“Told you already. Your tree needs help. Someone responsible needs to look after it.”
“Ouch again. Aim for the heart next time, why don’t you?”
“How did Fate find it, anyway?” I asked.
He ducked a low-hanging branch, pushing moss out of the way as he passed, and holding it for me to walk through.
“She’s a god, so I’d say she knows how I began and which threads connect me to what and who.” He gave me a half smile. “You have,” he brushed fingers over his hair, “in your hair.”
I lifted my hand and brushed away moss and little bits of bark. “Did I get it?”
“Enough.”
I shook my head like a dog, and ran fingers through the short, choppy layers one more time. “Better?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Real good. Look, Ricky. In case anything else happens, in case... Well, in case. I want you to know that I know I screwed up. You are an amazing person. You didn’t deserve me leaving like that, without a word.”
It was heartfelt. It was kind. It was more than I’d hoped to hear out of him.
“No,” I said, “I didn’t. I can’t forgive you for it, Card. I’m not built that way.”
“I know. Thank you for this generosity. The time you’re giving me now. I owe you, and I promise if you ever need my help, or need something I have or can find...or can steal,” he added, “it’s yours.”
“Thanks so much for offering to add even more chaos into my life.”
“Who said I’d bring you chaos?” At my look, he said, “Well, notjustchaos. Isn’t it nice to spice things up with a little of the unexpected? No. I see your face. Right. It is not nice to spice things up.”
“You know what? All right,” I said, taking him up on his offer. “Let’s do this. I want you to answer some questions. Non-spicy answers. Nothing but the truth. Can you do that?”
“Here,” he said.
“Yes, here.”
“No,” he said. “I mean, not no. Yes. But also no.She’shere.”
“What the hell do you mean...?” The water boiled, sending a thick, muddy stink into the air.
A voice crackled across the limp breeze.
“You come back to my home?” The voice was female and sweet as slow water. The moss shivered, though the air had gone flat. Then the voice was hard, angry. “You come to cheat me again, little leaf?”
ChapterSeven
There wasnothing in the shadows and then, suddenly, shebecame.
Greenwas my first thought, then:water, deep and brown.Andold, gorgeous, powerful.
The swamp siren rose to stand in the slow moving water. Lilt Keyva was tall, clothed in mosses and flowers upon which bees, dragonflies, and butterflies perched. Her hair was heavy and black, twisted in a thousand braids that fell around her shoulders. Her face was not human, but more beautiful, as if she were a dream.
“I come to trade,” Card said in a low, confident voice. “I will give to you one deed, a work you need performed, an item you need found, a killing you need completed, for the coin.”
“Fate has found you then, hasn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Fate wants her coin.”
“Yes.”
