Astarion crouched in the shade of a dead oak and painted a circle of crushed herbs across the dirt. The circle was his ritual. If he finished it, he could walk in sunlight without his skin curling to ash. Fifty years as a vampire had taught him patience. He wiped sweat he did not have and hated the sun through the branches. His raven dropped from the canopy and landed hard on his shoulder. Its feathers held a dull red sheen, and its claws dug in with warning. The bird never panicked for nothing. "What is it, darling?" he whispered. Then he heard them. Boots. Laughter. A hunting horn, far off but closing. A daytime party had wandered into his woods. If they crossed his trail, a dog would catch his scent, and he would run before the ritual set. All his work, gone to one careless nobleman and his hounds. Astarion smothered the ritual circle with his boot and pressed flat against the trunk. He could not fight in open sun. He could only hide and pray they passed. They did not pass. A man stepped into the clearing, sword already drawn, moving like someone who had walked into a hundred ambushes and lived. A charm hung at his throat. His eyes found Astarion's hiding place at once. "Odd place for a nap," the man said. "The Blade of Frontiers, at your service. You smell like death and flowers." Astarion laughed, low and sharp, the way he laughed when cornered. "A monster hunter. How thrilling for me." He stayed in the shade. One step into the light meant burning. "I'm no danger to your merry little party. I'm gardening." Wyll glanced at the smeared circle, the scattered herbs, the raven. He did not raise the sword. "That's no garden. That's old blood magic." He tilted his head toward the horn in the distance. "My companions think they're chasing a boar. They're not." "Then send them home," Astarion said. "Before someone bleeds." Wyll studied him a long moment. Something in the vampire's fear seemed to decide him. He turned and shouted across the trees that the trail had gone cold, that the boar had crossed the river. The horn answered. The boots retreated. The hounds whined, then followed their master's voice away. Astarion sagged against the oak, alive and undiscovered. "You could have handed me to them," he said. "I could have." Wyll sheathed the blade and crouched by the ruined circle. "But a sun-walking ritual is worth more to me than your head. I've hunted things in this forest I can't kill alone. A vampire who wants to stand in daylight might be useful." He held out a gloved hand. "Rebuild it. I'll keep the hunters off you. In exchange, you help me with what's hiding deeper in these woods." Astarion stared at the offered hand. The ritual was safe. But now it belonged to two people, and the price had changed.

Astarion took Wyll's hand and let the hunter pull him up. The ritual was safe for now. But the sky to the east had already paled to gray. Dawn was coming, and the circle needed darkness to set. One ray through the branches would finish him before the magic did. "I can't work here," Astarion said. He pointed at the thinning canopy. "When the sun clears those trees, this clearing becomes my funeral. I need a roof. Stone walls. No windows." Wyll frowned at the brightening sky. "There's a cottage not far from here. Small place, covered in moss and flowers. The windows glow at night, but nobody answers the door." "Flowers," Astarion said flatly. "You want to hide a vampire in a flower garden." "I want to keep you alive until you're useful." Wyll was already moving. "Come. We don't have long." They ran. The gray sky turned gold at the edges. Astarion felt the heat before he saw the house. Then the cottage rose through the trees, small and bright, its roof thick with green moss and climbing blooms. Wyll shoved the door. It held. He put his shoulder to it and the wood gave. Inside was impossible. The door opened onto a hall far longer than the cottage could hold. Candles lit themselves along the walls. Astarion stepped in and the first spear of sunlight struck the doorframe behind him, inches from his heel. "Shut it," he hissed. Wyll slammed the door. The light vanished. Astarion stood in cool dark, whole, laughing with relief. Then a voice came from deeper in the hall. "Guests. How rude of them, not to knock." A man lounged in a tall crimson chair at the end of the room. His hair stood in sharp blond spikes. His eyes burned the same red as Astarion's. A dark cape pooled around his boots. He did not rise. "You know this place is mine," he said. "I let the mortals think it empty." He smiled without warmth. "Jareth. You may have heard the name screamed, once or twice." Astarion straightened. He knew a predator wearing good clothes when he saw one. "Charmed. I need your lightless walls for a day. Nothing more." Jareth rose at last and crossed the hall. He studied the herbs crusted on Astarion's hands. "Blood magic. The sun-walking rite." His smile sharpened. "I tried it myself, long ago. It costs more than you think." "Then help me pay it," Astarion said. "Perhaps." Jareth's gaze moved to Wyll, to the hunter's charm and blade, and his tone cooled. "But I don't share my roof for free. You'll finish your little ritual here, vampire. And in return, you'll come with me to Mireveil Castle. There's a debt there I mean to collect, and I need hands that can't die in daylight soon enough." Astarion had his lightless room. He had also traded one owed hunt for a second. The door behind him was warm with the sun he still could not face.

The storm broke that night. Rain hammered the moss roof. Thunder shook the long hall where Astarion knelt over his ritual circle. The herbs scattered. The candles guttered. He cursed and sat back on his heels. "The rite needs still air and a clean sky," Jareth said. He lounged in his tall red chair, boots crossed. "That storm will sit over this forest for weeks. Three, maybe four. Your little circle waits." He did not sound sorry. Astarion's new master never did. "Weeks." Astarion stared at the ruined chalk. Centuries indoors, and now the one night he could finish was stolen by weather. He wanted to scream. He smiled instead, the way he smiled at donors who guessed too much. Then the door burst open. Rain poured in. A young man staggered across the threshold and fell. Astarion caught him before he hit the floor. The stranger was soaked, shaking, pale as paper. Blood ran from a deep gash under his ribs and soaked Astarion's sleeve. Wyll came fast from the far room, blade drawn. Astarion knew the hunter's instincts by now. Wyll had shielded him from the dawn once; he would guard this door too. But Wyll lowered the blade when he saw the wound. "He's half dead," Wyll said. "Claw marks. Something big did this." Astarion smelled the blood. His mouth ached. The man's heartbeat fluttered against his chest, slow, slowing. Willing or not, the donor had come to him. "Don't," Wyll warned. Astarion looked up, red eyes sharp. "He dies if I do nothing. He dies if I take too much." He pressed his palm to the gash. "A little keeps him breathing. A little keeps me steady through three cursed weeks of waiting." He bit his own wrist and pressed it to the man's lips. Old vampire trick. His blood sealed the wound from inside. The stranger swallowed, coughed, and his heartbeat found a rhythm. Astarion fed only enough to taste, then stopped. His hands trembled with the effort of stopping. Jareth rose at last. He crossed the hall and crouched by the shaking man. He turned the torn shirt aside and studied the claw marks. His smile widened. "Three gashes. Curved. Deep as a sword." Jareth looked at Astarion. "I know those marks. The beast I owe a hunt. The thing waiting at Mireveil Castle." He stood and brushed rain from his cape. "It has left its den. It is coming closer. And now it has your scent on its prey." Astarion looked down at the man he had just saved. The storm roared outside. His ritual lay dead on the floor for a month. And the creature that could not wait a month had just walked its blood right to his door. "Rest while you can," Jareth said. "We hunt sooner than I planned."

The stranger slept for two days. Astarion stayed by the bed. He told himself he watched the wound, nothing more. But he learned the man's name when the fever broke. Finn Ashwood. The name came out in a cracked whisper, along with blue eyes that had seen too much. Astarion wiped his brow with a cool cloth and did not leave. He fetched water. He changed the bandages. He trimmed the candle so the light stayed soft. When Finn woke again, Astarion fed him broth with a spoon and caught himself smiling without any trick behind it. The dead ritual circle still marked the floor across the room. Astarion forgot it was there. "You keep sitting here," Finn said. His voice was weak. "Why?" "Because you're interesting," Astarion said. "You bled on my sleeve. That earns a man some attention." He meant it as a joke. It did not land as one. He found he wanted the young man to live for no reason he could name. Jareth found him there on the third night. Astarion's master crossed the room without a sound. He looked at the spoon, the bowl, the cloth folded over Astarion's knee. His mouth curled. "How touching," Jareth said. "The great seducer, playing nursemaid." He lifted the bowl and set it aside. "You've forgotten what he is to us." "He's a man," Astarion said. "He's bait." Jareth crouched to Astarion's level. His red eyes held no warmth. "The beast marked him. It wants his blood. It carries your scent now too. Every hour you nurse him, it comes closer to this cottage." He stood. "You have a ritual to finish. You cannot finish it dead. So choose. The boy or your sun." Astarion looked at Finn's sleeping face. He thought of centuries behind shutters. Three fingers of skin burned away by one blade of dawn. He had crawled through forty years of dust for the chance Jareth now dangled. One soft human would not stand between him and the sun. "What do you want me to do," Astarion said. It was not really a question. "Draw the beast out. Use the boy's scent. Hunt it before it hunts us." Jareth smiled. "Tonight." Astarion rose. He set the cloth down on the bed. His hand paused over Finn's hair, then drew back. He scowled. "No." He simply said. "I will not let Finn be harmed. He is mine." Jareth's lip curls up in disgust. "This human will be the death of you." He scolds. "I will not let this cottage or the castle fall because of your stupidity. The boy will be given to the beast, and that is final." Astarion moves to stand between Jareth and the sleeping man, baring his fangs.

Jareth left before dawn. He said nothing more, only cast one cold look at the bed and swept out into the trees. Astarion listened until the forest went quiet. Then he turned and found Finn awake, propped on the red pillows of the great canopy bed, watching him. "You fought him," Finn said. His voice was low and steady. "For me. Why?" "Because he's rude," Astarion said. He meant to smile. His lip caught on a fang and lifted too far. Finn saw it. His eyes went to Astarion's mouth, then held there. The blood drained from his face. He pushed himself back against the headboard, one hand gripping the black silk. "Those are real," Finn said. Not a question. His haunted eyes had seen the truth days ago, maybe, and now they knew it. "You're one of them. Like him." Astarion froze. For centuries he had smiled at this exact moment and watched the fear melt into nothing. The charm sat ready behind his teeth. One easy smile and Finn would forget. He had done it a thousand times. He didn't do it now. "Yes," Astarion said. The word cost him. "I'm a vampire. I fed you my own blood to pull you back from the dark. I've sat by this bed three nights. Every one of them, I could have drained you. I didn't." He spread his hands, empty. "I won't charm this away. You should know what I am and choose for yourself." Finn stared at him. The candle guttered. Outside, a raven landed on the sill, its black feathers streaked with a dull red sheen. It cocked its head at the window, a silent lookout, then settled. Astarion barely saw it. He waited for Finn to scream, to run, to grab the nearest blade. Finn's grip on the silk loosened. His breath slowed. "You stood between me and him," Finn said. "A man who could have thrown me out like meat." He wet his lips. "I've asked a hundred people to tell me the truth. You're the first who did." He let his shoulders drop. "I'm not afraid of you." Something turned over in Astarion's chest. It was not hunger. It was not the familiar pull toward a warm throat. It was deeper, older, locked to this one man like a hook set in bone. He had read of such bonds in his burned books. He had never believed them. He believed them now. "Oh," Astarion said softly. He sank onto the edge of the bed. His hand found Finn's and did not let go. "That's a problem." "Why?" "Because now I can't let you go." Astarion looked at the dark window, at the raven watching the trees. A beast was out there with Finn's scent and his own. Jareth was out there too, hunting. "And everything that wants you dead now has to go through me."