When Alima parks the car a short way off, they find a half-grown gray tabby waiting at the door; he’s all but hidden by the smoke creeping around the edges of the house.

“Brian, what’s up?” Mal asks, but the only answer is a disgruntled meow. The blonde sighs. “King Brian, what’s up?”

“Can you talk to him?” Alima asks.

“No, he won’t answer to ‘Brian’ unless it’s May. Or it’s really important.” He checks back with her. “Didn’t you have a cat?”

“Yeah, when I was ten. I don’t know animal-speech.” She grins and shoves him (or attempts to, since she needs to stretch for his shoulder). “Are you a mechanic because you have a car?”

“Good point. Okay, King Brian?” Mal returns to him. “What’s with the smoke? Should we go inside?”

He meows again and circles the two: A purple thread of magic unwinds around them, trailing behind the tabby as he jumps to the window ledge. At the height of his bound he’s engulfed in another, thicker coil of purple--and then they’re jolted inside.

Matthaeus is sitting on the couch, crouching over a row of hawthorn branches, and he waves after putting his knife down. “Hey Mal.”

“Matthaeus? You’re still here?”

“Yeah. It’s the off-season for portals, so I get another few weeks here. Yay.”

A jangle of dog-tags and a whine announces Bulan, who shoves his huge head at Alima’s knee.

“Poor boy--you don’t like the smoke?” She sits on the opposite end of the couch and scratches his chin. “I guess nothing’s life-threatening, since the cat was just sitting outside the door.”

“Owen and Ogma are making a signal-fire to warn about the Fairy Raid,” Matthaeus explains. “The media does what it can to spread the word, but it still only covers people who watch the news. The signal-fire can literally warn all of Ireland to stay put on Samhain. Plus the ancestors, who can help watch in the Otherworld.”

“Ha, you’re going native!” Mal notes. “‘Samhain.’ You used to say Halloween.” He gives the dog a rub behind the ears.

“Oh, fuck. Don’t tell Owen.” He turns the latest stick over in his hands, then starts stacking them up into a cone.

“Don’t they already have a fire?”

“Yeah, but that just warns the mortal world. Once I get the ogham runes in, that’ll finish--” He clamps his arms around his cone of firewood when King Brian jumps on the coffee table. “Brian, no!”

The cat crouches instead, spine flexing eagerly.

“Fuck--KING Brian, no!”

“Come on, you.” Alima shoves him off the table. King Brian hisses indignantly after landing, but retreats to the couch and starts grooming instead.

“How did you not get scratched?” Matthaeus wonders.

“Cats don’t give a fuck, so you have to not give a fuck.” Alima sits back down.

“Shouldn’t you know the sticks are magic?” Ned asks King Brian. “I can smell the runes from the backyard.”

“But runes are fun! They’re glittery, like fish!” He inspects a paw. “My claws weren’t even out--I wouldn’t have done anything.”

“It’s still annoying,” Ned admits. “Our old cat Ruby used to play with the nazars.”

“The what?”

“Amulets,” Ned says. “They ward off the evil-eye. She liked them because they were blue and dangly.”

“Ooh, eastern magic.” Finished with grooming, King Brian rolls around for a minute or two before butting his head at Alima’s shoe. She chuckles and scratches his ears. “When was she with you?”

“Alima was seven or eight when Ruby was already getting in on years. She was thirteen when Ruby died.”

“The first time’s always the hardest on humans,” King Brian notes sympathetically, and Ned only stares.

“What ‘first time?’ Cats can’t regenerate like in Doctor Who.”

“No, but we’re close enough,” is all that the tabby says.

Ned shoves him away from Alima so he can curl up on her feet instead. “No wonder Owen hates you -”

“Alima Song.” Ogma steps inside, clothes peppered with ash. This isn’t the man who pulled her braid to get a rise out of her: His eyes are luminous like an animal’s, and the real animals’ eyes go wide in caution. “I have a message for you.”

“What’s happening?” Ned asks warily. “He was just making a signal fire, wasn’t he?”

“Messages go both ways,” the tabby tells him. “Especially when you use fairy-thorn.”

Owen arrives and grabs Matthaeus, beckoning Mal to follow. “Time for a break. Brian.”

“We shouldn’t be here,” he says to Ned, yanking futilely at the dog-tags. “It doesn’t feel like a bad message, but whoever it’s from is big.”

“Bulan?” Alima calls, and Ned stops with his ears flat in concern.

“If this is a god, why don’t they just come over?” Ned asks to the retreating King Brian.

“They can come to you because you’re a wolf right now, even if you’re not supposed to be. Outside of emergencies, most humans can’t talk to the Big People, especially the ones they don’t know. COME ON.” Brian clamps down desperately on Ned’s collar again, fur standing up.

Owen shuts the bedroom door when they’re all in, reaches into his pocket, and digs out a half-burned chunk of charcoal. He crushes the charred part in his hand and inhales as he dips his fingers into the powder. On the out-breath, he draws a primitive shape in one stroke: A double-spiral, winding left to right.

The mark pulses and goes red, sinking sullen into the wood.

-----
It takes a moment for the quiet to sink in: They can hear bits of Ogma’s voice struggling through the door, with Alima’s voice filtering after.

“Hey! Ned!” Comes a familiar cheery whisper. Persephone appears, unseen to the others.

“What’s up?” He walks over.

“Hades said he’d take care of the big woo-woo ‘I have a message’ thing, so I’ve been looking for help in the meantime,” she answers.

“You found I was in trouble, what? Four or five hours ago?”

“That’s a short time for mortals,” Persephone reminds him. “Anyway--I didn’t hear anything from your wife’s side of the family--they’re about as lost as everyone else--so I was looking around China, and she came along once she heard.” Persephone steps back to reveal a young Chinese woman in blue, with black hair snaking to her knees.

Her white skin is covered in paint or tattoos: Delicate yellow scales trace along her fingers and bare arms, darkening to saffron crescents on her shoulders. Crimson spirals frame her eyes, her long nails are just as red, and the bare foot peeking from the ripples of her dress has red claws painted on. The wide hat and blue veil washes out her face, but her eyes look golden and something shines white from her forehead.

“The Lady of Scales?” Ned asks. “But I only go to Dad’s town once or twice a year.”

“That’s enough for me,” she says gently, though amused. She scratches the ruff on his neck, and he catches a whiff of deep water. When she sits down with Ned, they’re in a forest by a lake--wide and bow-shaped, the one he and Jordan used to swim in when they visited. Right against the treeline is the hum of the freeway.

He tiptoes over to the water’s edge, and on leaning down for a closer look, he jolts to find himself human. “Where are we?”

“Home,” she says. “Your body’s sleeping right now. You’ll be out for maybe ten or fifteen minutes.”

Ned sighs--of course he wouldn’t change back this easily. “So what are we doing?”

“The curse only keeps the Irish gods from hearing you, Song Ned,” says the Lady. “But if you were to ask me something, he wouldn’t have a clue. He’s strong, sure, but so arrogant.”

“Find my wife!” He says immediately, but she shakes her head.

“She’s already found,” the Lady apologizes. “The problem is that he has her hair, and I can’t get it back for her. The gods are helping, of course, but she must reclaim it with her own hand.”

“Then change me back!” Ned pleads.

“That’s hard,” she admits, “but not impossible. You must pay me something for it, but I’ll take as little as possible. What will you do for me?”

“I’ll kill the Hunter for you,” Ned tells her, but she smiles sadly.

“Men and their violence,” she says. “Alima thinks you two are dead, but you’re very much alive, so you don’t -”

“No, he’s going to kill her!” Ned explains, tripping on a patch of rock in his trek back to her. “He marked Alima for the Fairy Raid on Halloween--he’s going to kill her!”

“That’s completely different!” She realizes in alarm. “Is she the only one?”

“There’s seven in all, but we don’t know about the others,” Ned spills out, gripping her hands – they’re slender and lithe, but something feels weird about her skin. “Nobody survives the Fairy Raid without a fucking god – I have to kill him before he gets my daughter!”

“Are you only concerned about your daughter, Song Ned?” The Lady of Scales cuts in, eyes searing yellow through her veil. “That’s understandable, but you have to word things carefully in the spirit world. The other six have families too, you know.”

“Okay,” he says. He steps back from her, as much to calm down as to avoid the burn of her eyes. “Okay. If nobody dies, then Alima doesn’t die. I want to kill the Hunter before he kills anyone in the Fairy Raid.”

“That’ll work,” she says, and the next question surprises him: “Who was the other Alima?”

“My… my sister,” he says. “Sister-in-law.”

Ned doesn’t know who called her over--himself or the Lady of Scales--but there, she’s right beside him. She looks like she did when they were younger, dark amber skin under a screaming-green hijab. Her boys are nearly her age now, he realizes.

He hasn’t thought of her in so long now, not outside of holidays and birthdays, the usual “how-are-you” offerings--and he knows it’s not an accident. But still she’s here, and she smiles at him.

“‘Sup, Ned?” She asks him, and that’s all it takes for him to remember:

---
“‘Sup, Ned?” Jordan announces after Ned opens the door.

“Who’s the poor woman you conned into dating?” Ned asks.

“She’s not poor, Ned, she’s middle-class,” Jordan corrects as said woman peers in. “Anyway, Ned! This glorious creature is my lady-love, Alima Khemu.”

“Our daughter’s Alima, too! That’s so weird!” Lucy herds the younger Alima into the living room. “Honey, come say hi!”

“Hey there!” Older Alima holds a hand out. “How are you, sweetie?”

“You’re too tall!” Younger Alima refuses to shake hands, to her parents’ grin.

“Don’t worry, mini-me--you’ll grow up soon,” says the older Alima.

“Really?” She asks, eyes glowing, and Ned grudgingly thinks he could tolerate the older Alima.

---
The Lady pulls Ned up from the leaf litter. “Oh dear, I shouldn’t have asked so suddenly.”

“You okay, Ned?” Alima asks.

---
“Guess who got back from the ultrasound!” Jordan announces.

“Hey there, Mini-Me!” The older Alima greets Ned’s daughter, and with the size of her torso, she needs concentration to bend down enough to hug her niece. “Oh man, you’re getting huge! How old are you, Alima? Eighteen?”

“Five!” Alima informs her.

“You’re one to talk--are you having an elephant?” Lucy asks as Jordan helps Alima back up.

“Twins!” She sits down in triumph. “It’s hard to tell what they are right now, but we’ve got two names for each gender. Keep me away from the birth certificates--Maryam almost named Garth ‘Coffee’ when she was loopy on painkillers.”

“Could she not read the forms, or did she actually think it was a good name?” Lucy teases.

---
“I’m okay,” Ned tells them hoarsely, rubbing his neck. “I need to talk to you more,” he apologizes to Alima, eyes swimming.

“Jordan and the boys talk to me enough,” she brushes it off. “It’s okay.”

The Lady of Scales looks at Ned for a long time, and she stretches up to put a hand on his shoulder.

---
It’s September.

Ned’s working on a house frame when he gets the call: He and Vince are putting a joint together when his phone vibrates in its holster. “Fuck. Cell phone,” he announces, and Roger moves in to take his spot.

The call is from Jordan, and he wonders if the boys need a last-minute sitter. “Hey, Jordan--”

“Ned! Ned, fucking shit--you have to come over!”

“What? Why?”

“ALIMA!” It booms through his phone, and Ned nearly drops it.

In that fearful little spot in his chest, he’s suddenly aware that it’s September--and Jordan has to be talking about his wife. “Is she okay?”

“Fuck, Ned, get your ass over here, please--!” He’s starting to cry, raging loss against the phone, and Ned waves dizzily to whoever’s closest as he heads for the car.

The river of red light trickles through the street, oozing from the police cars in front of Jordan’s house. The sun’s going down.

Jordan’s boys are clustered with Alima and Lucy, but Jordan himself is nowhere. “He’s in the ambulance,” Lucy tells Ned.

“Is he okay?”

“No,” she blurts out, then stumbles along: “He’s not hurt, it’s just that--he--he found her. In the yard. And he didn’t want the boys to see and so the police called me over--”

“Why?!”

“It’s September!” She reminds him, her face bloodless.

---
“Did Dad tell you about this?” Ned wonders to the Lady, skin deadened and cold.

“A little,” she shakes her head in remorse. “I didn’t want to press it too much. Plus it was obvious once she arrived.”

“So what does Alima have to do with… little Alima?” Ned trips over the confusion--it’s been so long.

“Normally for an oath, you’d need to give up something equal to what you’re planning to do,” the Lady of Scales tells him. “But fairies have different standards of equal, so we can fudge things to make it look like you’re giving up something important.”

“And what does this have to do with Older Alima?”

“She just wanted to see that you and Lucy are alive,” the Lady says.

“It’s hard to even talk to Mini-Me with all that fairy magic on her,” Alima adds.

So they all sit down against a juniper tree--true to the Otherworld, it has the thick and spicy smell of the berries, not the less-flattering scent of the actual tree.

The Lady of Scales begins to sort through her bargains. “How do you feel about giving your memories? I could take the painful ones--”

“No.” His mother warned him about giving up memories to spirits, even to the nice ones. Even the painful memories.

“Hmm. Well, limbs are important, so that’s out…” she notes. “What about your hair?”

“The color, or my actual hair?” Ned wonders.

“The color. I wouldn’t go that far.”

Ned takes a look at himself in the lake--his father’s brown hair’s gone gray by now, but Ned has his mother’s blue-black and she’s never had even the little stray whites. His hair’s gotten long, tangled curls brushing his shoulders like he’s back in high school.

He wishes he didn’t have such a hard time deciding between not graying early and ensuring his daughter doesn’t get killed. (And six other people, he reminds himself.) “I have to think about it,” he admits.

The older Alima guffaws and claps his shoulder. “Good call, Ned--I wouldn’t do it either!”

“The color of your eyes,” the Lady suggests.

“Done,” he says. But then he wonders: “What happens after you take the color?”

“I don’t know specifics,” the Lady of Scales warns. “Eyes are tricky--one woman lost her sight after I took her eye color, but one man could see the Otherworld after I took his. The woman wanted to cure her nephew’s illness, and the man was looking for his wife; but another man just wanted his brother’s farm to go to him instead of his nephew. He wasn’t greedy, it was just that his nephew knew nothing about farming--but you know inheritance and its fussiness. That one never missed a shot at anything after our bargain. Most of the time, they just change color, so you shouldn’t have much to worry about.”

“Change to what?” Ned asks.

“White, usually,” the Lady says, brushing away a few needles. “Or they cloud over, like cataracts. Are there any more questions, Song Ned?”

“No,” he says, though he’s a bit hesitant.

“Ned? You’re a carpenter,” Alima remembers. “You kind of need to see--”

“I have insurance,” he shrugs. “And I can focus on woodworking if I lose my vision. White people love Asian stuff.”

He regrets it right away--there are a lot of less sensitive reasons that woodworking is a good fallback for a vision-impaired carpenter. Cutlery, tables, boxes, combs… Lots of practical things. Easy to make and sell, but hard to master.

But he and Alima both feel the weight of that heavy, awkward truth, and he turns: Partly to the Lady, partly away from Alima. “So how are we bargaining?”

“Nothing too big,” she says. “The fancy stuff is for celebrations, and besides, you’re almost awake.” She shifts a red-clawed foot and holds her hand out to him. “Song Ned, you have asked to kill the Hunter before he kills his seven victims in the Fairy Raid. For that I will return you to your true form, and take the color of your eyes as payment. Is this what we have agreed on?”

“It is,” he says to her, reaching his left hand in turn. She takes his wrist, then digs her long nails in with only a breath of warning.

“You made me a promise, Song Ned,” says the Lady, fierce and old and terrible. “Do not go back on your oath.”

Her eyes are suns through her veil--the red spreads out from the Lady of Scales’ grip on him, and blood pools between the two of them on the fresh dark grass. He can’t see anything anymore, only hear the ebb of the lake, and the scent of the juniper tree crashes through his head like a rush of water--

“--lan! Wake up, boy!” His daughter’s poking him, and Ned fumbles around with two extra legs before he rolls upright with a whuff.

“That’s mad--so they’re still alive after almost half a year?” Malachy asks.

“Yes!” Alima scratches Ned’s ears until he pants up at her, and she hugs him in celebration. “That means the case opens again!”

“Well, can’t get more of a lead than a god of death saying someone’s not dead,” Matthaeus remarks.

“God of the dead, Teis,” Owen corrects. “Thanatos is the god of death.”

“So Ned, how was it?” Persephone asks. “You’ve got a deal going on, so I assume it was good?”

“Yeah,” he tells her, still a bit dazed. “I kill the Hunter, the Lady changes me back, and she gets my eye-color. Do fairies think that’s important?”

“‘The color of your eyes,’” she recites. “Eyes are still tricky, though. If something goes wrong and she can’t fix it, just ask me or Hades.”

With that she pats Ned’s shoulder. As usual the humans can’t see the goddess of winter, but King Brian mews around her ankles.

Persephone gives Alima an unfelt peck on the forehead. She must feel something of Persephone’s brightness, though--happiness pools around her, light and warm like new grass, and Ned realizes he’s never seen her like that.

Next Chapter: XXI:miss mary mack