A grin. “Did it work?”
“Not very well.” Fi had always been a difficult creature to wrangle. “There was one about a woman, collecting flowers in the woods. She wandered too far. Became lost. In the cold, she stumbled upon a house of stone and tree roots, home to a creature with antlers.”
Antal listened with a tight line to his brow. Were daeyari the villains in their own folktales? Or was it a human convention, born out of millennia as prey?
“The daeyari offered gifts,” Fi continued. “She asked for better clothes, and he spun her a dress of moonbeams. She asked for warmth, and he summoned music for her to dance. She asked for food, and he laid out a feast. But he didn’t touch any himself. After eating her fill, the woman asked the beast how shecould show her thanks. He said he’d have her. Then he feasted.”
At the tale’s conclusion, Antal huffed. “Blunt. Is this common in your stories?”
“It’s a story with a moral: always ask the terms of a deal beforehand. Most stories end with the daeyari eating the foolish human.”
“That seems uncharitable.”
Perhaps it was. Or perhaps there was reason to keep one’s heart guarded. Fi, arm locked with a predator, kept her tone mild.
“What do you suppose the daeyari sees in the lost mortal wandering his forest? A curiosity? A plaything?”
Antal’s arm tightened, a low chuckle in his chest. “To call you curious would be an understatement, Fionamara.”
“And what spares her from his teeth?”
They stepped through a second Curtain, back onto the Winter Plane. Familiar shiverpines screened the night, a whisper of wind through needles, a glimpse of Fi’s cottage ahead.
Antal slipped her out of his elbow. “You asked me a question last night. Do you remember?”
He tugged her along, grip light on her fingers. Fi followed the tether.
“I asked several things,” she said. “Not all of which you gave me.”
“You wanted to know how many mortals I’ve bedded. The answer is: very few. Some daeyari enjoy playing with panicked prey, but I’ve never found that to my taste. I only dance with those who can hold their ground.”
In a step, they were doing just that—dancing. His leading hand found hers, his arm around her waist to guide her home. Fi fell into his tempo but kept her own strides, bold as she’d always been. Bold as he wanted her to be.
“I ran away from you,” she pointed out. “When we first met. I fled like a startled hare.”
He flashed a sharp grin. “Not your smartest move. But understandable. You found your feet quickly.” He slowed, dipping to brush his mouth across her jaw. “Perhaps I do find you a curiosity. Is that such a bad thing?”
“That depends on how the story ends.”
“How would you like it to? A dress made of moonbeams? A spin beneath the Void?” He sent her out, a slow twirl across the clearing. Then back into his arms. “Yet how odd, you assume all your folktales of devoured mortals end in death? There are other ways to enjoy flesh, Fionamara. Types of devouring that don’t work well as cautionary tales for misbehaving girls.”
There could be truth to that. Certainly, Fi wasn’t the first human to risk this plunge. Once again, she asked herself whether it was lust, or foolishness.
Or simply that she trusted him.
They reached her porch. Fi pulled away, backing up the steps to her door.
“Now you have me at a disadvantage,” she said. “I’ve only had one immortal.”
Antal followed, claws soft on the boards, eyes glowing. “How was it?”
“Satisfactory.”
He pressed a hand to his chest, a theatrical reel at her blow. “You call my kind beasts. Yet you never miss the chance for a bite.”
He made the taunts too tempting. Too addicting.
Yet tonight felt different, something settled between them, not the spur of the moment spark that had drawn them together before. Fi’s back bumped her door. As her fingers closed on thehandle, she stood up straight, needing every shred of pride to deliver what he deserved.
