I am the "who" when you call "Who's there?"

I am the wind blowing through your hair

-- The Nightmare Before Christmas, This is Halloween

Irímé stared at Abi. Siarvin stared at Abi. Shizuki was behind him so Irímé couldn't see, but he was sure he was staring at Abi too.

"What?" she asked defensively. She straightened up to her full height. Maybe she thought that would hide her wings. It only made them even more conspicuous.

Years ago Abi and Irímé had discussed what a phoenix might look like. None of the storybooks could agree on their colour or size. Irímé had thought they would be bright red while Abi thought they were more likely orange or golden. It turned out both of them were wrong. Apparently phoenixes were a mixture of very vivid blue and dark green. If he hadn't known better he would have assumed Abi had somehow gained a peacock's wings. Oh, and they were on fire too. Abi didn't seem too perturbed by this fact. Otherwise Irímé would have run for a bucket of water.

"What happened?" Siarvin asked, rubbing his eyes. "Is Ilaran safe?"

Abi nodded. "It's a long story. He's back to normal and hiding under his bed. I think you'd better go and check him."

Irímé did a double take. Hiding under his bed? That doesn't sound like Ilaran.

Siarvin hurried into the palace grounds and disappeared around the corner. Irímé and Shizuki were left still staring at Abi. Shizuki ventured forwards. He sidled up to Abi and tried to poke at her wing. She moved away quickly.

"Don't do that," she warned him. "You could get burnt."

Shizuki pouted. "But you aren't burnt."

"What exactly happened in there?" Irímé asked. "How did you--" He gestured to her wings. "And why are you only half-transformed?"

Abi shrugged. Now that he looked closely Irímé was alarmed to see she looked utterly exhausted, had a bruise on her face, and-- was that blood staining her shoe and trouser leg?

"It's a very long story," she said. "But first I need to see a doctor."

Irímé looked at the blood again. Part of him wanted to give in to panic. He'd never had to deal with any serious injuries before. The other part insisted on looking at the situation logically. "I think you'd better get rid of your wings first. You'll draw too much attention."

Shizuki had spent the last several minutes gazing at Abi's wings with the fascinated intentness of a cat watching a mouse. Now his head snapped round. "Why does she have to get rid of them? They're pretty." He gazed pleadingly up at Abi. "You can fly! You flew!"

Oh no, Irímé thought. I know where this is going.

"Yes," Abi said, bemused.

"Take me flying!"

Irímé face-palmed. I knew it.

Abi shook her head. "That wouldn't be a good idea. My wings... Well, they tend to burn everything they touch."

Irímé took a step back even though he wasn't close enough to be in danger. "Then get rid of them quickly!"

"I can't. I don't know how and I need them to help me walk."

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Like Abihira several minutes earlier Siarvin was taken aback by the state of the hallway. He shuddered as he realised once again how terribly close he'd come to being killed. The thing possessing Ilaran could have torn him apart as easily as it tore the door apart.

How badly was Ilaran injured? No one could have come out unscathed after throwing themselves against a door repeatedly, to say nothing of all the rest of the destruction.

Years and years ago, before everything went to hell and before he even knew of Haliran's existence, Siarvin had visited Aderthril for the first and only time since her marriage. Her pathetic excuse for a husband was away -- "off with one of his whores," Aderthril had said bitterly -- and her son had disappeared. They searched the whole castle for Ilaran -- or Raitálen, as he'd been then. At last Siarvin thought of checking the guest rooms. He opened a door and heard the tell-tale scuffling sound of someone drawing back further into their hiding place. When he knelt down he found a small boy curled into a ball under the bed.

It had been millennia since Siarvin thought of that incident. He remembered how Aderthril had been forced to coax Raitálen out with cake, and how it turned out he was hiding to get out of geography lessons.

Stepping into Ilaran's room felt eerily like a re-enactment of that incident such a very long time ago. Ilaran had been younger then than Shizuki was now, Siarvin remembered. When he knelt down beside the bed he almost expected to see Ilaran as a little boy again. It was almost disorientating to see him as an adult.

"What's wrong?" Siarvin asked quietly.

Ilaran raised his head. In the darkness under the bed it was impossible to tell what his expression was, but Siarvin was almost certain he was crying.

"I can't tell you," Ilaran said in a very quiet, almost choked voice. "I don't want to think about it."

Siarvin was too old to crawl under furniture now. So he settled for the next best thing. "Come here, Raitálen."

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It had been millennia since he last used Ilaran's kelros-name. In fact it had probably been millennia since anyone had used it. The only people who had that right were Ilaran's parents, both long dead, and older relatives who were either dead or barely aware of his existence. Ilaran started at the use of that name. Then, very slowly, he crawled out of his hiding place.

He looked awful. There were bruises all over his face, his hands were bleeding, and there was dried blood all around his mouth. A small part of Siarvin's mind had a panic attack over whose blood that might be and what it meant. He firmly ignored that part. Now was not the time. Not when Ilaran looked even worse than he had when he was literally dead.

Siarvin had never had much experience with comforting people after traumatic events. He made an educated guess based on normal people's interactions and came to the conclusion hugging Ilaran might help, and at any rate was unlikely to make things worse.

Ilaran stiffened when Siarvin first hugged him. For a minute Siarvin worried he'd made a mistake and was actually making things worse. Then Ilaran flung his arms around him and hugged him back -- a little too tightly, but no worse than when Shizuki gave hugs in his snake form.

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It turned out that Abi's wings were not really much help outside the palace grounds. There were too many trees overhanging the path. When she flapped her wings they brushed against the leaves, which immediately went up in flames. It took a lot of panicking and hitting the leaves with Irímé's coat to put them out. Irímé had never had so many near-heart-attacks in such a short time before.

"This is hopeless," he said after the fifth time Abi nearly set a tree on fire. "You'll have to change back. We can help you walk."

It took the combined efforts of Shizuki and Irímé to teach her how to get rid of her wings. Her first attempt went badly wrong. So badly, in fact, that she now had feathers growing out of her face.

Shizuki burst out laughing. Irímé hid a grin behind his hand. If only he had a camera!

"What?" Abi asked, looking offended. "What went wrong?"

Irímé forced his smile off his face. "Never mind. Try again?"

Her second attempt was even worse than her first. Now she had a beak, and feathers covered her neck and arms.

"I think you're going in the wrong direction," Irimé said. "You're turning more and more into a phoenix instead of the other way round."

Abi glared at him. She couldn't speak clearly now, but she did her best. "Listen. I've--" Her voice became indistinct, "--terrible day already and--" Indistinct again, "--no help--" The next part was downright incomprehensible, "--fix it!"

Irímé pieced together what he could understand of that and guessed at the meaning of everything else. "We're trying to help. It's alright, I didn't get it right the first time either."

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Abi was just about at the end of her rope. Her leg was aching, her face was sore, the scratches on her hands were stinging, and now she was forced to rely on her friends' very unhelpful advice while turning more and more into a phoenix against her own will. On its own that situation would have been thoroughly unpleasant. Now, when it came on the heels of seeing her sort-of friend get possessed, nearly getting killed by him, and witnessing him kill someone else... Well, Abi was at the point where exhaustion and stress turned to anger, and the angrier she became the more her control over her magic slipped.

"Try again," Shizuki said once he stopped laughing.

She tried. At once something went wrong. It was as if she'd been keeping a tight hold on her magic without even knowing it. Suddenly her hold slipped. Her eyes widened.

Oh no, she thought.

Then the world disappeared in a blaze of red and orange. Someone screamed in the distance. They seemed to be very far below her. Within seconds their voice faded away. She could hear nothing but the wind whistling past her ears. There seemed to be nothing under her feet. Did she even have feet any more? It felt like she was floating somewhere.

Abi opened her eyes. The ground was far below her. She was above the tallest trees, above the palaces, even above the Silver Palace's watch-tower. From here she could see the entire city and beyond. All the buildings were so small they looked like dolls' houses. The sea sparkled in the distance. A cloud drifted overhead. There was no noise except the wind and nothing near her except a crow flying beneath her. It gave her a bemused look then veered off in a different direction.

Once the surprise wore off Abi realised she should probably be afraid. But the fear didn't come. She had never flown before in her life but somehow she knew exactly what to do. She swooped down towards the ground. It zoomed up to meet her. Two small dots appeared. They grew gradually larger and larger until she could make out Shizuki and Irímé. Both of them gawked at her as if they'd never seen someone turn into a bird before.

Abi landed on the ground where she'd stood a minute ago. To her own surprise she noticed the ground was not burnt this time. It took astonishingly little effort to follow the instructions Shizuki and Irímé had given her earlier. Within minutes she was back in her immortal form.

The pain of her injuries struck her with the force of a freight train. Her anger and exhaustion had disappeared but now they came rushing back. To her own horror she found herself dissolving into tears, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

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Irímé had seen so many strange things lately that Abi fully turning into a phoenix was barely even surprising. When she landed in front of him the main thing he noticed was that only her wings were blue and green. Her body was a mixture of purple and white, her head was orange, the crest of top of her head was golden, and her tail -- a very long train like a peacock's, covered with flames that made it hard to tell where the feathers ended and the fire began -- was blood red. A more chaotic collection of colours could hardly be imagined. No wonder none of the books gave descriptions of what phoenixes looked like.

He was mildly surprised when she turned back into an immortal. And then he was just shocked, because she burst into tears for no apparent reason.

Irímé gawked at her for a minute before his mind caught up with what was happening. He picked up his coat -- rather singed from beating out all those fires -- and draped it over her shoulders.

"What happened?" he asked, alarmed. Was it painful to turn into a phoenix? Had the fire burned her?

Abi shrugged and continued crying. Shizuki turned into his snake form and slithered over to her. He coiled himself around her neck like a scarf. Abi wrapped her arms around him as if he was a pillow and cried into his scales. Irímé awkwardly patted her shoulder. She partly let go of Shizuki to wrap an arm around his waist and pull him down beside her.

If any passers-by had come along they would have been thoroughly confused by the sight of the world's strangest group hug.

Naturally Koyuki picked that exact moment to come on the scene.

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Kitri and the constable set to work on the grave. Within ten minutes they'd dug down to the coffin. Kitri knelt down in the grave and opened the lid. Both of them gasped.

The coffin was empty.

"What do grave-robbers want with a skeleton?" the constable wondered aloud.

Kitri looked around at the other graves. She noticed several that looked like they'd been disturbed recently. A very unpleasant suspicion began to take root.

"Quickly. Help me dig up those graves over there."

It was late afternoon. By the time they opened the other coffins it was almost sunset.

All of the coffins were empty. In the distance there was a faint cracking sound. Kitri looked in several directions before finally realising it was coming from the shrine in the graveyard. She approached it warily, holding her shovel in front of her as a makeshift weapon.

She got close enough to look inside and almost dropped the shovel.

There was a pile of skeletons inside the shrine.

The sun set. One of the skeletons began to move.