“The veil of righteousness that keeps you trapped in a life you never asked for,” he whispered, “believing that you are nothing if you do not sacrifice for others.”
“That is what the Holy Family wants,” I answered, “for us to be…unselfish.”
“To martyr yourself by healing people who believe your gift is an abomination?” the Devil hissed, and my eyes fluttered open in shock.
“How do you know that?”
“I brought you to the Arden to free you, May.” He took my shoulders and turned me around so I could see nothing but his feathers. “Shed your veil, pious girl, and see the world for what it truly is.”
His wings parted, and the breath left my body, pulled out into the endless void suddenly stretching out before me.
Chapter eight
Dreams & Dirt
“This is a dream…”I whispered.
We were no longer standing amongst the trees, but on a rocky precipice. To the south, a robin’s-egg-blue sky and a seemingly boundless forest laid below us, cradled in a broad valley which was girdled by the craggy foothills of the Pallasian Mountains. Many of the treetops had already begun to fade from summer-green to autumn-gold, creating swirling designs through the canopy. Designs that seemed almost deliberate, like they had been painted with an artist’s brush.
“Welcome to thetrueForest of Arden,” the Devil said softly in my ear. I shifted, trying to move away from him, but my feet slid violently on the wide, flat stone beneath me, and I let out a scream as I pitched forward. His hands closed around my waist, yanking me back from the edge of a roaring waterfall, which poured over the drop we were standing on. A cold spray of water jarred me back to my senses and I backed away from the edge as far as I could, straight into the Devil’s warm, solid body. His hands moved to my hips, gripping tight, and I strongly debated between staying where I was and shoving him away.
“This is the real forest?” I cried over the rush of the waterfall. “The kingdom of the Fair Folk?”
“Would you like to see it?”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the insanity of it all. “Yes! Anything to get back on solid gr—”
He gave a gentle push, tipping me out into the abyss, and the rest of my words were drowned by another scream. I twisted, flailing wildly and trying to grab holdof him, or the rock, or anything solid, but he did nothing—just watched me fall with a damnable smile on his strange face.
Consumed by mist, I plunged toward the water below, toward certain death. Even if the pool at the base of the waterfall was deep, the impact alone would shatter my body. I tried to curl into myself and sent up a desperate prayer to the Holy Family, but then I heard laughter and looked up. The Devil was diving beside me, wings tucked against his body, spray coating his face and hair as he dropped.
“Hold tight!” he called, angling himself beneath me. As soon as my hands connected to his shoulders and my knees clenched around his hips, the wings on either side of me snapped out and I was thrown violently forward. My forehead smacked into his upper back, but he didn’t falter. The legends about faerie strength must be true, I thought, because we were now soaring only a few feet over the crystalline pool at the base of the falls, and he seemed to have no trouble at all carrying my weight. With my arms wrapped tightly beneath his, and legs locked around his torso, I managed to raise my head just enough to shout in his ear.
“You are a vile bastard!”
He just laughed again and dropped closer to the pool, which stretched away into a large lake. Prying one of my hands away from his chest, he pulled it down and dipped my fingers into the cool water. I laughed faintly, almost enjoying it until I saw a human-like face looking up at me from beneath the surface and tried to jerk my hand away. The Devil held it in place, however, and banked, turning to circle the interior of the lake.
“There’s something down there!” I cried. The creature followed us, extending a pale blue arm lined with scales and a long, spiked fin.
“A naiad!” he called back. “It’s very bad manners to pull away!”
He kept a firm grip on my wrist and the naiad gingerly touched my fingertips with her own, then smiled, showing rows of pointed teeth. She vanished suddenly, dipping into the depthless blue of the lake and reappearing moments later holding a perfectly round, white stone. Having pressed the token into my outstretched hand, she dove again and did not resurface. The Devil released me and I clutched the stone to my chest, then pushed onto my other elbow so I could look ahead.
We did one more circuit of the lake and finally soared past the rocky shore. I felt him pull his wings up and his body shifted from beneath me, so I executed a rather graceless dismount and tumbled across the grass. The Devil landed on his feet and ran a few steps to slow himself, then tucked his wings in and turned. The infuriating smile on his face sent me into a rage, so I scrambled up and hurled thewhite stone at his face with all my might. But it only took a twitch of his hand for a solid wall of golden light to stop my missile in midair and it fell to the ground at his feet, useless.
“You could have killed me!” I shouted.
“You said you dreamt of flying.” His expression bordered on genuine confusion and it only deepened my fury.
“So you push me off afucking cliff?”
“Yes…and then I caught you, so you could fly…”
I swayed on the spot when I realized that there was not a hint of malice or sarcasm in his voice. “Youmustbe insane,” I muttered.
“Perhaps.” He took a step forward and held out his hand. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not.” Even though a million more questions churned inside me—about the naiad and the forest and his magyk and my debt—I clenched my jaw shut, once again unwilling to give him the satisfaction of seeing my curiosity.
