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part One: The Scholar Prince
Timothy Drake had never expected to see the inside of a royal hall, much less to live in one.
The boy he had been — the boy of ink-stained fingers and threadbare sleeves, bent over scrolls in a drafty attic library — would have laughed at the thought. Tim had been the son of a minor scholar in the capital, overlooked even by those who sold him parchment on credit. Knowledge had been his only coin.
Then King Bruce had seen him.
No one knew exactly why. The court whispered a dozen theories: that Tim was some bastard son of nobility, that he had uncovered blackmail hidden in dusty ledgers, that he had begged so pitifully in the street the king himself had relented. None were true.
The truth was sharper, simpler.
King Bruce of House Wayne had found a boy with wit honed to a blade’s edge — and had taken him in, not out of sentiment, but out of strategy.
So Tim became a prince.
Reluctant. Unwanted. Adopted not by blood but by calculation.
And now he sat at the long stone table in the great hall of Wayne Keep, the only one with a book propped open beside his goblet. His new brothers and sisters argued over battle reports, raiding routes, and assassination attempts like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Three wyvern nests were spotted past the eastern ridge.” Richard — Crown Prince of Wayne, bright as gold and deadly as sunlight — leaned casually over the map. He smiled at the gathered knights. “I’ll lead the hunt myself. Good training for the men.”
Jason snorted. “And a good way to get half of them roasted alive.” The Commander’s broad shoulders were tense under his black armor, his scarred hands drumming against the table. The torchlight caught strangely in his eyes — ghostfire lingering from the day he’d fallen in battle and clawed his way back.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little fire, brother,” Dick teased, grinning.
Jason bared his teeth. “Not afraid. Just not an idiot.”
Damian, youngest of them, sharp-featured and sharper-tongued, cut across. “Both of you are fools. A wyvern nest should be eradicated swiftly and without posturing. Father should send me.”
“You’re twelve,” Jason snapped.
“I’m thirteen,” Damian corrected coldly. “And better trained than any of you.”
Tim stayed quiet. He’d learned quickly in this house that silence was safer. He turned a page of his book, feigning disinterest even as his ears drank in every word.
Cassandra — Princess, shadow, and silent spy — sat opposite him. She caught his glance, raised a brow in wordless amusement, then went back to sharpening her dagger.
Above them all, at the head of the table, King Bruce listened. His dark gaze flicked from child to child, weighing, measuring, cutting to the bone of every word without ever raising his voice. When he finally spoke, it was not about wyverns.
“Timothy,” the king said.
Tim’s spine went rigid. “Your Majesty?”
“The northern woods.” Bruce tapped the map, callused finger pressing against the faded ink of the wilds. “There is movement there. Strange magic. You will investigate.”
The hall went still.
Richard blinked. “Father — surely you mean one of us. The northern woods are fae territory.”
“Precisely.” Bruce’s eyes did not leave Tim. “Steel will not serve us there. But wit might. Timothy has studied their kind.”
Jason muttered something about throwing a lamb to the wolves. Damian scoffed outright. “You cannot be serious. He has no training, no weapon, no—”
“No fear,” Bruce interrupted.
The words landed like a stone. Tim felt them sink into him, heavy and unwanted. He wanted to protest — to insist he was no prince, no knight, no diplomat. That he had only read the ancient stories, half-truths and contradictory accounts scrawled by long-dead men.
But Bruce’s gaze pinned him in place. And Tim, as ever, obeyed.
“As you command,” Tim said softly.
The northern woods waited three days’ ride from the Keep, and in that time Tim discovered the difference between being a scholar and being a prince.
As a scholar’s son, he would have been sent off with a sack of stale bread and a borrowed mule. As a prince, he rode under Wayne banners, armored knights flanking him, and Cassandra herself at his side — though she said nothing, only watching him with eyes that saw too much.
Jason rode with them for the first mile, silent but scowling, before reining in his horse. “If the woods eat you alive,” he muttered, “don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Then he turned back toward the Keep, ghostfire flickering faintly at his heels.
At the edge of the northern forest, even the knights hesitated. The trees loomed black against the horizon, twisted with thorn and shadow. Birds did not sing there. The air itself hummed wrong.
Cassandra pressed a small dagger into Tim’s hand. “You’ll need it.”
Tim stared at the blade. “Steel doesn’t work against the fae.”
She tilted her head. “Not for them. For you.”
And then she was gone, melting into the treeline like smoke.
Tim swallowed hard, squared his shoulders, and stepped alone into the woods.
The forest closed around him like a living thing. Branches arched overhead, weaving a cage of shadow and silvered moonlight. Thorns snagged at his cloak. The air smelled of frost and ash.
He marked every step carefully, counting, memorizing, whispering the old rules to himself like prayers.
Do not eat their food. Do not speak your name. Do not bargain without cost.
But when the path twisted and the trees pressed closer, Tim felt the rules slip through his fingers like water.
And somewhere, watching unseen, something ancient smiled.
part Two: The Forest of Thorns
The forest did not want him.
Tim could feel it in the way the branches swayed when no wind stirred, in the prickling at the back of his neck, in the thorns that reached for his sleeves as if eager to draw blood. Each step deeper was a trespass. Each breath, a theft.
He pulled his cloak tighter and pressed forward. He had studied every fragment he could find on the fae wilds: their wards, their glamour, their merciless bargains. But the ink on parchment had never captured this suffocating weight, this sense of being prey beneath the gaze of a hunter he could not see.
Tim did not quicken his pace. Predators chased what ran.
The path beneath him was more suggestion than trail, narrowing with every step until the trees pressed so close their bark rasped against his shoulders. The light shifted strangely here — moonlight threading through branches where no moon was visible, shadows twisting even when he stood still.
He whispered another rule under his breath, a mantra to anchor himself: “Count your steps. Count your breaths. Do not lose track.”
By the fiftieth step, his lungs burned with frost. By the hundredth, the trees seemed to whisper in voices he almost recognized. By the hundred and twentieth, he was certain he was being followed.
He did not look back.
Instead, Tim opened his book. He had carried it against every warning, tucked into the leather satchel at his side: a battered compendium of fae folklore, half-legible, half-lies. He scanned the cramped script by moonlight, searching for anything useful.
“Silver binds, salt repels, iron burns,” he murmured. “But words wound deepest of all.”
The forest laughed.
It was not sound, not truly. More the creak of branches bending, the rustle of unseen wings, the sharp snap of thorns curling into shape. But it was laughter nonetheless — and it was close.
Tim froze. His hand tightened on Cassandra’s dagger. He turned slowly—
And the path was gone.
No trail, no direction, only endless walls of trees pressing in on all sides. His stomach lurched. He had been counting, he had been careful—he should not have lost it. Unless the forest itself had shifted around him.
His breath quickened despite himself. He forced it steady, clutching his satchel like a lifeline. “Do not panic,” he told himself. “That’s what it wants.”
Something moved behind him.
Tim whirled, knife raised—
And saw him.
The figure stood half in shadow, half in silver light. At first glance, he might have been mistaken for human: lean frame, dark hair tousled by wind, eyes glinting in the dark. But the details betrayed him. Wings unfurled from his back, delicate as shattered glass, sharp-edged and glittering with frost. Thorns curled down his arms like living vines. His gaze burned with otherworldly light.
A fae.
No—something older. Something angrier.
Tim’s throat went dry. His studies had not prepared him for this.
The fae tilted his head, regarding him as one might regard a stray dog that had wandered too close. “A mortal prince,” he said, voice low and edged like broken crystal. “What are you doing in my woods?”
Tim’s heart stuttered. He did not correct him — not that he was no true prince, not that his crown was borrowed. The rules were clear: never give away what you did not wish stolen.
“I was sent,” Tim said carefully. His voice was steady, even if his pulse was not. “Strange magic has been reported here. I came to investigate.”
The fae’s lips curved into something that was not quite a smile. “Investigate,” he repeated, as though tasting the word. “Mortals always come with such noble lies.”
“It’s not a lie.” Tim tightened his grip on the dagger. “The kingdom is concerned. If there is danger here—”
“Danger?” The fae laughed again, and this time it was unmistakable, sharp as thorns tearing skin. “You tread on cursed ground, mortal, and speak to me of danger?”
His wings flared, scattering shards of cold light across the trees. For a heartbeat, Tim could not breathe.
But then — the scholar in him stirred. He studied the thorns curling over the fae’s skin, the way his breath frosted in the air, the bitterness threaded through every word. This was not a creature of Seelie beauty or Unseelie cruelty. This was something else.
“Who are you?” Tim asked softly.
The fae’s gaze snapped to him, startled. Few mortals dared to ask. Fewer survived the answer.
For a long moment, silence stretched between them. Then the fae said, almost grudgingly: “I am the Thistle Prince. Exiled from Seelie and Unseelie alike. These woods are mine, mortal — and mine alone.”
Thistle Prince. Tim’s mind sparked at the name, rifling through every scrap of lore he had read. Exile. Thorn. Wings like frostbitten glass. His breath caught.
“Danny,” he whispered.
The fae stilled.
No mortal should have known that name.
And in the sudden silence, the forest itself seemed to lean closer, listening.
part Three: The Bargain in Thorns
The fae stilled at the sound of his name.
Not the title he had claimed — Thistle Prince, a mask of exiled majesty and barbed defiance — but the name that cut closer, sharper. Danny.
His wings flared, shards of glass and frost catching the silvered light. “You should not know that.”
Tim’s throat was dry, but his voice held steady. “I’ve read every record I could find on the fae. The Thistle Prince. The exiled heir. Your name—”
“You should not know that,” Danny said again, voice low enough that the forest leaned in to hear. His eyes glowed faint, otherworldly green, brighter now, and the thorns coiled tighter down his arms.
Tim tightened his grip on the dagger Cassandra had given him. His mind, even in fear, catalogued details: the frost creeping along bark where Danny’s hand brushed a tree, the restless hum of the forest around them, the way shadows seemed to bend toward him.
This was dangerous. This was everything he had studied and dismissed as half-truth, suddenly standing in front of him with wings of broken beauty and eyes like poisoned fire.
And yet — Tim felt no urge to run.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Danny said.
“I was sent,” Tim replied.
“Then your king is a fool.”
Tim almost smiled. “On that we might agree.”
The silence that followed was not empty. The forest hissed with it, the thorns around them whispering sharp promises. Danny’s expression shifted, something unreadable flickering across it — surprise, maybe, at the mortal who did not cower, or irritation that he could not be easily dismissed.
He stepped closer, the frost of his presence sharp against Tim’s skin. “Go home, mortal prince. The woods are not yours to trespass.”
“They are not yours either,” Tim said, softly but firmly. “You were exiled.”
The thorns at Danny’s wrists tightened until one drew blood. His lips curved, humorless. “Bold words, for someone who cannot find his way back out without me.”
Tim’s breath caught. He had been so careful, so meticulous — and yet he knew Danny was right. The path behind him had vanished, folded into shadow and trickery. The forest was alive, and it wanted him lost.
And Danny knew it.
“Perhaps,” Tim said, forcing calm into his tone, “you could show me the way.”
Danny’s eyes narrowed, sharp and bright. “Are you asking a favor, mortal?”
The rules echoed in Tim’s mind. Do not bargain without cost. His father’s library had been full of cautionary tales: mortals who asked favors of fae and lost years, blood, or their souls in return.
But he also knew he had no choice.
“I’m asking for safe passage,” Tim said carefully. “Out of the woods, or at least to where the path runs true.”
Danny tilted his head, considering. “And what will you give me in return?”
Tim hesitated. “What do you want?”
The smile that spread across Danny’s face was sharp and wicked, but behind it lurked something else — curiosity, hunger not for flesh but for understanding.
“Your time,” Danny said at last. “Come back. Speak with me. Bring your questions and your cleverness, mortal prince. That is my price.”
Tim blinked. Of all the costs he had braced himself for — blood, pain, servitude — this one seemed almost laughably light. Almost.
But bargains with fae were never simple.
Still, he nodded. “Agreed.”
The air shifted. The forest seemed to exhale, as though the pact itself was written in root and thorn. Danny stepped back, wings folding tight, and gestured into the shadows. The path unspooled itself before them, clear and sudden as if it had always been there.
“Go,” Danny said. “Before I decide I want more.”
Tim did not look back until the trees thinned and moonlight gave way to the pale light of dawn.
And when he did, the Thistle Prince was gone.
Wayne Keep
Back at the Keep, the council chamber seethed with voices.
“Sending him alone was madness,” Richard said, pacing across the stone floor. His armor glinted in the torchlight, but his smile was nowhere to be found. “The northern woods swallow men whole. If something happens—”
“He won’t last a week,” Damian interrupted, arms crossed, glare sharp enough to cut steel. “He is not trained. He does not belong in the field.”
“Neither did you at his age,” Jason said dryly from where he leaned against the wall, ghostfire faintly sparking at his fingertips. “Didn’t stop you.”
Damian bristled. “I was raised for this. He was plucked from a library and dressed in a crown.”
Jason’s smile was cruel. “Maybe that’s what we need. Brains instead of blades.”
“Enough.” Bruce’s voice cut through the bickering like a sword.
The room stilled.
Bruce’s expression was unreadable, carved from stone. “Timothy was chosen because steel cannot win where he is going. If there is to be peace between realms, it will not be bought with blood.”
Richard frowned. “And if there is war?”
Bruce looked at Jason then, and something passed between them — an unspoken reminder of what Jason had been through, of the fire in his veins that burned half in this world and half in another.
“Then we will be ready,” Bruce said.
But Cassandra, silent at the edge of the room, lifted her gaze. Her eyes were sharp as knives, and when Richard caught her glance, he felt the truth of it:
Tim would not return untouched.
The Woods Again
Tim had meant to stay away.
He told himself the deal was struck, the bargain fulfilled: safe passage for his time, and nothing more. He told himself returning would be dangerous, reckless, foolish.
But three nights later, he found himself at the forest’s edge once more.
The woods seemed to shift at his arrival, thorns curling back, branches tilting as if to funnel him toward the grove. And there, waiting among the roots of a half-dead tree, was the Thistle Prince.
“You came back,” Danny said. His tone was mocking, but his eyes flickered with something else.
“I keep my bargains,” Tim replied, settling onto a stone as though it were a throne. His satchel was heavy with ink and parchment. “Do you?”
Danny’s grin was sharp. “Would you still be breathing if I didn’t?”
Tim ignored the shiver that ran down his spine. He opened his book, quill poised. “Tell me about the Veil.”
Danny’s gaze narrowed. “Why?”
“Because it’s tearing,” Tim said. “And if it breaks, it won’t just be your woods at risk. It will be both our worlds.”
The air between them stilled. Danny’s wings flicked, shards of frost scattering. His thorns flexed as if in pain.
“You are clever,” he said at last, low and dangerous. “Clever enough to get yourself killed.”
“Maybe,” Tim said, daring to meet his eyes. “But clever enough to understand you too.”
For the first time, Danny looked away.
Wayne Keep
In the training yard, Damian drove his blade into the dummy again and again, frustration bleeding into every strike.
“He’s hiding something,” he muttered.
“Of course he is,” Steph said cheerfully from the wall, tossing an apple. “He’s Tim.”
Damian spun, glaring. “It could endanger us all.”
Steph only smirked. “Or it could save us. Don’t be jealous because little brother has a forest boyfriend.”
Damian’s face turned crimson. “He does not—”
Jason’s laugh cut across the yard, sharp and knowing. “Bet you five crowns she’s right.”
The Grove
Tim should have been afraid. Instead, he was fascinated.
The Thistle Prince leaned against a tree, wings casting fractured moonlight, thorns blooming from his skin like a crown of their own.
“You ask questions no mortal has asked me before,” Danny said softly. “Most beg for power. Or mercy.”
“I’m not most mortals,” Tim said, and then flushed, realizing how arrogant it sounded.
But Danny only smiled, slow and dangerous. “No. You’re not.”
The silence that followed was heavy, full of things unsaid. Then Danny lifted a hand, and from his palm bloomed a flower unlike any Tim had seen — petals dark as midnight, edges shimmering faintly with frost. He held it out.
“A gift,” Danny said. “It will never die. But it will mark you as mine.”
Tim’s breath caught. “Why?”
Danny’s smile curved, thorn-sharp. “Because I haven’t decided what I want from you yet.”
Tim hesitated. Then, slowly, he reached out and took the flower.
And the forest whispered, binding them in ways neither yet understood.
part Four: Gifts of Frost and Fire
The flower did not wither.
Tim had left it on his desk in his chamber, tucked between books of half-forgotten lore. Three days had passed since Danny pressed it into his hand, and still its black petals glistened faintly with frost, as if cut from midnight itself. When Tim touched it, cold lanced his skin.
He had not told anyone about it. Not the king. Not Dick. Not Cassandra, who had almost certainly noticed anyway. The flower sat silently between ink and parchment, damning proof that Tim had accepted a gift no mortal should accept.
A fae’s gift was never simple.
And still, every night, he found himself walking back toward the forest.
The woods greeted him differently now. Once hostile, they seemed to soften when his boots touched their roots, branches leaning aside to make room for him. He knew better than to trust it — the forest was Danny’s creature, shifting with his will.
He found the Thistle Prince where he always waited: in the grove of twisted trees, wings folded like fractured glass, thorns glinting under moonlight. Danny looked at him as though Tim’s return was inevitable.
“You keep your bargains,” Danny said.
“So do you,” Tim replied.
Danny’s mouth quirked into something between a smile and a challenge. “Not always. You should consider yourself fortunate.”
“I don’t believe in fortune,” Tim said.
“Of course you don’t.” Danny leaned back against the tree, thorns curling lazily along his arms. “You believe in ink and logic. In words scratched by men who never stepped foot here.”
“Words last longer than steel.”
Danny tilted his head, studying him. “You think that makes them stronger?”
“I think it makes them harder to kill.”
The forest hummed at that, shadows leaning closer as if eager to test the theory. Danny’s gaze sharpened. For a heartbeat, Tim thought he had overstepped — and then the fae laughed, sharp and sudden, startling the trees into a flurry of motion.
“You intrigue me, mortal prince,” Danny said. “Most who come here beg for power or flee in fear. You bring questions.”
“And you answer them.”
“For now.” Danny’s grin was quicksilver, dangerous. “But questions are like thorns. Sooner or later, they draw blood.”
Tim shivered — not from fear, but from something colder, stranger, curling in his chest.
Back at the Keep, suspicion grew.
Dick noticed first.
“Tim’s disappearing a lot lately,” he said one evening, leaning over the map table where Steph and Babs were arranging little carved figurines to represent the kingdom’s spies. “Slipping out after dusk, coming back at dawn. Doesn’t that seem… I don’t know, romantic?”
Steph snorted. “You think everything’s romantic. Last week you said fighting wyverns together was ‘a bonding experience.’”
“It was!” Dick protested. “But seriously — sneaking off at night, coming back with that dazed look? It’s a crush. Has to be.”
Babs raised a brow. “On who, exactly? The castle librarian? One of the stable boys?”
Steph grinned. “Oh no. It’s worse. He’s definitely got a forest boyfriend.”
Dick blinked. “That’s… oddly specific.”
Steph gestured toward Tim’s chamber door with a wicked grin. “Go look. Bet you five crowns you’ll find some love token or other.”
They didn’t have to. Cass had already found it.
She had slipped into Tim’s room the night before, silent as shadow, and seen the flower glistening cold between books. She said nothing — but when Tim returned and caught her gaze, she simply tilted her head, eyes flicking toward the satchel at his hip.
She knew. She always knew.
Tim’s next visit to the grove nearly killed him.
He had followed the same path as always, careful, methodical — counting steps, marking turns — when the ground shifted beneath his boots. Ice spread in a circle around him, cracking and crawling outward until it locked him in place.
The air turned sharp, breath burning his lungs. Glamours pressed against his mind, whispering promises in familiar voices. He tried to move, to break free, but the circle tightened, freezing his blood.
Do not step into fae traps, the books had warned. But the trap had stepped into him.
His vision blurred. He sank to his knees.
And then — a hand caught his arm, burning cold but solid.
Danny.
The Thistle Prince strode into the circle as if it belonged to him, wings slicing through the frost. His thorns flared, tearing through the ice, cracking the spell with each step. The circle screamed as it shattered, shards of glamour scattering like dying stars.
Tim collapsed into him, chest heaving, frost clinging to his lips.
Danny’s grip was unyielding. “Stupid mortal,” he hissed, though his voice shook with something not quite anger. “Do you have a death wish?”
Tim swallowed hard, trying to steady his breath. “Apparently.”
Danny’s eyes burned. For a moment, Tim thought he would strike him down then and there. Instead, Danny lifted his hand and pressed it flat against Tim’s chest. A wave of cold surged through him, clearing the frost, steadier than breath.
“Do not step where the forest leads you,” Danny said, voice low. “It does not answer to you.”
“It answers to you.”
Danny’s mouth tightened. “Yes. And that is why it hates me most of all.”
At the Keep, Jason dreamed of fire.
He woke in a cold sweat, ghostlight searing in his veins. The curse that had dragged him back from death had grown restless of late — sparking without cause, burning beneath his scars.
And when he stood at the ramparts and looked north, toward the forest, the fire roared.
Something in those woods called to him. Something half-familiar, half-foreign, whispering of grave soil and frost, of exile and chains.
Jason clenched his fists, fire flickering between his fingers. He didn’t know whether he wanted to fight it… or find it.
Back in the grove, Danny paced. His wings caught moonlight, his thorns digging into bark as if he could bleed the tree itself.
“You shouldn’t come back,” he said abruptly.
Tim blinked from where he sat, parchment balanced on his knees. “Why not?”
“Because the forest will kill you.”
“And you won’t?”
Danny stopped pacing. His eyes caught Tim’s — green fire meeting mortal steel. The silence stretched until Tim’s pulse hammered in his throat.
Finally, Danny said, “Not yet.”
Tim swallowed. “That’s not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
But when Danny turned away, his wings shivering like broken glass, Tim thought he caught the edge of something else — something like fear.
In the Keep’s library, Steph nudged Damian with her elbow. “So, any bets yet? I say Tim’s sneaking out to see some mysterious lover.”
Damian scoffed. “You are insufferable.”
“Admit it,” Steph teased, “you’re jealous he found someone first.”
Damian’s glare could have flayed skin. “If he is consorting with the fae, it is treason.”
Steph just grinned wider. “So you do think it’s a forest boyfriend.”
Before Damian could stab her, Cassandra appeared silently between them, laid one hand on Damian’s dagger, and shook her head.
Then she looked at Tim’s empty chair.
And nodded.
That night, in the grove, Tim closed his book and looked up at Danny. “Why were you exiled?”
Danny froze. The question hit harder than any blade. His wings flared, thorns bristling, shadows twisting restless. For a long moment, Tim thought he had destroyed the fragile balance between them.
Then Danny laughed, soft and bitter. “Because I was born wrong.”
Tim frowned. “Wrong?”
“Not Seelie. Not Unseelie. A child of both, claimed by neither. A thorn between crowns.” Danny’s smile was sharp enough to bleed. “So they cast me out. Easier to exile me than to decide which throne I should take.”
Tim’s heart clenched. “That doesn’t make you wrong.”
Danny’s gaze snapped to him, fierce and dangerous, as if daring him to mean it.
And Tim, against all reason, did.
Later, as he slipped back toward the Keep, Tim felt the frostflower in his satchel pulse with cold. A reminder. A promise. A curse.
And when Jason caught sight of him returning, ghostfire burning in his veins, he narrowed his eyes.
The Thistle Prince was no longer just a story in old books.
And Tim was no longer just a scholar.
part Five: The Thorn and the Blade
The storm broke quietly.
It started with glances — Dick watching Tim’s empty seat at supper, Steph tapping her spoon against her cup with too much rhythm, Cass’s silence weighing heavier than usual. Jason said nothing at all, but his eyes burned whenever Tim walked past, ghostfire simmering under his skin.
And Damian, of course, sharpened his sword.
Tim slipped out at dusk again, hood drawn low, boots muffled against stone. He thought he was careful — but Damian had been waiting.
From the shadows above the gatehouse, the youngest prince dropped, cloak flaring. His sword flashed, pointed toward Tim’s chest before his boots even struck the ground.
“You’re hiding something.”
Tim stiffened. “Move.”
“Not until you tell me what you’ve been consorting with.”
“I don’t owe you an explanation.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed. “You reek of fae magic. I smelled it on your chamber door. You carry a token, don’t you? What did it give you — power? Knowledge? Or did you just surrender like a fool to its glamour?”
Tim’s jaw clenched. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know enough,” Damian said, blade steady. “And if you will not speak, I will follow. If you betray the Keep, I will cut you down myself.”
For a moment, they stared at each other, the weight of the forest pressing just beyond the gates. Then Tim shoved past him.
“Follow if you want,” he muttered. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The forest welcomed them like a trap waiting to spring.
Tim’s path was steady, deliberate, each turn remembered with ink-perfect precision. Damian followed silent as shadow, every muscle ready to strike.
They reached the grove under a waxing moon. The trees bent close, thorns heavy on their branches, and the air shifted colder.
Danny stood waiting, wings glimmering with fractured starlight. His gaze went first to Tim — steady, expectant — then snapped sharp as a blade when it found Damian.
“You brought a guest.”
Tim exhaled. “He followed me.”
Damian’s sword was already raised. “So. The Thistle Prince.”
Danny’s grin was all teeth. “So. A child with steel.”
“I am Damian al Ghul–Wayne,” the boy declared, stepping into the grove without hesitation. “Blood of kings. I challenge you.”
Tim’s heart lurched. “Damian—”
But Danny was already moving. His wings flared, thorns bristling like drawn arrows, and the forest bent inward, eager for blood. The air shimmered with glamour, sharp as ice.
Damian lunged, sword cutting toward Danny’s chest.
The Thistle Prince caught the blade barehanded.
Steel met thorn. Sparks hissed. For one long heartbeat, the world seemed to hold its breath. Then Danny twisted his wrist — and Damian’s sword unraveled into a stem of black petals, thorns blooming where steel had been.
The boy blinked down at the flower in his grip. His knuckles whitened.
Danny leaned close, voice soft and terrible. “Pretty toys. But they do not belong here.”
Damian’s jaw locked. He hurled the flower aside and reached for another blade — but vines surged from the earth, coiling around his wrist, yanking him still.
“Stop!” Tim shouted, shoving between them. “Danny, don’t—he’s just—”
“Just what?” Danny hissed, wings flaring. “Another mortal who thinks he can carve a crown from fae blood? Another fool who does not know what he challenges?”
“He’s my brother,” Tim said sharply.
The grove fell silent. Even the vines stilled. Danny’s eyes burned, green fire flickering behind the cracks in his expression.
“Your brother,” he repeated, voice lower now. “Then he should know better.”
Damian bristled, straining against the vines, but Tim reached out and touched his wrist. “Enough. Please.”
For a long moment, Danny’s gaze held his. The forest shivered, torn between violence and restraint. Then, finally, the vines loosened. The flower crumbled to ash at Damian’s feet.
Danny turned away, shoulders stiff. “Keep him out of my grove.”
Tim let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He tugged Damian back, hand firm on his shoulder.
But Damian’s eyes stayed locked on Danny, sharp and furious. “You are dangerous.”
Danny didn’t look back. “So are you.”
They returned to the Keep in silence. Damian’s jaw was tight, his eyes storm-dark, but he said nothing until they reached the gate.
Then, low and sharp, he muttered, “You’re playing with fire, Tim.”
Tim met his glare evenly. “Maybe. But it’s mine to play with.”
Damian said nothing else. But the next morning, the entire family knew.
In the war room, voices clashed like blades.
“You’ve been meeting the Thistle Prince?” Dick demanded, hands slammed against the table.
Steph leaned forward, eyes wide with equal parts glee and panic. “So I was right — it is a forest boyfriend!”
“Steph—”
Jason’s fire flared, ghostlight spilling through his scars. “Do you have any idea what kind of danger you’ve dragged to our doorstep? He’s not some harmless spirit. He’s exile. He’s curse. He’s the kind of mistake that ends kingdoms.”
“He saved me,” Tim snapped.
That silenced them.
Tim stood straighter, fingers curled tight against his sides. “I stepped into a fae trap. He pulled me out. If he wanted me dead, he could have left me there. Instead he spared me. He—”
His voice faltered, but he forced it steady. “He is not the enemy.”
Jason’s fire dimmed, but his eyes were still knives. “Then what is he?”
Tim didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
Because even now, deep in his satchel, the frostflower still pulsed.
Back in the forest, Danny sat alone on his throne of thorns, hands curled tight around his own chest.
The boy’s eyes had cut deep. Brother.
And the word lodged in his heart like a blade.
part Six: The Exile Prince
The grove was quieter once the mortals left, but the silence cut sharper than any blade.
Danny sat on his throne of thorns, hands pressed against his knees, wings drawn tight as if to keep himself from flying apart. The vines shifted under him, restless, feeding off the storm in his chest.
He had been called many things. Prince. Bastard. Exile. Monster. None of them mattered. What mattered was that he had been alone. For years, he had ruled this ruined grove with only the forest’s whispers for company.
And then the mortal came.
Timothy.
Soft-spoken, sharp-eyed, wearing shadows like second skin. The boy asked questions instead of begging favors. He walked through the thorn-blooming paths as though the forest had already claimed him, and Danny—fool that he was—let him return. Again. And again.
Until tonight.
The younger mortal’s sword still rang in Danny’s mind. So bold, so reckless, stepping into the grove as though his crown gave him any right. Danny could have ended him. Should have. One twist of thorn, one whisper of winter, and that boy would have been gone.
But Timothy’s voice had stopped him.
He’s my brother.
Danny closed his eyes. That word. It should not have mattered. But it did.
Because once, long ago, he too had a brother.
He remembered the Courts.
The Seelie halls gleaming with golden banners, the Unseelie caverns filled with smoke and silk. He had been neither — not quite bright enough for Seelie, not cruel enough for Unseelie. Half one, half the other, the unwanted heir to both and ruler of nothing.
His wings had always been wrong: glass fractured with frost, edges bleeding into thorn. His power unsettled courtiers, twisted the Veil itself when he was near. They whispered half-dead, half-born, a fae who carried the taste of the grave.
His sister—sweet, fierce, laughing in moonlight—had been the only one to see him, truly see him. She had danced barefoot in his grove, claimed the thorns as her crown. She had believed in him.
And then the Nightmare Court rose.
The exiles. The broken. The creatures who had clawed their way from the cracks in the Veil, hungry for a king who understood hunger. They had looked to him. And in one terrible night, the Seelie and Unseelie both turned on him.
He had been cast out. His sister gone. His name struck from every hall.
Now he ruled only thistles.
And the Nightmare Court waited still.
Danny opened his eyes. The forest pulsed around him, feeding from his sorrow. Vines grew sharper, blooms blackened, frost spread across the grass. His exile was carved into the roots.
So why did the mortal’s voice still echo in his chest?
Why did Timothy’s gaze burn deeper than crown or curse?
Danny rose, pacing the grove. His wings trailed shards of light, breaking and healing in the same breath. He could feel the frostflower he had given Timothy pulsing faintly through the Veil — a tether, unintentional, dangerous. Already the Nightmare Court whispered of it.
A chosen. A claim. A crown bound to mortal flesh.
Danny snarled and silenced them.
He had made no claim. Not yet.
And yet…
He remembered Timothy shivering in the fae circle, breath clouding as the ice crept higher. He had looked so fragile then. So breakable. Danny had seen mortals die like that before. But something in Timothy’s eyes — defiance, sorrow, longing — had rooted him to the spot. Against every instinct, against every exile’s law, he had reached out and shattered the trap himself.
And now the mortal returned to him. Again. Again. Even when warned away. Even when danger sharpened in every shadow.
Danny pressed a hand to his chest, where the frost never fully melted.
“Why you?” he whispered to the empty grove.
The forest gave no answer. Only the thorns stirred, as though reaching for him, as though echoing his restlessness.
That night, he dreamt of crowns.
Not Seelie gold or Unseelie iron, but something darker — woven of briars and moonlight, dripping with blood. He sat upon a throne of shattered glass, and at his feet lay both realms, bowing, broken.
And at his side… Timothy.
Eyes bright, lips pale, a flower blooming black against his heart.
Danny woke with a start, breath ragged, thorns curling tight around his body like chains.
“No,” he rasped, shoving them back. His wings flared, scattering frost. “I will not.”
But even as he swore it, he knew.
The Nightmare Court would not care for his refusals. The tether was already made.
The mortal was already his.
At dawn, Danny stood in the heart of the grove, thorns shifting restlessly at his command.
If Timothy returned again, Danny would have to decide. To claim, or to cut. To let the bond root deeper — or sever it before the Nightmare Court could seize it.
The choice pressed like a crown of thorns on his brow.
And he hated that he did not yet know which he wanted.
part Seven: A Scholar’s Crown
The frostflower refused to wilt.
Tim kept it pressed between the pages of his journal, weighted under ink and parchment, but each morning it bloomed anew — a crystalline star, petals shimmering with a light that wasn’t sunlight. He had tried every test: fire, salt, blessed steel. None marked it. None could erase the truth.
It was fae.
And it was his.
Back in the castle, suspicion lay thick as smoke.
King Bruce summoned him to council the moment he returned from the northern woods. Tim expected anger. What he received was silence: a heavier thing, carved of shadow and scrutiny.
“Report,” the king said, voice deep as stone.
Tim swallowed. “The corruption in the forest is not spreading. It… holds. As though something is containing it.”
Dick leaned forward at the council table, sun-gold and smiling though his eyes betrayed the edge beneath. “Containing? By what?”
Tim hesitated. The frostflower burned against his thoughts. Danny’s voice still clung to his ears. Because I haven’t decided what I want from you yet.
“By someone,” Tim said at last. “A presence. A guardian.”
“Fae,” Damian spat, sharp as a blade. The boy prince’s eyes gleamed, hungry for the kill. “Let me take a hunting party. I’ll have its head before nightfall.”
Jason shifted in his seat, broad shoulders tense, ghostfire flickering faint across his veins. “Careful, brat. If it’s what I think it is, you’ll end up the one bleeding.” His gaze slid to Tim, heavy, knowing. “And you—why do you reek of it?”
The air stilled.
Tim froze.
Jason’s half-dead senses were sharper than any steel. He had known. Of course he had known.
“It’s nothing,” Tim said carefully. Too carefully.
Bruce’s eyes narrowed, and Tim knew the conversation was far from over.
Later, in the library, Cassandra found him. She never announced herself — she simply appeared, shadow-quiet, slipping between stacks until her gaze found him.
She looked at the frostflower pressed between his journal pages. Then at him.
She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to.
Tim closed the book.
“It’s not—” he began, then stopped. Cass tilted her head. Patient. Knowing.
At last, she touched her fingers to her lips, then to her heart. A secret kept.
Tim exhaled, tension easing if only slightly.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
She nodded once and was gone.
But secrets did not rest easily in the Wayne court.
At supper, Steph leaned across the table, grinning like a fox. “So, Timmy-boy. Any reason you’ve been sneaking back late with leaves in your hair? Got yourself a forest boyfriend?”
Tim choked on his wine.
Dick thumped his back, laughing. “He’s blushing. He’s definitely blushing.”
“I’m not—” Tim started, but Jason’s low voice cut through.
“He is.”
And the table erupted.
Steph whooped. Barbara smirked knowingly. Even Damian sneered, muttering something about “disgraceful fraternization with lesser beings.”
Only Bruce stayed silent, watching. Always watching.
Tim wished the floor would open and swallow him whole.
That night, Bruce came to him.
The king’s shadow filled the chamber, his presence heavier than armor.
“You will not return,” Bruce said. No preamble. No argument allowed. “The fae are dangerous. They cannot be trusted.”
Tim’s heart clenched. “Then why send me?”
“Because you see what others do not. But that is also why you are vulnerable.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No.” Bruce’s gaze softened, just for a breath. “You are my son.”
It should have been enough. It should have rooted him to safety, to loyalty, to duty. But instead, Tim felt the frostflower pulse through the pages of his journal, felt the tug of something older and stranger than any crown.
He bowed his head. “Yes, Father.”
But when Bruce left, Tim packed his satchel.
The forest welcomed him like an old wound.
The air grew colder as he crossed the Veil, shadows curling tighter with each step. He half-expected Danny to appear immediately — wings sharp, eyes blazing, ready to banish him.
Instead, the grove was silent.
The thrones of thorn twisted under a pale moon. Frost bloomed across the roots. And at the center, Danny stood waiting.
Not surprised. Not angry. Simply… waiting.
Tim swallowed, stepping forward. “You knew I’d come back.”
Danny’s mouth curled into something between a smile and a snarl. “You mortals always do. Curiosity is just another word for hunger.”
“Maybe,” Tim said, steady. “Or maybe it’s survival.”
Danny tilted his head, glass-frost wings catching the moonlight. “And what do you think you’re surviving, little prince?”
Tim hesitated. Then: “Loneliness.”
For a moment, silence stretched. The thorns stilled. Danny’s gaze burned through him, colder than winter, sharper than glass.
And then the fae prince stepped closer, shadows coiling around his feet.
“You speak truths you don’t even understand.”
“Then teach me.”
Danny froze. The grove itself seemed to inhale.
Tim’s pulse thundered. “Make a bargain with me. Knowledge for… something. Anything. You decide.”
Danger shivered across the air. Bargains were binding. Irrevocable. Fools’ traps.
Danny’s eyes narrowed, thorned arm brushing against Tim’s hand without quite touching. “Careful, mortal. My kind doesn’t play with toys. We break them.”
Tim met his gaze, unflinching. “Then break me.”
The words hung like a blade between them.
And Danny—laughing, bitter, dangerous—leaned in until his breath chilled Tim’s lips.
“Done.”
The bargain sealed itself in silence. No flare of magic, no spark of light. Only the weight of a choice Tim could never undo.
And for the first time, Danny looked at him not as an intruder. Not as prey.
But as something far more dangerous.
As his.
part Eight: Shadows at the Veil
The dreams began quietly.
At first Tim thought they were nothing more than the usual scraps of his overworked mind—too many hours with ancient scrolls, too many evenings staring at maps of the northern forests until ink blurred into moss and parchment blurred into leaves. He told himself it was natural to dream of thorns curling like chains, of glass wings catching in moonlight, of whispers echoing through a dark wood.
But then the servants whispered too. The guards. Even Dick, cheerful and impossible Dick, admitted over breakfast that he’d woken with the taste of ash on his tongue.
By the third night, half the keep confessed to shadows stalking them in sleep.
“An incursion,” Bruce said at council, voice carved in stone. “The Nightmare Court is testing our walls.”
The words struck Tim like cold water. An incursion—already? He thought they had time. He thought the barrier in the forest still held. He thought Danny still held it.
The memory of their last meeting gnawed at him: Danny’s eyes like stormlight when he admitted what their bargain had cost, how binding Tim had bound them both. The strange pull in Tim’s chest whenever he thought too hard about the fae prince. The flower on his desk that never withered, petals still glowing faintly blue, even when he tried to hide it beneath books.
He told himself he didn’t go back to the forest because of the flower. He told himself he went because Bruce needed information, because the court needed knowledge. But when he walked beneath the thorns, when the pale light of the grove caught on Danny’s too-sharp smile, he knew that wasn’t the truth.
He went back because of Danny.
And maybe, just maybe, Danny went back because of him.
Jason cornered him before he could slip out that night.
“You’ve been twitchy,” Jason said, leaning against the archway in his black-lacquered armor, the faint green glow of ghostfire smoldering behind his eyes. “More twitchy than usual. Which is saying something.”
“I’m fine.”
“Liar.” Jason crossed his arms, metal gauntlets rasping. “Every time the dreams hit, the fire in me burns hotter. And every time you vanish into the forest, it spikes again. Tell me the truth, Tim. What’s out there?”
Tim’s throat went dry. Jason’s curse—the half-death that left ghostfire stitched through his veins—was something no scholar’s notes could untangle, no prayer could ease. And Jason was right: the fire did flare when Danny was near. When Nightmare energy crept closer.
But to betray Danny’s trust—
“I’m studying the boundary,” Tim said carefully. “If the Court is moving, I need firsthand evidence. Books can only tell us so much.”
Jason narrowed his eyes. For a moment Tim thought he’d press, drag the truth out of him. But then Jason just shoved off the archway with a grimace.
“Fine. But don’t get yourself killed, little brother. Whatever you’re chasing—it bites back.”
The forest was darker than usual.
Tim felt it the instant he stepped beneath the canopy: the hush too sharp, the shadows too thick. Even the usual glow of warding sigils along the roots seemed dimmer, as though the trees themselves were holding their breath.
And there, in the heart of the grove, Danny waited.
His wings were half-furled, glass edges catching what little moonlight bled through the branches. Thorns wound up his arms, sharper than Tim remembered, like they’d grown since their last meeting. His gaze flicked over Tim, unreadable, but Tim swore he caught a flicker of relief before Danny masked it.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Danny said.
“You always say that.”
“And you never listen.” Danny’s mouth curved in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Mortals don’t belong in my wood. Not when shadows walk again.”
Tim swallowed. “The dreams. It’s them, isn’t it? The Nightmare Court.”
Danny’s expression sharpened. “They stir. Testing. Tasting. But this—” He reached out, snagging a thorned vine from the ground, holding it between them. It writhed, blackened at the edges, shadows dripping like ink. “—this isn’t just dreams. This is a breach.”
Tim’s stomach knotted. “Then we need to stop it. Tell me how.”
For a long moment Danny just looked at him, head tilted, eyes faintly glowing. “You speak as if you’re one of us. As if your blade—or your clever tongue—could matter to them.”
“Maybe it can’t. But if I’m bound to you now…” Tim hesitated, then forced the words out. “Then I’m already a piece of this. I won’t stand back while the rest of the world burns.”
Something flickered across Danny’s face. Something soft, almost pained. Then the air shivered—
And the shadows struck.
They came like smoke with teeth.
The first tore from the trees, all antlers and hollow eyes, shrieking in a voice like breaking glass. Tim barely managed to throw himself aside before claws raked the earth where he’d stood.
Another slipped from the roots, shadows spilling into a twisted wolf-shape. Its jaw unhinged too wide, rows of teeth glinting with starlight.
Tim fumbled for his dagger, steel catching against the unnatural dark. His pulse roared in his ears. This was no dream, no whisper. This was war spilling into flesh and bone.
Danny moved faster.
Wings snapped open, throwing shards of light across the grove. Thorns lashed from his arms, spearing through shadow, binding it in vines that smoked and hissed. His voice cut the air, sharp syllables in a tongue Tim didn’t know, and the very roots beneath their feet surged up to trap the Nightmare forms.
But for every shadow he struck down, two more clawed through.
Tim found himself pressed back to back with Danny, dagger trembling in his grip. “Tell me where to strike!”
“You can’t kill them.” Danny’s voice was strained, wild with power. “But you can slow them. Aim for the eyes. Always the eyes.”
Tim obeyed. His blade flashed, sinking into a wolf’s hollow gaze. The creature screamed, dissolving into mist. Another lunged, and Tim ducked beneath its swipe, driving his dagger home again. Each kill burned like ice in his veins, but he forced himself to stand. To fight.
And through it all, Danny fought like the storm itself. Every motion a paradox—beautiful and terrifying, light and shadow. Every time Tim stumbled, Danny’s thorns caught him, pulling him upright, shoving him back into the fight.
Until the shadows faltered. Until the grove was littered with smoking remnants. Until silence pressed heavy once more.
Danny staggered, wings folding tight, breath ragged. His thorns dripped ichor that wasn’t his own.
Tim caught his arm. “You’re hurt—”
“Not badly.” Danny’s gaze snapped to the treeline, wary. “This was only a test. The Court sent their scraps. Next time, they’ll send more.”
Tim’s chest heaved. “Then we’ll be ready.”
Danny’s eyes cut to him, sharp as broken glass. “You say that as if you’re one of us again. As if the binding hasn’t already taken too much from you.”
Tim met his gaze. “Maybe I am one of you now. Or maybe you’re one of us. Either way… we’re in this together.”
For a heartbeat, neither of them spoke. The air thrummed with the memory of battle, with the pull of the bargain thrumming between their chests. Danny’s hand lingered in Tim’s, thorns brushing but not cutting.
Then Danny pulled away, wings shifting. His voice dropped low, almost reluctant.
“You shouldn’t stay.”
“I’ll come back,” Tim said, before he could stop himself.
Danny’s mouth curved, tired and dangerous all at once. “I know.”
Back at the keep, Jason was waiting when Tim returned, ghostfire bright in his eyes.
“You saw them,” Jason said flatly.
Tim hesitated. “Yes.”
“And?”
Tim thought of Danny’s wings, glass and moonlight. Thought of shadows screaming. Thought of the way Danny’s hand had lingered in his.
“They’re coming,” Tim said. “And if we’re not ready, they’ll tear both realms apart.”
Jason’s gaze burned. “Then we’d better get ready.”
Tim didn’t add the last truth, the one he barely dared admit even to himself—that he wasn’t just preparing for war. He was preparing to stand beside the Thistle Prince.
And that, perhaps, was even more dangerous.
part Nine: Secrets in the Halls
Tim should have known it couldn’t last.
The problem with the Batfamily was that they noticed things. He could come home with a smudge of ink on his wrist and Dick would ask what book he’d been buried in. He could come home with dirt under his nails and Jason would demand to know what grave he’d been digging through. He could come home with his heart still hammering, his thoughts still tangled around glass wings and shadow-thorns—and somehow, they all knew.
The keep’s great hall felt too small that night, even though its ceiling soared high and its hearth blazed warm. Too many eyes on him. Bruce at the head of the table, shadows carved into his face. Dick leaning against the mantel, trying for casual but failing. Jason slouched in a chair, arms crossed, ghostfire pulsing faintly in his chest. Damian, tense and coiled like a hound on a leash. Even Steph and Cass had slipped in from their own duties, quiet and sharp.
The only empty seat was his own.
Tim lingered in the doorway, pulse tight in his throat. “This looks… serious.”
“Sit,” Bruce said.
The word left no room for argument. Tim obeyed, though every part of him screamed to run. He lowered himself into the chair, folding his hands to keep them from shaking. The fire popped in the hearth, the only sound for a long, suffocating moment.
Then Jason spoke, voice rough. “You’ve been sneaking out again.”
Tim’s chest constricted. “I—”
“Don’t bother lying,” Jason cut in. “The fire in me flares every damn time you vanish. It flared last night. Big time. And guess what? That’s exactly when shadows decided to come crawling through the woods.”
Damian leaned forward, eyes sharp as blades. “You consort with the Thistle Prince.”
The words cracked across the hall.
Tim froze. His mind scrambled, searching for denials, excuses, anything—but nothing came. Only silence.
That silence was answer enough.
Dick blew out a breath, running a hand through his hair. “Tim. Come on, man. You’ve gotta tell us what’s going on. You don’t just… stumble into fae princes. Especially not ones tied to the Nightmare Court.”
“He’s not tied to them,” Tim blurted. His voice rang too loud, too desperate. He saw their eyes narrow, their attention sharpen like a dozen blades aimed at his chest. He forced himself to keep talking, because if he stopped now he’d never start again. “Danny—he’s not like them. He’s holding the boundary. If it weren’t for him, the Nightmare Court would already be through. You think those dreams are bad now? Without him, the whole keep would be drowning in shadows.”
Jason barked a humorless laugh. “So you admit it. He’s the reason you’ve been sneaking out. The reason you’re burning yourself out in the library. The reason half the damn wards are sputtering.”
Tim swallowed hard. His throat ached. “He’s not the enemy.”
Bruce’s voice cut in then, low and deadly calm. “You’ve bound yourself.”
The words weren’t a question. They were a blade, sharp and precise.
Tim’s breath stuttered. His fingers curled against the table, nails biting into wood. “How—”
“I can see it,” Bruce said. His eyes pinned Tim like a hawk’s. “The way your aura frays at the edges. The way your heart stumbles. Whatever bargain you struck, it cost you. And it cost him.”
Tim wanted to deny it. He wanted to scream it wasn’t true. But the flower on his desk still glowed. The pull in his chest still ached when Danny wasn’t near. The thorns still pricked him in dreams.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I bound myself.”
The hall erupted.
Damian’s voice, sharp with fury: “Fool! You’ve shackled the realm to a fae!”
Steph’s exclamation, horrified: “Tim, what the hell?”
Jason’s growl, hot and bitter: “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Cass didn’t speak, but her silence was louder than all of them.
Tim’s head spun. He pressed his palms to the table, bracing himself. “You don’t understand. I didn’t bind myself to give them power. I did it to save him. He was dying. The Nightmare Court was already pulling him under, and without him, the barrier would’ve collapsed. I didn’t have a choice.”
“There is always a choice,” Damian hissed.
“No, there wasn’t!” The words ripped out of Tim before he could stop them. His voice shook, raw. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see him. If I’d walked away, if I’d let him go, then everything—everything—would’ve ended right there. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.”
Silence fell again, heavy and jagged.
Bruce’s face gave nothing away, but his hands were clenched tight on the arm of his chair. Dick’s mouth pressed thin. Jason’s fire guttered low, unreadable.
Finally, Bruce spoke. “Bindings are dangerous, Tim. They blur the line between mortal and fae. They twist. They corrupt. Even the strongest will can break under their weight.”
Tim forced himself to meet his gaze. “Then I’ll be strong enough not to break.”
The words sounded defiant. But deep down, Tim wasn’t sure if they were a vow or a prayer.
That night, Tim couldn’t sleep.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw their faces. Bruce’s condemnation. Damian’s fury. Jason’s disappointment. Steph’s horror. Cass’s silence.
But beneath all of that, he felt Danny.
A tug at the edge of his thoughts. A thread of stormlight weaving through his veins. The memory of thorns catching him before he fell, of glass wings cutting shadows apart.
He rose before dawn, slipping from the keep in silence.
The forest was waiting. The grove was waiting.
And Danny was waiting.
When their eyes met, Tim felt the pull tighten, undeniable.
“They know,” Tim whispered.
Danny tilted his head, expression unreadable. “Of course they do. Bats see everything.”
Tim’s laugh broke, thin and aching. “They think I’ve damned us all.”
Danny’s wings shifted, catching the dim light. “Have you?”
Tim’s throat closed. “Not if we win.”
Danny’s smile was sharp, dangerous, and far too close to tender. “Then we’d better make sure we do.”
part Ten: Fractures and Fire
Tim had been interrogated before.
It came with the job. Civilians with questions, criminals with grudges, League elders who wanted to pry open his head and measure what made him tick. He’d learned how to survive scrutiny. How to deflect, misdirect, stall until the moment passed.
But this—this was worse.
Because this was family.
The next night, the great hall became a courtroom. Bruce at the center like a judge, cloak pooled around him like stormclouds. Damian a prosecutor, teeth bared and eager for the kill. Jason the wild card, pacing with restless energy. Steph perched on the banister, scowling. Dick leaning forward with weary patience, trying to be the voice of reason. Cass standing silent, watchful, unreadable.
And Tim in the middle, with nowhere to run.
“Do you understand the danger you’ve placed us in?” Bruce’s voice cut through the hall like cold iron. “You’ve bound yourself to a fae lord. You’ve given him a foothold in this realm.”
“He’s not like them,” Tim shot back. His voice cracked halfway through but he forced it steady. “Danny’s the only reason the Nightmare Court hasn’t already swallowed us whole.”
Damian’s lip curled. “Naïve. Every word from a fae is a trap. You’ve shackled your will to theirs. You are compromised.”
“I’m not compromised.” The words left Tim’s mouth like shrapnel. His chest hurt. “I chose this. I knew what it would cost and I did it anyway. Because the alternative was worse.”
Jason stopped pacing, fire flickering faintly under his skin. “You don’t even know the full cost, Replacement. That’s the problem. Bindings always come due. Always. You might think you’re saving him, but what happens when it flips? When he starts feeding on you, dragging you under? What happens when the Prince isn’t a prince anymore, but just another monster?”
Tim flinched. Not because he believed it, but because the thought had crossed his mind in the quiet hours, when the ache in his chest pulsed sharp and the flower on his desk glowed too bright. He shoved it down.
“Danny isn’t a monster.”
“Not yet,” Jason muttered.
Steph spoke up then, arms crossed tight. “Tim, you’re smart. Smarter than all of us put together, half the time. But this? You sound like every idiot in a fairytale who thought they could handle playing with magic until it burned them alive.”
Her words hurt because she wasn’t wrong.
Dick leaned forward, palms open like he could soften the edges. “Look, no one’s saying you meant to put us in danger. But you did. And we need to figure out how to undo this before it gets worse.”
Cass finally moved. She stepped to Tim’s side, her presence steady and sure, a shield in human form. “Maybe it’s not worse,” she said, voice low but carrying.
Everyone looked at her. Cass rarely spoke in these councils.
She met Bruce’s eyes without flinching. “He chose. He protects. That means something.”
Something unspoken passed between them. Bruce’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue.
Tim wanted to thank her, but the words caught in his throat.
Instead, he said, “You can’t undo it. That’s not how bindings work. Even if I wanted to—” His voice wavered. He clenched his fists. “Even if I wanted to, it would kill him.”
That landed like a blade in the silence.
Bruce’s eyes darkened. Damian’s mouth twisted. Jason swore under his breath.
Dick finally sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “So we’re stuck with your forest prince.”
Tim’s chest tightened. “You’re not stuck with him. I chose him. And I’d choose him again.”
The words hung in the air, heavy and irrevocable.
The argument fractured after that. Everyone talking at once, voices clashing like steel on steel. Plans proposed and discarded. Demands hurled. Accusations flung.
Tim barely heard any of it. His pulse roared in his ears, his thoughts circling like vultures. He wanted to run. To find Danny, to breathe in the wild sharp air of the forest, to feel the steady tug of their bond and remember that he wasn’t alone in this.
But the family wouldn’t let him go.
Bruce’s orders kept him in the keep. Damian shadowed his steps like a jailer. Jason watched him with suspicion, Steph with disappointment, Dick with tired worry. Only Cass treated him the same, quiet and steady, but even that felt like pressure.
Days blurred.
And then the shadows came.
It started as a ripple.
A tremor in the wards that shivered through the walls, rattling the chandeliers and setting Jason’s ghostfire blazing. Tim felt it too—an ache in his chest, sharp and sudden, the bond thrumming like a struck chord.
He was out of his chair before anyone else moved. “They’re here.”
“Who?” Damian snapped.
Tim’s heart pounded. “The Nightmare Court.”
As if summoned by the words, the windows shattered inward, glass spraying like knives. Shadows poured through, thick and writhing, shapes half-formed and terrible. The hall plunged into chaos.
Jason’s fire roared to life, claws of green-blue flame lashing out. Damian’s sword flashed. Steph cursed and dove for her bow. Cass moved like smoke, striking pressure points that dissolved creatures into mist. Dick whirled his staff in arcs of light.
And Tim—Tim stood frozen, the bond tugging hard, harder, pulling him toward the door, toward the forest, toward him.
Danny.
The thought hit like lightning.
He’s coming.
The shadows thickened, pressing in. One surged toward Tim, a maw of teeth and smoke. He stumbled back—
And then the world split open in green light.
Danny burst through the shattered doors, wings unfurled, eyes burning with ghostfire. His blade sang as it carved through shadow, his presence a storm that pushed the darkness back.
“Mine,” he snarled, voice like thunder.
The shadows recoiled.
The Batfamily froze.
Danny’s gaze swept the hall, landing on Tim. For a heartbeat, everything else vanished. Just the two of them, tethered by the bond, by choice, by desperation.
Tim’s chest eased. He could breathe again.
But Bruce’s voice cut through the moment, hard and commanding. “Stay back.”
Danny’s eyes flicked to him, sharp and cold. “If I stay back, you all die.”
The room bristled with tension. Shadows writhed at the edges, testing the light. Jason’s fire guttered. Damian’s blade shook in his hand.
Tim’s voice broke the silence. “He’s right.”
Everyone turned to him.
“He’s the reason we’re still standing. You don’t have to like it—you don’t have to trust it—but if you want to survive, you need him.”
The shadows surged then, as if to punctuate his words. Danny lunged forward, blade flashing, wings beating, and Tim moved with him without thinking, their bond pulling them into perfect rhythm.
Steel and ghostfire cut through nightmare.
Tim’s staff struck in time with Danny’s sword.
The family fought around them, but Tim barely noticed. The world narrowed to the two of them, fighting as one, each movement echoing the other, each breath shared.
The battle ended in fire and silence. The shadows retreated, melting back into the night. The windows hung shattered, the wards crackling weakly, the hall reeking of smoke.
Danny stood at Tim’s side, sword still glowing, wings folding slowly against his back. His eyes met Tim’s, and something fierce and unspoken passed between them.
Bruce’s voice broke the quiet, low and heavy. “This isn’t over.”
Danny’s smile was sharp, dangerous. “No. It isn’t.”
Tim’s hand brushed Danny’s, just for a moment, hidden in the smoke. The bond thrummed strong and steady.
Whatever came next, they would face it together.
Even if it meant standing against the family.
part Eleven: Thorns and Vows
The keep was quiet. Too quiet.
Tim had expected chaos to linger after the battle with the Nightmare Court, but silence settled like frost over stone. Smoke still curled from shattered windows, wards crackled weakly along the walls, and the air smelled faintly of burned ink and wood. The hall had been cleaned in parts, but the tension remained, thick as fog, pressing on his chest.
Bruce had called a meeting. Again.
Tim should have anticipated the lecture, the orders, the restrictions, the unspoken scolding. But he had not anticipated the way Damian’s eyes would burn into him, unblinking, accusing, ready to strike the moment Tim so much as breathed wrong.
“You’ve made a mistake,” Damian said before anyone else spoke, voice low and deadly, a dagger in the air. “The bond—this... attachment—is dangerous. You’ve shackled yourself to a creature we cannot trust. We should sever it immediately.”
Tim’s heart thudded. He could feel the pull of Danny, the thrum in his chest, the warmth of the frostflower pressing against his palm even through his pocket. Severing it was unthinkable.
Bruce’s voice followed, calm but heavy. “Your brother is correct in principle. Bindings are volatile, dangerous. They compromise judgment. The Thistle Prince may be holding the line now, but we cannot gamble on loyalty that is… magical, mutable, and outside of our control.”
Tim pressed his fists to the table. “I understand your concern. I really do. But I can’t. I won’t sever it.”
Jason’s ghostfire flared faintly, a pulse of green and blue beneath his skin. He leaned forward, expression tense. “You’ve already put yourself at risk. Every second you delay—every time you keep feeding that bond—it could cost you, or him, or all of us. You need to see what you’ve signed up for.”
Tim swallowed hard. “I do see it. And I accept it.”
Steph snorted from the corner, shaking her head. “Stubborn as a briar. That’s why he’s alive, you know. Danny wouldn’t survive half of this without him. And frankly, you wouldn’t either.”
Cass, as always, watched silently. But when her eyes met his, Tim felt the weight of her approval, and it steadied him.
Dick stepped forward, rubbing the back of his neck. “Look, we all get it. You care about him. You’ve bonded. But Bruce is right. You’re vulnerable now in ways none of us can protect. We can’t just sit back and hope it works out. There has to be oversight. Rules. Boundaries.”
Tim exhaled slowly, forcing his words calm. “I will accept oversight. I’ll follow your rules. But the bond isn’t just a danger. It’s… it’s what’s keeping us alive. And it’s not just magic—it’s trust, and care, and strategy. Danny’s choice, just like mine. We’re partners, not pawns.”
The room fell silent.
Bruce’s gaze softened slightly, though it didn’t lose its weight. “You will adhere to rules,” he said finally. “And I will monitor the connection. This is not negotiable. If the bond becomes a liability, you will report it immediately.”
Tim inclined his head. “Understood.”
Damian huffed, clearly unsatisfied. “It’s still reckless.”
Jason muttered something under his breath, and Steph rolled her eyes. Dick pinched the bridge of his nose. Cass remained stoic, but Tim knew she was silently on his side.
The next days were tense.
Tim returned to the library, to his books and maps, to his meticulous notes on the Veil and the northern forests. But every now and then, his hand would brush the frostflower on his desk, petals glowing faintly, a reminder of Danny and the grove. And every time he thought of it, the pull tightened, the bond humming gently, reminding him that nothing—not the lecture, not Bruce’s restrictions, not Damian’s disapproval—could undo what had been chosen.
He thought about the last battle, about how they had fought side by side. How the shadows had pressed in and only together had they held them back. He thought about Danny’s eyes, how sharp and dangerous they could be, but how they softened when they found him in the chaos.
And Tim knew, with a certainty that had nothing to do with magic, that he would choose Danny again. Always.
Danny returned to the keep, cautiously. Not through the main gates, of course—Danny had never been welcome in human halls—but through secret passages, along shadows, slipping like moonlight across stone.
When Tim saw him, heart thrumming, he barely breathed. Danny’s wings were folded neatly against his back, thorns curling along his arms, eyes bright as frost-glass. He didn’t smile, not fully, but there was relief in the curve of his lips.
“You’re still here,” Danny said, voice low, almost teasing.
“I told you I would be,” Tim replied. “Even if the family tries to chain me to the keep, even if they hate it, even if—”
Danny’s hand brushed his shoulder. Thorns, yes, but careful. Protective. “Even if they hate it?”
Tim nodded. “Even if they hate it. We survived together. That’s… proof enough.”
Danny tilted his head. “Proof, yes. But the Court won’t stop. They will come again. Stronger. Closer. And this time…” His eyes flicked toward the windows, toward the shadows that lingered even in light. “…we might not be able to hold them back.”
Tim swallowed, grasping Danny’s hand. “Then we fight. Together. No matter what anyone else says.”
Danny’s lips quirked. “You’re stubborn. I like that.”
“And you’re dangerous,” Tim said. “I like that too.”
The moment was short-lived, but precious. Bruce would have words if he found them like this. Damian would scowl. Jason would mutter warnings. But Tim didn’t care. For once, he wasn’t hiding.
The next week passed with careful monitoring. Tim followed Bruce’s orders, reported every shift in the Veil, every tremor in the wards. Damian hovered like a hawk, ready to intervene. Jason shadowed him, occasionally offering guidance in his gruff, half-dead way. Steph and Dick remained vigilant, Cass silent but steadfast.
And yet, every evening, Tim returned to the secret passages to find Danny waiting. Always patient, always cautious, always just far enough out of reach to remind Tim that trust had to be earned, even for a fae prince.
They trained together. Studied together. Laughed quietly when they found themselves caught in thorns or frostflowers bloomed too bright. They whispered in corners, sharing plans and strategies and secrets too dangerous for the main hall.
Tim realized that family wasn’t just blood. It was trust, loyalty, shared danger. And the Batfamily, for all their harshness and rules, had given him the tools to survive. Danny had given him the courage to claim his own choices.
Months passed.
The Nightmare Court tested the borders occasionally, but Tim and Danny were ready. Wards were reinforced. The frostflower remained on his desk, a symbol of bond and warning. The shadows had learned that the Thistle Prince and the mortal prince fought together, and that lesson would linger.
Bruce still imposed restrictions, still reminded him that magic was dangerous. Damian still complained, still muttered about breaking the bond. Jason’s ghostfire still pulsed with every flicker of danger. But Tim smiled more than he’d allowed himself in months. He had chosen. He had fought. He had survived.
And Danny was with him.
One evening, after the sun dipped low and the keep was quiet, Tim found himself at the library window, the frostflower in hand. Danny appeared silently beside him. They watched the northern forests together, wings folded, hearts steady, thorns brushing lightly.
“You think they’ll ever accept us?” Tim asked quietly.
Danny’s wings shifted. “Perhaps. But it doesn’t matter. They don’t need to. What matters is that we do.”
Tim smiled, pressing his forehead to Danny’s. “Then we’re ready.”
For the first time in months, the weight in his chest felt lighter. He had a home in the keep, a family who worried too much, and a fae prince who trusted him enough to stand side by side. The world outside might still be dangerous, the Nightmare Court might still be rising, but here—together—they had carved a space of light in shadow.
And that was enough.
✨ The End of “Crown of Thorns and Thistle” ✨