Don't Look Back: Black Dragon, #1

By Danielle Linder

There have always been cracks in reality, gaps between worlds where things can slip from one to another. Lia and Azarol both know it; they've both seen what can happen when you open a doorway to the Outside.

 

Most of the time, unless you open a door on purpose, nothing too dangerous comes through those cracks, but sometimes.. sometimes something does. And it is just possible that Mephistos, the Red Dragon King is not the most dangerous thing to slide into the universe recently - even if he is trying to destroy the world (or take it over). Which no one seems to be quite certain of, anyway.

 

Still, stopping him is important. Definitely. Almost as important as surviving, and not being consumed by eldritch horrors from outside the universe. It's a quest for the ages. Even if the way to Stop the Red Dragon might involve giving his elder brother the power to take over the world instead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Danielle Linder
• Release date: Jan 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9781922962003

Book preview

Prologue

Lucienn blinked, then blinked again and looked suspiciously into his cup. His brother threw good parties, certainly, but even the best mead didn't usually hit him this hard. He rolled the flavour on his tongue, honey–sweet and bitter with herbs, and considered the way the feasting hall had gone suddenly out of focus.

This cannot be good, he said, mostly to himself.

It wasn't good. Math was the only one of them even half alert when the attack came, his elemental shape flowing over him like a river of white feathers, and that included the guards. Quin's hand–picked palace guard, who were, to a man, asleep at their posts. Or dead. A good number of them were dead, throats slit, and Lucienn could smell the blood all the way from the high table.

He was never certain, afterwards, exactly what the order of events was. Quin woke up and summoned the waves of the bay to flood the palace; the attackers broke down the brass doors, and streamed in, armoured and armed; Mephistos melted a hole in the floor. One of Math's students began to sing the world into a different shape, and took an arrow to the throat for his trouble. There were too many of them, well prepared and well–armed, and already inside the fortified palace that should have been safe. Most of the Aogun's court were comatose, the others unbalanced and fighting their own drugged reflexes as much as their enemies. They were losing the battle before they really understood that they were fighting one – and then someone tore open a hole in reality, a gaping, hungry tear in the world, and he was falling.

Lucienn understood, in that endless second of falling backwards, exactly what had happened. Was happening. Would happen. He understood the planning that had to have gone into this coup, the power behind it. The desire for power behind it. He watched a masked warrior shove a spear through his brother's gut, watched the blood pour out in slow motion as the White Dragon sang his death–curse onto his attacker and bought time for a few of his children to shapeshift and scatter through the open windows. Lucienn's cry of pain for the death of his little brother merged with Quin's bellow of rage, and Mephistos' scream of furious denial.

Quinlong manifested the Pearl, calling on it to shelter his people, and Lucienn saw greed gleaming in the eyes of the army overrunning them, saw its leaders coveting the dragon–magic of the Tarrasque. Oryu added her voice to the cacophony, calling the Orb to her even as the void pulled her into the dark. Mephistos' Flute and the fish–hook he called the Fang were nowhere to be seen, but neither was Meph, now, or his three disciples. Maybe they'd escaped in the chaos. Maybe not.

It didn't matter. Not one of the Tarrasque would work on its own for anyone but its true master – but all of them together? That was a different story. So it didn't matter if Meph was free or not, it didn't matter who the traitor was, and it didn't even matter that he was falling. The Luckstone had to go. Somewhere far away, where no one would ever find it, and nothing that dwelled int he Dark could take it. And so Lucienn opened a door in reality, in that second he had to do anything at all, and he tossed the Luckstone through it.

And he fell. Endlessly, into the dark.

Chapter 1: Chance Encounter

Lia glanced up, and blinked. The alleyway was unfamiliar, not the same one that she had walked into a minute before.

Shit, she muttered, and tucked her phone into a pocket. What now?

Midsummer wasn't a good time to be distracted. The Otherworld was too close to the surface, brushing along reality like some sort of metaphysical cat on a catnip high. A night like this and almost anything could be a threshold, an opening for the wild magic to push and pull and make trouble – which, apparently, it had.

Lia sighed and looked up plaintively. "It couldn’t have been someone else? Anyone else? Why is whatever's going on my problem again?"

A stray breeze ruffled her hair with the scent of roses and frangipani, and an edge of forest–fire smoke. The distant bass thump of club music drifted out from somewhere out of sight, and this could be anywhere. Anywhere in the southern hemisphere, at least, since it was definitely still midsummer. Lia shivered, feeling magic gathering and rising like a spring tide, no longer catlike unless the cat was something the size of a tiger and even less safe to play with. Wild magic tingled along her skin, fizzing like sherbet before a thunderstorm, raising goosebumps.

It wasn't enough to make Lia want to play along with whatever misfortunate coincidence had put her in the path of Events, but it made her hesitate. Just for a second, wondering what was out there in the dark lending the summer air the scent of mead and apples and old, wild magic that lingered on the back of her tongue. Just long enough to hear the murmur of voices from the darkness at the end of the alleyway, oddly muffled, and feel the bite of curiosity about the taste of power simmering in the air, petrichor and incense.

And that’s why it’s my problem, she muttered.

Lia glanced in the other direction, at the muddled orange shadows of old–fashioned sodium street–lights reaching into the alley, but she already knew she wasn't going to walk away.

She slinked further into the alleyway, closer to the voices. It was barely magic at all to fade into the shadows, even in a red silk dress and spike–heeled boots. More a way of moving, the slip and sidle of a city–dwelling predator, and an awareness of how light would fall on her. Although there was magic to it, too. Lia could have prowled the back alleys of any city, and drawn exactly as much attention as she wanted to draw. Which, right now, was absolutely none. Carefully unobtrusive, she stalked closer to the murmured discussion.

There were two distinct voices, both layered with too much power and otherness to be human. Lia narrowed her eyes and stared into the alleyway, where she could just make out two figures in the shadows, trying to resolve words from the soft mutter of conversation and the distant, thumping bass.

A low, musical voice said, Are you sure? Twelve hours isn't long.

The words echoed with power like whispering thunder and the promise of storms. Lia paled and leaned into the wall, wondering just who she was eavesdropping on. And if it was too late to change her mind and retreat without being noticed.

As the second voice spoke, Lia forgot to breathe for a handful of seconds. It was cultured and very slightly accented, smooth as whiskey and dark chocolate. It was also very, very familiar, even if she hadn't heard it in a more than a century.

Give or take, yes. Sunrise to sunset.

Lia swallowed, and eased backwards along the wall. It shouldn't be possible. The owner of that voice couldn't possibly be here, in a back alley of some random city in the mortal world. It didn't matter which city, she no longer gave a damn that this was most certainly not Buenos Aires, and she had no idea where she was. It just wasn't – there was no way that he could have found some way to crawl back into the world, or someone else daft enough to call his name and summon him from the void outside the universe with salt and fire and blood. It couldn't be happening.

And yet. Possible or not, there was no mistaking that voice. The Black Dragon was here, and he wasn't someone Lia wanted to risk being caught listening in on. Especially not after she had called him out of the void, more than once, and then sent him back to it when Judas caught her casting the summoning. Closed the circle and scoured the ground, and endured being yelled at for being the idiot that she had been. Because she had. She liked to think that she wasn't anymore.

Lia eased backwards, thinking quiet, small thoughts and wishing she had in fact chosen to just walk away instead of taking the lure that the magic had offered her. Smoke and the scent of jasmine caught in her mouth, and her ankle wobbled on an uneven piece of ground. She wished that she was less drunk. And almost anywhere else.

The first voice spoke again, a rumble of distant thunder under the words, I don't think anyone will be sending assassins after you from Outside, Luci.

No, but you're assuming that the others aren't out yet. And that Ory didn't hate me enough that – well, don't discount the Flower–Bearer's people, once they find out I’m here. Or the Aogun's clansfolk. I'll speak with them if I can, but it's a lot, Tal. Them, as well as the vipers currently running the Court. Who've been trying to summon me for the last three days, so at least they'll be willing to talk.

They're not all bad, for vipers. And it is at least partially my fault; I may have suggested that only you could fix this.

They're not all good either. I'm entitled to a little vengeful ranting and sarcasm. Especially if I'll have to be nice to the arrogant twats.

You only have to be marginally polite, Luci. I'm sure political blackmail would probably have been easier, but it's too late for that now.

Probably. The whiskey and chocolate voice of the Black Dragon hesitated, then added with obvious amusement, Political manoeuvring isn't nearly as effective if you don't have the power to back it up, though, Tal. Old fashioned non–political blackmail is more my idiom.

Far too much sneaking and spying, said the thunder and petrichor voice. I’d rather convince them to try for one another’s throats, and that it was their own idea. He paused, and Lia could almost hear his grin as he added, Although I may not be as flush with influence and allies as normal; Marued's son is less than pleased with me.

What did you do? Tell me it was something good to get that pretentious ass annoyed.

I thought you liked that pretentious ass, Luci?

Never said I didn't. He's still a pretentious ass, though. You know he’s the one who drugged the Aogun’s guards?

I suspected, but blame went to Modren and Varog, and I could never be sure.

Lucienn chuckled, an oddly flat sound as if the laughter were less than entirely amused, and said, They were involved, too. Or Modren was at least. Tell me what you did, Tal. Was it something good?

I told him a truth he didn't want to hear. And I had the bad grace not to soften the blow with gifts, though he implied that I should. Of course he would be less embarrassed if he hadn’t tried to simply take what he wanted, and failed. Publicly.

The Black Dragon's laughter was rich and warm, almost touchable. Lia shivered and took another careful step backwards along the wall, keeping her weight on the balls of her feet to avoid scraping her heels on the concrete. She lost track of the conversation for a few seconds as she put her foot down on a miraculously unbroken glass bottle and reeled sideways to keep her balance and keep from breaking it.

The bottle skittered across the alley, quiet against the background noise of the city but still louder than she would have liked, and Lia caught herself on the wall, heart pounding.

The first voice, the one she didn't recognise, murmured, A few days, then. You know how to reach me.

Lia edged another step backwards, then froze as the speaker added, Don't be too harsh. She's been trying to leave since she got close enough to realise who she was spying on.

Lia's heart thumped with a surge of adrenaline, and her boots creaked softly as she shifted position.

I know, said the Black Dragon, and he turned to look at Lia. 

He shouldn't have been able to see her in the dark, even with the sharpened senses of the world's biggest apex predator. She should have been far enough away by now that he couldn't just look up and see her. But then, she should have been too far away to overhear the quietly murmured conversation, too. Magic, making everything more difficult than  it should be. Lia wiped a sweaty palm on the hem of her dress and tried to be very still and quiet. She looked around, hunting for an escape route, but the street seemed just as far away as it had been before she started trying to retreat. The breeze stirred, hot, sluggish air which smelled of rain and dust and midsummer. A subtle wash of traffic sounds faded into static in the distance, and somewhere a night–flowering jasmine was throwing pheromones into the air.

You can come out now, said the Black Dragon's whiskey and chocolate voice, much closer than it had been.

Lia glanced up, shaken. She had lost seconds to the smell of the air, the billions of stars painted in a watercolour smear across the sky which burned to her inner sight like cold fire. A little way up the alley, a single shadow stood looking up at the sky. The other man was gone.

I didn't hear anything worth repeating, said Lia. She could feel her heart pounding, and it seemed much too loud. He could probably hear it, too.

Liar. The Black Dragon's dark chocolate voice held a smile, and his power flicked lazily across her skin, raising goosebumps.

He looked directly at her, making eye contact in spite of the dark. Lia pushed away from the wall, unwilling to show weakness.

"Nothing I would repeat, then. We could just pretend I was never here, she offered uneasily. I shouldn't have been here at all."

That much is true, he said, But I don't think I want you to leave, Lianan.

She almost staggered at the wash of glamour that hit her as he flared his aura, a bird of prey mantling and resettling its wings. It felt like heat, shimmering across her brain, and Night help her, she still liked it. A lot. Lia took a shaky breath and dug her fingernails into her palms.

Her voice sounded steadier than she felt as she ground out, Stop it.

The Black Dragon gave her a crooked smile, and she felt some of the heat, the pressure, recede.

Apologies. Is this better? His voice still teased her senses with the heat of his power, like warm syrup running across her skin.

Lia took a quick breath, resisting the urge to step backwards. She tried to still the trembling in her knees and the slow hot flush creeping up her throat.

All of it. Please. Put it away. Anyone would think you were Accubae yourself.

Are you sure I'm not? He asked, and the teasing trail of heat followed the sound of his voice – deliberate, this time, she thought – lingering along her skin.

Lia shivered. She said, You weren't, before. Maybe you are, now; maybe you're just – it doesn't matter. Either way, stop it. I don't want to fight with you, or with whoever summoned you, but this won't end well if you keep pushing me.

Mostly for me, she thought, but she didn’t say it.

Fighting wasn't what I had in mind.

Then stop playing games.

He shrugged slightly, and said, As you wish.

Lia felt the glamour slip away in a sudden release of pressure, leaving the night clearer. She took a deep breath, feeling her hands shake with the aftereffects of adrenaline and terror and desire, and leaned on the wall behind her. Thank you.

He tilted his head slightly, and said, "Why are you here, Lianan? Not that it's not good to see you, but it is unexpected. Why this city, and why tonight?"

I could ask you the same question. I could be anywhere; you.. I didn't even know there was another book like the one I used.

No one summoned me.

You got out on your own, she said, softly disbelieving, Or.. in, I suppose. I thought that was supposed to be impossible. She shivered. It’s just you, right? Can I ask how long it's been?

You can ask. I might even give you an answer, if you have something to trade for it. But you first, Lianan – you were the one spying on a private conversation.

Night only knows. I didn't mean to intrude, and I certainly didn't know it was you. It was just – magic, on midsummer, and I was curious. She shrugged, self deprecatingly. I still have bad habits. Curiosity will get me killed one of these days. If I'd known it was you –

You would still have listened in, just a little more carefully. And I would still have heard you. And I would still be asking you, why are you here, why this city, tonight?

I told you, wild magic. I don't even know what city I'm in.

He raised one eyebrow.

Lia gave him a wry little smile and said, I wasn't paying attention, and the paths shifted under me. It's a bit of a pain, actually. I was meant to be meeting a friend tomorrow, in London. A photographer. I'll have to reschedule, work out how to get there from here. Wherever here is.

He started to laugh, a rich mellow sound full of genuine amusement. Lia frowned at him.

"What? Modelling is hardly the sort of licentious act it used to be, and I like cameras. It's still art."

I am sorry, sweetness. I'd be the last to claim that photography isn't art; I'm not laughing at you, just at the world in which we find ourselves. The coincidence.. it would be hilarious.

Coincidence?

Earlier tonight, before my brother called me, I was speaking to someone about possibly modelling for a series of pictures I have in mind. We were going to meet for tea. Tell me, where were you meeting this friend of yours?

In Camden. A place called the Black Dragon Teahouse. Lia looked at him with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach and said, Seriously?

The irony never struck you?

No. She shrugged. You've been locked Outside with the monsters for close to a thousand years. I called you the one time –

Liar.

Alright, more than once. Whatever. I was a stupid changeling, and it was a long time ago. Her tone turned joking as she added, You never call, you never write, why would I assume anything?

Lia stopped talking as the dragon smiled and stepped closer.

He said, I told you then, you could call me again if you wanted to, but you never did. I would have written long since, once I got out, if I'd known you missed me.

I – How long have you been here, really? She stepped back along the wall, widening the distance between them, avoiding the implied question.

Almost five years.

Lia nodded and edged backwards again. "And is it just you?"

Lucienn's eyes gleamed in the darkness. My various siblings have taken longer finding their way through the cracks, he said. I wouldn’t know about anything else coming through.

Well. Five years. Lia blinked slowly, filing that information away to inspect later. She carefully reeled in the straying strands of her magic, teased out by conversation and the solstice high, and slid her way sideways along the wall, away from the dragon. That's.. congratulations? I'm sure that's long enough to have things going on. Important things that have nothing to do with me. I should go.

No, said Lucienn, and two quick strides forward brought him close enough to touch. He swept his arms up on either side of her, leaning into her personal space. Not yet. We – I have things to do, tonight, but don’t go yet, Lianan.

Lia's breath hitched as she pressed back against the wall. She could feel his presence, warm and dark and powerful. What do you want, Lucienn?

She was whispering. She didn't want to be whispering, but she was, turning the question into a shared secret.

He leaned closer, not actually touching her but pressing his aura against hers, and murmured softly, I would have contacted you, truly, if I thought for a moment that you would welcome it, Lianan. But you always have been good at dissembling without lying; I believed you’d changed your mind. I should have realised that it was you.

What was me? she breathed, confused.

My model, who lives in London most of the time, loves cinnamon in anything, argues about art history, and knows me as Cipher. Who smells like she wants to stay, even though she knows she should leave. Who called me friend not a minute ago. I don't have enough of those that I shouldn't recognise one, even wearing masks and a false name.

Lia shivered again, although the midsummer night air was still hot and humid, smelling of dust and spices.

Turns out I didn't know this Cipher fellow as well as I thought, she said, a rueful smile twitching at her lips. It's always a risk, meeting people off the internet. It's all masks and false names.

Do you still want to have tea with me? No obligations, just tea. I know a place here that does masala chai as good as anything you'll find in Camden. It's even called the Black Dragon Teahouse, just like the original.

I thought you had things to do tonight.

I do, he said, and paused to smirk at her, But I'd hate to miss an appointment, leave a poor impression.

That's not for hours. It's not even sunrise. And neither of us is in London.

I promise not to bore you, if you'll stay. He smiled again, and ran a fingertip down the side of her face. Lia swallowed, leaning involuntarily into the touch. I do have an errand to run first, but it won't take long. You could come with me?

It took Lia a moment to find her voice before she said, What if I have other plans?

Lucienn grinned, The Lords have invoked a summoning to request my presence. You don't want to attend?

Lia blinked, surprised, Why would they summon you now? After five years?

That, I don't know yet, exactly. I have some thoughts, but I know nothing for certain. Come and find out with me? It’ll be fun.

The smell of blood and magic stained the air for blocks around the hotel, sinking slowly into the streets and merging with the dreaming power of the land underneath, drifting out to sea along the riverbed where muddy water rose and fell with the tides of the ocean. Lia trailed after the Black Dragon as he strode purposefully towards the main doors, standing open but unattended in the dark.

Why am I doing this? she murmured, more than half rhetorical. She knew why, she just didn’t like the answer.

You’re curious, said Lucienn, glancing back at her. And you like me. Even if you think you shouldn’t. I’m not offended; you’re probably right.

Lia scowled at his back.

Stop being reasonable, she said. How am I meant to remember that you’re some sort of cosmic horror if you make more sense than most humans, never mind the rest of us?

That’s my secret ploy, Lia. You’re meant to forget that part entirely, he said, and Lia couldn’t tell if he was joking or being absolutely serious.

She shivered as a chill crawled down her spine. Right. I also forget that you and Judas really would get along like the pair of wolves you both are. Or hate one another on sight.

Lucienn flashed a grin at her as he led the way into the hotel. I’ll take that as a compliment either way.

Inside, the hotel lobby was lit up with balls of coloured foxfire and gently glowing flowers, blooming from vines that crept along the walls and up the pillars. Where there should have been carpet, instead a deep, velvety layer of moss softened the ground, and fireflies glittered in the air and across the ceiling. None of the lights would show from outside, of course; they only existed inside the threshold. The Liosa would have made certain of that.

Lia wrinkled her nose at the courtiers of the Fair Folk, drifting languidly along the corridors and gathered in small knots to gossip in corners, glamorous and beautiful and otherworldly. They made everything around them seem brighter just by being there, their hair long and flowing, or sculpted into horns or halos or fantastic artworks, their clothes ranging from French couture in silk and velvet to nothing more than paint and tangled elflocks and the scent of flowers. They made Lia's skin crawl. Leaning into the shadows in between, the Formori were subtler, all long coats and club–wear, although some of them dressed like Russian royalty of a few centuries back as well. All of them were old powers, not the baby vampires or elflings she sometimes ran into at dance clubs or raves.

I really don't think I should be here, said Lia quietly to the dragon, although she didn't stop following him.

Lucienn lifted two cut crystal glasses of golden wine from a platter as they strode past, and offered one to her.

Relax, he said. None of them can see us.

Lia took a gulp of overly sweet wine. Glamours are like air to these people. Are you really that good?

He just smirked at her.

Lia sighed, and said, Of course you are. What proper wolf isn't? Never mind. What do they see, then? Flying wine glasses?

They won't notice the wine. They might see a stray feather from one of those wraps, or a breeze shifting a curtain. And that's the observant ones.

Lia asked quietly, Were you always this good at glamours?

Lucienn chuckled and said just as quietly, Always is a long time, Lia. I had to learn it just like everyone else, but I do have something of a talent for illusion. Opener of Ways, remember; you can hardly specialise in opening doors without learning a bit of misdirection and a bit of lock–picking. And I did have a good long time to practice, uninterrupted.

So why let me see or hear you, before? You could have let me walk past without noticing you at all.

Same reason we're sneaking in here even though they called me.

Alright, I'll bite. What's the reason, why the stealthy entrance?

To see what they're up to, he murmured.

Lia pulled a skeptical face, and followed Lucienn further into the hotel.

Sure, she said after a suitable pause. It was completely, one hundred percent on purpose. Dark lord bullshit, to be expected from a cosmic horror. You absolutely weren't just curious to see who'd noticed you.

Lucienn laughed at that, but didn't answer.

Their path wound through various hallways, all of them spiked with enough layers of misdirection, illusion and glamour to make even Lia feel a little dizzy. The hallways were elegantly done, textured with movement until it was impossible to tell where the real decor stopped and the glamour started. Lia pitied any mortal wandering in. She felt a creeping horror as the glamours turned to something more real as they moved further in, evergreen winter trees that hadn't grown in even the furthest reaches of the European mountains in centuries or even tens of centuries, and snow crunching underfoot like broken glass.

These are Koralin's woods, she hissed. A mortal hotel is one thing, even one crawling with Liosa, but this? I didn't agree to this.

I'm fairly sure you didn't actually agree to come at all, you just followed me while you were arguing about it.

Lia didn't dignify that with a response, mostly because he was right. She did stop moving though, and said, I'm not going into the woods with you, Lucienn.

He smirked at her again. My, how big your eyes are, Red Riding Hood. And you calling me a wolf, at that.

Lia glared at him and shook her head.

She said, "I don't care what you are, Lucienn. These are Koralin's woods, I'm not going in."

It's not much further, he said, quiet and serious, just to the edge of the Otherworld, Lia. It's politics. Koralin won't leave her forests, so she brings them with her. Unless the faction leaders want to piss her and the neutrals off by calling the Host to the Mountain.

Lia dug her heels in, shaking her head, and said, You can't just drag me into La Belle Dame's house uninvited, not even the edges of it. Seriously, she knows me, she's kin, and she knows that I know better. She'll eviscerate me.

He grinned sideways at her and said, We're not in her house, not even the Woods precisely, and we're not going in. The edge of the forest is common ground, even when it's Koralin's forest. Besides, you just complimented my glamours; I can make sure they won't ever see you unless you want them to. Even La Belle Dame herself, I've done it before. And if they do see you, well. They summoned me, Lia, they can damn well tolerate whatever company I choose to keep. You want to know what they want just as much as I do, don't deny it.

Lia frowned at him, but she started moving again, reluctantly following the dragon deeper into the woods.

Chapter 2: The Dawn Court

Melanie opened her eyes slowly, confused for a long moment. She couldn't find any familiar reference points, any way to recognise where she was. Not in her bed, definitely. Not anywhere she knew, not in her house or well–tended garden. She wouldn't be sleeping in the garden, obviously; grown up people didn’t do that, didn't lie down to nap in the warm, soft earth in amongst the agapanthus and the rosemary, no matter how appealing it might seem. But also, she definitely wasn't there. The light was dim and coloured like fairy lights, and she was slumped, half–sitting and half–leaning against a metal pole in some sort of courtyard or atrium, an indoor not–quite–garden with plants in pots and giant sculptural artworks which didn’t make sense. All around her were people in strange, elaborate clothes and half–masks, like something from a movie set or a fancy dress party, all of them ignoring her, their faces turned aside, eyes sliding away before she could catch anyone's gaze.

One of the oddly dressed people glanced at her for a moment as she shifted, and Melanie sucked a startled breath at the sight of glowing, garnet–red eyes behind the ornate half–mask before they looked away, uninterested. She sat up, realising as she did that her hands were cuffed behind her, tethering her to the pole she was leaning on. Melanie blinked and looked around a little frantically, trying to stay calm through the sudden spike of adrenaline in her veins, better than caffeine for being suddenly and completely awake.

Don’t panic, she muttered, her chest tight and her breath coming too fast. Just breathe, don’t panic. This is fine.

It sounded like good advice. Not easy to follow, but probably good.

The courtyard looked like some sort of fantasy woodland, carefully arranged and manicured. Elegant, ornate trees grew from oversized pots in a caricature of a forest. Twinkling lights hung from their branches and shed coloured shadows across the paths which wound between them. Odd stone and metal sculptures dotted the space, and in daylight it probably would have looked quite chic and undoubtedly expensive. In the coloured half–light, it just looked creepy. Small groups of people lounged in corners, appreciating the coloured lights or lurking in the twisting shadows. Near the centre of the garden – near where she was sitting handcuffed to a pole – a dozen or so people wearing colourful feathered masks stood in a rough circle. A small crowd had gathered around the edges of the courtyard, shifting and restless, but no one so much as looked at her.

Melanie pulled her feet up close to her and looked around, trying to catch someone's eye. Her gaze caught on a dark–haired man and a red–haired woman moving through the crowd to stand near the front, although she couldn’t have said why they drew her attention any more than anyone else. The woman caught her eye for a moment, actually saw her, then turned away, looking uncomfortable. Melanie stared at her, willing her to look again, to say something. Anything.

The man glanced past her, then leaned over to the person standing next to him – an unusually tall man wearing some kind of mask that included antlers like a stag – and said quietly, What exactly are we all waiting for?

Melanie wasn't sure how she heard him as clearly as she did. His words were barely murmured, and the hum of conversation around him should have obscured them, but it didn't. His voice sounded like chocolate, or coffee, something warm and dark and bittersweet.

The man with the antlered mask didn't even glance sideways, just moved slightly so that the man and his red–haired companion could see the people in the feather masks more easily.

He said something, and the dark–haired man replied, How interesting, quietly as he looked around. "Which