Sometime before the start of the story:

  "Granny wants to meet you, the others as well," Kellan said, just as Connor entered the very not suspicious Café.

  He was still damp, spring rained hair coiled, or as coiled as it could be given its length, and dripping down his back like something feral and divine. His phone buzzed somewhere. He didn't look at the display.

  And then Kellan said it, again.

  Calm. Almost casual. Sitting at the table, book half-closed in his lap, voice always too gentle to be the herald of anything catastrophic. Charming in a way that put a seasoned veteran of the unseen world, or rather the ignored world like Connor, on edge. The seasoned part was of course debatable.

  "Granny wants to meet you."

  Connor froze mid-step, one foot still outside of the shop, one hand gripping the doorframe. He turned his head like an owl spotting prey, with immediate and deadly focus.

  "…What."

  "Some of the others as well."

  Connor gave him a look.

  Kellan glanced up, smile mild but eyes far too clear.

  "The family. My family."

  Connor didn't respond right away. He stared at him like he had just been asked to recite poetry in a dead language. Which, knowing Kellan, might be the second part of this conversation.

  "They are aware that I am your contact not your boyfriend, right? And you are aware that you are forbidden from sharing anything we discuss with each other, right?" Connor said, angrily.

  Kellan flinched. "Trust me, I don’t make them believe anything like that. I’m quite content in my current situation. Also, you’re not my type." A pause "Old ass."

  Connor glared again. Not because of the age, even if that did rather sting, but because of the second part.

  "I didn’t say anything. She just called me, said that someone like me shouldn’t be hanging around the Black and Tans and other dogs of empire. " Kellan exclaimed. Then with something almost mad in his eyes he whispered "I didn’t even know she was aware of phones let alone be able to call me. There wasn’t even a number!" Conspiratorially he added, leaning forward "So it must be really old."

  Ignoring the fact that this was absolutely not how that worked, Connor asked

  “…Granny. As in your grandmother?”

  Kellan shrugged "I’m sure she’s someone’s grandmother."

  Connor groaned. He should have just hoped for the best instead of worrying about his sister and getting this additional layer of security. Supposed additional layer. Probably nothing to worry about there. Hopefully nothing to worry about.

  "And she… wants to meet me."

  Kellan nodded. Calm. Unhurried.

  Connor slowly stepped into the café proper. His face didn’t show panic, not exactly. But his eyes flicked. None of the other people in the room seemed to be aware of anything. Convenient but worrying. He hadn’t done anything to them. It must be something Kellan did. His mind was moving. Connor didn’t do meetings, especially not with family members of contacts. This smelled like an invitation. Which meant vulnerability. Which meant worse.

  "You told them about me?"

  Kellan raised an eyebrow. "I just said I didn’t."

  Connor let the silence stretch.

  Kellan waited.

  Finally, Connor, exhaled. "And they want to meet me. Why?"

  Now the smile cracked, just a little. There was something more behind it. Something older.

  "I think they’ve always wanted to meet you. Granny just decided it was time."

  Connor frowned. "And what does that mean exactly? What kind of time are we talking about here, Kellan? Afternoon tea or blood moon cult circle?"

  Kellan chuckled again, but it was softer this time. "You’ll see."

  Connor narrowed his eyes. "I cant do that."

  Kellan gave him a look. "Mister Duvall, you seem to be under the impression that you or I have any say in this matter. We do not."

  "Kellan. If I go to your fucking family barbecue and get handed a dagger with my name etched on the blade-"

  "You’ll already know which direction to point it," he said, completely serious now. "You always do."

  The silence that followed was different. Not sharp. Not tense. Just... heavy.

  "I don’t do well with people."

  "They know."

  "I hate being tested."

  "You’re the one walking into the room now."

  "That doesn’t make sense."

  Kellan shrugged. He just reached out his hand, palm up.

  Connor looked at it. Then at him.

  "You understand that ill have to write a report on this yes?"

  Kellan shrugged "I doubt they care."

  "Right now?" Connor asked.

  Kellan shrugged "I mean… I got classes and stuff during the week so yeah ?"

  Conor sighed. "I’m driving. "

  Kellan grinned.

  Connor put a hand out "You will be answering questions."

  The younger man rolled his eyes "Fine."

  The car was an old one, matte black, unsuspicious unless you knew. After a while of trying to get Kellan to give a proper address, having him give one and the GPS refusing to take it, Connor decided to just drive in the vague direction of the location. He set up the recorder. Not a flute but a set of microphones, and digital storage.

  Some time into driving, he started asking questions. Slightly sarcastic but properly still.

  "So Kellan Bishop. What’s your mother’s maiden name?"

  "Cross." The man responded, unhappy.

  "Not Ainsel?"

  Kellan shook his head "It became Cross when they arrived here. Because the rest of my family that was already living here, my moms side, has that last name."

  Connor scoffed slightly "Are your folks known for being all godly if your name's cross?"

  Kellan smiled

  "Not particularly. My old auntie said that one of my ancestors tricked the Fair Folk and raised both her child and the changeling. So, they were quite...Cross with her and stole her last name. So as a last FU she made cross our last name. You can’t quite change your name like that, unless you change your location as well. Apparently. That’s why it was Ainsel. I think."

  Kellan’s eyes gleamed, steady. "It doesn’t matter, does it?"

  Conor didn’t answer.

  Kellan just returned to his phone, like nothing happened.

  Because to him, it didn’t. It was just conversation.

  Suspicion.

  Curiosity.

  Recognition.

  Interest.

  And that’s what made Connor’s stomach turn. Not just the silence.

  He was going to need to sniff for something else entirely.

  The sound of a chuckle ripped through Connor like cold air.

  "Why do you look so worried?" Kellan grinned at him, eyes wide, playful. "Auntie said that if they were still mad, they wouldn’t have married Grandpa. Or I guess it wasn’t a grandpa technically?"

  He said it like a kid retelling a bedtime story that always made them giggle, some old family myth passed down through chain-smoking women with too many cats and eyes that didn’t blink quite enough. Kellan said it like folklore, like fiction.

  Connor heard it like a warning flare. Like a siren.

  Connor suppressed the frown like it might save them both.

  Because Kellan just said something the wrong person might take very seriously. And it would be noted.

  Some families carried old debts. Some unpaid. Some unforgiven. Some a cruel measure of control imposed onto the powerless. Some that weren’t even theirs to start with. Names changed. Names were stolen. Names were given away.

  But names remembered? Well that might be trouble.

  And if Kellan’s family once crossed something they shouldn't have and married it?

  Big trouble.

  Kellan chuckled again.

  It felt like nails on a chalkboard.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  This time it sounded like an invitation to something he couldn’t quite name. Something watching. Waiting.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Kellan.

  "I mean sure, Granny is weird," Kellan said with that breezy shrug that made Connor want to reach across the car and clamp a hand over his fucking mouth.

  "But she can totally cross flowing water or whatever. She drinks whiskey and swears like a sailor and shot a raccoon with a revolver once because it kept getting into her rhubarb. Besides you can totally be allergic to iron right? To steel? People are allergic to all sorts of metals."

  Connor’s breath stopped in his chest for half a beat not long enough to be noticeable to anyone else, but enough for him to feel it. Like his body was trying to get ahead of whatever was coming out of Kellan’s mouth next.

  Kellan was smiling. All bright teeth and oblivious confidence. Still riding that strange, nostalgic energy that had suddenly taken hold like telling these stories was finally letting something out that had been quiet for too long.

  Connor knew that there were rules. Ancient ones. The ones whispered in family kitchens before the age of Google. Around campfires before they invented houses. The ones etched into family crests no one acknowledged anymore. The rules that mattered when the law didn’t.

  And Kellan smart, weirdly grounded Kellan just casually listed off a handful of ancient tests, true tests, and dismissed them with a laugh like they were folklore bullet points from a Buzzfeed article. Buzzfeed, of all things.

  Steel. Water. Salt. Fire.

  Well, he didn’t list those but at this point Connor wasn’t going to make any assumptions.

  The fail-safes.

  The barriers.

  Connor’s throat went dry. His fingers twitched.

  He didn’t believe in that shit.

  Not really. Not until now.

  "She could cross running water?" He asked, voice tense.

  Kellan shrugged again, focusing on his phone. "Yeah. I mean, she avoids bridges at night, but I always thought that was just a weird trauma thing. Rural childhood, or maybe she hit a deer once or something. You know how old people are."

  Connor’s jaw tightened.

  No. He didn’t know how old people were. Because none of the old people in his life talked about the Fair Folk. They didn’t tell stories. The people at work however, did. Or rather, they didn't, but they left gaps. They didn't explain what happened. They just said someone got too clever.

  And now Kellan, oblivious, kind, surviving Kellan was sitting in the middle of the storm, well car actually, like a lighthouse in fog.

  He leaned in, whispered sharp against Kellan’s ear.

  "I need you to shut the fuck up right now."

  Kellan turned to him with that half-grin, charming and confused. "What? It’s just a story."

  "Not here," he murmured, low enough for only him to hear. "Not now."

  Connor was now desperately focused on the road.

  After fifteen minutes of silence Kellan said.

  "Wait, so… " he sighs "I’m now assuming that iron is not something people are allergic to?"

  Connor gave him a look before focusing on the road again. Then he turned back.

  His expression shifted instantly.

  From deep thought to very sharp attention.

  “…Why?” he asked, voice suddenly flat.

  Kellan blinked, confused at his tone. "Uh, just remembered something. My grandma, well granny, not my grandma. One doesn’t care, and the other was murked by the British, she always said her arthritis acted up around railroad nails. Never let anyone eat with silver-plated utensils either." He tapped his chin. "I suppose that could just be an old people thing. But yeah, she said she’d break out in hives if she touched cold-forged iron."

  Connor’s eyes darkened. Slowly, the corner of his mouth twitched. Not in amusement.

  He murmured, "that’s not an allergy."

  He looked at Kellan, voice low and tight with realization. "Cold-forged iron doesn’t just sting the Fae. It repels them. It scars their skin, shatters illusions, it hurts basically. Some might die on contact."

  Kellan frowned, really frowned, the kind that tightened his whole face and drew a crease between his brows like a line in the sand.

  Kellan thought about Mister Duvall’s reaction. These people, the people he works for have enough skeletons in their closet to build one of those grotesque-ass bone churches.

  Ossuaries.

  That’s the word.

  He read about it once.

  One in Rome.

  One in Prague.

  Skulls stacked like bricks, femurs in the shape of crosses.

  Beautiful.

  Horrible.

  Sacred.

  You could build a cathedral from those bones and still have leftovers for the crypt, and the fucking colosseum. The entirety of the Roman Empire if you counted collateral.

  Those people, they’re worried about Kellan’s family?

  Kellan’s frown deepened, and the chuckle is gone now replaced by something harder, drier, tired in that deeply specific way of someone who has learned not to take offense until they’ve done the math.

  “You’re telling me,” he said, voice carefully even, but not friendly anymore, “that your people, the giant ass American Empire - this dynasty of veiled threats and inconvenient bystanders, and acceptable casualties - is getting nervous because my great-grandmother may or may not have pissed off something fairy-adjacent in the medieval times?”

  “Basically.“ Connor said neutrally. “If you have anymore family stories… just… I don’t want people to get hurt.” He explained, haltingly.

  They took a pee break.

  Afterwards, when Kellan settled into the seat he pondered out loud, tapping his chin "you know I always figured that Uncle Abi saying that he doesn't need to worry about getting divorced because my aunt knows perfectly well where her coat is, was just an odd inside joke... But she might actually be a selkie..." He spoke.

  Connor was silent for a heartbeat as he adjusted the seat, then he flicked on the headlights, and guided the car smoothly back onto the wet road. His eyes flicked toward him once, then back to the winding lane. On either side of the road was a black wall, that one might charitably call a forest.

  A tangle of pine, bare-knuckled oak and walnut, that seemed to almost lean in, crowding the edges of the asphalt. The shadows beneath the canopy were swallowing the headlights whole. The air was thick with the cold, damp scent of pine needle rot and something indefinably older, like wet stone and silence.

  “…Bishop,” he said finally, his voice flat with the slow gravity of someone connecting the dots to a constellation. One that no one had noticed was spelling out doom.

  Kellan leaned back in the passenger seat, arms folded, watching trees blur past in the dark. “I mean, she does get real nervous around laundry day. Never let anyone touch the cedar chest at the foot of the bed. Says it’s her ‘wedding box.’”

  Connor’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “And there are jokes about it?”

  “All the time,” Kellan replied.

  “Your family is insane,” Connor muttered.

  Kellan shrugged. “I’m just saying, it makes so much more sense now. Great-aunt Branna never goes near iron fencing, Cousin Elaine talks to bees like they’re people, and no one will light a candle in the upstairs hall after sundown.”

  Connor exhaled through his nose.

  Kellan grinned. “We make good tea and no one’s died in a barn hexing accident since the seventies. Although I cant confirm that, as I wasn’t there.”

  Connor looked at him. “That’s not reassuring.”

  Then turned his eyes to the road again.

  The woods became denser, somehow. The trees had started to look skeletal. Unsettlingly these two statements were not a contradiction.

  Their high branches forming a chaotic, interlaced ceiling that blocked out the sparse twilight. The road was a narrow, flickering tunnel in a place that seemed to have no interest in the modern world. Connor kept his grip tight on the wheel, the silence pressing in. The air was thick with the cold, damp scent of pine needles, rot, and what happens to things when they are beyond rot. Something heavy hung in the air, indefinably older, like wet stone and silence. The silence before words were invented.

  Kellan broke the silence. Connor wasn't sure if he liked this breach.

  "My cousin texted she's at that rest stop. She's... You know an art hoe. Gender fiend. That sort of person. " Kellan said, having been silent for the past hour. If it was anyone else, Connor might have assumed that the hour had been spent doing introspection, sorting through childhood memories. But That was rather unlikely, given Kellan’s, everything. It would take something really dramatic, for a person like Kellan to reexamine anything.

  “This isn’t a taxi service. “Connor complained, but the possibility of more intel was too tempting. He pulled into the way off.

  He spoke quietly, almost afraid to be heard. By what he wasn't sure. “Tell me more about this cousin. I don’t know what those words mean. Well I know about Art Hoes, but not the other thing. “

  Kellan nodded, his smile faint but real. It looked like the skeletal trees. “Don’t worry about it. “ He paused “Yeah, so Seraph. Not their legal name. I think they changed it twice. Once to spite our uncle, once to spite the government.”

  Connor muttered “Solid motivations.” Also, convenient if names were somewhat dangerous to a person.

  “She was always the weird one. Or I thought she was. Now I’m realizing she was just the honest one.” He laughed quietly. “Used to paint all over her skin and say it was to keep their shape from slipping. I figured that was just, you know… performance art.”

  Connor’s brow furrowed slightly. “Paint to hold shape…?”

  “Yeah. Swirls, spirals, vines. Sometimes little words in a language I don’t speak, maybe Gaelic. Said she needed it to ‘stay rooted.’ And that if she ever stopped, she’d start unraveling.”

  Connor’s fingers went cold on the wheel.

  “Kellan,” he said slowly, “your cousin might be actively binding herself. Self-drawn glamour. Temporary tethering spells. That's not expression. “ He looked at his passenger. Not the trees beyond the window. He did not look at the trees beyond the window. “That’s survival.”

  Kellan blinked. “Oh.”

  He looked out the window, distant.

  They pulled into the rest stop just as the last smear of sunlight melted behind the trees. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Kellan gave him a look.

  The place was half-abandoned, weathered picnic tables (No wood at the end of it, stupid), flickering lights, a vending machine that buzzed too loud in the too quiet.

  And there, sitting atop the hood of a rusty car with a half-drunk iced coffee and a notebook covered in runes, was Seraph. Soot black across their arms and throat, words scrawled in symbols that hurt Connor’s eyes to look at directly. Just sitting there. Was she not concerned about the trees? Was she in league with the trees?

  Their eyes lit up the second they saw Kellan.

  “Dummy,” they called, hopping down. “You brought your hot boyfriend and everything. Are we summoning old gods now or just pissing off family?”

  Kellan and Connor groaned at the same time.

  “Not my boyfriend. I don’t… Hes my boss ? “ Kellan stuttered. Why was he stuttering now? He should be cool.

  “So he’s single? “Seraph said excitedly “Score! Hey Kellan, why don’t you sit down in the backseat so I can-”

  “Shut up. Get in the car, we are leaving.” Connor said, annoyed.

  “Wow, stingy…” Sera muttered, slinging their sketchbook under one arm and crossing the parking lot, combat boots crunching gravel, bracelets clinking softly, paint glistening in the twilight. Their presence wasn't loud, but it was purposeful, in an almost predestined manner, like the storm warning before summer hail.

  Connor looked at her properly. Reading Sera like a map carved in paint and ink. His gaze lingered on the runes. “You wrote your wards into your skin.”

  Sera tilted their head. “You say that like there’s another place to put them.”

  Connor raised an eyebrow. “Most people use salt, sigils. You're holding your shape with language.”

  Sera shrugged. “Tried ink on paper. Didn’t work. Flesh sticks better.”

  Kellan watched them, still quietly absorbing the surreal familiarity of it all. “You two gonna circle each other or start speaking in tongues?”

  Sera gave him a wink. “Sorry, cousin. Some of us do networking. Also, my offer for tongue was rejected.”

  Then they turned serious, just a little. They pulled a folded piece of paper from their pocket and handed it to Connor.

  “You’ve been felt,” they said. “Something’s been moving out by the mound. Dreams are crawling again. Names are circling.”

  Connor unfolded the page.

  It was a drawing.

  A twisted tree. Roots like reaching hands. A woman, a man, a thing with no face, just a mirror. A larvae sleeping under a graveyard. His sister with blood around her lips.

  Kellan leaned closer, and felt his stomach twist.

  “Sera,” he said, “you dreamed this?”

  They nodded. “No choice.” Simply.

  Connor looked up, his expression unreadable. “That’s not a dream. That’s a warning.”

  Monique, why.

  The sleeper. Why would…

  Fuck.

  Kellan looked between them both.

  “Then let’s go,” he said.

  Sera grinned.

  The car sped away from the faint lights of the rest stop, plunging back into the oppressive blackness of the trees. The forest was different now, even more ancient, the shadows moving with a weight that felt conscious.

  Like snakes. Or malicious snow.

  If you weren't careful about reminding them that they were not supposed to move, they might forget to behave themselves.

  Every now and then, the headlights caught the silver flash of something in the underbrush,perhaps just a piece of litter, as absurd as the idea that something made by humans could withstand the forest. If it was not litter, then Connor would have to accept the other possibility.

  It felt like a brief, unsettling glance from a thousand unseen eyes watching them pass. The air was thick with the cold, damp scent of pine needles, rot, the scent of what happens to things when they are beyond rot, and the knowledge of what the next stage would smell like. Something heavy hung in the air, indefinably older, like wet stone and silence.

  Something was sleeping. Do not wake it. The silence before words were invented. Connor increasingly felt like he was driving downhill. Into something.

  When they were driving again, Connor just tuned them out. Until

  “…Wait,” Kellan said. “What do you mean whose grandmother?”

  Sera shrugged one shoulder, entirely too casual, arms crossed over their chest like they weren’t just casually dismantling the foundational pillar of their entire bloodline. “I mean, like… we all call her Granny. And she’s in every house. Every story. I just realized, I don’t actually know if she’s your dad’s mom, or your mom’s mom, or mine. Like… who’s her child?”

  “I… I don’t know,” Kellan admitted. “I always assumed she was someone’s mom? But I don’t remember anyone ever talking about her like a parent.”

  “Right?” Sera said, as she shuffled around on the back bench. “And there’s those photos, you know like, black and white ones, in the hallway at the farmhouse. She looks exactly the same. Same hair, same brooch, same glare. My mom said it’s just a ‘strong resemblance,’ but she said it like she was lying through her teeth. As opposed to lying through her ears, which only happens when I’m trying to seem cultured. ”

  Connor cut in smoothly, voice low. “You’re both telling me your entire family refers to the same woman as Granny, but no one’s quite sure who she actually gave birth to?”

  Sera nodded. “Yup. But she knows everything. Birthdays. Secrets. She once told me which rock to bury my heartbreak under, and I didn’t even tell her I was dating anyone. Typicall Grandma stuff, you know. ”

  Kellan added, slowly, “She told me the first name of the boy who bullied me in third grade before I did. And said his mother was a hollow thing – which might be slur actually, for like burn outs- and not to drink anything offered in their kitchen.”

  Connor exhaled through his nose. “That’s not a grandmother. That’s a matron spirit. Or worse.”

  “I don’t know what that means.” Kellan states frowning.

  Sera taps his forehead, leaning forward to archive this. “Trust me little cousin, The less you know the better. “

  “Why did you say that so melodiously?”

  “Oh! Its this new indie band I found, they have a song like that.”

  Then the wind shifted. Inside the car.

  Just a breath, brushing behind their necks like a finger tracing bone.