Autumn floated in a dark sea.

There was nothing but her in the icy black water. She was the only fish swimming in this bleak ocean. It was a place of power, a darksome realm of forgotten things wedged into the cracks of reality.

Only witches could find this place, as the great shadows welcomed no other.

The waters themselves were heavy like oil and cold like sin, binding her battered body in a shroud of sodden robes as she floated weightless in the dark depth.

Autumn was tired, her mind pressed down by a mountain of exhaustion. The black waters comforted her, sapped away at her plague of emotions till the turbulence of the mind receded and she was left with only a desire to sleep forever.

“Wake up.” A cold voice whispered into her mind.

I’m so tired. Leave me alone.

“Thee shall awake for thee has't much worketh ahead of thee. Doth not forget thee gage. Thine pact.”

Five more minutes.

A cold shock pulsed through Autumn’s soul, forcing her to wakefulness. Even so, it was a struggle to open her eyes.

Slowly, Autumn took in the space she’d found herself in. Above her hung an almost completely clear sheet of ice, reflecting an inversion of the world she’d just left where the shadows now shone with light. To the left and right it extended on without end, only the image above grew blurrier the further out from her entry it got. Somehow, she innately knew that she could exit from any of the lit sections, as long as it wasn’t too blurry.

Looking through the frozen surface, Autumn could see the hag raging as she searched for the missing witch.

It’s all my fault.

The bodies of the others lay scattered like dolls, their dead eyes tracking Autumn as she floated.

Leshana, Vuriac, Bardos, Rarg, Valérie, even Yuupis…I’m sorry. Please forgive me.

“They wast dead the moment the hag tooketh an interest in thee. Doth not lament that monster’s choices, for the faults art not thy own. Only with might can save those how thee care for.”

Autumn started. ‘Banshee?’

“Forsooth. And as much as thy drops of sorrow art worthy of action, peradventure we might abscond lest the hag above spy us in this watery realm?”

Glancing up one final time, Autumn swam away as fast as she could.

However, it didn’t take her all that long to reach a point where the icy sheet above grew too blurry to make anything out beyond it and refused to give when she pressed up against it. Backtracking, Autumn swam back to an earlier point that had cracked under her exploration.

Reluctantly, and with lungs burning, Autumn breached the surface. Immediately, she was best by the chaotic sounds of smashing crystals, baying hounds, and howls of hate.

“Where are you, wretch!!! When I find you, I’ll flay the flesh from your bones!!!”

In a hurry, Autumn dipped back into the shadows that housed the black waters. Thankfully, the hag hadn’t spotted her brief appearance.

Looking across the underside of the icy surface, Autumn saw that the reflection was as blurry as before. It was likely that she needed to exit and re-enter, presumably, she guessed, from another shadow.

Autumn breathed out to calm herself, sending out a plume of bubbles. Reaching upwards, she grasped onto the cracked edges of the dark ocean and pulled herself out of the shadows like some cruel spirit.

Only she had all the grace of a drunk seal.

She didn’t even bother standing up and just slid over to the next shadow on her belly. Focusing, Autumn mimicked the unwitting ritual she’d performed, and as her blood dripped into the darkness below, she fell back into the black water with a soundless splash.

“Tis a strange ability thee harbor.”

‘You’re telling me.’

“...aye?”

‘…’

Autumn swam for hours, only rising to the surface to cross to another shadow. However, sometimes she had no choice but to brave the surface world as the ice sheet became either too cramped by giant clusters of crystals or held no shadows thanks to the way the lantern lights shone through the prisms.

Thankfully, those few times she was creeping through the shiny maze, she went unnoticed. And if it wasn’t for the baying of the crow-hounds growing ever closer, she’d have thought she made a clean escape.

The hunt was still on; an awfully familiar feeling for Autumn.

She kept on running-slash-swimming even as her limbs became lead and her lungs burned like fire.

Autumn knew she was a coward, but for a brief stupid moment, she’d forgotten that. She’d thought she was going to die. Defeating a hag on her lonesome was never in the cards, let alone running with how injured she’d been.

To say she wasn’t afraid at that moment was a horrendous lie. She’d been more afraid than in her entire life.

But, as they say, a cornered rat bites.

Ironically, death itself had burst her bubble of bravery by telling her she could live, that it wasn’t her time. It gave her hope. Hope that turned her burning defiance to aught but ash.

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And now she ran.

But I’ll be back and then you’ll die Mildred.

“Aye! Killeth the hag and salt the crone’s broken bones!”

‘...can you stop reading my mind, please? I was trying to have a moment.”

“...fine.”

Autumn felt the connection recede, and if she didn’t know any better, she’d have sworn the banshee was sulking.

Another long hour passed.

Gasping for air, Autumn desperately hauled herself out of the dark waters on shaking arms and into a dark, lightless tunnel. She’d finally left the crystal cavern behind, and in doing so, put enough distance between herself and the chasing hounds. Now they have to find another way to reach her, and hopefully that’d give her enough of a reprieve to rest and recover.

Autumn lay on her back, sucking down the stale air into her burning lungs. She was exhausted, down to her very core, every part of her shaking with a deep ache. And her stomach did not lag far behind.

An air-splitting growl erupted into the tunnel.

It felt like forever since she’d last eaten. Autumn’s shuddering breaths had died down into a few ragged gasps by now, so she picked herself up, even if it came at the cost of copious amounts of whimpering.

Her pack was battered and waterlogged. Digging through the saturated contents, she found the last of her rations.

Autumn held up a single wax-coated parcel. In it lay a handful of dried—not so much now—mushrooms that were meant to be her dinner. They vanished so fast down her gullet that she thought she might have dropped some, but a cursory feel of the ground revealed nothing remained.

Her water vanished just as quickly. Holding the skin above her mouth shed no more than a few drops.

A wary look was cast in the darkness at where the black water had sat.

Only a fool or the desperate would consider drinking from such.

Autumn gulped.

“...thou art a naive then?”

‘...shut up.’

With a full water-skin, Autumn lay back down on the cold hard ground, far too exhausted to contemplate making herself any more comfortable.

‘You’re awfully chatty now. What gives?’

“...art thou speaking to me? I bethought thou did wish me to ‘shut up’ as 'twere?”

Autumn winced. ‘Sorry. I’m just having a bad day…a really bad day. More like a bad week…month?’

“Dear God. How long have I been here for?”

The banshee shrugged, or at least that’s what it felt like to Autumn. “Who can knoweth? Us Fae—aye dead ones as well—don’t respect things like ‘time’ or ‘causality’. And to answer thy earlier question; I’m ‘chatty’ anon as thou art finally doing something about the hag.”

Autumn barked a harsh laugh. “Doing something?! I got everyone killed.”

“...doth thee wish for the kind forswear, or the cutting sooth?”

‘...what?’

The banshee sighed. “Do you want a kind lie or the cutting truth?”

“Hey, you can speak normally!” At the banshee’s pointed silence, Autumn settled down. “Umm…I’d like a kind lie, but I need the truth. I think I can handle it.”

Autumn braced herself for the dread whisperings of recrimination, to see her self-incrimination validated.

“You hath killed those folk.”

Autumn sucked in a breath as though she’d been punched. She thought she could handle it. She was wrong.

“However,” the banshee continued, “it wast ultimately not thy fault. How wast thee to knoweth the results of those dread-beast’s probing? Others couldst hath instruct’d thee to close off thy mind from prying, myself I doth include. Would thee censure me for mine own inaction as well? Would thee censure the beast? Or the hag for leading thee thither? Would thee censure the dead for dying?”

“Blame helps nobody but thy own ego. What’s done is done. And thee has’t revenge to plot.”

Autumn was silent for a while, tears glittering in her eyes. In her chest, her fragile heart beat anew. She’d never admit how much those words helped. It was not an absolution of her guilt, but it made the burden lighter.

“It wasn’t my fault.” Autumn choked out between her tears and snot. “Not my fault.”

“Indeed, it wast not.” The banshee’s cold voice was a balm upon Autumn’s mind. “Now, what plot hast thee about the hag?”

Autumn slumped.

“What can I do? She almost killed me, and she stole my Tome. I presume you heard what was inside it? If she gets it open, it's all over.”

“Aye. Wonderful, is it not.” The banshee’s cold voice was alight with anticipation and grim victory.

“Wonderful?! How is that wonderful?!” Autumn’s voice came out scratchy and rough as she yelled, having not yet recovered from the spore clouds she’d inhaled. She was worried that it was permanent, although she could admit it gave her a more grizzled, sexy tone. Still she’d rather have her regular voice back.

“I’d better not sayeth,” the banshee replied cautiously. “Many eyes rest upon the outcome of this duel of threes…I hath said too much already.”

“Threes? Whose eyes? What are you talking about? Hey, are you listening?”

Autumn huffed as she got no response.

“Great. Ignored by ghosts once again.”

As she lay back and contemplated her future, as dark as it was, sleep caught her in its grasp. Dreams of kinder places fled after taking one look at Autumn, leaving her poor for their comfort.

Untold hours passed in the dark depths.

Autumn woke up and swiftly wished she hadn’t. Every muscle in her body ached and when she tried to sit up, they seized, leaving her gasping in pain as she lay on the ground with rocks digging into her back.

Not only that, but a murky haze of a fever had descended on her mind overnight, the consequences of swimming through ice-cold waters, then subsequently sleeping in her soaked robes.

To top it all off, her stomach let out a disconnected growl.

Autumn stared up at nothing for a long time.

“Fuuuuck.”

Molten fire raced down Autumn’s limbs as she struggled to rise.

“Fuck!!!”

Once the dizziness abated, Autumn cast a look around her. She saw only darkness.

“Damn. I should have made a deal for some dark vision or something. Someone could have spared some, right?” Autumn muttered to herself.

“That would’ve been wise.”

Autumn jumped. “Fucking hell! Don’t scare me like that!”

“...I bethought thee wast talking to me. Peradventure, wast thee talking to yourself like a moron?” A mocking undead smile crept through the connection.

Autumn blushed. “...shut up.”

“Thee art taking a few too many liberties with me, art thou not?”

An unbidden smile crept across Autumn’s lips. “Well,” she said, “you want me alive till the hag is dead; that practically makes us friends! I can’t even say that for half the people I know. A fifth, maybe? A sixth?”

“...you have a rather depressing life, you know. And I’m dead. So that’s saying a lot.”

“It is what it is. Now, help me find a wall; I want out of this place.”

“‘Sigh’. That was me sighing through the connection just so you know. And it’s to you left. The other left. And watch out for that….rock. Ouch, that looked like it hurt.”

Autumn groaned as she lay on the rocky ground.

“This’ll be a long journey, won’t it? Hey! You’re not speaking Faeish anymore!”

“...‘sigh.’ I should’ve just stayed in the swamp. Grandmother never said anything about this.”