Gwydion and Gil were still arguing when we got back. They might not have been brothers in the human sense, but they sure acted like it.

"I have collected a veritable gold mine of embarrassing personal secrets and old grudges on both of them," Cole confided as we returned. "I'm pretty sure at least half of it is even true."

"I wasn't gone for fifteen minutes," I said, surprised, but as I turned my attention to the fae's bickering, I realized the real surprise was that Cole hadn't learned more. Gil appeared to be digging up every petty argument since the birth of Christ in an attempt to guilt or harangue Gwydion into letting him go. Gwydion was responding in kind with all of Gilfaethwy's apparently endless fuck-ups and Gwydion's equally endless patience in cleaning up the associated messes. Cole just snickered and took short hand notes on his phone.

Eventually, we managed to break up their argument enough to leave.

"We'll bring Gilfaethwy back to my home," Gwydion announced. "It's obvious he can't be trusted to be on his own. I can hopefully convince him to help me study the mutt's curse. If not, at the very least with him present I'll have a much easier time of tracking down anyone else he's cursed this way."

"What's in it for you?" Cole asked, curious, as we headed out to the back and Julius opened us a portal. Gwydion's lip curled, his expression scathing, but Cole just shrugged. "You're fae, and I'm not an idiot. There's no such thing as a charitable fairy."

Gwydion, with a long-suffering sigh, pushed his brother through the portal ahead of him, presumably because he did not want Gil to hear his answer.

"You're correct. The Fae don't deal in charity. We deal in favors. And giving the people who my brother has doomed a glimmer of hope is a better way to collect favors than most. Also, and perhaps more significantly, I live on this plane of existence. And probably will for the rest of my conditionally endless life. This world is much more pleasant to live in when people aren't randomly turning into bloodthirsty manifestations of their own inner demons and revealing the existence of magic to the mundane populace. Is that sufficient motivation for you, you puerile mosquito? Or would you like to rudely interrogate the amoral immortal nonhuman a little longer?"

Cole said nothing, a hand on his hip and a tilt to his head that plainly said he wasn't impressed. Gwydion rolled his eyes and stepped through the portal after his brother.

"He's got a point, kid," Julius said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the bricks. "Whatever spirits and demons you've dealt with before may respond well to that kind of frankness, but the Fae require a little more tact. You might want to read up on your fairy tales. Actually—"

He gestured, summoning a thick, slightly battered book from the air, which he tossed at Cole. Cole fumbled but caught it.

"It's the standard Germanic," Julius said. "And a good chunk of Irish and Scottish. The former is a good primer on wild fae. The latter is a solid break down of Courtly law. They're my own transcriptions of the original oral traditions, with none of the Grim Brother's bigoted meddling."

"No offense," Cole scoffed, flipping through the book. "But I think I'm familiar with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves."

"Then maybe you could use a refresher," Julius said with a friendly smile. "Snow White's courtesy towards the dwarves was a big part of the reason they didn't smash her skull with a pick axe and eat her."

Cole blinked, then closed the book and tucked it into his coat. He headed through the portal, and I stepped up to follow him, pausing when I realized Ethan was lagging behind. He stared at the pavement, his hands in his pockets and his expression distant and unreadable.

"Ethan?" I said, and he blinked, coming back from wherever his thoughts had wandered.

"Maybe it would be better if I left through the front door," he said quietly.

"You want to walk home?" I asked, confused. "I mean, I don't mind if you—"

"I don't think that's what he's after, hun," Julius interrupted. He straightened up, dusting off his hands. "I'll give you some privacy. The portal shouldn't close till you go through it."

He put a hand on Ethan's shoulder for a moment.

"You're welcome to stay here as long as you need to," he said, and the soft tone he used reminded me of the careful way Ethan sometimes spoke to Cole, like he was afraid if he was too loud the other man might shatter like thin glass. "Whatever you decide to do, I'm here to help."

Ethan nodded, some of the tension going out of his shoulders.

"It was nice to see you both," Julius finished, looking back at me. "I'd like to see you again soon, under better circumstances. Especially you, Vexa. You've got a lot of potential, you know."

"Thank you," I said, a little flustered to hear that from someone like Julius.

He waved, then headed inside, leaving us alone in the alley.

"Now, what's this about the front door?" I asked Ethan, moving closer, my shoes clicking on the wet asphalt. Despite how long we'd been here, between catching Gil and debriefing in the bar, the night seemed trapped in a single moment inside this alley. It was still the same time of night, and though it hadn't rained since we'd been here, the pavement still glistened like a late summer shower had only just ceased. What an odd, mundane thing to be magical. Were the moths that fluttered around the bare light above the bar's back door the same moths that had been here when this moment was frozen? Or just mundane ones, wandered in from another place, now trapped in a night that would never end?

"The front door of the Silver Ring can open on any of a hundred places," Ethan explained, looking down at his feet, at that eternally damp ground. "It defaults to where you came in from, but if you concentrate on somewhere else... I could just go. Disappear into someplace on the other side of the world."

"Why the fuck would you want to do that?" I asked, my hands on my hips.

"The Wolf only goes after people I care about," Ethan said, and I could see the exhaustion dragging at his eyes, giving him lines he was too young for. "In the end, when it wins, I don't— I don't want you to—"

"Ethan," I said, a little more sharply than I meant to. I forced my voice into a calmer register despite how my heart was trying to force its way into my throat. "This isn't the time to be thinking about that. You've still got plenty of time, and we have a lead on breaking this. Once we figure out the parameters—"

"I think I know." Ethan cut me off. He was still staring at the ground, standing stiffly, just a little out of arm’s reach. I had the sudden feeling that if I moved closer, he would run. "I think I know what it is I cursed myself for. And it's not something I can fix."

"What is it?" I asked, fear coiling like a snake inside my stomach.

Ethan said nothing, but the lines on his face grew deeper. He looked tired, almost in pain. It was the ghost of an expression I'd seen in the elderly and the deeply infirm, those for whom pain had become a constant companion and death was a welcome release. I was beginning to realize that the warm, smiling, goofy man I'd been falling in love with was a better actor than I'd thought.

"Ethan," I said, pursing my lips and taking a deep breath as I felt the tightness of tears trying to gather around my eyes. "Please, don't give up on me."

A sudden certainty grabbed me, like a fist around my stomach, that if I didn't stop him now, I would never see him again. And yet, I was frozen in place. I was so afraid that if I moved towards him, he would back away, and I would lose the will to chase him. The thought shook me, the image of him leaving while I just stood here so strong and clear that it was almost more real than this alley-out-of-time I was standing in. I ducked my head as the hot wash of tears overwhelmed me despite my best efforts to hold them back. I wasn't a crier. Not normally anyway. I kind of hate crying. It ruins your makeup and leaves you feeling hollow and exhausted. It's never done me a damn bit of good. But I couldn't stop it. It was as embarrassing as it was overwhelming. We hadn't even been together that long. For me to be this attached already, to break down at just the idea of him leaving, was ridiculous. Our whole relationship was just a hormonal response to stress. But I could see it so clearly. Him leaving, vanishing into some distant city, isolating himself out of fear of hurting someone and dying alone and afraid. And my pathetic ass waiting at home, never knowing what had happened, left with this hole in my life, this question that would never be answered. Hot tears hit the pavement and vanished into the eternal post rain damp.

"Please," I begged him, shameless. "I need you."

I was such an idiot. He must be wondering when I decided to take this fling so seriously. Must be thinking how clingy and emotional I am, how ugly I look when I cry—

He pulled me close, so fast and so tight that I hit his shoulder so hard it almost hurt. He was shaking as he squeezed me closer.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into my ear. "Please don't cry, please. That's the last thing I want. That's what I'm trying to avoid."

I wrapped my arms around him and tried to hold him back as tightly as he was holding me. I did all I could to fight back the sobs still gripping me.

"I'll stay," he said. "I promise. I’ll stay as... as long as I can. But please— please understand that if the time comes, if I'm losing it—"

"We'll bring you here," I said, my voice muffled by his shirt and my own stuffy nose. "And you can live on Julius's couch until I find a way to save you."

"Vexa..."

"I won't stop trying," I said, gritting my teeth and forcing my voice not to shake. "I won't. You can't make me stop trying."

"It's not healthy."

"It's not healthy to just lay down and die either!"

"Alright," Ethan said. He took my head in both hands, his fingers in my hair, and kissed my forehead. "Alright. When it starts to get too bad to keep going, I'll come here. And I'll wait on Julius's couch and let you keep trying, for a month."

"A year," I countered immediately.

"Six months," Ethan conceded. "And if you don't have something solid by then, I need you to let me go. Julius can portal me somewhere that I won't be a danger to anyone."

I squeezed him tighter, refusing to agree.

"Vexa," he insisted. "Listen to me. We need a plan. I know you're sure you'll find a way to stop it, but if you don't, if I become dangerous, I need to know we're prepared. I need to know you'll be smart."

Still I said nothing.

"Vexa," he said, more softly. "I don't want to give you ultimatums. I don't want this relationship to be like that. I want to be happy with you for however long I have left. But I can't go through that portal with you if you don't promise me that when the time comes, if it comes, you'll let me go. I don't want to risk ending up with your blood on my hands. I couldn't live with that. Please, Vexa."

I loosened my grip on him slightly and took a deep breath. I'd finally got the crying under control, but I was still an ugly, red-eyed mess.

"A year," I insisted, meeting his eyes. "You don't come here until you're sure that your next transformation will be your last one, and you give me a year to find a solution. Then I'll agree to the plan."

Ethan sighed, rubbed a hand over his tired face.

"Alright," he said at last. "I guess if I'm making ultimatums, I can't blame you for setting your own terms. A year."

I hugged him tight again.

"Thank you," I whispered into his shirt.

He stroked my hair, leaning his cheek against my head.

"Don't thank me just yet," he said quietly. "I'm pretty sure I just signed your death certificate."