Callum lay sleeping beside Dahlia in his messy bed, his tanned arms gripping her so fiercely that she thought she might break under the possessive, jealous strength of his thick arms. Town girls whispered about those arms, fantasising about all the things they could do, giggling about how reckless and troublesome he was, making a show of sneering at him in the brightly-painted school hallways even though they admired how angry and pouty he became after someone cracked a werewolf joke in front of him, or how often he cocked one eyebrow. He basked in the praise, of course. His favourite subject was himself.

Dahlia was doing nothing of the sort. She was weeping terribly, sobs wracking her whole trembling body, although she did it in her withdrawn, tranquil way. She didn't want to wake Callum, because that would be terribly rude. Or maybe she was only feeling traces of guilt.

Outside, the crows screamed and the wind chimes blew in the winds that were growing ever colder. With it blew away the last remnants of Dahlia's insanity, and, try as she might, the tears came relentlessly from her traitor eyes as she turned to the cold wall beside her for solace.

She despised herself. She was so weak and vulnerable, like her stupid, stupid whore mother, all things that Uncle Father had tried to tear out of her because they were but sick, misshapen mind-rot upon exquisite blossom-petal skin more lovely than the moon that hid the most abominable of all calamities. This rot, it was ruining her. With it, she was nothing more than an atrocious, horrifying creature in the stolen skin of an lovely silken angel, the horror of her otherworldly, damned soul threaded with the delicate flowers that marked the terrible transgressions she thought and spoke every day. Dahlia was a traitor in the midst of these ethereal, loose-limbed human folk whose hands and faces were not yet marred by the horror that her very existence brought with her to every wretched realm she dared to stain. It was always her fault, always her doing the wrong thing. Why was she so flawed? Was it obvious to others, how dark and twisted her soul was?

I would do anything to show Daddy I'm not a monster.

But after all, if he kept weaving that exquisite, monstrous song through her mind and letting it steal her, that must mean he thought she was no more than a lowly creature who could only ever kill and slaughter for fun, letting the rot of sins consume her soul just that little bit more. Did it not?

Callum stirred, his bandaged torso brushing against hers, and Dahlia was fast to quiet her tears and turn away from him on the hard, bloodstained bed. Of course, she was naked, after the night's pleasantries, but she was quick to pull the coarse, warm blanket over her chest all the same. If there was anything she despised other than herself, it was nakedness and being shown for others to see and having to expose herself.

"Are you crying?" It was Callum's voice from behind her back, incredulous with condescension yet soft and gentle in what she supposed were the last scraps of his human self.

"No," Dahlia whispered.

Then she cleared her throat and repeated it once more, stronger this time. "No." She didn't want him to worry, not after all that she had inflicted on his bruised, beaten, misshapen form of his once-glorious, muscular body. Yet that thought made her cry again. Seeing others put in pain made her heart sorely hurt.

Weak, weak, weak.

He hoisted himself up on his good elbow and leaned over her slim body.

"You're too pretty to be crying, darling," Callum told her, with a raised eyebrow and a roguish smile that most other girls would scream at. So even after all the careful, agonised torture her other self had inflicted on him, he still had lust eyes and put far too much stock in a girl's looks than a lad of his age should've! Even if the thought of what she'd done to him made her curl up with awful, all-consuming self-reproach, she would've given him an eye roll if not for fear of retribution. No, he really would never learn.

She watched him delicately readjust his body, wincing and hissing with pain at how his maimed body twisted. Would he still love fire after her burning torture? How different would he be? It made Dahlia want to reach out and smooth his distressed, miserable face out, to weave the pieces of the cocky, arrogant prince boy she'd seen reigning over all the girls of Melancholy mere hours before back into his skin and his soul if only so she wouldn't see him hurting so badly anymore.

But heaven forbid she touched him again. She would only hurt him more, wouldn't she?

Monster, monster, monster.

It was terrible of her, she knew, but some dark, hidden part of her was both fascinated with and craving the way she'd hurt him, beckoning her to trace her fingers across the damage, see how she'd hurt someone, look at all the glimmering potential stitched between her fingers.

Callum watched her for a while, his angel eyes indecisive and narrowed as she shrunk under his unimpressed, sneering gaze. There was still hate in them, she saw. It was the kind of hate that made the lass's hands stiffen angrily and curl into fists in the bedsheet, that made his spine straight with fear and pain because he knew, he knew as he should've all along, that coming close to the terrible monster trapped within this stupid, thrice-damned body would only hurt him.

I'm sorry.

"I think you should go, yeah?" he said slowly, his words stiff.

Yes, I really should. Father was probably terribly angry right now. But the words felt like a slap to the face, and she couldn't help but scramble for his approval.

"Callum-"

"I said you should go." This time the words were like a knife, so sharp and painful that it cut through her, and it hurt, to see this once-beautiful, mocking masterpiece of an aristocrat boy so lost and broken as he hung his head, hiding his eyes from view. One of his ruined, trembling hands shot out for the dresser and fumbled around wildly for the knife she'd left there. Had she really caused this ruin, hurt him this badly?

"I'm sorry," Dahlia blurted out again, as, repulsive as it was, she slipped naked from the cover of the blanket and grabbed desperately for her colourful skirt and ruffled white shirt. The night air from the window was cold.

If only I'd pleaded with Uncle Father not to play the music box, if only I'd warned Callum, if only I wasn't a monster.

Why, in the name of the saints, had she stayed so long? She should have left - then she wouldn't have had to feel this awful guilt that no doubt made her look weak something fierce in front of the wrathful, disgusted lass wielding a knife behind her. The one thing that kept its ceaseless clutches on her tortured mind was the way his lip had curled. The way he'd cast his eyes away from her, because who would ever want to lay eyes on a creature like her?

Dahlia dressed quickly, and her eyes were so blurry with tears, her newly sane mind so tangled and confused with alternate fantassies and haunting dreams of what she could've prevented, that she got lost three times in the twisting, gleaming-tiled halls of the Machios' grandiose estate until a subdued servant girl had to lead her out.

Outside, the seagulls were cawing amidst the water's lapping against the docks and the weak wooden barricades that bordered any canalside shops. The streets and waters were deserted, but she walked on light dancer's feet all the same. She knew the way out well enough. It was rare that she ever ventured far to explore the wealthy eastern coves and craggy shores, but when her curiosity won out and Daddy wouldn't miss her, she would slip between the cracks and alleys of the magniloquent estates and search for curios, for monsters, for those who didn't belong.

That was when she found that even though the poorest and most depraved were forced to work four shifts to bring in enough to feed their huge families, they were more joyful dancing in the chickens' filth than the aristocrats had ever been in their lives.

It was high time for her to get back to Uncle Father, but after a moment's indecision, she decided not to. Not just yet.

Dahlia's skin itched to leave this forsaken place behind, but she couldn't do that to Daddy, never. It would break him. Even if he dragged her through hell by her fingers every time she displeased him, it wasn't his fault. It was only the hand that the heavens had dealt him, and the Lord's will had been woven with every mortal's best interests in mind, her included. Since this was what her Heavenly Father had given her, she would take it with a smile. Hadn't she read that in a poem somewhere?

Dahlia found herself far from the rich eastern side, at the fringes of the western Plaza of Death. She didn't like this anxious, buzzy feeling that had suddenly overtaken her body, like she would return back to the seaside cottage and find it all a wild, star-crossed dream, find Daddy had never been there and that she was truly, truly alone. That she had been grasping at stars and speaking in wild, gibberish tongues to the air, hoping that it would talk back to her so much that she'd conjured Daddy up out of nothing and formed him from the desperate dreams that plagued her soul. Dreams of companionship. Friends and cherub-faced couples always seemed so joyful together.

"HELP!"

Dahlia bolted to her feet. Who was that?

"HELP!"

Where was it coming from? Behind her? In front? She was good at remembering voices, and she knew, without a doubt, that this was the midnight boy from earlier. When the boy shouted for help again, she ran in the direction of the sea. Fear spurred her on.

The deserted, dusty streets had never seemed so endless and labyrinthe as they did now, caged within the tall, foreboding townhouses with their smeared MISSING posters crowded into grimy shop windows and those ominous wind chimes that would forever haunt her mind. Orphaned children peeked out of alleyways as she passed and then withdrew. Her heart was pounding as she strained to hear his anguished cry, yet she knew, in the core of her being, within the soulless place where things unknown become known to the mortal touch of our otherworldly fingers, that the nightmare boy was fighting with the sea. He needs me. What if she was too late? His voice was gone, and in its place, just this silence that had never felt so empty before. Even her light, pixie-wing's feet made no sound on the stones, even though her breathing was laboured and hard.

Her feet were bruised and cut beyond repair, crumbling to bits as Daddy's careful stitching came apart from the strain and the damp mist. Once, she tripped, smashing her fragile, finely-shaped head against a fountain, and two little orphan children hurried out from their hiding places to help her up. After that, her head hurt terribly, but she had no time to stop and take a look at herself. She had to save him. She had to.

At last, out of breath, Dahlia reached where the glorious, everlasting waters met the coves as screams tore out from the sea's vicious clutches. Her eyes desperately searched the sea as she wrung her hands. Had she ever run so hard before?

"HELP ME! Help-"

She ran to the thin staircase that climbed down the rocks, stumbling down numbly. As if in defiance of her terrified would-be rescue, the wind was whipping up a cold, salty spray. It made her sorely feel the full impact of how freezing and wet and exhausted she was. She should leave and go back to Uncle Father, go back to the restrained, spiritless place of an untamed monster held back with a bloody leash at his side, where she would forever be hailed as the dame of death, as the heavenless, selcouth beast that she was. Dahlia was not a rescuer. She was not the person who saved people, she became the ruin of them.

But isn't this the right thing to do?

There! To anyone else passing by, the nightmare boy would have looked like a bit of driftwood, or a wild siren, perhaps, frolicking amongst the waves as she seduced the very heavens and the earth. But Dahlia's eyes were sharp, and vigilant, much more watchful than any other girl at her age would've been, because they were not clouded with the lies of mortals and stupid desires.

As she struggled to breathe, quickly picking her way down the last few stairs, she could just pick out his head of curly brown hair and those midnight eyes, as he clutched something to his chest. He was flailing in the deeper parts. And what was that that he was holding? It almost looked like a body.

And then Dahlia died a fourth time.

This time was not so graceful as the other three had been. There was no blossoming, dazed un-knitting of her treacherous bones as she collapsed with a horrific crack to the rocks, nor was there a soft, dreamy sigh that escaped her lips as her lithe nymphblood body fell into the embrace of death, born a daughter of death and bound a daughter of death forevermore.

Simply, she fell out of exhaustion and a ruined head.

The orphan men caught her before she even had a chance to fully fall.

Two of them came from behind her, big and beefy with muscle and smelling like the sour whiskey every fisherman knew how to throw back. Their thick arms hooked around her slim stomach and one around her throat, and as she slipped away with her last breaths, she thought, I need to sAve him. LEt me sAve hiM. JUsT lEt Me-

When she died, one of them hoisted her up in his arms. This dark-haired one was bruised and monstrous, the type of brutish lass who would've drowned stray cats in the canals when he was younger and had been a knockout in his youth, but was now bitter and withdrawn. When the other man, a young, light-haired thing, reached for Dahlia, the first hissed sullenly, making his dimples show. He couldn't talk - it had been one of the things working as a collector of orphans had stolen from him, one thing that their master the Dolldancer had plucked and woven around his thin spider fingers so deftly that Alessandro hadn't even noticed it was gone. At least, until he tried to call out for his lady love not to dance so close to the balcony's edge, and he lost her forever.

"Alright, alright, Alessandro!" the light-haired lad said, holding up his hands and laughing.

The younger one's name was Shane, he'd only been in the clutches of the orphan master for a month, and already Alessandro bitterly despised him. The daft, conceited young lad probably thought this was all a game. Gather the orphans, look, I've got one more than you, let's play with them a bit and then bring them to the Puppet Reaper's asylum.

This, however, was far from a game. All of the dramatic, imperious orphan men, who were reaped from the Plaza of Death yet still grandiloquent enough to be irritable, were dumb enough that they thought they were in control, not their master. But even Alessandro, who couldn't read at the age of fifty, knew enough not to think he was over the Dolldancer.

"This was an easy one," Shane announced with a grin. "She was gone for, what, a month? I was worried after the last time we collected all those mindless brat orphans who got away - I'm still cleaning that lad's blood off my shoes - but she practically did our whole job for us!"

Alessandro did nothing to imply that he had heard the man.

"Master says this one was gone awhile," Shane rambled on breathlessly in a whirlwind of boastfulness. "Wonder how she was gone so long. You think she had some help from someone?" The dizzy git didn't allow Alessandro to answer. "Most likely. Delirious, probably, too."

Least she doesn't think beef is seafood like you, mate, Alessandro thought, scowling.

As they entered the Plaza of Death, the sounds of children for the Dolldancer being stolen becoming ever louder. Other orphan snatchers, other orphan men, worked their craft and wreaked havoc upon the silent streets, each putting on a majestic show more glorious than the last.

Some of the children fought, because they feared for their lost brothers and sisters. Alessandro wished more of them had. He could only free so many children without his master noticing. And it would have kept them from the terrible, heavenless hell that the grotesque asylum was, would have preserved their blossoming, virgin child minds from the flawed, callous, vainglorious master who glided in and out, stealing snatches of memory and fragments of who these hollow-eyed, broken ghost children had been before the asylum, binding them and weaving them together in anticipation of his next beautiful project. For, oh, did their lord love his projects. And he did not like it when one of the threads that feeded his bloodthirsty craft ran away.

"What's the matter, mute?" Shane guffawed stupidly, giving Alessandro a shove. The neon earplugs to block out siren song did not, unfortunately, block out any daft lads. "You think I'm gonna ravage her? I'm not dense." What atrocious lying skills, Alessandro could not help but think. "She's a doll, alright, but I'll wait until you're far away and unable to protect her."

Finally, the asylum orphanage came into view.

The Reaper's prized jewel, his beloved, tantalising acrobat of nightmares that had been sewn together from the skins of the dead, borne in the liminal realm where bones and flesh torn apart by death and sewn back together, had been caught once more.