The Will and the Wilds(12)

He hesitates. “You’ll die, too.”

My blood runs cold, and I back away from the monster, pulse quickening. “You lie.”

I think I see him smirk through the bubbling goop. “You might lose that hand first, but our fates are bound.”

I pull my cut hand away as though I could shield it. “I-I made no such bargain.”

“The magic . . . is no . . . respecter of . . . mortals.” He lifts his head as though it weighs as much as an anvil. “But . . . perhaps . . .”

He wheezes.

“Perhaps what?” I beg. My hand stings, and I unclench my fingers. Blood has worked its way under my nails, and tar stains the bandage.

His bright eyes glimmer. “A kiss . . . may free me . . . and therefore . . . you.”

“You are a liar.” I wrap the bandage around my hand too tightly, my movements shaky. “Narvals are soul eaters.”

What is a soul if not an extension of the heart? Grandmother had once said to me. To lose one’s soul is to lose what makes one human. It’s no better than death.

I spit on the ground and, in my head, curse my grandmother for not speaking of mysting bargains in her book. Curse myself for thinking I had a solution. Curse my father for venturing into their world, for if he had never stolen the Telling Stone, the goblers would not have come looking for it.

I retreat into the forest until I find a sizable stick. Gritting my teeth against the pain in my hand, I hack through weeds until I’ve drawn a large circle on the forest floor, beside Maekallus. I get very close to him, but he does not lash out, only bubbles and moans and suffers. I carve the eight-pointed star across grass and clover.

“Descend.” I bark the command at him. The circle won’t require sacrifice if he’s merely returning home. His blood and body are made of the monster realm.

He laughs. “It will not . . . work.”

“Try it, you putrid oaf!”

He glares at me, but concedes. He topples over, straining to roll onto the circle. He lies on his back, staring up at the sky. He does not descend. The circle and its star remain dull, lifeless.

Cursing again, I take my silver dagger and stab it into the earth where the gleaming thread disappears and dig, dig, dig. But the thread burrows deeper and deeper. I slash at it with the blade; the silver passes through harmlessly.

“One kiss won’t . . . steal your soul.”

I glare at Maekallus. A bubble travels under the flesh of his arm, darkening the skin in its wake. Pity stabs through my gut. This is no way for any creature, even a mysting, to die.

He rolls, just enough to look at me. “A myth . . . Just one . . . will not steal . . . your soul.”

My left hand grabs the cool Telling Stone. I wish it would warn me if the narval is lying, but it only whispers that he is here. That he is weak. “Then what is the point?”

“Do not . . . ask me to . . . explain the magic . . . of our worlds.”

I feel a pinch on my scalp, and only then do I realize I’ve grabbed my own hair, fistfuls of it. I feel light headed, and the smell—gods above, the smell. I can’t think straight. My heart pumps as though I’ve run the length of the wildwood. My legs feel like thick tree roots spiraling into the ground. My lungs are iron, and each breath struggles to fill them. The stinging cut on my hand bleeds and burns with the promise, You’re next.

I struggle for words, for composure. “When.”

Maekallus groans against his unseen torturer.

“When!” I rip my hands free, taking a few strands with them. “When will it kill us?”

“Don’t . . . know . . .”

“A wild guess will do!”

He stares at me even as his heavy eye finally swells shut, weeping black tears. “Perhaps . . . a day.”

I look up at the sun, so cheery, so uncaring. Only a day . . . Thoughts push themselves against my eyes, but I can’t think all of them. I can barely breathe.

I turn from the glade and run back through the wildwood, seeking escape until my legs can carry me no farther.





CHAPTER 6

Intelligent mystings may be willing to work for hire for mortals, and are bound to their promises by reciprocal laceration. Be wary of making such deals, for the price paid may amount to more than originally bargained for.





I do not lose myself in the wildwood. I know it too well and have been taught too much caution for that.

I collapse at the foot of an evergreen, dried needles like old bones poking through my skirt and into my knees. I inhale the hearty scent of pine for a long time, until the back of my hair burns from the touch of the sun and my wrists ache from holding myself up in this cradle made of forest. I lean against the evergreen’s trunk and force myself to my feet. Heat ignites in my right palm. I look at it only to discover I’ve bled through my bandages. In this, at least, I know Maekallus was truthful—if he does not heal, neither will the cut on my hand.

Is there any truth to the rest?

I cradle my injured hand and stumble away from the tree, picking through foliage and undergrowth toward my home. My grandmother’s writings warn me away from narvals, as does my own common sense. Yet if Maekallus’s death equates my own, then what do I risk by giving him what he wants?

Besides, although I have no heart for mystings, a sliver of me chafes that his cruel suffering is my fault. Had I not summoned him, had I not insisted on this bargain, he would not be . . . melting in the wildwood, bound to the mortal realm with, seemingly, no chance of escape.