“But it is mine now, your palm to mine. Payment for words you wanted to hear.”
“Payment for the truth,” he said tightly.
“That too. Your work means nothing to me. Your deeds are no value.Youare no value to me.”
Card’s eyes tightened. Even I could feel the roll of magic available to him. Dryad, yes, and a wizard. Trained by Stel, one of the most powerful wizards in the Halls.
“Then name a price,” Card said, not nearly as smoothly. Not nearly as easy as he had been.
The swamp siren laughed. Wings took flight to flutter and flash around her like a cloud of tossed glitter.
“If I wanted your soul, I could drink it. If I wanted your life, I could drown it. If I wanted your flesh, I could fillet it off of your bones and chew it with my sharp teeth. No, half-tree. There is nothing of you worth wanting.”
I sighed, because I couldn’t believe what I was about to do. “What about me?”
She turned her head at such an odd angle, her joints must be more of an afterthought than a plan.
“You, Crossroads of Ink?”
Huh. I didn’t know people still called me that. I slapped a family of mosquitos off my thigh.
“Yep. Me. I’ll bargain for Fate’s coin.”
Her lips pulled back in a smile, but all of her teeth were a little too sharp. I supposed, if she wanted, she could chew my flesh from the bone, too.
“A Crossroads’ promise,” she mused. “What will you give me?”
“Show me the coin,” I replied.
The command startled the insects in the trees around her, sending them swirling upward and outward in a geometric curve of shimmering, stained-glass wings.
“So you can steal it from me?” she asked.
“No, Lilt Keyva, so I can believe you still have it.”
She stilled, and her eyes, the silver of ripples, narrowed. “You don’t trust my word?”
“Your day job is using your voice to lure sailors to their deaths. No. I don’t trust anything that comes out of your mouth.”
I tensed, ready to pull my axe, ready to hack my way through her if it meant staying alive.
She tipped her head back—
—and laughed.
My hand had slipped to my short sword. Even though she looked like she was having a great old time, I didn’t let go. Sirens were deceptive, and I’d be damned if my obituary said I got snookered by the swamp siren.
Card shifted, slightly crouched, one hand half-crooked, ready to cast magic.
The siren lifted her knee from the water, disturbing the green duckweed on the water’s surface. Then she lifted the other foot and stepped that much closer to us, onto more solid land.
“I like you,” she said. “Why do I like you?” She pressed her braids back over one shoulder and water trickled down her skin. “I hate Crossroads. I hated your father, that’s for sure.”
“Well, there’s something we can agree on,” I said. “My father’s an ass.”
“And this man?” She pointed a mother-of-pearl fingernail toward Card.
“He’s a work in progress.”
