“This way!” called Zenith. The tow-headed girl ducked into a side room, the warm light of torches dancing on the hallway opposite it. The kitchen was dark, as was the pantry beyond it.

  Why?!

  Rapid footfalls behind him.

  He glanced back, wondering when Woebegone had run . . . but it wasn’t Woebegone.

  It was taller than he’d expected, horrible red eyes glowing like coals, simmering.

  He raised his hand in front of his face, blocking the ghoul, and turned to run, but couldn’t.

  It was a blank wall. There was no corner.

  Just the hallway, continuing. Forever.

  He turned to face the ghoul again.

  If he had to guess, his body hadn’t moved since their eyes met.

  He tried to engage [Prediction], but it was like pushing upstream. It flickered, then vanished.

  The horrible thing spoke.

  “Fae-bright eyes. A kingly gift: I shall name a province for you. Dalliance.”

  It knew his name.

  “You’ve been listening,” he said.

  “I’ve had a dull year. I’ll take my amusements where I can find them, even if in the guise of ill-mannered little boys.”

  It was getting closer now. It had talons, not nails. Long, sharp, and nothing like a human’s hands at all.

  Dalliance drew his bow.

  “A-ah, children ought not play with such things,” the ghoul tutted him. He drew and fired.

  There was the sound of a fleshy impact, a gutteral, glottal exclamation driven from diaphragm through the throat without respect for language. The sound of a fist driven into a gut.

  Zenith.

  No.

  With shaking hands, he replaced the bow on his back.

  The ghoul stepped towards him. “Was that so difficult? ‘Manners maketh man’, young man—”

  There was nowhere to go. He was trapped. And it was lecturing him.

  “Yours must be appalling,” he said.

  Needle teeth pulled apart in a predator’s smile.

  It took a step closer, dragging its left leg behind it. Dalliance couldn’t see anything wrong with it that wasn’t also wrong with the other one.” You need not die, you know,” it said. The hiss was trying for something other than creepy, and failing miserably. “I shall always require s-s-servants. We will find you bright new eyes—Sterling’s are a pleasant hue—”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Small fingers closed around his arm below the elbow, pulling him in a direction that didn't make any sense, and he was suddenly around the corner, pulled into step behind Charity, stumbling forward along the hall, the creature’s howl receding behind them.

  Dalliance followed.

  "Gods. Thank you, Charity." He gasped. "It's still coming—is Zenith—?"

  "Noticed that, did you?" Charity said, her feet pattering beside him as they ran through another dogleg turn. "Move faster."

  They burst through a doorway into a storeroom.

  Dalliance's eyes went immediately to Zenith.

  She was lying beside the massive window on the far wall, pale but conscious. Circe knelt beside her, hands glowing with soft light as she worked. The arrow jutted from Zenith's shoulder at an ugly angle.

  His arrow.

  "I—" he started.

  "Later," Charity said, not unkindly. She pulled him further into the room.

  Rolled carpets lined the walls. Furniture huddled under sheets. And torches—the missing torches—spaced evenly across every surface, casting wild shadows across everything.

  "It was Effie's idea," Charity said, following his gaze.

  Effie nodded. "While it was out after you," she said remorselessly, "was the perfect time to begin a relocation."

  "I see," said Dalliance. He did. They finally could put a wall—window, in this case—to their backs.

  “I presume that's the long-term goal."

  Dalliance waved a hand in a waffling gesture. "Yeah: we're going outside."

  "By what means?" demanded Sterling.

  "We could go through the window," said Earnest. The boy was sitting, looking weak but better than he had earlier. "Go right through the window."

  "The plan," Dalliance said. "Sterling, I can't do it without you."

  The taller boy looked at him oddly. "Talk fast."

  "I need your sword and your spear."

  Sterling shook his head, passing over the sword. "You need my things?”

  “I need you along with. We're going to bait it. A ‘classic funnel’."

  The taller boy grinned wolfishly and strode for the door.

  There was no time to think about how scary this was going to be.

  It was coming. He could hear a step, drag, step, drag.

  It’d moved faster before, when it was passing through shadows. Dalliance still wasn't sure what the rule was for that. With any luck, it wouldn't matter.

  Beside him, Sterling crouched, lance couched against the seam where floor met wall, hand on the activator of the extender.

  Dalliance hoped he had read the dynamic with Sterling's father right. He spoke the command word. Argent fire lashed out, painting along the bottom edge of the wall to the left, then to the right, constraining the ghoul's approach to the middle. And it was bright.

  In the middle by the last, Dalliance got his own blindfold in place just before he heard the spotter scream. "Go go go go go!" said Earnest. Charity, Dalliance knew, would be hauling him back around the corner out of the line of sight.

  There was a metallic sound: shing-thunk. The lance, extending.

  "You FOOLS!" wailed the creature. "This shall not kill me. I cannot die!"

  Dalliance felt his constitution fall, his mana ticking downward an instant later. He wouldn't have long.

  "Withdrawing," said Sterling. Then an instant later: "I think we got it."

  Now came the hard part.

  Dalliance ran, hand before his eyes, sight firmly on the ground. He saw horrible knobbly knees and pale fleshy feet and jumped sideways, through argent fire to avoid them—he'd known that might happen. It might come to this. He pointed the sword behind him.

  Flame.

  It screamed a horrible scream, but he kept running, not looking back. Stat loss hit him like a balled fist to the gut, but he stumbled onward, away from the horrible sucking drain of the ghoul, towards his next victim.

  Woebegone was still in the building, and he'd just set it on fire.

  "Dalliance froze. In addition to his duties as court mage, Parsimony Pleasant had duties to the Empire as the local head of taxes, due to his natural advantage in dealing with the mana the tax contributions to the war effort were composed from. Dalliance had had no idea he was also involved in the selection of their hunt targets.