I reach an oval-shaped glade, where oak and aspen part. What I see instead makes me gasp. A grotesque creature is slumped near the center of the clearing, skin blackened and bubbling, though I can still make out arms and legs . . . and a long, stony horn patched with charcoal.
I press my hand against a trunk to keep myself upright. He smells of compost and something foul, something otherworldly. A thin tendril of light, like a glowing red spiderweb, leads from the black mass to the earth, disappearing amid grass and clover.
My voice is a near whisper. “Maekallus?”
The body shifts, head lifting to look at me. His face is patched with black, and a blackened bubble moves across his neck like boiling tar. His eyes are vivid and yellow, but one is heavy, the lid swollen. I see for the first time his cloak beside him, rent and smeared with black ooze.
“You,” he says, the word heavy, venomous, and rasping. “You . . . are the bane of . . .”
He doesn’t finish the sentence, for a wet cough erupts from his throat. He tries to stand, but his hooved foot slips in its own muck, and he falls to his knees.
I take a step forward, staying well out of his reach. “What’s happened to you?”
He glares at me. “Your cursed realm . . .”
He doesn’t have to complete the sentence. I need only look at him to know my realm is eating him alive. My lips part in surprise. This is why the stone’s temperature has remained unchanged. Maekallus has been in the mortal realm this whole time.
“I have your payment here!” I pull the medallion from my pocket. “Good graces, Maekallus! It’s not worth any coin to stay here!”
Maekallus laughs—at least, I believe it’s a laugh. It’s a wet, cruel sound, sticky and terrible. “You think . . . I suffer for you?” Another laugh. “Stupid mortal. I’ve been bound here by your quarry. Two . . . I killed the wrong . . .” He takes a deep, wheezing breath. “Did you not know? . . . The bargain is not . . . complete.”
I stare at him, then at my bandaged hand. Carefully, I pull back the wrapping to look at the stitched cut, wiping off drops of fresh blood seeping from my father’s handiwork. A dark ooze has begun to bleed through the bandage, not unlike what consumes Maekallus. I cringe and swallow, my stomach uneasy. “This? This is why it hasn’t healed?” Behind him, I notice blue ink in the wild grass and realize it’s gobler blood. Its body is nowhere to be seen.
The mysting shifts to face me. “It will not heal . . . The deal is not done.” He pauses for a long moment, long enough that I think he won’t speak again, but he does. “You will suffer more slowly than I do, but you will suffer.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, cradling my sore hand to my chest. “And what did you mean about being bound here?”
“Can’t . . . leave.” He gestures weakly to the thread of light, beholding it as a thief would his executioner. Holding my breath, I inch closer. Again staying out of his reach, I touch the light. My fingers pass right through it. I try to grab it, to break it, but it’s no more tangible than sunlight.
“How do I break it?” I straighten, step back.
He snorts, coughs. “Find the gobler . . . kill it. Soon. If I die . . .”
He hacks, and black sludge hits the ground in front of him.
I cringe. “If you die, what?” I clench my wounded hand. “What will happen to the deal? To me?”
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.”