Chapter 18: The Djinn’s Dark Passion

Humayra (Allie Reid) – Thursday, September 10th

Humayra, the Ifrit known to Corey and the others as Ms. Reid, threw out a sheet of fire at the Svartálfar as he approached Aleah. It washed out over the seats where she sat in the auditorium. Father Black, as the dark elf was known, jumped back into the wings of the stage.

Aleah swayed and blinked, coming out of her attraction to the unnaturally beautiful Svartálfar.

If Humayra were human and susceptible to the gorgeous visage of the Svartálfar, or if she were a flighty Si’lat, she’d be equally transfixed. The tall, ebony skin man had a grace about him. An innate beauty that arrested the soul.

But Humayra’s soul was consumed with one thing: protecting Corey’s woman.

Aleah was his first. His favorite. Tania came a close second, but it was the older sister that the Ifrit had noticed Corey loved the most. She would protect Aleah from predation. She would protect the entire harem from the interlopers.

She began clapping as she stood up like she’d witnessed a wondrous performance in the play. The Svartálfar smiled at her and gave a little bow to her full of mocking contempt. Her smile grew as her legs flexed.

She leaped over three rows of seats to land at the base of the stage. She hopped onto the polished wood with grace, landing barefoot on it, her large breasts heaving. Aleah’s head turned to look at the Svartálfar, that look of dreamy lust once again crossing her youthful features.

“None of that,” The Ifrit told her. “You keep staring at him, and Corey’s going to have to punish you.”

Aleah gasped as Humayra advanced on the Svartálfar.

The dark elf’s smile grew, then he stepped back. The shadows swallowed him up. Humayra went still, poised on the balls of her feet. Her breasts rose and fell as she waited for the attack to come at her. Sometimes, you had to stand tall and let it come, holding confidence in your ability to take the damage.

Humayra had that confidence blazing inside of her.

Aleah gasped. Footsteps whispered behind her.

She whirled, fire bursting to life in her hand, conjuring a flaming blade. She raised it as she turned, catching the Svartálfar’s shadowy blade on her own. Dark and light clashed together, weapons binding for a second. She shifted on her feet as they locked, strength matched.

The shadows around the dark stage swallowed him. He vanished.

She had hardly any warning. A whisk hissed behind her. Air stirring. She whirled, but not in time to parry. His blade blushed right for her left breast, a lance of gleaming darkness. She became fire. The primal essence that made her up.

In her place, a fire whirl appeared. Her flames crackled, light bursting around her. It spilled ruddy hues over the Svartálfar’s black skin. He appeared darker now. No longer the rich ebony of an African, but the pure midnight that was his true appearance. His features were even more gorgeous. Delicate. Elfin. Inhuman.

His shadowed blade slammed through her fire and did nothing. How could it? She was nothing but flames. Heated plasma dancing in the air. You couldn’t cut her with a blade any more than you could slice in half a candle flame.

“Ms. Reid!” Aleah gasped in shock, stepping back from the fire whirl. An Ifrit in her true form.

A tongue of her fire whipped out like a lash at him. A sweeping slash of heat. Flames couldn’t be cut or stabbed, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t harm their enemies.

“I still can’t believe that you can turn into fire,” Aleah gasped, her arms raised to ward her against the heat spilling off the whirling Ifrit. The girl backed up towards the wings of the stage.

“Why do you think I’m so passionate,” Humayra said, her voice a crackle. In this form, she could see in every direction around her. She wasn’t constrained by the physical.

Aleah opened her mouth to say something when a black hand seized her by the throat, squeezing tight. The Svartálfar materialized out of the darkness and held Aleah tight in his fingers. The girl’s eyes bulged. Her auburn pigtails swung. She grabbed at the hand choking her.

Humayra rushed forward to protect the girl. She couldn’t let the dark elf hurt Aleah. The Ifrit became flesh, her naked form almost stepping out of the flames, tits heaving. Her fiery hair trailed behind her while her flaming sword hacked down at the arm holding Aleah.

A foot away, her blade slashing down, the Svartálfar’s left hand swept out before him. A rope of shadows flung at her. She became fire, but not fast enough this time. Just as her flames began to burst out of her, the rope slammed around her. As she tried to become fire, the shadows slammed around her body, wrapping her up like a dark serpent, pulling arms tight and forcing her flesh to stay corporeal.

The dark elf kicked out, slamming her in the stomach and throwing her back. She hit the stage floor hard, gasping. The shadows squeezed around her. Gripped her, smothering her flames as she tried to burn through it.

The Svartálfar turned to Aleah.

Aleah Buckley

He released my throat as Ms. Reid thrashed on the ground, her busty form wrapped up in the shadows. Fear washed through me as Father Black’s hand cupped my chin. He turned my face to peer at him and...

And...

He grew more gorgeous. He was an elf in truth now. Not just a beautiful man, but something more. Something graceful and yet somehow still virile and masculine. The contrasting of the two qualities—from his delicate cheekbones and long, pointed ears to the muscular strength of his biceps—arrested my passion. His large cock thrusting hard that brushed my side.

His thumb swept over my cheek to my lips. I kissed it, my body surrendering to him. He was the most beautiful man in the world. No one could compare to this gorgeous stud before me. My pussy melted.

His eyes drank mine in.

His thumb pressed into my mouth. I sucked on it, my pussy clenching.

... need to ... remember...

Those thoughts squeezed through my mind, forced out through the tight grip of lust on my mind. Remember what? I groaned, struggling to resist, but ... but ... He was just so gorgeous. I didn’t need to think. To remember.

I just needed him.

Nadiyya (Nadia Waters)

Nadiyya the Marid waited as merely a thin pool of water spread out across the school’s front lawn. Known to the humans as Nadia Waters, she had a plan to deal with Father Horn the Satyr. She could see him approaching. In her true form, she had vision in all directions. The world laid out to her understanding.

She was hidden by the green grass.

Sister Francis Jean moaned, masturbating her virgin pussy and summoning the Satyr into the Marid’s trap. The Djinn knew exactly how this battle would go. What he would do to fight her and how she would counter everything. He controlled plants. The very grass that her liquid form surrounded. It didn’t bother Nadiyya at all that hundreds of blades of grass poked through her. The Marid flowed around them.

She was water. Boundless.

His footsteps boomed closer. A tall man. Hairy. He had two of the nuns perched on his shoulders, naked save for their wimples and veils. Both were playing with his brown hair. They rubbed their breasts into him. He was tall. Broad-shouldered. A hulk of a man.

Now, flashed through the Marid’s awareness.

Nadiyya flowed upward and became her human form, naked and athletic, a long mane of glossy, black hair falling down her back. She smiled as the Satyr blinked in shock. His next step faltered as he studied her.

“I should have known,” rumbled the Satyr. “The nun smelled too sweet.” He breathed in. “Ah, that scent. So many virgins in this school that need plucking, but she’s his. Well...” He leaned down and dropped off the two nuns.

They darted past Nadiyya for Sister Francis Jean. The Marid let them go, focused on the Satyr. He straightened, his cock, almost a bludgeon, swaying before him. Her feet shifted their stance, ready for his opening attack. She knew exactly what it would be.

“I’ll tend to you after I’m done with the virgin,” Father Horn said, a genial smile on his face. “Let you enjoy a real cock.”

The grass surged around the Marid’s feet. They grew fast, twisting into thick cords to wrap around her legs and seize her wrists. She already changed, flowing into spray that whirled through the air. She was over his head in a heartbeat, soaring over him just as she planned.

She landed behind him, going human right before touching the ground. Her arms already moved. She seized his wrist as he turned to face her. He had nearly four times her mass, but she had studied how bodies moved. Kinesthetics. With it came a whole host of physic principals.

Weights. Material strength. Leverage.

She knew how to move her form, to maximize her strength, and use his weight against him. She already moved, pivoting her body. She used his motion against him, following the axis of his movement to add his force to her own.

He brayed like a surprised goat as she flipped him over and body slammed him on the ground. He hit hard, flattening grass. The air burst from his lungs. She slammed her fist down into his throat, smacking into his flesh.

Here, her plan failed.

She struck his throat as planned. Hard. She landed with all her body weight. What should have crushed his trachea only ended in a solid smack against his bulging throat. He’d tensed his muscles and protected his trachea.

She hissed and jumped back as he swung a powerful fist at her. She reconsidered her plan. The grasses rustled around her feet. She prepared to become water, waiting for them to seize her. The Satyr burst into booming laughter.

That confused Nadiyya.

“Impressive strength,” he said. “You’re so little, but you threw me around.”

“Easy to do,” she said, waiting for the plants to seize.

His foot lashed out at her instead. As he kicked at her, he changed. His already hairy legs became furry. His foot became a goat’s hoof plunging right for her stomach. Horns curled from his head as he unveiled his true form.

She became water. His foot plunged into her liquid body. She shifted herself, grabbing him before he could pull back. She became human, holding his furry calf pinned to her right side, her hair sweeping behind her.

He grinned at her and pulled his foot towards him. She stumbled forward, holding tight. Then he snapped his leg upright. The kick had more force than she expected and launched her into the air. She sailed high and fell in an arc toward the grass. She became water.

Splashed into the earth twenty yards away and reformed.

Just as she went back into being human, the grass around her thrust up at her, cords to grab her again. She sighed and shifted into her watery form. She whirled and gurgled, anger rippling through her.

All her plans ruined.

She rushed forward to slam into the Satyr as he rose. However, the braided cords of grass that lashed out to seize didn’t grab her but plunged into her watery form. Once inside of her, they drank her water with a mighty thirst.

She gasped as a strange pain rippled through her liquid essence. The grass drank her water. They pulled on her flesh and held onto her tight. She gasped. Her water rippled and gurgled. She fought against it, but they were stuck in her, drinking, devouring her.

Father Horn laughed. The satyr turned to Sister Francis Jean and the other nuns, his hard cock leading the way as he advanced on her with almost bounding steps. He had a huge grin on his face. One of triumph.

Nadiyya’s water nearly boiling with her rage, she threw a ball of liquid at him while the grasses drank more and more of her essence. The Marid needed a new plan.

Sister Francis Jean

It was hard to pay attention to the fight. I knew I should, but Sisters Doris Suzette and Ester Sarah. had gone straight for my round breasts. They knelt on either side of me, cupping my boobs and sucking on my nipples.

I rubbed at my virgin flesh. I was so turned on. Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since I’d caught Corey having sex with Vanessa and Zahia in the restroom. Since he had revealed to me the desires I had burning in my flesh for him.

Since he dominated me and punished me. To pay for my jealousy, I had to watch him and his harem have sex. I couldn’t join them. I couldn’t have any orgasms or lose my virginity. He was supposed to take me today. During my class. I was so frustrated. I needed to cum so badly.

Father Horn’s presence blazed as he fought with Nadia. I should focus on it, but with the two nuns’ sweet mouths on my nipples mixing with my lust, I was lost. I frantically masturbated, but it wasn’t enough. I needed more. I needed a cock.

The grass twitched. I gasped as leathery cords grabbed my wrists and ankles. They pulled me spread eagle, yanking my hands away from my pussy. The two nuns had to shift around, moving out of the way of my arms.

They stopped sucking my nipples for one aching second.

Then they were back. They sucked with hunger. Sister Doris Suzette nibbled while Sister Ester Sarah’s tongue danced around me. My pussy clenched. I moaned, humping the air. I needed to be fucked. I needed a cock in me.

“Yes, yes,” I moaned, Father Horn appearing in my vision. He loomed over me. He was coming at me with that huge cock of his.

It thrust from his furry crotch. He stared down at me, goat horns curling out of his hair. Virile. Strong. His muscular, hairy chest rippled as he walked. I moaned, seeing the lust in his eyes. The promise of pleasure.

“Take me!” I moaned, utterly consumed with lust.

He stepped up between my thighs. “I’m going to—”

A ball of water struck his cock. The liquid swirled around his dick and held it, sheathing his massive member in the rippling substance. He stared down at it, his brow furrowing. The lust in his face became something else.

Rage.

“You watery whore!” he snarled. He turned and charged away, taking that gorgeous cock away from me.

He lowered his horns, his head, rushing at a valuable feminine form made up of rippling liquid, long blades of grass thrust into her depths.

Batul (Bettie Black)

Batul the Jann shook her head. Known to Corey as Bettie Black, the haughty and spoiled Djinn didn’t like the attitude of Father Puck. She glared at gorgeous fairy strutting to the cafeteria table where Tania masturbated.

“Are you just going to ignore me,” Batul asked, her voice thick with annoyed petulance.

Father Puck whirled around to face her, shock rippling across his handsome face and sparkled in his green eyes. “Where did you come from?”

“Oh, now that truly is an offensive thing to say,” the lithe and beautiful Jann said. She perched naked on the table to the side, leaned back on her left arm, her round breasts thrust forward to show off the gold rings piercing each of her nipples, matching the smaller one that threaded through her left nostril, and the dainty one through the clitoral hood. She displayed that one, too, along with her shaved twat by keeping her legs spread wide. “I’ve been here the whole time. How could you not notice all of me? I’m hot!”

His cheek twitched.

The table Batul lounged on groaned a heartbeat before it crumbled around her. The bending, deforming metal squeezed about her perfect flesh. A large clatter erupted, more tables crashing around the one balling her up, seeking to crush her gorgeous form.

“Really!” she shouted with all the bratty annoyance found in her soul. She hated being ignored. Aaliyah’s cousin despised the fact that her father marrying a commoner kept her from having the royal blood like the Sultana. To have all that power. The ability to mold creation to her whim.

Or the whim of the man who owned her.

Now, this Pookah thought to just so blithely dismiss her?

He snorted and left her trapped up in a ball of metal, her knees shoved up to her breasts, her arms pinned to her side. She could hear him padding on to the masturbating Tania, eager to enjoy that little thing.

I have better tits than hers! Batul thought with rumbling annoyance.

Tania Buckley

I kept masturbating, working my fingers in and out of my snatch. I shuddered, savoring the feel of them plundering into my depths. It was incredible to do this. To enjoy that delicious plunge of digits into my cunt. He was getting closer and closer.

“Yes, yes, I finally get to enjoy you,” the perfect man cooed.

I whimpered in delight. I couldn’t think of anything but him. I ripped my fingers from my pussy. They dripped with my cunt juices. They rained on my belly while I held my legs out as far apart as I could. I trembled there, my twat clenching and relaxing. My heart pounded so fast in my chest.

I fanned my face.

“Yes, yes, I’ll attend to you, bonny lass,” Father Puck said. He had that fiery hair. And that sexy accent. Irish. Lilting and playful. “Don’t ya worry that pretty, little head of yours.”

“Yes!” I moaned, rubbing my cunt juices into my stomach as I massaged my belly. I had to be taken by him. I couldn’t think of anything else.

Sand trickled in the background.

Father Puck glanced to his left and sighed. I looked in that direction to see sand pouring out of the crumbled tables. I vaguely had the impression someone had been over there. Someone important. The sand whirled out into a thick cloud of yellowish dust that formed into a woman.

Bettie.

That was who was important. She was ... was...

A face appeared in my mind. An important face. Handsome, but nothing compared to Father Puck’s gorgeous features. I whimpered and rammed my fingers back into my cunt. My snatch clenched, my pussy on fire. I needed him in me.

“Bettie!” I groaned.

“Sorry,” she said, stalking forward, “but I just have to have his attention. I’m a bitch that way, I know, but I’m just hotter than you, Tania.” Her hands cupped her tits, nipple rings flashing. “Look at these breasts. They’re just perfect. Why don’t you touch them, Father Puck?”

“You think I’m at all fooled by your act, Jann?” Father Puck said. “Run along back to that boy. Tell him his woman got herself a real man ta play with. Don’t need him no more.”

“Yes!” I screeched in desperate lust.

The ground rumbled. Bettie sauntered forward. “If you won’t play with my body, then we’ll have to play in other ways.”

A spear of rock thrust out of the ground and rammed into Father Puck’s chest. It burst out his belly. I gasped in shock sitting upright. My lust vanished as annoyance flashed across his handsome face.

“Rock?” he said, stepping forward and pulling himself off of it, leaving behind his muscular abdomen whole. Unblemished. No blood. Not even a wound. “I’m a faerie, dearie. You think rock’s gonna do anyt’ing ta me?”

Bettie shrugged her shoulders. Another spear of rock thrust up into him. It burst out his back and then flared wide, creating a flange. “Maybe I’ll just pin you there and have fun with her myself.”

The Djinn advanced on me. I whimpered as Father Puck was trapped on the stone. I quivered, returning to my masturbation. I needed him. And Bettie was being so mean as she advanced on Father Pookah, a look of hunger in her eyes.

“No, no, I want him!” I whimpered.

“You don’t know what you want,” Bettie said. “You’re so turned on right now, you’d fuck the ugliest man in the world. And I’m hotter than that.”

“No, no, he’s got a cock.”

“Oh, I can make one of those,” she said and then a metal dildo ripped out of the ground and landed into her hand. “See.”

“But...”

“Dearie, she wants me cock,” Father Puck said. He slammed his hand into the rock thrust through him and snapped it off. He ripped it out of his unharmed body and advanced on me. He grabbed my thighs and pulled me to the edge of the table.

To his cock.

“Yes, yes, yes!” I moaned, frantic with my need to be penetrated.

A dull-gray sword burst out the back of Father Puck’s chest. This time, he screamed. Blue-green flames burned around the wound. His arms spasmed wide. I gasped as suddenly the lust evaporated from me. Corey’s face slammed back into my mind. I covered my body, scrambling back as Father Puck burned before me.

“Shouldn’t have ignored me,” Bettie cooed. She held the blade, not a dildo but a thick scimitar. “Mmm, look at all that lovely iron through you. Pure iron. Not treated in a forge. Cold iron. Isn’t that just a lovely thing to have rammed through you?”

Father Puck screamed as the flames consumed his body. The blue-green devoured him.

“No?” Bettie asked in mock surprise. “Oh, right, faerie can’t stand the touch of cold iron. It’s death to them. Shame there’s a large deposit right beneath the school.” She glanced at me and smiled. “I had to distract him. It was deep, and he’d feel the ground rumbling as I drew it up, but ... a few pathetic rock spikes and some slutty acting, and he dismissed me.”

I gaped at her as the flames consumed Father Puck utterly. He vanished, leaving behind only a sooty smoke that drifted through the air.

“Remember that, Tania,” she said, the sword becoming a dildo again. She wiggled it before her, the shaft shaped like Corey’s cock. “Women might not be stronger than men, but that’s our advantage. Being underestimated. And when you’re as sexy as us, it’s easy for men to underestimate us, isn’t it?”

Then she laughed, her large breasts shaking as she advanced on me, this wicked gleam in her eyes. I slammed my legs shut and said, “You’re not using a dildo on me that you just killed someone with.”

“He’s a faerie,” she said. “Hardly even a person. I mean, he didn’t want me at all. Can you believe it? Me! I want to stab him again!”

Nadiyya (Nadia Waters)

Despite being drained of her watery essence, Nadiyya smiled at wrapping up his cock in her essence. He glared at the Marid.

She squeezed.

He roared in pain and fell to his knees. She crushed his manhood with her water. Agony twisted across his face. His mighty chest heaved as she squeezed her water around him, abusing his most vulnerable part.

He fixed furious eyes on her, one hand digging furrows into the grass, the other struggling to bat her water away. But her essence flowed around his thick fingers. She smirked at him. He snorted and shook his head.

More plants grew into her, stealing more of her water.

“That’s not going to work, Satyr,” she said. “It’s a clever idea, but do you know where we are? This is Washington. The Evergreen State. Feel the moisture in the air.” She pulled it into her, replacing what had been taken. “The dew lingering on the grass.” The beads rushed to her. “And the aquifer flowing only thirty feet below us.” The ground shook as she pulled up a column of water. “There’s more liquid for me to access than your grass can drink.”

“Marid cunt!” he growled and staggered to his feet. He stomped towards her. “I just have to ... reach your core...”

“Oh, really?” Nadiyya asked. “And how do you think you’re going to survive long enough to do that?”

His heavy hooves slammed into the grass as he lumbered forward, battling the pain squeezing about his cock. The watery Marid’s essence rippled as she drew in all the humidity and dew. Then her new well broke through the soil and water sprayed up from the aquifer, flowing into her.

What the grasses stole, she replaced. She swelled larger and larger. She drank in more and more of elemental essence. She rippled with it, swelling in size. He snarled at her and lunged, charging with his horns lowered at her.

I should have just done this from the beginning, Nadiyya thought. I just had to show off. Corey’s not even watching.

She flung out a large ball of her new water. It slammed into his head and spilled around him. It coated his head in liquid. She poured it into his mouth and nose. She squeezed it about his thick throat. He stumbled to a stop as the horror filled his eyes. Bubbles rose from his mouth as he screamed.

She poured the water down his throat and into his lungs. She squeezed against the tight muscles of his neck, crushing his trachea and squeezing shut his arteries. He might be a creature born out of the spirit realm, no different from the incubus, but the Satyr had gained a physical form. And that left him vulnerable to all the realities of being flesh and blood.

“Need that oxygen, don’t you?” she said, her voice sounding like a splashing fountain. “You should have run, Satyr, but you thought with your cock.”

She squeezed her water tighter about his throat.

He bellowed and fell to his knees. His hands sloshed through the water surrounding his head. The blades of grass spasmed as he lost his control over them. They released her. She took on her corporeal form, stalking forward to watch him.

His eyes stared at her from around the water. She watched the moment when consciousness fled his body. His eyes rolled back. He collapsed on his side, twitching. She sighed and kept her water flowing around him, waiting for him to suffocate.

She couldn’t relent early. Drowning was never a pleasant thing, but this creature threatened Corey’s harem. And Nadiyya greatly wanted to be his wife. To be a part of his growing family. She had studied Corey all summer long, learned about him, seen his competitiveness, his drive to succeed.

I’m surprised he’s not out here fighting with us, she thought. But he understands his limitations. That’s intelligence.

The satyr died.

Humayra (Allie Reid)

The shadows squeezed around Humayra. She squirmed against them, her breasts heaving. Aleah sucked on the dark elf’s thumb. It wouldn’t be long before she was sucking on another part of the Svartálfar. Anger flared in the Ifrit.

“I made a promise!” she howled.

The Svartálfar turned to face her. He shoved his thumb deeper into Aleah’s mouth. “Never promise what you can’t deliver, Ifrit.”

“You think to hold me with darkness! I am a daughter of the living flame! I am the Earth’s primal life made flesh. I hold all the promise of passion and destruction. I am Humayra of the Ifrit Clan! Daughter of Rawiya!”

Her heat burned through her, fueled by her rage. By her conviction to Corey. She had watched the young man over the last summer. Seen his passion. How he loved his women. Aleah. She would fight, even die, to keep his fires blazing.

So she reached into her core, into the very essence of herself, and pulled the flames from there. The strongest fires she had.

Her passion burst out of her despite the darkness trying to smother her. Fire drove back the night. It wasn’t consumed by it. Tongues of angry orange and red erupted from her body, engulfing the shadowy bond and consuming them.

She rose, whirling punishment. Her fire crackled as she surged towards the Svartálfar about to defile the property of the man she, Humayra daughter of Rawiya, loved. She howled, a crackling inferno surging in to burn him.

The Svartálfar fled into the shadows.

Aleah Buckley

The thumb ripped out of my mouth. I gasped and shuddered, my body beset by desires. I wanted the dark elf so much. I just had to impale myself on his gorgeous perfection. But then he vanished. He fled before the whirling flames rushing at me.

I screamed as I realized it was Ms. Reid. She was coming to consume me. I had almost surrendered. I’d almost betrayed Corey. I had sucked on the man’s thumb. I suddenly felt so dirty. I was Corey’s first sex slave. I served my master with all my heart, and I almost betrayed him.

I threw my arms wide. “Burn me!”

The flame swept over me. They licked at my body. Warm and hot. I closed my eyes, waiting for the pain of my punishment to consume me. For the fire to roast my aching nipples and breasts. To burn up through my sinful pussy and devour me from the inside.

They didn’t.

They didn’t hurt me at all.

“Why aren’t you burning me?” I gasped to the fire swirling around me.

“And burn Corey’s heart to cinders?” the flames crackled. “Aleah, I can feel your passion. Father Black might have smothered it with his darkness, confused you, but the coals never really died. Let them blaze bright for Corey.”

“Yes!” I howled, thinking of him. Red hair. Handsome. That dominating smile. The way he controlled me. Gave me what I craved. What I had always wanted. When he came to me last year and seized me, he showed me what I needed.

The flames burned bright around me.

A man screamed.

Through the crackle and fury, I heard the dark elf dying. Ms. Reid burned him with her essence. It didn’t hurt me because our passions were the same. Both of us blazed for the same man. Corey. Not the dark elf.

He couldn’t burn for anyone. He was just cold. Dark. There was no true passion waiting in the shadows, just intriguing mystery that led you away from the fire. Away from all that was good and lovely into the trap of night. A maze so easy to get lost in.