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I blow a lock of hair from my face, and the satyr’s eyes trail the movement. “I didn’t realize,” I say. “The Fables don’t tell us how you memorialize your dead.”

“We do so by planting our kin, then letting them blossom in peace. That is, until they don’t have to anymore—the fauna, at least.”

“What does that mean?”

“Is that your favorite question?” Puck rolls his shoulder as if suffering a crick in the neck. “By the way, this arrow is getting slippery.”

He sidesteps me. My hold on the longbow tightens. I monitor his prowling movements, half twisting to keep him in my sights. We circle one another across the strewn petals, our weapons primed toward the same beating, throbbing organ.

I shake my head. “You never say anything serious.”

“That depends on your definition of serious,” Puck says.

“In that case, the definition that most scares you.”

“I’d have expected you to believe there’s only one definition for everything.”

That’s true. But again: “You don’t know me.”

The dawning sky reflects in his pupils. “I did once,” he professes, the words knitting around my waist. “How long before we drop the farce and acknowledge that?”

He sounds neither gratified, nor troubled that he once presumed to know me—that we share a memory. One that had lasted a short period of nights, zero time in the span of a human girl’s life and infinitely less for a Fae. That experience should have been insufficient to make a lasting impact, yet the question disrupts my balance. He speaks as if I’ve been the only one avoiding this.

I begin,“It takes two to—”

The satyr groans, his head flinging back to address the heavens. “If I hear you quote one more fucking Fable…”

“Why does it bother you?”

“Why do you rely on it?”

“Why do you insist on talking in circles with me?” I snap, my hands suffocating the longbow as we continue circuiting each other. “Is it remotely possible for one of our spats to proceed in a straight line?”

Puck meets my glare. “To match your train of thought?”

I growl, he sighs, and we blurt out in unison, “What are you afraid of?”

Our pace dithers. Then at the same time, we halt.

A cage springs open in my throat. “I’m afraid of nothing!” But the declaration crumbles on my tongue, tasting of ash and lies. “In less than a week, I’ve been ridiculed, humiliated, deprived of my weapon—”

“Don’t forget your handy-dandy notebook.”

“—dumped on the back of a centaur, groomed like a submissive pet, forced up and down a tree, and hunted like a jackrabbit, and now I’m standing in a memorial garden with my own weapon pointed at my chest by the one person I’ve had heinous dreams about since childhood. And don’t get me started on the hassle of getting candid answers from you. I haven’t the capacity.”

Puck stares, his index finger stroking the crossbow. “You dreamed about me?”

“It’s exhausting!” I vent, ignoring the self-centered question. “You’re exhausting. We’re exhausting.”

“Now who said anything about us being awe?”

I clam up. Every time I’ve sparred with him, I’ve forgotten how the argument began and what my point had been, because each dispute has led to a new one without the former being resolved first. At this rate, too many dead and buried things are lurching out of me.

He isn’t the only problem. I blame this setting for our latest feud.

I hate the sight of these perished fauna and Faeries, the twig sculptures hovering like martyr statues. I hate the sight of Puck standing among them, his antlers like the exposed, inverted roots of a tree, and his hooves resembling those of a stag. I hate him for having wild traits—as if he and his kin are worthier of this earth than my people, as if Faeries have a more intricate and valuable relationship to nature than mortals.

I hate that he’s watching me with an unfathomable, smoldering expression, peering as though I’m made of kindling.