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T he next exorcism was gruesome.

A Stage 3 headed straight for Stage 4.

Jesus . His eyes.

“His eyes,” Sonder echoed her thought. “Hornets.”

“Vulture Hornets,” she breathed out, but there was no such insect in Ireland. They were devouring his eyes, burrowing their way in while the poor man was still breathing, scavenging on the soft tissue as the man lay unconscious.

Sonder lifted his mask and withdrew a vial.

“Be careful,” warned when he reached out a gloved hand and plucked one of the hornets from Mr Whelan’s eye socket with tweezers. It wriggled and buzzed between the metal prongs holding it captive, and leaned in to inspect it. “It’s almost iridescent,” she mused.

“Is it from there, do you think? The Faerie Wood?”

They exchanged a look before their attention was pulled back to the patient regaining consciousness. jumped to his side as Sonder stowed away the hornet. She slipped her hand under the bedsheet, grasping onto the man’s ankle. Her head fell back, and she just caught sight of Sonder jumping to her side to hold her up before her knees buckled and her eyes rolled back into her skull.

was instantly in the Faerie Wood. Lush, magnificent, wild. There was an ornate looking glass danging from a willow tree and in it, saw a man. Mr Whelan, young, whole and smiling, his little brother by his side. They sat beside a babbling brook, their trouser legs pulled up to their knees, feet in the cool water and fishing poles in their hands. Mr Whelan took a bite of apple, catching his brother looking at it longingly. He smiled at the lad and relinquished the entire thing to him without fuss.

’s heart warmed at this fraternal show of love. But the scene was interrupted by an infernal buzzing. She only had time to register the sound before the hornets were on the younger brother, drawn in by the sweet, crisp scent of the apple. They attacked with a vengeance until Mr Whelan yanked the apple away, shoved it between his teeth and pushed his little brother into the water. The hornets immediately turned on him. Young Mr Whelan threw the apple as far into the woodlands as he could, then dove into the water to haul his brother out. There on the muddy bank, he rocked him, smoothing down his wet, downy hair.

The scene faded, turning to Mr Whelan and his brother as they were now, older but still inseparable, the younger trying to feed the prone Inhabited man soup, his hands trembling, his eyes watery. “Please, Brother. Please eat. You have to.”

reached out and took one step forward. The trees around her were on fire, Fae of all kinds screaming. covered her ears, but one of the Fae got through, screeching at her, pulling her hair until she thought her neck would snap.

“ Mine! Mine! ” it hissed in a tongue she somehow knew but had never heard.

The buzzing invaded her skull and she covered her ears, gasping back to the present. “Cover your ears!” she shouted to Sonder, but he was already ripping up a portion of his shirt, shoving twisted bits in her ears. She clamped her hands around his until he was through and shoved pieces into his own ears.

Everything was muffled, but could still hear the screeching, the buzzing. “ Mine, mine , mine, ” on repeat until she finally understood.

“He’s not yours!” she bellowed, dousing Mr Whelan with bits of iron-infused moonwater, but a vine coated in black blood and dislodged viscera was snaking out of his nose, his mouth. He arched his back, writhing on the bed, gagging.

“Syringe!” Sonder shouted, and they both moved. “Sing, !”

And she did. In a language she’d never spoken until she was a ghoul in the corner, a spectre on the ceiling, a woman outside her body.

A mist lifted off the vine, like fog off a lake in the morning, and Sonder bound it with black salt while solidified it, shoving the needle toward its tiny jugular. The faerie twisted free, only a fraction of the Yarrow and iron fluid making it into its body. But it was enough for Sonder to reach out and snatch it.

With his teeth bared, he gripped the writhing, gnashing faerie with his gloved hand. “Jar!”

already had it open, and he shoved the creature inside. Instantly, the hornets dropped dead, falling in small heaps in Whelan’s bloody eye sockets.

Hot. She was too hot.

Sonder fastened the lid on with no embalming fluid to kill it this time. They wanted to study it alive. Moving.

Dizziness washed over and she sank to the floor. She heard Sonder say her name, but it was muffled by more than the strip of his shirt shoved in her ears.

The next thing she knew, he was crouched in front of her, ripping off her blazer, shoving a bottle of water in her hands.

Something pulled his attention away and he stood, his face marred with indecision, looking from Mr Whelan on the bed, to her. In the end, he chose her. He pulled her to a wall and propped her up. Took her water and doused what was left of the hem of his shirt in it and pressed it to her forehead, taking the strips out of her ears.

“.” The fear in his voice pierced her heart but he was a mirage and she couldn’t answer. “Darling, please talk to me. What is it? What’s wrong?”

She didn’t know. But there was a shimmer clouding Sonder, making him blurry, and all she could hear was, “ Mine, ” hissed in that ancient Fae tongue.

“No,” she managed. “Not yours.” The fire in her bones roared and she stood up, finally understanding what was happening. “Not yours,” she growled in its tongue at the shimmer above Sonder’s head. “ Mine .”

It popped, like a soap bubble, and everything returned to focus, Sonder’s terrified eyes, his heaving chest, Mr Whelan moaning on the bed.

“Whelan!” she let out, rushing to his bedside.

Sonder followed, opened his medical bag, and set to work, but he kept watching her, question in his eyes.

“I’m all right,” she told him gently, and he took a shuddering breath. “I’m all right.”

“Jesus, you scared me.” His tone broke her heart and sealed it all back up in tandem.

She stepped to him and put a palm to his face. “Focus on Mr Whelan. I’m all right. I promise.” But it was the second of too many lies she knew would come.

He kissed her forehead hastily and poured all his attention into Whelan.

The hornets had vanished with the spray of Yarrow water, but Mr Whelan’s eyes were gone—gaping black holes of blood—but it wouldn’t kill him.

“He’s in pain,” Sonder announced, “but his vitals are good. Go get his brother.”

donned her mask and did as instructed, trying her best to prepare Whelan the Younger for what he was about to see.

“He’ll need to go to hospital to ensure there is no damage to his organs. And”—she halted him outside the bedroom door—“you should know that his eyes are. . .gone.” Fuck, her bedside manner was not what it should be. “But he’s going to be okay.”

If the sight of his brother frightened him, he didn’t let it show, but rushed to his side, gripping his hand.

“I’ve given him a sedative,” Sonder explained, scrawling out the name of it on a slip of paper. “You’ll need to tell the medics what it’s called when they arrive and tell them to check his lungs, heart, nose, and throat.”

“Nose, throat, heart, lungs,” Mr Whelan repeated out of order, his nerves causing his eyes to dart around, landing on his brother’s eye sockets.

“Among the obvious things,” Sonder finished solemnly.

“Right. Thank you. Thank you both so much.”

“No thanks is needed, mate.” Sonder squeezed his shoulder and gestured with his head for to follow him out.

They barely made it down the stairs before Sonder dropped his medical bag and lifted both their masks, searching her eyes. “Say it again,” he demanded, his voice tumultuous. “But only if it’s true.”

“Sonder, I’m all right.” She laid her palm against his cheek again and he leaned into her touch.

“I’ve never been so scared in my life, .” He fitted her mask back on and donned his own, but he wouldn’t let go of her hand as they lugged all their supplies out to Gibbs’s car.

“Well?” Gibbs jumped on them as soon as they got in. “How did it go?”

“Another success,” Sonder told him plainly.

clutched the bag housing a jar with a live faerie in it as they passed the wailing sirens of the medics on their way to tend to Mr Whelan.