“Are you a man?” I asked, folding my arms.
The monster laughed, sending a shiver down my spine. “I am not.”
As the final echo of its voice faded, a shadow darkened the space between trees, not ten feet away, then moved toward me. Terror gripped my chest for a moment, until I saw that it was only a boy. Taller than me, perhaps a few years older, but still a boy—no more than fourteen.
A crop of tragically messy copper curls framed his clever-fox face and pointed ears. But it was his eyes that caught my attention first: one warm and golden-brown, like the richest honey from the Abbey’s beehives; the other a pale, crystalline blue, cold as winter’s first frost. The only thing they had in common was that they seemed too old for his young face. He bowed, extending a long-fingered hand, and I spied a strange mottling across his skin. Spider-web-thin,white—nearly iridescent—scars, or perhaps tattoos, in the pattern of snake scales. They crawled up both his hands and arms, beneath his sleeves, then reappeared above the high collar of his green tunic before vanishing behind his ears.
I suddenly realized who I had stumbled upon. A child,anda snake,anda mismatched conglomeration of stolen human flesh. All the stories were true all at once.
“You are him, aren’t you?” I murmured. “The Devil of Arden…”
“That is what some call me, yes,” he answered, voice no longer echoing around the trees, “butyoumay call me whatever you like…mothling.” He reached out to toy with the edge of my half-cloak. Sissi had patterned it after the green wings of the enormous Huntress moths that liked to visit my bedroom window, complete with two delicate tails and a hood lined in white rabbit fur. It was my prized possession, and I spun around to jerk it out of the Devil’s grasp.
“I will call you nothing but ‘Devil’, since that is what you are,” I said warily. “I am only here to make a bargain anyway. With you, if you are willing.” I tried to draw myself up and appear nonchalant, as if I struck deals with monsters every day.
“I might be,” he replied with a smirk. “If it sounds worth my time. What is it you want?”
I put my hands out, palms up. “I need a gift…a magyk gift, to heal someone.”
“Hmm,” the Devil mused, continuing to circle me like a buzzard. “That is a tall order indeed, and one I am reluctant to fulfill. The fewer humans living near my woods, the better. Who do you need to heal so badly?”
“My…Sissi…” I bit back the word ‘mother’, even though she was the closest thing I had. “Sister Superior, the heart of Locksley Abbey. She’s ill, and has been for weeks, and the doctors say there’s nothing more they can do.”
“No power can bring back those who have already paid the Boatman,” said the Devil quietly.
“She isn’t that far gone yet!” I snarled. “The doctors are just lazy or incompetent or both! They see no value in her life.”
“And why should I?” As he came around to stand in front of me again, I noticed how the fireflies danced about him, brushing against his pale skin and simple clothes, then spinning away like whirligigs at a summer festival. The idea that they might behisfriends too filled me with an inexplicable dread.
“I suppose you shouldn’t…” I muttered, “and I have little to give in return, but I will do anything to save her. I need her, the Abbey needs her, and Nottingham needs the Abbey. We care for the sick or injured, and we teach children. The poor depend on us, especially when the Prince presses his boot down harder on their necks each year. Without Sissi…many people will suffer.”
“Does your Holy Church of Martyrs not also teach hatred for my kind?” the Devil asked casually.
My head shot up and my eyes widened. “No! No, I swear it! People are naturally suspicious of faerie magyk because it is said to be used for trickery.” If he knew how much I twisted the truth, he did not show it. The Fair Folk could not lie, that was well known, but I wondered how much dishonesty they could sense in others. The Church, and certainly the Sisters, did not preach hatred or violence toward the fay themselves, but they wouldnevercondone the use of magyk. Even if I returned to Locksley without making a faerie bargain, I could be accused of heresy simply for seeking one. But if I had to lie to this monster in order to save Sissi and the Abbey, then I would.
“I see,” the boy mused with a crooked grin. “And what is ityoudo at this very important Abbey? You cannot be older than nine. Far too young to have taken vows, surely.” He continued his prowling, moving closer with each pass. I remained as still as I possibly could, like a rabbit trying to survive a hawk.
“I’m twelve!” I huffed, well aware of the way my face burned when his strange eyes met mine. “And I am an orphan, fortunate enough to be raised in the care of the Sisters. I earn my keep by tending the Abbey gardens, and I help in the infirmary too, although…I have no skill for it, which is why I am here.”
“Better with plants than with people, hmm?”
Growing impatient, I crossed my arms. “Will you help me or not?”
Before I could even think, he was facing me. His hand shot up to touch the thin, white braid that hung over my shoulder, separated from the rest of my dark curls and decorated with a green glass bead on the end.
“What is this?” he asked, breath tickling my cheek.
“Do not touch me, Devil!” I hissed, holding my iron medallion out and taking a step back. The boy merely smiled his feral smile, firefly-glow glinting off pointed canine fangs.
“You threaten me with your holy iron, and still think I’ll make a deal with you?”
I cleared my throat and dropped the medallion. “You ought to know better than to approach a young girl that way, or do the Fair Folk have no care for manners?”
“Modesty is such a…human concept, isn’t it?” he drawled. “Very well, then, mothling. I will take your bargain.”
“What would you ask of me in return?”
“First, you must understand what it isyouask.” His face hovered mere inches from mine and I found that I could not tear my gaze away from his haunting eyes. “I can give you the healing gift, but it comes with both limits and a cost.”
