Peter inhaled deeply, puncturing the quiet of the dark forest. One leg dangled from his perch on the tree, while his gaze remained fixed on the small village at the bottom of the hill. The bark dug into his back, but he reclined against it as if it were the most luxurious couch.
He couldn’t see her yet, but he would. Any moment now.
I hacked at a vine as it snaked around my feet. It recoiled. I shook the old tarnished sword at the enchanted forest and shouted, “I am Ariella!” I let the name roll off my tongue. It thrilled me.
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Finding Seph was the easy part. She wore pomegranate-colored sneakers that glowed like taillights in the receding summer light. Stopping her was trickier. Her feet barely seemed to touch the ground as she ran down the boardwalk along the ocean, seagulls following close and squawking at her.
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Stolen again.
I’d recovered the jeweled pendant three times before, yet somehow the masked bandit always got ahold of it again. I got the call just before sundown and strode into the vault with beams of sunlight shining across the mahogany surfaces of the lobby behind me.
“You know, it’s not easy to find something that shouldn’t exist.”
Bradley shook awake. Ropes held his body to a chair, old and coarse bindings. Sitting alone in what appeared to be an attic lit solely by moonlight from windows to the right and left, he could not trace the deep voice to a source.
Mathis twisted the shovel and winced as a splinter stabbed into his palm. He made a mental note to look for a better one, or a pair of gloves, in the next pile of garbage. Behlovek certainly wouldn’t give him anything.
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A torrential downpour flooded the grassy clifftop. The octopus turned the key yet again, but all the engine produced was a pathetic cough. The fuel gauge lay well below E, and no amount of glaring on the octopus’s part would make it rise.
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“Dragon Armor?”
“Something the mages cooked up to resist dragon fire. Arrows and spears go right through it, though. Once the dragons were hunted to extinction, it became useless. But I hear you could run straight into flames and not even singe your eyebrows.”
Dad told me, “Never insult a fairy, or it’ll steal your soul.” He didn’t warm me fairies take even the tiniest tease as an insult.
Greetings from a soulless peasant boy!
Izai regarded the long line of souls waiting at the crystal gate, all jabbering away like chaotic playmates. Of all the jobs to get, she was assigned the most boring. In and out, every day, new souls arrived from all corners of the Great Beyond.
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As I finish the preparations to remove the sweet child I had raised, my eye catches on the glinting of the crown. I want to smash it. If he hadn’t been royal, he’d be alive. The crown seems to agree—if I didn’t know better, I’d say it was weeping.
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The tall stranger sauntered through the dark alleyway. His long fingers trailed across the rough brick of the buildings on either side of him, and his arm span filled the alley. He moved at a lazy pace, no hurry to be anywhere. His stroll this evening wasn’t about destination but discovery—about finding someone, finding the one, the perfect specimen to assuage tonight’s hunger.
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