Novellas may be my favorite thing. They're short but when well written they feel just as fulfilling and with as much depth as longer works. This fits snuggly among my favorites too, it's a really solid execution on a very appealing premise (reading it I'm sold in a minute), written by someone who has obviously done extensive work to bring this historical fantasy to life in a faithful, respectful and passionate way of the traditions and history that inspire it, and by respectful I mean it's confident in its own ideas and not afraid to be transformative. I don't think it was particularly scary, but I'll call this #spooktober read #1 anyway.