A whisper, soft and lilting, slipped through the shutters, curling around the edges of my consciousness, forcing me awake.

  My eyes snapped open, heart jolting as the whisper blossomed into a melody, pure and haunting, threading through the night like a silver needle. It was her.

  The Sirin. She was back for more.

  I scrambled upright, dirt crumbling from my clothes, and pressed myself against the mound, straining to pinpoint the source. The song grew clearer, its notes weaving a tapestry of longing that seemed to vibrate through the wooden beams of the pub. She wasn’t at the door—her voice carried from above, perched somewhere high, likely in the dead branches of a tree overlooking my sanctuary. Those golden eyes flashed in my memory, predatory and unyielding, and I clenched my fists, willing my pulse to steady.

  Her words drifted down, each syllable a shimmering thread that coiled around my thoughts:

  "

  Step beyond your earthen band.

  Night unfurls her velvet cloak,

  Join me where the shadows smoke."

  The melody was richer now, deeper, its beauty sharpened by an edge I hadn’t noticed before—a compulsion that sank invisible hooks into my mind. My legs twitched, an involuntary urge to rise, to move, to fling open the door and answer her call. I gritted my teeth, digging my fingers into the soil, anchoring myself to its warmth, trying the same mental techniques I figured out yesterday.

  This time, they didn’t seem to work as well. The voice called out to me, drew me away from my pile. I crawled to the nearest window, peering through a narrow slit in the shutter.

  There she was—a dark silhouette against the silver clouds, perched atop a gnarled oak just beyond the pub’s perimeter. Her wings were half-folded, feathers glinting with that eerie emerald sheen, and her golden eyes glowed like twin lanterns, fixed unerringly on my hiding place. Her head tilted, birdlike, and the song swelled, its potency rising like a tide:

  "Feel my voice within your veins,

  Shed the weight of mortal chains.

  Earth cannot your spirit hold,

  Come to me, be free, be bold."

  The words burrowed deeper, their hooks sinking into my head with a visceral tug. My hand trembled, inching toward the iron latch of the shutter as if guided by some unseen force. I yanked it back, pressing my palm flat against the soil-strewn floor, letting its faint pulse ground me. The Sirin’s song wasn’t just sound—it was magic, a living thing that clawed at my will, prying at the edges of my resolve. It was stronger tonight, more insistent, as though she’d learned from her failure the night before and honed her lure to a razor’s edge.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, focusing on mathematics, on my mental disruptions, on the texture of the dirt beneath me, the faint scent of crushed petals, anything to drown out her voice. But it was relentless, seeping through the walls, wrapping around my thoughts like vines:

  "Lonely witch, so frail, so still,

  Bend your heart to match my will.

  Step into my waiting arms,

  Taste the night and all its charms."

  My breath hitched, shallow and ragged. The compulsion was physical now—a pressure behind my eyes, a tingling in my limbs, urging me to stand, to unlatch the door, to stumble into her embrace. I could almost feel her talons brushing my face, her feathers soft against my skin, promising an end to the isolation, the uncertainty, the cold. My knees buckled, and I slumped against the wall, the shovel clattering beside me as I fought to stay rooted.

  Warmth. Love. Happiness. Understanding. Companionship. I would have it all if I simply joined her outside. A transient, invasive thought whispered.

  She’s doing something to me, I realized, panic threading through the haze. The hooks weren’t just pulling—they were sinking in deeper, rooting, rewriting my instincts. My scientific mind rebelled, clawing for clarity.

  Was this telepathy? A neurochemical manipulation triggered by sound waves? Some kind of magical resonance being tuned to my soul? I tried not to breathe, but this time it simply didn't work, my body refused to cooperate.

  I gritted my teeth.

  I wouldn’t be her puppet—not tonight, not ever.

  The song intensified.

  "Why resist what fate has spun?

  You and I shall be as one.

  Leave your den, your fragile shell,

  Heed my call, my sacred spell."

  The hooks tightened, a searing sensation of alien desire lancing through my skull as though she were physically wrenching my mind free. My vision blurred, the pub’s interior swimming in a haze of shadows and flickering moonlight.

  My foot took me to the door. Then the other foot joined, my body puppeteered by alien intelligence, hijacked almost entirely by her song.

  My hand shot out, fumbling for the door’s latch, fingers brushing the cold iron.

  “Shut up!” I hissed under my breath and too late realized that speaking might give her more purchase. The Sirin paused, her song faltering for a heartbeat, as if she’d heard me. Then it resumed, softer, more insidious, a crooning lullaby that slipped beneath my defenses:

  "Sleep no more in dirt and stone,

  Claim the sky as your own throne.

  I will lift you, make you whole,

  Witch of earth, give me your soul!"

  The pressure was unbearable now, a vice around my temples, my pulse hammering in time with her rhythm.

  "Come, my sweet, the night grows old,

  Leave behind this cage so cold.

  I will wait, but not for long,

  Heed my heart, my endless song."

  My fingers unlocked the latch.

  Heaven waited for me. My angel was there.

  “Come. Come to me. Open that door. Open it!” She whisper-sang.

  I swung the door open. She stood there, waiting for me in front of the door, inhumanly long talons featuring sharp bony ends.

  My arbalest was pointed straight at her chest, backpack weighing me down.

  “Hey is that.. Wait… you’re…” she uttered as I pressed the trigger. The arrow struck her chest, sending her careening backwards, black wings flapping.

  She let out a choke-howl and stumbled into the taut tripwire I’d rigged just beyond the pub’s threshold. The rope snapped tight with a twang, the notched branch whipping free from its anchor. The rusted bear trap beneath erupted from its snowy shroud, jaws clamping shut around her left leg with a sickening crunch of bone and feather.

  The Sirin shrieked—a sound raw and guttural. Her massive wings flailed, beating the air in frantic bursts.

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  I froze, hand still gripping the arbalest, the bolt’s fletching a dark streak against the pale moonlight now illuminating her struggle. Her golden eyes locked onto mine, wide with shock and fury, the predatory gleam replaced by something wilder—pain, betrayal, desperation.

  Blood, shimmering and emerald, oozed from the trap’s teeth and from the arrow sticking from her chest staining the snow beneath her in a spreading pool. Her talons clawed at the ground, gouging deep furrows as she tried to wrench herself free, but the iron held fast, tethered by the spike I’d driven deep into the frozen earth.

  Her wings spasmed wide, one catching the low-hanging snare I’d strung near the fallen oak. The rope snagged a cluster of emerald-tipped feathers, yanking tight as the counterweight—a jagged chunk of chimney stone—teetered on its perch. For a heartbeat, she seemed to sense the danger, her head snapping upward, but it was too late. The pulley gave way with a groan, and the stone plummeted, slamming into her shoulder with a dull thud. Feathers exploded outward, dark and iridescent, as the impact drove her down, pinning her onto the icy ground.

  The Sirin’s scream morphed into a ragged, keening wail, her humanoid face twisting in anguish. Her song was gone now, replaced by gasps and snarls, the honeyed compulsion reduced to a pitiful wheeze. She clawed at the stone with one hand, the other scrabbling at the bear trap, her talons scraping uselessly against the metal. The elegance of her form—half-bird, half-woman—crumpled into a grotesque tableau, limbs tangled in my web of ropes and cold iron.

  I went into the pub and ignited a torch with a flint. Emerging with it, I walked towards the Sirin.

  “All done singing? I do wonder… How flammable are these feathers?” I asked her.

  The Sirin’s golden eyes widened, the molten glow within them flickering with pure terror. The torchlight danced across her face, casting jagged shadows over her avian features, illuminating her human face. Her chest heaved, the arrow still lodged deep, its shaft trembling with each ragged breath she drew. The bear trap’s jaws bit deeper into her leg as she jerked against it, a fresh spurt of emerald blood glistening in the firelight, pooling beneath her in a slick, unnatural sheen.

  She recoiled—or tried to—her massive wings flapping uselessly against the ropes and debris that pinned her. The elegance of her predatory grace was gone, replaced by a frantic, animalistic thrashing. Feathers scattered like dark snowflakes, catching the torch’s glow with an oily shimmer as they drifted to the ground. Her talons scraped at the frozen earth, clawing for purchase, but the weight of the stone and the iron grip of the trap held her fast. She was a bird caught in a net, a predator reduced to prey, and the realization seemed to dawn on her all at once.

  “No—no!” The words bubbled up through the ichor clogging her throat, spilling out in a desperate rush. “I—You’re no witch, you—”

  Her head snapped back, eyes darting wildly as if searching the shadows for an escape that wasn’t there. The torchlight flickered, casting her silhouette against the ground—a grotesque distortion of wings and limbs, writhing in panic. She yanked at the trap again, her leg buckling under the strain, and another sharp, keening cry tore from her lips, raw and piercing.

  “...Aren’t a witch!” she cried again. “No Zemlya-touched soul—no tender flower of the earth! You’re… you’re something else—something wrong!” Her golden gaze locked onto me, wide and unblinking, as if she could peel back my skin and see the alien mind lurking beneath Ioan’s frail frame. “I cannot see you properly… why can't I see you fully?! What are you? WHAT ARE YOU?!”

  “I’m a warlock,” I said as I threw the torch at her.

  The torch arced through the frigid air, a comet of flame trailing sparks as it spun toward her. It struck her chest with a dull thud, just below the arrow’s protruding shaft, and the fire caught instantly, igniting the oily sheen that coated her feathers. A whoosh of heat erupted as the emerald-tipped plumage blazed to life, flames licking upward in greedy tendrils, painting the night with a sickly green glow. The Sirin’s scream shredded the silence—a high, inhuman wail that clawed at my ears, reverberating through the skeletal trees and bouncing off the pub’s weathered walls.

  Her wings thrashed wildly, fanning the fire instead of smothering it, each frantic beat sending tongues of flame spiraling higher. The scent hit me then—sharp and acrid, like burning tar mixed with the coppery tang of blood. Her feathers crackled and popped, curling into blackened husks as the blaze consumed them, racing along her arms and torso with terrifying speed. The bear trap glowed faintly red where the heat kissed its metal jaws, and the ropes binding her smoldered, threads snapping under the strain as she writhed.

  “No—no—no!” she howled. Her golden eyes, once molten and commanding, dulled with pain and terror, darting between me and the inferno devouring her. “Mercy—please! I’ll leave—I swear it! I’ll never—”

  Her words dissolved into a choking gurgle as the flames reached her throat, searing the delicate skin beneath her feathers. Her humanoid face twisted, mouth gaping inhumanly wide in an unnerving scream, revealing rows of saw-like teeth that glinted briefly before the fire swallowed them too. The stone pinning her shoulder shifted as she bucked against it, tumbling into the snow with a hiss, but it was too late—her strength was failing, her movements growing sluggish as the blaze ate through muscle and sinew.

  “Castinshirrakorrrrrffff!” she suddenly cried out, her burning hand slashing through the air in a wild, desperate arc.

  The word—guttural and alien—crackled with a power that made the hairs on my neck stand on end. A pulse of energy surged from her claw, a blinding yellow-green flare shaped like a hexagonal snowflake erupting from her scorched form like a supernova birthed in the heart of the inferno. The light seared my vision, a vivid emerald blaze that swallowed the sickly flames whole. The fire didn’t just die—it vanished, snuffed out as if the air itself had rejected its existence.

  The force of the flare hit me like a hammer. A shockwave rippled outward, slamming into my chest with the weight of a charging beast. My feet left the ground, the pub’s doorway blurring past as I was hurled backward, tumbling through the air like a ragdoll caught in a storm. I crashed into the back wall with a bone-jarring thud, the backpack with warm earth cushioning my fall just enough to keep my spine from snapping. Pain lanced through my ribs, my breath exploding from my lungs in a ragged gasp as I skidded to a stop.

  I scrambled to my knees, head spinning, vision swimming with afterimages of that blinding yellow-green light.

  The ropes binding the Sirin snapped with a series of sharp pops, the hempen strands fraying and bursting apart as if sliced by an invisible blade. The bear trap groaned, its rusted jaws springing open with a metallic screech, releasing her mangled leg in a spray of emerald ichor. The stone pinning her shoulder trembled, then rolled aside, kicked free by a spasming talon as she lurched upright. Her wings, charred and patchy, flared wide, feathers smoldering at the edges but still intact enough to catch the wind.

  Then she was moving—staggering, then lurching forward, her talons gouging the snow as she dragged herself free of my traps. Her once-majestic form was a ruin: feathers singed to stubs, one wing drooping at an unnatural angle, her leg a twisted mess of blood and bone. Yet she moved with a predator’s stubborn fury, her golden eyes blazing through the haze of smoke, fixed on me with a hatred so visceral it felt like a physical weight.

  I grabbed a second arbalest pointing at her, but my vision was swimming, my hands trembling as I pressed the trigger. My shot missed her only by a few inches.

  “Curse you!” she shrieked, her voice a raw, splintered thing, stripped of its honeyed grace and laced with venom. “Curse your wretched soul, you—you abomination! You’ll die in this forsaken hole, forsaken by Zemlya, forsaken by all!” Her wings beat once, twice, each motion jerky and pained, sending gusts of ash and snow swirling around her. “I’ll see you torn apart—by claw, by cursed flame, by the jaws of the Abyss! You’ll beg for my song before the end!”

  She thrust herself away, the force of her takeoff sending a tremor through the ground. Her ascent was clumsy, lopsided. Black feathers trailed behind her like a funeral shroud. Her wails echoed through the forest—a jagged symphony of rage and agony that pierced the stillness, fading only as she vanished beyond the skeletal canopy, swallowed by the dark.

  I slumped back against the soil mound, chest heaving, the arbalest still clutched in my trembling hands. The air stank of burnt feathers and ozone, the sharp bite of her magic lingering like a storm’s aftermath. My torch lay extinguished in the snow a few paces away, its flame snuffed by that impossible flare.

  The pub’s doorway loomed open before me, a black maw framed by the faint glow of moonlight filtering through the clouds.

  I got off my magic earth, limped to the door and snapped it shut.