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“Certainly. Just as soon as you stop wanting me to stop,” he singsongs.

One way or another, I will prove him wrong on that account. One way or another, I will get him to trip on my name like a stone. I’ll get him to stumble, to slip up when he least expects it, like an accident, like a hard fall, not knowing what’s hit him. One way or another, I’ll get him to make this mistake.

He holds up a finger. “Disclaimers, rules, etcetera, etcetera. First: If you fail in any of these tasks, you lose. Second: Once you’ve officially guessed the animal, you can’t change your mind and target a different one. Third: When you’ve guessed that animal, you must take action on its life.”

To recover from that last rule, I cling to thoughts of Lark and Cove. “Are you actually going to let me change clothes first?”

“Why? Don’t you like suede?”

I balk, realizing only one of us is being sarcastic. “Wait. You can’t seriously expect me to hunt in this frock, nor in this color.”

“I thought you were a fast learner.”

That’s not the point, and he knows it. “I’ll stick out like a sore thumb to any quarry. I need a palette that will camouflage me.”

The satyr perches his lips on the chalice and tips back the fluid, his neck pumping. He watches me watch him, then places the vessel on the table. “Isn’t that what bushes are for?”

Every part of me compresses, the skin pulling taut across my face. “In other words, you didn’t choose this garment randomly.”

“Perhaps not at the moment. But at one point, I did. Things always begin randomly, for that’s their origin.”

“They’re random until they’re not. Then they became part of a diabolical plan.”

“Are we philosophizing?”

“Unless you have an objection to females with brains.”

But Puck’s distracted. With my cloak split down the middle, his irises chart a graphic path over the swells of the dress, down to its hem swatting the underbrush.

His attention elicits a drastic effect, jeopardizing my concentration. And scratch that. He knows what he’s doing, looking at me as though the textile’s edible. Suddenly, the garment feels too thin, too flimsy, too much, and far too little.

“You should wear red more often,” he suggests. “I’m told cherries ripen over time.”

I dislike moot subjects as much as I dislike loose ends. “When is the Middle Moon Feast?”

He pretends to mull that over. “Ten days from now. A sexy number for any game, don’t you think?”

“How many humans have disagreed with you?”

“Find their skeletons and ask them, unless The Sleuth of Bears got to those as well.”

Abominable, contemptible demon! His nonchalance turns my stomach to acid. So this is what becomes of the mortals who don’t end up shackled in The Redwoods of Exile. My horror is absolute, a wad of hatred settling in my gut.

Ten days is all I have, and if I’ve interpreted this trickster correctly, they’ve hidden my archery and supplies someplace in this weald for me to ferret out.

“I’ll need water,” I persist.

“Oh?” Puck contemplates. “But shouldn’t a bookish huntress be able to find what she needs without it being given to her? And now, who said the most desirable things aren’t here, within your reach? Don’t underestimate what’s right in front of you.”

I sidestep that riddle. “I’ll need my pack.”

“And your notebook, of course.”

My knuckles curl. When I was prepping to come here, I’d considered bringing my copy of the Book of Fables—an annotated edition that Papa Thorne gifted to me on my thirteenth birthday. But the tome had been too hefty, and I’d had the Fables memorized anyway.

“What is mine, is mine,” I say. “I shouldn’t have to forage for my things. I need them back.”

Puck rises and swaggers toward me, hooking his hands behind his back. “How badly?”