I find a relatively flat, clear space between wild trees. After securing a stick, I carefully trace a circle in the dirt, stamping it out and starting again when the line doesn’t curve right. Within it, I draw the eight-pointed star. I trace over the lines, deepening them, before carefully pouring enough oil into the shallow trenches to fill the entire symbol. I will offer no blood to the monster realm, but I will trade them fire.
I work the flint and steel over an old seedpod until it catches, then light the summoning circle aflame. The smoke burns my sinuses, and I have to shut my eyes against the light. But the fire is short lived, and soon a smoldering star stares up at me, dark and angry and empty.
Pressing a hand to my chest to calm my heart, I step back as far as the witnessing trees will allow me and snatch up my basket. I draw my dagger immediately. The moment I see even a partial mysting that wants meat more than discussion, I’ll strike.
For a moment, I think my spell did not work, and I study the ashy lines to determine why. But as the tiny embers of grass and clover blacken, a glint of pale-blue light suffuses the marks. The chill in my Telling Stone deepens until it burns. Gasping, I pull my sleeve beneath my bracelet. The sensation of being watched by someone else sends a tingle across my scalp.
Twisting around, I see him leaning against the trunk of a great oak, a wicked grin bright beneath blazing, yellow eyes.
CHAPTER 3
Red salt will keep away rodyns, goblers, hepters, and any plant-eating mysting.
I stumble back until my heel breaks the ash of the summoning circle. My mind fails to categorize this mysting; had his likeness appeared in the pages of my grandmother’s journal, I’m sure I would have remembered. My mind takes notes even as I struggle not to panic. Another new discovery! I must memorize everything.
He is humanoid, with the face and body of a man, but his eyes are too bright, and I’ve never beheld a human man, woman, or child with anything resembling their fierce yellow color. He has a strong yet slender jaw and a sturdy nose and brow. Pale red hair hangs over his shoulder in a loose tail. A flowing, angular tunic, or perhaps a wrapped cloak, covers his shoulders, but exposes his left side and the subtle musculature beneath his peachy, too-human skin. Strange pants made of layered leather—not bovine leather—and studs cover his legs. He wears no shoes over feet that resemble the hooves of a horse, and a wicked tail writhes behind him, the asymmetrical, pointed end of which looks sharper than the dagger in my hand.
But what stands out the most about this creature is not the make of his clothes or the unnatural brilliance of his eyes. Not even the equine shape of his unshod feet. It is the great horn that protrudes from the center of his forehead, steep and pointing nearly skyward, made of bone or coral or . . . I cannot name its tightly spiraled substance, but it looks like the horn of fabled unicorns, straight and strong and ending in a deadly point. Though the mysting is of normal height for a man, his terrible horn must be three feet long, giving him the visage of a giant.
“Wh-What are you?” I manage, trying to find my wits, for I must strike the bargain, and I cannot appear cowardly.
The mysting raises a red-tinted eyebrow and glances over his shoulder. He tilts his head to the side, and I watch the menacing horn shift with him. “You can see me?” His voice is a man’s voice, with the slightest edge of a growl.
“Of course I can see you. I summoned you.” Possible invisibility. I’ll theorize later why my summoning has thwarted such a spell.
He laughs and sets his hands on his hips. “I only came to see who was foolish enough to build a summoning circle in the wildwood.” His grin fades, and he studies me anew—my chin-length hair, my mother’s blue eyes, my plain dress and shoes. “You should not be able to see me.”
I twist my wrist to hide my bracelet. “Well, I do, and I wish to strike a deal.”
He smirks. His canines are slightly pronounced, and the tip of one touches his lower lip. “And what benefit could interest me in making deals with mortals?”
“To sate your curiosity, apparently.”
He cocks that eyebrow again, and the corrupt smile looms on his lips. There have been so few smiles in my home since my grandmother’s passing, and seeing such a bold one aimed toward me is unsettling. “Hmmmmm, perhaps. You’re no witch or mysting hunter, girl. What purpose do you have for dabbling with the star? I could kill you, and only the trees would hear your screams.”
I clench my hands into fists, the Telling Stone at the center of the left, and step away from the summoning circle, willing myself to look taller than I am. “We are not so deep into the wildwood.”
“Do your screams carry far?” His eyes glint. He thinks himself clever. “I’m more suited to placing one man’s wallet in another’s pocket or dousing a wedding gown in pig’s blood. If that’s what you want, I’m listening.”
A trickster, then. I’ve half a page dedicated to them in my book. But it’s unlikely a mysting built as he is, with so deadly a horn, is satisfied with mere teasing. “I have summoned you”—I force my voice to be level—“and you have come. You will help me.”
My left hand is behind me, and on impulse, I reach back to pull my sleeve over the icy Telling Stone. My fingers tingle against its bite. I wonder if it’s trying to warn me, or if I’m merely squeezing it too tightly.
The mysting’s brows draw together.
“Tell me your name,” I try. “What you are.”
“Maekallus,” he answers, and his brow rises, almost like he’s surprised he answered. “You don’t know my kind, yet you want to barter with me? I’m a narval.”
A narval! There is an entry for his kind in my book, copied from my grandmother’s journal, but there is no picture to accompany it. It’s a short entry, and I stretch my memory to recall what it says.
He steps forward, and it takes the full strength of my resolve to resist stepping back. He’s a head taller than I am. I glance to the horn.
“What, exactly, do you want?” he asks.
I suck in a deep breath. “There is a gobler near my home.”
“This is the wildwood, is it not?”
“Its companion attacked my house last night.” I leave out its interest in the stone, which pulses cold into my hand, and the fact that it also attacked me. “I don’t know why, but it ignored my wards, and I fear the other will strike soon. You’ll find it in the wildwood, north.” I point.
“A gobler, in these parts?”
“Were I lying, I would do better.” I squeeze the stone.
His smirk returns. “All right, mortal. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll find this gobler for you, eliminate it, but I want something in return.”
The moment of truth. The fingers of my right hand graze the silver dagger. “I have gold.”
Maekallus snorts. “Oh no, I don’t want gold. If you dare to take me as your champion, I will have a kiss.”
The demand startles me enough that my basket slips down my arm, yet his words trigger my memory, and I recall with sudden clarity what my grandmother first penned on that aging page: Beware the narvals, formed from the spilled blood of bastards. They feed upon souls, and will steal one with a willing kiss.
“No.” I plant my feet. “I am no witch, but I am no fool. I will not give you my soul for this simple protection.”