I took a deep breath, smelling the air, eyes darting about, ears focused to hear the smallest sound other than the steady patter of raindrops. I even tapped into my Fae magic, fumbling with it to try and get a better sense of everything. It was still somewhat awkward for me to use – working better in the heat of the moment than for casual, everyday things – but it at least gave me heightened senses enough to be certain we weren’t about to be surprised. I studied the hut before us, facing it squarely, watching the dim candlelight in the dirty center window. It was a sagging, decrepit building made of ancient, waterlogged wood. The porch was slanted, and other than the candlelight, it looked uninhabitable.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small metal pen. I thumbed it on and blue laser lights shot from each end, a thin beam made more visible thanks to the overcast skies and heavy rain. I was sure to aim one end at the candle light, and shuffled a few steps laterally until I was confident the beam of light was ninety degrees at the wall of the building. I glanced over my shoulder, eyeing the other laser beam pointing into trees that looked like any of the others surrounding the clearing with the hut. I marked the spot, turned my back on the candlelit window and began walking away from the house.

Talon and Carl silently fell in step with me as we made our way to the woods. After a few minutes of walking through the mud we crossed into the tree line. I kept my eyes on the trunk I had marked with the laser, occasionally glancing behind me to make sure the house still sat behind us. So far, so good.

The path began to grow thicker, the mud deeper, even trapping our boots, making us struggle to continue. The smell of damp rot increased, and I heard Talon snort. Then he sneezed a few times. Carl’s eyes squinted to bare slits, his tongue flicking out to taste the air as everything grew darker and gloomier with each step.

Low growls suddenly rumbled out of the nearby foliage. “No talk, no touch, no eye contact!” I snapped at Talon and Carl. “I warned you about this.”

They stiffened obediently, their every predatory sense urging them to ignore my demand. But they listened, shoulders tightening as fingers rested on hilts of the weapons at their hips. Thank you, Dog Whisperer, I thought to myself.

I continued walking as if I hadn’t heard the growls, eyes latched onto the tree I had marked. The growls grew harsher, angrier, and I even heard footsteps crunching over soaked twigs, the snapping of jaws, and saw fiery yellow eyes in my peripheral vision – stalking us.

Then a blast of hot air struck me in the face as I took the last step between me and the tree.

The gloomy woods were gone and I stood in a sunlit clearing. Talon and Carl each sucked in a breath, spinning warily to look behind us. A shimmering wall of gloomy darkness stood behind us, like a dirty window into those rainy woods.

Talon shared a long considering look with Carl before they both turned back to me. I grunted and walked ahead. Towards the freshly painted house – like a vision of what the water-logged hut had been when first built. Fresh paint and the smell of cut timber filled the air.

Mallory – in his human form, rather than his natural form as Pan, the Wild God – burst from the door, eyes glinting with the promise of death. He wore no shirt, and his white-furred chest did little to conceal the slabs of muscle over his body. A thin cord hung from his neck, adorned by a lone set of pipes that rested on the tufts of his chest hair, partly concealed by his thick, well-groomed beard. Charcoal brushes of color swept back from his temples, breaking up his long white hair which was tucked back in a baby ponytail – or possibly a man bun.

He wore jeans but no shoes, as if we had just woken him from a nap. I spotted the feather tattoo on the back of the hand he raised to shade his eyes as he looked out at us before sweeping the rest of the clearing for danger. I waved at him, not slowing. “How is he?” I asked him. “And where are Baba and Van?”

That was when I realized that the silence was brittle, and that Mallory’s face hadn’t changed.

He turned his back on me and walked into the house. I glanced at Talon and Carl. Without a word, they took up places on the porch, glaring out at the peaceful clearing as if expecting an ambush. I followed Mallory inside, ready for anything.

I saw an empty bed and flinched, spinning slowly to search for its occupant.

Mallory stood with his beefy arms folded over his chest beside a couch. I looked down to see Van Helsing sleeping, and frowned. Mallory stomped his foot hard enough for me to feel it through the wooden floor from a few feet away. Van didn’t even shift, even though the sound was enough to wake him from all but death. Mallory pointed a finger to a rocking chair in the corner of the house and I froze. Baba Yaga sat in it with an unfinished blanket on her lap, and long needles still in her hands. She had been knitting – I leaned closer, inspecting the unfinished design – a skull amidst a field of flowers. I shivered at both her decision of a blanket and at a small birdhouse on the bookshelf beside her. It had… chicken legs.

I slowly turned to Mallory, eyes wide. “Where the living fuck is he?” I rasped, pointing back at the empty bed.

Mallory shook his head in answer. “Gone. And I can’t get them to wake up. They are not harmed, not in danger of even being harmed, but they will not wake.”

I swept the room, suddenly very afraid. Was something else in here? Some trap? Some spell for the unwary? Whatever had spelled them all to sleep, but had woken up the other occupant?

Mallory spoke as if sensing my thoughts. “The danger is gone. There is no spell left. Someone did this, not something.”

I clenched my fists in fury. “Matthias,” I snarled, my vision flashing red at the edges. “What the hell? Why? How?” We had added the camouflage, the traps… and no one but the people in this room right now had known about it. Talon and Carl had only heard the details less than ten minutes ago.

Pan grunted. “I don’t know, but it was definitely him. I can sense Maker all over this place. But how did he find it?”

I took a deep breath. “You sure it was him? You haven’t told anyone about the precautions? At all?” he shook his head harshly. “The how doesn’t matter right now. He did this. But why?”

“He did say he was interested in the Knight…” Mallory added.

“But he also said he was going away for a while. Our last meeting was… hard on him.”

Mallory grunted. “Not hard enough. Or…” he trailed off, scratching at his chest hair absently. “Maybe hard enough to make him do this?”

I swore. Then I began to pace, scraping together anything we had learned, which wasn’t anything at all, really. No understanding of why the Knight of the Round Table was important, or even which Knight it was. One of King Arthur’s fabled heroes, we were certain, but not which one. Or why anyone should give two shits about him.

My eyes settled on the sleeping forms of the guards who had failed to keep the Knight safe. “You’re sure they’re okay?”

He thought about it, finally giving me an uncertain nod. I grimaced. He sighed in annoyance. “I can’t be sure without waking them up, and I dare not wake them up until I’m sure. I think it’s temporary. He… put their magical natures to sleep. Somehow. Since they rely so heavily on that aspect of themselves, their mortal body followed suit. I still sense magic in them, so I don’t think he… removed it or anything.”

I gasped. “Removed it! He can do that?”

Mallory shrugged. “I’m only hypothesizing. I don’t know what he can do. He’s been alive for centuries, and spent the majority of that time in Fae. Who knows how that changed him? The Mad Hatter,” he grunted sourly, kicking at the leg of the coffee table. I didn’t see a plate of food or a drink in sight, otherwise I might have thought them poisoned. Pan met my eyes. “Who can know the mind of a Tiny God? And he did tell you that the Knights were once one of his pet projects…”

I finally glanced at the birdhouse. It had been Baba’s Familiar – a sentient house that walked around on chicken legs. It could grow to any size, and usually walked around as a hulking, cloaked monster with a bone-beaked mask like one of those Renaissance-era doctors. Now, it looked like a toy figurine of that, the size of a birdhouse.

A wooden door on the birdhouse suddenly popped open and a wooden piece that looked like a tiny bird skull shot out as the hut erupted with sound.