The village was unremarkable in every way that mattered.
Thatched roofs. Muddy streets. A market square with a well, a smithy, an inn with watered ale and suspicious stew. The kind of place travellers passed through without remembering, the kind of place where nothing ever happened.
Which was, of course, exactly why she lived here.
Granny Weaversong found the cottage at the edge of the village, half-hidden behind an overgrown hedge. It was small—smaller than her own—with a red door and window boxes full of wolfsbane and silver-leaf. Smoke curled from the chimney.
She knocked.
The door opened, and a girl looked up at her.
Girl was the word that came to mind, though it was wrong in every way that mattered. She was small—barely five feet tall, slight of build, with the kind of frame that made men underestimate and women dismiss. Her hair was pale blonde, the color of winter wheat, pulled back in a simple braid. Her eyes were blue.
Not sky blue. Not summer blue.
Ice blue.
It was the azure blue of frozen lakes.
She wore a simple dress—homespun, practical—and over it, a hooded cloak the color of fresh arterial blood.
"Granny Weaversong," the girl said. Her voice was soft, almost childlike. It was a lie, like everything else about her. "It's been a while."
"Bulleta."
"Nobody calls me that anymore." A smile, small and sharp. "It's Red now. Just Red."
"Red-Hood," Granny Weaversong said. "The Little Red Ryder. The Girl Who Hunts the Dark."
The girl—the woman—the thing wearing a maiden's face—stepped aside and gestured inward.
"You'd better come in, then. I have a feeling this isn't a social call."
The cottage interior was cozy in the way a wolf's den was cozy—comfortable for its inhabitant, vaguely threatening for everyone else. Herbs hung from the rafters, but they were not for cooking. The tools on the walls were not for farming. A crossbow hung above the fireplace, its bolts silver-tipped. A collection of knives—each one different, each one specialized—lined a wooden rack beside the door.
And on a stand in the corner, carefully preserved, was a wolf's pelt.
Grey. Massive. The fur of a creature far larger than any natural wolf.
Red caught Granny Weaversong looking.
"Grandmother's killer," she said simply. "I was seven. He thought I'd be easy prey." She settled into a chair by the fire, tucking her legs beneath her like a cat. "He was wrong."
Granny Weaversong remained standing. "I remember. Your grandmother was a friend of mine."
"I know. She spoke of you often. Said you were the only witch worth trusting." Those ice-blue eyes studied her. "So. What's happening that's bad enough to bring you to my door?"
"War," Granny Weaversong said. "Or something designed to look like one."
She told her everything. The Wolf King's madness. The red spores. The rumours from the interior. Lord Farquat and his gleaming white walls. The vision she had seen on the sky rock—the genocide unfolding in slow motion, fairy-kind turning on fairy-kind while a small man in a tall tower smiled.
Red listened without interrupting. Her expression didn't change.
When Granny Weaversong finished, the girl was quiet for a long moment. The fire crackled. Outside, a crow called once and fell silent.
"You want me to hunt," Red said finally.
"I want you to help. This is bigger than any one hunter—"
"I don't do 'help.' The petite girl shrugged, "But I do hunt." Red stood, moving to the window, her small frame silhouetted against the dying light. "Give me a target. A name. A trail. I'll follow it to the end."
"The Spore Lord. Deep in the Heartland interior. If we can find the source of the plague—"
"Then we can find a cure. Or at least stop it spreading." Red turned, and there was something hungry in her eyes. "I've dealt with Red-Caps before. Nasty little things. Dip their hats in blood to keep them red." She smiled, and it was not a kind smile. "I've given them plenty of dye over the years."
"This is more dangerous than Red-Caps, child."
"I'm not a child." The words were soft, but they carried the weight of decades. Of bodies. Of things killed in the dark by a small blonde girl who had learned too young that monsters were real—and that the best way to stop being afraid of them was to become something they feared instead.
Granny Weaversong inclined her head. "No. You're not."
Red moved to the rack of knives, selecting three without looking—muscle memory, instinct. She belted them at her waist, her hip, her thigh. The crossbow came down from the mantle. A satchel was packed with supplies that clinked of silver and glass.
Finally, she lifted her hood, and the transformation was complete. The girl was gone. In her place stood the Little Red Ryder—hunter of the dark, killer of wolves, the nightmare that monsters had when they closed their eyes.
"One condition," Red said.
"Name it."
"When we find the man responsible—the lord in his high tower, with his clean hands and his small ambitions—"
Her eyes glittered beneath the crimson hood.
"I get to be the one who knocks."