All Gray could see was rushing light, and then all he could see his old study hall, back at his school in Krydon.

Hundreds of kids sat in the rows of desks.

Alistair peered at Gray from across the aisle, leaning back in his chair.

Gray could feel the burn of Alistair’s stare and the ping against Gray’s cheek, as Alistair flicked a tiny piece of scrunched up parchment.

Ignoring him, Gray bent his head over his alchemy text. After all, it was Alistair who had tasked Gray with building the Griffin Feather Flurry for the senior prank and the transformation was beyond complex.

If Gray was going to get it ready in time for the senior prank for Alistair, he needed to focus.

Ping.

A second tiny ball of parchment hit Gray’s temple.

Ping, ping.

‘You know I’m not going to stop,’ said Alistair, ‘until I get your attention.’

Shooting him a hot glance - a can-I-bloody-help-you kind of deal - Gray privately wondered if Alistair had a death wish.

Longwark was supervising the study hall. He patrolled the long spaces between the desks, wearing his two sets of glasses in his wild hair, his protective leather tunics, and an expression that had every single student cowed into silence.

Except Alistair.

‘I completely stand by what I said when I was drunk,’ said Alistair.

Gray frowned and eyed Longwark’s massive back, incredulous that Alistair wanted to risk ticking off Longwark to talk about last night.

‘You were yelling at me,’ said Gray, his voice lowered furiously, ‘about how we don’t deserve sheep dogs.’

‘Listen. We live in a cruel world that’s dark and angry. Have you seen sheep dogs, Gray? They’re soft and fluffy and pure.’

‘Old man Tanner’s isn’t … are you crying?’

‘They’re entirely too pure for this ugly world. We must protect them.’

‘Are you still drunk?’

Alistair sighed. ‘A little bit.’

Gray rustled through his bag when Longwark reached the far side of the hall and was busy helping Rowan Conn with his work. He slapped a sober tonic into Alistair’s rough palm.

Alistair downed it in one. ‘You’re such a mother hen.’

‘That’s right. I’m the mother hen, and you, my drunk son, concern me. You bring great shame to our family.’

‘How much ale do you think Longwark can handle?’ said Alistair.

‘More than you,’ said Gray. ‘This is why you fail classes and your stat score is so embarrassing.’

‘Sshh. I’m going to ask Longwark a question.’

Gray's eyebrows shot up and he leant close to Ali. ‘You better not be asking him how much ale he can handle - Ali - seriously-’

Longwark spotted Alistair’s hand waving in the air. His intense ice-grey eyes narrowed. He was so damn smart, he smelt a rat even from the far side of the room.

Gray hastily stopped whispering and slouched low in his chair as Longwark approached, desperately wishing he could evaporate on the spot.

‘Yes?’ said Longwark, looming over Alistair.

Gray trained his gaze down onto his desk and moved his chair away slightly.

‘I’m having trouble with the firebreath theory, sir,’ said Alistair.

‘Are you wasting my time right now?’ Longwark levelled Alistair with a glare. ‘Firebreath composition is so easy a child could do it with their eyes closed. Are you more stupid than a child, Alistair Keep?’

Alistair hesitated. Gray darted a glance at him. His cheeks were flushing red and the other kids around had completely stopped all work to watch.

‘Well, that’s just it, sir. What happens when you try firebreath, sir?’

‘What?’

‘What happens when a mage like you creates firebreath - compared to someone like-’ Alistair reached across and casually slapped Gray on the shoulder ‘-say, Gray here?’

Gray was frozen in his chair, the spot on his shoulder where Alistair had slapped burning. He slowly lifted his gaze to Longwark, aghast.

Longwark huffed, blowing wild straggles of his grey hair out of his face. ‘If you had half a brain to rub between the two of you, you’d know that any mage can use his magic to alter the effects of any alchemical transformation.’

‘So, sir - in theory - someone powerful, like Wilde, could turn firebreath into a month of fire and heat? Or he could transform it into a firebeast?’

The whole study hall, as one, tensed. If Longwark was the tinderbox, the mention of Wilde or Krupin was the flame.

Gray closed his eyes and waited for the blow to fall.

‘Alistair, if - in reality - someone idioctic, like you, can turn a single study hall session into a week of detentions,’ said Longwark softly, looking down at Alistair and Gray as though they were something disgusting stuck to the bottom of his shoe, ‘anything is possible. Congratulations, boys. My office, after school.’

Longwark moved away.

‘Are you crazy?’ hissed Gray.

Alistair grinned, like he hadn’t just gotten a week’s worth of detentions, because he was damn crazy.

‘That was Longwark’s way of saying yes,’ whispered Alistair. ‘Yes, a mage could turn firebreath into a firebeast. Or, if you applied it to a similar situation, turn a Griffin Feather Flurry into something enormous.’ He paused. ‘You know what I’m getting at here?’

Yes, because Alistair had the subtlety of a hammer, and because he consistently overestimated Gray’s abilities - which wasn’t hard, but it was annoying because Gray’s abilities were nothing.

Less than nothing.

So nothing they were in the negative.

He wasn’t going to be turning a Griffin Feather Flurry into anything more than a senior prank, and it was going to be by pure alchemy.

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No magic, no mage rubbish.

Alchemy.

Gray’s cheeks were hot. His voice came out, full of disbelief. ‘You just baited Longwark.’

Longwark swivelled on the spot, half a hall away, as though magically called by the merest whisper of his name. He seemed to draw closer, though he hadn’t moved.

Gray froze, pinned in his chair by Longwark’s stare.

‘Are you still talking after I just gave you and your idiotic stepbrother a week's worth of detentions, Griffin?’

There was no answer for this. Gray winced, bracing for the inevitable.

Longwark roared, shouting loud enough for the whole of Krydon to hear, gave Gray a hundred lines on top of his detentions, and kicked him out of study hall. Gray had to stand outside the door for an hour.

---

Gray hadn’t expected death to include someone muttering murderously nearby in a northern dialect just similar enough to the one he spoke so that he could understand the important stuff.

‘ … destroy you for bleeding all over my sleeves …’

‘ … feast on your pathetic heart …’

‘ … go, miserable mortal, and I will bring you back to life to hack you apart …’

Nor did he expect death to include so much all-consuming pain.

And he absolutely did not expect it - when he clawed his eyes open against what seemed a decade’s worth of dried crust - to have a fae leaning over him, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else.

The illustrations of fae in the books in the school library had been beautiful and otherworldly. Terrifying.

And they entirely missed out on the way fae smiled with too many teeth.

The ice of the fae’s gaze.

How the fae postured their shoulders, to scream lethal and untouchable, like a warning.

And how the sensation of their magic crawled over and under your skin at the same time.

The faintest traces of dark veins branched underneath the fae’s skin like roots from a decaying tree, on his neck, face, and on his long fingered hands. His black hair was braided back and long enough to touch the ground.

The fae was barely lit by the dim light of a lantern set into the ceiling above them - he was inside somewhere, Gray realised - and the fae sat on the edge of Gray’s cot as though it might contaminate him.

‘I was told,’ said the fae, in resentful Lismerian and his too-many teeth on display in a forced smile, ‘that smiling puts human young at ease.’

His smile was the kind of smile that was aggressively pasted on the face of someone filled with rage, but bitterly trying to hide it,

Gray couldn’t have replied if he wanted to.

His tongue was utterly dry.

He curled his aching fingers into the rough cotton sheets beneath him, glancing down at his body. His two feet, two legs, one middle, two arms, hands, hands that worked …

Alive. Whole. But burning.

Even his nostrils burned.

Bleach.

Ammonia.

Vinegar.

The scent of a physician’s ward. A hospital.

But, the light flickering from the lantern showed only a cold concrete floor. No windows at all.

This was no hospital.

Stop smiling, Gray wanted to tell the fae.

But, surely that would be too rude, and while he barely knew anything about fae, he knew enough to not go around offending them.

That, and the fact that the fae was talking - and his robe was whispering as it swept over the concrete floor, the sigh of his leather bag opening wide at the foot of Gray’s bed - had to mean something good.

Right?

Elona had once said: You only hear fae when they want you to hear them.

Said fae was picking through the vials and pouches in his large leather bag at the end of Gray’s cot. Slowly, he pulled out a silky cloth.

A vent whistled beside Gray, set in the concrete wall. Cool air slithered over him.

His breath was shallow.

The fae moved up to Gray’s head and was dabbing at it with a cold cloth.

‘Do not be worried,’ said the fae. ‘If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t be wiping drool off your worthless chin right now.’

Fear inched through Gray.

Achingly slow.

He was in a cell. Iron bars allowed him to see into the next cell and the next, and the next.

Only the end one was occupied.

Killian was slumped in the corner, his uniform in tatters, and dark with old blood.

He was destroyed.

And stiff enough to be a corpse.

There was no rise of his chest, not that Gray could make out in the shadowy light.

His stomach turned, and for a second, he was in real trouble.

Do not throw up in front of a fae.

‘This is not your habitat,’ said Gray hoarsely, his voice rough.

The concrete floors. Iron bars. Fae needed forests and sky. Earth and water.

The fae stilled for the smallest moment. His dangerous gaze met Gray’s.

‘Nor yours,’ said the fae.

Finished with Gray’s face, the fae carefully examined a lethal looking metal instrument from his bag.

‘I have given you many potions,’ said the fae, ‘of my own creation. While you take them your heart will not beat beyond what is healthy for a human, and nor will the fog of human concerns cloud your mind to the point of irrationality.’

The fae was using the lethal looking instrument to do something to the bottom of Gray’s foot. He could feel tugging, as though the fae was cleaning a gash on the bottom of Gray's sole.

‘I tell you this,’ said the fae, ‘because, aside from needing you unexploded, my lady is most - ah - upset. It is important you do not upset her further. You killed her son. The inner circle of her son's crew. You destroyed a large part of the city she calls home. She has been forced out of retirement to deal with infighting amongst her son’s remaining men.’

With a huge effort, Gray sat up. His joints groaned, his body shook. He gripped his hair - long, dark tangles - as his mind pieced everything together.

Silk.

His crew.

Exploded?

He’d wrecked Sirentown? Part of it?

Killed people?

‘If you feel the effect of any of my potions waning,’ said the fae, ‘you must tell me. I will not suffer my lady’s displeasure as I have suffered it over the past three days for not being able to repair her son.’

Gray’s breath wasn’t working.

The fae tilted his head. ‘Such as now,’ he said coldly. ‘This is an example of when you should tell me.’

The fae grabbed a potion from his leather bag.

‘Believe me,’ said the fae, ‘ordinarily, a human using his power to explode himself to explode more humans is something I’d thoroughly support.’

He gestured for Gray to take the potion with a cool, long fingered hand.

Gray obeyed in a daze.

‘As it is, I need you to not do it again. Until you’re out of my care. Then you may explode as much as you want. Indeed, I encourage it.’

‘Explode?’ said Gray.

The fae surveyed him. This close, Gray could see every detail of his dark veins underneath his skin. The wisps of black hair at his temples, that were too short to be neatly braided back. ‘What do you think happened?’

Gray’s hand was in his hair again, fisted tight. He stared down at his knees, exhaustion and confusion and an overwhelming desire to puke warring within him.

The fae let out a small breath of contempt, just loud enough to ensure Gray could hear.

‘I scraped your blood off the cobblestones,’ said the fae. ‘I picked your flesh from the wreckage. I gathered your spilled organs from the street. Perhaps, I even salvaged your puny human soul from the air, though I would not presume to know the mysteries of here-’ he tapped his fingertip onto Gray’s chest, his heart, and it was the lightest shiver of a touch ‘-and what lies beyond.’

The shadows from the lantern were making the fae’s hard gaze grow colder.

‘I sewed you back together,’ said the fae, ‘as one might patchwork beasts’ skins into a cloak. So that my lady might profit. Rip yourself apart like that again, however, and even the skill of the fae will not save you.’

This was a lot to process, least of all the implication that Gray had died, and then been healed by a fae.

‘You said,’ said Gray, his voice rasping against his dry throat, ‘your lady …’

Because, as much as the fact that he’d been healed by a fae was beyond Gray’s ability to process right now, the thought that someone had bound a fae to serve them, was inconceivable.

Then, a thought gradually ticked over.

A lick of fear.

‘Your lady’s profit?’ whispered Gray.

Because suddenly everything was sliding into place, answers were slotting into the blank spaces in Gray’s mind.

He was being held by the poachers.

The same group of poachers that had cornered him and Killian in that narrow alley.

And they had enough power to have bound a fae to them.

The fae paused and gave Gray the kind of look that would freeze the bravest soul’s insides. Slowly, he pulled a folded piece of parchment out of his pocket.

It was the Othoan Wanted Poster.

The one Killian had shown Gray in Krydon.

The one with Gray’s face on it, in the menacing snarl.

‘Yes,’ said the fae. ‘My lady has buyers for you.’ His head was dipped, as though deep in thought. ‘I think humans call them bounty hunters.’