Lilith Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The cat led Lilith to a gothic crypt the fae did not own. Stone walls, pointed arches, carved saints black with age. Lilith stepped toward the door and stopped. A gray rabbit crouched in the grass. Red eyes. A mouth of small sharp teeth. It had followed her since the manor. The cat flattened its ears. "The lady's spy," the cat said. "It carries names back to her. Speak to anyone while it watches, and it learns who they are. Then she owns them." Lilith understood the trap now. She had left the manor to keep her future love free. But the rabbit turned every greeting into a gift for the fae. She could not approach a single soul in Grimm Hollow without handing over a name. So she could not run from it. She had to break it. The rabbit watched her. Lilith watched it back. She would not speak. She would not name herself, and she would give it no one to carry home. She stepped past the crypt, into the trees, drawing the rabbit after her, away from anyone it might mark. A pink-eyed wolf pup burst from the brush. White fur, teeth bared, it lunged at the rabbit. The rabbit screeched and bolted. The pup chased it over roots and stone. Then the pup changed. Fur drew back. Bones stretched. A woman stood where the pup had run. Pink hair, blue eyes, black boots. She caught the rabbit by the scruff before it reached the dark. "This thing's been tracking you," she said. Flat. No wasted words. "I've watched it two nights." Lilith kept her mouth shut. One word and the rabbit would have the werewolf's name. The woman saw the fear. "It only takes names," she said. "So don't give it one." She snapped the rabbit's neck in one motion and dropped it. The red eyes went dull. "There. Nothing left to carry." The cat crept forward and sniffed the body. "Dead," it said. "The lady's eye is blind now. She won't know what you touch." Lilith let herself breathe. The chain to the fae was cut. She could speak again. She looked at the woman who had freed her. Something in her chest went still and sure, the way it had never gone in two centuries. "You could have left it alive," Lilith said. "Why help a stranger?" "I know what it's like to be hunted." The woman wiped her hands on her skirt. "Something hunts me too. Every full moon. I don't let it win." "What's your name?" Lilith asked. The woman almost smiled. "Luna." Lilith knew then. This was the soul she had crossed mountains to find. The rabbit was dead. The fae could not claim Luna now. But the fae still wanted a name, and Lilith had just spoken the only one that could pay her debt.