The Redcap on Croi’s right moves then, faster than she thought he could. He slaps her left cheek, his nail tearing her lips. She falls to the ground, unable to withstand the force of the strike. There’s pain. There is always pain. But she cannot stop to savor the hurt. She looks up at the Redcap who struck her as he leans over her supine body. He sticks out a finger, wiping the blood off her lips. He licks his finger. Hums his pleasure.

Croi tries to get up, and another Redcap pushes her down and holds her there. She struggles, but the Redcaps are too strong. They keep her prisoner in that position. The fire still burns within her, but she cannot burn anything outside. The Glamour hasn’t broken enough yet.

The leader of the Redcaps kneels before her, and their eyes meet. He pauses at whatever he sees in her gaze. The moment has come. A Redcap behind Croi pulls her head back, exposing her neck, treating her as a lamb to slaughter. She looks up at the sky, wondering when the clouds moved in. The dagger, heavy with magick, approaches the pulse gone wild in her neck.

Right before the blade touches the skin on her neck, the air is torn apart by an arrow. A moment of confused chaos follows. The Redcaps shove away from Croi; her head falls forward, her breath remains in her throat, her heart continues beating. The leader of the Redcaps falls, an arrow protruding from the center of his head. There is no blood.

The night crows leave the sleeping kin, rise up as smoke, and reclaim their bird shapes. They squawk loudly and join the remaining Redcaps as they take up strategic points around the clearing. They’re protecting the fallen leader even though his wound is fatal. Croi looks closer at his prone form and sees that though his life is ending, the magick rooted inside him is still pulsing. The other Redcaps are keeping him alive.

A rain of arrows falls, and the night crows speed off in various directions. The Redcaps pay Croi no attention as their eyes sweep the surroundings, trying to pinpoint the direction from which they’re being attacked. This moment comes as mercy, as opportunity, and she seizes it.

She builds a command into her call and sends it to the Redcap magick. The Redcap magick doesn’t hesitate; it leaps to her. As the Redcap magick flows into Croi, she connects to the other Redcaps. She feels the leader die when the magick leaves him and roots in her. She hears the mind voices of the remaining Redcaps—the sound of a winter wind—she feels their hunger, their grief for their fallen brother, their need for vengeance. She feels the things the Redcaps don’t say—the evil in them flushes her cheeks red—she learns to fear the same thing the Redcaps do, light and heat. She becomes the Redcaps and the Redcaps become her.

Croi fills herself to the brim, and still the Redcap magick pours into her. There is no end to it. It threatens to shade in the deepest spaces within her. She has only one way to destroy the magick before it takes over.