The house woke him one night. He wasn't sure how long he had been there, slowly piecing the place back together. It was only him there, and time in Faery was strange enough when one's only companion wasn't a house. He had finished the details at the front of the house - restoring wallpaper the house seemed to like, choosing new wallpaper for what the house didn't like - brief excursions out of Faery did not help his sense of time - and he had been slowly getting rid of the trinkets that the Gentleman had collected over the many years he had ruled there. It was hard for Stephen. He wanted to give the pieces back to their proper owners, but with the only witness being the House it was sometimes difficult to ascertain who exactly those people were or where they were from. Some things had names on them, some had an energy he could follow, but most were not that clear and there were many that had belonged to people who were long dead and buried. Stephen did his best, but was frequently disheartened when he could not find a home for the pieces. The house tried to cheer him some. He would come home to a roaring fire and a nice meal. He always wondered who prepared these, as the house could not do that itself, and tonight he found out.

He was roused from his slumber by a soft chime and the crackle of a fire. Someone had come in and not only cleaned his fireplace but also started a fire in it. The warm glow reached him as he sat up in bed, making him drowse, but he shook it off and slipped out of bed. His body protested the cold once out from under the covers - he had taken to sleeping naked recently, because he and the house had no secrets from one another. Or so he'd thought. He listened hard, standing by his bed, and heard another chime. These were not the chimes he was used to, the ones the house used when trying to communicate with him, these seemed muffled. Like he wasn't meant to hear them at all.

He pulled a robe on and walked slowly out of his room, peering into the hall just in time to see a shadow flit around the corner at the stairs. He hurried forward and turned, stopping at the top of the stairs and staring down at one of the dancers he remembered from when the house was Lost Hope. He froze, looking down at this man, wide eyes staring back at Stephen. "Please," the man said. His voice was hoarse and quiet but it carried easily up to Stephen.

"Please what?" Stephen asked. The force of his voice sent the man back a step.

"Please," another voice came from the hall to Stephen's left. He turned and looked at another of the dancers, one of the women this time. "Please," she said, "we miss the dancing."

More voices rose up, filling the front hall and spiraling up the stairs to Stephen, shaking him where he stood.

"We only wanted to help."

"We thought if the House were restored you would let us back."

"We miss the dancing."

"We are lost without the dancing."

"Enough!" Stephen said, his magic making his voice boom out. The other voices faded away. "Were you his creations?" he asked, looking from the woman to the man, wondering which would speak for them.

"We were his family," the woman said.

"He let us dance. He brought us friends and let us dance," the man said.

"He was a decadent scoundrel," Stephen said.

"We only want to dance," the woman pleaded, stepping forward. Stephen fixed her with a glare and she froze for a moment before stepping back again, head bowing. Still, she whispered once more, "We only want to dance."

"Is there nowhere else you can go?" Stephen asked.

The man shook his head. "We are tied to this place," he said. "The magic he used is ingrained into its stones. Its wood. Every room. It holds us here. We thought if we helped you you would let us be, let us dance."

The Elves and the Shoemaker, Stephen thought. Or, in this case, Faeries and a Faery King.

"I do not need your help," Stephen said, shuddering at the memories of the dancing, of living a half life that was quickly turning into no life at all. Shuddered at the thought of Emma Pole and her fight to prove herself, to prove that she was not mad but cursed. That they were not mad but cursed. Shuddering at his own silence, at his own failures because of what the Gentleman had done to them. "I do not want you."

"Please!" The voices rose up at once. The man began to lead a pack up the stairs, the woman started to advance again.

Stephen roared and knelt down, pressing his hands against the floor. He closed his eyes and called his magic, feeling in the house for any power that wasn't his. He felt hands on his shoulders, in his hair, pulling at his robe, as he hunted through the house for the Gentleman's magic. Ah. There. He found it and he pushed at it, pulled at it, tugged and scraped. But it would not budge. He gasped, pulling out of the house and looking up at the people surrounding him. They froze and stared back.

Slowly, Stephen stood and looked around at the subjects he was forced to accept. "You may dance," he said. He raised a hand when the cheering began and it quieted immediately. "But I must not hear it," he said. "And you must earn your keep. And only until I can find a way to free you from these halls."

Heads nodded, hands reached out for him, but Stephen turned away and walked slowly back to his room.

He shed his robe and sank down on the bed, staring at the fire. Was this how it started? Would he, too, give in to the decadence of the Gentleman. Would he begin to dance and lose himself in the draw of it, begin searching for new partners, bringing more souls to get lost in this place? The chime rang and Stephen reached out to touch the wall behind the bed, stroking a hand slowly down the smooth wood, reassuring himself.

The house was different now. His now. He would free those poor lost souls as he had freed his poor Lost Hope.

He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, drifting back to a peaceful sleep.