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An instant later, I pop up from behind the foliage. Puck swerves my way and stops. He registers the longbow braced in my grip, the arrow nocked and aimed at his black heart. The ghost of a smile twitches across his mien, visible despite eventide.

The snap of a twig rents the air, snatching my attention. When my head jerks to where Puck had been standing, an empty pocket of space greets me. My ears attune themselves to the wild, tracking shifts in the foliage, a shiver across the underbrush.

Yes, he’s no longer standing there. But no, he’s not gone.

Close. Very close.

Mechanisms click. I know that ticking noise like I know the brisk turn of a page. I aim southeast, toward a cleft in the vegetation, and let it fly. The arrowhead whizzes. Midway, it collides with a crossbow bolt.

A shrieking noise pierces through the landscape, resounding from the impact of Puck’s arrow and my bolt. The latter splinters into fragments. The Fae’s archery tears through mine as if the bolt was made of parchment, shredding the mortal weapon into ribbons. Wrath boils in my stomach as I behold the casualties littering the grass. I’d used his weapon to destroy my own.

Masculine chuckles skip across the wild. With a growl, I loose another arrow. It zooms toward that laugh and impales a low-hanging branch.

Now the laughter reverberates from a completely different spot. I swing that way and nock another arrow, which arcs into the trees. In turn, a bolt fires my way, its tip an asterisk of winking light.

I duck and roll, avoiding the next strike. Lunging to my feet, I whirl behind a trunk, my back slamming into it hard enough for my molars to clatter. I paste myself to the column, crusts of bark chafing the dress.

My gaze slides to the right and left. In the distance, undomesticated grunts push through the weald, bringing hogs to mind. Or a larger species, the sort that grows tusks.

I pluck another arrow from the quiver. As I do, a crossbow clicks from his end of the woodland. Life narrows to this grisly place. Flecks of candlelight swim through the leaves, bracken clutters the ground like so much rubble, and starlight filters through the crochet of foliage.

It’s just us. It’s just me and him. It’s just this forest and these weapons.

I’d been wondering who gets to stalk him in this game. The rules say nothing about that, but now I know. With his archery in my hands, the answer’s obvious.

Because if he gets to hunt me down, I’ll just have to hunt him back.

10

The bolt flies my way. I’d taken a quick look but now surge out of range, twisting back behind the trunk. The weapon’s tip whizzes past me, abreast of the column.

I dive to the next tree, evading a strike that grazes the hood of my cloak. Puck’s cackle vibrates at the edges, tickling the leaves and making them dance.

That’s what this becomes, a dance of twists and turns, moves and countermoves. Me, peeking and shooting. Him, dodging and shooting back. Me, ducking out of harm’s way and targeting him once more.

Adrenaline sizzles through my limbs, a heady rush washing through my veins. The corner of my mouth lifts into a half-grin.

Puck’s nimble hooves caper through the woodland, scarcely making a sound. I strain myself, listening for the signs—a crack, a thunk, a whisper of air.

Fables curse him. He’s good.

Matter of fact, he’s adept at maneuvering through the shrubs, agile as a critter, silent as a fox. Stumps and overturned logs force me to leap at intervals.

That’s fine. One doesn’t live with trade poachers for years without learning how to navigate the wild undetected—bleeding in and out of shadows, slipping into crevices, and prowling the paths of fauna.

I move gingerly. Still, I’m no native of Faerie, and my pace lags.

Meanwhile, Puck bounds on invisible springs, prancing from landmark to landmark with the grace of a gazelle. Yet he accuses me of being a show-off?

I scowl, nettled by an outbreak of competitiveness. I triple my efforts, abandoning my spot behind a giant rock and relocating to a tree stump breeding mushrooms, where I crouch as another crossbow bolt skates overhead. In a flash, I nock my bow—his bow—and brace it to fire.

I must be exceeding his good-for-nothing expectations, because the Fae mutters an obscenity from his corner. Hearing the frustrated sound, another smile threatens to engulf my face.

“Is this the best you can do?” I call out, aiming at the cascade of red glinting in the murk.

His hooves stalk nearer, fifteen paces away. “What makes you assume I need to do better?” he taunts. “I do as little or as much as I fancy. None more, none less. What’s better than that?”

“You can try speaking in riddles, but it won’t work on me.”