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My brows furrow as I study our prints nesting together. The sight is familiar, jogging my memory. I slip into the past, to a succession of evenings when I was ten years old. I met a young satyr for the first time, disliked him, and then became friends with him. Nearly a fortnight later, I quarreled with that Fae and stormed off, leaving him behind.

Shortly after that, his deer had come to retrieve him, to take him home. That’s when two villagers—a farmer and glassblower—had caught up with me and snatched my crossbow, then hustled after the magnificent creature. I’d given chase, racing after the men only to find them targeting not only the doe, but the satyr as well.

Both ethereal beings had gotten away, had fled to their magical land. But before they’d left, that young Fae had noticed my weapon in the glassblower’s possession. And the satyr had glared at me with contempt.

It hurt so much, I’d crumbled against the tree. After he was gone, I’d mustered a step and caught sight of my little foot pinned atop a hoof print, a marking made by the very same animal that stands beside me.

As a huntress, I’ve conditioned myself to remember such things. As a reader, I’ve taught myself to bookmark other things, such as the contents of a Fable. As the spinster know-it-all everyone accuses me of being, I’ve learned to bear things in mind.

The rules of a game, for example. Also, the objective of that game: Hunt an animal that can’t be hunted.

The details gnarl together, the hints and implications that have permeated my mind since my first day here. Original Fables, replicated Fables, and hidden Fables. They’ve taught me countless lessons, one of them being this: Appearances can be deceiving here, just as much as words and deals, bargains and favors.

The rules of the game aren’t exempt from this. I’ve been taking those rules too literally, starting with my first task.

Puck had said so himself. The term hunt is relative.

Hunting an animal that can’t be hunted isn’t a transparent quest. It never was.

“It’s a riddle,” I say.

Puck had also said he and the Faeries don’t know the answers to my tasks, that they would only know when I did. Yet for all his cleverness, and all my studiousness, neither of us had considered this.

Whyhadn’t we considered this?

I feel stupid, ignorant. Then I pull myself together and think, think, think. Riddles constitute a reexamination of words, an investigation of double meanings. I ruminate on the nature of hunting, the definition of it. To hunt is to search. To hunt an animal that can’t be hunted, is to search for an animal that can’t be sought.

My heart stops. It stops as quickly as that mountain peak had stopped, as swiftly as the quake had stopped. There’s only one quarry that can’t technically be sought. Not if it’s inches from your face.

You can’t hunt an animal that’s right in front of you.

29

My eyes lift to Sylvan. The deer gazes at me, unaware. She watches me with the kind of trust she hasn’t given anyone else but Puck. This creature, who was traumatized by The Trapping, haunted by what mortals had done to her fauna kin and the satyr. This animal, who nevertheless learned to put faith in a mortal—a human, after so long.

“No,” I insist. “No.”

My limbs carry me backward, putting distance between us. I shake my head, whipping it from side to side. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Desperation rattles me to the core. If the term hunt is relative, then I’ll fix this.

I’ll revise the riddle. If I can’t hunt an animal that’s right in front of me, that also means I can’t hunt an animal in my line of sight. Or instead, I can target any other creature I lay my eyes on. It doesn’t have to be her. Isn’t that correct?

No, it isn’t. The rules had been set in stone. In the beginning, Puck had told me that once I identify the animal, I’m not permitted to change my mind.

But if an animal can’t be hunted, it can’t be hunted. That’s a riddle, too. Isn’t it?

True, if it weren’t for the infernal rules again. Puck had also said that once I find my target, I have to take action on its life. Simply trapping her in a net or harness won’t suffice.

I have to do this, but I can’t do this.I can’t.

I fight to untangle these rules, to find a loophole or another cryptogram. But there’s nothing, absolutely nothing. So much for being well read.

Puck. On that horrific night when we were children, he’d falsely believed I helped the villagers target his kin, including the doe he loves. He had been wrong then, and he knows that now. But if I hurt this deer, he won’t be wrong about me this time.

I think of the tattoo branded into my lower back. The X of crossbow bolts. The marking of a trade poacher, the last secret I’ve kept from the world.

My stomach roils. I scuttle away from Sylvan, but she steps toward me, sensing my urge to flee. I raise my hands, palms up. “Don’t,” I plead. “Shh, girl. It’s all right. But please, don’t come any closer.”