Asher's Point of View
I ran through the forest so fast that tree branches whipped across my face, but I didn't slow down. My heart was beating like a drum, and I couldn't make it stop. Behind me, the library grew smaller and smaller, but I could still see Ruby's face in my mind.
She had smiled at me. Actually smiled.
At me. A monster.
I crashed through my castle doors and slammed them shut behind me. My shadows were going crazy, buzzing around me like angry bees. They knocked over chairs and sent books flying off tables. Usually I could control them perfectly, but tonight they were as confused as I was.
"Stop it!" I yelled at them, but they kept spinning and dancing like they were celebrating something.
That was the trouble. My ghosts weren't acting scary anymore. When I was with Ruby, they had moved like gentle ocean waves instead of the terrifying storm they were meant to be. And when she smiled at me, they had actually sparkled. Sparkled! Like they were happy.
Shadows weren't supposed to be happy. They were supposed to be dark and scary and dangerous.
Just like me.
I fell into my favorite chair and put my head in my hands. "What's wrong with me?" I whispered to the empty room.
For one hundred years, I had been the monster who lived in the house. People told stories about me around campfires. Parents told their children not to go into the dark woods where the shadow demon lived. I was the thing that went bump in the night.
But Ruby had looked at me and said I was hurt instead of scary.
Nobody had ever said that before. Nobody had ever looked past the glowing red eyes and whirling shadows to see the person underneath. Ruby had seen me crying on the inside, and instead of running away, she had wanted to help.
I stood up and walked to the window. Down in the valley, Moonhaven twinkled with warm lights. Ruby was down there somewhere, probably reading a book or helping someone find something in the library. Being kind to everyone she met.
Even monsters like me.
My reflection stared back at me from the glass. Red eyes, pale skin, shadows moving behind me like live things. I looked exactly like the monster from every scary story ever told.
But Ruby had called me lonely instead of evil.
"Maybe the wrong people have been seeing you," she had said. "Maybe you just needed to meet someone who wasn't afraid of monsters."
I touched the window glass with one finger. What if she was right? What if I had been so busy being afraid of myself that I had forgotten how to be anything else?
One hundred years ago, I had been trying to save a town from a terrible fire. I was young and scared and didn't know how to handle my powers yet. Instead of putting out the fire, I had made it worse. The ghosts I sent to help had turned into hungry darkness that ate the light and air. People died because of me.
Because I was a monster who couldn't control his powers.
But what if... what if I had just been a scared young man who made a terrible mistake?
I shook my head hard. No. I couldn't think like that. It was dangerous to hope. Hope made you careless, and careless monsters hurt people.
Like I had hurt Ruby tonight by bringing danger to her library.
My shadows suddenly stopped moving. They froze in the air like they were listening to something. I heard it too - a soft tapping at my window.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I spun around. Nothing should be able to reach my window. My house was built on a cliff, and the drop was hundreds of feet down. But the tapping came again, more urgent this time.
I opened the window, and a small silver bird flew inside. It wasn't a real bird - it was made of light and magic, and it glowed like moonbeams. In its beak was a tiny rolled-up note.
My hands shook as I took the note and unrolled it. The writing was in Ruby's careful handwriting:
"Asher - I left some cookies and hot chocolate by the library back door. They're still warm. And I left a book I thought you might like. It's about second chances. - Ruby"
I stared at the note until the words blurred together. She had left me food. And a book. After I had appeared in her library like a horror, she had gone home and made cookies for me.
The silver bird landed on my shoulder and chirped softly. When I looked at it, I saw Ruby's kind eyes looking back at me.
"She sent you to find me," I whispered.
The bird nodded and chirped again, then flew toward the window. It stopped and looked back at me, waiting.
It wanted me to follow it. Ruby wanted me to come back.
I shouldn't go. I should stay in my home where I belonged. Where I couldn't hurt anyone.
But the bird's light was so warm and friendly. And Ruby's note was so kind. And for the first time in a hundred years, someone was asking me to come closer instead of stay away.
My shadows gathered around me, and I noticed they weren't angry anymore. They were excited. They wanted to see Ruby again too.
"Just for a few minutes," I told myself. "Just to get the cookies and say thank you."
I followed the silver bird out the window and down the cliff. We flew through the night sky, my shadows carrying me like wings. The bird led me back to Moonhaven, back to the library, back to Ruby.
But when we got there, something was wrong.
The library's back door was hanging open, and the plate of cookies was smashed on the ground. The hot chocolate had spilled everywhere, and the book was torn in half.
And there was no sign of Ruby.
"Ruby!" I called, but my words echoed off empty walls.
The silver bird was flying in panicked circles, chirping furiously. It kept falling toward the ground, then flying back up, like it was trying to tell me something.
I knelt down and touched the spilled hot chocolate. It was still warm, which meant whatever had happened was recent. Very recent.
That's when I saw them. Footprints in the mud. Not Ruby's small shoes, but big heavy boots. And there were strange marks in the dirt that looked like something had been pulled.
My shadows erupted outward as rage filled my chest. Someone had taken Ruby. Someone had hurt her and dragged her away while she was trying to be kind to me.
The silver bird rested on my shoulder and showed me a vision. I saw Ruby putting cookies in a basket, humming softly to herself. I saw her writing the note with a smile on her face. I saw her sending the bird to find me.
And then I saw red eyes shining in the darkness behind her. But not my red eyes. These were different. Colder. More cruel.
I knew those eyes.
"Seraphina," I mumbled, and the name tasted like poison.
The vampire queen had found us. She had taken Ruby because Ruby had been kind to me. This was my fault. My fault for letting myself dream. My fault for letting someone get close to me.
My fault for forgetting that monsters like me didn't deserve happy ends.
But as I stood there in the darkness, surrounded by broken cookies and spilled goodness, I realized something that scared me more than anything else.
I wasn't going to hide in my castle this time.
I was going to save Ruby.
Even if it meant becoming the monster everyone thought I was.
The silver bird chirped once more and flew into the night, leading me toward whatever darkness waited ahead.
I followed it, my shadows spreading behind me like wings of revenge.
Ruby had called me lonely instead of evil.
Now I was going to show her the difference.