Horror always had victims. It had to have victims; its entire purpose was to horrify. It had no use, as other genres did, for playacting with innocents. To it, as to all genres, appearance indicated reality. If it ensorcelled an unwill-ing and terrified innocent into acting like a laughing, maniacal, gleeful spree killer, then it had made someone laugh and it had made him gleeful.
Horror did not want to make anyone gleeful. It did not want to waste its time and energy telling stories. It only wanted to horrify.
Victims were rare in other genres and were usually disposed of quickly before they could spoil the story. They made up background fodder and tragic backstories and the sort of murder victim you didn’t need to get to know first. Victims, analysts theorized, must provide sufficient nutrition but have other factors that rendered them unpalat-able to discerning genres. Hearts regarded innocents as properly cooked steaks, then victims were raw or rotting.
There was another factor that made victims difficult: although they drained the scenario of fewer upfront resources, they were also uncontrolled factors. They might act unexpectedly and damage or even defeat their scenario. Inno-cents were a safer bet, but even they were not without risk. Nine times out of ten—nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand—a snake will kill a frog. But one time out of many, the snake will miss the poison on the frog’s skin before it bites down.
Blaze Lithus had lived forty-two years without knowing anything about ensorcellment but knowing a tremendous deal about people. He had the sort of androgynous beauty that, from certain angles, strikes words from lips and breath from lungs. His eyes, mismatched blue and green, pierced the soul; his hair, darkening blond, was kept tied behind him in a black velvet ribbon. He should have been an actor or a model, but instead he whittled away his life as an invest-ment advisor. Vulnerable old ladies found them-selves sweettalked into entrust-ing him with their life savings—which investment he took excellent care of, having a gift for that sort of thing.
Blaze lived in the middle of a city, next to a wooded park that stretched nearly three miles in diameter. People walked dogs and rode horses there, but the neighborhood children preferred to play in the street, shrieking and kicking balls and generally making a racket. Whenever Blaze grew weary of their bois-terousness, he retreated into the park.
He retreated into it this Saturday afternoon in early autumn. Trees had begun to exchange their verdant garments for vibrant gold and crimson, and a breeze blew crisply. About once a year, the local elementary school made its students tramp through the park, cleaning up litter; but the last cleanup had been eleven months ago, and Blaze grumbled as he kicked away an old soda bottle.
A dog walker waved, and Blaze waved back before turning off the trail, blowing through blowsy undergrowth and destroying spiderwebs with his passage. He was seized, as he was now and again, with a desire to get away, to get somewhere deep and dark and secret. There was no such place in this city park, but he strove for it anyway, turning away whenever he heard a distant car or the muffled clop of horse-shoes on rock and dust.
He walked a long way, long enough that he should have come out the other side of the park or at least found himself going in a circle, but he did neither. Instead, he found himself in a hollow he had never seen before. It was darker and cooler here, the trees extending their green-and-gold leaves to touch above his head, casting the mossy earth in tinted light. Dew glis-tened along the edges of the leaves, though it had not rained recently, and the smell of damp, planty earth swirled around him. At the center of the hollow, the diffused sunlight give way to a steady beam. It fell upon a chest-high boul-der—and on the object balanced precariously upon the boulder’s pinnacle: a crown.
It was beautiful. Very beautiful. Entirely golden except where sunlight glinted off its gemstones. A crown worthy of a king.
Hypnotized, Blaze lifted the crown and set it upon his head. As it touched his brow, the Heart’s power flooded him. He gasped and blinked and saw the park anew. He saw the dancing magic, the fertile soil, the white stag. He laughed as cool air whispered secrets in his ear. He comprehended that behind the mere park, behind every wooded area, lay the Great Forest. Hidden but not gone. This was where children got lost and saw fairies; where enchant-ment bubbled in every spring and brightened every out-of-season flower; where maidens slumbered until he chose to awake them.
Yes, he chose. The crown had chosen him—had remembered him—had brought him home. He was the King of the Fae, the Ruler of the Forest. He was not Blaze Lithus but Blaze Fireblink. He knew every tree and stone and creature, for they were all his, as he was theirs.
There was once, the crown whispered to him, a girl who lived on the edge of the Great Forest. She was a simple, innocent, good-hearted beauty. Every day, when she was not caring for her siblings, she went and frolicked among the trees. “You may play there,” said her mother, “but do not go any deeper. For the King of the Fae lives within that Forest and will take you if he can. Promise me.”
“I promise, Mother,” said the girl, for she was an obedient and honest daughter. For many months, she kept to her promise, and when she gathered herbs and spoke to the trees, she never ventured deep enough to be out of sight of her house.
Then one day, while she was picking flowers for her mother’s birthday, the girl spotted a particularly beautiful yellow-and-orange rosebush. “I didn’t know these grew in the Forest!” she said to herself. “I must pick a rose for Mother!” She stepped toward the rosebush, then hesitated. It was deeper than she was accustomed to going. “But it’s not so very far,” she said to herself. “I will still be in view of the house.”
She walked cautiously, keeping one eye turned back, and reached the rose-bush. As she plucked the first rose, she got the distinct feeling of being watched. Unnerved, she turned and ran home.
The girl had seen no one and thought she had not been followed, and so she soon forgot the event. But thereafter, when she played at the edge of the Forest, she often got the feeling of being watched. She soon learned to dismiss it as her imagination. What she did not know, could not know, was that the King of the Fae had seen her, and had fallen in love with her.
The crown, if it had had its way, would’ve had Blaze perching in trees and trans-forming into all manner of animals to keep watch on the girl, even when she was away from the Forest. He tried this once or twice, but mostly, he knelt at the edge of a clear, calm pond and cast magic upon its steady surface. Visions of the girl formed there, and he watched her buy apples, chat with friends, and go to school. She was fifteen, fresh-faced, and pretty in an immature sort of way. Three years ago, she’d spoiled his manicured lawn with her bicycle. Her grand-mother had come to apologize and pay for the damage and had ended up signing an investment agreement.
As a forty-two-year-old investment advisor, Blaze had considered the girl—Mia? Yes, that was her name. Mia Something-Or-Other—a mild nuisance. As the ageless King of the Fae, he considered her ideal bride material.
In order to win her, the crown murmured, the King decided he would lure her into the Forest. There, he would demonstrate his power and make her a suitable offer. However, despite his placing roses and other delicacies in her path, the girl never again strayed.
Patient as a mountain, the King bided his time until the girl’s twin sisters, themselves only five years old, went out to play with her. He watched for his opportunity, and it came: the girl was briefly distracted retying a shoe. As she looked down at it, the King he sent a flurry of bottle-blue dragonflies down the path ahead of the twins. They ran after the dragonflies, delighted, and the trees swallowed them up.
The girl noticed they were missing by the silence and realized where they must have gone. She immediately ran after them, first passing the rosebush and then venturing far deeper into the Forest than she’d ever gone before. She called and called for her sisters, and sometimes heard a voice in the distance that lured her onward and inward.
Blaze could feel the crown’s influence strongly as it anticipated its story. At another time, he might have been annoyed at how deeply he wanted that girl, but not now. He was far too amused; this was even more enjoyable than charming old ladies. He sang as he played along, testing the crown’s power in this way and that and twisting the Forest paths to send the girl running in circles. Only once she became suitably tear-ful did he appear before her in a dramatic gust of leaves and wind.
She fell backwards in her shock, and stared up at him from a bed of grass and flowers.
“Mia,” he murmured, caressing her name. “Welcome to my Forest.”
“Oh! Oh, you’re—oh!” Mia cried, blushing violently. She knew immedi-ately who he was. Even apart from the crown, he emanated power and author-ity. More-over, he was beautiful—by far the most beautiful male she had ever seen, his form trim in leather and leaves, his mismatched eyes penetrating her soul. Timid but deter-mined, she said, “Forgive me for entering your Forest without permis-sion, Your Majesty, but I am looking for my little sisters. Beatrice and Rosaline. Please, have you seen them?”
“Mia, Mia,” he drawled. A whippy rowan wand appeared in his hand, and he tapped it against her shoulder. “Nothing is given for nothing.”
“Please,” Mia said, “I don’t have any way to pay you.”
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“Then let us play a game,” the King said. “I give you until the dawn after next. Before then, bring me three impossible things, and I shall set the three of you free. Fail, and you shall be mine forever.”
Mia gathered herself up, prepared to barter, but Blaze laughed mysteriously and disappeared in a swirl-ing of leaves. How amusing! Though he did wonder if any part of her recognized him as her old neigh-bor, or remembered ruining his lawn. She had played her role so perfectly.
Upon his brow, the crown swelled with its own story, sucking in greed-ily every line it poured out. On its prompting, Blaze worked various petty magics and set traps never too difficult for Mia to over-come. He watched her subvert his subjects and eat his food. With each victory, Mia grew stronger and wiser and closer to reaching him until, moments before dawn brightened on the second day, she arrived at his hollow: dirty, exhausted, and tantalizingly pretty.
“I made it!” she cried, grinning at him. “I did it! King of the Fae, I have traversed your Forest and learned your secrets and befriended your subjects—and I have brought you three impossible things!”
“Have you,” the King replied, lounging on a throne that had once been a mossy, cragged boulder. “I see only two.”
“I have three! My first companion bears a diamond worth less than noth-ing—for it is cursed. My second companion is a flame demon named Darkly—so he is a flame burning darkly.”
“And the third?” prompted the King.
“The dawn, which no human can bring!”
She had timed it well: the first rays of dawn broke forth immedi-ately after.
“Dawn brought itself,” said the King. “You merely pronounced it. Have you nothing else?”
Her face fell. As he gathered himself to gloat, her companions whispered encouragement to her. Then she raised her head and squared her shoulders. “Great King,” she said, “I wished to spare you this pain, but I see I cannot. I bring you what I have not stolen and yet have stolen, which is beating inside your chest while I hold it in my hand. I bring you your own heart.”
Blaze stared at her—blank, struck. As he stared, he could feel the crown accepting this as the third impossible thing. Agony wrenched his heart, equal parts hope and despair. “That is a cruel choice indeed,” he whispered, “and a crueler choice lies before you. Keep the hear you have stolent, and you have lost; return it, and we have both lost. What do you intend to do?”
“Return it,” Mia said without hesitation. “I never wanted it; I only wanted my sisters back.”
Blaze felt the pain like shards of glass slicing the inside of his chest. Cruel? He had called her cruel? He had been too generous!.
Not only desperate but becoming angry, he tried again: “Mia, Mia, don’t be hasty. Stay with me, and I will release your sisters. Be my wife, and I shall grant you everything you desire. My magic, my kingdom, shall be yours.”
“Never!” Mia proclaimed. “Stop trying to trick me! I won fair and square. Admit your defeat and let us go!”
The King of the Fae pressed one hand against his heart. She was right: he had lost. No matter how it pained him, he must bow his head. Perhaps one day, she would return—but no, he knew he had lost her forever. She would leave and grow up and be ordinary, and he would be alone.
Blaze said, “I refuse.”
Mia looked briefly confused, and then the look morphed into pity. “I do not mean to be unkind, King,” she said, “but this is my victory. You cannot refuse.”
“My dear girl,” said Blaze, “I’m the King of the Fae. I can do whatever I like.”
No, whispered the crown. There are rules. She came of age. You must—
Blaze smiled, as he always smiled when he was about to win, and pulled hard on the crown’s power. He pulled as he had never pulled before, as he had never let the crown know he could pull. The crown surged back, only to find itself weakening beneath his strength. To its disbelief, it found itself being subsumed. It had trusted him too much, fed him too much of its power. Instead of it holding him in its thrall, he now controlled it.
Blaze snapped his fingers and translocated Mia to the room in which he’d stored her twin sisters. As an afterthought, remembering the pain she had caused him, he transformed the girls into wood sprites. They would tend to his Forest and serve him forever. He would decide later whether to change Mia back and marry her; that she was his were all his feelings demanded.
He no longer remembered how disgruntled he’d felt, when the neigh-bor-hood hooligans had run over his mailbox and jumped in his raked leaves. He no longer remembered or cared about much from his previous life. That was the price he had gladly paid for his power.
But this isn’t the sort of story I wanted! the crown whined feebly. I meant for—
Blaze shut it up. He was the King of the Fae, and he really believed he could do whatever he wanted. He continued to believe it, and nothing happened to contradict him for several months.
Spring had come, and Blaze was gazing into his clear pool, looking over the girls who wandered near his Forest and deciding which to collect next. Whispers came to him on the wind, the susurrant alarm of wood sprites. Listening closely, he turned his vision to the edge of his Forest. Against, within, and as part of a tree was a door. It was plain wood, only vertical wooden planks held together by a pair of crossbars. But it had not been there this morning, and it was open.
Two women stood upon the soil of his Forest, between the leaves of his trees. They were blandly dressed in t-shirts and jeans, but their faces shifted in foreign patterns. They were also, Blaze noted, pretty, if on the old side—twenty or twenty-one.
Blaze tapped his fingers against his jaw, considering how to play with them. He’d let them wander confused at first, of course, maybe separate them; what came next depended on their reactions.
The women looked around, cautious and curious and awed by the beauty and magic of his Forest. They walked a short way before pausing, wary. “It knows we’re here,” said the darker woman, nocking an arrow.
“That way,” said the fairer woman. She held something in her hand and rotated her body to face toward Blaze’s scrying pool. “There. Not too far, but watch out for the mis-direction.”
Blaze Fireblink had lived forty-two years, six months without knowing anything about the Agency but knowing a tremendous deal about charming ladies. Hearing their words, their growing suspicion, he immediately trans-lo-cated before them, appearing in a flurry of blue butterflies. He landed fifteen feet away and bowed, magnificent in flowing hair and fitted leather, inhumanly beauti-ful and beguilingly regal. The crown glinted upon his head, subservient and nervous.
“Lise,” Blaze said to the fair one, plucking the name from the surface of her thoughts. “Vivienne. You are welcome in my kingdom. But why have you come in this manner, armed and apprehensive? I mean you no harm.”
“That’s it,” said Lise. She was, he decided, the superior of the two. Her cheekbones cut a better pattern. “It’s gone deep. Think you can extract it safely?”
“I don’t know,” Vivienne said doubtfully. “Hold it for me.” She hooked her bow on her back and shook out her arms. On her hands, she wore peculiar, silvery gauntlets. They hurt his eyes to look at, and his magic could not touch them.
Vivienne approached him, and Blaze allowed her close. He did not move even when she reached for his crown. He let her touch it, smiling down at her, allowing her indiscretion. Women always touched him with-out his permission, as if they could not help them-selves. They became bash-ful immediately after-ward, but that wasn’t important. The important part was that no matter who tried and no matter how, none could remove this crown against his will.
Vivienne fondled the crown, and Blaze cried out in horror and pain. He fell to his knees as the crown’s power slurped upward inside his veins. He had never known such torment, even over Mia. He seized Vivienne’s wrists, forcing her hands away. His flesh burned where it touched her gauntlets. “Don’t!” he gasped.
“Lise! Hold him!”
Red-hot pins and needles filled Blaze’s feet, but he leapt up and back as Lise surged forward. He still had enough strength to land on a tree limb, only to nearly fall as dizziness sloshed over him. The horrible weakness in his feet and ankles stabbed at him, and he hurriedly tried to stuff the crown’s power back down, only to find he didn’t know how.
Vivienne cursed, unslinging her bow. The Forest rushed about her in response, every critter and twig eager to protect him. They stole the bow and her arrows, but they could not take the gloves from her hands. Leaves swirled up to cut the women, but Blaze stood again, lifting a hand. “Enough! Be still!” he commanded, and the wind obeyed him.
“Beautiful ladies, you have been deceived!” he called to the women. “You know of the crown’s curse and think it has defeated me, but I am not ignorant of it! I am a powerful magic caster in my own right, and I have turned it to my purpose. See how I control it, how it is not my master? Kind enchantresses, would you murder me?”
The women didn’t move, remaining poised to attack. Blaze dropped lightly from the tree, nauseated but slowly regaining his strength. The Forest wished to aid him again, and his own magic burned within him, but he held both back. This was not time for the Fae King’s power, which would only make them suspicious. This was time for a power more primal still.
“I thank you for your intent,” Blaze said, “but the situation is not what you think. I have the crown under control. Will you look again? It is clear to me that you see its magic.”
“Viv?” Lise asked.
“This is strange,” Vivienne agreed. “I’ll look.”
Blaze knelt where he was, on one knee, and bent his head so Vivienne could examine the crown more easily. She leaned close, smelling of false flowers and syrupy vanilla, and touched the crown. But the slurping, dread-ful agony did not follow, and her partner did not attack. After a minute, Blaze turned his eyes and chin up, so that his face paralleled hers, not ten inches distant. “Vivienne,” he sighed, hardly more than a whisper. “Will you spare me?”
Vivienne gazed into his eyes. Her cheeks went red, and she abruptly stepped back. “It’s true,” she said, too quickly. “He’s reversed the flow of ensorcellment. I don’t know how he managed it, but he’s definitely the one in charge.”
“Let me see,” Lise demanded, interrupting the intimacy by stepping between them. Blaze let her look, though it was clear her eyes were dimmer. She stood close enough to feel his body heat and touched the hair by his temples, which was definitely not necessary. Vivienne worked herself up to his left side. With-out discussing what they were doing, and each competing to do it better, they began rearranging the crown, settling its power within him. A long discom-fort he’d hardly acknowledged before melted away, and power seeped into every last edge of his body. He would be able to use magic ten times better now, and the crown’s voice faded to a pale mutter in the back of his mind.
“But we can’t just leave,” Vivienne was saying. “The Agency would only send someone else.” And she told Blaze about the Agency and genres and Hearts and all the rest of it.
Fear tugged urgent claws inside Blaze. He clasped the ladies’ hands, show-ing them both his strength and how dearly he relied on them. He slid his power with subtle motions into every phrase; for their help had made his ensor-cellment indistinguishable from his native charisma.
“We could seal the scenario,” Lise suggested. “One from inside, one from the Path—do you think? We can’t let the Agency kill him. We just can’t.”
“If we sealed it,” said Vivienne, “one of us would be trapped inside this scenario forever.”
The women looked at him consideringly. Blaze, hiding his glee, suggested he had been looking for a wife. Besides, he added, if one of them stayed with him, she could ensure the curse never gained control. That should satisfy their superiors.
It should, the women agreed; and all that remained was which should be his wife and which should sacrifice herself.
Blaze directed them deftly. It was obvious that Vivienne’s power to harm him was stronger, and thus he must not risk her staying. Besides, Lise was prettier.
