The infected Kin darts into the cave mouth and she holds back. It takes some concentration, but after a few heartbeats the ground around the caves begins to shake, crack and tumble.

She senses it going far deeper, fleeing the rockfalls that seal off the tunnels behind them. The ground ruptures, and half the hillside falls into the network of tunnels and halls that Dastion spent his time hollowing out beneath the Fold.

She searches, sending her senses out wide. She’s content that there is no way for the gargoyle to return to the surface. It will remain down there, that Kin with human stains, for as long as she remains up here, and as long as the Fold persists. Perhaps over time it will stop wandering those deep tunnels and sit down to die, or maybe it will persist, becoming motionless but still extant, still infected with the dangerous contamination that even she wants no part of.

Whatever happens, it will be safe.

There’s no way out.

* * *

He sees her coming again and there’s nothing he can do. Sometimes she lets him run, and he does so, because over the time he’s been trapped in the Fold—months, maybe years—Mallian has never shaken the belief that one day he will better her. So he runs, and she hunts him, and after hours or days of cat and mouse, she always catches him.

One day, though...

Although this time, as she casts her glamour and freezes him against an old tree, the first doubts begin to sprout.

He struggles but cannot move. He can’t even squirm. His heart beats, but at her behest. His blood flows, but only because she wants to taste it.

The fairy peruses his body, looking for a part that is not too knotted with the scars of healing bites. There aren’t many. She finally settles on his left thigh, crouching down beside him and exposing her small, sharp teeth.

She looks up and locks eyes with him before she clamps her teeth onto his flesh. That’s what he hates the most. She waits until he’s looking so that he can see her pleasure in every bite.

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I couldn’t have written the Relics trilogy without the help and support of Team Titan, and special thanks go out to DEO Steve Saffel and Editor-at-Large Cath Trechman.

About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TIM LEBBON is a New York Times-bestselling writer from South Wales. He’s had over forty novels published to date, as well as hundreds of novellas and short stories. His latest novel is Blood of the Four (with Christopher Golden), and other recent releases include Relics, The Family Man, The Silence, and The Rage War trilogy.

He has won four British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Scribe Award, and has been a finalist for World Fantasy, International Horror Guild, and Shirley Jackson awards.