was tired. She hadn’t said anything, but he didn’t think she’d been sleeping well in that little hamlet.

“Where’s Edwin?” she asked, likely noticing the lack of a heated debriefing.

“He went to return Jenny’s boning knife,” Charles said.

“Why did he take Jenny’s boning knife?” Crystal asked.

“Never hurts to be prepared,” Charles. “Especially when it comes to demons. Anyways, didn’t have to use it, now did we? Edwin negotiated a brills new contract and that demon fucked right off back where he came from.”

“Hell?”

“New Jersey,” Charles said. “Like, in America.”

“I know where New Jersey is, Charles.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” Charles asked, squeezing her ankle. “You look a bit peaky.”

“I just—” Crystal sighed, squeezing her eyes closed. She sat up and pulled her legs to her chest, like a shield. She whispered, “I’m worried about Emma.”

They had searched high and low for Emma simultaneously to working the Cassity case. Edwin had tried three different tracking spells, Charles had haggled information out of just about every reputable contact they had in the Night Market. He’d even popped over to ask Johanna Constantine to keep an eye out for them, but it turned out she was out of town, hunting a demon in Bulgaria, so they were shit out of luck.

There had been no sign of Emma anywhere. It was like she’d vanished into thin air. If her pet squid and headstone weren’t still very real, Charles might wonder if she’d existed at all. 

“And—” Crystal bit her lip. She sighed and said, “And I miss Niko.”

Charles opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again when no words came to mind. He missed Niko too, of course. They hadn’t been as close as she was with Crystal and Edwin, but he liked to think he’d found a kindred spirit in Niko, who also, consciously or unconsciously, tended to distract from the godawful circumstances of some of their cases with forced cheer and open curiosity. 

But it wasn’t just that he missed Niko too that stoppered any sympathetic words in their tracks, it was that it occurred to him all at once that he’d never grieved before. He’d never lost any grandparents, his dad’s had died before he was born and he’d never met his mum’s. No cousins, or aunts, or uncles, or even people he knew peripherally like classmates or teachers had died when he was alive. 

The only death he’d grieved in any sort of capacity was his own. Well, and Edwin’s.

The thought shuddered through his mind unwillingly: Edwin alive, Edwin dying as Niko had, being dragged away from Edwin’s body by Crystal’s tremulous hands. 

He didn’t know what he would do with himself if that was his present reality. He barely liked Edwin being out of sight in the other room, speaking to Jenny.

He couldn’t imagine any words that would make Edwin being gone better. He would still be gone. So maybe Crystal didn’t need his words, Charles decided. Maybe she needed her own.

“You can tell me about it,” Charles said, scooting closer to her. 

Crystal twisted her hands together where they laid over her knees. She looked oddly nervous.

“Charles, I—”

She was interrupted by a flash of fire in the middle of the office. The Night Nurse emerged from the flames, looking like a toff as always. She surveyed them shrewdly, as if judging them both for jumping at her sudden appearance.

“Bloody hell,” Charles said, hand to his chest. “You have got to learn how to knock. One of these days, one of us is going to have a heart attack.”

“You cannot have a heart attack, Charles Rowland,” the Night Nurse said. “You are dead.”

“I’m not,” Crystal said under her breath. “ Yet .”

“Where is the other one?” the Night Nurse asked, placing a stack of paperwork on Edwin’s desk.

Edwin had recently taken to filling out the Lost & Found Departments required paperwork with an almost sadistic zeal. Charles had watched him write out five whole pages impassively describing every detail about the home of one of their clients from the color of the wallpaper to its exact number of electrical outlets. His mindset seemed to be that if they were forced to heel under their benefactor’s bureaucratic nonsense, he was going to make it everyone’s problem but his. It filled Charles with warmth everytime the Night Nurse grudgingly accepted Edwin’s reports.

“Present,” Edwin said, stepping through the door of Crystal and Jenny’s flat. 

His hair had been tousled from their skirmish with the hellhounds, before Edwin had managed to negotiate with Alistair, but he’d since fixed it. Charles almost wished the swooshy curls Edwin let loose so rarely were still visible and only just squashed that wish down by the time Edwin turned to inspect Charles and Crystal on the settee. 

Crystal was still sitting with her legs pulled to her chest and looked more or less like the wall she’d been slowly lowering for Charles, had been reinforced with carbon steel. Edwin checked in with Charles with an inquisitive eyebrow and Charles shook his head, as if to say, Later .

Edwin accepted this with a nod.

“Now that you’ve decided to join us,” the Night Nurse said imperiously, “I may ask all three of you. Where is the Cassity child?”

“She—” Edwin started, he stopped to shoot Charles a confused look. Charles hoped his matching confusion showed on his face. “She should have been returned to you. I bargained for her soul, along with those of the Cassity’s household staff, with the crossroads demon who they’d been sold to just this afternoon.”

The Night Nurse’s lips puckered as if she’d bitten into a tart lemon. She rolled her shoulders back, as if in an effort to surpass Edwin’s height, which, good luck with that. 

“She has not been accounted for,” the Night Nurse said definitively. “Which tells me you failed to account for her in your negotiations. What kind of deal did you strike with this demon?”

Edwin looked flabbergasted at these accusations. The Night Nurse took a menacing step closer to him and Charles rose from the settee to stand between them before either resorted to fisticuffs. 

“Oi, we didn’t fail to account for anything, alright? And certainly not a little girl,” Charles said. “We’re on the same side. How do we go about seeing where the Cassity girl ended up?

The Night Nurse wasted a few precious moments looking at him imperiously, before finally relenting.

“Did you get this deal of yours in writing?” the Night Nurse asked.

“Of course,” Edwin said, holding a hand out to Charles. 

Charles crossed the room to fetch the agreement out of his backpack, and placed it in Edwin’s waiting hand.

The Night Nurse and Edwin hovered over the signed paperwork, bickering lowly about the wording as they scanned the lengthy document for clues.

Charles returned to the settee, where Crystal was still sitting. Her feet were on the ground now, but she still looked troubled.

“That’s two,” she said, so quietly Charles nearly missed it.

“Two what?”

“Two missing ghost kids,” Crystal said.

“What did you say?” the Night Nurse asked, whipping her head up to look at Crystal. She rarely addressed Crystal and Charles could feel Crystal bristling under her attention. “What other child is missing?”

Crystal looked at Edwin and then Charles. When neither of them sent her a disapproving look, she said, “My friend, Emma. She’s been missing for over a week.”

“We’ve tried every reliable spell in our arsenal to track her,” Edwin added.

“Including the soul footprint enchantment in the Lesser Ke y—”

“ Lesser Key of Solomon , yes, of course,” Edwin answered. 

“Emma who? Is there a surname?” the Night Nurse asked, pulling out a little notebook that looked remarkably similar to Edwin’s. 

Edwin seemed to notice Charles noticing the similarity, because he shot Charles a quelling glance. Charles only smiled guilelessly back at him. He was so bringing that up later.

“Emma Davis,” Crystal answered.

“Emma Davis? Emma Davis,” the Night Nurse repeated, a finger pressed to her chin. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

When Crystal didn’t offer anything else the Night Nurse closed her notebook with a thwack.

“No matter, I will look into this and return shortly. In the interest of not wasting time, stay here,” she emphasized, and then disappeared in another flash of fire. She was going to char their rug if she kept that up.

“Right, well, you heard her,” Edwin said, crossing the room to collect his overcoat. “You two stay here and I will be back in a jiffy.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Charles said, rising from the couch. He blocked Edwin’s path to their office mirror. “Where are you off to?”

Edwin would not meet his eyes. He looked stubbornly at Crystal who was either spacing out again or staring in utter bafflement right back at him. By the speed with which Edwin looked away from her and down at his hands, Charles would put good money on the second option.

It was setting off all kinds of alarm bells that Edwin wouldn’t meet Charles’s gaze.

“I’m meeting— a friend, if you must know,” Edwin said waspishly.

“Alright then, I’ll come with you,” Charles said.

“No,” Edwin said. “No, that shan’t be necessary, and besides. Someone needs to wait for Nanny’s return.”

“Crystal can wait,” Charles shot back.

“Crystal is going to bed,” Crystal said, standing from the settee. She headed for the door of her flat, shaking her head at them as she went. It was a credit to her own exhaustion that she didn’t have any other parting words before the door closed behind her. 

When she woke up, Charles really needed to find the time to talk to her about Niko. And probably Emma. And her parents. And—

“That’s that,” Edwin said, attempting to slalom around Charles while he was distracted. “I’ll just be—”

“Not so fast,” Charles said, grabbing Edwin’s shoulder. “Where are you really off to, mate?”

Edwin and Charles didn’t have many other friends. Acquaintances, contacts, business associates, yes. Friends? Not really. Charles couldn’t think of anyone Edwin had known in thirty-five years that he would visit without Charles. Except, perhaps—

“You’re not off to see that bloody Cat King, are you?”

“Thomas?” Edwin asked, looking bewildered. “I haven’t seen him in weeks.”

“Weeks?” Charles asked pointedly. They’d been back from Port Townsend for close to four months. “When did you skive off to see him? Is he bothering you?”

“No, no, nothing as such,” Edwin said, lowering the fist Charles had barely realized he’d raised. “Regardless, it is not Thomas I’m meeting. I ran into an old acquaintance at Patrice’s earlier and promised them I would pop by to catch up. I shan’t be longer than an hour.”

Edwin was meeting Charles’s eyes but his attention kept skittering away. There was something he was hiding, something he didn’t want Charles to know, and the worry itched at Charles’s brain. 

For a moment, he wished Edwin was the one who was unable to lie, and the immediate guilt at wishing something like that, something that took away even more of Edwin’s autonomy, after everything that had happened to him, was perhaps the last straw in Charles releasing his shoulder.

“Alright then, be careful,” Charles said. 

“You be careful,” Edwin said, with a fleeting smile. 

And then he was gone, only a few ripples on the surface of the mirror to prove he’d been there at all.

Charles looked around the office, wondering what to do with himself in the interim, but before he could make any decisions at all the office fell away. 

+

As Charles surveyed the forest for the dozenth time, the sun slipped further toward the horizon casting long shadows across the mossy ground. The bare tree branches shivered as a cool breeze swept through them. Behind him, a chipmunk raced through the fallen leaves, startling Charles so badly he nearly tripped. 

In school the other day, one of the boys on the cricket team had told all of them a story about werewolves. He said his brother had seen one when he’d been camping. A giant, slobbering, hulking beast, with yellow eyes and long, pointed nails. He’d hit it with his car and that was why he’d returned home with his front bumper badly dented, or so he’d claimed. 

Tears prickled Charles’s eyes, he wiped at his cheeks in frustration. The last thing he needed was to cry. But there was nothing else to be done, it was official: He was lost, night was falling, and if he wasn’t mauled by some supernatural creature lurking in the shadows, his dad was going to kill him.

+

Edwin arrived at the park at precisely half past noon.

Caius had wanted them to meet at his office, a small space he’d rented in Canary Wharf while he was staying in London, but Edwin had insisted on meeting somewhere public. 

He could only imagine how Charles would react once Edwin confessed that he’d gone off to meet a near total stranger as payment for a small parcel of kelpie hair, let alone if he did so at a private location, like an imbecile. So he’d insisted on the public meeting place, but he still could not risk bringing Charles. Not while Charles was unable to tell a lie. 

Patrice hadn’t said much while Caius was with them, but she’d plainly disliked the man. Edwin had no doubt that he was not as congenial as he first appeared. And while he wasn’t American, so as not to be one of the ne'er-do-wells skulking about London looking for a ghost matching Edwin’s description, it didn’t mean other threats ceased to exist.   

So here he was, on a park bench with his hands folded in his lap, waiting impatiently for Caius to arrive. He was nearly fifteen minutes late, and looked genuinely rueful as he took a seat beside Edwin.

“Sorry about that, I had to help my brother with a last minute acquisition,” Caius said, pushing his hair off his brow.

“What is it that you do, exactly?” Edwin asked, politely. At least, in an attempt to feign politeness so as to gain more knowledge about Caius’s goings-on. 

“You could say I’m in the renewable energy industry,” Caius said. “It's a small company at the moment, just me and my two younger brothers, but we’ve got big plans. We’re hoping to be up and running by the end of the summer.”

“How ambitious,” Edwin said, wishing he was able to take out his notebook without arousing Caius’s suspicion. He had no idea what this renewable energy tosh was, but he’d be looking into it as soon as he arrived back at the office. Perhaps Crystal would let him use the Google, on her phone.

“I certainly like to think so,” Caius said, smiling at him serenely. He reached into his messenger bag. “Anyways, down to brass tacks.”

He proffered a book to Edwin, and Edwin immediately zeroed in on the cover. Even though Caius was handing it to him, Edwin snatched the book from his hands as if he might change his mind.

“Is this really the Unofficial Compendium of the Endless ?” Edwin asked, brushing a finger over the gilded spine with due reverence. 

“It is, indeed,” Caius said. “I see you weren’t lying about knowing ancient Aramaic.”

“This isn’t just written in ancient Aramaic,” Edwin said, almost flipping past the index in his excitement. He ran a finger down the table of contents. This was the genuine article, the title of each chapter was written in a different, dead language, some of them ones Edwin had never seen before. “This is a marvel, I never thought I’d see this book with my own eyes let alone hold it. But I’m afraid— I cannot translate all of these languages. Even I have my limits.”

“I just need you to translate a small portion of a chapter,” Caius said, reaching across Edwin to flip to a page he had dog-eared. Dog-eared . A priceless copy of the Unofficial Compendium of the Endless. It took all Edwin had to not make a disparaging comment. Caius pointed at the page in question and Edwin noted it was part of the chapter on Dream of the Endless. “From here to here. Just these bits. This chapter is in ancient Aramaic, as promised.”

“Right, of course,” Edwin said, frowning down at the text. It was a lengthy description of the Dreaming as a separate plane of existence. It was fascinating in and of itself, but Edwin didn’t see how it was urgent, or rather, worth as much kelpie hair as Edwin had received. Charles had once traded a bag of gold doubloons for a pinch of the stuff, its price often ran absorbently high. There weren’t many who were able to get close to kelpies and even less who lived to tell the tale, let alone procure a prize for their troubles.

He cleared his throat and began to translate aloud, aware that Caius’s eyes did not leave his face for the entire transaction.

When he finished, he asked, “Is that sufficient?”

“That’ll do, I can’t thank you enough,” Caius said, taking the book back when Edwin handed it to him. He opened his messenger bag to put the book back inside and several items fell to the ground. A few pens, a wallet, and a spool of thread which rolled in the direction of Edwin’s foot.

Edwin leaned down to help gather Caius’s things, it was only polite after all, but Caius beat him to it. The thread flashed a subtle gold as Caius tucked it safely inside his bag. 

“Sorry about that, I can be such a klutz,” Caius said with a self-recriminating laugh.

“No matter,” Edwin said, standing and smoothing down his coat. “If that is all, we are even. Best wishes on your venture.”

He turned on his heel to leave, but Caius called his name.

When he turned around, Caius was smiling at him sheepishly. He stood and approached Edwin, something about the way he walked felt predatorial and he struggled not to flinch as Caius closed the distance between them.

“I’d like to see you again, if that’s okay with you,” Caius said. 

“Why?” Edwin asked, now that he was no longer indebted to the man he had no earthly idea why he would want to meet. 

Caius laughed, as if he’d said something amusing.

“You’re funny, you’re cute, you’re smart,” Caius said, ticking off traits on his fingers as if he was making a list. “So I’d like to see you again.

Edwin was glad, not for the first time, that he was a ghost. He still flushed occasionally—his absurdly pale skin seemed to expressly defy the so-called ghost rules—but not nearly as often as he had when he’d been alive. He was certain if he still had a pulse he would currently be a frightful shade of puce.

“I see,” Edwin said, eyeing Caius’s features shrewdly. “And if I may, how old are you?”

Caius threw his head back and laughed, he looked back at Edwin with what might be described as a fond smile on his face. Caius, Edwin was finding, smiled a lot. Charles also smiled a lot. Having Charles to compare Caius to made Edwin acutely aware that there was something— off about Caius. Unless there was a mystery afoot, Edwin had never been talented at reading people, but if pressed he might say Caius’s smiles seemed insincere.

“I’m twenty,” Caius said. “Freshly. I promise, I’m not trying to steal your virtue.”

There was something lecherous about the way he’d said virtue, something that hit Edwin in the center of the chest. It was not unlike the way the Cat King had teased his inexperience. A presumption that made him out to be a naive, mentee who should be grateful to be taken under the wing of an expert. 

“My virtue,” Edwin said, feeling surprisingly irate, “is none of your concern.”

He turned again and tried to leave, hoping that was that. But Caius grabbed his wrist.

“Edwin, wait, I’m sorry,” he said, releasing Edwin’s wrist as soon as Edwin turned to treat him with an affronted glare. “It was a bad joke. I really do want to get to know you better.”

“Right,” Edwin said. He seemed ardent, but Edwin couldn’t be sure how serious he was. Not to mention the fact that Edwin himself had no desire to get to know Caius.

He was handsome, for sure. His ambitions seemed admirable. But Edwin didn’t have any interest in learning more, not when he was in love with someone else.

“I have no present interest in courting,” Edwin said.

“Okay,” Caius said, agreeably. “But could we, like, hang out? As friends?”

Friends. Edwin supposed he needed more friends. He had Charles and Crystal and Jenny. Yet there was a jagged hole in the center of all of them where Niko had been, that still ached to touch with anything more than a passing thought. Maybe if he made more friends, the hole would grow smaller, would scab over, would begin to heal.

“Friends,” Edwin said. “That would be— acceptable. And how is it that friends, as you call it, hang out?”

A slow smile stretched across Caius’s face. 

+

Darkness fell, it seemed, all at once. As soon as it enveloped him in its cool embrace, Charles sat on the ground at the foot of what he hoped was a tree, and pulled his legs to his chest like a shield. 

If possible, the forest was louder at night. Branches creaked, leaves rustled in the slight breeze, acorns fell to the forest floor and knocked into roots and bushes and rocks before they rolled to a stop, and the crickets made a low droning sound that nearly drowned out everything else. Of course, Charles could barely hear any of it over the pounding of his own heart. His breath came in sharp wheezes, like a broken kettle. 

He’d been with his friends, mucking around by the treeline. One of them, Mark, maybe, had wanted to cut through the woods to get home. None of them had ever traversed the woods before, let alone used it as a shortcut, but Mark had insisted he knew where he was going, his brother went through the woods all the time, it was easy as pie, what are you, a bunch of babies? So they’d all tromped in after him. 

Charles had only looked away from them for a minute, he thought he’d seen a fox, but when he’d turned around they’d been nowhere in sight. He’d called their names for what felt like hours, his throat still felt raw. He was thirsty, starving, and his hands had hurt before they’d even stepped in the woods from holding his cricket bat all afternoon. 

Now he was all alone. When his parents realized what had happened his mom would cry, his dad would be furious. When he thought about how his dad would react, Charles thought he might as well never be found. It would be easier that way.

Tears were streaming down Charles’s cheeks at this point, soaking into the collar of his jacket. He wiped fruitlessly at his face and tried to tamp down on the fear that was closing around his chest like a vice. Just when he’d resolved himself to try and doze for a bit, he heard shuffling above him.

It didn’t sound like another chipmunk, or even a bird. It sounded bigger than that, ungainly and hefty. He imagined a bear resting on a branch above his head, getting a whiff of his delicious fleshy scent and clambering down the tree after a midnight snack. 

He threw his head back and looked about himself wildly, but he couldn’t see anything. It was dark, except for constellations peeking through the treetops, if he squinted the stars nearly looked like there were string lights wrapped around the branches. 

And then he saw it, a sliver of luminescence in the darkness, like the light that spilled from under the crack of a door at night. He stared at it uncomprehending for a moment and then he was stunned as the sliver grew wider, giving way to an open port hole at the bottom of what looked like an entire bloody treehouse. The shaft of light Charles found himself in once the door was fully open, he was sure, at a distance, looked as if he was being beamed up to outer space by a spaceship.

A fuzzy head appeared in the doorway, squinting down at him. It was a kid, around his age, wearing, absurdly, a button up shirt and bowtie in the middle of the woods at night. He was the most welcome sight Charles had ever seen.

“What are you doing down there?” the boy asked, suspiciously.

“I’m—” His voice came out as a mild croak, likely from all the crying. He cleared his throat and started again. “I’m lost. Do you know the way out of the woods?”

“Lost? Where on earth did you come from?”

“Faxon Field,” Charles said, naming the park in his neighborhood he and his mates had been playing at. 

“Faxon— That’s miles away,” the boy said, shaking his head. “However did you get all the way out here?”

“Where is here, exactly?” Charles asked.

“You must have walked near five miles,” the boy said. “Why were you out here all by yourself to begin with?”

The boy’s voice sounded judgmental, but in a way that Charles relaxed into. He wasn’t a bear or a werewolf, or even Charles’s father, who rarely raised his voice but never hesitated to raise his fist. Charles could handle snark, he could handle a critique of his actions, he would happily take whatever judgment this odd boy wanted to impart as long as he didn’t take away the warm patch of light.

“My mates said they knew a shortcut,” Charles said. “We got separated. I don’t know where they ended up. Listen, can I come up there with you for a bit?”

The boy’s mouth pursed almost comically. He looked a bit like a miniature adult with his hair pushed back in a severe swoop, his pristine white shirt, and slightly crooked bowtie. Finally, he nodded and disappeared back into the treehouse. Charles’s heart nearly stopped for a moment, but then a rope ladder was being dropped from the door. 

Charles grabbed onto it and used it to lever himself to his feet. He climbed the ladder and in no time at all was pulling himself up and into the boy’s treehouse.

There wasn’t much inside. Just a stack of old detective comics, some blankets, a lunch box, and an oil lantern, its soft light flickering as Charles watched the boy close the door behind him.

“Thank you,” Charles said. “I don’t know what I would have done if I’d been out there all night, I’d have lost my marbles.”

“Yes, well, think nothing of it,” the boy said, not meeting his eyes. “Are you hungry?”

“Starved,” Charles said, his stomach rumbling in time with his pronouncement.

The boy opened his lunch box and pulled out a cucumber sandwich. He offered it to Charles. Charles grabbed hold of it gratefully. He split it in half and handed the other half back to the boy before he shoved his own half in his mouth in nearly one bite.

“You’re my hero,” Charles said, through a mouthful of sandwich. 

The boy watched him warily, taking small bites of his half of the sandwich like he was a mouse nibbling on a cracker.

“What are you doing all the way out here anyway?” Charles asked, once he’d swallowed.

“It’s a long story,” the boy said after a significant pause. “I wouldn’t want to bore you.”

“Bore me?” Charles asked, looking around. “We’re in a treehouse in the middle of the woods at night, there’s nothing boring about that, mate.” He paused, feeling uncertain all of a sudden. “You don’t have to tell, if you don’t want—”

“It’s not that,” the boy said. “It’s just— I apologize, I’ve been told I’m not good with other people.”

“You’re like, twelve, right? Like me? Who's good with people at twelve?” Charles asked, frowning.  

The boy smiled ruefully at him, as if he’d told a funny joke. There was something captivating about this boy. Charles had been around a lot of other boys his age. He’d played cricket with them and gone to school with them and roughhoused with them, but this one didn’t seem to follow any of the rules Charles had learned to make himself fit in with those kinds of boys.

Charles wasn’t sure how to describe it. He seemed— self-contained, cautious but headstrong, a maturity lined the set of his face, as if he was twelve years old and a hundred all at once. Charles could feel himself choosing his words more carefully, as if afraid to tip the other boy off that he was in the presence of an average, juvenile, crass Secondary School kid. He wanted this boy to like him in a way he’d never wanted any other boy to like him.

“I’m Charles, by the way. Charles Rowland,” Charles said. “What’s your name?”

“Edwin,” the boy answered. “Edwin Paine.”

+

Jenny Green had lived in London for nine days and she was already over it. 

Her new butcher shop wasn’t even open yet, but she’d already had two arguments with one of the farms she’d been working with to be a supplier. Her POS system wasn’t working, no matter how many times she slapped it, which had worked like a charm at her old shop. And, to her great regret, her new employee, who she’d hired as an assistant slash Jack of all trades, had asked her out that very morning.

She’d been in London nine days and she already had a wide-eyed lesbian watching her mournfully from the other side of the shop as Jenny painted the Tongue & Tail logo on the dining room wall. To be fair to Sahar, she was nothing like Maxine. She wasn’t a serial killer for one thing, Jenny had had the boys do a background check on her before she’d even scheduled her job interview.

According to them, she had a concerning fixation on soap operas, but her work history was squeaky clean and she wasn’t a serial killer—which was all Jenny really cared about anyway. Who had time to worry about tax fraud when she’d recently nearly been cleaved in half by a blind date?

But even with all of that forethought, she hadn’t considered that maybe her new assistant would get a big gay crush on her. So now Jenny was forced to valiantly ignore Sahar’s gaze, burning a hole in the back of her head, while she wrapped up painting and untied her smock.

Sahar was lucky that the thought of doing interviews to replace her was even more repulsive to Jenny than goo-goo eyes. 

With a weary sigh, Jenny retreated behind the counter to start the mind-numbing task of sorting through endless new business paperwork, when Charles came careening out of the mirror behind the register.

Jenny yelped in surprise and then scowled at her own reaction.

Behind her Sahar called, “Jenny? You alright?”

“I’m fine,” Jenny answered over her shoulder. “Thought I saw a spider.”

Sahar seemingly went back to whatever she’d been doing while Charles winced at Jenny apologetically. He looked like shit. His normally carefully applied eyeliner was smeared around his eyes, making him look like an exhausted raccoon.

“What’s the matter with you?” Jenny demanded, trying to sound more annoyed than concerned while also keeping her voice low enough that Sahar wouldn’t have her committed to the loony bin. “Where’s your other half?”

“Edwin’s— meeting a friend,” Charles said, collapsing onto Jenny’s stool.

She leaned against the counter beside him, surveying the miserable lines of Charles’s face. For a ghost, Charles rarely, if ever, looked gloomy. At the moment, she was surprised there wasn’t a personal rain cloud hovering above his head.

“So what are you doing here?” Jenny asked.

“Crystal’s sleeping and Edwin is out,” Charles shrugged. “I really didn’t want to be alone.”

“Why?”

“I blacked out at the office and had a very vivid dream of meeting Edwin when we were children and I woke up on the floor crying,” Charles said in a rush, before hanging his head. His hand was rubbing absentmindedly at the weird tattoo on his wrist. “I did not mean to say all of that.”

“Oh, right, Crystal told me you had a curse put on you.”

“A geas,” Charles corrected.

“So you really can’t lie? That really happened?” Jenny asked.

“It really happened.”

Jenny whistled lowly. “I thought— Can ghosts even dream?”

“No,” Charles said, looking mildly terrified. “I haven’t had a dream in thirty-five years. I can’t even sleep. One second I was standing there and the next I was twelve years old, lost in the woods.”

“Okay, I’m no ghost expert, but that sounds bad,” Jenny said, pulling out her phone.

“What are you doing?” Charles asked.

“I’m waking up Crystal,” Jenny said.

“No!” Charles yelped, going to grab her phone from her. 

She pulled it out of his reach, and tried to express how stupid he was being solely through the tilt of her eyebrows. When Charles pulled his hands back to his sides, she considered herself successful.

“Please, enlighten me as to why I shouldn’t wake up Crystal, your psychic coworker, to inform her that you recently blacked out and had a hyper realistic vision? If you were alive, I would bring you to the goddamn hospital.”

“Because I don’t want her to know,” Charles said firmly, well, as firm as the ghost of a dead teenager with eyeliner all over his face could sound. “Edwin, neither. They both have enough to worry about, I don’t need to add this to the pile.” He sighed, rubbing his hands over his face, which wasn’t improving the eyeliner situation. “I didn't even want you to know, I just— this not being able to lie thing is becoming a serious pain in the arse. I just didn’t want to be alone, okay?”

If Jenny wasn’t able to lie, she’d probably lock herself in her room until the curse was lifted or she died. Whichever came first. 

She lied every day, about everything. She was fine, she had it all together, moving to London wasn’t a big deal, she wasn’t scared to live in a brand new city for the first time in her life, let alone a new country, she wasn’t at all ashamed that her only friends were two ghosts and a teenager, she didn’t cry about Niko every night in the shower. She didn’t wonder at all, every single day, what was so wrong with her that it was impossible for someone good to love her. Or, rather, to love her and to stay.

Yeah, if she couldn’t lie about all of that, not even to herself, she’d probably throw herself down a flight of stairs.

“You know, kid, you’re more like me than I realized,” she said.

“I am?” Charles asked, squinting up at her perplexed. He looked at her bangs and then the torn sleeves of her Tongue & Tail shirt, and then back down at his own pristine polo.

“You hide behind this,” Jenny said, pointing at her mouth which was imitating one of Charles’s trademark smiles. “I hide behind all of this,” she gestured at her own gloomier appearance. “You may be able to dodge the truth with them, but you can’t with me, kid. I know denial when I see it.”

“Jenny,” Charles said. “What if they never get better? What if N— What if it was all too much?”

“I can’t say I don’t wish things had been different,” Jenny said. “Just being in this new shop, sometimes it feels pointless because she can’t see it.” Jenny took a deep breath, crossing her arms over her chest to hold herself together. She did not need to cry in her empty storefront while trying to talk her teen landlord out of crying. “But it gets better. It just does.”

“You promise?” Charles asked. He looked so young all of a sudden, so young that Jenny kind of wanted to punch a wall. Who could let a kid this young die? How did kids this young die in the first place?

“Yeah, whatever,” Jenny said, grabbing a stack of bills. “If you’re going to hang around here, make yourself useful and unpack some boxes in the back or something.”

“You got it, boss,” Charles said, nearly cheerful. 

She listened as he hustled into the backroom and tried not to be annoyed as he began to whistle while he worked. Just this once, she’d take it easy on him.

+

The Night Nurse appeared in the center of the Dead Boy Detective Agency at precisely eight o’clock in the morning. When she’d returned the evening before, none of the so-called Dead Boy Detective Agency were where she’d left them. She’d had half a mind to leave a scathing letter in her wake, reiterating the importance of following the direct orders of their appointed minder, but had settled, instead, on resuming her search. 

Neither Emma Davis nor the Cassity child were in their assigned afterlives. The complete and total disappearance of both of their souls niggled at the Night Nurse’s nerves. She had a sinking feeling that they’d less disappeared and more been taken. 

Despite her shoddy progress, she was nevertheless here to impart a slew of revisions to Edwin Payne’s abysmal paperwork. The boy was trying to send her to an early grave, which, for an infinite transdimensional being, was looking more and more possible with every interaction she had with that conceited know-it-all.

Aforementioned conceited know-it-all was sitting behind his desk, reading the paper, when she manifested before him. His illustrious partner in crime, was seated on top of the desk beside him and had to fully turn his torso to look at her. She couldn’t understand why he couldn’t sit in a chair, or the settee with their resident psychic, who didn’t even glance up from her phone when the Night Nurse appeared.

“Ah, Nanny,” Edwin Payne said, putting down the book he’d been reading. “Any progress on your search?”

“I am exhausting all of the Lost & Found Departments resources as we speak,” the Night Nurse said, primly. She dropped the casefile on the boy’s desk. “I’m only here to return the paperwork from the Cassity Case, with revisions.”

“We’re calling it the Case of the Missing Bourgeoisie,” Charles Rowland said, pointing at the ridiculous filing system hanging from the wall of their closet where a matching cardstock confirmed his assertion.

“That is the silliest name I’ve ever heard,” the Night Nurse said. “You also spelled bourgeoisie wrong.”

“No I didn’t,” Charles insisted, which was almost sad considering he couldn’t lie.

“You did,” the Night Nurse said. “If you’re going to name your cases a series of nonsensical—”

“I’m back!” a voice proclaimed as the front door of the office burst open. “And I brought coffee. Well, coffee for me and Crystal. Sorry, guys.” The newcomer frowned at the Night Nurse, “Can you even drink coffee?”

“If I so choose,” the Night Nurse said with a sniff.

“Well, next time,” she said, handing Crystal a paper cup. 

Crystal didn’t look up even as she wrapped the fingers of her free hands around the cup, which only made the Night Nurse feel marginally better about being ignored. If the girl could ignore the presence of her friend, ignoring the Night Nurse was only to be expected.

“What are we up to this morning?” the girl asked, sitting across from Edwin. “We’ve had a lot of cases recently, we should do something fun.”

“An astute observation, Niko,” Edwin said, favoring her with a warm smile. “I had just the ticket.”

Chapter Text

Edwin had a feeling that the last place Charles wanted to be on a blessedly case-free Saturday was the finishing line of the Tricentennial European Wizard Triathlon.

This feeling was affirmed when Charles sighed gustily and said, “Why are we here again?”

“Niko wanted to get out of the office,” Edwin said dutifully, patting Niko’s arm where it was looped through his own. “We deserve a spot of recreation now and then.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with Edwin,” Crystal said, appearing beside Niko. She’d vanished into the crowd several minutes ago to find an acceptable lunch vendor. By all appearances, she’d been successful. She handed Niko a generously filled pasty still steaming with heat.

Niko, who had opted for an all red look this afternoon, carefully took the pasty from Crystal. Her nails, lacquered a bright scarlet and adorned with tiny rhinestones, winked as she took a large bite of her prize.

“That is so good,” Niko declared. “Thanks, Crystal.”

Crystal, looking satisfied, took a bite of her own pasty.

“What are we meant to be looking at, anyways?” Charles asked, staring at the water which was nearly tranquil in comparison to the rambunctious crowd waiting at the shoreline. 

“The competitors are traversing the Strait of Dover underwater as we speak, the winner will soon emerge,” Edwin said.

“And what? We’re meant to stare at nothing until they get here?” Charles asked. “This is why I prefer cricket.”

“Is there something you’d like to share, Charles?” Edwin asked, frowning at him. He’d been looking rather poorly since he’d returned from Jenny’s the day prior. 

When Edwin had returned from his outing with Caius, Charles had been nowhere to be found. Normally he would have been hurt that Charles had left and not told him his intended destination, but Edwin himself had gone somewhere and given Charles few details, so he’d sat behind his desk and pretended to read a careworn copy of And Then There Were None . He’d tried to seem unaffected when Charles stumbled through the mirror hours later, Charles had looked disheveled and claimed to have been helping Jenny with her shop. 

Jenny had promised to meet them at the Triathlon later in the afternoon and Edwin planned to corroborate Charles’s story with her. For now, he watched Charles shrewdly. He was uncharacteristically twitchy and hadn’t smiled in what felt like days. 

Edwin wondered absently if the geas wasn’t allowing him to lie about his facial expressions either. Charles had once implied his smiles weren’t entirely sincere, that he used them to diffuse situations. Without Charles to make the peace it would be up to Edwin to keep their little group’s spirits afloat. Right, he could do that. He’d been practicing after all.

He cleared his throat and asked, “Niko, how is your schooling coming along?”

Niko looked up at him from the depths of her pasty. She had gravy smeared on the tip of her nose. Edwin summoned a handkerchief and wiped it clean for her.

“Thanks,” Niko said. “It’s going fine, you know, it’s school. I wish I had my GED like Crystal, then I could hang out with you guys more often.”

“Right,” Edwin said, pondering how to steer the conversation away from taking yet another bleak turn. “Did you know Aleister Crowley himself participated in the first European Wizard Triathlon?”

“I thought he was alive when you were?” Crystal asked. “How could he have been around in the seventeen hundreds?”

“Well, he didn’t go by Aleister Crowley at the time. I’ve been trying to pry his current alias from Patrice for a decade, but her lips are stubbornly sealed,” Edwin said.

“Are you saying Aleister Crowley is hundreds of years old,” Crystal asked, nearly dropping her pasty in surprise.

“Thousands, do keep up,” Edwin said archly, he went to share a smug look with Charles, but Charles didn’t seem to be paying attention. 

He was staring into the crowd, keen eyes narrowing as he noticed a figure approaching their group. His fingers twitched on the straps of his backpack and he slowly began sliding it from his shoulder, which was always Edwin’s first clue that Charles had sensed danger. Edwin followed Charles’s gaze, anxiety creeping into his posture as he wondered who could have spotted them in the crowd. 

Perhaps an old acquaintance had pointed them out to the Americans that were looking for him? There were several hundred members of the magical community out and about this morning and most of them knew the Dead Boy Detective Agency.

Damn, Edwin had been so foolish, thinking they could have a peaceful morning in Dover.

Niko seemed to sense the change in his bearing. She tucked her arm more firmly in Edwin’s and peered at his face.

“Edwin? What’s the matter?”

“Why is everyone—” Crystal started, but cut herself off when Charles drew his cricket bat out of his bag.

“Get ready to run,” Charles said. “I’ll—”

But before he could finish, Caius pushed his way out of the thick of the crowd and headed for them with a large smile on his face.

“Edwin! There you are,” he said, dragging along a young man who resembled him in all but height. This must have been one of his younger brothers. “I’m so glad you could make it. Who are your friends?”

“Yeah, Edwin,” Crystal said, smirking at him infuriatingly. “Who are your friends?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Edwin watched Charles slip his cricket bat back into his backpack. Though he’d stood down, his stance was still tense as if braced for a fight.

“Everyone, this is Caius, he helped me procure kelpie hair for the Cassity Case,” Edwin said.

“Are you American?” Charles asked, abruptly, each word as sharp as an incisor.

“Canadian,” Caius said. “Edwin asked me the same thing. Do you have something against Americans?”

“Where in Canada, exactly?” Charles asked.

“I’m Niko,” Niko interjected, she pointed at the others. “And this is Crystal and Charles. We’re part of the Dead Boy Detective Agency with Edwin.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that was you, Ed,” Caius said. “I’ve heard of that agency. Very impressive work.”

“His name is Edwin,” Charles said, glowering at Caius.

“I’m sure he doesn’t mind a nickname,” Caius said, smiling right back at Charles. 

It was a strange turn of events to watch Charles flounder at someone else’s disarming smile. Edwin wasn’t sure he cared for it.

“Charles is correct,” Edwin said, pulling reluctantly away from Niko to place a calming hand on Charles’s shoulder. “Edwin will do just fine.”

“Whatever you say,” Caius said, finally looking away from Charles. He gestured at the young man standing next to him, typing incessantly on a mobile phone. “This is my brother, Lucius.”

Lucius didn’t look up to greet them, only grunted. A sleight that Edwin found appallingly rude.

“I could use some air,” Caius said. “Edwin, would you mind joining me for a walk?”

“We’re outside, mate,” Charles said.

“I supposed I could go for a stroll, but only if it's brief,” Edwin said. He patted Charles’s shoulder as he stepped away from his friends and joined Caius.

“Don’t rush on our account,” Crystal said, looping her arm through Niko’s where Edwin’s had been only moments before. When Edwin turned back to catch her eyes she looked less titillated than she had moments before, she now looked faintly skeptical as her eyes tracked Caius’s figure, but she was easily distracted from her surveillance by Niko leaning forward and whispering something in her ear.

Edwin lost track of his friends as Caius led him further into the crowd, but swore he could feel Charles’s eyes following him even when Charles himself was long out of sight.

+

“When are you gonna get here?” Crystal whispered harshly into the receiver of her cellphone.

On the other end of the line, Jenny sighed.

“You didn’t tell me it was over an hour away,” Jenny said. “I have a lot of work left to do at the shop, I can’t just drop everything —”

“Oh come on, Jenny, we never get to hang out with Niko,” Crystal wheedled. “And it’s a Sunday, you deserve a break.”

Jenny was quiet for a beat, before she said, “What's the problem now?”

“What problem? There’s no problem,” Crystal insisted, watching as Niko tried and failed to distract Charles with a joke about a sea turtle. When Charles barely grunted in response, she shot a desperate look at Crystal. “Maybe we need adult supervision.”

“Edwin is over a hundred years old,” Jenny said.

“Yeah, well, Edwin took off with his new boyfriend,” Crystal muttered.

“His what ?” Jenny asked.

“Can you just get here, please?” Crystal asked. 

“Why don’t you four just come to the shop after, I can make you sandwiches. Well, I can make you and Niko sandwiches,” Jenny said. “There’s a delivery, I gotta go.”

She hung up on Crystal without another word. A delivery on a Sunday? Unlikely. But Crystal couldn’t blame her too much, she was having her own regrets about accidentally tagging along on Edwin’s date.

“She’s not coming,” Crystal told the others. 

For some reason, Edwin’s unusual new friend had left his brother with them while he and Edwin promenaded or whatever. She wasn’t positive the brother—Lucius, she was pretty sure—even realized he’d been left behind. He hadn’t looked up from his phone since he’d met them and he didn’t look up now.

“What? Why?” Niko asked. 

“She’s busy at the shop, said to swing by on our way home,” Crystal said with a shrug. 

Charles barely reacted to this pronouncement, still staring off into the crowd where Edwin had disappeared with Caius. For the record, Crystal didn’t like the look of Caius either, but she wasn’t sure any of them had an objective opinion on someone pursuing Edwin’s attention. Not after Monty. Not after the Cat King. 

“Why don’t we find a better spot to watch the end of the race,” Niko suggested. “It’s getting kind of crowded over here.”

It was. The crowd had only gotten larger since the last train arrived at the station. It didn’t help that the train had included what looked like an entire schoolbus of ghost children in matching beige uniforms and their single, harried minder. They kept phasing through living tourists to escape being caught in a seemingly endless game of Tag. 

“Roll call, children! Roll call!” their minder kept calling after them, her voice akin to a tea kettle on the verge of boiling over. She probably wished she hadn’t been the only chaperone to die on their last, fateful field trip.

Wow, Crystal though, shaking her head. That was bleak.

Crystal was distracted from watching the ensuing chaos when she overheard someone’s handheld radio shooting off updates about the competitors. The announcer spoke so rapidfire he sounded like he was an old-timey horse racing commentator, but Crystal got the gist. The competitors were a ways out still, so they had time to find a better spot.

She grabbed Niko’s hand, twining their fingers together, and pulled her along. It didn’t take her very long to realize that Charles wasn’t following. 

“Charles, this way,” Crystal said.

But Charles shook his head. “I’ll catch up with you,” he said, before he disappeared into the crowd.

“Shit,” Crystal said, with feeling. “Where’d he go?”

“Oh, he's tailing Edwin and Caius for sure,” Niko said. 

“We should find him,” Crystal said. 

“Let’s give them a minute,” Niko said, squeezing her hand. “How are you this morning? You seem tense.”

Crystal had woken to a cryptic text from her mother saying that they needed to talk. She hadn’t heard anything further after she’d responded with a question mark. It felt a little like she was on a tightrope, only her mother was the one holding the rope steady, waiting for the right moment to throw her off balance.

“My mom wants to talk to me,” Crystal admitted, stepping off the boardwalk and onto the rocky beach. Niko joined her, her red pumps sinking into the pebbles, she giggled as she tried to walk steadily along with Crystal and shrieked with mirth as she immediately tumbled to her knees. Crystal followed her, patting her torn tights regretfully, “God, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Niko said, unbuckling her pumps and stretching her toes inside the confines of her burgundy tights. “What does she want to talk to you about?”

“What?” Crystal asked, distracted by the small beads of blood appearing along the tears in her tights.

“Your mom.”

“Oh, right,” Crystal said. “I have no idea. Maybe about how I haven’t spoken to them in months. Or how I spent too much money on the credit card furnishing the apartment my friends made for me so I didn’t have to live alone. God, maybe she talked to one of my friends' parents and they told her something shitty I did that I don’t even remember, and she wants to belatedly make me feel like crap about it. It could honestly be anything.”

Niko tucked her hand back into Crystal’s and squeezed. The faint pressure of her fingers against Crystal’s, and their tepid warmth, reminded Crystal of something. Something she couldn’t quite remember. Except, she supposed she’d thought Niko’s hands were cold.

“That sounds awful, I’m sorry,” Niko said. “Maybe Jenny will adopt us.”

Crystal laughed and was surprised to hear the wetness in her own throat. 

“Yeah,” she said, pressing her eyes against her sweater so she wouldn’t cry. Niko’s answer was sweet, but for some reason she’d been expecting something with a little more depth. “Wouldn’t that be something.”

+

It took Charles longer than he would have liked to find Edwin and his new friend in the crowd. When he finally spotted them, they had wandered towards a bust of a man with an impressive mustache.

“Did you know—” Edwin was saying, and Charles wanted to hear what it was he knew, but the crowd was loudening around them, drowning out whatever story Edwin was regaling that bloke, Caius, with. 

There was a commotion down by the water and when Charles turned he saw wizards were starting to emerge from the sea, looking wet and frigid but triumphant. He turned back to where Edwin and Caius had been standing but no longer saw them, so he hopped up on a bench to survey the area, looking intently for a familiar head of swoopy hair.

He didn’t see Edwin anywhere and tried not to let panic get the best of him. He could be sitting somewhere, maybe he’d even ducked into a shop so that toff could get a coffee. He hopped down from the bench, intending to keep looking, but felt oddly wobbly on his feet. 

The world whirled around him, like he was on a merry-go-round. 

No, no, no , he thought. Not again .

How was he supposed to protect—

+

“Edwin!” Charles called in greeting as he threw open the door of their treehouse.

Technically, it was Edwin’s treehouse, but until Edwin had stumbled on it one day and fixed it up, it seemed to have been no one’s at all. And Charles had made the sign that now hung over the door and made Edwin the crooked bookshelf propped in the corner, so he liked to think those contributions made the treehouse a little his too.

Edwin was sitting cross legged on the floor, reading a Blake Crouch novel Charles had found him at a thrift store. He wasn’t surprised Edwin liked the mystery of a good Blake Crouch novel, but he was a little shocked that Edwin hadn’t made a single comment about the science fiction of it all. He’d once called The Phantom Tollbooth common drivel.

“Did you get it?” Charles asked.

“Of course,” Edwin said, pulling his school bag over to him and procuring the latest comic in a detective series they’d been reading together since they’d met, nearly two years ago.

Charles couldn’t believe it had only been two years. He felt like he’d known Edwin all his life. 

They might not go to the same school or have any extracurriculars in common—Edwin was some kind of prodigy on the piano, Charles played mediocre cricket—but they’d been meeting here at their treehouse everyday after cricket practice since that first fateful night. As always, Edwin held the comic book open wide, so Charles could read over his shoulder, and flipped the page when they were both ready to move on. Once they’d finished they volleyed theories about the convoluted mystery back and forth, until Charles was bored and began bouncing a rubber ball off the ceiling. 

Edwin went back to reading his novel, but he seemed restless. He’d been a little off since Charles had arrived, honestly. Usually by now, Edwin would have reminded Charles that he’d told him time and time again not to bounce rubber balls off their structurally unsound hideout, but he remained distracted and fidgety. He kept tugging at the collar of this starched button up like it was choking him. Charles had once seen him sleep in his bowtie.

“Okay, spill it, what’s wrong?” Charles asked.

“What are you on about, Charles?” Edwin said, neatly sidestepping Charles’s question.

“Yeah, don’t play around. Something’s bothering you. Out with it,” Charles said, digging his fingernail into the groove of the rubber ball. “Did I spill juice on one of your comic books? Forget your birthday?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Edwin said, not meeting his eyes. He looked almost melancholy, now that Charles was analyzing his features. His thick eyebrows were downcast in a way that made Charles’s stomach hurt. “It’s just— And its not for awhile yet, but—”

Edwin put his novel down and pulled his knees close to his chest. 

“My parents are sending me away,” Edwin said. “To boarding school.”

“They’re what?” Charles asked. “Why?”

“The school is something of a tradition in our family. To be honest, I thought they wouldn’t pursue it, considering…”

Edwin trailed off, but Charles could fill in the gaps just as well: Considering his older brother had died. 

Edwin’s older brother, George, had been all his posh parent’s really cared about. They never noticed Edwin, not even when Edwin would disappear for days at a time, camping out in a treehouse miles from their bloody estate. They’d only seemed to remember he existed when George had crashed his Rolls into a tree last August.

Now it was all, what was Edwin planning to do with his life? Which career would bring the family the most esteem? And what did Edwin think of the House of Lords? 

Charles could have told them straight-up, Edwin didn’t think much about anything past a week from now. He was fourteen. He liked detective comics, cucumber sandwiches, and games of Cluedo. He was so good at putting together puzzle pieces that sometimes it scared the shit out of Charles.  

For example, it had only taken two instances of Charles showing up to the treehouse with finger-shaped bruises for Edwin to put together why Charles rarely spoke of his dad. But beyond that, Edwin didn’t have any interest in becoming a barrister, or a doctor, or faffing about the Paine’s large estate and throwing pointless functions for other tosh folks.

“Well, that’s rough,” Charles said. “How far away is it? Should we meet somewhere else, during the school year?”

Edwin didn’t say anything for a long moment. He was rubbing his fists together in a way that could only spell trouble.

“York,” he whispered.

“What? Sorry, I thought you said York,” Charles said.

“I did,” Edwin said, tears pooling in his eyes. “It’s in York.”

“But that’s— that’s hours away,” Charles said. “What about the weekends—”

“I’ll only come home on holiday,” Edwin said, shaking his head. “And even then, likely only Christmas. They said they’d be busy this summer, in Berlin.”

“No, that’s— that’s bollocks, that makes no sense,” Charles said. “How would we—”

How would we see each other? How would I see you? Charles didn’t say. He bit his lip so hard he could taste a sharp burst of iron.

“We’ll figure something out,” Edwin said, but Charles didn’t like the way he said it. It was like Edwin was already picturing a reality where they sent letters a few times, texted every once in awhile, and then, as surely as the sun rose every morning, their correspondence would fade from little to nothing. 

Charles didn’t know what he would do without Edwin for four years of boarding school, let alone forever. 

“No, I’ll figure something out,” Charles said.

“Like what?” Edwin asked, looking at him askance, as if Charles had suggested running away with the circus.

Close. That was Plan B.

+

Edwin lost Caius to the crowd as soon as his other brother, who’d been competing in the race, emerged from the sea. That was quite alright with Edwin, who had grown wearisome of Caius’s brash observations nearly as soon as they were alone.

He watched as Caius threw his arms around his brother’s wet shoulders. This brother was nearly a head taller than Caius, with thick arms dripping with seawater. Caius had said his name was Aloysius. Whoever had named all three of them must have hated children.

As soon as he was certain Caius’s attention was elsewhere, he began retracing his steps towards the others. Charles had been right that this entire event was not nearly as exciting as the crowd portended it to be. All around him, friends were reuniting with competitors, throwing foil blankets over their shoulders and exclaiming as if they had performed some sort of miracle, and not managed a rudimentary feat of magic that Edwin himself could have accomplished after twelve months of practice.

With no small amount of impatience, he slalomed around groups of overenthusiastic revelers until he spotted a familiar head of dark curly hair. 

Charles was sitting on a bench by the shore, facing away from where the race was wrapping up. For a moment, his cheeks gleamed in the afternoon light in such a way that Edwin thought he’d been crying, but when Edwin sat beside him his cheeks were dry. He favored Edwin with a tight smile. 

“How was your date, then?” Charles asked tonelessly.

“It was hardly a date,” Edwin said. “Honestly, I find Caius rather boorish.”

“I dunno he seemed to be, uh—”

“What?” Edwin asked, thoughtlessly. He felt badly when he realized Charles would be forced to answer honestly. He’d been trying to avoid questions altogether since Charles had the geas put on him.

“Your type,” Charles said, wincing.

“Caius?” Edwin asked, baffled.

“Yeah he’s got the,” Charles gestured about his head, for what reason Edwin could not interpret, “And the,” this time he gestured to his own shoulders as if making them wider. “Like the Cat King, yeah?”

“Charles,” Edwin said, trying to stow his immediate horror that Charles had seemingly clocked the similarities between Caius and the Cat King of all people. “In case you have forgotten, you are the one I’m in love with.”

Charles looked down at his hands sheepishly, twisting his fingers together as Edwin had only seen him do when he was embarrassed.

“I believe that would make you my type,” Edwin said. “Caius could not be more dissimilar to you if he tried.”

“Right, well that’s— good to know,” Charles said. He didn’t look very cheered by this revelation, even if there was a pleased flush on his cheeks. There was something still bothering him, something had been bothering him for days.

“It’s true that he suggested this outing to me, as his brother was competing in the race, but I did not drag us all here so I could run off with a paramour,” Edwin said, feeling almost haughty with indignation. “I simply thought it could be— nice, to make another friend.” He paused. “Although, I can’t for the life of me remember why I thought so at the time. I have my hands quite full with you, Crystal, Jenny, and Niko.”

Charles didn’t say anything else, he looked vaguely chastened, which didn’t sit well with Edwin. Normally Charles took all of Edwin’s arguments with good humor, but it was starting to seem like the geas had sucked all of the humor from Charles’s countenance.

“Are you quite alright?” Edwin asked. “You look like there is something troubling you.”

Before the geas, this might have been when the full force of Charles’s smile broke loose. He might have thrown an arm around Edwin’s shoulders, or clapped him on the arm, and told him he was absolutely brills, why did he ask?

Now, with the dark lines of the geas twisting on Charles’s wrist just below the cuff of his jacket, he didn’t smile, or brush off Edwin’s concern, instead his mouth twisted into a thin line. 

“There is something,” Charles said. “Troubling me.”

Edwin waited for him to say something else, but when nothing else was forthcoming, he said, “And you do not wish to speak of it?”

“Not right now,” Charles said. “But I will tell you, I promise.”

“Alright then,” Edwin said, standing. “Shall we go and fetch the girls? I think this outing has just about lost its luster.”

“Yeah,” Charles said, smiling faintly as he joined Edwin. “Let’s go see what trouble they’ve gotten themselves into.”

Chapter Text

Jenny’s new shop in London wasn’t just going to be a butcher shop. In an attempt to appeal to the bustling office buildings full of hungry, harried office workers it was nestled between, it was also going to offer pre-made sandwiches. 

Since they’d started sharing an apartment, there hadn’t been a single morning Crystal hadn’t woken up to some variety of meat in the kitchen. Meat was either defrosting, marinating, curing, or roasting, at all times. Crystal had taste tested enough roast beef sandwiches that it sometimes felt like she’d eaten a small cow.

So it was with real gravitas and sincerity that she told Jenny the roast beef sandwich she’d whipped up for Crystal—and Niko—post-Wizard Triathlon was the best fucking sandwich she’d ever had in her life.

“Yeah, sure,” Jenny said, leaning against the group’s small formica table. “Pull the other one.”

Across from Crystal, Niko was holding her own roast beef sandwich in two hands. Sauce dripped down her fingers, splattering onto the table’s white surface. Crystal watched Edwin’s expression as he watched the sauce dripping and noticed that Charles was doing the same thing, smiling fondly at Edwin’s disgust.

“It really is very good, Jenny,” Niko said. “Very meat-y.”

Jenny looked so tenderly at Niko that Crystal was surprised she didn’t pat her on the head.

“Yeah the meat is so moi—”

“Do not say moist,” Jenny said, pointing a finger at Crystal’s face menacingly. “I mean it. I will never give you a free sandwich again.”

“Money,” Crystal course-corrected. “The meat is so money. You’re gonna be raking it in, Jenny.”

“Sure, whatever. Does it need more sauce?”

“No,” Edwin said, pushing his chair away from the table. “And on that note, it's best we were getting back to the office.”

“After you, mate,” Charles said, following Edwin through the full-length mirror Jenny had helpfully set up behind the register.

The day she’d dragged the mirror in from the back alley, Crystal had waggled her eyebrows knowingly at her and Jenny had threatened her on pain of death to never reveal that she’d done something nice for another person. Crystal had told Edwin the next day and in thanks he’d sent Jenny a set of fancy smoked rubbing salts that he claimed they’d received from a restaurateur ghost in 2007. Jenny hadn’t commented on the gift, but she had positioned the rubbing salts in an esteemed place above their oven and once slapped Crystal’s hand away when she’d tried to use them in her ramen. 

Once the boys were gone, all of the day’s exhaustion seemed to hit Crystal at once. She finished her sandwich and helped Jenny wrap up the shop, barely able to keep her eyes open, but going through the motions of wiping down the counters and locking the doors by rote. On the tube home, she nearly fell asleep against Niko’s shoulder but woke when Niko shook her to show her a funny video on her phone. 

By the time the three of them finally clambered into their shared flat, Crystal felt the kind of fatigue she used to feel after staying up three nights in a row clubbing, even though it was barely nine in the evening. 

Jenny went to bed and then it was just Crystal and Niko, sitting in their cramped living room, watching Scooby Doo on television. 

She wanted to go to bed so badly—her body begged to be lying horizontal in satin pajamas and, most importantly, unconscious—but she also didn’t want to say goodnight to Niko just yet. It was nice to just sit up with her, watching cartoons. It felt so normal and good. Crystal didn’t know how she’d been taking this for granted for so long. She slid further down the couch, resting her head in Niko’s lap and felt the gentle brush of Niko’s fingers pushing her hair out of her eyes. 

And slowly, so slowly she barely noticed it was happening, sleep tugged her under.

+

“Crystal, thank god,” Niko said. “Where have you been ?”

Crystal opened her eyes in her own black void. The giant eyes above her head were watching her carefully, there was no ground but she was kneeling on something, and kneeling right in front of her was Niko. 

She was wearing a white outfit, the front of which had been defaced by a dark red liquid. It kind of looked like the time Crystal had spilled Cabernet on her parent’s sheepskin rug. But, no, this wasn’t Cabernet. It looked more viscous than a smooth glass of wine.

Before she realized what she was doing, Crystal reached forward, her fingers brushing against the center of the stain. Niko didn’t say anything, just gasped a little as Crystal made contact. When she pulled her hand away, the tips of her fingers were smeared with gore.

Not a stain, not wine—a wound, blood. Right, Niko had died.

In Port Townsend, Niko had jumped in front of her before Esther’s knife could pierce Crystal’s heart. She’d taken a blow meant for her and she’d paid the price for it. 

Crystal pulled away, startled by her own tears sluicing down her cheeks.

“You died,” Crystal said.

“Kind of,” Niko said.

“You’ve been here, with me, for months, I’ve been, what? Cracking up?” Crystal asked. 

“You’ve been keeping me company,” Niko said. 

“But if you’re in here, if you died, then who’s out there?” Crystal asked.

Niko frowned at her, her nose scrunching up like she’d smelled something bad. “Out where?”

“On the couch, in my apartment, with me,” Crystal said. “I thought it was you. We all did. We’ve been with you all day, like it was totally normal.”

“You’ve been what ?”

“My head is in your lap,” Crystal said, her breath coming in short wheezes. “Is this real? What the fuck is going on?”

Niko grabbed Crystal by her shoulders, holding her attention by a thread. 

“I was stabbed by Esther, we have been talking in your void for months, that’s real,” Niko said. “Whatever is happening out there is a trick, Crystal. You have to believe me.”

“How can I be sure?” Crystal asked. 

Niko’s expression went from confused to anxious to resolved so quickly it felt like Crystal was looking through a kaleidoscope. 

“If she’s me, how did I survive what happened at Esther’s house?” Niko asked.

“I— I don’t—”

“Did I still get stabbed? Did you bring me to the hospital? Save me with magic? If I didn’t get stabbed, how did you not get hurt by Esther’s knife?” Niko asked determinedly.

“I don’t remember,” Crystal said, her eyes wandering to the blood on Niko’s sternum. 

Niko grabbed her fingers, the ones already wet with her blood and pressed them once again to her own chest. Crystal’s fingers sank into the viscera, it was so cold and slippery it felt like the fresh pork loin she’d helped Jenny unload for her shop. She remembered Niko telling them in Port Townsend that cannibals called people long pig, because they tasted like pork, and felt so instantly nauseous she was surprised she was surprised she didn’t hurl. She yanked her hand out of Niko’s grasp.

“This is just a dream,” Crystal said. 

Niko shook her head at her. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, it’s—”

+

Crystal woke with a gasp. She sat straight up from where she’d been lying on the couch, a cold sweat trickled down the curve of her back. The television was still playing, but Scooby Doo had ended awhile ago. Instead it was an infomercial, with the volume turned low. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” a voice said behind her. A warm hand landed on her shoulder, the same hand that had curled around her wrist and pushed her fingers against a cold, unbeating chest moments ago.

Except, not the same. 

Crystal threw herself off the couch. She stumbled towards the other end of the room, only stopping when she turned to put the wall at her back. 

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Niko asked. She looked startled, concerned, a little scared. She had paused halfway off the couch, her hands raised as if to calm a spooked animal. “Stay right there, I’ll get the boys, alright?”

“No!” Crystal shouted. “Don’t go anywhere near them.”

“Crystal?” Jenny asked, storming into the room. Since the door to the hall was between Crystal and the thing that looked like Niko, Jenny ended up in the middle. Despite her fairly quick arrival, her eyes were bleary like she’d only just woke up. In her hand was an empty glass, as if she’d stumbled into the kitchen for a drink and gotten way more than she’d bargained for. 

“What are you?” Crystal demanded. 

“Crystal, I’m Niko and this is Jenny,” the thing wearing Niko’s face said. She turned to Jenny and added, “She had a nightmare or something—”

“Don’t you talk to her!” Crystal snarled. “Jenny, get away from it!”

Jenny stared at her with wide eyes. “Okay, what the fuck are you talking about? Are you calling Niko an it?”

“That is not Niko,” Crystal said.

“Crystal!” Charles shouted, running straight through the wall beside Jenny. Edwin came in behind him, hands hovering around Charles’s waist so they wouldn’t crash into each other. “What the bloody hell is all the racket?”

“Niko is dead,” Crystal said. She couldn’t bear to see the faux confusion and hurt on the thing wearing Niko’s face, so instead she focused on Jenny, Charles, and Edwin’s faces, and repeated, “Niko died at Esther’s house. She was stabbed, remember?”

Jenny dropped the glass she’d been holding. It shattered almost anticlimactically, splitting in three pieces by the arch of her foot.

“Oh, right,” Edwin said, staring at the wall. “Indeed.”

“Guys? What’s going on?” the Niko imposter asked. 

But none of them answered her. Charles had shouldered his way in front of Jenny and Edwin, putting himself between them and whatever they were dealing with. It was hard to say, while Edwin was busy staring at a wall, and Crystal’s heart was still beating out her chest, what the current threat amongst them could be. Illusion? Mass hallucination? The fae? 

But she’d felt so real. Warm and alive. She’d known things about them, about Niko. Nothing about today had seemed disingenuous, this Niko hadn’t hinted at wanting anything other than an afternoon out with her friends. 

“What are you?” Charles asked, taking the words right out of Crystal’s mouth. But this time, with three other people backing up the question, Niko’s face wavered. 

“I’m Niko, I’m your friend,” the imposter said, sounding so sincerely rattled that Crystal had to squeeze her eyes shut.

“Like hell,” Jenny bit out, her voice shaking. “Whatever the fuck you are, stop wearing her face.”

For a moment, it looked like Niko might cry, but then the sorrow melted from her features like ice from a windshield. She looked at Jenny as she said, “That’s one.”

Then Crystal blinked and she was gone. 

“Bollocks! Where did she go?” Charles asked, whipping to look around the room as if, in full view of four other people, an illusion of Niko had simply ducked behind the couch. 

“What did she mean ‘that’s one’?” Jenny asked.

Neither Charles nor Edwin answered her, but they shot each other a loaded look. Crystal had seen a wide variety of their looks at this point and she’d guess that this one fell somewhere closer to ‘disaster averted’ than ‘imminent danger,’ so she allowed herself to slump against the wall. 

“Have either of you spoken any desires aloud in the past couple of days?” Edwin asked lightly. 

If Crystal had grown up with siblings, Edwin’s tone was how she would have imagined her parents would have approached trying to find the culprit amongst them, by innocently inquiring something like, “Which one of you broke our priceless Grecian vase?”

“I speak my desires daily,” Crystal said, irritation leaking into her voice. “I begged for a real American burrito on the street yesterday and one did not appear in my hand. How the hell does speaking our desires have anything to do with what just happened?”

Edwin closed his eyes, as if for strength, but before he could say anything else, Charles cut in with, “Case of the Lost Husband, back in ‘07. Woman wished her sister was dead, then wished her sister’s husband loved her, and it came true. Only, when we reminded him he hadn’t loved his sister-in-law until a week prior—”

“He said that was ‘two.’ The second wish,” Edwin said. “Then he woke up.”

“So you think one of us made a wish?” Jenny asked. “On what? A shooting star?”

“A jinn,” Edwin said. “And not someone. You. Most likely.”

“Me?” Jenny asked, pressing a hand to her Tongue & Tail sleep shirt. She went to take a step backward, but Charles stopped her with a hand to her elbow. He guided her away from the broken glass and released her only when she was within sitting distance of the couch. She sat like her strings had been cut.

“Yes, you, the wish obeyed your command to leave. And it looked at you before it disappeared,” Edwin said. “Have you said anything in front of any strangers recently that could be misconstrued as a wish? Anything that could have precipitated Niko being with us in London?”

“This is insane. No, I haven’t, isn’t there anything else it could be?” Jenny asked.

“I suppose it could be an illusion, but people outside of our circle acknowledged Niko at the triathlon,” Edwin said. “Perhaps a doppelganger, but not only are those exceedingly rare, theoretically Niko’s doppelganger wouldn't be alive. They would be spectral harbingers of calamity, manifest from a living person. Additionally, doppelgangers aren’t changelings, they aren’t in the habit of trickery. Now, changelings, that’s an interesting theory,” Edwin flipped his notebook open to an early page and scanned it. “Ah, but changelings must be created from a living host. As far as we know, our Niko never interacted with the High Fae while she was alive. No, I think a jinn is our soundest theory.”

“Well, that can’t— I—” Jenny cut herself off, looking lost. She turned to Charles. “What exactly did I say yesterday?”

“When? In the shop?” Charles asked, scratching his chin. “Something about how you didn’t not want things to be the same?”

“I think I said, ‘I can’t say I didn’t wish things had been different,’” Jenny said, looking at Edwin. 

He nodded. “That would do it. Was anyone with you?”

Charles and Jenny shared a heavy look and Jenny nodded, her fingers digging into her knees, she said, “Sahar.”

+

Tracking down Sahar was easy enough, she had a shift at Jenny’s shop the following morning. 

Crystal nodded off on Jenny’s desk, while the four of them waited in the backroom for Sahar to arrive. 

Edwin busied himself with organizing Jenny’s new filing cabinet, when necessary tugging stray files out from under Crystal’s head; as unobtrusively as possible, of course, so as not to needlessly wake her. 

He could vaguely hear Charles and Jenny talking on the other side of the room, while Jenny brewed her fourth cup of coffee from a tiny glass pot. She claimed it had been the biggest coffee making machine she could get through customs. Every time she used more of her precious stash of what she called “Seattle gold”—but which looked to Edwin to just be middling coffee beans—she looked more and more forlorn. Really, it was like she didn’t know two souls who knew how to travel through mirrors. They could always pop over to get her more of her precious beans, for the right price.

At the moment, however, Jenny looked less forlorn about her dwindling supply of mediocre coffee and more uneasy about Sahar’s impending arrival. She kept glancing over at Crystal, who was using Jenny’s desk calendar like a pillow, and then whispering harshly at Charles. Charles himself did not look distressed by whatever Jenny was positing, if anything he had a look on his face that usually meant he was about to pull a client into a consolatory embrace. Even so, he made no move to get any closer to Jenny, let alone hug her.

The back door flying open disrupted Edwin’s meandering thoughts. A steady downpour had begun as soon as the sun rose, and Sahar swept into the shop along with a torrent of rain. Her yellow slicker was askew along with her tortoiseshell glasses. 

The wind had done most of the work opening the door and it fought back as Sahar turned to close it. Charles rushed forward to help her, shouldering the door into the jam, and when it was closed and the shop was quiet except for the hushed gurgling of Jenny’s coffee maker, Sahar pushed her soaked hair back from her face and looked Charles right in the eye.

“Thank you,” Sahar said, then she looked around and seemed to notice there were four people present at her workplace at seven in the morning. All of them, making pointed eye contact with her. Even Crystal—who had woken up with a Post-It note stuck to her face and looked no less intimidating for it—was watching her shrewdly. “Is something— has something happened?”

“You can see me,” Charles said.

“Of course,” Sahar said. “You’re Jenny’s ghost friend.”

“And you’re a genie,” Jenny said.

Sahar flinched. She awkwardly shed her slicker and hung it on a hook by the door. Whether out of habit, or sheer innocence, she took her work apron from the adjoining hook and pulled it over her head. 

“A jinn, actually,” she said. Jenny raised a singular eyebrow at her and Sahar continued, “It’s— we’re not, like, cartoon wishmakers, not really. I haven’t granted anyone a wish in centuries, it was just—”

“ Centuries ?” Jenny asked.

“Quite,” Sahar said. “But you seemed so sad and lonely. And you know, I did— do like you.” She was entirely flushed now. Her eyes focused on her hands as they pulled her apron strings around her back to her front and tied it off with a neat bow. “I hope the wish didn’t turn out too poorly. Sometimes they do, if you don’t word them right. Was it— Are you alright?”

Jenny had crossed her arms over her chest at some point during Sahar’s explanation and her face was doing a complicated series of acrobatics as she seemingly attempted to alter her worldview to fit the perception that Sahar didn’t seem to be a cruel prankster. She’d had good intentions, it was just—

“Jinn can make a wide variety of fantasies reality,” Edwin said, bristling internally as every eye in the room turned to look at him. He focused on Charles’s level gaze and added, “But they have limitations. They can’t make someone genuinely fall in love with another, they can’t change the will of large swaths of people, and they can’t bring back the dead.” He paused to clear his throat. “That is to say, they can create a facsimile of the deceased but, as you’ve witnessed, it's a pale imitation, at best.”

The silence after his pronouncement was absolute. Sahar shuffled forward and sat at the small worktable, where Jenny usually worked on her sandwich recipes. 

“You lost someone,” Sahar said.

Jenny nodded, her lips pressed in a thin line. “We all did.”

“I’m sorry,” Sahar said. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have granted it. I swear.”

“It’s fine,” Jenny said. “Just— listen, maybe it’s best if—”

“Please don’t fire me,” Sahar said, pushing her chair back with a screech as she stood hastily. “This is the best job I’ve had in years. I just spent two decades in the NHS, I can’t go back to healthcare. Do you know they make nurses pay for their own parking? At the bleeding hospital?”

“I’m not firing you,” Jenny said, looking pained. “I was going to say maybe no more wishes? Ever again? Okay?” 

“Oh, well, sure, after the rule of three,” Sahar said. 

“The rule of what?” Jenny asked, looking at Edwin.

“The rule of three. Every recipient is granted three wishes, no more, no less,” Edwin said.

“Okay, then I wish to not have any more wishes,” Jenny said.

Sahar shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“Well, I don’t want them. Can’t I just not use them?” Jenny asked.

“They have to be used,” Charles said, sidling closer to where Jenny was standing but not touching her the way he might have with Crystal or Edwin. He seemed to sense that Jenny’s reaction to being coddled would likely end with a stabbing. “It’s something with the magic involved, once you start wishing for things, you don’t stop until there have been three wishes.”

Jenny kneaded her forehead, while Charles turned to share a wince with Edwin and Crystal.

“What did the woman in your case wish for?”

“What?”

“The case of the— cheating husband, or whatever. What was her third wish?” Jenny asked.

“She asked to make it so no one alive remembered what had happened. Only, well, everyone forgot she existed,” Charles said. “Her kids, her ex, her parents. Everyone. Last we heard she moved to Bristol. Makes soap out of goat’s milk.”

“Fuck!” Jenny shouted. “I’m lactose intolerant.”

“I can fix that,” Sahar said, eagerly.

“No!” Jenny shouted, pointing at her. “No more wishes. No more magic. Just make sandwiches out of the roast curing in the walk-in. I’m going to drink my coffee up front while I try to make heads or tails of this godforsaken paperwork and when I’m done if anyone mentions anything supernatural for the rest of the day, I will not be held liable for my actions.”

True to her word, Jenny poured herself a cup of coffee and, despite the hot liquid sloshing over the sides of her mug, wordlessly stormed to the front of her shop.

Charles shared a concerned look with Edwin and glanced back at the still swinging doors where Jenny had disappeared. Edwin nodded after her and Charles smiled back. 

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” he said.

Edwin nearly forgot Crystal was still sitting beside him until she said, “I guess I’ll head home.”

Edwin took note of the hesitant pleasure on Crystal’s face, when Edwin followed her through the shop’s back door. 

Together they walked in silence through the wet, windy streets of London. Crystal snorted when a woman’s umbrella was swept out of her hand and flew straight through Edwin’s torso, and Edwin shot her a withering look. 

There was opportunity to speak on the tube, as their car was mostly empty, but neither of them uttered a word. The silence in their midst became nearly a spell that both of them seemed wary to break.

The rain had mostly stopped by the time they climbed the stairs to the office. Crystal walked right past the agency door and Edwin followed her up the rickety outlet to the roof. The roof was one of the first places Charles and Edwin had brought Crystal when they’d returned to London. The two of them had been to the roof a handful of times, but the roof of the Tongue & Tail had cemented a longing in them all to sit on a parapet and stare down at the busy streets below. 

This was exactly where Crystal sat now. Her own slicker had been more effective against the rain than Sahar’s, when she threw her hood back her hair was dry. Her cheeks were only wet where tears had drawn thin lines down her face.

Edwin was the one to break their companionable silence, no longer able to keep himself from asking, “How did you know that Niko was a deception?”

Crystal didn’t answer immediately, she had a look on her face that Edwin couldn’t begin to parse.

He added, “I wouldn’t have guessed it. It never would have occurred to me that it was an illusion. I would have happily let the jinn’s wish pull the wool over my eyes as long as it desired. It felt… right that she was here, with us.”

“It did,” Crystal said. “It does.”

“It does?” Edwin asked, feeling a creeping perplexity.

“Sometimes, when I sleep—” Crystal paused to shake her head. “Most times, when I sleep, I see Niko in my void. You know, the one I told you about? With the eyes?”

Edwin nodded vaguely, remembering Crystal’s description of facing off against the demon named David in an endless black void. She’d pushed him through the iris of one of a number of large floating eyeballs, and her ancestors had helped her bury him under her tree. The living symbol of her power. 

“We talk, sometimes for hours, about manga and our parents and whatever case we’re solving. Sometimes those dreams feel more real than— this,” she gestured at the city waking up around them. “I guess my brain didn’t have room for more than one delusion.”

“And you’re certain these are… dreams?” Edwin ventured. He had a deluge of questions he wanted to ask her, but he still remembered Port Townsend, Niko’s case, Crystal telling him that he had to be careful what kind of questions he asked someone who was clearly, in her words, ‘going through it.’ He may not have understood much about Crystal, but it was very clear she was currently in some kind of emotional distress. He could pace out his curiosity, accordingly.

“What else would they be?” Crystal asked. She raised a hand to push her hair out of her face and froze before she could complete the motion. She stared at her fingers, her eyes widening.

“Crystal?” Edwin asked.

Crystal held her hand out to him, palm up. He wasn’t sure how neither of them hadn’t noticed before, but there was something dried to her skin. The rust colored substance was caked under her nails and lined the grooves of her knuckles, as if she’d dipped her hand in paint.

“Is that—”

“Blood,” Crystal said. “In my dream, Niko— I touched her—” Crystal pressed her hand to her sternum, right where Edwin remembered a patch of dark blood blooming on Niko’s white clothing. Crystal looked at Edwin, her eyes intent, “That’s impossible, isn’t it?”

Edwin met her searching gaze with one of his own. He aborted several responses before landing on, “I need my books.”

Before either of them could say anything else, there was a buzzing from Crystal. She patted herself, before finding her cellular phone ringing in the back pocket of her trousers. 

“Who could that be?” Edwin asked. Niko had been a farce, Jenny was at work, and Charles didn’t have a phone. Edwin hadn’t seen Crystal talk to anyone outside of their little circle in all the time they’d known each other.

Crystal stared at the screen, her face wiped clear of emotion. She looked like she’d expected to discover a rodent in a mousetrap and instead found it empty. 

She jabbed at the small button that declined calls and the number on her screen vanished, only to reappear seconds later. Crystal huffed and shoved her phone in her jacket.

“It’s my mom,” she said, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together and watching the powdered blood flake off her skin. 

“Right,” Edwin said, unsure of how to proceed. Crystal had always seemed eager to receive attention from her parents, he found it curious but not entirely surprising that at the first hint of interest from them, she balked. He was positive any words of comfort he could provide would be similarly rebuffed, so instead he offered, “Would you like to help me read about the Dreaming?”

Crystal nodded, backing off the parapet and landing feet first onto the slick rooftop. “Let’s get to work.”

Chapter Text

As a rule, Crystal tried not to regret her actions, but by the time the agency received their eleventh invitation to the Beltane Ball, she was considering it.

In the aftermath of what Charles had taken to calling The Case of Jenny’s First Wish, Edwin had reached new levels of obsessive that Crystal had previously thought impossible. He hadn’t looked up from his books in days. 

To be fair, all of them were preoccupied with research to some degree. After they’d returned to the agency, Crystal had told Charles and Jenny about how she’s been seeing Niko in her void for months. They were all warily hopeful that the Niko she’d been seeing could be Niko . Their Niko. That she hadn’t been torn away from them after all. 

But Edwin’s hyperfixation was on an entirely different level. Crystal and Jenny still had to eat and sleep. Charles still had to handle their clients. Edwin, well, Crystal had seen him slide a new book in front of the one he’d been reading, already flipped open to the correct page. At one point she saw him reading four books at the same time, all while taking meticulous notes in his little notebook.

Almost every bookshelf in the office had been ravaged and sat nearly empty, while Edwin perched amongst books he’d stacked in nonsensical piles on the floor. Just that morning, Jenny had left their apartment and immediately tripped over a stack of thesauruses on the supernatural. She had shot Edwin a scathing look that had made Crystal’s hair stand on end. It hadn’t broken through Edwin’s bubble of concentration in the slightest.

Jenny had stomped off to work and Crystal had gone back to a semblance of doing her own research, while Charles restlessly reorganized his backpack on the only barren patch of floorspace. 

When Crystal had suggested running some errands, Charles had been halfway out the door practically before she’d finished speaking. 

Edwin hadn’t responded when she’d asked if he wanted to join them, just waved them off and felt around the floor for his magnifying glass so he could analyze an etching on the scroll he was reading.

On one level, Crystal understood Edwin’s single-minded focus on finding answers. It was for Niko, after all. If she really was out there somewhere, her soul tethered to Crystal’s void or lost or trapped on a plane just out of reach, finding her was their first priority. 

The problem was, there were a lot of first priorities at the moment.

There was also the matter of Emma, who was still missing.

Beth had stopped by the afternoon before to ask after their progress. She hadn’t returned to her cemetery, instead she’d been looking after Emma’s pet squid by Emma’s family crypt. When Crystal had told her they were still looking, Beth had relayed even worse news. More ghost children had gone missing. 

Apparently there was a group of teen girls who had died after a Bon Jovi concert at the O2. They were inseparable, well-liked, and hadn’t missed a concert in seventeen years. According to Beth, they hadn’t been seen in nearly a week, and even more damning, they’d failed to show up to a Harry Styles concert.

The Night Nurse still hadn’t returned from her sojourn to check for Emma and the Cassity grandchild in the afterlife. Every hour that passed without the Night Nurse’s return was starting to feel foreboding. The paperwork she normally retrieved from Edwin’s desk promptly each morning was beginning to teeter dangerously in its neglected pile. Charles had even sent her a letter about the newly missing fangirls through the Ghost Postman, and hadn’t received so much as a receipt.

To make matters infinitely worse, Jenny was adamantly communicating monosyllabically out of fear that she would accidentally wish for something horrific with her second wish. And while Crystal would prefer if one thing in their lives didn’t take a turn for catastrophe, she really needed someone to talk to right now. Without Jenny or Edwin, or even Charles—since he still couldn’t lie to her and tell her everything was going to be fine—she was beginning to feel very, very alone. 

So of course, in the midst of wallowing about the hellscape that was their agency these days, Crystal had suggested running some errands and Charles had taken her to an occult shop, where Crystal had promptly stuck her foot directly in her mouth. 

To her credit, how was she supposed to know Edwin was basically the equivalent of a Milk-Bone to eligible ghost bachelors?

Charles’s friend Patty—who looked like an art teacher Crystal had had in the seventh grade—had been telling her about the Beltane Ball while Charles swore at an enchanted Rubix Cube he was trying to crack. 

The Beltane Ball, on the outside, sounded like a clandestine, exclusive party for only the richest of the supernatural elite in London. The way Patty described it, it sounded more like a Spring Fling: drama, magically enhanced alcohol, and a bonfire. If there was someone’s cousin’s friend DJing and a bowl of mystery punch, it would have been synonymous with just about every high school dance Crystal had ever spent thirty minutes at before leaving for greener pastures.

“But I’m wasting my breath explaining this to you lot,” Patty had said, picking up a cloth so she could continue buffing a silver platter.

“Why’s that?” Crystal had asked. 

Patty had looked at her as if she’d spontaneously grown another head.

“Because those two haven’t attended the Beltane Ball in decades,” Patty had said, pointing at Charles with her cloth.

Charles had his tongue stuck out as he twisted the Rubix Cube just so . When it reset itself again he closed his eyes and cursed so fervently it nearly made Crystal giggle.

“Well, maybe we’ll go this year,” Crystal had said with a shrug. “We need a break, that’s for sure.”

“Charles and Edwin? To the Beltane Ball?” Patty had asked, now looking at her like she’d sprouted even more heads. 

“Why not?”

“It’s an old-fashioned kind of event. You’d need a date,” Patty had said. 

Crystal had shrugged. “I’ll take Charles, I guess? Edwin will probably just sit in the office, reading books until his eyes melt.”

“You— Charles— And you—” Patty made a sound like her throat had clicked shut. “Does that mean Edwin is— single?” 

“I guess,” Crystal had said, watching Charles put the Rubix Cube back where he’d found it with an air of such forced nonchalance it was as if he was pretending he didn’t have beef with an inanimate object. 

“Huh,” Patty had said. 

Then they’d checked out their purchases—a roll of enchanted tape for Charles, tiger’s eye for Crystal, and a new ancient book for Edwin—and left. They hadn’t been back at the office for ten minutes before the first invitation arrived.

Crystal had just sat down on the floor beside Edwin and picked up a new book, ready to get back to research with fresh eyes, when the Ghost Postman materialized in front of them.

“Right, here you are,” he said, before popping out of existence again.

The card he left behind was on maroon cardstock with gold font. Charles stood from where he’d been roosted on the couch and frowned down at the card like he thought it might begin counting down to an imminent explosion. 

Edwin hadn’t bothered to look up from reading to acknowledge the Postman or the letter, so Crystal picked it up.

“Lord Rutherford, High Wizard of Somerset,” Crystal read aloud, “would like to cordially extend an invitation to Mr. Edwin Payne, to accompany him to the Beltane Ball— Holy shit.” 

Charles plucked the letter from her hands, eyes skimming the words as if to confirm she wasn’t pulling an elaborate prank on him. When he was finished he looked conflicted between tearing the letter to shreds and using it to track down Lord Rutherford by scent alone.

“Edwin,” Crystal said. “Edwin, did you hear that? You got invited to the ball by some snobby prick.”

“Fascinating,” Edwin said.

“Fascinating?” Crystal asked.

“Yes, this text theorizes that the Dreaming is not its own plane, but an extension of our own, a manifestation of the minds of the dreamers, and therefore would collapse without the energy with which to feed it,” Edwin said, scribbling notes in his notebook so quickly Crystal was surprised his pencil didn’t spark a fire.

So, he hadn’t been listening at all.

A single invitation was one thing. Soon enough, after Charles had paced the length of the office a few dozen times, and Crystal had managed to hide the invitation in a book about water sprites, they each went back to their own tasks. 

But then the Postman came back again. And again. Crystal hadn’t even known he could come more than once in a day, but apparently all the senders had paid for priority shipping. 

And then here they were with the eleventh invitation, signed with a flourish, from simply: Caius F.

“Okay, drastic measures,” Crystal said, yanking the book Edwin was reading out of his hands.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Edwin asked, blinking up at her like he’d never seen her before in his life. 

Crystal’s phone buzzed, but she ignored it. She collected the numerous invitations scattered on the floor and dumped them in Edwin’s lap. Edwin looked at her like she’d slapped him in the face with a wet fish.

“What is the meaning of this?” Edwin asked, holding Caius’s invitation up to the light. He squinted at it, as if it wasn’t written in plain English.

“Invitations, to the Beltane Ball, for you,” Crystal said.

“And why on earth am I receiving invitations to the Beltane Ball?” Edwin asked. “Charles and I haven’t attended since 2004.” He wrinkled his nose. “They played that displeasing rendition of a contemporary tune on the cello, what was it Charles?”

Charles, who was having some kind of crisis that involved him standing in the corner of the office with his arms crossed, said, without turning around, “Toxic, mate.”

“It was indeed toxic, but what was the name of the song?”

Crystal’s phone buzzed again and she reached into her pocket to silence it. She lost a moment, wondering who could be calling her and why, but her curiosity wasn’t high enough for her to follow through with answering her phone. 

When she tuned back into the boy’s conversation, Charles was listing song names and Edwin was dismissing them, as if he was an expert in early aughts pop music. Thankfully, Charles had actually turned to face them so Edwin wasn’t having this argument with the back of Charles’s head. 

“Can we get back on track?” Crystal asked them. “Are we going to this ball or not?”

“I think not,” Edwin said, depositing his invitations on the floor. “We have far too much research to do at present. I couldn’t possibly step away to attend a ball, of all things.”

“You’re sure you— don’t want to go?” Charles asked. “That is an awful lot of invitations to turn down.”

“If they were real gentlemen, they might have called on me to invite me in person,” Edwin sniffed, plucking his book back from Crystal while she was distracted. He opened it to the page he’d been reading and they lost his attention almost immediately.

Crystal’s phone, which had just stopped buzzing, buzzed again. She pulled it from her pocket with jerky movements, and tapped the answer button before she could think better of it.

“What?” she demanded. 

“Finally,” Crystal’s mom said, on the other end. She sounded faintly annoyed, but mostly unbothered, like she hadn’t been calling her teenage daughter repeatedly for weeks, but instead had been trying to get ahold of some innocuous middleman, like a customer service representative.

Edwin and Charles were watching her, she could sense the weight of their gazes—Charles concerned, Edwin wary—even when she turned her back on them and walked to the other side of the office for privacy. In their nook, Crystal sat on a small, dusty chair they kept for clients, and tried to slow the racing of her heart, as her mother’s voice filtered through one word at a time.

“—the school called and said you haven’t been there to register. I know you have your GED, Crystal, but we have to keep up appearances when we move to a new place. We can’t have a sixteen-year-old gallivanting around the city without purpose. Besides, you should at least try to make some friends—”

“Wait, register?” Crystal asked. She knew she was a bit out-of-touch with her parents, but considering she’d attended classes there she was pretty sure she had registered at the swanky private school they’d paid for in London, even if she’d stopped going months ago.

“Yes, Crystal, register. God, have you even been listening to me? Moving is stressful enough, without you—”

“Moving? You moved?” Crystal asked, feeling like a hand was slowly squeezing around her lungs.

“Crystal?” a voice asked, but it wasn’t her mom. It wasn’t Edwin or Charles, or even Niko. She whipped her head around, but she only caught sight of Charles and Edwin’s pinched faces. No one else was in the office.

“Crystal! Are you listening to me?” her mom asked, and Crystal snapped back to the present. “We moved to Amsterdam. The secretary said your things were already gone when she went to pack up the apartment. Are you telling me you aren’t in the Netherlands?”

“You moved to Amsterdam,” Crystal said blandly, “without your kid?”

“Don’t take that tone with me. Where are you?” her mom demanded. 

“Where I am didn’t matter to you five minutes ago, why does it matter now?” Crystal asked. 

“I don’t have to wait for you to answer, Crystal. I can turn off your phone, your cards. Then sooner or later you’ll come crawling back from wherever you’ve holed yourself up.”

“Do it, then,” Crystal said, hot tears burning as they dripped off her chin. “Cut me off. What's stopping you? You’ve already withdrawn from every other aspect of my life. I’m not exactly twiddling my thumbs, waiting for you to turn into Mother of the Year.”

“I don’t need this from you. Call me when you feel like acting like an adult,” her mom said, hanging up the phone before Crystal could take another breath.

Crystal’s phone slipped from her hand, landing unceremoniously by her foot. Her exhale shuddered as it left her body.

The boys were silent as they approached her, but she could still feel them getting closer even before Charles’s hand landed on her shoulder. She covered her face with an arm so they wouldn’t see just how hard she was crying.

“Crystal, is everything—” Charles cut himself off, likely realizing that it wasn’t even a question that everything was alright. 

Everything sucked. Her life was a mess. And her parents seemed determined to cut her out of every part of their lives, like they were trimming fat from meat, and not estranging their only child.

For a long moment all three of them were quiet, the only sound the rain lashing the windows. 

Then Edwin cleared his throat and said, “Right, we really should get going then. Chop chop.”

“Chop chop?” Crystal asked, looking up at him incredulously. Her face felt wet and puffy, and talking made her cheeks stretch painfully.

Edwin only raised an eyebrow at her. He didn’t comment on her tears, or her swollen eyes, he didn’t offer her a hug or a pat on the back. Instead, he bent at the waist, picked up her phone and put it back in her slack hands.

“Indeed, chop chop,” Edwin said. “We have places to be.”

“Mate, I don’t know if—”

But Crystal cut off Charles’s good-natured protest by waving her arms at Edwin.

“And where could we possibly have to be right now? Can’t you see I am having a— a—”

“A crisis? Quite,” Edwin said. “But if we’re to attend the Beltane Ball in two days, we will all need appropriate attire.”

Crystal was speechless. A few weeks ago, she might have launched herself forward and tried to throttle Edwin. A few months ago, she would have started sharpening the edges of her words until they slipped so easily between Edwin’s ribs he could barely feel the initial stab. Presently, despite the quirk of his mouth, she could see the way his brow was furrowed, she was acutely aware of the tense set of his hands as he pressed them together. Edwin was nervous, he was maybe even worried about her. He could see that she didn’t exactly want to bare her heart to both of them right now, not when it had just been freshly trampled. 

He was giving her something to do, something to concentrate on, something to be excited for.

“That is,” Edwin said, haltingly, “unless appropriate attire is entirely beyond your capabilities.”

“For the last time,” Crystal said, standing and wiping a hand over her face. “I will not wear a three piece suit on cases.”

“It is hardly a three-piece suit. Really, Crystal,” Edwin said, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. “We really must work on your knowledge of formal wear.”

Crystal shrugged her jacket on and watched Charles watching the two of them. His shoulders had been up around his ears when they’d started talking, but the longer they carried on bickering the lower they crept. A slow smile lit up his face like the sun coming out from behind the clouds.

“If I’m going to a ball, I’m not wearing a suit. I’d love to hear what you know about women’s formal wear,” Crystal said, challengingly, throwing the door of the office open.

Edwin took a deep breath and said, “In 1906—”

Crystal closed the door in his face, snickering when she heard him come up short on the other side. He phased his head through the window and glared at her. 

“Formal dress doesn’t stop at your clothes, Crystal. Manners are a crucial component,” Edwin said, stepping fully through the door. “Now, where was I? Ah, yes, in 1906—”

Crystal listened as Edwin explained formal wear throughout the decades in excruciating detail, and watched the smile on Charles’s face grow brighter the longer he talked. 

Her parents had moved. They’d left her here, in London, by herself. But she wasn’t alone. 

The hand that had clenched around her lungs slowly released its grip as she began teasing Edwin. She wasn’t okay yet, but she knew she’d get there.

+

“Jenny, I need your help,” Charles said, stepping through Jenny’s bedroom door. He frowned at the book she threw through his midsection. “Hey!”

“Do I need to put a sign on the goddamn door?” Jenny asked. “No ghost teens in this apartment after business hours. No teens at all, period, in my bedroom. Especially without knocking.”

“Okay, alright,” Charles said, taking in Jenny’s overlarge Tongue & Tail shirt that was serving as a nightgown and the bright pink patches she had under her eyes. 

She seemed to remember she was wearing the eye patches just as he noticed them, because she ripped them off her face and threw them on the floor.

“Do you need a clearer hint? Get the hell out!” Jenny said, pointing to the door.

“Okay, but, like, I really need your help,” Charles said, feeling a bit like he was vibrating out of his skin.

“You are a ghost detective who has been on this earth longer than I’ve been alive. What could you possibly need my help with?” Jenny asked.

Charles took a step closer. Jenny had her bedroom setup like a hotel room, impersonal and bland. He wondered if she had more personal items still in storage in America, or if she just lived like this. Back in Port Townsend, he and Edwin had watched Jenny long enough to determine she wasn’t a serial killer, but he didn’t remember checking out Jenny’s bedroom. She’d rarely been in it while they were there, usually down in the shop or run ragged by Crystal and Niko and all the supernatural shenanigans she hadn’t known were going on under her roof.

If he was honest, he’d expected more posters. Maybe all black furniture, more of a macabre aesthetic with a side of punk. Jenny’s bedspread was a muddled gray with white stripes, he couldn’t stop staring at it.

“Earth to Charles?” Jenny asked, lifting a pillow in warning. “Five seconds, or I will start throwing shit again.”

“Right, right, so, like,” Charles took a large step forward and sat on the end of Jenny’s bed, trying desperately to ignore the daggers Jenny was glaring at him, now in much closer proximity. “Have you ever been in love?”

“No. Out,” Jenny said, pointing at the door.

“I asked my question!” Charles protested. “And you can see why I need your help. I can’t exactly ask Crystal. Or Edwin.”

 “Why not? They’re dumb teenagers. You’re a dumb teenager,” Jenny said. “I am not your— your guidance counselor, or whatever.”

“No, you’re not, you’re my friend, right?” Charles asked, trying to imbue his eyes with as much desperation as he felt at the moment. Which— well, felt like a lot. He could hardly keep still. His foot was attempting to tap a hole through the floor.

“God,” Jenny said, holding the bridge of her nose between her thumb and her forefinger. She stayed like that for such a long, still moment, that Charles was briefly worried his brain had hit pause. “Okay, fine. Here’s the rub, kid—” Charles leaned forward and tried not to feel offended when Jenny scoffed at him and crossed her arms over her chest. “Love is not like a fairytale, or some cheap Hollywood romcom, alright? It’s not all rainbows and ponies. It's got blood and teeth and grit. If it's real, it looks horrifying. It has to. You fight for it.”

“So you have been in love,” Charles said. 

“Once,” Jenny said. There was a look in her eye, for a fleeting moment, like she was seeing someone other than Charles at the end of her bed, but then that expression was wiped clean off her face. “That was enough for me.”

“Right, so, like, how do you know you love someone?” Charles asked.

Jenny raised an eyebrow at him skeptically. “Please tell me this isn't about Crystal.”

Charles spluttered, hoping his face hadn’t done anything weird, but even in his nonanswer Jenny seemed appeased.

“Okay, is it about Edwin?” Jenny asked.

Charles didn’t say anything. It was hard. He could feel the geas tugging at his wrist like it was trying to pull him off the bed, but he wasn’t technically lying by not responding so there was nothing it could do to him.

“Okay, you’re right, I don’t want to know,” Jenny said. “But I will state, for the record, that I will not be helping anyone through any queer panic now or in the future. I am only one lesbian, I am not your gay Yoda.”

“That’s not what I’m unsure about,” Charles said. “And this isn’t about me. It’s—” He bit his lip, it was one thing rehearsing what to say in the closet of the agency and quite another to be sitting in front of the real Jenny while her eyebrows drew lower and lower. “Someone told me that they love me. And I guess I just wanted to know— What does it feel like? Being in love, I mean.”

“Edwin told you he’s in love with you?”

Charles waved his hands around. “Why would you think it's Edwin?”

Jenny sighed. “No offense, kid, but Crystal doesn’t seem like the type to fall in love with someone so soon after having her demon ex-boyfriend literally invade her mind, and I don’t see anyone else around here. So, Edwin, huh?”

Charles swallowed, he folded his shaking hands over his shaking knee. “Yeah, Edwin.”

“Well, in any case,” Jenny said. “I can’t tell you what it's like for him.”

“Why not?” Charles asked, trying hard not to sound like he was whining.

“Being in love is different for everyone,” Jenny said with a shrug. “If being in love for me, an arguably tough-looking, independent  person, felt like putting my still-beating heart in someone else’s hands, how am I to say what it feels like for the ghost of an uptight Victorian child? Why do you want to know, anyway?”

“I guess—” Charles started and stopped himself. He tugged on his earring, a nervous tic that he’d nearly kicked until recent events had started to feel as if he were being marinated in anxiety. “I guess, okay, so, my mum loves my dad, right? My dad isn’t exactly what you’d call a nice guy. He treats her like— like, well, not like a partner. But my mum loves him anyway. She won’t leave him, even when its in her best interest, and I guess I’ve just been wondering—”

“You’ve been wondering if you treated Edwin badly if he wouldn’t call you out on it because he’s in love with you.”

“Right, that exactly,” Charles said. “So?”

“So, what?” Jenny asked. “That’s a ridiculous thing to worry about. Edwin chewed you out for five minutes this morning because you lost his magic chalk—”

“His blessed rune chalk, yeah that was mad expensive,” Charles said with a wince.

“Whatever, my point is, Edwin Payne is not the type to let you walk all over him. If anything, I’d worry about him walking all over you . And for the record,” Jenny said, catching Charles’s gaze. “Whatever your parents feel for each other, it doesn’t sound like love to me.”

Charles was a ghost and he couldn’t get sick, but as Jenny’s words washed over him he felt the last remnants of nausea seep from his spectral gut.

“Thanks, Jenny,” Charles said. 

“Don’t mention it,” Jenny said, pulling at her comforter sheepishly. “Seriously, don’t tell anyone we had this conversation. And if that’s the only calamity you’re facing at the moment, I would appreciate some privacy so I can get my beauty sleep.”

“Actually, there was one more thing,” Charles said, trying to make his upturned face seem as pathetic as possible. “I had a favor to ask.”

+

Edwin had just finished adjusting the knot of his tie when Charles stumbled through the mirror.

“Do we really have to wear all of this? Wouldn’t a blazer and a nice shirt do the trick?” Charles asked, struggling with the maroon tie he’d chosen. 

“Stop that,” Edwin said, batting Charles’s hands away. He undid the infernal knot Charles had twisted his tie into and smoothed the ends over his collarbones before he began to swiftly retie it. When he was finished he patted the tie down. It fell fetchingly over Charles’s sternum. 

“There you are,” Edwin said, swallowing, but it took him another long moment to tear his eyes away from the sharp angles of Charles’s shoulders in the velvet suit jacket Crystal had chosen for him. 

“Thanks,” Charles said, sounding choked.

When Edwin looked back at him, he was staring at Edwin’s pocket square. His Adam’s apple bobbed as if he was swallowing back something he wanted to say, which wasn’t like him at all. Though, to be fair, the geas was still very much holding him to the uncontested truth these days. Perhaps he was afraid to say something that might sound cruel in its stark honesty.

Before Edwin could think much more of it, Charles put a hand to Edwin’s arm, smoothing his thumb over the suede elbow patches of the dark blue suit Edwin had chosen for the occasion. 

“You look—”

“Hot!” Crystal exclaimed, stepping through the door of her flat. “You both look very hot. Swanky, even. Nice job, boys. I wasn’t quite sure you had it in you.”

She was entirely transformed from the Crystal he’d seen in footie pyjamas mere hours ago, into a rather elegant young woman. Not that he would ever let that slip to Crystal, he’d never hear the end of it. He nodded approvingly at the length of her lilac gown. She’d wanted something shorter, with less volume, but he was glad to see his arguments for girth over flattery had been taken into consideration. She would have much more room for weapons in a skirt like that.

“You’re looking very sharp yourself, Ms. Surname-Von Hoverkraft,” Charles said, with a roguish smile.

Before they could devolve into inconsequential flirtation, Edwin spun on his heel and entered their closet. 

“Charles,” he called over his shoulder, as he dug through their trinkets, “give Crystal the silver knife. The one we acquired from the Case of the Ghoulish Gargoyles.”

“You mean my silver knife?” Charles asked.

“You’ll get it back, Charles,” Edwin said, reentering the office with a small brass jewelry box in his hands. “There could be all manner of ne’er-do-wells at an event such as this, Crystal should be prepared. Speaking of.”

He handed Crystal the box.

She frowned at him, and only opened the box at the insistence of his eyebrows. 

“Is this for me?” Crystal asked, lifting the silver adornment from the box by the clasp. The clasp itself was hidden by an emerald brooch, from which hung several chains that carried an assortment of items. “What is it?” 

“It’s a chatelaine,” Edwin said, plucking the clasp from her hand and affixing it to the waist of Crystal’s dress. “There you are. Think of it as a sort of purse. Women in my era used them to keep track of their keys, or their sewing kits. I’ve even seen ones that carried spirits.”

“Ghosts?” Crystal asked, frowning.

“No, spirits like liquor,” Charles supplied helpfully.

“Precisely,” Edwin said. He pointed to each bobble attached to the brooch by delicate chains, starting with a small vial. “Yours holds holy water, silver needles, black salt, and iron powder. That should be sufficient protection from vampires, werewolves, the fae, witches, and any rogue poltergeists. Do be careful not to get any iron powder on either of us.” Edwin shuddered. “The pain is unbearable.”

“Yeah, it feels like having ants in your pants, only, y’know, if the ants were real, and on fire,” Charles said, handing Crystal his silver knife and its sheath so she could slip it under her skirt. 

Crystal eyed the intricate inscriptions on the knife’s handle.

“The handle glows when in the presence of dark magic,” Charles explained.

“This seems like a lot for a party,” Crystal said.

“Some of the most infamous members of the magical community will be in attendance this evening. They are powerful, ruthless, and quite often shockingly rude. It never hurts to be prepared,” Edwin said.

“Well, I’ll be armed to the teeth that’s for sure,” Crystal said, lifting her skirt.

Edwin averted his gaze while she strapped the knife somewhere discreet. When he turned back, he saw that Charles had busied himself looking through his backpack. There was a faint flush on his cheeks.

“Which one of you is taking me to this thing?” Crystal asked, straightening her gown.

“Pardon?” Edwin asked.

“You found me the equivalent of a Victorian Swiss Army Knife, but you didn’t think about who your date will be?” Crystal asked.

Edwin opened his mouth, unsure of what he was going to say, but with no doubt that his response would be soundly inarguable, but before he could utter a word the door of the girl’s flat burst open revealing Jenny. 

That wasn’t abnormal, she did live there. Though she usually took the back exit down to the street, opting not to interact with the agency even in passing if she had a choice in the matter. What was abnormal, was instead of her usual torn, dark shirt and slacks ensemble, she was wearing a slim three-piece suit. Her hair was slicked back in such a way that if Edwin didn’t know better he might have said she’d shorn it for the occasion. There were safety pins in her ear lobes and lining the edges of her striped tie.

“Whoa, Jenny, you look amazing. Do you have a hot date or something?” Crystal asked.

Jenny sighed, adjusting her tie looser as she stepped fully into the office. “Less a date and more a charge.”

“Jenny is going to be attending the ball with us tonight,” Charles said in a rush. “I asked her if she would take Crystal.”

“I brought the boning knife,” Jenny said.

Crystal eyed Jenny’s admittedly well-fitted pants, likely wondering where she’d fit the boning knife. Edwin, who had noticed the impression of Jenny’s shoulder holster under her blazer, was admittedly impressed with her fortitude.

Before he could comment, Crystal began ardently explaining the purpose of her chatelaine to Jenny. She mimed staking a werewolf with one of the compact silver needles and for a fleeting moment, a fond smile broke through Jenny’s placid veneer.

“Edwin,” Charles said, drawing Edwin’s attention back to his partner. Charles was watching him carefully, he was fiddling with the gold cufflinks Edwin had found for him and if he kept it up he would undoubtedly wrinkle his dress shirt, but before Edwin could say anything, Charles continued, “Since Crystal’s spoken for— I thought you and I— I thought we , could attend the ball together.”

Edwin narrowed his eyes at him. Charles looked uncharacteristically nervous. As a matter of fact, he’d been behaving oddly since Edwin first started receiving invitations in the post. Perhaps he was worried Edwin would accept one of his suits and his suitor would swiftly betray them. Or that he’d choose another demigod, like the Cat King, and end up bound by another spell. He’d certainly proved that he had questionable taste in paramours as of late. Well, in all except one example. 

Charles was watching him expectantly. 

Edwin sighed, “You could still go with Crystal if I attend with Jenny. You don’t have to be the one to escort me.”

“I want to be your date. Not Jenny, not one of those wankers. Me,” Charles said, his expression flickering between determination and panic. Edwin wondered how much of that he’d meant to reveal.

Before he could accidentally back Charles into a corner there was no egress from, Edwin turned back to the girls.

“Very well,” Edwin said. “Then we best be off. It would be unforgivable to miss the lighting of the bonfire.”

“Hold up,” Crystal said. “I can’t believe it's only just occurring to me, but where the hell could they have a bonfire in the middle of London? Where even is this thing?”

Edwin looked at Charles, who was already grinning at him. When he looked back at Crystal, Charles’s unabashed delight had spread to Edwin’s own quirked lips. 

“Beltane is a celebration of the beginning of summer. There is revelry, dancing, sacred blessings, and, yes, quite a large wicker man that is set aflame. There is only one outdoor space in London large enough to host such festivities, while also holding the necessary prestige to appease its high calibre guest list.” He paused to build suspense, but when neither Crystal nor Jenny appeared titillated he sighed. He held his hand out to Charles for his overcoat and once it was in hand he turned for the door. “Naturally, it’s at the Kensington Roof Gardens. Now, come along. Our hosts do not abide tardiness.”

Chapter Text

Edwin could see the ostentatious facade of the Beltane Ball, reflected in the awe on Crystal’s face as they entered the venue. 

The Roof Gardens had been transformed for the celebration. There was a moat parallel to the walkway and the glittering scales of merfolk flashed as they swam against the stream. In the center, the gazebo had been decorated liberally with turquoise moss that glowed softly against the darkening sky. There was a maypole that towered above the festivities, fantastical colored ribbons already twirling around its highest point. 

That didn’t even account for the guests themselves, who were dressed in all manner of lavish indulgence. There were dresses made entirely of lily pads, soft pink flowers dotting their clavicles, capes of succulents, crowns of pinecones. One woman passed them, her outfit comprised of what could only be described as a thick fog, and the scent of humidity and pollen hung in the air in her wake—which, if even Edwin could smell it, was undoubtedly magical in nature. 

All of the guests looked perfectly human, but Edwin and Charles knew from years of experience that in the London magical community nothing was what it seemed. 

And, needless to say, the wicker man was by far the greatest feat of extravagance. A large human-shaped idol made entirely from twisted branches, held together by thick ropes of ivy that were somehow blooming with lilacs.

“It’s beautiful,” Crystal said.

“Quite,” Edwin said, observing Charles and Jenny who were in line for refreshments.

There wasn’t much a ghost could imbibe, but the organizers of the Beltane Ball seemed to think it rude if there was nothing to offer all of their guests. Even ones who were no longer in possession of a digestive system. Charles had always loved the singular cocktail they offered ghosts. Edwin thought it near-tasteless, but would never deny Charles the opportunity to indulge.

Charles and Jenny wound their way back to them in record time.

“Here you are,” Charles said, handing Edwin an elegant glass. 

He looked radiant under the warm lantern light. His maroon suit flattered his shoulders and hugged his waist in a way that made Edwin nearly lose his grip on his drink. 

Looking at Charles, Edwin could nearly pretend that the thick crowd wasn’t becoming a touch overwhelming. Guests were beginning to linger on the parquet dance floor, where their group had been standing, likely waiting for the wicker man to be set ablaze and the subsequent dancing to commence. Another guest stepped too close, their elbow swiping straight through Edwin’s noncorporeal midsection and he shuddered.

Charles put a hand to Edwin’s arm and guided him away from the perpetrator. 

“Why don’t we find a less packed spot to stand, alright?” Charles asked. 

Jenny and Crystal murmured their agreement and together the four of them relocated to a mercifully barren spot under a patch of Chusan palms.

Edwin listened idly as Jenny and Crystal bickered over a plate of hors d'oeuvres Jenny had procured for them. Jenny had claimed all of the puff pastry snails for herself on the grounds that she had retrieved the plate for them, Crystal had ignored her claim and shoved three puff pastry snails in her mouth at once, nearly inciting an all out brawl. 

Charles stepped fully between the two, amiably keeping them an arm’s length apart. Noticeably, he did so without speaking, as he likely realized any words he had to say about their nonsensical quarrel would be stripped down to the truth. And the truth was, most of the girl’s fights were not worth taking sides over.

All four of them were distracted by the hush that fell over the rooftop just before the wicker man was lit. Once ablaze, flames licked up the idol’s arms, before cresting at its head. 

Edwin remembered what it was like to die by fire. He’d been consumed by flames himself innumerable times in hell. If he closed his eyes, he wondered if he would see the impression of a man on fire inside of his eyelids. He doubted it, he was dead after all. But he closed his eyes anyways and when he opened them he could feel the weight of Charles’s gaze like a hand to his cheek.

Edwin opened his mouth to say something, he wasn’t sure what, but before he could figure it out, a voice cut through their quietude.

“Jenny Green? Is that you?” a familiar voice asked.

Their group turned as one to find none other than Johanna Constantine approaching them. She was wearing a luminous dress that shone under the flickering light of the wicker man in such a way that she resembled a coal in a fire. Her dark hair was pulled back with a silver clasp and, as always, her untapped power sung underneath her skin like a spinning record with a needle held tremulously aloft.

“Miss Constantine, a pleasure,” Edwin said politely. They’d crossed paths with Johanna on several occasions, even teamed up with her once for the Case of the Shrieking Cave. Edwin nearly shuddered to remember that particular case, it had been one of the most nauseating in their agency’s illustrious history. “You’re familiar with our—” Edwin paused to think of a word to encapsulate Jenny. Tenant? Acquaintance? Reluctant counsel? He settled on, “Friend, Jenny?”

“You could say that,” Johanna said with a smile that quavered at whatever look was on Jenny’s face. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Jenny demanded. Edwin worried she would shatter her glass from how tight she was gripping it. “Don’t tell me you’re a witch, or a fairy, or, like, a fucking mermaid.”

“I’m a Constantine,” Johanna said, as if that were answer enough.

Edwin supposed if Jenny was an actual member of the London magical community, it would be. As she wasn’t, Edwin could feel the moment Jenny’s gaze strayed from Johanna’s intense stare to Edwin.

“She’s a sorcerer, from an infamous family of powerful sorcerers,” Edwin supplied.

“A sorcerer, that’s just great,” Jenny said, her drink sloshing over the side of her glass. “I knew you were keeping secrets from me.”

Johanna swallowed and said, simply, “I didn’t know you were in London.”

“I didn’t know you were in London,” Jenny said, her tone dripping with contention.

“I’d say I have more reason to be in London than you do, mate,” Johanna said, stressing each word to the limits of her thick dialect. “I thought you would never leave that little town. What was it?”

“Port Townsend,” Jenny said, pointedly.

“Right,” Johanna said. She looked at Edwin, Charles, and Crystal, likely all watching this interaction with similar levels of perplexion, then looked back at Jenny. “Could we talk?”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Jenny said, half-turning away to face Crystal.

Crystal made eye contact with her and made a waggling gesture with her eyebrows that seemed to mean, Are you insane?

“Jen,” Johanna said, in a low, serious tone. “Please?”

Jenny stared down at her drink, she was swirling it with one hand while her other hand had a white-knuckled grip on her opposite elbow. Edwin had seen many facets of Jenny Green since they’d met several months ago, but he’d never seen her look quite so vulnerable.

“One of us can go with you, if you’d like,” Charles offered. He looked pained to not be able to lie, but genuine in his offer. He’d always liked Johanna, but he’d grown closer to Jenny as of late, and Charles, when close with someone, was protective to a fault.

“It’s fine,” Jenny said, stepping away from them. Then she fixed Johanna with a hard look and said, “Five minutes.”

“Five minutes,” Johanna agreed.

Once they were out of sight, Crystal let out a breath and said, “What the hell do you think that was about? Are they exes? Did we know Jenny had any exes?”

“Yes,” Charles said. Then, “Bugger.”

“What do you know?” Crystal demanded.

Before Charles could reveal something he would regret, Edwin interrupted with, “Naturally, you do not have to tell us if you’ve been sworn to secrecy.”

“Um, yes you do,” Crystal said.

“Crystal!”

“Geas or no geas, we deserve the lowdown,” Crystal said. “There are no secrets among friends.”

“Right,” Charles said, looking oddly weary, perhaps from not answering so many questions in a row. He took Edwin’s empty glass and his own and put them down, then he offered Edwin a hand and said, “Could I have this dance?”

“Fine, be that way,” Crystal said dismissively, already moved on and refocusing on her hors d'oeuvres before Edwin could formulate a response.

“We— We shouldn’t leave Crystal on her own,” Edwin said.

“Jenny will be back in a few minutes,” Crystal said, then she gestured to her chatelaine. “And you armed me to the gills, remember?”

Charles hadn’t retracted his hand, was still watching Edwin, his expression becoming oddly mournful in a way that Edwin didn’t care for.

“In that case,” Edwin said, taking Charles’s hand gratefully. “Lead the way.”

Charles smiled delightedly at him and pulled him in the direction of the dance floor. Other guests were swaying to something light and ethereal. It wasn’t music, exactly, it sounded closer to the howling wind knocking branches together while crickets chirped on a summer night, the percussion sounded not unlike acorns cascading across the forest floor. 

Edwin wasn’t quite sure how they were supposed to dance to such insubstantial sounds, but Charles didn’t seem to have any such concerns. He guided Edwin closer, both hands lightly pressing at his waist. Edwin’s hands fell helplessly to Charles’s shoulders. 

In the firelight Charles’s eyes were the color of amber, the longer Edwin stared at them the more he began to feel like he’d uncovered a priceless gem from the depths of the earth.

They’d danced before. Edwin had taught Charles how to ballroom dance in 1995 for the Case of the Twisted Tango. In turn, in 2007, Charles had taught Edwin how to moonwalk. A skill that Edwin, to Charles’s chagrin, was far superior at. In between there had been quiet evenings where music had spilled from their victrola and Charles had twirled Edwin about their office, like they were silly schoolboys practicing the waltz for the social season. 

But they’d never danced quite like this. Reverent and leisurely, less dancing than simply standing in each other’s arms. 

Edwin wanted to say something to break the silence, but found his throat thick with uncertainty. Charles didn’t look troubled by their lack of conversation, he was smiling faintly as he looked at him, not as wide of a grin as he usually wore, but it was as if the smile had imbued itself into his other features. He looked positively beatific.

When the song came to an end, Edwin began to draw away but Charles held him closer.

“One more?” he asked.

And who was Edwin to deny him? Edwin tried his best to be altruistic, especially with the ultimate fate of his soul on the line, but his generosity only went so far. 

The music had changed to something akin to the churning of the ocean on a summer day, and dancing with Charles, Edwin felt like the tide was pulling him further and further away from shore.

Edwin leaned closer, until there were scant inches between their faces. Charles allowed it, his eyes dipping down to Edwin’s lips and Edwin—

Caught sight of Crystal standing alone where they’d left her. She wasn’t watching them, but she looked lonesome, staring off at the crowd with her lips pressed into a thin line.

Edwin pulled away from Charles, not removing his hands from Charles’s shoulders but leaving enough space between them to feign a shred of decorum.

“Is something wrong?” Charles asked, looking peculiarly flushed about the ears.

“Certainly not,” Edwin said. “Well— It was a lovely dance, but I do apologize for monopolizing you this evening.”

“What do you mean?” Charles asked, looking puzzled.

“You—” Edwin wasn’t sure how to say, I saw you blushing when our mutual friend raised her petticoats earlier and now I’ve commanded your attention all evening when you could have been dancing with her . So instead of all that, he said, “There is still time for you to dance with Crystal. This ball would be a singular opportunity for you both to reconsider the possibility of— amorous relations.”

“Come again?” Charles asked, his forehead furrowed so deeply that his eyebrows nearly connected.

“Really, Charles, do I have to spell it out for you?” Edwin said, feeling aggrieved. “When else will you be presented with another perfect opportunity to— to court Crystal?”

“Court Crystal? Me?” Charles asked.

They’d fully stopped dancing now, other couples passed them by in a whirl of brightly colored clothing and laughter. Edwin felt like he’d stepped into an alternate reality, where the only difference was that Charles hadn’t told him about his intentions towards their mutual friend months ago.

Before he could fully blow his top, Charles, ever able to forecast Edwin’s mood, squeezed his waist and said, in a gentle tone, “Crystal and I already talked about not starting anything, mate.”

“Yes, in Port Townsend,” Edwin said. “I’m aware.”

“No, during the Case of the Missing Bourgeoisie,” Charles said, leaving Edwin feeling rather breathless. “I can’t exactly lie right now. So when it came up, I accidentally sort of said exactly how I was feeling. Which is that the two of us never would have worked out.”

Edwin wasn’t sure quite what to say to this, he found that his mouth was gaping like a fish.

“I do still find her fit,” Charles said. “I can find her fit and still be her friend, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Edwin repeated, trying desperately to shut down the minute glimmer of delusion that was wailing away at the back of his head. Charles’s attentions no longer being directed Crystal in no way meant that he could now be diverted to Edwin. He’d made it quite clear already that he wasn’t interested in Edwin in that manner, and his unwavering friendship meant the world to Edwin already without any presumptuous illusions. 

“Edwin,” Charles said. “Where’d you go?”

When Edwin looked up Charles had leaned ever closer, he smiled when their eyes met. 

“I’ve been thinking—” Charles started to say, but was cut off by someone clearing their throat.

They turned to find Caius standing close enough to touch. The fact that he’d snuck up on them unsettled Edwin. His instincts were normally sharper than that. It seemed to bother Charles as well, if the way his hands tightened on Edwin’s waist spoke for him.

“May I cut in?” Caius asked, offering Edwin a hand. 

Edwin looked at Charles. His eyes were focused on Caius’s lapel, where Caius had pinned a rather elaborate gold brooch shaped like a snake wound around a spool of thread. In place of the snake's eyes were rubies that winked in the firelight.

“Perhaps one of us should go check on Crystal and Jenny,” Edwin said, pulling away from Charles. 

Charles’s hand fell to his sides curled into loose fists.

“Right, right,” Charles said, still not meeting his eyes.

“Charles—”

“Have a nice dance,” Charles said, turning away from them. His shoulders were a tense line as he disappeared into the thick of the other dancers.

Without Charles, Edwin felt the weight of the crowd surrounding him all at once. Another song picked up, but Edwin could barely hear it over his loudening respiration.

“Here,” Caius said, taking his right hand. He moved Edwin’s left hand to his own shoulder and began the arduous task of moving Edwin’s inert form in some sort of rhythm. He caught Edwin’s eye and smiled sharply. “That’s better.”

+

Charles got all turned around trying to find Crystal. There were too many bleeding trees on this bleeding roof garden. Not to mention, now that the sun had set the dying light of the wicker man’s burning effigy was not enough to see well by. 

He did somehow find Jenny, from the looks of it still deep in conversation with Johanna Constantine. Jenny looked glum and serious, but she was standing so close to Johanna as to be nearly on top of her. Charles turned in the other direction before either of them could stop on his account. 

Maybe it was for the best that prat Caius had cut Charles off. He wasn’t even entirely sure what he’d been about to say to Edwin. His mouth had been ten steps ahead of his brain, entirely caught up in the momentary thrill of dancing with his best mate. If he’d acted impulsively, which Edwin was forever accusing him of doing, he’d be snogging Edwin in a dark corner at this very moment. And who would that benefit? Certainly not Edwin, who would rightfully assume enthusiastic snogging meant that Charles knew how he felt about him. And certainly not Charles, who still had no idea how he felt. 

He sank onto a bench on a shadowed walkway, lowering his head to his hands. It felt like his head was pounding. Which was impossible. He was a ghost, he couldn’t very well get a headache, now could he?

Nevertheless, his temples ached so vicerally that he could feel the pain in his teeth. In the distance, he could’ve sworn he heard a crow cawing, but the sound was immediately blotted out by the pounding in his head.

He was glad he was sitting as the vision swept over him, and pulled him under. 

+

Charles’s mum dropped him off at King’s Cross, both of them awkwardly squished into a corner while they waited for his platform to be announced. She was quiet, had been quiet since they’d left home, and he watched as her hands tightened around the strap of her purse like it was the only thing tethering her to this moment. When they assigned his platform the crowd around them shoved forward to board, but Charles’s mum placed a gentle hand on his shoulder before he could join them.

“Are you sure this is what you want, beta?” she asked.

Which—Charles loved his mum more than anything—but he found that question nearly laughable. She looked sincerely confused, and he had to tamp down a burst of frustration like he was smothering a fire. 

For over a year now, he’d been working his arse off at school and at cricket, he’d taken extra classes and begged for extra credit assignments and in addition to school and his part-time job at the corner shop he’d practiced in his yard well into the evening; sometimes with only the light of the moon to guide him. But still, neither of his parents seemed to understand Charles’s desire to attend a posh boarding school hours away from everything they knew.

Then finally, finally, after all his hard work, he’d been granted a scholarship to Edwin’s boarding school in York. Edwin had already been a student there for six months. In those six months, Charles had seen him once, on Boxing Day, and had to appease himself in the interim with texts and hours-long phone calls and the occasional, treasured, hand-written letter. 

He was going to York and he was going to see Edwin every single day until they both graduated from secondary school. And that was that. 

Charles’s dad had three modes—quietly sloshed, loudly sloshed, or absent—and lucky for Charles, he’d chosen to react to this news by cracking open a pint and falling asleep to a footy match. 

Charles’s mum, however, had one mode, and that was worried. 

He tried to remind himself of that when she queried him at King’s Cross. It helped ease the frustration in his chest by a fraction. He twisted around and squeezed her arms as he pulled her into a hug, then he favored her with his most affable smile and pretended that they both weren’t painfully aware that while Charles’s primary motivator for going away to school was Edwin, an attractive side-benefit was that he would be far out of his father’s arm’s reach until he was big enough to hit back.

His mum let him hold her for a moment and then she handed him a bagged lunch and an envelope stuffed with cash and gestured for him to hurry to his train. 

By the time he boarded, the only free seat was between an already snoring older gentleman and a woman knitting socks. Charles spent the train ride, all two and a half hours of it, holding the woman’s skein and chatting her ear off about Edwin’s latest obsession with Tana French novels.

As soon as the train pulled into York, Charles was out of his seat like a starting gun had been fired. He found the right bus with only a modicum of trouble and stood in the center aisle as it carried him to his destination, and for the first time since he’d left London he was unable to avoid the reality of the situation: That he was mere minutes from school and Edwin hadn’t answered a single one of his texts since he told him he was transferring to York three days ago.

Three days was nothing. Three days wasn’t even a full week. Maybe Edwin had bad service, or maybe he’d dropped his phone down a flight of stairs, or maybe he’d seen Charles’s text, thought he’d answered it, but forgot to hit send, and was now waiting impatiently for Charles’s response. 

On one hand, Charles was certain all of those things were plausible, on the other they hadn’t gone this long without speaking since they’d met. Charles couldn’t help but wonder if Edwin had grown bored of him. Perhaps he’d made better, smarter, nicer friends at boarding school and had only kept Charles around with the certainty that they wouldn’t see each other in person very often. 

Charles worried over the numerous possibilities throughout the entire bus ride, he worried them over some more as the headmaster gave him a tour of the school and showed him his room, and he continued to worry at them, like a mouse chewing at the bars of his enclosure, until he turned a corner, looking for the dining hall, and nearly ran smack into Edwin himself.

“Charles?” Edwin asked, staring at him with something akin to awe. Charles watched as the awe leached from his expression, replaced with something Charles could only describe as dread. “You’re really here.”

“Of course I am, mate. I told you I’d figure something out,” Charles said. 

Edwin was still tense, barely meeting Charles’s gaze. He was taller, nearly taller than Charles, but hunched in a way that wasn’t doing him any favors. Even so, Charles couldn’t help the smile that slid onto his face now that he was in Edwin’s presence. It was inevitable, like fog dissipating under the morning sun. 

“It's so good to see you, mate. What’s—” Charles was interrupted by sharp laughter.

A group of their schoolmates, a rowdy bunch of boys who were shoving each other playfully, was approaching from the other end of the hall.

“Charles,” Edwin said, taking a step back. “I apologize, but I think it's best if we do not socialize at school.”

“Edwin. What—” Charles started, feeling a bit as if he’d been slapped by a cold breeze.

“Cheers,” Edwin said, ducking into a classroom.

Charles went to follow him, but before he could a firm hand came down on his shoulder. 

“You’re a new face, you must be Charlie, the transfer student,” a voice said. 

Charles turned to find the group of boys having descended on him. They looked friendly enough, but the sheer number of them set Charles’s teeth on edge.

“It’s Charles,” Charles said. “But yeah, that’s me.”

“Aces,” the boy said, squeezing his shoulder. “Well, come on then, Charlie. You can eat with us.”

Charles bit back a retort that his name was Charles, that he was fine by himself, thanks. But he was new here and these lads looked like they played on one sports team or another and it would be just his luck if he offended the cricket team on his very first day. 

He followed after them glumly, pasting a smile on his face as question after question was lobbed at him. And despite the close eye he kept on the entryway, he never did see Edwin come down for dinner.

+

It took two more songs for Edwin to readjust to the close proximity of the other dancers. To Caius’s credit, he did not needle Edwin during this time. He seemed to sense that Edwin needed a moment to compose himself and kept himself busy politely surveying the dancefloor.

Edwin looked in the direction of Caius’s gaze and saw that Lucius and Aloysius were also in attendance. All three brothers were wearing the same suit in varying colors, a detail that Edwin found peculiarly old-fashioned of them.

“How are you enjoying this year’s ball?” Edwin asked lightly, in an attempt to skim over the fact that he’d been visibly apprehensive for several minutes.

“It’s much more formal than we usually do things in Canada,” Caius said. “Last year, we just got some Wild Wing’s and had a bonfire in the woods. Nothing nearly this elaborate.”

“Ah, well, I do hope it suits,” Edwin said, trying to maintain an air of gentility. “It is fortuitous that you’re here.”

“Is it?” Caius asked, leaning closer with a smarmy grin.

“Yes, I had a question for you,” Edwin said, maintaining a safe distance between them with the next turn in their dance. “About the Dreaming.”

“Sure,” Caius said. “Shoot.”

“I’ve been working a case where someone died, but their soul did not appear to constitute here. On Earth. I thought they’d moved on, but now I have my doubts,” Edwin said. “Theoretically, if there was some kind of intervention, could a soul appear on a different plane entirely at the time of death?”

“You’re asking if a ghost could manifest in the Dreaming.”

“Indeed,” Edwin said, observing Caius’s neutral expression. 

“I don’t see why not,” Caius said. “But Death is not so easily tricked. Unless the intervention was something devised by a being of equal power, She would still find the soul regardless of where it materialized.”

“Equal power? Like something devised by another Endless, for example?”

“Perhaps,” Caius said. “But this is all just theoretical. I mean, if a soul really was in the Dreaming it wouldn’t carry on unto infinity like a soul might on Earth.”

Edwin tilted his head at Caius and came up a step short in their dance, bringing their waltz to a halt. 

“And why is that?”

Caius smiled at him faintly, like he’d done something amusing. Edwin could feel all the good humor leave his body at once, but he stubbornly did not step away from Caius’s hold, if only to pry the answers he needed from Caius’s staid grip.

“Well, first of all, there are only a few places in the Dreaming that are preexisting, meaning—”

“I know what preexisting means,” Edwin said primly. “You’re talking about places not manifested by individual souls, places created by Dream of the Endless that can house an infinite number of dreamers. Such as his palace, Fiddler’s Green, The L—”

“Precisely,” Caius said, smiling at him with sharp teeth. “Aren’t you quick? But then, even if your client did manage to find one of those places, they would need a tether.”

“A tether?”

“You know how when you’re moving between mirrors, there’s that space in between? Infinite and vast nothingness? If you take one wrong step or lose track of your destination you could be lost in that nothingness for eternity,” Caius said. “I’ve known ghosts who were not as well versed at mirror-walking as you and Charles. They popped through for a moment, to go check on their grandkids, or to catch a Maple Leafs game, and that’s all she wrote. They were never seen again.”

Caius leveled a meaningful look at Edwin, but it didn’t seep through Edwin’s cold skepticism. 

“Your point?” Edwin asked.

“The Dreaming is like that space between mirrors. The human body and their dream place tether the soul so that it doesn’t get lost on the vast plane the Dreaming inhabits. The same way mirrors tether two points in infinite space. If a soul doesn’t have a body and a dream place, what is there to tether it? Nothing,” Caius said. “If your client ended up there, well, then, I’m sorry. You’ll never see them again.”

Edwin gasped, stepping out of Caius’s hold. 

“Ed? Are you alright?” Caius asked.

“Yes, I’m—” Edwin stood ramrod straight, trying to gather himself. If he could breathe he was certain his breath would be nearing hyperventilation. “Frightfully sorry, I must reunite with my friends. Good day.”

He stumbled away from Caius, the other dancers moving between them as swiftly as curtains drawing across a stage. He had to find his friends. He had to get back to the agency. And, more importantly, he had to get to his books.

+

Charles came back to himself on the same bench on the same shadowed walkway. In the distance, he could hear the same song that had been playing when he’d been pulled into the vision, it was like no time had passed at all. 

He felt gutted. 

His Edwin was fine. His Edwin was dancing with Caius and having a splendid evening. His Edwin had smiled at him under the wicker man moments ago, the uncommon upward twist of his lips showcasing the dimples that Charles rarely got to see. 

But there was an Edwin somewhere out there who, for some reason Charles couldn’t wrap his head around, had thoroughly rebuffed him. Who hadn’t wanted to be Charles’s friend anymore. And it was Charles— This Charles—himself—who felt rejected. He put a hand to his chest and half-expected it to come away bloody, from how badly it hurt, but his fingertips were clean when he retracted them and his chest kept right on aching. 

“Hello there, little ghost.”

Charles looked up to find the Fox Queen on the other side of the walkway. She was sitting serenely, as if she’d been studying him.

“What do you want?” Charles asked. His voice sounded wretched, as if he’d been screaming instead of silently imploding.

“Have you learned your lesson?” the Fox Queen asked.

“And what lesson is that?” Charles asked. “To not be able to do my job? To hurt my friends feelings? To— to have a bloody mental breakdown at a party?”

“To tell the truth,” the Fox Queen said.

“The truth,” Charles said. “The truth is that I’ve never been more confused in my life. I never wanted to hurt anyone, but if I’m lying with a smile isn’t that just another way to hurt? Maybe Edwin’s wrong. Maybe I’ve been a bad guy this whole time.”

“Oh, little ghost,” the Fox Queen said with a shake of her head. “No one can lie to you better than yourself.”

Charles didn’t understand how he couldn’t get a straight answer from a creature that was physically incapable of lying. He narrowed his eyes at the Fox Queen in suspicion and demanded, “Are you the one giving me these cheeky visions as well? Because you can take them back, I don’t— I can’t see any more of this. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“Visions?” the Fox Queen said, inclining her head to the side. “Fascinating.”

“Aw, yeah, fascinating, innit? Well I think it’s agonizing,” Charles said, holding the bench so hard he was surprised it didn’t crack under his grip. “Why isn’t there one reality where it's easy for us, huh? Just one place in all the bleeding universe where we’re safe?”

The Fox Queen didn’t say anything for such a long moment that if she wasn’t still sitting before him he would have wondered if she was still there at all. 

“Existence is rarely easy, Charles Rowland,” the Fox Queen said. “You are fortunate that despite time, despite death, you exist alongside one another.”

Then she disappeared under the brush and Charles was, as ever, alone. 

+

Crystal was exhausted. Her head hurt. The shoes Edwin had convinced her to wear were pinching her toes. And to top it all off, the little finger foods at this ball hadn’t been nearly enough to satiate her hunger and she was starving . 

She’d been looking for the others nearly since they all abandoned her, but for as small as the Kensington Roof Gardens looked from the ground it didn’t seem to end. She’d walked approximately one thousand laps around the dance floor and still hadn’t come across a single guest she’d seen when she’d started. There was probably some kind of fancy spell on the whole ball, like the one Edwin had done to make her apartment. She had no idea. What she did know was that if she didn’t find one of her friends in the next thirty seconds she was going to start tipping punch bowls until they found her .

She wished Niko was here. She’d briefly considered falling asleep under a hydrangea just so she could vent to Niko in her void, but she’d probably accidentally fall asleep in a fairy circle and wake up seventy-five years from now with not a single recognizable vestige of her old life.

Okay, maybe that was the plot of Rip Van Winkle. The point was, crazier shit had happened.

“Crystal,” someone said directly into her ear.

She spun around, thinking the boys had found her, but no one was there.

“Charles?” she called, peering around a hedge. “Are you messing with me? You’re not allowed to mess with me while I’m wearing a goddamn ball gown.”

But there was no Charles. No Edwin. Not even Jenny. She was alone, behind a hedge, at a ball. And, man, her head really fucking hurt.

She pressed a hand to her temple and saw stars for a moment. When her vision cleared, she did, finally, see someone she recognized.

Caius was standing several yards away, flanked by Lucius and another boy who had to be their other brother. All three of them were wearing the same suit in different jewel tones. Which, jewel tone suits? What was this, 2013?

She swallowed back the urge to mock, that—if she didn’t keep it in check—was liable to spring forth from behind her breastbone like an underground spring, and started forward to ask if they’d seen Edwin, or Charles, or literally anyone. But before she could get too close she heard Caius snap something at his tallest brother.

She hadn’t known Caius too long and certainly didn’t know him very well, but she’d never had any indication that his mood could change so drastically. In a fluid move she was pretty proud of, she redirected herself to stand behind a hedge shaped like a naked woman. 

“We need more candidates, and quickly,” Caius said, in a serious tone. “It's Beltane. The next thing you know it will be Lughnasadh. We’re running out of time.”

Candidates? Crystal wondered. Edwin had told them Caius worked in renewable energy. He’d had her look up what that meant on her phone, but had proceeded to ask her so many questions about solar panels that she’d had to lie down.

This didn’t sound like it had to do with wind farms or hydroelectricity. It sounded like something else.

Caius’s voice dipped lower and she could no longer hear what he was saying. She leaned closer, pressing against the hedge-woman so hard that the freshly sharpened branches tore her skirt.

“Goddammit,” Crystal muttered, working to untangle her skirt from the glorified bush. It had torn right up her leg and she wouldn’t have noticed, if it hadn’t, that the knife Charles had given her was glowing. 

What had Charles said? The handle would glow in the presence of something?

“Scan the perimeter,” Caius said, his voice so clear so suddenly that Crystal thought for a moment he was speaking to her.

She ducked and then realized he and his brothers were walking past her, fanning out into the revelry like vultures circling for dinner. As soon as they were out of sight, the knife stopped glowing. 

Okay , she thought, storming into the crowd with renewed determination. Party’s over. It was time to get the hell out of here.

+

“Charles! There you are,” Crystal said, practically tackling Charles into a one-armed hug. “God, this place is bananas. Where’s Edwin?”

She looked more bedraggled than Charles had ever seen her, and he’d seen her after a demon had been riding around in her body for weeks. There were leaves in her hair and her skirt was ripped halfway up her leg. He plucked a twig from her up-do and only after he’d tossed it did her question register.

“You haven’t seen him?” Charles asked. He immediately turned to scan their vicinity. He’d been roaming around the ball aimlessly since the Fox Queen’s visit and he’d wrongly assumed the rest of his friends must have reunited somewhere without him. They could see a good portion of the dance floor but Charles didn’t see Edwin. 

“I haven’t seen Jenny either,” Crystal said. “But you know what I did see?”

She reached down to the sheath on her thigh and drew out Charles’s knife. If anyone else had waved a knife at him the way she did, it might have seemed threatening, but from Crystal it just emphasized her urgency.

“The handle was glowing,” Crystal said. “It was glowing around Caius.”

“You saw Caius, but no Edwin?” Charles asked.

“God, are you listening to me? What did you say this thing glowed around?”

“Dark magic,” Charles said automatically, and then the rest of what she’d said sunk in. He grabbed the knife from her and ran a finger over the wooden handle. “It glowed around Caius?”

“Yes,” Crystal said. “He was with his brothers. They were saying they needed a new candidate by loo— something. Loo NASA?””

Charles slipped the knife into the safety of his blazer pocket as he tried to parse out what Crystal was saying, but he had nothing.

“Are you sure you heard him right?”

“Yes, it was something about the loo. Isn’t that what you people call the bathroom? I’ve only ever heard Edwin call it a water closet.”

“Why are you two discussing water closets?” Edwin asked.

Charles turned to find Edwin watching them with a bewildered expression. He was within arm’s reach so Charles squeezed his shoulder and pulled him a little closer. Jenny was just behind him and had an unpromising glower on her face.

“Are you alright, mate?”

“Yes, of course, Charles,” Edwin said, his eyebrows furrowing further. “Where have you been?”

“The Fox Queen visited me,” Charles said automatically, then closed his eyes with mirth.

“The Fox Queen visited you?” Edwin and Crystal asked in unison.

“What did she want?” Crystal asked.

“She wanted to know if I’d learned my lesson,” Charles said, waving his still clearly tattooed wrist in front of them. “Clearly not. Okay? Can we drop it? Edwin, Crystal overheard Caius talking about—”

“You were eavesdropping on Caius?” Edwin asked, sounding scandalized.

“Not on purpose,” Crystal insisted. “Anyway, when I was near him the handle of the knife Charles gave me glowed. That means—”

“That could have been because of anyone,” Edwin said, waving his hands around. “There are hundreds of other guests here tonight.”

Charles probably should have felt grateful that a few months ago Crystal would have launched herself at Edwin for a comment like that, and tonight she only took a deep breath and said, “Even if it was someone else, I heard him talking about needing more candidates before— before something that sounded like loo Nissan.”

Any gratitude Charles might have felt, however, dissipated as soon as Edwin responded, “Are you really throwing accusations around? When you didn’t tell us you were seeing Niko in your void for months?”

Crystal’s jaw fell open. “I thought we were well past that!”

“We tabled it ,” Edwin said, “until I’ve had time to determine if it really is Niko in your void. That doesn’t mean you get to keep secrets—”

“ I’m keeping secrets?” Crystal asked. “You’re the one who keeps running off with your new boytoy without telling us. Jenny didn’t let slip to us a single thing about whatever her deal is with short, dark, and scary. And Charles—”

“Oi, don’t drag me into this,” Charles said, holding his hands up.

Crystal narrowed her eyes shrewdly at him and for a moment Charles felt like she was seeing right through his skin. 

“Charles has been acting even weirder than usual since he got a freaking curse put on him. You’re hiding something, aren’t you?”

Charles didn’t say anything, pressing his lips together so tightly he was surprised they didn’t fuse together. He flicked a glance at Jenny, but she was staring off into the distance with her hands crossed over her chest. That was smart, he had to admit.

“Charles?” Edwin asked. “Is this true?”

Charles nodded stiffly, carefully avoiding opening his mouth lest he start spilling every private thought he’d had since this damn geas got slapped on his wrist.

He wasn’t sure what he expected. Shock. Anger. Some more yelling maybe. It certainly wasn’t Edwin throwing his hands in the air and declaring, “I don’t have time for this.”

He began walking towards the exit, the tail of his suit jacket brushing against Charles’s arm as he stormed past.

“You can’t avoid talking about this forever, Edwin!” Crystal called after him.

Edwin whirled around, his hands now behind his back. That was never a good sign. 

“I have wasted enough time already at this— this pointless frivolity,” Edwin said. “I need to be home, with my books, so that I can find a way to save Niko. Is that a satisfactory answer?”

When none of them responded, he spun back around and without another word slipped through a mirror set up by the roof door. 

Charles tried not to remember his dance with Edwin, just earlier that night. He tried not to wonder if Edwin considered the few songs they’d swayed in the firelight together frivolous, and then it was all he could think about.

“What?” Crystal snapped, at the empty spot beside her.

“What?” Charles asked her, baffled.

Crystal looked over at him, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You don’t have to call my name every two minutes, I can hear you just fine.”

“I didn’t—”

“Whatever! Let’s blow this joint,” Crystal said, storming past him.

“I’m onboard for the getting the fuck out of here part,” Jenny said, following in her wake.

Charles sighed. He was helpless but to follow. There was nothing left for him here.

+

The Night Nurse braced herself for the undulating energy of the Dead Boy Detective Agency before she pushed open the office door. She was an eternal, trans-dimensional being, there was no way she knew of for her to die but she wouldn’t be surprised if constantly being in the presence of unpredictable, angst-ridden teenagers was what did her in. 

Once she entered, it was clear the agency was at the malaise end of the spectrum this morning. 

Edwin Payne was sitting at his desk, as always, but he was surrounded by books. Almost as if he was attempting to construct a wall between himself and the others. 

Charles Rowland was not sitting on the desk, as she might have predicted. Instead he was bouncing a ball off the far wall. Edwin’s eyebrow twitched with every bounce, but he did not make a single remark about the ceaseless noise. 

As for their little human friend, Crystal Palace seemed to be sleeping on the settee. She had a blanket around her shoulders and an eye mask over her face. It was remarkably unclear why she hadn’t deigned to sleep in her own flat. Wherever that may be.

The Night Nurse cleared her throat and when it became apparent she’d need more than that to get the group’s attention she reached inside her briefcase and pulled out her bell.

The boy’s looked up at the ringing, Edwin’s face twisted into something insulted and Charles looking remarkably confused for a boy who claimed to be a detective.

“I come with news about the missing children,” the Night Nurse said, clearing her throat.

Charles reached over and shook Crystal until she snorted herself awake. She pulled off her sleep mask, mouth opening undoubtedly in protest, but when she saw the Night Nurse her lips clamped shut.

“The Lost & Found Department has exploited all of its vast resources. We have tried tracking spells, scrying, and employing our resident psychics. We even used our contacts in the Afterlife to check if any of the missing children have moved on, as intended,” the Night Nurse paused to clear her throat. “Therefore it is with regret that I must report that the children are missing.”

“But they were already missing,” Crystal said, sitting up. The blanket fell to the floor at her feet.

“No, they were missing on Earth,” the Night Nurse said, she gauged each of their faces before she declared, “As of this morning they are officially missing in all known realms.”

Chapter Text

Edwin hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words in a row to Charles or Crystal since the Beltane Ball. It was a testament to the competence of the Dead Boy Detective Agency that the three of them were able to solve a case from start to finish without so much as exchanging pleasantries. 

Jenny, shockingly, was the only one amongst them who had no qualms about their quarrel on the Kensington Roof Gardens. She’d told all of them to sort out their own ‘teen angst bullshit’ and bullied Charles and Crystal into coming by her shop to help set things up for her fast approaching opening day. Edwin was given to believe that Charles and Crystal had spoken to each other through Jenny for the duration of the visit and Jenny had sent them both on their way only after a thorough lecture on the value of maturity and communication. Which, really, Jenny was certainly one to talk.

Needless to say, they had not yet sorted out their ‘teen angst bullshit.’

“As promised,” their latest client said, leading the three of them to her backroom. 

It resembled a porch that had been repurposed as a storage space. Trinkets lined stacks of dusty boxes. There were dream catchers and wind chimes hanging from every window and tapestries hanging from the ceiling like curtains. It was a veritable treasure trove of magical paraphernalia and it was all theirs to choose an acceptable form of payment from. The witch had bartered for one item from her collection for the safe return of her familiar, who’d been catnapped by a neighboring witch. 

“Take your time, lovies,” the witch said, closing the door behind herself. Her familiar was purring liberally where it was curled on her shoulders. “Choose wisely.”

“Right,” Edwin said, pulling on his favorite pair of leather gloves. “Spread out and don’t touch anything until we’ve ascertained its purpose.”

Charles and Crystal didn’t respond, but they did follow his directions, both of them taking a separate corner to begin sorting through items. Edwin sighed and took the middle aisle of boxes.

They sorted through knickknacks and baubles, doodads and curios. Most of them looked innocent enough but clearly had nefarious enchantments, others looked vile but were as mundane as a bar of soap. 

In the end, they settled on three potential winners, setting them on a space they’d cleared so they could put them through the gamut of magical tests Edwin had prepared to determine the item's function.

Quickly enough, he ruled out the emerald necklace Crystal had found. While bewitching, it seemed to have an evil spirit trapped inside, and they didn’t need to borrow any additional problems at present. 

After a few more tests, he tossed aside the small safe he’d found. He’d theorized it contained its own pocket universe, like Charles’s backpack, which could prove useful. But once opened all it seemed to contain was stacks of counterfeit cash and a disturbing Grecian tragedy mask. 

“It seems Charles’s discovery is the victor,” Edwin said, inspecting the small jar of cologne. The jar itself was clear crystal and the liquid inside was a swirl of radiant colors that made Edwin—though he’d never admit it aloud—feel a bit ill to look at too closely.

“Brills,” Charles said, with a facsimile of his usual cheer. “What’s it do then?”

“I’m not certain,” Edwin said, all too aware that they still weren’t quite meeting each other’s eyes as they spoke. “I would put it somewhere safe in your backpack until I can examine it further at the office.”

He handed the cologne off to Charles and tried not to zero in on where their fingers brushed in the process, and failed. They were both wearing gloves, for pity’s sake, but the tips of his fingers had still gone warm. Psychosomatically of course. Ghosts could not get warm.

“Right, here we go,” Charles said, shouldering his backpack off so he could put the jar inside. Just as he lifted it towards the flap of his bag, a blur rushed past their feet.

Crystal shouted, tipping backwards into a stack of boxes which held a particularly nefarious cursed mirror. Edwin lunged forward to grab her shoulder before she could touch it. The last thing they needed was to search the mirror realm for their missing psychic coworker. That could take decades.

While he was busy helping Crystal, Charles tripped forward, into the space Edwin had been standing. He landed flat on his front, all the breath leaving him in a whoosh. 

As Edwin righted Crystal and inspected her for injuries, he wasn’t expecting to turn to find Charles still lying on the floor. The Turkish rug really was quite filthy, even for a ghost.

“Charles? Are you quite alright?” Edwin asked. 

Crystal stepped over Charles’s still form so that she was at the proper location to prod his head with her shoe. 

Charles groaned, lifting his face from the musty rug.

“Daft cat,” Charles muttered as he levered himself to his feet. 

Only once he was standing did Edwin notice what had become of the cologne jar. It must have shattered under Charles’s weight. It was in pieces on the floor, a puddle of cologne was seeping into the rug and staining the torso of Charles’s shirt.

“Bugger,” Charles said, pulling his shirt away from his skin carefully. He looked at Crystal and said, “Is my skin turning green? Am I invisible? Are there two of me?”

“No? Why?” Crystal asked, her nose wrinkling.

“He’s checking for symptoms of common ghost poisons. Charles, can you hear a ringing in your ears?” Edwin asked, flipping open his notebook.

When Charles didn’t respond, just looked about the room in confusion, Crystal snapped her fingers in his face. “Well? Is there a ringing or not?”

“No, no ringing, it's not bloody hemlock,” Charles said. “Where did—”

Crystal poked a finger at his cheek which startled Charles enough to quieten him.

“Numb tongue, warts or boils, itching?” Edwin listed.

“You feel…clammy,” Crystal said, staring at her own finger.

“Hello? Are either of you listening to me?” Edwin demanded, flipping his notebook shut. “I know we are not speaking presently but I would appreciate a sense of professional decorum when we are on a—”

“Yeah, right, so,” Charles whipped to look about the room as if he was searching for something obvious. “Where’d—”

“Charles,” Crystal said, snapping her fingers inches from his nose. “Focus. Any other physical symptoms?”

“No, I mean, I’m a little cold,” Charles said, pulling his jacket tighter around himself. “Maybe it's like one of those hypothermic spells Edwin and I came across in ‘02.”

“Crystal, could you fetch the client? I want to ask her if she knows anything about the contents of the jar,” Edwin said.

“Yeah, sure,” Crystal said, turning towards the door. 

Before she could take a step away Charles held her back with a hand to her elbow.

“Whoa, where are you going?” Charles asked.

Crystal looked at Edwin and back at Charles, perplexion seeping into her features as readily as the cologne continued to seep into their client’s rug.

“I’m going to get the client,” Crystal said. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Right, yeah, I’m aces,” Charles said. “Just, before you skip off, where’d Edwin go?”

Crystal looked, once again, at Edwin then back at Charles. 

“Charles,” Edwin said. “Can’t you see me?”

But Charles didn’t turn to acknowledge Edwin’s voice, he continued staring at Crystal as if she’d stashed Edwin in her pant’s pocket. Which was made even more absurd by how small Crystal’s pant’s pockets really were. Charles usually carried most of her things in his backpack.

“Edwin is right here,” Crystal said, pointing at him. “He never left.”

Charles followed the line of Crystal’s finger, but his gaze didn’t quite meet Edwin’s. He was looking in the right direction, but for some unfathomable reason, he could no longer see him.

“You’re not messing with me, right?” Charles said, looking back at Crystal. His jaw was tense, the way it always was when he was holding something back. 

“Tell him I’m really here,” Edwin said. “Tell him I still think it was his fault the charmed goldfish died in ‘06.”

Crystal relayed that message and Charles covered half his face with a hand. 

“Right, right, maybe you should go talk with the client,” Charles said. “Because this is absolute bollocks. You get answers from her, I’ll get a Ouija board from the agency. We’ll get this sorted out right quick.” 

He turned suddenly on a heel and strode towards a mirror in the corner of the room, it was half-covered by a colorful shawl and Charles pulled it down. It wasn’t until it hit the ground that Edwin noticed what should have been patently obvious: Charles had a reflection.

Charles stopped short of mirror-hopping, one hand spread on the glass. When he pulled his fingers away they left little smudges behind.

“Okay,” Charles said, turning back around and looking distinctly green around the gills. “This time I really do think I’m gonna be sick.”

+

Crystal never thought she’d see a boy look quite this sad when facing down a steaming hot plate of spaghetti bolognese. Not that she could blame him. 

It was a lot to take in, shattering their payment for solving a case, turning human, finding out you couldn’t see ghosts anymore—which meant you could no longer see or hear your best friend slash business partner slash codependent accomplice of thirty-five years—then finding out that the substance that had turned him human was meant to be doled out in sparing little puffs so that ghosts could eat crumpets and drink tea and then, after a few minutes, go back to being insubstantial, and who even knew how long an entire jar of the stuff would last? Their client had said anywhere between two hours and several years.

Two hours and several years .

Crystal couldn’t handle relaying messages between these two geezers for five minutes, let alone years . So she’d sent Edwin off to the agency to look up the exact concoction that had been in the cologne jar in any book he could get his hands on, and dragged Charles, bodily, to the first five star Italian restaurant she could find on Yelp. 

She’d thought some spaghetti, maybe a little tiramisu, and he’d be right as rain. 

His bottom lip was dangerously close to wobbling.

“I thought you liked spaghetti?” Crystal asked, shoveling ravioli into her mouth. She wasn’t having an existential crisis.

“I do,” Charles said, making no move to eat. “It’s my favorite.”

He was fiddling with the cuff of his jacket, which he still hadn’t taken off. Crystal could see the edge of the geas still stamped on his wrist like a brand, so his corporeality hadn’t had an effect on his curse.

Her head twinged and she tried to hide the instinctive flinch. The pain had followed her for days, ever since she’d woken up after the Beltane Ball. She’d thought it was a hangover, at first, though she’d only had one or two glasses of punch. Now, she wasn’t so sure. 

“Do you not remember how to eat? Here,” she said, reaching across the space between them with her fork. She twirled some spaghetti between the twines and popped it in her mouth, chewing theatrically so he could observe how it was done. “Easy.”

“I remember how to eat,” Charles said, picking up his fork mulishly. He shoved pasta into his mouth like someone might obligatorily eat their grandma’s meatloaf. 

“How is it?” Crystal asked, watching warily as Charles cleared his plate in record time.

“It’s delicious,” Charles said, sniffling. He wiped a hand over his eyes. 

“What is happening right now?” Crystal asked. “I thought you would love being alive for a day. Think about all the things we can do. We can get ice cream after this. There’s a curry place by the agency that’s not too bad. After that, we could— Well, I guess most of my ideas are food-oriented. We could go see a movie and you could actually pay for a seat. How trippy would that be?”

“What if I can never see Edwin again?” Charles asked, his voice hitching. 

“Charles, that’s—”

“We haven’t spoken in days, I don’t even remember what the last thing I said to him was,” Charles said. He looked more upset than she’d ever seen him, his face was a rictus of misery. Tears dropped unbidden from his anxious gaze. 

She wondered if the geas had something to do with his naked honesty. He still smiled, but more and more the past week or two, the longer the geas was on his wrist, the franker his expressions became. She’d seen him openly scowl recently when the Cat King had sent Edwin his weekly bouquet of roses.

A few months ago, Charles would have smiled lightly at the flowers and flipped them off behind Edwin’s back. 

“Charles, we had a fight,” Crystal said. She was still pretty angry at Edwin, at Charles for not taking her side, at herself for falling back on her old habits and picking a fight to begin with, but a single fight didn’t change the fact that they were friends. And it certainly didn’t alter thirty-five years of whatever the hell Charles and Edwin had going on. “You’ll see Edwin again, and if you—” She swallowed before she could say something that would give Charles’s freshly beating heart a reason to stop. “You’ll see Edwin again.”

For some reason, despite Crystal’s inarguable logic, Charles was shaking his head. 

“I’ve been keeping something from him, from both of you,” Charles said.

“I know,” Crystal said. “I’m the one that called you out on it.”

“It’s just— I don’t even know what it means,” Charles said. “I told the Fox Queen and she didn’t even know.”

“Know what?”

“Why I’m having visions of Edwin and I as kids,” Charles said. His knee was bouncing under the table, which rattled their silverware. A waiter shot them an annoyed look but Crystal chose to ignore it, a decision she considered growth.

“You’re having visions of your childhoods?” Crystal asked.

“No, no, no, not our actual childhoods, like me and Edwin meeting as kids, when we’re alive,” Charles said. “We have, like, cellphones.”

“Huh,” Crystal said. That was a new one. “Am I there?”

Charles shook his head. “I don’t recognize anyone else. My mum doesn’t even look like my mum. My dad is different but still an arsehole, I still go to private school. Everything is familiar just— warped. The only thing that’s exactly the same is Edwin.”

“Why haven’t you told him?” Crystal asked. She was stumped. And if she was stumped and Charles was stumped the only sensible plan was to tell Edwin so he could wrack his big, nerdy brain for an answer. 

But here Charles was, twiddling his thumbs.

“At first, it was because I was scared,” Charles said, wincing. He likely hadn’t meant to outright say he was scared, but the honesty soothed something in Crystal that might have otherwise felt annoyed at Charles’s secrecy. “Then, it was because— Well, we had a fight.”

“You could have told us about the visions before the fight, Charles,” Crystal said, but Charles only looked at her with a pained expression. “Oh. Oh, Jesus. You’re fighting with Edwin in this reality and in your dreams? I’m surprised you’re not curled up in a corner crying.”

“I don’t know what I did, in the visions. He’s just— He won’t talk to me,” Charles looked miserable. 

“They’re not real, Charles. They’re a trick, right?” Crystal asked. 

“At first I thought so, but I— I don’t know anymore,” Charles said, running a hand through his hair. “I really don’t know.”

“ Crystal ,” someone said. 

“What?” Crystal asked, looking instinctively for their waiter. There was no one there, which left her feeling wrong-footed for a moment. The pressure behind her eyes was mounting, the familiar ebb and flow of an oncoming migraine.

“You keep doing that,” Charles said, staring at her keenly. She never liked when either of the boys looked at her like that, like they knew something about her that she didn’t. 

“It’s nothing, a headache,” Crystal said, waving a hand in the air. “Anyways, it doesn’t matter if the visions are real.”

“It doesn’t?” Charles asked skeptically.

“Yeah, I mean, you’re just watching them, right? You’re witnessing something that’s either already happened or will happen. You can only fix what’s going on with your Edwin, not some other Charles’s Edwin,” Crystal said. “Besides, if they’re really you, they’ll figure it out. You two always do.”

She was pretty proud of her argument when a small, hesitant grin began to form on Charles’s face.

“You’re right,” Charles said. “Thanks, Crystal.”

Before Crystal could agree with his warranted praise, the waiter who had frowned at them before delivered their check to the table. 

“Whenever you’re ready,” the waiter said snidely, leaving them to it.

“Charles,” Crystal said, holding her hand out for her wallet which was somewhere in the depths of Charles’s backpack. 

“Right,” Charles said, lifting the flap. He hesitated before reaching inside, a small wrinkle appearing between his brows.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” Charles said, his hand disappearing into the pocket dimension. He’d barely gone in deeper than his wrist before he pulled his hand back out with a curse. His hand looked vaguely sunburnt and was visibly smoking. “Scratch that. Small hiccup. It doesn’t recognize me.”

“So, no wallet?” Crystal asked, peeking at their waiter who was sneering at them from the other side of the restaurant.

“No wallet,” Charles confirmed.

“Okay then, time to do something incredibly human,” Crystal said. “It’s called a dine and dash.”

Charles grinned at her, his voice lowering as he said, “Here in London we call that doing a runner.”

“Just do whatever means we don’t get caught,” Crystal said. “Ready?”

“After you,” Charles said.

Together they sprinted for the front door. It wasn’t until they were two blocks down, heaving for breath, that Crystal could finally hear her own joyous laughter over the pounding in her head.

+

If Edwin focused hard enough on the task at hand, uncovering the exact concoction that had been inside the cologne jar, he could almost forget why it was necessary. Almost. 

Part of him hoped that Charles and Crystal would return and reveal that the potion had only lasted a couple hours, as predicted, and Charles was back to normal. Another part of him, a large part of him, knew that wasn’t fair. 

All Charles ever wanted was more time, and now he had it. He could eat spaghetti and feel the rain on his skin and go to innumerable music events and kiss whoever he liked. For better or worse, he was human. It wouldn’t last forever, so he should enjoy it while it did.

The words on the page he was reading blurred and he was horrified to touch his cheek and find it wet. Frustrated tears dripped down his chin and went nowhere. They didn’t splash on the book in his lap, or even land on the floorboards between his crossed legs. They didn’t go anywhere, because they weren’t real, because he was a ghost. 

He slammed his book shut and placed it on the ground, rising so he could pace the small area rug in their office. But no matter how long he paced, he would not stop crying. It was as if a tap had been turned on and simply refused to turn off. 

Three days ago, Edwin had only been back from the Beltane Ball for twenty minutes, taking notes about Niko’s potential whereabouts in his notebook, before the guilt over his outburst fell heavily on his shoulders. Charles had retreated to Jenny’s shop and Crystal to her bedroom, so Edwin had been alone on the floor of the agency, suddenly bereft. 

The potentiality and urgency of his realization regarding Niko’s whereabouts had prevented him from questioning what he’d said to his friends in order to continue his research. 

He’d remembered being a small boy, his nanny insisting he had to get dressed to attend dinner with his parents, but wanting to read just one more chapter of his latest novel with the fervency of a banker on the verge of bankruptcy. He’d shouted at her, pounded his little fists on the floor of his nursery, kicked out his tiny leather shoes in despair, and the momentary quiet after his outburst had granted him the few minutes needed to finish his novel. But it had not saved him from an evening of his parent’s disdain. 

The argument at the ball, too, felt like shouting and kicking for just one moment of solitude with his books, and emerging from the safety of his literature to find himself utterly alone.

He knew he owed Crystal an apology, he owed Charles and likely Jenny one as well. He’d never been very good at excusing his own behavior, but he had friends now, and all three of them deserved some manner of explanation. 

“Ahem,” the Night Nurse said.

Edwin startled at her voice. He hadn’t heard her come in, but there she was on the other side of the desk. 

“It’s—” Edwin looked outside to confirm he hadn’t lost track of time. The Night Nurse usually only stopped by in the morning, unless there was a case to bring them. “It’s evening. Is there an emergency?”

“I was just— checking in,” the Night Nurse said, dubiously. She was standing rather formally at attention, just beside the chair they reserved for clients. 

“I see, well we just wrapped up the Case of the Missing Familiar,” Edwin said. He wouldn’t tell her about Charles’s current status unless it became prudent. “We have everything well at hand.”

“Certainly,” the Night Nurse said, her face appearing more pinched the longer she stood there.

“Is there anything else you wanted to tell us?” Edwin prodded.

“Your missing friend,” the Night Nurse said.

When it didn’t appear as if she would continue, Edwin supplied, “Emma Davis.”

“Yes, Emma Davis,” the Night Nurse said. “Her name sounded familiar. This evening I received access to her uncensored casefile. Were you and your associates aware that Emma Davis murdered her siblings?”

Edwin was not aware of that, as a matter of fact. But he didn’t see how it changed anything. Emma was missing, what she had done while she was alive was of no import to him.

“And?” he prodded.

“And?” the Night Nurse repeated, aghast. “Is that all you have to say? This agency is expending resources that could be better allocated to more worthy clientele, on a ghost child who murdered her family. The Cassity child is innocent, of course, but Emma Davis’s soul already belongs to Hell. There is no reason for us to suppose it isn’t already there.”

Edwin’s rage had always burned cold. It felt like the first few steps onto the frozen lake in the seventh circle of Hell. A chill that started off startling and incongruous, that settled into his bones like a wire pulling them taught.

“Are you suggesting, Nanny ,” Edwin said, coming around the desk to stand before the Night Nurse. “That this agency cease the search for the soul of a child because of alleged crimes she may or may not have committed a century ago?”

“I am suggesting that your time would be better spent on other children, children who weren’t, alleged or not, definitively eternally damned,” the Night Nurse insisted.

“What a godless thing to say,” Edwin said, staring down the Night Nurse as her control on her temper nearly snapped. He spun around and walked back to his desk, sitting in his high chair with his hands folded the way Charles always told him to do when playing hard ball. “Your suggestions are duly noted, Nurse. You may go now.”

The Night Nurse stared him down as if he would wither beneath her gaze. Edwin had stared down demons, he’d faced an Endless, he’d held his killer's face in his hands and shown him forgiveness. It was not in him to cower.

She turned on a heel and disappeared in a flash of flames. 

And Edwin, adequately distracted from his earlier misery, happily returned to his research.

+

“It’s been awhile,” Niko said when Crystal opened her eyes.

Crystal hardly hesitated before throwing her arms around Niko’s shoulders. She pressed her face into the crook of Niko’s neck and took a shaky breath. 

It had been nearly a week since they’d seen each other. Her dreams with Niko were getting not only further and further apart but shorter. The last time she’d seen her had been for a few minutes during a nap at the agency, the time before that had been when Niko told her the wish version of Niko wasn’t real. 

Crystal didn’t want to waste a second with her, but she couldn’t resist a chance to hug her. She was cold and still sticky with blood, it felt like hugging a popsicle, but Niko was still better at hugging than Edwin, that was for sure.

When Crystal pulled back, she kept her hands on Niko’s arms, holding her within reaching distance as if that could stop a magical void from ceasing to exist.

“What’s the news from up top?” Niko asked.

“God, where to start,” Crystal said. “Charles fell on a jar of perfume and it turned him human for a day.”

“ What ?” Niko exclaimed.

“Yeah, we just spent all afternoon eating pasta and ice cream and running from the police,” Crystal said. “I just left him in our spare bedroom so he could get some sleep. He’s losing his mind, because he can’t see Edwin while he’s human. Edwin is losing his mind, because he has no idea what Charles got all over himself to make this happen. Which means that I’m losing my mind, because neither of them can vent to each other.”

“That’s heavy,” Niko said, her hand resting on Crystal’s knee. “What about you?”

“Uh, I just said I’m losing my mind, didn’t I?”

“No, I mean, you told me what’s going on with the boys. What’s going on with you?”

“Oh,” Crystal said, staring at the ground. 

Since she’d buried David, the floor of her void had started to look less like a trashcan. No more empty pizza boxes or shattered stemware, red Solo cups or crushed bags of chips. It had started to look more natural, the parquet floor transfiguring into cool dirt. Thick, verdant green crabgrass had started to fill in the space in patches, like a teen trying to grow a beard. She’d half expected new blooms to start blossoming the next time she was here. 

Instead, there was yellowed grass, a few withered dandelions, and a rose with limp, rotten petals. 

She opened her mouth to ask if Niko had seen the new growth in her void. If she’d watched it bloom and die on the vine, but something stopped her before she could ask. Something had been preventing her from talking to Niko, really talking to her, for months now. If she began to point out the decay around them she worried that this conversation would be over too soon.

“My parents moved,” Crystal settled on. “To a different country. And they didn’t bother to tell me.”

Niko’s hand squeezed on Crystal’s knee. “They what ? Are you serious? How did you find out?”

“My mom called,” Crystal said, feeling a shocking urge to laugh. “She called to badger me because I hadn’t registered at the school they’d picked out for me yet. A school in a different country where they’d been living for weeks without bothering to check if they’d brought their own kid.” Crystal rubbed a hand down her face, not surprised to find her fingers come away wet. “Didn’t the mom in Home Alone figure out that shit in like, a couple hours? My mom could win a record.” She breathed out heavily. “I guess I’m just not very missable.”

Niko didn’t say anything for a moment, just smoothed her thumb over Crystal’s knee cap while Crystal wiped her face noisily on her shirt. 

“When I was twelve my baba died,” Niko said. “My dad was on a trip. I don’t remember where he was, but he couldn’t make it back and my mom— It was her mother and she’d never been close with her, so I think everyone thought she’d be okay. On the way to the wake she drove off the road and hit a pole. I was fine, I just scraped my knee, but she hit her head and they split us up between ambulances.” Niko paused, before finishing, “I waited for her at the hospital for four days.”

“Niko, I mean, that sucks, so no offense, but it sounds like your mom had a good reason. My mom—”

“Let me finish,” Niko said, with a tremulous smile. “My dad ended up coming to get me. He ran in, I remember he was all wet because it had been raining and he soaked my hospital gown hugging me. When we got home, he sent me upstairs, but I still heard their fight through my bedroom door. My mom hadn’t had a concussion. She had checked herself out of the hospital an hour after we got there and took a cab to the wake. She’d left me there because she didn’t want to have to deal with me while she was grieving.”

Crystal didn’t have anything to say to that, she put a hand over Niko’s and threaded them together, squeezing like if she squeezed hard enough they’d be tethered together permanently. 

“It took me a long time to understand why she did that,” Niko said. “To get that it wasn’t about me, it was about her. I didn’t do anything to make her leave me behind, she did that on her own. Your parents are missing something, Crystal. Something in here,” she pressed a hand to her bloody chest, “that is supposed to remind them to be good parents. To run into the hospital soaking wet and hug their kid. They don’t have it. You aren’t missing anything.”

Something in Crystal’s chest cracked open. She reached forward, pulling Niko into her arms again, but this time it felt like she was the one with the gaping chest wound. 

Crystal had spent a very long time, months now, trying to make up for all of the bad things she’d done before David. She’d cheated and lied, she’d stolen and broken things. She made a friend walk into traffic, she’d made security guards have crippling nightmares, she’d maxed out credit cards and relished in her friend’s misery because it meant they were just as miserable as she was. 

In all the time she’d spent trying to make up for herself, she’d never considered the part her parents had had to play in all of this. She’d thought she was a bad daughter, so they’d treated her like one. Not that they were bad parents, so she’d grown to fit the shape they’d made for her.

For the first time she considered that maybe while she was making shit up to everybody else, she could find it in her to forgive herself.

When she pulled back, Niko’s hair was frizzy from Crystal’s tears. She absentmindedly fixed it, a fuzzy warmth filling her at the pleased look on Niko’s face.

“Niko, I—”

“Crystal,” a voice said. 

Crystal looked to the side out of habit, expecting no one to be there as had been the case for weeks. 

David sat cross legged to her right. When they made eye contact, a slick smile split his face in half. 

“There you are,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you all over this dump.”

+

Charles stared at the ceiling of Crystal and Jenny’s spare bedroom. 

The room itself was sparse, just a bed, a small desk, and a wardrobe, with barely enough room leftover to walk between the furniture to the door. 

His stomach was full of spaghetti and ice cream and it ached in a way that felt familiar. Maybe he’d been lactose intolerant and he’d forgotten, maybe he’d ignored it and eaten ice cream anyways. Either way, it was hard to feel this uncomfortable and recall how to slip into a dream.

He’d liked sleeping, he remembered, but he’d never quite felt safe in his own house. One time, his dad had poured dirty dishwater on him to wake him up, as a friendly reminder that he’d forgotten to take out the trash. After that, relaxing enough for peaceful dreams felt impossible.

Sleeping in the dorms had been heavenly in comparison, though he’d never share that with Edwin.

He fidgeted with the sleep clothes he’d borrowed from Crystal. A pair of shorts and a cropped shirt for a band he didn’t recognize. Then he flopped over onto his stomach and pressed his pillow over his head. If he couldn’t fall asleep maybe he could suffocate to death and then, either way, everything would be back to normal.

He threw his pillow off the bed with a sigh and sat up. If he wasn’t going to sleep, he might as well help Edwin with research.

He sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bed when the world started spinning. 

No, really? He thought. Still?

But the vision didn’t seem to care that he was no longer exactly a ghost, it crested over his head and pulled him under.

+

Charles had been at his new school for two months and had exchanged maybe three words with Edwin. It wasn’t for lack of trying. 

He’d memorized Edwin’s class schedule and attempted to ambush him after classes. But Edwin had an uncanny ability to disappear into a crowd like a specter. Then he’d found out which dorm room was Edwin’s and waited for him in the hall. He’d waited long past curfew, but Edwin had never shown. From the dark bags he could see under Edwin’s eyes from across the cafeteria, Charles had no idea if he’d even been sleeping.

It was at this point that he’d started feeling like something of a stalker and tried for a more natural approach. 

He’d joined the music club on the off chance Edwin was a member. He did love the piano and Charles knew he had private piano lessons in the mornings. He could hear flawless Liszt wafting into the dorm’s lavatories while he brushed his teeth. 

But Edwin wasn’t in the music club and he wasn’t in the gardening club or the chess club. The book they were reading in Book Club that month was a historical romance, so Charles didn’t even bother joining. If it wasn’t a mystery, Edwin wouldn’t spare it a glance. If there was a Cluedo club, Charles would have nailed him for sure, but short of that he was at a loss.

He’d tried texting Edwin only a couple times. He didn’t want to spam Edwin with texts when he wasn’t quite sure what Edwin was upset about, but he couldn’t let that method go untried. 

I miss you, he’d texted on a dreary Sunday morning. The other boy’s in his dorm were throwing crisps at each other and generally making a ruckus, but Charles was curled up in the window seat, trying to make sense of his melancholy.

Edwin hadn’t responded to that one.

A couple weeks later, at four in the morning, unable to sleep he’d been hit by an unusual wave of despondency. 

Are we still friends? He’d texted, then he’d turned his phone off and closed his eyes before he could see if Edwin wrote back.

When he remembered to check, between second and third period, he was surprised to see he had a notification.

Always, Edwin had texted, and when Charles looked up from his phone in shock, perhaps hoping to confirm he wasn’t dreaming, he’d seen Edwin watching him from the other side of the hall. 

He was a head taller than many of the other boys in their year and his gaze was unwavering. 

Charles took a step towards him but before he could get any closer, his teammates found him. An arm was slung around his shoulders and someone ruffled his hair and by the time Charles righted himself to look back at Edwin, he was gone. 

Charles was surrounded by friends, but had never felt more alone.

+

Charles woke up lying vertical on the bed in the spare bedroom. The comforter beneath his cheek was wet, as if he’d been crying. He pressed a hand to his eyes and then to the comforter, as if to confirm the source of the tears. 

For a moment, he wanted to see Edwin so badly that it was a physical ache. He sat there, feeling cold and wet and bereft. He couldn’t decide if he should go to Edwin now or if he should try to sleep some more. The window in his room was dark and though he knew Edwin would be up, either pacing the office while he jogged his big brain, or deep in the throes of research, Charles couldn’t exactly see him right now. 

He could walk right through him by accident.

He could start talking to him and not realize he’d stepped out of the office for a moment. 

There were numerous ways to make this situation harder on both of them and the only way to avoid any hardship was to go back to sleep. He sat there, debating his options, and before he could make a decision one way or the other, the decision was made for him.

In the other room, Crystal started screaming.

Chapter Text

The moon had just set in London when Edwin heard Crystal begin to scream. He jumped up from his desk and for a moment stood there in bewilderment, half-expecting a demon or a hellbeast to come tearing through the agency. 

When none were forthcoming, he phased straight through the agency’s wall and into Crystal and Jenny’s flat. 

He passed through Jenny’s bedroom, where she was in the process of pulling on trousers. She was so flustered, she forgot to tell him off for entering her room without permission, merely shouted after him, “Hey! What the hell’s going on?”

He only stopped once he was at Crystal’s bedside. She was floating a foot off the mattress, her hair levitating around her head like a scarlet halo. Her eyes were open, the iris and pupil covered in a pearly white film as if she were having a vision, and her mouth was gaping as she let out an agonized scream. He couldn’t help but notice the similarities between Crystal’s current state and Niko’s own trial with the Dandelion Sprites. Perhaps a possession of some kind? He pulled out his notebook to begin taking down notes.

Charles burst in next and Edwin was momentarily distracted by his choice of attire. He was wearing absurdly small shorts and a shirt emblazoned with a woman’s visage that revealed his entire midsection. He must have borrowed the clothing from Crystal, he looked positively scandalous. And what the devil was a Halsey?

“Crystal!” Charles shouted, thankfully running to the bedside opposite Edwin. He glanced fretfully at her besieged form and then his eyes skimmed the room. “Edwin are you in here?”

Edwin reached over to Crystal’s nightstand and knocked a lamp over in answer.

“Aces! What are you thinking, mate? Possession?” Charles asked.

“What is— Jesus F. Christ,” Jenny said, joining them at the foot of Crystal’s bed. “Is that— Is she—”

“It’s some kind of possession,” Edwin said. When she didn’t respond, her eyes transfixed on Crystal’s floating form, he snapped his fingers until she looked at him. “Jenny, you will have to tell Charles. He still cannot see or hear me.”

“Right, okay, Edwin says it's a possession,” Jenny said to Charles.

“How do we stop it? Rune circle?” Charles asked.

“It depends on what is possessing her,” Edwin said. “I have a theory, but I’ll need Crystal to confirm it's correct.”

“And how in the world are you going to do that?” Jenny asked.

“Jenny, what did he say?” Charles asked.

“Explain it to him,” Edwin said, sprinting back to the office. “I’ll be back in a tick.”

Edwin ran back to the office, making for the coat rack, but before he could reach it the Night Nurse appeared in his path.

“There you are,” the Night Nurse said, adjusting her blazer. She sounded as if she hadn’t found him precisely where she’d expected him to be.

“Here I am,” Edwin said, attempting to go around her to the coat rack, but before he could she stepped unerringly in his path. “Nurse, I am quite busy at the moment, if you could just—”

“What is that unearthly sound?” the Night Nurse asked. “Where are the others?”

“There is no time to explain,” Edwin said, teetering on the edge of impatience. He made to reach around her but she stepped into his space with a sharp look. 

“The sun hasn’t even risen over London and yet you are running around in a tizzy while something screeches in the other room? What exactly is going on in this office?” the Night Nurse demanded.

Edwin sighed gustily and fixed her with a cold look. “Move and I will show you.”

The Night Nurse pursed her lips, but did move out of his way. Edwin grabbed Charles’s overcoat, digging through the pockets until he found what he was looking for.

“With me,” Edwin said, phasing straight through the wall into the adjoining apartment. 

He didn’t wait to help the Night Nurse figure out how to open the door. 

By the time he returned Crystal had stopped screaming, but she was still floating above the bed, her hair billowing on an imagined breeze. Her mouth was still horrifically agape, as if she hadn’t really stopped making anguished sounds but they had all merely stopped being able to hear them.

“He’s back,” Jenny said to Charles. 

“Edwin?” Charles asked the room, looking about as if he’d be able to catch a flash of Edwin’s figure. 

Edwin sighed and knocked over a tube of lipstick on Crystal’s dresser. Charles’s eyes zeroed in on the fallen object and then, impressively, seemed to accurately surmise where Edwin’s head was. 

“What’s the plan?” Charles asked.

The Night Nurse chose that moment to come barreling into Crystal’s bedroom. “What in the nine Hells is this—” She paused when she finally noticed Crystal. She opened her mouth and then closed it again, only opening it to succinctly state, “Fuck.”

“Quite,” Edwin said, opening Charles’s pocket mirror. He put it in Crystal’s open hand, closing her fingers around it, then carefully worked to angle it towards her face. “If I’m correct, then the mirror should project Crystal across the room. As a projection of her consciousness this Crystal should be able to tell us what’s the matter.”

“Okay,” Jenny said. “Let’s hope it works, because I’m not explaining all of that.”

“Explain what?” Charles asked, looking more anxious by the second. “Jenny, what did Edwin say?”

“What do you mean by that?” the Night Nurse asked him, looking him up and down. She surveyed his attire with distaste but her eyes began to widen as she observed his face. She grabbed him by the wrist and gave it a squeeze, “Are you living ?”

“He’s living, I’m possessed,” Crystal said, where she was standing in the doorway. Everyone crowded in Crystal’s room spun to look at her. Edwin kept a firm grip on Crystal’s hand, which he could still feel in his own even if it had ceased being visible. He had to make sure the mirror stayed pointed at her face, so she could tell them what the bloody hell was going on. Crystal, seeming to sense Edwin’s mounting urgency, turned to flash a grateful look at him and said, “It’s been a busy day.”

+

“So let me see if I’m understanding the madness the four of you have unleashed,” the Night Nurse said. She pointed at Charles, “You got splashed with an unknown substance which turned you temporarily corporeal for an unknown length of time, and you can’t see this one.” 

She jabbed a finger in Edwin’s direction.

“I’m assuming you’re pointing at Edwin,” Charles said, gnashing his teeth together. “And yes I can’t see him.”

He could imagine Edwin’s eye roll where he must have been crouched by Crystal’s bedside with Charles’s pocket mirror, but he couldn’t see him, or even hear the small huff of frustration he usually let out when the Night Nurse was lecturing them. Charles hadn’t realized how much he relied on that small huff of frustration to preserve his own well of patience while the Night Nurse blathered on.

“This one is currently possessed by a demon of unknown origin—”

“His name’s David,” Crystal said. Well, the projection of her standing by the doorway said. She had her arms crossed over her chest and was looking more and more knackered by the minute. Charles hadn’t known a projection of someone’s consciousness could get tired.

“Possessed by a demon named David of unknown origin,” the Night Nurse said. Then she pointed at Jenny, “And this one has somehow kept the rule of three at bay for over a week and has two wishes of unknown intent waiting to wreak further havoc on the situation.”

Jenny looked distinctly uncomfortable at the attention. She swallowed and said, “I could use one of my— You know. For Crystal.”

Jenny, Crystal, and the Night Nurse turned to look at Crystal’s bedside, where Charles assumed Edwin was informing them what a bad idea it was to mix wishes with possession. Magic rarely mixed well with other magic. It was like trying to mix oil and water, that was to say, nigh impossible.

“Okay, jeez,” Jenny said, probably cutting off Edwin’s tirade in the middle. “It was just a thought.”

“Right, so what’s the plan now, Edwin?” Charles asked

There was another pause as the others listened to whatever brilliant plan Edwin had come up with. The silence was beginning to sting. Charles crossed his arms over his chest.

“He’s been preparing for something like this,” Crystal interpreted for Charles, “ever since I told him David couldn’t stay under my tree forever. He’s been making some sort of ritual to exorcise him permanently from my mind. Wait, Edwin, won’t—” She cut off when Edwin, Charles presumed, began to talk over her. “Okay, okay, jeez, he says he can exile David back to Hell.”

“To Hell ? He wants to open a door to Hell while I can’t see him?” Charles asked, feeling panic closing around his throat. “What if something happens to him and I don’t know about it until it's too late? Maybe we should—”

“It’ll be in my void,” Crystal said. “Edwin says he won’t be in any danger if he’s in there with me. He needs to put together a blood potion, while you and Jenny paint the sacred runes on my bedroom walls.”

“I don’t like this,” Charles said, staring at where he was pretty sure Edwin was still crouched. “Mate, if this doesn’t work, I’m coming to get you, corporeal or not.”

Crystal huffed a laugh and Charles turned to look at her.

“What did he say?” he asked, impatiently.

“He said—” Crystal started, but she was cut off this time by her projection vanishing into thin air. 

On the bed, Crystal’s figure had fallen back onto the comforter. She looked pale and sweaty, her eyes twitching incessantly underneath her closed eyelids. If he hadn’t seen her floating and screaming just moments ago, Charles would have thought she’d taken ill.

“Okay,” Charles said, gathering himself. “What comes first?”

+

It was fortunate it was still so early in the morning, it allowed Edwin to pop over to Jenny’s shop and acquire thirty-two ounces of cow’s blood before Sahar had even arrived to work. He gathered and measured the first few ingredients—basilisk scales, moth wing powder, juniper berries—and added them all to a blessed vessel. He hoped the spell didn’t mind that their blessed vessel was an old magicked Crock-Pot they’d gotten as payment for banishing a poltergeist.

He was so focused on stirring his potion that he didn’t even realize the Night Nurse had followed him into the agency until she cleared her throat. He startled, but tried to play it off as stretching his stirring arm. 

“Yes, Nanny?” he asked, not looking away from his task.

“I’ve come to offer my assistance,” she said. She stood stiffly before his desk, her hands folded neatly in front of her. 

He was sure she was sincere in her offer to help, but he wasn’t sure that was her primary motivator. Especially considering how they’d left things off the night before.

He turned back to his stirring, watching as the blood slowly transformed in color from a deep mahogany to a blue as dark as the night sky, almost the exact same shade as the ripe blackcurrants he used to pick in the forest as a child.

“If you sincerely want to help,” Edwin said, stirring three more times counter-clockwise, before switching to clockwise, “you may mince the pig’s liver.”

He pointed at the slumped plastic bag of liver he’d also purloined from Jenny’s shop. It was just as well if she wanted to handle the less savory tasks of potion-making. 

The Night Nurse made a face as if she’d smelled something rancid, perhaps she had. Edwin certainly couldn’t smell what he was brewing and he couldn’t imagine reheated blood smelled particularly inviting. Nevertheless, the Night Nurse rolled up her sleeves, took out the required tools, and began to mince.

It wasn’t until the potion was a startling electric green and had simmered down to a paste, that the Night Nurse once again cleared her throat.

“How long have you been working on this scheme?” she asked, gesturing at the Crock-Pot and Edwin’s free hand which was holding his notebook open to the recipe he’d jotted down weeks ago.

“Months, I suppose,” Edwin said simply, not feeling particularly generous.

The Night Nurse frowned at his short answer. “Since you returned from the states?”

“Before that,” Edwin said. “The morning after Crystal told us she locked the demon in her mind I popped over to the agency and started doing research. I was no longer tied to Port Townsend, you see. I had all the time in the world.”

“But that was— Had you not just returned from a second bout in Hell?”

“I had,” Edwin said, feeling impatience tickling at the corner of his mind. “Is there a point to this interrogation, or can we return to not speaking to one another?”

“Why would you do all of this for her? You had just escaped the clutches of a— a barbaric demon. Why would you willingly throw yourself in the path of another for a girl you had only just met?”

Edwin sighed, putting his stirring rod to the side. He wiped off his hands on his handkerchief and then put it back in his pocket, all without answering the Nurse’s question.

“Charles went to Hell to retrieve me, at the risk of his everlasting soul,” Edwin said slowly. “Crystal returned to the source of her nightmares, on the slim chance it would facilitate my rescue. I consider both of those sacrifices of equal value. Whether or not Crystal was successful, she did what had to be done in the name of my safe return. She’s my friend. Why wouldn’t I do everything I conceivably could to do the same for her?”

The Night Nurse swallowed, she stared down at the Crock-Pot between them as if it had wronged her. For a moment neither of them said anything, then she ventured, “I apologize, for what I said about your missing friend.”

“Emma Davis,” Edwin was quick to say.

“Emma Davis,” the Night Nurse said. “Murderer or not, she is still missing, so her fate should not be left to chance.”

“Yes, well, as it happens Emma is not my friend,” Edwin said, when the Night Nurse looked ready to argue the point further, he added, “But she is Crystal’s. Perhaps there is much you and I still have to learn from Crystal. From the living. Their compassion is not so finite.”

The Night Nurse opened and closed her mouth several times, at such a loss for words that Edwin found it nearly comforting. 

“What exactly are you meant to do with this concoction?” the Night Nurse asked, jabbing a finger at the green paste they’d just created.

Edwin sighed, he picked up the bowl of the Crock-Pot and started for the door to the girl’s apartment. “I’d rather not explain myself more than once. Come along, Nurse.”

The Night Nurse sighed gustily, but did follow along in his wake. He considered that a success.

+

They were nearly finished painting the runes on Crystal’s bedroom walls when Jenny broke the silence. 

Charles had been working quickly, half an ear on the hall for Edwin and the Night Nurses return and half an ear on Crystal’s bed where she was sleeping restlessly. Well, that was, less sleeping and more trapped in a psychic void in her mind while a demon tried to take over her physical body, but considering Charles’s own unsuccessful foray into his first sleep in thirty-five years it was basically the same thing.

He’d thought Jenny was also keeping an ear out for their friends, or possibly laser focused on the complicated rune samples Edwin had left behind for them to copy. He didn’t realize until she spoke up that she’d been thinking about something else entirely.

“What’s the point of having stupid w— stupid you-know-what’s if I can’t use them to stop this shit?” Jenny demanded.

Her paintbrush was splattering bright red paint all over Crystal’s purple rug. She was going to kill them when she woke up. 

“You can say the word wish, you know?” Charles asked, putting his paintbrush down. They were pretty much done anyways, and he’d forgotten how sore his arms could get from holding them up so long. He rolled out his shoulders, trying to catch Jenny’s eye. “You just can’t say ‘I’ and ‘wish.’”

“I didn’t say it on purpose last time, I’m not taking any chances,” Jenny said, pulling a chair over to Crystal’s bedside and sitting.

Charles sat on the end of Crystal’s bed, hand curling around her ankle. Her skin was clammy and she kept twitching. She looked like she was having a nightmare instead of, you know, living a nightmare.

“Edwin’s got a reckless— terrible— irresponsible— Fuck,” Charles said, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “I want to say it’s a good plan, but I guess that’s a goddamn lie.”

Jenny was quiet for a moment as he gathered his wits about him. When he looked back at her, she was frowning.

“I could use one of the you-know-what’s to take that thing off,” she said, pointing at his wrist.

Charles looked down at the geas. He could swear it was changing. In the beginning it had been a thin bracelet made of ink and thorns but everyday it got a little bigger, now it stretched from the base of his thumb to several inches past his wrist bone. As if it—a thick cuff of thorns and branches and small, unopened buds—was crawling up his arm. He wondered if eventually the buds would bloom.

“Nah,” Charles said, covering the geas with his other hand. “Nah, don’t waste a wish on me, mate.”

“It wouldn’t—”

“It might not work anyways and then you’d just be one wish shorter,” Charles said. “Or it might work but the Fox Queen would just assign me a different punishment. No, it’s better off you use the wishes for yourself.”

“There’s nothing I want!” Jenny exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. 

“Nothing?” Charles asked. “You could ask for just about anything. Money, power, fame. You could never have to work again, you could never be— never be lonely. There isn’t anything you need?”

Jenny stared down at Crystal, she brushed her bangs away from her eyes and then folded her hands back in her lap. 

“If I had everything I ever wanted,” she said slowly, “who would I even be?”

“What?”

“I pretend I don't, but I’ve always wanted something. It’s why I get out of bed every day. I want to open the shop, or move to London, or make a fucking amazing sandwich. Make friends, meet someone, leave something behind just to say I’ve been here. If there wasn’t anything left that I wanted, would I even— would I even get out of bed in the morning?” Jenny asked. 

Charles didn’t have an answer to that. And before he could say something that would ultimately get distorted by his goddamn geas, Crystal’s bedroom door burst open. 

The Night Nurse appeared a beat after, Charles assumed, Edwin’s grand entrance. She was quiet for a moment and then said, “Alright, well, I’m not repeating all of that.” She fixed her gaze on Charles and said, “It’s time.”

+

“—if this doesn’t work, I will hang, draw, and quarter myself,” Crystal finished in her best impression of Edwin’s lilting accent, before she realized she was no longer in her bedroom at the agency. She was under her tree, in her void, and Iris was knelt at her feet. “Iris? What the hell happened?”

The table that had been set for lunch the last time she’d been here was upended, plates and glasses smashed, chairs in splinters. Her tree was still magnificent, towering above her with ethereally glowing purple leaves, but as she watched the light flickered, like a chandelier in a storm. 

Iris didn’t look up from where she was still kneeling on the ground, with her hands buried in the dirt. Only as the light from the tree flickered wildly did Crystal realize what Iris was knelt in front of . 

The ground where she’d buried David was a crater, smoking lightly like a campfire long after the flames had been smothered. Iris was whispering something under her breath, like a chant, rocking a little as she did so.

Crystal joined her on the ground and put a hand on her shoulder, “Iris?”

Iris gasped, her eyes, when they met Crystal’s, were milky white. Crystal wondered if this is what her own eyes looked like when she had a vision. She’d never actually seen it before. 

“Crystal?” Iris asked, the white leaving her eyes between one blink and the next. “I told you leaving him here was bad for the tree.”

“I thought I had more time. How did he escape?” Crystal asked.

Iris shook her head, staring down at her hands which were still dug into the topsoil as if she was trying to plant bulbs without a trowel. 

“There was a strain on the tree, something siphoning its energy,” Iris said. “The others went to find what the source was, but never returned. I couldn’t hold him on my own, especially not with the tree growing weaker all the while. The best I can do now is to keep him trapped here.”

“You’re making it so he can’t take control of my body?” Crystal asked, her dread mounting as the lights above them grew dimmer.

“For now,” Iris said. “Unless the source of the strain can be found and severed, I won’t be able to put him back in his prison.”

“We don’t need to, my friend has a plan to banish him for good,” Crystal said.

“A fine friend,” Iris said. “Once your demon is banished, we can work together to find what is sapping our shared strength.”

“Or we don’t have to, I mean, we have plenty of strength already, don’t we? With David gone, we can afford to share,” Crystal said.

Iris narrowed her eyes and said, “Not indefinitely. Even our vast power has its limits. What do you know of this, child?”

“I don’t know anything,” Crystal said, quickly. The tree went out entirely for a beat so long that the ground beneath them began to shake, it only went still when the tree began to glow again. “Okay, fine, I think, somehow, I’ve tethered my friend’s soul to my void.”

“You did what ?”

“I didn’t know what I was doing when I was doing it!” Crystal exclaimed, standing up so she could pace. “She died and her soul never appeared on Earth. Edwin thinks that maybe it was flung into the Dreaming, which I guess is where we all go when we sleep? But she’s been here, with me, since she died, so maybe I found her, or a piece of her, and I’ve been keeping her here with me?”

“You can’t steal from the Dreaming. It will drain you dry before it lets you take what belongs to it,” Iris said. 

“It’s just for a little bit longer, just until—”

“No, you don’t have time,” Iris said, gritting her teeth as the ground rocked beneath them. “It’s you or it's her.”

+

Edwin manifested in a dark void with three luminous eyeballs floating above his head. 

The last thing he remembered was laying beside Crystal on her duvet, his feet adjacent to her head, her toes—the lavender nail polish peeling in strips—inches from his jaw. The Night Nurse had used the paste they’d made to paint runes on Edwin’s forehead and hands, while Charles did the same for Crystal. They’d begun chanting the invocation Edwin had prepared and it felt as if he’d blinked and the next thing he knew he was standing in a limitless rift in time and space.

He did what he’d always done when he found himself somewhere unfamiliar: He started walking.

The eyes followed him, or at least, he assumed they followed him. Perhaps he wasn’t actually moving at all, perhaps there was nowhere in here for him to go, but thinking that way only led to madness, so Edwin quietly asserted to himself that the eyes were merely trailing in his wake. 

He walked for what felt like miles, for an indeterminate length of time. If he’d left Crystal’s void and found out he’d missed a decade, a century on Earth, he wouldn’t have been surprised in the least. 

The only thing that kept him going was his certainty that he was getting closer. The ground, which had been nothing but a concept when he’d first arrived, was beginning to show signs of existence. His boots were covered in dirt, parched grass was interspersed with decaying flower beds. 

If he didn’t know any better, he’d have thought he’d stumbled into an abandoned garden.

He was so transfixed on the rot and ruin that he almost tripped over Crystal.

She was sitting cross legged on the ground. Her cream-colored pyjamas were smeared with mud and bright green streaks of pollen. Her head was tilted forward so her chin nearly touched her chest and when he knelt before her he noticed that her eyes were squeezed shut.

“Crystal,” he said, before gently placing a hand on her shoulder. 

She startled, but only just so. When her eyes met his, she made as if to hug him, but held herself back at the last moment, her arms drooping back to her sides. 

Edwin leaned forward awkwardly and looped his arms around her shoulders. She was still in his hold for a heartbeat and then she wrapped her arms gratefully around his middle, pressing her face into his shoulder.

He wasn’t quite sure what to say or do. Demonstrative physicality was usually Charles’s job. He decided to do for Crystal what Charles had always done for him, simply hold her quietly until she chose to pull away.

Eventually she drew back, her hands lingering on Edwin’s shoulders. There were tears in her eyes and forging clean trails on her dirt-covered cheeks. 

“Are you well?” Edwin asked, sitting across from her in the muck.

“As well as I can be,” Crystal said. Her voice sounded ragged, as if even her soul had been screaming.

“Right, of course, well we just have to complete the ritual and you’ll be right as rain,” Edwin tried to assure her. Unfortunately, at his words, her eyes scrunched up and she began crying in earnest. “Oh bother. I didn’t mean to— That is, I apologize if I— I suppose I should have started with an apology. I am all out of sorts. I am frightfully sorry for any hurt I caused at the Beltane Ball, it was not my intention to—”

“You’re sorry? Edwin, I’m sorry,” Crystal said, little hiccups interrupting her urgent plea. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have picked a fight with you to begin with, that was, like, so old Crystal behavior. I was just frustrated and scared and that’s not an excuse, but it was so stupid —”

“And I was rash, because I wasn’t thinking of you or Charles, I was thinking about Niko,” Edwin said. “I rather think we were both too distracted by Niko to think straight.”

“You can say that again,” Crystal said with a huff. She released Edwin’s shoulders to cross her arms over her chest. “Thanks by the way. I didn’t know you were finding a way to help me. I didn’t even know I needed help.”

Edwin could feel a righteous smirk lifting the corner of his lips. “I’m told, that’s what friends are for.”

Crystal beamed back at him, her joyful expression at odds with the filth on her face, but before she could respond, an unfamiliar voice said, “How sweet. Gag me.”

Edwin and Crystal stood at once. Before Crystal could put herself between him and the strange man Edwin assumed was David the demon, Edwin took hold of her wrist and pulled her to his side.

He couldn’t see how this filthy young man could have once charmed Crystal into allowing him to possess her, but then again, it was hard to see David’s true face past the mud it was caked with. Rocks and clumps of dirt clung to his hair and shoulders as if he’d pulled himself straight through a pile of manure to freedom. Perhaps he had. 

“You really thought you could bury me in your mind?” David asked Crystal. He took a hazardous step towards them and neither moved an inch. “What do I keep telling you Crystal? You’re powerless without me. All of this?” He threw his hands up in the air. “What is a vapid party-girl supposed to do with this much power?”

“And what does a low-ranking demon like you think you could accomplish with her power?” Edwin countered hotly.

David’s eyes finally wandered to Edwin’s face. Being looked at by him felt like having the attention of a million flies. There was a buzzing in his ears and the minute urge to run, but Edwin held his ground.

“And what would a worthless specter like you know about power? I have commanded armies, I have shaken hands with Lucifer, I have hunted down an untold number of the damned and gorged myself on their souls,” David said, his voice thickening into something reasonably frightening as he spoke. 

“Yes, quite, but what have you done recently?” Edwin asked. 

“Huh?”

“Just, what have you accomplished in the last few hundred years or so?” Edwin inquired, stifling the trembling of his hands by tightening his grip on Crystal’s wrist. “When my colleague and I trapped you in a rune circle you attempted to escape, but you only managed to summon a few fish. When Crystal here asked you to make a portal to Hell, you told her you couldn’t open a door even if you wanted to. Therefore, I conclude that you have been stripped of your considerable power.” Edwin paused to watch David’s skin under the dirt turn faintly green. “A strong, powerful demon wouldn’t rely on a human psychic to fuel his ambitions, but you have to borrow strength from others. Because you’re weak. You’re less a demon, more a parasite.”

“The first thing I’m gonna do when I’m in control of this body is flay the skin from your bones,” David promised. 

“You’re not going to be in control of my body, David. Never again,” Crystal spat.

“Oh yeah? I can stay in here for as long as I want, Crystal,” David said, spreading his arms wide and flinging dirt at them as he did so. “You thought you were going crazy before? I can make you look like a goddamn psycho. I can shout in your ear all day long, I can make it so you don’t sleep for the rest of your fucking life.”

“Crystal, repeat after me,” Edwin said, squeezing Crystal’s wrist. Without pause Edwin began to chant, the words he’d oft read in the Lesser Key of Solomon fell almost clumsily off his tongue, but as David tried to take another step forward his foot sunk up to his knee in the cool dirt. 

Edwin and Crystal’s voices combined into a single thing, braiding themselves together and winding around David’s inert form. The ground beneath them vibrated, the very air pulsed with heat. Crystal breathed out loudly and Edwin wondered if she could smell sulfur rising around them like a fog. 

“Crystal, wait,” David pleaded, his voice sounding strained. “Maybe I was just fսcking with you, maybe we can work something out. I could help you get your little friend back!” 

Crystal looked at Edwin, the widening of her eyes implored, Could he really?  

Neither of them stopped chanting, even as Edwin shook his head and Crystal accepted his answer with an incline of her own. 

The ground rumbled and Crystal lurched forward, her hand prying free of Edwin’s grip and reaching for Edwin’s shoulder to steady herself. David rocked back and forth like a top about to topple over.

All of a sudden, a doorway opened beneath David’s feet. Tentacles made of raw flesh, soaked in blood, shot out from the portal and dragged David through.

+

As soon as the portal closed behind David, Crystal felt a weight lift from her shoulders. Her void, for the first time in a long time, was utterly silent. The air smelled clear and crisp, like one of the first cool days of Autumn. There wasn’t even a hint of sulfur lingering in the air.

After a moment, Edwin cleared his throat and said, “I didn’t think that would work.”

“You didn’t ?” Crystal exclaimed, turning to look at him.

But as soon as their eyes met, Edwin vanished. 

She spun around in a circle, but he was nowhere in sight. Before she could think to call for him, cold fingers slid between her own. She turned to see Niko standing next to her.

She was still wearing the same outfit she’d died in, but the blood was gone. It was as if she hadn’t been stabbed in Crystal’s place, as if time had rewound itself so she was warm and alive again. 

“You’re here,” Crystal said, beaming at her nearly against her will.

“I’ve been here this whole time,” Niko said. “David has been— Getting in the way, whenever I tried to tell you where I was.”

“He’s gone now,” Crystal said. “For good.”

“I know, that’s why I’m here one last time,” Niko said.

“No, what? You can stay here as long as you need to. Edwin is looking into a way to bring you—”

“I can’t, though,” Niko said, tugging on her hand. “Now that David’s gone, I can feel myself drawing on your power, it feels…good. It's like I’m nearly whole again.”

“You can take as much as you want,” Crystal insisted, “as long as you stay.”

Niko smiled at her faintly, the expression quickly turning sour on her troubled face. “If I stayed here, if I fed on your power, if I bled you dry, how would that make me any better than David?”

Crystal could feel tears once again sluicing down her cheeks. She was getting genuinely sick of crying, she wanted to scream in frustration but was afraid of scaring Niko.

“You aren’t a demon, you’re my friend,” Crystal pleaded. 

“I am,” Niko agreed. “And that’s why, as your friend, I had to tell you that I’m going back to where I was.”

“No—”

“I have a little of your power left, enough to tether myself for awhile. I only came to say goodbye, and to tell you that you can find me in the Dreaming,” Niko said.

“ Where in the Dreaming?” Crystal begged. “Edwin says it's an infinite, ever-changing plane. It could take an eternity to—”

“It’s a place called The Land,” Niko said.

“The Land?” Crystal repeated. “Could you be a little more specific?”

Niko merely smiled at her. She pressed their foreheads together and for a moment, Crystal felt wholly at peace. Then Niko was gone and Crystal, alone in her void for the first time she could remember, did the only thing that felt right.

She woke up.

+

Edwin had only had his eyes open for a split second before he had his arms full of Charles. 

Charles was wearing his preferred clothing, a dark red polo, his braces tight across his shoulders, and he could both see and touch Edwin, so Edwin presumed his bout as a corporeal being had come to a close. As Edwin attempted to draw back from Charles’s grip to take a gander at him, Charles’s grip only tightened, his fingers digging into Edwin’s shirt as if afraid he might be torn away.

“Are you and Crystal okay, then?” Charles asked, the words muffled against Edwin’s neck.

“Crystal and I banished David quite thoroughly. I imagine she’ll be waking up any moment now.” Edwin paused. “Charles, are you quite alright? You aren’t experiencing any ill effects from the potion are you? Any odd smells or dizziness? Can you mirror travel?” 

Edwin poked a finger against the back of Charles’s neck but did not feel anything amiss.

Charles laughed in his arms, drawing back only to grip Edwin’s shoulders.

Crystal was beside them in bed, but she’d rolled over and was snoring lightly as if she was well and truly asleep. The green paste that had been applied to both of their skin had entirely vanished, as had the runes on Crystal’s walls, their power quite used up.

“I’m aces, mate,” Charles said. “Now that I can see you.”

“Yes, well, I’m sorry your time being corporeal was mostly spent on a case,” Edwin said. “I’m sure you would have much rather had the day to do all of the human things you miss so much.”

“I missed you ,” Charles said, sincerely. 

The words hit Edwin somewhere in the center of his chest. He opened his mouth to respond but found himself at somewhat a loss for words. 

“I missed you as well,” Edwin said, looking down at Charles’s shirt as he said, “And I’m sorry for my behavior at the ball, it was simply— Caius said something and it made me realize— But that’s not an excuse, of course, I’m merely trying to explain—”

“It’s okay, mate. I understand,” Charles said. 

And it wasn’t as if he could lie but Edwin wondered if he really did, or if he only thought he did. 

“Charles, I—”

Crystal sat up with a gasp, startling them both. 

“Niko’s in The Land,” Crystal said. It took her a moment for her gaze to settle on Edwin, but once it did she grabbed his shoulder. “Edwin, Niko is in The Land.”

“Well done, Crystal. Just as I suspected,” Edwin said, he pulled out his notebook so he could show them what he’d written down, but before he could flip to the correct page he felt it slip from his hand. “Bother,” he said, reaching down to fetch it, only it didn’t seem to be by the foot of the bed. 

It was only when he righted himself that he realized he was no longer in Crystal’s room at all. 

Not only that, but Charles and Crystal were no longer with him.

He was alone in a room as red as fresh blood. Every fiber of his being wanted to curl into a ball and hide until he could determine that he wasn’t being hunted by something that wanted to tear him into smaller pieces, but his pride kept him standing and his practicality had him turning in a circle, observing the room for any exits. 

There were none to speak of, but he realized there were voices, growing louder all the while. One of them, eerily familiar.

A chill ran down his spine. He was not so alone after all.

Chapter Text

It was a testament to how far they’d come that Edwin had been gone for not even thirty minutes before Crystal began to feel like instead of missing her surly, know-it-all, perfectionist best friend, she was missing a limb.

Charles was crouched over Edwin’s notebook, which he’d dropped on the floor of Crystal’s bedroom moments before he’d vanished into thin air. In the frenzied half an hour since then, Charles had been scouring its pages for anything Edwin had jotted down recently that would seem to suggest that at any moment he could cease to exist. But so far, nothing.

As for Crystal, she was on the floor of the office, surrounded by books she couldn’t read, trying to force them to give her either a helpful vision, a clue, or a goddamn epiphany. At this point, she would take a crudely drawn map of where a centuries old ghost might go when he fell off the face of the earth.

The both of them were as taut as a tripwire, so Crystal was surprised Jenny throwing open the door of their apartment didn’t trigger an explosion.

“Crystal! What the hell happened? Did it work?” Jenny demanded, blinking blearily at her as she crossed the office to Crystal’s side.

Oh, right. 

Crystal had nearly forgotten that she’d been recently possessed by her demon ex-boyfriend. Jenny had been getting her first sleep in almost two days while Crystal was being exorcised, so it shouldn’t have been a shocker that she was a few dozen steps behind. 

Still, Crystal blinked at her guilelessly for a moment, trying to figure out how to tell Jenny that while Crystal was no longer hosting a vindictive demon, Edwin had vanished with no zero warning right before Charles’s and Crystal’s eyes.

While she was still trying to summarize all of that in her head, Jenny asked, “Well? Are you possessed or not?”

“Not,” Charles said, from the floor. He flipped Edwin’s notebook closed, his mouth forming a grim line. “Crystal’s all good, now Edwin is missing.”

“Are you serious?” Jenny asked. She turned to Crystal before he could respond, “Is he serious?”

“As a heart attack,” Crystal said. “I had just woken up and— I spoke to Niko in my void and she told me where she is in the Dreaming. I told Edwin and he leaned down to pick up his notebook and it was like he—” Crystal cut off, carefully watching the stiff set of Charles’s shoulders. She didn’t think he’d love her describing his best friend going missing as if Edwin was a soap bubble that someone had popped with a needle, but that had been what it looked like. As if one moment Edwin was whole and solid and the next his molecules had scattered into a million pieces. She settled on, “He was just gone. We have no idea where he could be.”

“I have some ideas,” Charles said, standing. He shoved Edwin’s notebook into his jacket pocket and crossed the room to grab his backpack. 

Crystal stood on shaky legs. Only standing could she still feel the aftereffects of being used as a human puppet for nearly twenty-four hours. Her limbs felt as durable as pool noodles but she still managed to throw an arm out before Charles could step around her and through the office’s standing mirror.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Crystal asked. 

“To find Edwin,” Charles said, stubbornly not meeting her steely gaze. 

“By yourself? I don’t think so,” Crystal said, waving her arms in the air. 

“Crystal—”

“No, you don’t get to ‘Crystal’ me,” Crystal said, seconds from stomping her foot. She felt ridiculous, standing in front of him in her pajamas, trying to get him to look her in the eye. But she knew if Charles walked away right now and she never saw either of her best friends ever again she would never forgive herself. “You can’t shut me out the second Edwin’s gone and still call us a team.”

Charles’s mouth fell open. He stared at her, the flint leaving his eyes and being replaced with a helplessness she felt in her bones. 

“Crystal, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” Charles swallowed. He dropped his backpack on the ground and backed away from the mirror. “I was just going to do some asking around. The last time Edwin went missing like— like that, he was with the Cat King of Port Townsend. Maybe Patty’s heard about a new Cat King of London. Or maybe that wanker is in town.”

Before Crystal could respond, the front door of the agency opened in a flurry.

“Did I hear you say Edwin Payne is missing?” the Night Nurse asked. 

She sized up all three of them and her nose wrinkled delicately. Crystal knew what she was seeing. Crystal and Jenny in their pajamas, Charles weary and frazzled, the office in disarray. And no Edwin Payne to be found. 

“Right,” the Night Nurse said, setting her briefcase on the ground. “One of you better start talking.”

+

Once the Night Nurse was caught up to speed, the day proceeded in bizarrely normal fashion. 

Jenny headed to the shop because she had deliveries to sign for. Charles headed to Port Townsend—which he returned from hours later with a glower—and then, briefly, Patty’s, which yielded even fewer results than Port Townsend had. 

Crystal sat in the office and tried to make heads or tails of Edwin’s notebook, while she waited for the Night Nurse to return with her verdict from the Lost & Found Department. 

By the time the Night Nurse returned, the sun was setting, Charles had nearly worn a groove in the floor, Jenny had brought Crystal a delicious sandwich that she’d taken exactly three bites of, and Jenny herself was uncharacteristically fiddling with her cellphone on the office’s couch. 

“Well?” Charles asked the Night Nurse before she could so much as utter a greeting. 

She gave Charles an irked look, but let his rudeness slide in favor of reporting her findings. 

“Edwin Payne has not passed on,” the Night Nurse said. “He is in neither Heaven nor Hell.”

Charles threw his head back with a strangled noise. 

“Is that it? That’s all the Lost & Found Department could tell us?” Crystal asked. 

“If you’ll let me finish,” the Night Nurse said. “The scryers did sense his energy signature.”

“Where?” Charles asked when the Night Nurse didn’t offer anything else. 

“They cannot determine a precise location, but they sense it,” the Night Nurse said.

Charles put his head in his hands and Crystal nearly followed him. Only keeping her gaze level so she could give the Night Nurse an unimpressed look.

“What? I thought you would appreciate some good news,” the Night Nurse said. “He hasn’t vanished. Not like those missing children. He’s somewhere . We just have to determine where.”

“Where in all of existence ,” Charles said pointedly. 

“Precisely,” the Night Nurse said. 

“Where do we even start when we’re searching all of existence?” Crystal asked.

She wasn’t really expecting an answer, and certainly not from Jenny. No offense to Jenny, but out of the four of them in the office at that moment, Jenny was probably the least versed in supernatural nonsense. 

Nevertheless, Jenny cleared her throat and said, “Two things.” 

“We can’t use a wish to find him if Edwin isn’t on this plane,” Charles said, before she could ask. “And if he’s not then you’ve completely wasted a wish we might need later.”

“These you-know-what's have a hell of a lot of caveats. They really should have come with Terms & Conditions,” Jenny said. 

“They don’t for a reason,” Charles said. “As nice a bird Sahar is, wishes are usually meant to screw the wisher over. It's better to save them until we know for sure they won’t blow up in our faces.”

“Jeez, okay. One thing then.” She waved her phone in the air. “I do know someone who might be able to help.”

“No witches,” Charles said.

“No demigods,” the Night Nurse said.

“Who do you know in London?” Crystal asked. “Is it just Sahar?”

“Don’t all thank me at once,” Jenny said. She typed something in her phone and then put it in her pocket with a sigh. “She’s on her way.”

+

Johanna Constantine showed up to the agency looking twice as put together as Charles had ever seen her on a case. Her leather jacket appeared brand new, all crisp edges, with no blood staining the sleeves. Even her hair looked freshly combed. She either really liked Jenny or really wanted to make her jealous. 

Charles was leaning towards like, but he was also only allocating a tiny percentage of his brainpower to the state of Jenny’s love life. The rest was solely focused on chanting some variation of Edwin, Edwin, and Edwin, with increasing frequency and pitch.

He propped up a wall by their caseboard while Jenny and Crystal filled Johanna in on their dilemma. When Crystal told Johanna Edwin was missing Johanna’s eyes flit to Charles, as if to take stock of just how missing Edwin was by adding up Charles’s restless arms, his tense shoulders, and the grim set of his lips. He glowered at her when their eyes met and she nodded somberly, having likely come to the obvious conclusion that, yes, Edwin was pretty fucking missing.

“You lot get into very specific jams, don’t you?” Johanna asked once Crystal was finished. 

“Can you help or not?” Charles snapped.

“Charles,” Jenny said, catching his eye so she could shoot him a perturbed look.

“Right, sorry,” Charles said, dialling back the impatience from his tone. “Can you help or not?”

“Relax Guildenstern, we’ll find Rosencrantz,” Johanna said.

“What’s that supposed to—”

“There aren’t many forces that could make a ghost disappear like that,” Johanna said. “Ghosts themselves aren’t strictly powerful, but short of an exorcism they can’t just vanish. Their life force is tied to the plane upon which they exist. That’s why, if they lose their sense of self, they end up warped into poltergeists or ghouls. Their energy has to go somewhere.” Johanna took a breath, staring hard at the floor by her feet. “If he’s been taken, my money is on the Endless.”

“We know all of that,” Charles said. “And we would have noticed if— There would have been the blue light. It wasn’t Death.” 

“I didn’t say it was Death,” Johanna said. “There are six others. I suppose I could ask Dream—”

“You know Dream of the Endless? Lord Morpheus? The bloody Sandman?” Charles asked, stepping away from the wall. “How?”

Johanna’s lips quirked into something that might have resembled a smile, if it weren’t so tinged with rue. “Let’s just say we worked a case together, shall we? It doesn’t matter how I know him. He owes me a favor, I can summon him for you.”

“You would turn in your favor for us?” Crystal asked. “What do you want in return?”

Johanna’s eyes flicked to Jenny and away so quickly Charles had to convince himself he hadn’t imagined it.

“I’d take an IOU,” Johanna said. 

“An IOU?” Crystal pressed, her voice taking on the tinge of doubt Charles was sure they were all feeling. 

“Look, do you want me to summon Dream or not? There’s a demon in Middlesex I could be seeing to if you don’t need my help,” Johanna said.

“We’ll take it,” Charles said. “How quickly can you get it done? Can he tell us if another Endless took Edwin? What’s his—”

“One step at a time, kid,” Johanna said, chucking her leather jacket and tossing it on the settee. She rolled up the sleeves of her shiny blouse to her elbows and Charles watched Jenny turn pointedly away so she couldn’t be caught staring. 

He had a feeling it was going to be a long night for all of them.

+

Dream of the Endless had given Johanna Constantine a raven’s feather with which to summon him. Crystal wasn’t sure why she’d expected something a little flashier. She’d heard the boys tell all kinds of stories about the Endless—albeit, mostly Death—for months. They seemed otherworldly and ethereal, omnipotent and fearsome. 

Crystal wasn’t sure what to expect from an inconceivably powerful being who had existed longer than life on earth, but it felt nearly disillusioning to move the agency rug back and paint runes on the floor, like they were summoning any old demon. 

Charles returned through the office mirror with a small cast iron cauldron—he was holding it at all thanks to a pair of charmed oven mitts shaped like lobster claws, that Crystal had struggled not to laugh at him for—that Johanna instructed him to place in the center of the rune circle. Then they all stood just outside the circle while Johanna read an incantation and lit the feather on fire. 

If Edwin was there he would have given the routine ritual a little more panache. Unless they were under the gun, he had a flair for the dramatic when it came to this kind of thing. He would’ve done a little practised hand twirl that wasn’t strictly required, but made the whole thing feel a bit more magical, or used his favorite fire spell to light the feather aflame, instead of dropping an uninspired match into the cauldron like Johanna had.

God, Crystal felt like she was losing her mind. At the beginning of the year, she’d never thought a day would come where she genuinely missed Edwin Payne. Yet here she was, feeling the loss of him more viscerally than she had her missing memories.

As the feather caught fire the room filled with smoke. Crystal waved a hand in front of her face, coughing. As the smoke cleared, for a wild moment, Crystal thought she saw Edwin standing by his desk, but it turned out to be a trick of the light. 

Edwin wasn’t there and Dream wasn’t either. Unless Dream of the Endless was a ruffled raven. 

“Is that him?” Jenny asked from behind Crystal. 

Charles drew his cricket bat out of his backpack, which was never a promising sign. 

“Matthew?” Johanna asked, still waving smoke out of her face.

“Johanna Constantine,” the raven said.

If cats and foxes could talk, why not ravens? Crystal thought. Though, she wouldn’t have guessed a talking raven would be named Matthew, of all things. 

“He works for Dream,” Johanna said to them, likely for Charles’s benefit as he was eyeing Matthew like he was a cricket ball. “Matthew, where’s Dream? I need to speak to him.”

“He’s busy,” Matthew said. “You know how it is. He sent me to bring back whatever message you had for him.”

“We don’t have time to play carrier pigeon, alright? Tell your boss to come here,” Charles said.

“Who’s this rude kid?” Matthew asked.

“The rude kid is, unfortunately, correct,” Johanna said. “Look, we think one of the Endless may have abducted our friend. I wanted to ask Dream if he could check if he’s in the Dreaming.”

“As I said, he’s super busy. Also, the Dreaming is not small. Finding one kid in there would be like trying to find a— Well, you know,” Matthew said.

“Needle in a haystack?” Crystal offered.

“No,” Matthew said, turning to give Crystal a strangely baffled look, for a raven. “Why would a kid be a needle?”

“Isn’t there anything Dream could give us to help us find him? Matthew, he owes me one,” Johanna said, regaining Matthew’s attention.

Matthew seemed to think about it for a moment. If he was a cartoon raven he might have put his primary feathers against his chin as if they were a forefinger and thumb. As it was, even though he could talk, he was, for all intents and purposes, still a raven. He sat eerily still as he contemplated their request.

“Okay, Dream said he can spare some sand so you can look for him yourselves,” Matthew said. “But only for a few hours. It's dangerous for mortals to mess around in the Dreaming, especially with the war and all.”

“How did you— Nevermind,” Johanna said. “Thank you.”

“Be right back,” Matthew said, swooping up to their windowsill. He tapped on the window with his beak until Charles scooted around the desk to crack it open, then he flew into the alley and disappeared as he crested the adjacent building.

“What war?” Crystal asked. 

Before Johanna could answer, Charles asked, “How exactly are we meant to navigate the Dreaming on our own?” 

“If you have a personal item from who you’re looking for, I can give you a basic tracking spell,” Johanna said. “It's distance dependent, so it might not work until you get close.”

Charles reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out Edwin’s notebook. He waved it in the air and Johanna nodded.

“That'll do the trick.”

“And what if— What if Edwin’s not there?” Charles asked, reluctantly. “What then?”

“Then we find Niko,” Crystal said. “I have some of her stuff in my room. We find her and she can help us. Maybe Edwin is even with her.”

Charles wrinkled his nose. “Since when are things that simple for us?”

“Edwin was doing research on where Niko could be in the Dreaming. He said he’d suspected she was in The Land. He could have accidentally ended up there,” Crystal said. “Somehow. Maybe.”

Charles crossed his arms over his chest and set his jaw, as if he was steeling himself for the journey ahead.

“Right, it's as good a plan as any,” Charles said.

“Thanks for the enthusiasm,” Crystal said.  

“I can’t lie.” Charles shrugged. 

“Whatever,” Crystal said, letting it go. It wouldn’t exactly be fair of her to push for Charles’s resounding approval when the person they were usually both trying to persuade into going along with their shenanigans was missing. She walked around Jenny and pushed through the door to their apartment. “I’m gonna get my stuff. Don’t fuck off this plane of existence until I get back.”

+

Crystal had pilfered a few of Niko’s belongings when Jenny was packing them up to send to Niko’s mom in Japan. She wasn’t proud of it, but she hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of losing every shred of Niko she had left. So she was sitting on her bed, trying to decide if Niko’s heart-shaped sunglasses or her Gray Wake school tie would be better for a tracking spell, when the Night Nurse burst into her room.

“God,” Crystal said, trying to appear more angry than startled. “You really need to learn how to knock.”

“The butcher told me you’re going to the Dreaming,” the Night Nurse said, swanning into Crystal’s room like she visited all the time. “I can’t stay long but I wanted to tell you—” She cut herself off, her hand hovering over the wall beside Crystal’s closet. She poked at the night sky wallpaper Crystal had plastered in irregular patches and then took an astonished step backwards. “What is this place?”

She looked around the room as if for the first time. Crystal squinted at her, hoping that might elucidate what the fuck she was talking about.

“It’s my bedroom?” Crystal said, though it came out as more of a question. “I mean— I know I have a lot of work left to do, but I just finished that wall. I want to put up fairy lights behind my—”

“I’m not talking about the decor,” the Night Nurse said, sounding distinctly snappish, which Crystal had never responded well to. 

“Well then what? You’ve been here before, it's my apartment,” Crystal said.

“This is as much an apartment as I’m a human woman,” the Night Nurse. “This is a wee bespoke pocket dimension. I’ve never seen one stable enough to be lived in for an extended period of time. Impressive magic. Whichever warlock cast this spell must have been quite formidable.”

“Edwin made this place,” Crystal said, frowning. “Did no one tell you that? I could have sworn the boys did, but maybe it slipped their—”

“Impossible,” the Night Nurse said, staring at her as if her skin had spontaneously turned electric blue. “The magic needed to create a space this complex— A ghost couldn’t manage all of this.”

“Well Edwin did,” Crystal said, feeling defensive. “He’s pretty handy with spellbooks. He can read, like, a dozen languages—”

“I’m not talking about knowledge , dearie. Of course he can read a book containing a spell to create a pocket dimension. I’m saying he doesn’t have the power to see it through,” the Night Nurse. “He’s a ghost. Ghost’s only have so much energy to go around. If Edwin truly cast this spell it would have drained his soul dry. He’d be dust. And then there would be no apartment to speak of.”

“What do you mean by that?” Crystal asked.

“Magic dies with the caster,” the Night Nurse explained. “Well, in this case, with the caster already being dead, I suppose it would be better to say that if Edwin created this place and Edwin subsequently ceased to exist— Poof.”

“Poof,” Crystal said, looking around her room with new eyes. “Poof!”

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

“No, don’t you get it?” Crystal asked, jumping up off the bed. “That means he’s not gone. Edwin made this place and it's still here. He isn’t any deader than he already was.”

It was one thing for the NIght Nurse to tell them that Edwin was still out there, and another to be standing on the definitive proof that he hadn’t been reduced to a pile of dust. Somewhere, maybe even in the Dreaming, Edwin was trying to get back to them. They’d be together again soon.

“Are you even listening to me? There’s no way in nine Hells that a ghost made all of this,” the Night Nurse insisted, waving her hand around the space.

“What did you want to tell me?” Crystal asked. When the Night Nurse only raised an irritated eyebrow at her, she continued, “You came in here to tell me something. What is it?”

“Ah, yes,” the Night Nurse said. “I wanted to inform you that if you perish in the Dreaming not to fret. I have placed a hold on your soul so that I can personally see you to the other side.”

After a moment’s pause, Crystal said, “Uh, thanks?”

“You’re very welcome,” the Night Nurse said. “Now, hop to it. I don’t think that raven will wait around all afternoon.”

With a flash she disappeared, the only evidence of her existence a scorch mark on the floor by the closet. Crystal sighed, chose Niko’s school tie, and went to join the others.

+

By the time the raven returned with the sand he’d promised, Charles had been ready to leave since, oh, a second or so after Edwin disappeared. Matthew put a small sack down on the desk, beside Edwin’s fountain pen, and tucked his wings against his sides. Presumably waiting until they were all paying attention. 

Charles was paying attention. Charles was standing in front of the desk, his backpack full of lit Molotov cocktails and half of Edwin’s library. 

It took Jenny and Johanna another few minutes to quit their whispering in the agency closet and come out to hear what Mattew had to say, and yet another few minutes for Crystal to emerge from her apartment. 

She was wearing Niko’s old school tie over her own button up shirt, looking a bit like she’d gone to St. Hilarion’s in the eighties. 

What a trip that would have been. All four of them in private school together. Charles had to shake his head before he could get caught up in the unfairness of it all.

“This is Dream’s sand,” Matthew said, gesturing at the pouch with a wing. “It's powerful stuff and not meant for humans, but a pinch of it will allow you to enter the Dreaming with enough self-awareness to get yourself to get around.”

“How long will we have once we’re there?” Jenny asked.

Charles felt stunned by her question. For some reason, he hadn’t thought Jenny was coming with them. From a look at Crystal’s bewildered expression he guessed she hadn’t either.

“Jenny, you can’t—” Johanna began to say, but Jenny cut her off with a withering look.

“What? I’m not going on a dangerous rescue mission but the two children are?” Jenny asked, gesturing at Charles and Crystal.

“Hey, I’m—” Charles started.

“You’re sixteen,” Jenny finished for him. 

Charles felt his mouth click shut under Jenny’s cool gaze. 

Before even Johanna could make another argument, Jenny continued, “You think I’m gonna let two teenagers go gallivanting across another fucking plane of existence without adult supervision?” She turned to Charles and Crystal and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve already lost two of you, I’m not letting either of you out of my sight.”

Charles shared a look with Crystal, she shrugged at him and he shrugged back. It wasn’t like Jenny would be in any more danger than either of them, plus another person to look for Edwin wasn’t the worst thing.

Johanna, though, looked less than convinced. She was staring past Jenny, past Charles and Crystal, her eyes stuck on the pouch of sand beside Matthew’s clawed feet.

“It’s just a pinch, Jo,” Matthew said, seeming to understand whatever Johanna wasn’t saying. “It would only last a few hours.”

“Fine,” Johanna said, after a pause. “Fine, I’ll stay here then. Keep an eye on you lot. And someone should be here if Edwin comes back on his own.”

“Brills,” Charles said. “Let’s get cracking then, shall we?”

Crystal gathered pillows from her and Jenny’s rooms for under their heads and the three of them laid side by side on the agency rug. If Charles wasn’t acutely aware that they were undertaking a treacherous journey to an unpredictable plane, he would’ve thought it looked like they were getting snug for a slumber party.

“You’re going to wake up in the middle of your own dream,” Matthew said. “You will have to break out of your dream realm and find each other before you can find your friend.”

“I’ve put a copy of the tracking spell in each of your pockets, just in case,” Johanna said, picking up the pouch from the desk. “It's a simple incantation, you just need to hold the item belonging to who you’re tracking and if they’re nearby it will glow. It will glow brighter when you’re headed in the right direction.”

She untied the cord on the pouch and crouched over their heads. 

“Just a pinch,” Matthew said from the desk.

“I know,” Johanna said. She carefully shook a little of the sand onto each of their foreheads, starting with Charles.

At the first sprinkling of grainy sand on his skin Charles closed his eyes. He waited for the wistful tug of sleep to pull him under. He waited, listening to Jenny and Crystal’s breath slowing and evening out beside him. He waited as Matthew’s clawed feet shuffled around Edwin’s papers and Jenny dropped the pouch of sand onto the desk.

Finally, after an interminable amount of time, he opened his eyes to see not the strange and marvelous landscape of a dream, but the ceiling of the agency. 

He sat up, his perplexed gaze falling on Matthew first.

“Oi, it’s not bloody working,” Charles said, springing to his feet. “Is this some kind of trick?”

“It worked just fine for your friends,” Matthew said, pointing his beak at Crystal and Jenny’s sleeping forms. Jenny snorted in her sleep and rolled over onto her side. Matthew hopped across the desk until he was inches from Charles, peering up at him with beady eyes. “Why’re you so special?”

“I’ve got no clue!” Charles insisted. “Whatever the reason is, I can’t leave them alone in there. You have to give me more of that sand.”

He went to reach for the pouch but Matthew stopped him with a snap of his beak. 

Charles pulled his hand back with a hiss. Matthew’s beak felt not dissimilar to a cat’s scratch, a burning acidic tingle. 

“You’re a ghost!” Matthew exclaimed, he turned to Johanna who’d been watching their exchange with her arms crossed over her chest. “You didn’t tell me he was a ghost.”

“You can’t tell?” Johanna asked. 

“I’m new at this, okay?” Matthew said, a little sheepishly.

“What’s my being a ghost got to do with anything?” Charles asked. 

“Ghosts can’t go to the Dreaming,” Matthew said. “You have no dreams, dummy.”

“But—” Charles said, looking at his friends and then back at Matthew. “Edwin— Our missing friend. He’s a ghost, like me. Does that mean—”

“That this has been a complete waste of time? Yup,” Matthew said. “Dream doesn’t allow ghosts in the Dreaming. Especially not after— Well, let’s just say ghosts and the Dreaming have a bad track record.”

Charles only narrowly stopped himself from punching something in frustration. Mostly by the thought of how disappointed Edwin would be to arrive home and find a dent in their office wall. Because he was coming home. There wasn’t a version of this where Charles didn’t get Edwin back.

“Jo,” Charles said, sure that his voice sounded foul. “I have to—”

“Go,” Johanna said. “I’ll watch them.”

Charles didn’t know if he thanked her, he didn’t know if he said anything else at all. He grabbed his backpack and slipped through the office mirror and in between mirrors, in between destinations, he tried to will his whirling thoughts to crystalize into some kind of plan.

+

“If I were you, I would’ve put drawing-pins in their shoes.”

Crystal looked up from where her wet face had been buried in her hands. 

She was on the steps outside her middle school, or whatever they called it here in London. In her lap was her journal, at least what was left of it after the other girls in her grade had stolen it from her locker and torn out pages like it was the latest gossip magazine. 

“Crystal says Sharon P.’s dad is cheating on her mom,” the girls had screeched. “Crystal says Percy still wets the bed. Crystal says…” And on and on and on. Until the gossip had turned to cackling had turned to girls shoving Crystal, while taunting, “What an absolute freak! What a tosser!”

Eventually a couple of teachers had found them and broken up their little fête. They’d dragged Crystal to the headmaster’s office and made her explain in excruciating detail why she thought it was appropriate to write the kinds of things she’d written in her private journal. And Crystal had stood there with scratches on her arms, a whole sleeve torn off her school uniform, while the headmaster calmly explained that Crystal was to serve detention for the next two months while none of her attackers would be punished.

“Three schools in two years,” the headmaster had said. “I think it's safe to say who the instigator was in this incident.”

So Crystal had slumped down on the front steps of the school, waiting for someone to remember she existed and bring her home, where she’d remained until she heard someone going on about drawing-pins. 

When she looked up she saw a young girl, maybe a little younger than herself, wearing a dress out of a— like, a Renaissance Fair or something.

“What are you supposed to be?” Crystal asked. “Mary Poppins?”

The girl sniffed at her, as if in offense. “I’ll have you know, I have existed long before Mary Poppins was a glimmer in P.L. Travers’s mind.”

“Okay, sure,” Crystal said, standing. She clutched her journal to her chest and walked around the girl’s poofy skirt until she was at the bottom of the steps. “See you around.”

“I meant what I said,” the girl insisted before Crystal could take more than another step. “About the drawing-pins. Those girls deserved some recompense, for what they did to you.”

“You saw?” Crystal asked, skeptically. She was pretty sure the other girls, her so-called friends, who had harassed her, would have noticed this girl. For one thing she was wearing a corset, for another she had a bonnet pinned to her head with only a few gold ringlets framing the sides of her face. She was a prime target for mockery.

“I did,” the girl said, with a small nod. “A bunch of pigeon-livered foozlers if you ask me.”

“A bunch of what?”

After a moment’s pause the girl said, “Cowardly idiots is the colloquial equivalent, I believe.”

“You talk weird,” Crystal said. “And you’re dressed funny. Do you go to school here?”

“Not as such, girls were not permitted to attend school when I was alive,” the girl said.

“Oh, okay,” Crystal said. “Wait, what?”

“I’m a ghost, Crystal,” the girl said. And it would have sounded patently ridiculous coming from anyone else, but this girl said it with such sensible authority Crystal found it hard to not believe her. “And you’re a psychic. What a boon as it means we can commiserate over the stupidity of your classmates which we’re both made to endure.”

“I’m not psychic,” Crystal said resolutely. 

The girl simply raised an imperious eyebrow at her, as if to say, That’s your issue with this?

“I’m not! And how do you know my name, anyways?” Crystal demanded. 

“I’ve been spying on you for months,” Emma said. She pointed to the graveyard across the bustling street. “My family crypt abuts your school. I’ve usually better things to do, but I find your petty squabbles rather titillating, all told.” She hesitated for a moment, likely at the thunderous look on Crystal’s face, then bravely extended a hand to her to shake, “I’m Emma. Emma Davis.”

“You— But you’re missing,” Crystal said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Yes, you are, you’re missing,” Crystal said, spinning in a slow circle. “Where the hell am I?”

“A dream, obviously,” Emma said. “And you’re not following the script. I introduce myself and you say—”

“I’m Crystal Palace, but you probably already knew that, stalker,” Crystal recited.

“Just right,” Emma said, with a nod of her head. “And then you toss your journal at me and we don’t meet again until your Spring Fling dance.”

“You save me from making a very bad decision with Thomas Carroll,” Crystal said.

“Quite,” Emma agreed.

“But this already happened,” Crystal said. She pressed a hand to her head as the pressure began to mount. “I’m not here for a reenactment of middle school. I’m here for— My friends. They’re missing too.” She took a deep breath, reorganizing the mess in her mind the way she put Edwin’s books back on their shelves at the end of a case. “I need to find Charles and Jenny.”

“There’s a girl,” Emma said. “I knew you’d get there, eventually.”

+

Crystal opened her eyes in a void. Most everything was vast, dark nothingness except the ground. The ground at her feet was a road. Or what looked like a road, if roads were made out of bones.

“A bone road?” Crystal asked, not expecting an answer.

“Looks like,” a voice said, to her right.

Crystal jumped, spinning to face the voice with her fist pulled back.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Jenny exclaimed. “Jesus Christ, Crystal! Watch it.”

Crystal lowered her fist reluctantly, a little proud that Charles had finally managed to hone her instincts to punch first, ask questions later. 

“Sorry,” Crystal said, giving Jenny a once over. “You have any problems self-actualizing in your dream?”

“Nope,” Jenny said. “It was definitely a fantasy, that’s for sure.”

“Let me guess, Patti Smith serenading you while you were on a date with Janis Joplin?”

“Ha ha,” Jenny said in monotone. “No.”

She was looking squirrely, not meeting Crystal’s eyes, fiddling with something in her hand. Crystal felt the pieces clicking into place like tumblers in a lock. 

“No way, you had a dream about kissing Johanna?” Crystal asked.

“How the fuck did you know that?” Jenny asked, spinning to fix her with a heated glare. She may have looked angry, but the anger was belied by the twin patches of red on her cheeks. 

“Good guess,” Crystal said, pointing at Jenny’s hand. “You’re holding the tracking spell she gave us, you didn’t laugh at my Patti Smith joke, you wouldn’t meet my eyes. And also the last time I was stuck in a magical void filled with hallucinations, Edwin had the same dream.”

Jenny wrinkled her nose. “Edwin dreamed about kissing Jo?”

“What, no, gross—” But before Crystal could finish, Matthew swooped down from nowhere at all and landed on her shoulder. She was proud of herself for holding back an undignified shout.

“There you are, I’ve been looking everywhere for you two,” Matthew said. “You found the Bone Road. That’s good. You should do the tracking spell from here.”

“We have to wait for Charles,” Crystal said.

Matthew shook his head. “Charles isn’t coming. He’s a ghost. You never told me that. Ghosts can’t enter the Dreaming.”

“But,” Crystal said, her mind spinning so fast she felt like it was overheating. “But then Edwin can’t be here either.” She paused, digging her hand in her pocket for her own tracking spell. “And Niko. Niko’s dead too— So this was all a waste of time?”

Matthew flapped his wings. His claws dug into Crystal’s clavicle, but luckily she could hardly feel it. “Yikes, I’m sorry all your friends are dead. Maybe you should just wake up.”

“No,” Jenny said.

“No?” Crystal asked.

“No, we came too far to not at least do the stupid spell,” Jenny said. “Niko told you she was in the Dreaming, didn’t she?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Niko wouldn’t lie to you, she wouldn’t lie to us,” Jenny said. “Do it.”

Crystal untied Niko’s school tie from around her neck, feeling more and more ridiculous as she held the tie in one hand and Johanna’s neat instructions in the other. She read the Latin incantation aloud, her tongue tripping over the unfamiliar words in a way she was sure would have made Edwin wince. 

When she got to the end all three of them stared at the tie for a beat—Matthew leaning so far forward on her shoulder that he nearly obscured her vision—as if waiting for it to get up and do a jig. 

“We had to try,” Jenny said, in a clipped voice. Her hands were shoved as deep into the tiny pockets of her jeans that they could go. “So how do we wake up?”

“Just wake up,” Matthew said. “It’s just like—”

“Do not say it's like riding a bike.”

“No, it's obviously just like waking up. Y’know, the thing you do every day?”

Crystal let their bickering wash over her as her eyes began to fill with tears. Edwin wasn’t in the Dreaming. Charles was stuck on a different plane of existence. Niko could be anywhere, could be really dead, could have been a figment of Crystal’s pathetic imagination this entire time. 

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to think of anything she could do now instead of giving up. Anything at all.

“Crystal,” Jenny said urgently.

“What?” Crystal asked, her eyes opening to the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen. 

Niko’s school tie was faintly glowing, it looked like white clothing at a black light party, it looked like a wriggly glow worm trapped between her fingers. It looked like hope.

“If Niko really is here. If she’s been here all this time,” Jenny said, pausing to shake her head. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means,” Crystal said, resolutely, “that she’s not a ghost.”

Chapter Text

Edwin had been walking for what felt like hours. 

The winding hallway he was trapped in didn’t seem to have an end. It was so narrow and so garishly scarlet that Edwin wouldn’t have been surprised to discover it wasn’t a hallway at all, but an artery, or something’s intestines. In fact, finding out he’d been swallowed by a beast of colossal proportions wouldn’t even be the worst of the worst case scenarios, on the list Edwin had begun drafting the moment he’d found himself trapped in a warren of blood red hallways. 

The color of the hallway itself was such a vibrant hue that, even though it was impossible for ghosts to get headaches, Edwin could feel a tell-tale pressure forming in both of his temples. It was worth noting that until he'd found himself here—wherever here was—he’d also thought it was impossible for ghosts to be, essentially, teleported.

He could still hear voices every once in awhile, bouncing off the walls similarly to how he and Charles could sometimes hear the agency’s neighbors through the air ducts. Whoever was speaking seemed to be in the middle of a heated debate. Edwin didn’t relish stumbling across them in his efforts to escape this place, but if the choices were: face them or eternally traverse a scarlet prison, well, Edwin had never taken well to being trapped in a maze.

He’d rather face the Minotaur directly, as it were.

One of the downsides of indistinguishable red walls was that he was already well into the room, before he realized he’d stumbled upon an actual chamber. It was cavernous, the ceiling may have been only a few meters above his head or it may have gone on for eternity. For a moment, he felt as if he was in Crystal’s void—if only it were crimson instead of an inky black. 

If it weren’t for the seven backlit frames, he wouldn’t have been able to put his finger on where the walls even were. 

He continued forward, more cautiously, the voices he’d been hearing all this time gradually increasing in volume and pitch.

“There he is,” one of the voices said, suddenly so clear that Edwin flinched. 

A few yards ahead a chair spun around. It was probably the oddest chair he’d ever seen. It was shaped like a teardrop and the color of fresh blood. Edwin didn’t realize there were two people sitting upon it until it turned to face him.

No, not people. The power emanating from the forms of his presumed captors was so instantly overwhelming that Edwin felt as if he was standing next to an inferno.

“Edwin Payne,” one of them said, fluttering their gold tipped eyelashes at him. “What a pleasure. I’ve heard nothing but bad things.”

Edwin didn’t respond, clocking the way this person— this entity , was laying on their stomach, their head propped on their hands while their feet kicked in the air behind them. He wasn’t sure of their gender or even their species. They had a shock of blond hair pushed back in a swoop so familiar that a pit began to form in Edwin’s spectral stomach.

Their companion was sitting beside them, their head tilted down so that their hair covered their face. The only bits of them Edwin could see were their tattered sweater and then he caught a wink of the silver fish hook ring on their pallid hand.

“Despair,” Edwin said, nearly in the same breath as a gasp. Which meant—

“How rude,” the other entity said, swinging their legs down so that they were perched above Despair, like a lion lounging on the branch of a tree. “You’re in my domain, not my sister’s.”

“I apologize,” Edwin said, by rote. For a peculiar moment, he felt faintly like he was meeting one of his father’s colleagues. His father’s blunt fingers digging into his shoulder as Edwin embarrassed him in some small, obvious way. “And who might you be?”

“You can’t guess?” the entity asked, gesturing at the sanguineous room. “Despair told me you’re smart. That’s why we called you here after all. Here, I’ll give you a clue, the smallest drop of me can be felt just as well as a downpour.”

Edwin felt like his mind was churning. He was trapped in the domain of an Endless, with not one, but two aforementioned Endless watching his every move. They’d summoned him straight from Crystal’s bedside, like plucking a fish from a bowl. There was no escape, unless they released him. There was no release, unless he played along with their games. 

Right, there were seven Endless. He knew that for sure. This couldn’t be Death or Dream or, obviously, Despair. So there were only four possibilities. If only he could think. He felt dangerously close to hyperventilating, which was absurd, ghosts couldn’t hyperventilate. 

He closed his eyes. If he concentrated hard enough he could nearly feel Charles’s hands on his cheeks, his thumbs brushing his cheekbones. “The answer’s gotta be in that big brain of yours, innit?” He took a deep breath, letting it out shakily, and could imagine Charles’s answering smile. “That’s right, there’s a good lad.”

“You’re Desire,” Edwin said, opening his eyes in time to witness Desire’s pleased grin.

“What a little brainiac,” Desire said. They elbowed their sibling. “Despair, you were right about him. And here I thought he was still in school.”

“Wrong one,” Despair said. She looked up from her hands, her frizzy hair parting from her wan face. There was no recognition in her gaze, but even so Edwin felt like she was seeing through his skin to his core.

“Silly me, that’s right. You’re the ghost,” Desire said, their lascivious gaze returning to Edwin’s face.

What was that supposed to mean? Of course he was a ghost.

“Why have you— called me here?” Edwin asked, gripping onto his social mores like a raft in a storm. 

“Despair and I find ourselves at an impasse,” Desire said. “We’ve been having a debate, you see, and we needed a tiebreaker.”

“What kind of debate?”

“One of our— siblings,” Desire sneered, “said that obviously despair is a more torturous state than desire. Naturally, I disagree. Desire has its perks, but it's no cakewalk. Especially when it comes at— shall we say, inopportune moments. But Despair here has been quite adamant that her charges endure worse torment than mine. Obviously, as neither of us is objective, here you are.”

“Me?” Edwin asked.

“Yes, you. You, Edwin Payne, have been in both of our realms. You’ve traversed the halls of desire just as often as despair. You’re the only soul whose judgement we both agreed to honor. So which is worse, despair or desire?”

Despair stared at him with impassive grey eyes. Desire looked disarmingly friendly but their tail-like appendage gave away their impatience as it flicked sharply back and forth.

The real question he found himself tasked with answering, was which all powerful entity did he wish to offend the least.

+

Charles felt like he was losing his senses. 

He’d traversed half of London, shaking down every supernatural contact the agency had to see if they had any knowledge of Edwin’s whereabouts. Most had given Charles such pitying looks that he feared if he got a whiff of sympathy he might snap and lose them a decades-long associate.

He saved Patty’s for last, knowing that she would see through his no-nonsense demeanor in a heartbeat and that, of all their acquaintances, she would feel Edwin’s loss the most keenly. 

“What do you mean Edwin’s gone missing?” Patty demanded, pulling Charles behind the register by his elbow.

“He disappeared, right in front of me, it was like—” It was like he’d been vaporized. Charles had sat on Crystal’s bed for long moments after Edwin disappeared, fighting the urge to unleash an animalistic howl. Even now, he was holding back the feeling, like he was erecting a wall between himself and a storm that was already raging. “Have you heard anything? What about the Americans you told me about?”

“No,” Patty said, looking contrite. “I haven’t heard anything new in weeks. I thought maybe they’d gone back to the states, but a friend was in here earlier saying they saw them at the Beltane Ball.”

“The ball?” Charles asked, feeling ill. “We were at the ball, all of us. Maybe they saw Edwin there. Maybe—”

“ Maybe ,” Patty said, lowering her voice, as her eyes flicked to the customers perusing her store. “I’ll keep an ear out, dearie. I’m sure if they found what they were looking for, we would all know about it. You should go on home.”

“Not without Edwin,” Charles said.

“Where’s Ed?” 

Charles turned to find himself being watched by the last person he’d wanted to see today. Caius was standing on the other side of the counter, holding a bag of elderberries like it was a satchel of gold. 

Caius looked unassuming, in a grey wool coat and trousers, his blond hair artfully tousled over his brow. 

Charles narrowed his eyes at him, wondering how many times he could run into this guy before it was a coincidence too many. 

“We need to talk,” Charles said to him.

“Charles—” Patty started, but before she could finish, Caius shrugged and put the elderberries down on the counter. 

With a truly gobsmacking amount of bravado, he followed Charles out the front door and into the alley beside the shop. Charles turned to face him, his fingers flexing in his gloves, as if fighting the urge to squeeze into a proper fist and deck the man right in his smarmy face.

“Where is Edwin?” Charles asked.

“You think I know?” Caius asked, his hands in his pockets. “He isn’t with you?”

“He’s missing,” Charles said, between gritted teeth.

“Missing?” Caius asked, seemingly genuinely stunned. 

“Drop the act,” Charles said. “We’ve been working in this city for thirty years and have run into you more in just a few weeks than some of our oldest mates. You’ve been dogging our every step, asking questions and— and inserting yourself into our lives. I know you must know something.”

“Charles,” Caius said, infuriatingly level. “I know this might be hard to accept, but me and Ed are friends.” 

“His name is Edwin!” Charles snapped. 

Caius’s expression was so unwaveringly sympathetic that Charles felt nearly absurd for not caving to it. 

“You can’t fool me. I know you have more than friendship in mind with my best mate,” Charles insisted. “Well, you’re barking up the wrong tree if you think Edwin would date someone like you. He’s not interested.”

“Why?” Caius asked, tilting his head in an approximation of genuine concern. “Because he’s in love with you?”

Charles was gobsmacked. The grand total of people who knew that information was the same as the number of the agency’s members. He couldn’t imagine Crystal or Jenny telling Caius such a private secret and Charles certainly hadn’t. Which meant it must have been Edwin that told Caius he was in love with Charles. But why? That didn’t seem like something Edwin would deign to share with a virtual stranger, unless— Unless Caius was telling the truth about them being friends. 

“Yes,” Charles said, relishing at least getting to confirm it. “He’s in love with me. So, y’know, bugger off.”

“So which is it, tell you where Edwin is or bugger off?” Caius asked, crossing his arms. 

Charles was no longer sure where he was going with this interrogation. The sight of Caius’s judgement made him feel a strange mixture of humiliated and desperate. He wanted to shake Caius until Edwin’s location loosed from his lips like coins from his pockets. He wanted to go back to five minutes ago and listen to Patty, slip through her mirror back to the office before Caius could see him bare his heart in a grubby alley. He wanted Edwin here, with him, whole and hearty, it would even be fine if he was disappointed. He missed the lilting tonality of one of Edwin’s lectures the way sailors must miss their feet being planted firmly on the ground.

“If I find out you knew anything about this and didn’t tell me,” Charles said. “I will be the last thing you ever see.”

He turned to make his way down the alley, heading for a mirror Patty kept by the rear entrance for emergencies. He didn’t get very far before Caius said, “Let me know when you find him. You’re not the only one who cares about him, you know.”

Charles stopped in his tracks, let the words wash over him, then kept walking. Without another thought, he slipped into the cool surface of the mirror. 

+

“Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” Jenny asked, for what had to be the millionth time.

Crystal was tired, her feet hurt, every time she took a step on the Bone Road and one of the literal bones paving her path crunched underneath her shoes a shudder went up her spine. She didn’t need any backseat drivers.

“I’m sorry, do you want to intuit our path from the magically glowing tie?” Crystal asked.

“Maybe if I was, we’d be there already,” Jenny insisted.

“And where is it we’re going, Jenny?” Crystal asked. “We’re on a frickin road made of skeletons, in the small yet infinite space between dreams. Are you an expert on ambiguous supernatural mumbo jumbo all of a sudden?”

“Just give it to me,” Jenny said, reaching for the tie. 

Crystal held it out of her arm’s reach before she could nab it. Matthew, who she’d forgotten was on her shoulder, flapped his wings in outrage.

“We’re going the right way,” Matthew said. “I’m confirming this as a creature who could also be described as ambiguous supernatural mumbo jumbo.”

“Sorry, Matthew,” Crystal said with some contrition. “We’re just tired.”

Which, she realized only after she said it, was a bizarre thing to say in a place called the Dreaming.

“And hungry and frustrated and angry and—”

“Okay,” Crystal said, cutting Jenny off. “He gets it.” She looked over at Matthew. “How far away is The Land, anyways?”

“It's at the very edge of the Dreaming,” Matthew said. “Technically, it shouldn’t even exist. It’s not a dream or the home of a dream creature. It's a kind of pocket dimension. Lord Morpheus made it for his ex-girlfriend, who was too wounded to leave the Dreaming after a battle.”

“The god of dreams has an ex?” Jenny asked, skeptically. “How does he have the time to date?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Okay, so, it's not a dream, what is it?” Crystal asked.

“It’s whatever the inhabitants want it to be. Whatever they imagine can become true,” Matthew said. “It will only cease to exist when someone destroys the dreamstone.”

“Dreamstone?” Jenny asked.

“Does it— what does the dreamstone look like?” Crystal asked.

“It takes on different forms, for different people.”

Crystal remembered Tragic Mick offering Niko a stone. The polar bear charm had been in her hand when she’d died. It couldn’t be. Tragic Mick had said it was for luck, not to transport someone’s consciousness to a different plane of existence. 

Then again, what was luck but a second chance?

“How will we know when we get—” Jenny said, but she was cut off by the world around them shattering to pieces.

Crystal screamed, she reached for Jenny but her hand came up short. Blinding light filled the Bone Road and she squeezed her eyes shut. The only thing that felt real were Matthew’s talons digging into her clavicle.

For a long moment she was suspended, weightless, the sound of the world imploding around her was so all-consuming that it was nearly silent.

Then, she felt something cold hit her cheek. 

She opened her eyes.

+

“Well?” Desire asked.

Edwin cleared his throat in an attempt to buy himself some more time.

“It is only— When you refer to me traversing the halls of desire, I’m afraid I don’t know of what you speak. Besides my— sojourn in your corridors this afternoon, I cannot recall being well-versed in desire,” Edwin said. “Perhaps an alternate tiebreaker should be—”

“No,” Desire said, their tail flicking like the rattle of a very large snake. “You have been skirting around the edges of my kingdom for nearly a century. Denying yourself what you desire the most, repressing your deepest hunger, locking it all away behind iron walls. And I allowed it because my sibling here,” Desire patted Despair’s shoulder, “was taking precedent. Weaseling her way into the deepest darkest cracks in your mind and wedging them until they split open. You have been our very favorite plaything for longer than so many of our favorite playthings. You are the only creature qualified to answer this burning question. So? Which is it?”

When Edwin still didn’t answer, they pressed, “Which of us fills you with more dread when we sneak up on you in the night? Which one sends the most chills down your spine? Stoppers the ghostly breath in your throat?”

Edwin folded his hands behind his back to hide how they shook. He could feel Despair and Desire’s gaze on him like a physical weight. If he didn’t answer their question soon, he couldn’t imagine a future past this crimson void.

“Well?” Desire asked. “If you can’t answer, I could always shut you up in one of my many rooms. Leave you to contemplate for a century or so—”

“No,” Edwin said quickly, before they could decide to go ahead with locking him away for longer than all the time he’d been in Hell combined. “It is just— How do I quantify the effects of such different— feelings? I hardly feel the same kind of torture when in despair as I do when I feel desire. They are hardly comparable. Both are torturous in their own particular way.”

“Answering ‘both’ is a cop-out,” Desire said. “We didn’t invite you here to quibble, we require a real answer.”

Edwin felt a flash of anger, the likes of which he hadn’t felt since sitting before Simon in Hell and realizing his murderer’s torture had been as banal as filing endless paperwork. It was ludicrous for the custodians of his capture to set such fickle rules. 

“Despair, then,” Edwin said succinctly. 

He watched as Despair nodded, turning her gaze back to the fish hook ring that was snug in the flesh of her forearm, seemingly satisfied. Desire, on the other hand, rose imperiously from their perch, moving to the ground in a fluid movement. They’d crossed the space between themselves and Edwin before Edwin had time to so much as blink.

They circled him, their hand trailing along his shoulders to his elbow in an almost caress. It took all of Edwin’s willpower to not shudder under their touch. 

“Is that so?” they asked, their sharp smile flashing at him. They were leant so close to his throat Edwin had a hard time not imagining them closing the short distance and ripping his trachea out with their teeth. It wasn’t like it would be the first time he’d endured such a death. 

Instead, they reached for him with a single hand, the pointed nail on their index finger pressing into the soft skin at the base of his throat. A warning.

“Please,” Desire said, their cool breath washing over his face, “explain.”

+

Charles was pacing the alley outside the office. He couldn’t bring himself to go back up and face his friends just yet but he also didn’t know where else to go. He was out of ideas, out of patience, and nearly out of his mind. His hands were still shaking from his talk with Caius and he wouldn’t have been surprised if the next person that talked to him got socked in the face. Luckily, for them both, the next voice he heard didn’t belong to a person.

“Hello there, little ghost,” the Fox Queen said. She was sitting as regally as possible on the lid of a metal trash can. “Have you learned your lesson?”

“I don’t have time for this,” Charles said, kicking a rock so it skimmed across the pavement as if it were skipping across a pond. “My best mate is missing.”

“The polite one?” the Fox Queen asked.

“Yes, Edwin,” Charles said, stopping his pacing only to stare at her. “Do you know where he is?”

The Fox Queen bowed her head, almost regretfully, “Foxes are meddlers, but there are things in which even we aren’t allowed to meddle. I am sorry for your hardship.”

“It’s not your fault,” Charles said. Then he groaned, tugging at his hair. “Why am I humoring you? You cursed me.”

“A geas is hardly a curse,” The Fox Queen said. “It is a vow, a promise to all foxes that you will repent your actions. Do you repent?”

“I don’t even know what I’m repenting,” Charles said. “I was just trying to help a little girl!”

“So you haven’t learned your lesson,” the Fox Queen said, standing. She dithered for a moment on the trash can, before asking, “Have you had any more visions?”

“Why? Are you going to tell me they aren’t torturing me after all? They were just for shits and giggles?” Charles asked. “Unless you’re ready to answer some of my questions, I don’t have to answer any of yours.”

The Fox Queen’s face split into an expression that nearly resembled a grin. 

“Now you’re thinking like a fox,” she said. 

Then she hopped to the ground and disappeared so swiftly into the evening foot traffic that Charles had trouble convincing himself she’d really been there at all. The only thing that grounded him to the present was, in the distance, the mournful cawing of a single crow.

+

“Where the fuck are we this time?” Jenny asked. 

Crystal turned to find Jenny shivering a few feet behind her. She was up to her shins in the snow, with Matthew perched on her head like a silly-looking hat. 

“The Land,” Matthew said. “Obviously.”

“Why does it look like the North Pole?” Crystal asked, watching the Northern Lights—or at least what looked like the Northern Lights—flickering above her head. They reflected a myriad of soft colors on the vast white tundra where they found themselves.

“You made it!” a familiar voice exclaimed from behind her. 

Crystal was scared to turn around. What if she did and Niko wasn’t there? What if it was David again? Or a trick? Or maybe she was actually, sincerely losing her mind?

The only thing that reassured her was Jenny’s face. Jenny was looking just over Crystal’s shoulder, her eyes filling with unshed tears. Her expression, normally a blustery frown, wiped clean with relief. 

Crystal turned and nearly fell into Niko, who was standing inches away. She was wearing a pink parka with fuschia mittens and had somehow found a matching scarf, even in the pocket universe of another dimension.

“I knew you’d find me,” Niko said, her smile feeling like a balm on Crystal’s raw emotions.

Crystal threw her arms around Niko’s shoulders, pulling her solid weight against her, to convince herself she was really here. This Niko was warm, no longer just a dream.

“I thought I would never see you again,” Crystal said, unsure if her voice was intelligible as her face was pressed against Niko’s furry hood. 

“I don’t think it's possible for me to say goodbye to you forever,” Niko said, sounding choked herself. Her hands tugged at the back of Crystal’s shirt, reminding Crystal just how goddamn freezing she was.

Jenny, reading Crystal’s mind, said, “Is there a warmer place we could have this reunion? I’m freezing my fucking balls off.”

“Jenny!” Niko exclaimed, releasing Crystal so she could squeeze Jenny in a hug. Matthew squawked on Jenny’s head, making Niko pull back from the hug to look up at him. She tilted her head and asked, “Monty?”

“No, this is Matthew. He helped us find you,” Crystal said, already missing Niko’s warm arms. She itched to take her hand, or maybe grab her by the elbow, just to reassure herself that Niko was there. They’d found her. She wasn’t dead. But she stayed where she was, crossing her arms over her chest stubbornly. “Okay, so we found her. How do we get her out of here?”

Matthew stared at Niko, tilting his little head this way and that. She remained holding onto Jenny and looked not unlike a little kid hiding in the shadow of a parent while an older relative decided if they wanted to pinch her cheek. 

Eventually, Matthew let out a little sigh, hanging his head. 

Crystal felt dread pooling in her stomach, she almost snapped at him to answer her, but before she could, Matthew said, “You can’t.”

+

“When I was in school,” Edwin said, haltingly, all too aware of the sharp nail still pressed to his vulnerable throat, “desire was its most tortuous. The things I wanted— in my time they were unconscionable. At the first inkling of my— proclivities, I built walls around my desires. I couldn’t face them and perhaps never would have if I had not died when I did.”

“So was desire then, not worse than despair?” Desire inquired, their yellow eyes fixed unblinkingly on Edwin’s face. “If you couldn’t even bear to look at me?”

“In a sense, yes,” Edwin said, swallowing even as he could feel Desire’s nail sink further into his skin. “But then I spent seventy years—”

“Seventy-three,” Desire corrected. “Despair was ever so proud.”

“Right, yes, seventy-three years in Hell,” Edwin said. “Where all I felt for every day of every year was fear and desperation and, yes, and despair. I didn’t feel— you again until quite recently. I’d bore you down so deep that I hardly recognized the first few signs of my feelings.”

“I was quite proud of my child for breaking down your walls so thoroughly,” Desire said, an unfathomably cheerful smile alighting their face. “I sent him a basket of sardines.”

“Your child?” Edwin asked, mind awhirl. He hadn’t met the child of an Endless in Port Townsend, he would have remembered someone like— Wait a tick. He looked back at the familiar swoop of Desire’s coiffed hair. “You don’t mean—”

“Thomas? Yes, one of my more interesting children,” Desire confirmed. “Go on, then.”

Edwin fought the urge to shake his head, with his luck he’d only be helping Desire in cutting his own throat. He’d have to have a breakdown about Thomas’s true parentage at a later time.

“With my feelings newly rediscovered it became quite evident how I truly felt about my— partner.”

“Charles Rowland,” Desire supplied.

Edwin felt a helpless rage at the thought that Desire knew exactly of whom Edwin was speaking. He’d hoped to keep Charles out of this. If he didn’t return— It didn’t bear thinking what Charles would do in his absence, but he certainly didn’t want Charles in the bullseye of two omniscient beings. He would just have to return then, wouldn’t he? 

He pressed on.

“Yes, with my feelings for Charles my desire once again made itself known. Charles didn’t feel the same for me, but telling him of my feelings gave me new permission to feel them completely,” Edwin said. “Now that I have accepted them they haven’t been torturous, I haven’t had to endure them, I’ve been all the better for having them.”

“But he told you your feelings were unrequited. Shouldn’t not having him be the sweetest torture of all?” Desire asked.

“Not remotely,” Edwin said. “Perhaps for some, but, I’ve endured real torture, the likes of which most mortals can hardly comprehend. Loving Charles doesn’t hold a candle to being torn apart and eaten for decades. I am better for having loved him, requited or not.”

“Fascinating,” Desire said, finally releasing him. 

He fought the urge to rub at his neck, while they paced in tight circles in their damning void.

“Aha!” Desire said, stopping in their tracks to hold a finger in the air. “But what of Orpheus and Eurydice? Is your situation not so similar? You said their story ended tragically. You and Charles may have both escaped Hell, but you still don’t have him the way you wish to. Is that not its own kind of tragedy?”

Edwin felt ill at the thought that Desire was privy to his private conversation with Charles on the steps of Hell, but then, there wasn’t much occurring at the moment that wasn’t succeeding in making him ill.

“No,” Edwin said firmly. “It is not. I don’t need to have him in love with me, I already have him. As a friend, as a partner, as the best and most important person in the world. No matter how many times you inquire the answer will always be the same, because loving Charles is not torture, it is no hardship. It is, in itself, a marvel. I would not ask for more than I’ve been given.” He paused to take a shaky breath, hoping his dread didn’t show on his face. “Now, if that is quite enough, I request that you return me from whence you found me.”

When Desire did nothing but stare at him, their head tilted in thought, Edwin swallowed and added, “Posthaste, if you will.”

“You are a fun one,” Desire said, a slick smile forming on their pale face. “Very well. I shall call on you should ever I need you.”

Edwin opened his mouth, most likely to say something daft in his frustration, but before he could speak he was falling.

+

“What do you mean we can’t?” Crystal demanded, taking a threatening step closer to Matthew.

He flapped his wings and from the pinched look on Jenny’s face, Crystal guessed that the movement pulled at her hair. Matthew, perhaps for his own safety, was still sitting on Jenny’s head.

“You’re right, she’s not a ghost, but she’s not human either. She doesn’t have a body, there’s no way for us to bring her into the human world without a physical form. If we did, she’d just—” Matthew mimed something with his wings that Crystal couldn’t quite interpret.

“What does that mean? I’d explode? Would I explode?” Niko asked, turning to look at Crystal with wide eyes.

“You would fall apart,” Matthew explained. “Disintegrate. Evaporate. Whatever the right word is for when a soul falls to pieces.”

“She can have my body,” Crystal said, without pause.

“What?” Niko and Jenny asked at once.

“I’ve shared before. With David,” Crystal said haltingly. “Sharing with Niko would be much less traumatizing. Probably.”

“Crystal, no,” Niko said, taking a step closer. “You just got your mind back to yourself.”

“Yeah,” Crystal said. “Sure, but—”

“No,” Jenny said firmly. 

“What, like you have a better idea?” Crystal asked.

“I do, actually,” Jenny said, looking up at Matthew through her bangs. “What if I could get Niko a new body?”

“And how do you plan to do that?” Matthew asked, tilting his head. 

“I have a—” Jenny cut herself off, biting her lip, before continuing, “A ‘w’-word, from a jinn. I’ve been waiting to use it.”

“A ‘w’-word?” Matthew asked.

“A wish,” Crystal said, feeling breathless. “Yeah, she has two wishes left.”

Matthew tilted his head back and forth as if shaking the idea around his tiny skull. Finally, he nodded, “That should work, if you wish for a new body I can guide her soul to meet it, but—”

When Matthew didn’t continue, Niko grabbed Jenny’s shoulder, pulling her lower so she could look Matthew in the eye.

“But?” she asked.

“The Land has changed you,” Matthew said, softly, really just to Niko. Crystal had to strain to hear him. “Regardless of your vessel, you are not human. You will not age like a human, nor die like a human. Time, which is laid out in order for humans, for you will be like trying to hold water still in your hands. Are you sure you want this?”

For a terrifying moment, Niko was quiet. She released Jenny’s shoulder and retreated a step, her hands shaking where she clasped her own elbows. There was something vulnerable in the line of her back, but Crystal stopped herself from looping an arm around her and tugging Niko into her side. 

“Yes,” Niko said, to Crystal’s relief. “If I’m not human I’d rather not be human with my friends.”

Friends , Crystal thought. How could she have forgotten?

“Edwin!” Crystal shouted.

“Edwin?” Niko asked, turning to look at her. “What about him? Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” Crystal said. “He’s missing.”

She explained what had happened to Niko as succinctly as possible, while Matthew coached Jenny on how best to phrase a wish for Niko’s body. 

When Crystal finally described Edwin vanishing from her bedside, Niko’s hand slipped from her elbow to press against her stomach. Her face turned an odd shade of green as if she might be sick.

“We thought he might be here, with you, but Matthew said ghosts can’t enter the Dreaming,” Crystal said. “Have you seen him?”

Niko frowned, staring at the snow at their feet as if the flakes were static on a television screen, as if she might be able to see the picture underneath if only she looked at it hard enough.

“Seen him? No,” Niko said. She looked up at Crystal, her gaze steady. The hand against her stomach patted her ribs. “But I can feel him, right here. He’s— It’s like he’s a part of me. The thing that killed me, was used to torture him. His blood, my blood, our blood.”

“What does that mean?” Crystal asked.

“It means he’s not in the Dreaming, but he’s out there, somewhere. We’ll find him together.”

“We will,” Crystal said, finally giving up and taking Niko’s hand in her own. She rubbed a thumb over Niko’s knuckles and felt something inside herself stand down.

Out of the corner of her eye she watched Matthew fly off into the distant sky.

“He’s going to get ready to carry you back to your body,” Jenny said. “He said as soon as I speak the wish Crystal and I should close our eyes, that should wake us up.”

“Goodbye, The Land!” Niko exclaimed, waving at the lights high above them. “It’s been fun, but it’s time for me to go home.”

The ground beneath them rumbled and snow rained down from the pine trees in the distance.

“Wait a sec, are the sprites with you? Should we bring them with us?” Crystal asked. She’d nearly forgotten about them, but as much as she wouldn’t mind leaving them here, she was pretty sure that wouldn’t sit well with Niko.

“Oh, they left weeks ago. They were asked to fight a war on the other side of the mountain in exchange for some fancy titles,” Niko shrugged. “They had human-sized bodies in this realm so I can’t imagine they’d want to leave. They seemed happy. Or— Happy for them.”

“Right, okay,” Crystal said, squeezing Niko’s hand. “That’s great.”

“If that’s all we missed on the last season of supernatural fuckery,” Jenny said, “I’d like to get the fuck out of here now.” She paused and then, with careful precision, said, “I wish Niko had a new body for her soul to inhabit. Shit— I mean, and I want it to be back at the office. Fuck.”

Niko vanished. Her hand disappearing and Crystal’s closing on thin air. 

Crystal would really love it if all of her friends would just stay within her line of sight for the next decade or so.

“Crystal, close your eyes,” Jenny said.

For a moment Crystal continued to stare at where Niko had just been standing. Then she followed Jenny’s direction and squeezed her eyes shut. 

+

After the Fox Queen left, Charles had relocated his pacing to the office, where his only witness was Johanna Constantine, who intermittently scrolled through her cellphone and watched him judgmentally. He only knew how long it had been because the sun was just starting to set when Crystal and Jenny sat straight up from the floor with twin gasps.

Johanna’s phone slipped from her hand to the settee and she knelt by Jenny’s side.

Charles fell to the floor by Crystal, his hands roaming her arms to make sure she was solid and alive and unharmed, but before he could ask her what had happened, she was springing to her feet.

“Where’s Niko?” she demanded. 

“Uh, Crystal—” Charles said, standing in tandem with Jenny and Johanna. 

“Don’t say she’s dead, Charles,” Crystal said, poking a finger into his sternum. “We found her, in the Dreaming, Jenny wished for a new body for her. She should be—”

“Jenny did what?” Charles asked, turning to look at Jenny herself, who was looking pale and wobbly. Johanna steadied her with a hand to her elbow. “What exactly did you wish for?”

Jenny glared at him. Oh, right.

“What exactly did she wish for, then?” Charles asked Crystal.

“She wished for a new body for Niko’s soul to inhabit,” Crystal said. “And asked for it to be at the office.”

“Which office?” Charles asked.

“What do you mean which office? This office, obviously,” Jenny said.

“Yeah,” Charles said, slowly. “But, like, you have your own office, at the shop. Did you specify which office?”

“Fuck,” Jenny said, just as her cellphone began to vibrate. She fumbled to answer it. “Sahar? Yeah, this isn’t really— You what?” Charles watched as Jenny’s eyes filled with tears, she pulled the phone away from her face to tell them, “Niko’s at the shop.” Then pressed the phone back to her ear to say, “Sahar— Sahar, it’s okay, we’ll be right there, we—”

“Whoa,” a voice said from behind them. 

Charles turned just in time to see Niko pulling herself fully through the office’s standing mirror. She looked just as she had the last time he’d seen her, except her colors were all inverted. Her white outfit was black, her once white hair was as dark as he’d ever seen it, with only a thick streak of white remaining, tucked fetchingly behind one ear. 

“I didn’t think that would work,” she said. “But Matthew said to give it a whirl.”

Crystal practically launched herself across the desk to tackle Niko into an embrace. She sobbed into Niko’s sleeve, her shoulders shaking with the force of her crying. Charles hadn’t seen her blub like that since he’d dragged her away from Niko’s prone body. 

Back then, he’d put a safe distance between his friends and Death and then tugged them both against him. Crystal had bawled, wracked with grief, and Edwin had stood there shaking, his tears silently pooling in Charles’s collar. 

Now, Charles didn’t know what to do. Part of him wanted to join Crystal and Niko’s reunion—Jenny had even circled the table and was patting Niko’s arm fondly—but another part of him wanted to fly apart at the seams.

“Charles,” Niko said, looking at him over Crystal’s head. “We’ll find him.”

“He wasn’t with you,” Charles said, which he’d already known. But he’d still— He’d hoped.

Niko shook her head. “But I can feel him, he’s out there.”

“Could you feel it if he was in—” he swallowed, his voice breaking around the words. “If he was in—”

“Hell? I don’t know,” Niko said. “But if he is, we’ll get him back.”

“How can you know that?”

“Charles,” Crystal snapped, her voice muffled from where her face was still pressed to Niko. “We just found our friend we thought was dead in another realm and wished a new body into existence for her. We’ll find Edwin. Get over here.”

Charles walked straight through Edwin’s desk and wrapped his arms around the girls. His face ended up squashed against Niko’s hair, one hand on Crystal’s shoulder and the other precariously placed on Jenny’s elbow. 

He stood like that, trembling with relief and nerves for a long still moment.

“I can feel you thinking,” Crystal said, pulling back from their group hug. “And I can’t even really feel you.”

“I’m happy Niko is back,” Charles said, dodging Crystal’s unasked question with a truth.

His friends stared at him, at the rictus of his smile which felt like someone had carved the edges of his lips upward with a sharp knife.

“I know you are,” Niko said, poking his forehead. “I also know everything that’s been going on out here while I’ve been away. Crystal told me about the truth curse,” she pointed at the geas on Charles’s wrist. “And the weird older man loitering around Edwin. The missing children. Emma. All of it. So, what were you up to while you were all alone in London, hm?”

“I picked a fight with Caius,” Charles blurted.

“Charles!” Crystal said, shoving him back from their embrace.

Standing before the combined force of Crystal, Niko, and Jenny, with Johanna still on the other side of the office—likely feeling too awkward to skive off—Charles felt not unlike when he’d been sent to see the principal as a kid. So he did what he’d always done when sat before an authority figure with no true understanding of what he’d done wrong: He fell to pieces.

“That bellend deserved it,” Charles said. “He’s always so entitled when it comes to Edwin. He barely knows him, but he calls him ‘Ed’ and he says they’re friends and he knows things Edwin—” Charles closed his eyes, hoping to dispel the dismay on Crystal’s face, but it was still there when he opened them again. “He knows things Edwin had enough trouble telling me . Let alone some wanker he’s known for, like, a week.”

“Did he know where he is?” Niko asked, a tinge of hope in her voice.

“No,” Charles said. “No, he said he was worried too and to tell him when we find anything out. He was being proper helpful and— and considerate, and all I wanted to do was hit him in his smarmy face.”

“Did you?” 

“No! No, because Edwin wouldn’t like me going round, beating up his friends,” Charles said. “And I don’t know if you know this but I’ve only ever wanted to be someone Edwin would like. If he knew—”

“Charles—”

“—how angry I am all the time. How much I just want to— to do something barmy like walk straight back into Hell and tear every creature that so much as looked at him funny into little pieces—”

“ Charles —”

“He wouldn’t give me the time of day. I’m only still here, still smiling, because I’ve always had my best mate and a case to solve, and I don’t know what I would do if he knew what a monster his best fucking mate really was.”

“Charles,” Edwin said.

But that couldn’t be right, Charles jerked away from the sound of his voice, so close to his ear, but before he could do something useful like throw a punch or cry out, someone had grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around into an embrace. Charles was too busy realigning his field of vision to include Edwin’s mussed hair and the back of his blazer, to process that somehow, miraculously, Edwin had been returned to him.

Charles’s hands came up slowly, bunching into the tail of Edwin’s jacket. His face fell to Edwin’s shoulder, breathing in the spicy vanilla scent that still lingered on Edwin’s skin even after all these years. It was one of the only things left Charles could still smell and he honestly didn’t know, in that moment, how he was supposed to go on convincing himself Edwin was really with him if he wasn’t able to breathe in the tangy fragrance.

Luckily, Edwin didn’t pull away just yet. He only leaned over to tug Niko into their embrace, pressing a sweet kiss to the crown of her head. Charles listened to them reunite in soft tones, spoken over the crest of Charles’s curls. He closed his eyes and for a moment, didn’t wonder what Edwin had overheard, only allowed himself to bask in the fact that Edwin was back, he was here, in their office, right where he should be.

When he opened his eyes Edwin was still there, Niko was still alive—Jo and Jenny had tucked themselves on the settee and were watching them with shoulders bowed in relief—even Crystal had joined their embrace, her curls tickling Charles’s neck. 

The Night Nurse however— Well, she’d joined them at some point and she looked far from pleased. She was staring past Charles, her eyes locked on the back of Edwin’s mussed head. Her lips pressed into a thin, unhappy line.

Chapter Text

Jenny had almost forgotten Johanna was there by the time they got a moment to themselves. Almost.

Maybe she actually would have forgotten if she hadn’t been acutely aware of Johanna Constantine’s presence since the moment she’d walked through the doors of the Tongue & Tail a decade ago. 

“How are the little buggers?” Johanna asked in a murmur, inclining her head to where the small gaggle of teens who had taken over Jenny Green’s life were piled on the floor of the agency like a litter of puppies.

Jenny had no idea how they were. They’d gotten Niko back, somehow, and Edwin had returned all on his own, though he hadn’t elaborated how he’d managed that just yet, but Charles was an exhausted mound, curled around Edwin’s head where he laid on the floor, and Crystal hadn’t let go of Niko since she’d walked through the agency mirror, and how had that worked, anyway? Jenny had thought Niko was alive-alive, but maybe alive-alive was still some flavor of dead. 

If three out of four of her teen charges were dead, did that make her, like, the worst adult in the world? 

“They’re together,” Jenny said, shrugging. It was the best answer she had. 

Johanna was standing too close to her, just inside the door of the agency. Her coat was over her arm. Jenny had watched her gather it an hour ago and then linger while the kids paced and hugged and circled one another—the last one mostly Crystal and Edwin—and eventually melted into an exhausted pile on the carpet. She understood being unwilling to let any of these troublemakers out of her sight, she’d been wrestling with that same problem for months now. It had driven her across the globe to an entirely different country, something not even Johanna Constantine had been able to convince her to do.

“Right,” Johanna said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “And how are you?”

And wasn’t that the question? How fucking was she? 

She took stock of herself in the doorway of the agency. She was cold and tired and maybe even hungry, but part of her still worried that if she had a sandwich and went to bed, she’d wake up with everything that had happened that evening having been nothing but a bizarrely pleasant dream. 

“Fine,” Jenny said.

“Sure you are,” Johanna said. “Listen, Jenny—”

“I appreciate your help, Jo,” Jenny cut her off. “But you don’t need to feel— obligated to—”

“This was never about feeling obligated,” Johanna said, her voice tight. “Jenny Green, you know I’d do anything you asked.”

Jenny wasn’t able to help herself from snorting a little. “Even now? After everything?”

“Always,” Johanna said, without an ounce of hesitation. She reached for Jenny’s hand, but she stopped herself, curling her fingers into a fist instead. “I’m not the one that broke things off.”

“Jo,” Jenny said, with feeling. “I—”

She was cut off by a sudden banging on the agency door.

Charles sprung to his feet, looking bleary-eyed but braced for a fight. 

“What’s it?” he asked.

“Hello?” the door banger called from the hallway. It sounded like a woman, a woman who’d been crying. Jenny was not in the mood to deal with strange crying women. “Is the agency open? It’s an emergency!”

Jo reached around Jenny to open the door. The strange woman peered at all of them, her eyes were blotchy with tears just as Jenny had suspected. As they watched she raised a handkerchief to her nose and blew. 

“Oh, dear, you have to help me!” the woman exclaimed.

“That’s what we do,” Charles said, leading the woman inside. “We’re the Dead Boy Detectives, now come sit down for a tick and tell us what’s happened.”

Charles led the woman to the agency’s small couch, where she sat as if all her strings had been cut. 

“You look familiar,” Crystal said, where she’d levered herself upright on the floor. She was still holding Niko’s arm, even though Niko was standing. “Have we met?”

“I’m sorry dearie, I don’t recall,” the woman said, right before bursting into tears. Again. 

“Oh for the love of—” Jenny said, only stopping when Johanna put a quelling hand on her arm. Jenny whispered to her, “I have to get to work! Some of us have real jobs.”

“I heard that,” Edwin said, favoring her with an unamused glance. 

Great, she was going to get an earful later from a petulant teenage ghost.

“What seems to be the problem, Miss…?” Edwin asked, pulling his notebook from his breast pocket.

“Kelly. It’s Miss Kelly. I died on a field trip, a motor accident, with my— my Year Threes, and I’ve been watching over them ever since, bless their souls. They died so young they never quite understood what had happened to them. So I’ve been minding them, taking them on trips, teaching classes. Keeping things normal, you see?”

“I remember you!” Crystal said, rising to her feet. “You were at the Wizard Triathlon with like a dozen kids. Where are they?”

If Miss Kelly had an answer to that question, Jenny couldn’t hear it through her gasping sobs.