Chapter 9 #2
“Perhaps that will teach you not to doubt my skills,” he scoffed, but I just marched away between the trees, unsure of exactly where I was going. He followed at a distance, and once I had my emotions under control again, I glanced over my shoulder.
He was himself once more, face stoic and passive as he called out, “Where are you going?”
“Away from you.”
“You still owe me a debt.”
“Why?” I shouted, whirling around and forcing him to stop in his tracks. “Why am I here, Devil? Aliena said that the bargain you made with me was unique and I want to know why. I deserve to know!”
“Clearly, it was for the incalculable pleasure of your company,” he sneered.
“Oh, you are a bastard!” I cried, throwing my arms up and turning again.
He dipped his head down beside my ear. “What if I promised that your questions about our bargain will all be answered by midnight tomorrow?”
“And will I be free by then too?”
The Devil groaned and walked past me. “Do not tell me you still wish to return to the misery of your human world.”
“I don’t,” I said softly. He halted and turned on the spot, then came back and stood so close, I could feel his breath.
“You don’t wish to go back?”
“Not yet. You promised me a dream, after all.” I gave him a small smile—a peace offering. “But if I am going to stay and be…cooperative, I think I deserve some answers.”
“Very well, where shall we start?”
“We can start with why you are incapable of basic manners,” I said, taking a step away from him. “Surely, even fay parents raise their sons better.”
The Devil just flashed his teeth and curtly said, “I have no parents,” before striding away quickly. I followed, trying to sort through everything I wanted to ask.
“So you are an orphan, like me? Is that because of the war? Were your parents killed?”
“I never had parents,” he answered. “The Arden cobbled me together and spit me out. She’ll take me back when she’s finished with me, I expect.”
“Now, it’s clear you don’t wish to discuss it further, and I have enough manners to move on to my next question.”
“How magnanimous of you.”
“Why did you kill Angus Gower?”
“Who?” He sounded bored already.
“The prisoner at the tournament! The man you shot! Do human lives mean so little to you that you’ve already forgotten?”
“There is only one human life that means anything at all to me,” he said quietly, fixing me with an intense stare. “And Gower was…what’s the human turn of phrase? ‘Guilty as sin’. My shot was a mercy compared to what he would’ve endured otherwise.”
“He made a fay bargain?” I breathed. “With you?”
“No,” the Devil laughed heartily. “Gower frittered away years of his life in exchange for the ability to speak to rats, of all things. I would never make such a paltry trade.”
“Speaking to rats…” I murmured. “He was in charge of dealing with rat infestations in the city. He just wanted to be able to do his job better! What evidence against him did Johar find?”
“Gods above, May,” the Devil snapped. “How would I know that? Next question!”
I glared at his back. “Well, forgive me, but you do seem to know a lot of things you shouldn’t.
Like, how did you know about people who call my healing gift an abomination behind my back?
Will told me that gossip years ago. And how did you know where to find me today?
I didn’t have your coin at the tournament. ”
He turned to flash me a fanged smile. “You think I was using the coin to track your location?”
“I—” My stomach dropped violently. “Then what…”
“I knew Will would be shooting in the tournament, and I knew you would be wherever he was. The coin had nothing to do with me finding you.”
“The only way you would’ve known that Will would be at the tournament…
the only way you would’ve known about Will at all…
is if you’ve been spying on me. Watching me, somehow.
” My chest tightened as I waited for his answer—an answer I had long suspected, but did not even want to truly consider.
He didn’t reply with words, just held out his hand and released a few of his tiny fireflies into the air.
They danced and spun around his arm, then he flicked his fingers and they moved over to me, kissing my skin and the sleeves of my dress.
“I knew it,” I murmured, stomach writhing with discomfort. “I knew it was the fireflies. The night we made our bargain, they led me back to the Abbey. So what was the purpose of that stupid coin?”
“The coin let me know when,” said the Devil, “not where.”
“You said it was tied to my feelings, my emotions.”
He pulled a coin from his pocket, an exact match to the one I had carried with me for ten years. It was blank too, and he flipped it through the air toward me. When I caught it, images appeared on both faces—a Huntress moth, as usual, and a fox on the opposite side.
“A fox…because you think you’re so terribly clever?” I said derisively.
“You asked to be rescued, Mayhem, and I came when you called, ever your obedient servant.”
“Rescued,” I snorted. “Oh, you do think of yourself as the hero in this story, don’t you? How ridiculously—”
“Why not?” he interrupted, spinning to face me while he walked backwards.
I willed him to run into a tree or trip over a rock, but he was much too sure on his feet for that.
“ I think I’ve heard that story before, now you mention it.
The handsome, winged fay swoops in to rescue the disconsolate human woman from a fool who doesn’t deserve her.
The woman falls madly in love with her rescuer and they live happily ever after.
He, of course, loved her from the very start. ”
I quickly changed my trajectory and walked behind a large tree in order to escape the intensity of his gaze. When I reemerged, I spat, “Yes, well, in those stories the fay man who rescues her is actually a kind-hearted hero, not a half-feral, ill-mannered prick.”
“How tiresome,” said the Devil with an exaggerated, fake yawn. “Perhaps we ought to write a new version. They did teach you to read and write at Locksley, did they not?”
“Asks the wild forest creature with no parents,” I laughed.
“I have naught but the trees and sky,” he began to recite. “No cause to wonder why. No thoughts nor cares, no put-on airs, no task but to live and die.”
“An appropriate sentiment for you,” I said slowly, “with so few thoughts in your head. But where did you learn to quote a human poet like Cicero Cade?”
“A better question might be: where did a drunken buffoon like Cicero Cade come across his gift for writing poetry?” said the Devil with a wink.
Not bothering to elaborate, he veered away from the creek toward the edge of the Hollow, which was narrowing into more of a gully now.
I slowed my pace as he approached the steep, rocky hillside, which was littered with protruding tree roots and a vast assortment of suspicious-looking mushrooms. But I did not see the door until he ducked beneath a thick root and knocked on it.
Half as tall as a normal door, it was made from dark, deeply knotted wood, with a bleached-antler handle and a tangle of cobwebs in each top corner.
“Late! Late, late, late!” came a deep croak from inside.
The door swung open, revealing a creature that would, under any other circumstance, send me fleeing in the opposite direction.
But the Devil was not the least bit put off, and I certainly did not want to show discomfort in front of him, nor be impolite to the… woman standing there, glaring at us.
“My apologies, dear Arachne,” he said, taking one of her human hands and kissing the back, then ducking through the door.
“You know how difficult it is to manage newcomers.” He turned to look at me and I walked forward, trying to school my face into polite ease, rather than the horrified discomfort which sat in my belly like a stone.