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D aisy rushed through Dusbury’s quieting streets as quickly as she could, her head down, her sketchbook clutched tightly to her chest.

Gods, she’d been so stupid. To ignore all those doubts and whispers and warnings, flashing in front of her face. To just keep floating along like a merry little seed on the wind, lost in the world she’d so desperately wanted to be true. The world where she was beautiful and desired, a true qualified artist, renowned and acclaimed and beloved. Rather than a mediocre, lucky amateur, clinging to a famous man’s coattails…

Daisy’s breath choked out in a loud, broken groan, a sound which drew an uneasy frown from a respectable-looking man on the opposite side of the road, and she rubbed at her eyes, and walked faster. Curse her, had Lew even cared about her at all, all this time? Or had it all been about keeping exclusive access to her, to her work? Keeping her close and available, ready to follow him across the realm, to jump to obey his every whim?

Daisy groaned again, earning a disapproving glance from a passing woman this time, but she kept walking, shaking her head. Because damn it, Lew’s career was everything to him — and of course he had wanted a dedicated artist, committed only to him and his goals. An artist with plenty of debt, perhaps, and no stable home or employment, who would willingly accept modest payments in exchange for guaranteed room and board and travel and exposure. An artist who would keep offering up her loyalty, her support, and her very best work, on the altar of a handsome commanding lover in her bed, and a bright, tantalizing dream.

You’re absolutely brilliant, Daisy . Beautiful . My heart is forever yours.

Daisy didn’t care who heard her laugh this time, the sound scraping bitter and broken through the street. She’d been such a fool. Such a typical, brainless, oblivious fool .

The water had at some point begun escaping her eyes, trickling in hot tracks down her cheeks, and she impatiently swiped it away as she finally strode through Dusbury’s town gate, and turned off the main road. Tromping across a farmer’s hayfield, and making straight for the nearby line of trees beyond.

It was early evening now, but there was still a little daylight left, and Daisy’s frantic, distracted brain only had one location in mind. A place she’d found a few days before, when she’d been seeking out wild Cascabela thevetia to draw, in preparation for its inclusion in Lew’s next book.

She groaned and picked up speed, now nearly jogging into the ever-thickening forest. Deeper and deeper, past that cluster of pines, following the sandstone shelf as it gradually grew from the earth. And there, tucked deep inside that jagged rock cliff, was the narrow, hidden opening to the cave.

Daisy had always loved caves — they were another entire world, a secret upside-down reality, bursting with bizarre, highly intriguing flora and rock formations. And as far as she had ever seen, there were very few well-drawn depictions of cave flora and formations in the current literature, and drawing them always felt like an exploration. An adventure. Like something that was only hers.

And gods, Daisy needed something to be only hers right now. Needed to find the weirdest, ugliest stalagmite in this cave, and fill entire pages with drawings of it from every possible angle. Needed to imagine Lew looking at it, wrinkling his nose, making some snide comment about arrogant geologists, and —

Daisy groaned again as she fumbled in her pocket for a candle — her last one — and lit it with a match. And then, holding the candle high, she stumbled through the long, narrow tunnel at the cave’s entrance. Taking the left fork, nearly tripping on some large loose stones, and then down further, through the narrow chasm. And then…

Her breath caught, her lips parting, her candle trembling in her fingers. Because yes, the cave was just as incredible as she remembered. Impossibly large, almost circular, with a smooth, high stone ceiling, and a spectacular variety of jagged rocks and boulders studded about, casting intriguing shadows in the flickering light of Daisy’s candle.

Daisy’s eyes swept across these untold riches with ever-increasing eagerness, and for a brief, wonderful moment, she almost forgot about Lew , about her stupidity, her ruined relationship, her ruined life. Because there was only this, only stark, powerful beauty reigning rampant all around her, offering itself to her, ready to be revealed anew upon a fresh clean page.

Daisy took a slow breath, inhaling as deeply as she could, drinking up the distinctive scents of stone and earth around her. Feeling it fill her lungs, her awareness, strong enough to drown out the distant drumming of her heartbeat.

She still had this. She always, always had this.

She wedged her candle into a rock beside the entrance, high enough to cast its faint flickering light throughout most of the cave — and then she fumbled to open her sketchbook, to flip past the page with the flat ugly flowers. To find that new page, waiting bright and free, ready to begin whispering of the wonder shimmering alive all around it.

Daisy’s pencil was already in her hand, fished out of her dress pocket, and now sketching out smooth, sweeping strokes across the page. Not focusing on one single peculiarity, as she’d initially intended, but instead just capturing the cave’s elegant shape, its inherent architecture, its wild, chaotic beauty. Almost as if it had been a grand greatroom, once, before it had fallen to ruin, overrun by the very earth itself.

And the more Daisy drew, the stronger that strange certainty felt. The ceiling was too smooth, too round, the floor beneath the rioting rubble far too flat and even. And the floor looked almost checkered in that section, as though its builder had originally alternated the colours of the rock, creating an intricate repeating pattern. A pattern Daisy could barely begin to extrapolate, but she was somehow already making the attempt. Extending the line of that tile, and drawing it over to there, where — yes, yes — it narrowed as it curved into there. And if that mass of rock hadn’t fallen in, it would keep going to there, and now Daisy’s feet were following it, her steps turning and tripping and meandering as they sought out the middle, the heart…

Her own heart thudded as she found it, her shaky foot sliding aside a wash of rubble to reveal… a circle. A perfect, polished stone circle, embedded in the floor. Not unlike a gleaming black eye, looking up at her from beneath her worn, muddy boots. Watching her, weighing her, the sensation sharp enough to send a strange, shimmering quiver up her spine. As if… as if…

Daisy whirled around, her heartbeat shouting through the silent room — because there, by the cave’s entrance, near where she’d stuck the candle, there was…

A figure. A tall, lean figure, faintly illuminated by the candlelight.

And yes, it was a him. It had to be, with the height, the sharp square shoulders, the flat bare chest. But he was too tall, too gaunt and bony and strange, his head smooth and entirely hairless, his skin oddly pale in the dim light.

And his skin looked like it was marked with… patterns. Patterns printed in deep, inky black, over his bare head, down his forearms, and even… on his hands. His long-fingered, sharp-tipped hands, held facing out toward Daisy , with… black circles in his palms. Black circles, black eyes , just like the one on the floor, just like the ones in his stark, staring, skull-like face…

“What… what are you?” Daisy whispered, over her surging, screeching heartbeat. “ Is this” — her eyes darted around the ruined room, the staring eye on the floor — “is this yours ?”

The man — the creature — didn’t move, didn’t respond, didn’t even blink. And for a fraught, shuddering breath, Daisy was sure she’d imagined him, conjured him up from the very earth itself. And perhaps it was a sign, some cruel omen from the gods that she wasn’t supposed to be here. She wasn’t wanted, she wasn’t a real artist, she wasn’t —

But then, the creature… moved. Stepped forward into the cave, the movement slow, sinuous, controlled. His eyes sinking into unreadable black hollows as he moved past her candle, and his face grew even more shadowed, more like a hard empty skull. And one of those hovering hands finally turned away from Daisy , its hidden black eye now pressing flat against the wall, long fingers spreading wide…

And as Daisy stared, the terror flashing white and desperate behind her eyes, the tunnel behind him… fell. Crashed . Collapsed , into pure, utter blackness, beneath a thundering crush of stone.