Page 64 of Devils Don’t Deal

That was supposed to be my mother? As far as I knew, her name was Rose. And he was going to enslave me? Perfect. Then I’d kill him. Except that he was a siren and could probably break my mind until I was the perfect pet.

I trembled. “The devil, he isn’t coming back?”

“No, child, he isn’t coming back,” the enchantress said, lips pursed in a mockery of my pain.

My heart squeezed, and my throat constricted. “Is that his heart?” I asked, pointing at her hand. I shouldn’t have said anything, but…

Her eyes grew even harder, something I hadn’t thought possible. “It was. What do you know about devil’s hearts?”

“They should keep them in their chests where they belong.”

Her smile was gloriously beautiful, spite and malice. “But love makes one foolish.”

He’d loved her? Given her his heart? Did he still love her? Of course he did. She was power and perfection. And she wouldn’t have had power over him and his heart if he didn’t still love her. My shoulders sagged, and I wanted to cry. But goblins didn’t cry when they came up against an obstacle. They gnawed their way through it, or exploded it, or found something else to worry about.

“You didn’t think he could have loved you, did you? Really? Such a foolish child. The devil is a complex creature with such deep magic someone like you can barely begin to understand. What could he possibly see in you to love?”

It was like being publicly weighed all over again. Only worse. I’d never asked the devil to love me. I’d just loved him. And now where was he with this monster holding his heart in her evil, vicious, beautiful hand? “I’m twenty-six. I’m not a child.”

The fairy king made a sound in his throat. “That’s exactly what twenty-six is. Absolutely a child. At least you aren’t crying. Yet. Did your mother teach you nothing of fighting? Of spells? Of how to use your magic to protect yourself and defeat the enemy? You’re the most crushable creature I’ve ever met. Perhaps in the next five years you can learn something of defense and make the time when I come to kill you more interesting.”

I shivered and stared at my beautiful rabbit. “The deal…” I said slowly, looking up at the enchantress, “is that I have dinner with the devil every night. You can’t break the devil’s deal or it will release him from your power.”

She laughed, all delightful and delirious. “Of course you’ll have dinner with us this evening. Like clockwork.”

She waved her wand, and I was whirled around in a storm of glitter and poison until the storm stopped and I dropped onto my bed, in my room above my shop, still clutching Divinity in my arms. I lay there trembling for a moment, my skin stretched over my bones like a rubber band until I slowly sat up and put the rabbit on my pillow. I stared at him, those luminous eyes that were still glowing brightly.

“I need to go to the library of antiquities.” The collar around my throat tightened at the words, and I grasped it with my fingers, panicked and choking until it gradually loosened, letting me breathe and fall over on my bed in a heap. Well, that was interesting.

I got up, took a shower trying to get all the glitter off my scalp, failed, then got dressed in my prettiest tea-party outfit. I’d never be able to sleep, and I had baking to do if I was going to keep my end of the deal. And I absolutely was.

My father smiled when he saw me. “How was the ball? I thought you’d sleep until four today.” He didn’t look at my throat. Of course he couldn’t see the collar.

“I need to get a cookbook,” I said, focusing my mind on a new kind of cookbook, something with treats that used chili peppers. The devil would like more spicy treats to go with a smoky licorice tea.

Beneath my thoughts was another layer of knowing. Goblins had the kind of brain that could keep a tally while plotting nefarious plots underneath. It didn’t seem like the most useful thing, but when my upper thoughts were being monitored by the collar, it was very useful indeed.

I needed to research how to defeat a fairy enchantress and her ally, the king of the fairies. The fairy queen from fairyland could subjugate him easily enough, but the collar wouldn’t let me go anywhere near her. And it wouldn’t let me say anything about it.

“Do you?” My father started frowning. “Is everything all right? No, it isn’t. What did that devil do?” His glower was downright frightening.

I laughed and squeezed his fingers. “It’s all right. I just need a cookbook that I can read while I’m doing something else. Do you know a spell for that?”

“A spell for consuming knowledge while working on a different task? Of course. It’s fairly common for goblins. Can you perform such a spell with your magic?”

“I can probably bake it into something.”

“All right. Here’s the sigil you draw on the book.” He took a sharp claw and carved it into my butcher block. “And here’s the incantation you use.” He singsonged the spell in goblin, a language he’d taught me but we didn’t use much.

I frowned intently as I memorized it then smiled at him. “Perfect. Will you go get me the cookbook?”

He stared at me. “What cookbook specifically do you want?”

“A book of cooking things that are spicy that the devil would like.”

His eyes narrowed. “Of course. Anything specific you have in mind?” Did he get it? Did he understand that I was under some kind of spell or curse? He was very smart and understood subtlety very well.

“Clockwork hearts,” I said then gasped when the collar constricted. I filled my head with pretty pastries with chocolate clockwork bits stuck to them. So cute. Customers would love them. And donuts with swirls of chocolate and peppermint cream. I needed cream puffs with chocolate and peppermint cream. There wasn’t enough peppermint in the world.