The higher up the tower we climbed, the more I realized that the arched window was not, in fact, even half the size necessary to fit the great stone beast hurtling toward it. I was nearly slipping now, struggling to hold onto the weak wings, trying (on top of having to support my hanging weight) not to get pinched whenever they'd flap against its broad shoulders.

"How do I go from you to there?" I asked, immediately earning a disinterested snort. When it didn't answer, I asked again; repetition worked on Chiro; why not on a sentient gargoyle?

Not problem mine, it hissed in that hollow tone, scuttling level with the window. Razor-edged tails ground against the stone. If I hadn't needed my hands, I would've held them to my ears to block out the dreadful screech. Off with yous.

I stretched a cautious foot toward the window. My big toe almost touched the rain-stained lip of the outer sill. The distance from me to it was about three feet too uncomfortable. "Can you get closer? Or maybe lower and I can climb over your shoulders?"

Its entire body shook, a dogged pant serving as its raspy chuckle. The flat of one tail slapped against my calf hard enough to leave a welt, not that it mattered, if I plunged to my second death. Off now.

Taking a deep, painful breath, I looked down into the courtyard below, at dirty tents and people dressed in clothes as modern as today and as ancient as, well, their birthday suits- which coincidentally, quite a few had a glimpse of mine under the open bottomed tunic. More than one head turned towards mine, and more than one wasn't remotely human. A giant man with a bullish snout and a Minotaur's chiseled body watched with particularly keen interest. Scanning the crowd, I couldn't find Chiro or the Walrus or even Akta.

Off.

"Sorry, sorry," I mumbled, easing both my hands together on the wing nearest the sill. It drooped about a foot lower, a sudden, short drop that made me yelp. To get my toes back into the previous position on the ledge, I had to lift myself more than I was comfortable. How I was suppose to keep my balance and get my lower half in the window?

And all those assholes were going to watch me fall to my death. And even worse, it wasn't like I was wearing underwear.

No. No way.

Gritting my teeth, I held onto the wing with the hand farthest from the window, and let the other dangle free. Sure enough, the freed wing popped back up the extra foot. Could I pull myself up if I landed my fingers on the ledge? My muscles, sweaty and hurting and all, didn't have time to mull over it. I reached and stretched then jumped.

Air rushed up and then full weight of gravity bore down. My fingers scrabbled through moss and rock. My knees hit the stone with enough force I barely kept my grip. In a quick motion that took every ounce of muscle I had left, I pulled myself up and hooked an elbow over the ledge. With my arm inside, I scrambled forward and fell flat on a wood floor, panting. The gargoyle's screechy descent was a happy boom on the other side.

My fingers and forearms ached and screamed, but I was on solid ground, and that was enough. I backed myself against the cool stone wall, let my damp neck enjoy the momentary respite.  My heart pounded so loud I couldn't hear my own breathing. Pale green light filtered through the window, giving shine to dust I'd disturbed on my entrance, too weak to illuminate further than the reach of my toes.

"You didn't need to jump," a deep voice rumbled with amusement, close and yet removed. It was a voice of the night, rich and dangerous, the kind of voice that rubbed like velvet against your ear. Floorboards creaked as its owner drew near with the resolute, curious patience of a lion pacing a hut. "Cairn was only teasing."

"Cairn?" I asked in disbelief. Shoulders still pressed into the wall, I rose, tilting my head only slightly towards the retreating gargoyle. "You named that thing?"

"A very loyal thing. If you want to survive here, you'd do well to find your own loyal thing to name." Black boots took a green tint as they crossed into the light, so large I caught myself staring towards the black ceiling, wondering what kind of overhead there was for a giant. A dense coat of wolf's fur rustled, and from a gaping sleeve emerged thin, wart-covered fingers of blueish flesh and black blisters. "Come now. You have business with me."

The hair on the back of my neck rose. I didn't want to have any business with the owner of a saccharine voice like that. Maybe if the spidery hands matched the speaker... No. No, I thought, refusing the proffered hand, don't even consider it.

"Why didn't you call to me?" I asked. "I would've loved to know he was teasing."

"Now I've seen your mettle." And in the dark, with a dark, masculine voice and what I presumed were dark intentions, the speaker made every word sound quite inappropriate.

Maybe the Walrus wasn't teasing me. Maybe I was the stupid kind of prey.  I glanced down at my bloody feet, and then up into the dark. "And what do you think?"

The hand disappeared in a rustle of fur and fabric. "Patience."

"Are you the king?" His silence served as imperious affirmation. I folded my arms across my chest. "Turn on a light, or light a torch or something so I can see your face. It's polite to look someone in the eye when you're deciding their fate."

"My face," he began in a wheezy purr, "is not something a young woman should ever come to know."

"I'm not afraid." The quiver in my voice betrayed the words, but to this point what kept me ahead was staying assertive. Not easy to accomplish by any means, but I didn't have a choice. If I curled up in a little ball and sobbed like I wanted to, I'd be a dead woman, or worse.

"I'm not implying you are."

"Back home I was an artist, about to go to school for special effects makeup. Sculpting is integral to that." A little nervously, I dried my sweaty palms on the tunic. "If you won't show me your face, at least me touch it, so I know who's out there."

"Says the girl who would refused a gentleman's hand."

His voice, everywhere and nowhere, made it difficult to pinpoint a location, so I stared straight ahead. "You're a king, your majesty. That's quite different."

If I listened hard enough, I almost heard the darkness smile. "Step away from the light."

The air turned cold as my feet abandoned the twinkling glow of sunlight. Just a few paces from the window itself, that same air seemed thicker, more sinister. Goosebumps rose along my arms.

Old joints clicked and creaked. "Stay still now, still until I command otherwise."

In the cold quiet, I turned instinctively toward the light, hoping, just maybe, I'd be able to catch a glimpse of him.

"Still!" The voice came hard, discordant. I froze. The tunic brushed against my legs, stirred by moving air. 

For long moments there was nothing but breathing, the click of a hip or shoulder, and then I could feel it, a vast warm presence on my neck. Something wet and forked slipped across my collarbone; something bristled like an unshaven chin brushed against my hair, and I had to fight so strongly not to raise my hands and bat it away.

There came a sticky sound, like a tongue sliding through saliva, and from inches before my nose that dangerously smooth voice like a stinger drenched in honey. "One hand," the king instructed.

Bumpy, wrinkled fingers yanked my hand and pressed my palm flat against his face. He released me with a soft sigh, and I closed my eyes though I didn't have to in this pitch room. Even with my background in sculpture, I could barely make sense of the structure.

My fingers lay against what I thought was a cheek, crusted, thick-skinned, textured like a rhino's sunbaked hide though he clearly had not been in the sun for some time. The further back I stretched, searching for a forehead or ear, the more feathered the hair became. I retreated as my fingers tangled in true feathers, brushed my hand over deeply ridged eyebrows, and down the flat of his nose, a nose that was hard and ended in a curved beak. Out of curiosity, I ran my hand along the seam of upper and lower beak, and towards the end, where his jaw ended, felt the flat side of teeth.

I gasped, and he turned his head sharply, so that my hand felt the other side. Something tacky, like paint not quite dry, brushed against my finger, and as I explored this side of his face, I found myself recoiling in disgust. I felt bone now, bone and twisted muscle and rendered flesh. No feathers, no skin. The beak was broken here on the bottom, an empty hole that his forked tongue slipped through.

And somehow in my twisted fascination I remembered I was touching a person. Or a demon. It was rude, and I hadn't liked it myself.

"You're not at all like the prince," I said, quickly wiping my hand.

The king's retreat to deep shadows made me marginally more relaxed. "Handsome? Young?" he chortled.

I shook my head, eager to forget the smashed beak. "Feline."

"He is no son of mine," the king began with a laugh that didn't lighten his voice. "This place will peel back your human nature, strip your skin, flay flesh from bone and burn your brains. Prince Chiro happens to be good at doing that to other people, and avoiding the same fate for himself."

I would've felt bad for the king, but a singular question consumed me in the moment. "Then why would you bring people here?"

"You're a fool if you think being king is to have absolute power."

"You mean It controls you," I said, curbing my instinct to call the Marrow Witch by name. "But you have power over the others, and that's what I need."

"You're a maiden. Perhaps a more vociferous one, but a maiden nonetheless."

I stepped into the darkness further. "Demon blood runs through my veins."

"You are a February maple tree, sweet with untapped power, yes," he agreed, and with that came a tremendous, rattling sigh. "But you're also a woman. You are by definition what we hunt."

"I didn't have a choice in coming here, but I am making my decision now. I want to hunt."

Nails scraped against what I imagined was his beak, a slow, thoughtful scratch that ended in another deep breath. "I have heard this story before, and I will give you the same answer as I did her. You may have proper clothes and a weapon of your choosing. If you can survive a night in the Malumbrian Oaks, I will consider your request as I considered the one before."

"Done!" I exclaimed, happier than I should've been at the prospect of proving myself in an unknown forest.

"Leave me now."

"But I don't know where—"

"A lady finds her own way." The tongue lashed my cheek so quick I stumbled backward. The king laughed. "A smart lady will not make a show of it."

"Ass," I muttered, earning a raspy chuckle as I wandered through the dark, fingers out, inching my way to a wall. I followed the curved, cold stone until wood and an iron handle met my hand. The door opened into a dimly lit staircase, one that spiraled a thousand tiny stairs down, or so it seemed. 

As I closed the door behind me, a sudden jerk wrenched away my consciousness. I saw my mother, closing my bedroom door, walking past my sculptures and easel and the Lord of the Rings figurines I'd balanced carefully on my headboard. In the dark she pulled apart my sheets and curled beneath them, shivering, sobbing.

"Mom?" I called.

I reached out to touch her, saw her strained face pause in a moment of confusion, saw my name form on her lips, and then I was sitting on the stairs, tears glistening on my cheeks.