The rain had a voice in Dourvale, and it never said kind things.
It clawed at the crooked rooftops of the village, hissed against the stone church, and wept through the cracks in the cobblestone square. On days like this, no one strayed far from home. Only the truly desperate, the forgotten, or the foolish dared walk the streets when the mist rolled in and blurred the edges of reality.
Elara Morin was all three.
She tugged her coat tighter around her thin frame as she stepped through the iron gate of the town archive. The sign above the door swung loose, creaking with every gust of wind. She slipped inside, blinking away droplets from her lashes.
The library smelled of mildew and dust—a perfume of forgotten things. The building was older than the village itself, a remnant of the old estate that had once ruled this land. Half its wings were condemned. The lights flickered inconsistently. Most shelves leaned as though exhausted by time.
She loved it here.
Elara had worked in the archive for three years, ever since her diagnosis had made other work impossible. The healer had called it a wasting sickness. No cure. Slow. Inevitable. So she buried herself in paper and ghosts, trading the cold of death for the silence of memory.
She walked through the maze of shelves to the restricted wing, where the really interesting things were kept. Her supervisor, a brittle man with a boiled-potato face, had left early for the storm. He wouldn't know she'd taken the master key.
"Elara," she whispered to herself, the word hanging in the dusty air. "You've gone and lost your mind."
The restricted wing was narrow and dim, lit only by the soft glow of stormlight bleeding through tall stained-glass windows. Books rested in rows like tombstones. Here, the air tasted of copper and candle wax, though no candles had burned in years.
She passed volumes of folklore, journals of the manor's old family—the Virelles—and notes from monks who had lived in isolation within the mansion when it was briefly converted into a monastery. Their entries turned frantic near the end.
Then she saw it. A battered leather book with a scarlet spine, shoved between tomes of land deeds and taxation records. There was no title on the cover, but the edges were stained in what looked like dried blood.
"Elara Morin," she read aloud, breath catching. Her name was scrawled on the inside cover.
Her heart froze.
She flipped to the first page. The ink was smeared, but the name Gregor Vane was clear. The mad historian. Vanished over a decade ago. Everyone had assumed he'd fallen into the river or gone north to the ruins.
Yet here was his journal. And her name. Written in his own hand.
March 3rd.
If you are reading this, then it's already too late.
She read on, lips dry. The journal wasn't linear. It spiraled. Fragments. Symbols. Sketches of a grand, decrepit mansion—its library glowing red from within. A fairy cloaked in embers. A room filled with clocks that all stopped at different hours. Warnings repeated in desperate ink:
"Three questions. No more, no less. She will answer. And she will give you what you want. But you must pay. You must always pay."
The Crimson Fairy.
Elara had heard the stories as a child, whispered under blankets and beside fireplaces.
"She lives in the dead library of the Virelle estate," the children would say. "She has blood-red wings and speaks in riddles. If you find her and ask the Three Right Questions, she'll grant your wish. But you must give her a sacrifice every year. Something precious. If you don't…"
"She takes your heart," someone would always finish, usually in a delighted whisper.
Most said it was nonsense. A tale made up to scare children from wandering into the woods.
But what if it wasn't?
Elara turned the page and gasped. The next sketch was her face.
Drawn in detail.
By the time the clock tower rang seven times, Elara stood outside the overgrown gate of the Virelle estate.
No one had lived here in almost a hundred years. The once-manicured grounds were a tangle of blackened trees and thorn bushes. The mansion loomed above like a giant crouched in the storm, windows like blind eyes, walls stained with age and moss.
Her boots sank into the soaked earth. Lightning flashed, revealing cracked statues along the walkway—angels with broken faces, lions with empty eyes.
Her breath came faster now. She clutched the journal in her coat pocket like a talisman. Every instinct screamed at her to run, to forget the fairy and the questions and the wish.
But Elara did not believe in instincts anymore.
She believed in desperation.
The door groaned open with surprising ease. The air inside was heavy—like she'd stepped underwater. Every footstep echoed in the silence.
The main hall was stripped bare. Rain dripped through holes in the ceiling. Dust lay thick enough to smother footprints. She moved cautiously, consulting the map from the journal: Left down the corridor. Past the shattered mirror. Through the door marked with a moth.
There it was. A rotting wooden door with a moth carved into the arch.
Elara pushed it open.
Inside was the mansion's library.
Or what remained of it.
Towering shelves lined the walls, most split or broken. Velvet chairs lay overturned and moth-eaten. But at the far end, where a great circular window should have stood, there glowed a faint, pulsing crimson light.
And sitting in its center—legs crossed upon a pillar of stone—was the most beautiful creature Elara had ever seen.
She had skin like porcelain, hair the color of wildfire, and wings the shade of drying blood. They shimmered faintly, casting strange reflections on the ruined books. Her eyes were closed.
Elara couldn't speak.
The fairy opened her eyes.
They were gold at first. Then violet. Then red.
"You have come," she said.
Her voice was music dipped in shadow. It echoed in the bones.
"I…" Elara struggled to breathe. "Are you… the Crimson Fairy?"
"I have been called that. Among other things." The creature tilted her head. "You found the journal."
"I did."
"Then you know the rules."
"Three questions."
The fairy smiled, but there was no kindness in it.
"Ask them carefully, little ember. Once you begin, there is no return."
Elara swallowed. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. This was it. Her life balanced on the edge of a blade.
First question.
"What binds you here?"
The fairy's smile faded.
"A promise made. A price paid. I was like you once—mortal. Foolish. I made a wish. And now I am what grants them. I am the prison and the key."
Her wings folded behind her like a cloak.
Second question.
"What do you take in return?"
Her eyes gleamed.
"Something precious. A piece of you. A memory. A voice. A feeling. A year of your life. A face you loved. You choose the offering. But it must matter. And you must return every year with more. Or I will come, and I will take your heart, and you will live without it."
The library seemed to sigh.
Third question.
Elara's throat was dry. Her mouth moved before her mind caught up.
"What happens if the offering stops?"
The fairy blinked slowly.
"You become like the others."
"What others?"
She raised her hand, and shadows stirred. Faces emerged from the walls. Dozens of them—ghosts with empty chests and hollow eyes. Some wept. Some stared blankly. All of them bore the mark of absence.
"They made wishes," the fairy whispered. "And could not pay."
Elara trembled. "If I make a wish, do I become one of them?"
"Not if you honor the pact."
The fairy extended a hand.
"Speak your desire, and it will be yours. But know this: you will never be the same. And the price will grow."
Elara felt something crack inside her. She thought of the months she had left. The treatments that didn't work. The aching loneliness. The fear.
"I want to live," she said.
The fairy's wings flared.
"So you shall."
The moment Elara spoke the words, the room shifted.
A rush of warmth flooded her chest. Her lungs filled easily. Her bones, once sore, felt new. The ache in her muscles vanished. Even the scars on her arms faded.
She collapsed to her knees, gasping.
The fairy watched with impassive eyes.
"It is done."
Elara looked up. "What now?"
"You leave," the fairy said. "And you return in one year. With a sacrifice. Something that matters."
"And if I don't?"
"You will live without your heart. And the world will fade."
Elara rose slowly, clutching her chest. Her heart beat strong. Loud. Alive.
She turned away, afraid to look at the fairy any longer.
The mansion was darker now, but she found her way out.
The rain had stopped.
As she stepped beyond the iron gate, something in the wind whispered:
"One year."
And in the far distance, within the dying light of the library, the Crimson Fairy began to weep.