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Chapter Text

The fae come on Samhain, when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest and the creatures of other realms roam the human land unchallenged.

Crowley is alone in the workshop. Anathema closed up the shopfront hours ago and left to do whatever practicing occultists do on this sabbat. She invited him to come along with her and Newt, her fiance, which implied a mundane Halloween party with a lot of ambiance rather than a gathering of her coven, but Crowley would not be surprised if she managed to combine the two. He has an order to finish, though, so he stayed behind.

Crowley stretches and then rubs his face. He enjoys his work, he does, but he spent a lot of time today on this necklace already, and crafting the finer details puts a lot of strain on his eyes.

This is when the knocking comes on the door, heavy and ominous, and by the time Crowley gets up to open, the visitors are already inside.

The fae don’t look particularly strange at first. They are tall and dark-haired and wear tailored suits in shimmering light grey adorned with the barest splashes of colour: a pale lavender tie, an ice blue pocket square, a barely-cream ruffled cravat. And if their smiles don’t quite reach their eyes, well… Crowley had done work for Americans in the past.

But, as Crowley watches them inspect his shop with disdain, their visage starts shifting, every change revealing something more and more inhuman: features too chiseled, teeth too white and too sharp, eyes like chips of tinted ice set in faces like masks of polished stone. There is no mistaking them for regular, if rude, customers, even if one forgets the way they ignored the locked door.

“We shall have you craft something, mortal goldsmith,” the violet-eyed one says finally. His voice is as cold as his gaze, equal parts menace and contempt. “A pendant of star fire, to prove your mettle to us. Three days you may have before we come back.”

And in a blink of an eye they are gone, the shop empty and quiet again, before Crowley has a chance to say anything back.

Fae are not unheard of where Crowley lives. There are stories. Some of them are old, almost fairy tales—people stolen away, turned into animals or given impossible tasks—if not for the details that give them a ring of truth. Others happened just the other day: a friend of a friend disappearing on Beltane, a cousin thrice removed going mad after dancing with a stranger, a drunkard rambling in a bar about other realms.

Crowley suspects that he had more than his fair share of brushes with these stories himself, though there’s no way of knowing for certain: people who get tangled with fae don’t often talk about it. However, sometimes a customer shows up with a haunted look in their eyes and an oddly specific request that takes all his skills and a fair bit of imagination to fulfill.

Anathema was the first of them, actually. They’ve been friends for a few years when one day she asked to make her a compass with three needles—citrine, amethyst, and tiger’s eye—and then vanished. She returned three weeks later, haggard and disheveled, with a bewildered young man in tow. Newt watched everything around him with eyes wide with wonder, startled easily, and had trouble with electronics, which spelled fae trouble for anybody who cared to watch for the signs. Eventually he found a job baking for several nearby cafes, and Anathema offered Crowley a partnership on a half-jewellers half-metaphysical shop. His work complemented Anathema’s crystals and books perfectly, and their shop, Phantom Filigree, was always busy with customers, both mundane and fae-touched.

What Crowley had not expected was to become a part of a fae story himself.

Three days go by in a whirl.

Crowley discovers for himself why people tend to keep quiet about their fae encounters. Every time he wants to talk to Anathema about his visitors, the thought slips his mind before he opens his mouth, or she speaks up first, or something happens to distract them both. Eventually, he stops trying. He wonders how his customers managed to ask him for things they needed for their quests at all, but he cannot question Anathema on this either.

Fortunately, he doesn’t need help with his task. Whatever spell he is under doesn’t prevent him from reading, and the occult side of the shop has plenty of books about fae to augment his vague memories of the fairy tales he’d heard. His own stock of gemstones doesn’t have what he needs, but he finds a perfect one in Anathema’s hoard, and he is, thankfully, allowed to buy the materials, if not discuss them.

When the fae show up on the third night, Crowley is ready. The pendant sits on a background of black velvet, a single polished stone in a plain white gold setting. The play of light in the fire opal is mesmerizing, with luminous star-shaped flashes among fiery reds, vibrant oranges, and deep blues. The stone doesn’t look like the night sky seen from the Earth—for something that simple, Crowley would’ve gone for a blue goldstone. Instead, it’s a whole nebula, a birthplace of stars.

The violet-eyed fae looks down at the pendant. He is clearly familiar with deep cosmos or at least with James Webb’s images of it, for he doesn’t argue with Crowley’s vision. He seems surprised and vaguely disappointed at once, as if he neither expected nor wanted the jeweller to succeed. He reaches out for the medallion, but Crowley is faster.

“You left before we had the chance to discuss the terms of our deal last time, I’m afraid,” he says, his heart beating fast but his voice steady. “What will you give me in return for my work?”

Now the surprise wars with anger in the fae’s expression, for the mortal dares to speak to him rather than stay silent and afraid. But everything Crowley has read points to deals being sacrosanct to fae. He has done what they wanted, and he is within his rights to demand the payment that is due.

The fae comes to the same realization, and he cannot admit trying to cheat the human in front of his entourage.

“Thrice, mortal goldsmith,” he says, words falling in a rhythm that invokes a power older than anybody in the room, “Thrice you shall create what cannot exist, or be erased from existence yourself.”

Crowley refuses to be cowed. This is the stick; what’s the carrot?

“And when I do that?” he asks.

Unexpectedly, the fae laughs, a sharp sound like ice cracking. “And if you manage that, you will win a place in our court and a fae’s hand in marriage,” he says and motions for someone to approach.

And oh, there is a new fae in his retinue this time. He seems less other than the rest of them, almost human. His clothing is at least a century out of date, but it has more colour than the rest of their outfits combined: pressed beige trousers, fawn-coloured waistcoat and cream coat over light-blue dress shirt, complete with a tartan bow tie. The only thing white about him is his hair, but it’s not the cold white of snowdrifts and marble statues the others sport, no, it’s the warm white of a baby lamb's wool. I wonder if it’s just as soft, Crowley thinks nonsensically, because who in their right mind considers anything about fae soft?

But this fae’s face is alive with emotion the way the others are not. He has drifted closer to the shelves, clearly taken by the pieces set out there, and inspects them with wonder and admiration, touching this and that one gingerly. When he snaps to attention at the violet-eyed fae’s gesture, he moves closer, and his eyes light with awe at the sight of the pendant. Then his gaze wanders from the art to the artisan, and Crowley thinks that maybe this fae is different after all. His eyes are distinctly inhuman, true, but where the others look at the world with icy stares, his gaze is the hopeful blue of spring sky.

“For your second charge,” the violet-eyed fae has pocketed the pendant and is talking again. Crowley has to tear his eyes away from the white-haired one lest he miss something essential. “You shall make a ring of frozen time. Seven days you may have until we call on you again.”

The second task is more of a challenge. Crowley spends days digging through Anathema’s books seeking any stones, precious or not, associated with the flow of time, but finds nothing better than sand. A tiny hourglass? A ring watch? The white-haired fae—his intended, if Crowley carries out his side of the deal—has a gold chain with a fob clipped to his waistcoat; it might have a pocket watch on the other end, or something insane like a swarm of butterflies or a summer morning. Crowley shakes his head, trying to dislodge the errant thought. He’s no horologist, and embedding an actual clock, even a broken one, into a ring just doesn’t feel right.

It is by accident that he finds the answer—or, rather, the answer finds him. Anathema watches him with increasing worry, and one day she corners him. He still cannot explain anything about his predicament, but she is undeterred.

“I don’t like your aura. It’s all muddled, rusty and brown, almost black. You won’t tell me what troubles you, fine, at least wear this,” she hands him a bracelet, yellow and orange beads strung into a pattern.

“Amber,” Crowley mutters absently, then gasps and exclaims, ”Amber! Of course! Ana, you mad genius!” His aura blooms violet and indigo, and Anathema grins with satisfaction; creativity and inspiration is more like it than the exhaustion signaled by black, let alone whatever rust means.

Crowley doesn’t think about auras; he rushes off to dig through the shop’s stock once more. Amber, hardened tree resin with tiny inclusions, can carry millenia-old history within, insects and plants literally frozen in time. He finds a perfect piece among Anathema’s treasures again, with two insects locked together in a fight or, possibly, an embrace. It feels like a slab of solid sunshine, warm to the touch, and, Anathema suggests helpfully, should be worn for good luck, joy, and protection from evil. This ring is not going to do any good to the violet-eyed fae.

He uses gold again, though the fae calling him a goldsmith left him with an irrational aversion to the metal. This time it is warm yellow gold, to better complement the honey hue of the stone. Crowley decides on a simple open-back setting: it will let the light pass through the stone when he shows it off, highlighting the inclusions beautifully, and it will let the amber touch the skin when worn, working its magic on the wearer. He thinks of the white-haired fae as he works.

The violet-eyed fae cannot find fault with the jeweller’s work, but he is not happy about it. He frowns at the ring and motions for the white-haired fae to have it, to his barely disguised delight.

“Twice now you have proven yourself, mortal goldsmith,” he says in a voice like a chant. “Thrice spun, bargain is done. Your last bid is to capture the lightning…”

“Oh, don’t be a fool,” another fae snaps, interrupting him. The woman’s palest blue eyes are ice-cold, and so is her reprimand. “This mortal knows his trade, he’ll find fulgurite and call it a day, and you’ll end up with a crown too ugly to wear.”

That sounds like a brilliant plan, actually, Crowley thinks. Too bad she’s on to it.

“Your last challenge is to make a crown of frost and moonlight, as befitting our court,” she says to the jeweller coldly. “And none of that gem nonsense, moonstone or selenite or opal. The real things. In thrice seven days we will come for you.”

With that, the three fae take their leave; the white-haired one lingers behind for one last look at the shop.

“Wait!” Crowley calls out as he sighs and turns to follow the others. “Why would your lot be so keen on me? They must know I have no magic. These are just clever tricks, metaphors or similes or whatnot.”

The fae studies Crowley for a long time. His eyes are green this time, the colour of summer leaves with sun shining through them.

“Magic claimed, challenged, and thrice proven is true,” he says softly when Crowley has almost given up waiting for a reply. “The proving makes it so.” He’s clearly quoting something—or someone.

Is that an actual answer from a fae? And not a riddle, but a comprehensible explanation?

Crowley thinks about how this fae feels less alien than the rest of them. The joy he finds exploring the trinkets in the shop and the wonder on his face as he sees Crowley’s work. How the other fae either ignore him or treat him as lesser. And then it dawns on him.

“You are not fae, not a true one,” he says before catching himself: this might not be the cleverest thing to say to a fae even if they seem nice. But this one doesn’t fly into a rage; instead, he freezes, like a rabbit when an owl glides by on silent wings.

“I am not,” he breathes out so quietly, Crowley barely hears him. “I was born human.”

Chapter Text

Aziraphale had been taken by the fae less than an hour after he was born.

There were many precautions known in those days for keeping fae away from young children. Cold iron tucked into the blankets, chimes hung over the cradle, rowan twigs wrapped in red thread put under the pillow. But his was a hard birth, and the adults swarmed around his mother, and he was set down without any wardings or even a good Christian name. By the time the bleeding had stopped, there was a changeling in the crib, and the human child had been whisked away.

There are a great many things that can happen to an infant in a fae realm, most of them bad. Aziraphale was lucky. The fae did not seek him out for some ill purpose; they aimed to leave the heir of another court in the human world, and what became of the child they took in exchange was of little import to them. He was given to the Bergteufel, the reclusive mine-dwelling fae, without much thought.

Bergteufel, mountain devils, bear no love for mortals. They hunt and devour unwary miners, though sometimes they can aid a man lost in a mine. But occasionally, when their numbers dwindle or one of them feels the odd stirring of parental instinct, they will adopt a human child and try to raise them as their own. And that’s what happened that time.

Because the infant had eaten no human food, because his mother didn’t give him a human name, because he was barely born before entering the fae realm, his flesh and mind were malleable to fae magic. Bergteufel fed him his first meal, a slurry of moss and cave fungi, and by their magic it didn’t poison him. Bergteufel gave him his name, Aziraphale, “helper of darkness”, for he was to dwell in the dark alongside them, and so he grew up strong and healthy, if a bit too pale, despite the lack of light that would kill an older child.

Aziraphale did everything a Bergteufel youth would. He soaked up their knowledge of gemstones and minerals, of ores and metals, and of anything else that could be found in caves and mines. He learned everything about the cave plants, from the ferns and mosses that thrived near the surface to fungi and lichens of the depths, and their uses. He studied weird sightless creatures that inhabited the deep caverns and watched bats and birds that visited shallower caves with fascination, curious about their world of light and wind. But he always stayed in the caves, either in the deep darkness or in the twilight zone, and only looked at the bright entrances with vague longing.

Bergteufel taught him some of their magic too. Aziraphale could not quite turn into stone the way they did, but he could harden his skin to be impervious to tools and weapons. He could not melt into the cave walls and travel through rock to reappear in a different place, but he could spend days sitting so still as to blend with the shadows, long enough that everybody forgot he was there. The only skill that evaded him completely was that of turning into a horse-like shape with wild eyes.

Sometimes Aziraphale even met humans. Like many fae, Bergteufel are erratic and prone to act on a whim, and sometimes choose to help a lost miner instead of leading him to his doom. Aziraphale occasionally refilled oil in a mining lamp that was in danger of going out or even showed a favoured human a nice hidden lode, though the latter came at a price—a small sacrifice of a mining tool.

Bergteufel never asked Aziraphale to harm humans, though, and took care to keep him away from their more grisly activities. Flesh-eating mountain devils were a kind and loving family to their adoptive son, and he never felt unloved among them.

Aziraphale was sixteen when the court sent for him.

“I have need of your foundling,” Gabriel said to Bergmönch, the eldest of Bergteufel, without preamble. The high fae had eyes like amethyst, Aziraphale thought; not just amethyst-coloured, but hard and sharp like the crystals lining the inside surface of a geode. Thinking of gemstones helped him handle sudden stress, such as, oh, a stranger coming in to rip him away from everything he had ever known.

Bergmönch blinked his plate-sized fiery eyes. Standing, he would dwarf the intruder and Aziraphale both, but in fae realms size didn’t equate power.

“He is one of us,” he said measuredly. It was not a denial, only a statement of fact. “In a hundred years, no one will know that he was born under an open sky.”

“Then I have come just in time,” Gabriel replied coldly, a brief flash of indignation in his violet eyes. “The court needs a fae to wield cold iron, and who better than someone born human and raised by you?”

He was not wrong. Bergteufel were mine dwellers, spending their lives surrounded by ore veins, and had the best iron tolerance of all fae. And Aziraphale, with the hot iron running in his arteries, was not bothered by cold iron in the slightest.

“I don’t want to leave,” Aziraphale whispered. This weird subterranean realm was his home. What little he knew of the world outside didn’t sound as cosy as the damp darkness of a narrow tunnel with a stream running along the floor, or as comforting as the little cave he called his own and shared with his pet olm, an eyeless white amphibian, and his collection of particularly interesting gemstones.

He felt a brief clasp of Bergmönch’s huge hand on his shoulder, but the white-haired giant remained silent.

“A temporary inconvenience cannot get in the way of the greater good, sunshine,” Gabriel responded, and that was the end of it.

Aziraphale turned out to be not very good at his new job.

Oh, he had no issues wielding cold iron, and he adapted to life above ground with relative ease—another perk of being shaped by fae magic since birth. He swapped the black hooded cowl of Bergteufel for a white robe and received his first assignment: guarding a magic tree that bore golden apples.

Fae garden where Aziraphale stood guard was a wonder by itself. The branches of every tree and bush were laden with flowers, fruit and berries, and Aziraphale, who had never before seen such delights, was quite overwhelmed by the sight. Fascinated, he spent days walking from tree to tree, taking in the smells and, later, once he convinced himself that it was alright, the flavours. But only the tree in the center of the garden bore magic fruit, and he was not to touch them himself and not to let anyone else approach them.

One day, the garden was visited by a magnificent bird, its iridescent plumage reminiscent of polished ammolite. It flew over the garden wall and dove straight for the magic tree, and Aziraphale spared a brief thought to rejoice that the golden apples only hung on the lower branches and he didn’t have to figure out how to guard the top branches from a flying thief. He caught the bird—it was fast, but it was no match to the bats he used to play with in the caves—and held it gently but firmly.

“Are you hungry?” he asked the bird kindly. “I cannot let you touch the golden apples, but anything else in the garden you can have.”

The bird chirped its assent, and he brought it to the trees with all the sweetest and ripest fruit in the garden. Once it had eaten its fill, the bird sang a short song and flew away. Aziraphale sighed, already missing the company. He finished off the fruit the bird had pecked—he told himself it was almost like sharing a meal with somebody, and food-borne diseases were something that happened to humans, not fae—and resigned himself for another long stretch of solitude.

The second time, some weeks after the first one, a serpent with scales like anthracite slithered up the garden wall and rustled through the grass towards the tree. Aziraphale took it off the tree trunk carefully and guided it to wrap its coils around his forearm instead. The serpent hissed angrily and tried to bite him, but Aziraphale had the foresight to toughen his skin the way he did when handling venomous cave creatures, so that the fangs slid off harmlessly.

“Are you hungry?” he asked the serpent reproachfully. “I cannot let you touch the golden apples, but anything else in the garden you can have.”

The serpent looked at him thoughtfully and bumped its nose into his forearm several times.

“My arm?” Aziraphale asked with a measure of alarm. “Right, snakes are predators, of course there’s nothing else in the garden for you… So be it.” He softened his skin to human again and cut out a bite-sized chunk. The serpent gulped it down, hissed its thanks and slithered away. Aziraphale sighed, shifting his flesh into something akin to clay and watching the wound close. He wouldn’t mind the company of the serpent, even if he had to go through the unpleasant ritual daily to keep it fed.

The third time someone sneaked into the garden, it was a human woman. She had dark skin and darker hair covered by layers of grime, and made Aziraphale think of bronzite: unremarkable when raw, revealing subtle hidden beauty when polished with care. How she made it in over the tall walls, he couldn’t fathom, for there was no gate leading to the garden. But there she was, looking around curiously and heading straight for the apple tree.

“Are you hungry?” he asked the woman hopefully. “I cannot let you touch the golden apples, but anything else in the garden you can have.”

“I know better than to eat anything in a fae realm, thank you,” she scoffed in reply. “No, I need three golden apples to bring back to the fae bitch who stole my husband and is now sending me on wild goose chases, one worse than the other. And three golden apples I will get.”

She didn’t add “with your permission or without” but the subtext was clear enough even for someone with limited conversational experience.

Aziraphale regarded her defiant expression, and it dawned on him that he had misjudged her. She was no bronzite, somewhat durable but ultimately prone to chipping and cracks. No, she was a chocolate diamond, rough, uncut yet, but ready to stand against anything the world would throw at her and emerge without a scratch on her.

It would be hard even for her to win against a fae. Aziraphale glanced down at the sword he was issued when sent to the garden. It was supposed to be a flaming sword, but he never managed to set it aflame; there must have been some trick to it that he failed to discover. It was a nice weapon regardless, and, most importantly, cold iron.

Aziraphale made up his mind. He reached up and picked several of the ripest apples, if one could say that about golden fruit.

“Here you go, six golden apples, just in case you misplace one or two on your way back. And a flaming sword—well, the flame part never worked for me, but if anyone manages to make it work, it will be you—but it’s cold iron, good against fae; it might be of assistance to you. Don't thank me, and don't let the sun go down on you here.”

Nobody actually mentioned Aziraphale’s failure at guarding the golden apples. He was just recalled back to the court some time after and not given any big assignments after that. He drifted on the outskirts of the court, befriending some of the lesser fae and trying to avoid the high fae at all costs. He discovered books, music, and food, most brought to the court by human craftspeople, and he befriended those as well. He was content with his life, simple but joyful.

And then one day Gabriel summoned him for a trip to the human realm.

Chapter Text

Crowley is glad to have three weeks for his last task. He knows what to do right away—the fae practically spelled it out for him—and the early December night, when the fae will be back, is the night of the Cold Moon, perfect for showing off his work. The inspiration for the design he finds in Anathema’s book on heraldry, of all things. But crafting the crown, for once, is a challenge. His tools are for working molten metal, not ice.

He has neither a nice big block of ice to work with nor an easy way to get one, so he decides on a hybrid: a thin silver circlet serving as the base, a wide band of ice on top. Crowley finds out the hard way that if the ice snaps, trying to melt it a bit and re-freeze the parts back together leaves ugly scars. Even touching the ice with his bare hands for too long leaves traces, not to mention the frostbite on his fingertips. The crown has to be done in one go, no mistakes.

Anathema leaves Crowley alone until at the end of the first week. He set a bunch of blanks to freeze in roughly the shape he’ll need to make the whole crown, and now he’s practicing carving the individual pieces. He just broke yet another piece of ice that was supposed to become a ray topped with a crescent moon, and he really can do with a break before he starts hurling chisels across the room in a fit of temper.

Anathema seems to have a sixth sense for his mood. She walks into his workshop, sets down a plate in front of Crowley, and chatters about nothing of importance while he eats. Only then she moves on to the real topic.

“So, when will the fae return the third time?”

Crowley is thankful that she waited until he was done eating; her conversation starters can be a choking hazard.

“Of course I know,” she says, interpreting his coughing fit as a question. “You’ve dug through my books three times in the past month, and you keep telling me you don’t read books. Now you’re working with ice, not exactly a typical material for a jeweller. Don’t forget I have been—well, not quite in your shoes, those fae were from a different court most likely, but I know how they think…”

Some years ago, in a fae realm far far away…

Anathema stood in a sunlit meadow strewn with bright flowers and watched a herd of horses grazing. The serenity of the scene stood in stark contrast with her heavy heart. How on earth was she supposed to recognise which of the horses were real and which one was Newton enchanted to look like one?

Anathema would be a poor excuse for an occultist if she didn’t do her homework before a quest. When the fae lady challenged her to come find Newton if she wanted him set free from the fae court, her words suggested that the challenges would be centered on finding hidden things and revealing their concealed nature. Furthermore, fae challenges always came in threes. So Anathema went to her jeweller friend and asked to make a compass with three needles. Citrine, for bringing light to dark places. Amethyst, for fostering mental clarity and enhancing intuition. And tiger’s eye, for sharpened mind and certainty in decisions. Crowley delivered, and Anathema set out on her journey feeling as prepared as she could’ve been.

When Anathema got thoroughly lost in a dark foreboding forest, too wild and primeval to still be part of the human realm, she reached for the compass. It lit up from within, as if holding a tiny sun, and led her through the forest to a lovely little castle on the lakeshore. The moment Anathema stepped out of the woods on the flagstone path, the citrine needle flared up, releasing the last of its light and turning into a cloud of golden dust carried away by the breeze.

Anathema hid the compass in her pocket, steeled herself and knocked on the castle door. She was let in immediately and escorted to the throne room where the lady of the castle lounged on a throne.

“Ah, so you found your way here after all,” she smirked, not looking worried by how easily Anathema did that. “Your beau was fretting that you wouldn’t come. I took pity on him and turned him into a cat to play with my other pets. You’ll find him there—if you can, of course!” She pointed to a door to the left with a little laugh.

Anathema strode through the door and found herself in a feline lover’s paradise. All surfaces in a hall-sized parlour were covered with cats, from small house kittens to a bobcat napping on a couch and a lynx glaring at the woman from under an ornate table.

Anathema reached for the compass, and it worked again: the tiger’s eye needle pointed at a nondescript tabby with round spectacle markings around his eyes and promptly exploded into sharp fragments, leaving long scratches on her hands. She hissed in pain but grabbed the cat before he could slip away and disappear in the sea of furry bodies again. So far, everything checked out, she thought as she returned to the throne room; the third challenge would be to figure out how to return him to human form…

But, as she approached the fae lady again, the cat yowled, wriggled out of Anathema’s hands, and darted out of the room through the opposite door.

“Well, what are you standing here for? Go find him again,” the fae ordered, and Anathema had no choice but to obey.

The room on the opposite side of the throne was a huge glass-enclosed conservatory filled with sunlight, never mind that the castle had no exterior glass walls when Anathema was outside. It doubled as a greenhouse full of unfamiliar plants, foliage lush, flowers bursting with colour and fragrance. Among the branches and lianas, exotic birds fluttered like living blossoms themselves, their calls adding to the atmosphere of a carefully cultivated jungle.

Anathema would feel completely lost if it was not for the compass. The amethyst needle quivered uncertainly at first but steadied quickly, leading her past the row of the palms that concealed an even larger expanse of space, around a clearly carnivorous plant that looked too agile to her liking, and towards a brown sparrow cornered by two large parrots with lilac plumage. As soon as Anathema scooped up the smaller bird, the needle broke off, and then the compass itself cracked in two, nicking her fingers like an angry beak might.

With three challenges accomplished, she expected it to be over, the fae begrudgingly returning Newton to human shape and shooing them both away from the castle. But, once they were back in the throne room, the story repeated itself: the sparrow flapped its wings in agitation and flew out the window. Anathema glared at the fae.

“What? Surely you know how this works,” the fae shrugged. “Third time’s the charm: recognise him once more and he’s all yours.”

But the forest, Anathema wisely didn’t say. There was no point arguing with fae. Apparently, the journey was not one of the challenges, merely a way to get to the castle. She huffed and followed the sparrow outside. And found herself in an endless meadow, no castle in sight, just the grazing horses.

She knew plenty of fairy tales that went just like this: a human challenged to recognise their enchanted beloved among a crowd accomplished the task, either with the help of allied magic beings or through the sheer strength of their bond. In her case, there were two problems with that. First, she was fresh out of magic helpers; her compass was broken beyond repair, and her shortcut through the forest had failed to lead her to any talking animals in traps that she could summon to her aid now. And second, she had known Newton for less than a day before getting saddled with the quest to free him.

Their meeting was heralded by a screech of brakes and a long-drawn-out accusatory honk of a car horn. The car swerved to avoid the young man who, judging from the driver’s curses, appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the street and promptly stumbled to his hands and knees. Anathema didn’t find him handsome, or fashionable, or, frankly, attractive in any manner at all. But the bewilderment in his eyes, his clothing with nary a zipper in sight, his general air of not belonging made him worse than attractive—he was out of place, out of time, interesting.

She invited him home, bandaged his scraped palms, offered him tea, and, one word at a time, teased the shape of his story out of him. A gifted baker, Newton attracted fae attention, failed to escape the consequences, and ended up in thrall to a minor courtier.

In the morning, Newt’s fae mistress found them tangled in bed, their clothes scattered across the carpet. Her condescending laughter rang in Anathema’s ears long after she disappeared, disheveled Newt in tow, her final words a challenge to the young occultist: “If you care for him, mortal girl, find him and prove that you truly know him.”

Anathema tried every occult item packed in her satchel, to no avail. She tried the pendulum; it swung in neat circles, favouring no direction over the other. She tried the theodolite; all horses looked the same no matter the angle at which she inspected them. She even tried simply calling “Newt!”; the horses ignored her, barely flinching an ear in her direction. Finally, Anathema sat down, unwrapped a granola bar (the horses nearest to her expressed moderate interest, but she didn’t take it as a clue), and tried to think without succumbing to despair.

What did she know about Newt? He was common-looking, everything about him plain, nothing standing out; he could not be that majestic pitch-black Friesian, or that elegant Arabian. He was shy, and a little clumsy, and quietly curious about everything around him; some sort of a pony maybe? That was a good guess, but not solid enough to bet both their fortunes upon. He was fascinated with the TV in the living room, watching it and switching channels until the remote stopped working, and fiddled with the digital thermometer until it died with a spark…

Anathema inhaled sharply as the inspiration struck. Fae realms didn’t have electronics, and she remembered joking about not letting him touch the fridge when it was time for breakfast, lest he destroy it too. They never had a chance to have breakfast together, so she didn’t know for certain that he was a threat to all electronics, but… She dug through her satchel and held up her phone triumphantly. Fae realms had no service, of course, and the phone lost the signal as soon as she entered the forest, but the screen lit up obediently.

“This had better work,” she muttered, approaching the nearest horse, her arm outstretched. A velvety nose sniffed the device and turned away; the phone carried on unharmed. Checking whether one of the horses was going to break it was going to take some time…

“I take it he broke the phone?” Crowley asks as Anathema trails off. She nods.

“Yes, and the next one too once we got back to the human world. The fridge is safe for some reason, though, and so is the oven. It would be hard to work as a baker without them!” She smiles fondly, but then grows somber again. “Just remember, no matter the court, the fae are not to be trifled with.”

Crowley snorts.

“Bit too late for that, isn’t it?” he asks grimly and turns back to his workbench. The ice awaits.

Chapter Text

The work gets easier after Anathema’s intervention. The ice is just as stubborn as before, Crowley still ruins more blanks than he carves into recognisable rays and crescents, and he still cannot share any details of his tasks or ask her for advice. But Anathema takes it upon herself to care for him: she makes him take breaks and go for walks, brings takeout and insists that he eats, and talks.

“I wonder why the fae came to you,” she muses one evening as they sit down to dinner. It is not a question; they have already figured out that Crowley can’t talk about the details of his—quest? tale?—even with Anathema who knows the general shape of it. But he is wondering the same thing.

“Have you been spreading the word? Advertising my services as the go-to goldsmith for any fae-related trouble, twenty-four hours a day?” Crowley is joking, but… Something must’ve caught the fae’s attention, and humans boasting of accomplishing impossible feats is a sure way to do that.

Anathema bites her lip, looks abashed.

“But there’s always someone else you can help…” she says quietly. “So many of them…”

She is not wrong. The customers he thinks of as “fae-touched”—the ones with haunted expressions and very odd requests—are not great in sheer numbers: one in four, maybe five dozens of ordinary people with mundane orders. But that’s still a lot of lives disturbed, thrown in disarray or plain ruined. Everybody reacts in a different way: some are desperate, others—determined, yet others have an enterprising glint in their eyes that makes Crowley charge them in advance. They all are heart-wrenching to see, though.

There was a woman, eyes puffy with tears recently shed, who ordered three pairs of iron shoes. “To last or to wear out?” the jeweller asked, not pointing out that he was not, in fact, an ironsmith. “To wear out,” she whispered, as if afraid of eavesdroppers. Crowley made the flimsiest footwear he could imagine to still fit the definition of a shoe, made of the thinnest iron he could cast (which was very thin indeed). When the woman returned, he handed her the shoes and a spray bottle. “Vinegar and salt; soak whenever you can, ideally overnight. On the house. And stock up on some thick socks!”

There was a young man, barely out of his teens, who asked Crowley to make a replica of a golden snuffbox with a filigree lid. “Just don’t open it,” he repeated several times, probably for emphasis. Crowley inspected the box warily, thought about it for a moment, and pulled out his phone. “No need to leave it here overnight at all, y’know. I’ll just take a few reference pictures and work off them, the design is simple enough that I won’t need the original,” he grinned as the would-be customer’s face fell. The young man left with his snuffbox and without an order, and Crowley had a distinct feeling that he had dodged a bullet.

And there was Mrs.Sandwich, of course. She called herself something else now that she was a hotshot fashion designer, but back when she was a seamstress in their town, she was just Mrs.Sandwich, with no Mr.Sandwich in sight. One day she barged into his workshop and spilled a small handful of coins from a white pouch on his worktop. They could have been silver if not for their pale cold glint they held despite it being a warm sunny afternoon.

“I need this made into jewellery,” she said. “I have some ideas and two days…”

They pored over her designs and argued about how to trim them to make the silver last. The coins melted easily, the small crucible of hot metal shimmering like a midwinter snowdrift under the moon. The finished pieces—a ring engraved with abstract pattern akin to ice crystals, strands of snowflakes that could be worn as a necklace or a bracelet, and a pair of icicle earrings made of filigree so thin they were translucent just like real ice—drew the eye irresistibly, the patterns mesmerising. They shone cold even in bright sunlight, just like the coins had.

Mrs.Sandwich paid Crowley handsomely and took her leave. She was back in a week, with a larger pouch of coins, a new stack of sketches, and, thankfully, a longer deadline. With more silver, they were bolder with their designs: a necklace like lace of frost on window glass and a pendant carved into snow-covered firs, tennis bracelets with silver pearls in place of gemstones and charm bracelets studded with charms that held meanings the jeweller couldn’t discern, chandelier earrings weeping drops of silver…

The third time Mrs.Sandwich returned, Crowley had to push back his other orders—all mundane, and none of them on a deadline more pressing than hers. He spent a feverish week turning a casketful of coins into statement jewelry: wide cuff bracelets with whole winter scenes engraved on them, necklaces like ice drift on dark water, and three tiaras: first like a wreath of icicles, second a double helix of snow crystals, and third a bandeau studded with silver pearls.

Having finished Mrs.Sandwich’s last order, Crowley slept through the best part of three days and spent the rest of the week nursing the frostbite left on his fingertips. Gratifying as it was to work with, he will be happy to never touch fae silver again. So far, his wish is granted—the ex-seamstress didn't require his services again, and he had never seen the metal in any other hands…

Anathema clears her throat, snapping Crowley from his reverie. His food is cold, and her portion finished; he must’ve been daydreaming for a while.

“Will you be alright?” she asks gently.

Crowley wants to tell her everything about his quest and the rewards he is promised, but he cannot; he tried. He thinks about his betrothed, the human-born fae who seems so much softer than the others. Crowley would not jump right into marriage with him if he had a choice, not after two meetings and exchanging a grand total of five dozen words. But he is intriguing, and attractive, and Crowley would definitely ask him on a date if they met under more normal circumstances. Marrying him cannot be as bad as, say, marrying the violet-eyed one; if that was to be his reward, Crowley would be researching ways to weasel out of a deal with fae, or cold iron and rowan stakes, not protective charms.

Plus, Crowley is curious. He has always been too curious for his own good, even got kicked out from his first job for asking too many questions (in his defence, that place was indeed making fake jewellery, cubic zirconia and faux pearls instead of diamonds and the real ones, and went under only a few months after his departure). But to see a fae realm? To meet more fae and learn whether any of them are more pleasant than the three who invaded his workshop? To get a magic of his own, assuming he interpreted the white-haired fae’s words correctly? Curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction of getting the answers is going to bring it back.

He cannot share any of this with Anathema, so instead he settles on simple “I hope I will.”

This time, Crowley waits for the fae outside. The weather is perfect: cold but clear, the full moon round and bright in the sky, but not so bright as to require sunglasses. Crowley is wearing Anathema’s warmest coat; it is navy-blue and slightly puffy and utterly detrimental to his style, but she convinced him that it would be silly to accomplish the fae’s impossible tasks only to perish from hypothermia. He’s also wearing new gloves; his fingers are still sensitive after so much time handling ice, and he’s not sure fae will care to heal frostbite.

The fae appear out of nowhere, without ceremony, without fanfare. One moment the small courtyard is empty, the next one four fae stand there looking around, seeking Crowley’s work. The first two times he put his masterpieces on display well in advance, but the crown—the crown he keeps in a box, just to add a little drama. If he is to live with fae, he can as well start following their ways and finding symbols in every movement.

Crowns are unlike any other kind of jewellery; they signify status first and foremost, before wealth or even power. Putting a crown on someone’s head is a gesture of respect, possibly even deference. What should he do with this one?

Crowley doesn’t feel like deferring to any of the three fae who were the first to invade his workshop. He used to think the violet-eyed one was in charge, but the woman with ice-blue eyes interrupting him to issue the third challenge made him doubt that, and hinted at some hidden tension on top of that. The third fae, the dark-skinned one who hadn't said a word within Crowley’s hearing so far, is a complete mystery. Mock-crown any of them, and risk alienating the other two? Put the crown on his own head, and mark himself an insolent fool? Simply ignore the symbolism of a crown like a dumb human they think he is?

Crowley reaches into the box and makes a split-second decision. He steps to the white-haired fae, his betrothed, looks him in the eye and puts the crown on his white curls gently and reverently.

It feels as if the moon had been concealed by an invisible cloud dimming its brightness, and only now emerged from behind it to soak the scene in its light. Ornate ice gleams in the moonlight, as if every edge, every line of the carving emits its own soft glow. The design is a hybrid of a tiara and a celestial crown: a semicircle of wide rays, shorter on the sides and longer in the center, each one topped with a different phase of the moon. The side rays end in a blunt point to signify the new moon, the one in the center holds the fat circle of the full moon, and the rays between those go through the crescents, the quarters, and the shapes of the gibbous moon.

The white-haired fae first freezes in disbelief and then beams at Crowley, brighter than the moonlight, brighter than sunlight if there was any here. The other three fae look irritated but not murderous; Crowley congratulates himself on seeming striking the right balance.

The violet-eyed fae summons Crowley’s betrothed with a click of his fingers—the jeweller seethes quietly, but does nothing for the moment—and snatches the crown off his head. He turns it one way and the other, inspecting the craftsmanship; Crowley is not surprised to see his fingers leave no traces on the ice. The work is faultless, maybe more crude than Crowley’s usual craft, but as fine as can be done with ice. The fae nods, mouth turned down, the air of dissatisfaction wrapped around him like a heavy stink.

“Very well, mortal. Your skill is thrice proven, thrice true,” he says, clearly reciting an ancient ritual, “And what we have promised, we will do. Time for you to reap the rewards for your success.”

The fae flicks his hand, brusquely imperious, for Crowley to come and join them.

“Whoa, whoa, hold on!” Crowley raised his hands, warding him off. He’s in no rush to leave his life behind, and he was so focused on completing the last challenge, he’s not even packed. But he can’t say that to the fae, can he? “I have to wrap things up with my partner here first.” He’s careful not to call Anathema by name, just in case that helps her evade fae attention.

“Nothing in the human realm compares in importance with the court,” the fae snaps haughtily.

“Would you have me renege on the deal I have with her?” Crowley asks, arching an eyebrow, and this is the end of the discussion. He gets until Yule to pack and tie up the loose ends.

Chapter Text

The fae realm is disappointing.

A court of frost and moonlight… With a name like that, Crowley imagined a winter woodland, a narrow road winding between the ancient trees, will-o’-wisps dancing in the snow-covered canopy. He imagined a silver castle rising from a frozen lake, all turrets and spires and whatever details lend the castles their whimsical look. He imagined a crystal mountain wreathed in thin mist, a narrow cascade of sparkling waterfalls feeding the ice road that leads to the silver gates. Something from a fairy tale, blending beauty, whimsy, and danger in even proportions, with a hefty serving of moonlight banishing any trace of a shadow.

The reality is… Well, he’s not sure what it is, but definitely not that.

The fae sleigh moves oddly, covering vast swaths of terrain in a blink. One moment Crowley is at the workshop, loading his luggage into the sleigh while an unfamiliar heavyset fae leers at him from the driver’s seat. A blink, and they’re on a forest road, skeleton-like trees looming over it lifelessly. Another blink, and the sleigh is out in the open, almost flying over the expanse of a gloomy moor. Another, and they are slowing to a stop… somewhere.

Their destination is bewildering. It must be indoors, for it has a floor, glossy and smooth with just enough sheen to avoid being a perfect mirror, and a suggestion of a ceiling somewhere high above, the same gray hue as the sky over the forest and the moor but more solid. A huge glass wall limits the space on one side; it overlooks another open space but he’s too far away to make out the details. The rest of the walls are more of an idea, though, or else they’re too remote to feel tangible to Crowley; the floor and the ceiling just seem to go on forever in three directions, with nothing to break up the emptiness as far as he can see. There is something in the air too, Crowley thinks, some strange underlying tension; even with his eyes closed, he would not mistake this place for a part of the human world.

The fae driver jumps off the sleigh and waves for Crowley to come along. He shrugs, takes off his coat and glasses—at least this place is warmer and dimmer than the bright winter day he left behind in the human world—throws both on top of his suitcases still sitting in the sleigh, and follows the fae.

Walking this place—Crowley decides to call it a hall just to have the comfort of having a word to call it—is no less disorienting than seeing it for the first time. Nothing changes as they walk. The hall has no waymarks, nothing at all to use as a reference point to gauge their progress or lack thereof. Crowley remembers the sleigh after a minute or two and glances back; it is gone, though they certainly have not covered enough ground to get far from it. They leave no footprints.

Just as Crowley starts to worry that this is a prank or, worse, fae’s idea of a place at their court, the driver makes a small impatient gesture. The world blinks, and suddenly there is a crowd of fae in front of them that definitely had not been there before. The driver takes Crowley’s elbow and steers him into the gap that bisects the throng.

The whole setup resembles a wedding, Crowley realises as he feels curious looks on himself, with fae acting as the guests, the fae driver as his escort, and the altar with his betrothed waiting for him somewhere ahead. (It also resembles an execution; Crowley tries not to think about that.) He growls quietly and pushes the driver’s hand away; he can walk on his own, thank you very much. The fae scowls but falls half a step back.

The fae guests on the outskirts of the crowd vary greatly in size and appearance, from smallish hare-like creatures in waistcoats standing on their hind legs to massive ogres with curved tusks sticking out of their mouths. An occasional wing or a rack of antlers emerge from the crowd only to be swallowed again before Crowley can track it back to its owner. The only thing the fae here have in common is that none of them could possibly be mistaken for a human.

As Crowley is marched down the aisle, the crowd around him changes noticeably. The fae become first human-passing and then inhumanly beautiful. Crowley does a double-take upon seeing a man who looks just like him, but with longer hair; some sort of doppelgänger or shapeshifter probably. His escort veers off and joins the human-shaped guests who are not yet breathtakingly handsome; Crowley walks on. The outfits grow in splendour, even as the colour leaches from them as the front of the hall nears. The front rows wear exclusively white in more shades than Crowley ever imagined existing.

And the jewellery! Even the fae who eschew fabrics and leather in favor of their own skin and fur take great care to adorn themselves with flower wreaths, garlands of colourful leaves and shiny berries, and- is it a necklace of shiny beetles with a fluttering butterfly for a medallion? Closer to the front, plants and insects give way to metals and gems Crowley is more accustomed to; first semiprecious ones, bright and richly coloured, and then pale like shards of ice.

Finally, the aisle widens into a round gap in the throngs of fae. An ornate pedestal holds a white cushion with a pair of simple rings upon it.

A new fae stands on the far side of the gap, clearly set to preside over the proceedings. He wears a dark suit, jarring amidst the shades of pale surrounding him, and Crowley’s ice crown. He is either entirely cold-blooded or willing to expend power keeping up appearances; the crown shows no signs of melting. It gleams softly with moonlight, the way it did back in the human realm, despite there being no moon in sight.

Crowley wonders why he ever assumed that the violet-eyed fae who invaded his shop was somebody of importance. This one, despite his short stature and mundane appearance, radiates almost palpable power. The weird tension in the hall is at its highest here, and Crowley thinks it must be the feeling of being surrounded by fae magic. His own magic, new and unfamiliar, stirs in his chest, as if calling out to the power outside himself.

Crowley’s betrothed is in front of the pedestal, leaving a place for the man to join him. He wears his usual outfit, but he clearly made a valiant attempt at taming his soft curls, and there are pale moths adorning his hair and the lapels of his coat. He smiles at Crowley, timid but full of hope, and then the nuptials begin.

“Behold the human who joins our court today by rite of marriage and by power of magic thrice proven,” the fae king says brusquely and motions to the pedestal. There are no vows for them to exchange, apparently. The jeweller did not expect the fae to give them a proper wedding ceremony, but this seems too abrupt to him.

The white-haired fae reaches for the rings at once, clearly impatient to get it over with and escape the hungry eyes of the crowd. Crowley does not relish his time in the limelight either, but… For most of these fae, this is the first impression they will get of him, and he has a sinking feeling he must make it count. Fae don’t care for his craftsmanship or humanity, nor for his future husband’s curiosity or kindness, but they respect power and magic—power that thrums through the air of this hall, magic that he had claimed and thrice proven…

Without thinking, Crowley reaches for the rings too. His almost-husband sees something in his eyes, for he offers them on the palm of his hand graciously, without delay, as if this was agreed upon and rehearsed well in advance. Crowley closes his fingers around the smooth metal—plain, unadorned, not that he should have expected anything better from the court—while capturing the other’s soft palm between his callused ones. A drop of blood? he mouths, hoping that everybody else is focused on their hands and not on their faces. The fae flinches almost imperceptibly and then nods just as subtly. Crowley closes his eyes and reaches out to the rings. He doesn’t try to imbue them with real power—his magic is too young and raw, and the dormant power he senses in the hall is not his to command—but a good show has a power of its own…

The soft sigh from the crowd is his first clue that something is happening, followed by heat and movement under his fingers. Crowley feels a tiny bite, and his almost-husband receives a matching one, judging by the little surprised gasp he makes. The jeweller opens his eyes and his hands, and together they look at his first magic working.

The rings come alive.

A gold eagle with blood-red eyes stretches its wings luxuriously. The bright outlines of feathers and beak dance over the walls of the hall for everyone in attendance to see, even if only the scowling king is close enough to see the rings themselves. A dark snake—the fae’s drop of blood sufficed to turn the metal nearly black—encircles the eagle, casting a scaly shadow over its light before slithering off to Crowley’s finger while the eagle wraps its wings around his husband’s.

How’s that for a human puppet? Crowley smirks at the fae king who looks displeased but says nothing, just turns and walks away. The guests follow his lead and disperse, though not before Crowley catches a few sidelong glances, curious or probing. He is left alone with his new husband.

The said husband stands there another moment, taking in the hall, empty again. His face falls; the shift is subtle, but Crowley finds himself more attuned to the white-haired fae’s expressions than he expected to be after just a few meetings. Then he walks away too, and Crowley has no choice but to follow. He really hopes this sterile gray palace has one or two rooms suited for human habitation. Some walls would be nice for a start.

A snap of fingers later, his wish is granted: the hall morphs into a chamber, still palatial but at least with walls on all sides, one of them glass—or crystal, or even ice, who knows? The furnishings are sparse: a low bed, a small table, a couple of chairs. There is not a single touch of personality here, nothing to grant a measure of comfort. Crowley hopes vehemently that this is his new room and not his husband’s usual quarters. If the soft-looking fae spent more than a week in this room and it still remains so bare… Well, either he misjudged the fae’s character or this court frowns at simple pleasures of life; either way, living here is going to be hell.

The white-haired fae comes to a stop next to the glass wall, contemplating the view behind it. Crowley glances outside—it’s a birds-eye view of a landscape that he will study closer later—and then shifts his attention to his new husband. He looks tense now, the earlier smile gone, fingers picking at the hem of his waistcoat—well worn out, Crowley notices, so it must be a nervous habit. Has he taken offence at something Crowley did at the wedding? Were the magic rings somehow insulting? Or just not to his liking?

“Do you like your ring?” he tries awkwardly. “I didn’t have a chance to ask you beforehand. I could probably change it if you’d like something else?”

The fae startles and stares at his hand, as if he has forgotten about its new adornment. The hopeful smile he gave Crowley at their wedding is gone without a trace.

“I do not need a reminder, thank you,” he says quietly. “I know my duty, and you will have your due.”

With that, he shrugs off his coat—the pale moths that adorned the lapels and his hair take off in a flutter, circle the room before settling down high on the walls—and hangs it on the back of the chair. The bow tie is next; Crowley almost expects it to flutter off on its own after the moths, but the fae simply unties it and tucks it into the coat pocket. He unfastens his cuffs after, rolls them up, and starts working on his waistcoat.

Distracted by the sight of the fae’s strong wrists, Crowley takes a moment to realise that the fae means to undress at once, and then, quite possibly, to perform his marital duties. What else could he have meant by “Crowley’s due”, after all? The idea is not unappealing on its own… But one glance at the grim determination on his husband’s face tells Crowley this is clearly something he plans to endure rather than enjoy, and he won’t have that.

What can he say to stop the fae? He doesn’t know how to escape the room, and he wouldn’t put it past the fae to chase him all over the gray halls to perform his duties. Crowley is also reluctant to endanger his deal with fae by turning down a part of his reward; fae don’t take lightly to those who renege on their bargains…

The waistcoat joins the coat on the chair. The fae’s light-blue shirt has dozens of tiny buttons, but he is working through them with remarkable single-mindedness, and Crowley’s time is running out.

There is something here, though, some seed of an idea… Fae respect bargains and contracts and pacts above all else; once the deal is agreed upon, it is sacred to them…

“What will you trade me for my rights?” he blurts out. The fae’s fingers freeze, and Crowley carefully lets out the breath of relief.

“What will you have of me?” the white-haired fae asks cautiously after a pause.

Crowley considers. He needs something that this fae will deem acceptable but not so little that he’ll take offence at that or think Crowley a fool. Something he’s going to need in this weird place. Ideally something that will let him build trust with his husband and in the long run befriend him. (Crowley tries not to get his hopes higher than that, but surely a man can dream on his own wedding day?)

And then it dawns on him. He grins.

“How do you feel about questions?”