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When you get home from work, a young man is waiting for you. He's masked and slim and small, his hair color concealed by a light golden hood. "For you," he says, offering you an envelope. It is cream-colored and scented lightly of burnt orange, a strange and charred aftertaste on the tongue. He won't leave until you take it, and once you touch the envelope he simply disappears.

Opening it, you find a heavy key of some light-colored metal and a handwritten invitation:

The Court of the Sorrowful One
requests your attendance on the eve of the red moon
at a dance to honor the tithe of the otherworld.

Come alone or in a pair.
Please arrive at moonrise and appropriately dressed.
The unmasking will occur at moonset.

"Get out of my ******** apartment."

The humanoid figure standing in Theodore Penny's living room was a good foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter than he was, but Theo wasn't a brawler and he couldn't help the overwhelming feeling of wary trepidation that enveloped him around his unwanted visitor. He was not of this world—not with that creepy mannequin stance and that mask—and neither was what he held. It looked like he imagined an invitation to the White House might, or a Hogwarts acceptance letter, but it smelled of banked campfires and ghost stories. As much as he might have secretly wished to go to wizard school as a teenager, he'd had enough magic at this point to last him the rest of his life.

"For you," the man replied, presenting the envelope with the same flourish that he had the first four times he had done so. Theo had long since deduced that the creature could or would say nothing else, but that didn't mean he would be bullied into taking the thing's delivery.

"You're not going to leave, are you?"

Another flourish.

Theo scowled, though he remained unaware that he was doing so. He didn't want this, whatever it was, hadn't wanted it since he'd first come across that ferret, since he'd awakened in the rainier Ashdown standing outside that theater. He did want to take off his shoes and brew a pot of coffee. To call his girls and sit down with a good book. To go to sleep without worrying about where he might end up.

Would laying hands on some damn letter change any of that?

He squinted slightly, glaring at the messenger, and then Theo reached forward in a flash, nicking the envelope and stepping back as the man disappeared. It took some determination not to squeeze his eyes shut the rest of the way in anticipation of something horrible flying at his face, but his paranoia proved pointless. There was only Theo here. He continued peering at the space where the man had been for half a minute or so, eventually depositing his creepy letter on the counter and heading into the kitchen.

- - - - -

Had anyone been around to see, they probably wouldn't have guessed just how hyperaware he was of what he was sharing his apartment with. Theo waited patiently until after he had finished his dinner and was ready to sit down with the cup of coffee he had craved earlier before he picked up the envelope again, its scent undiminished with time.

Theo sat, broke open the thick wax seal, and spilled its contents into his hand.

The key was a gorgeous thing, not ornate or intricate in any way, but valuable in its weight. He rested it on the arm of his chair. He didn't trust it.

The letter was worse. He skimmed it quickly, his frown deepening the farther he got, and when he was done, Theo rose from his seat and went back to the kitchen, poised to rip the thing to shreds above his trash can. No, he wouldn't be attending some otherworld prom. He didn't give a s**t about a creepy cult unmasking, not when his kids were here, on this side of town. His responsibility was here. But the key... It would be a shame to get rid of it entirely. Surely it wouldn't cause any harm at the bottom of his sweater drawer.

Surely.

He stared at it for another five minutes before retreating to his room. Creepy or not, it was still pretty neat. Theodore sighed, slipping the invitation in its entirety into the very bottom of his dresser, under a faded Seahawks hoodie.