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Gisele stood like an idiot for several moments, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She couldn’t remember the last time a stranger had voluntarily interacted with her, especially not with such a sunny demeanour.

Eventually, she managed, “Will it involve me in some esoteric fae bargain?”

The woman’s smile widened. “No fool, are you? But nothing so dramatic. Technically, I’ll owe you the worth of a peach, but since they’re right there for the taking, that’s not much. Perhaps you’d like a kiss in exchange? A small token of my appreciation.”

There was an unmistakably flirtatious current to the way the woman threw out her hip, and Gisele once again felt the world shift out of place.

This woman was… flirting with her? Maybe?

Isshia was relatively relaxed about such things compared to many places, but still, it was a surprise.

More surprising and quite aside from any questions of same-sex flirtations was the fact that the woman was doing it to Gisele , specifically, as if she were a normal person and not cursed at all.

“On the hand?” she said and held out a peach. What am I doing? She had no idea, except that she was curious and confused in equal measure, and this made as much sense as anything else had so far today.

The woman chuckled. “A shy one, are you? But very well, I accept.”

The woman drew closer and took the fruit from her with grave care.

Gisele watched closely, but the woman didn’t seem to be experiencing any difficulty in being near her, nor did she flinch when their fingers brushed.

And then she was very close indeed, smelling like apples, and her lips were soft and pleasant, pressing a kiss into the centre of Gisele’s palm, sparking surprise at the unfamiliar sensation.

Maybe she’d been wrong to assume she didn’t worship at the Marmot Lady’s altar, she thought wryly.

The woman drew back, showing dimples.

“That didn’t hurt?” Gisele couldn’t help asking. “To touch me?”

The woman’s eyebrows went up. “Who have you been kissing, to ask such a thing?”

“I’m under a curse,” Gisele explained. “It tends to make it unpleasant.”

The woman cocked her head to the side. “There’s someone’s mark on you, right enough, but it’s all turned inwards, not out. Don’t see how that would affect anyone else other than you and him who lives in the house.”

Gisele stared at her. Was the woman unaffected simply because she was a fairy woman?

But then there had been that startled water sprite and the creatures avoiding her in the wood.

Had things changed since Gisele had finally come face-to-face with her Malediction, in partial fulfilment of the original bargain?

Could that mean that the curse wasn’t affecting anyone else around her anymore?

If it did, and if the curse could be relied on to stay that way now…

the enormity of the implications nearly overwhelmed her.

It meant they didn’t need to find Malediction’s name; she could go home and attempt some semblance of a normal life.

There’s still your uncontrolled magic, and that strange bond between you, though .

But… did she still need Malediction’s help, now that she knew that what she had was fae magic?

Perhaps there were other options available there as well.

Could she teach herself how to control it, with the right books?

Perhaps she should seriously consider her other options, because even the thought of leaving had her whole body tensing in instinctive rejection, and she shouldn’t feel so strongly attached to either the Malediction or his house on the basis of so short an acquaintance.

“Call me Apfela,” the woman said, bringing Gisele out of her thoughts with a start. She was eating the peach unselfconsciously, juice running down her chin, showing sharp teeth between bites.

“I’m Gisele,” said Gisele, deliberately omitting her title. She didn’t want to break this strange normality.

A buzzing sound interrupted them, a striped furry shape landing on Apfela’s shoulder. Apfela ignored it, but Gisele couldn’t help but stare. It looked like a lizard had been crossed with a bumblebee.

“What is that?” she asked.

“A lanbee, of course,” Apfela said, giving the creature an absent pat. It was small enough to fit in her palm. “They hunt wasps. This one’s name is Bzzft. She keeps me company.”

The lanbee crooned acknowledgement of its name and then yawned widely, turned in a circle, and went to sleep on Apfela’s shoulder. It was unreasonably adorable.

Gisele tore her eyes from it. “What brings you to this orchard?”

Apfela shrugged. “It’s a nice orchard, for all that no one tends it.

The trees call to me; they can grow wild and dark left to their own devices.

They’re not like the forest; tame things know when they’re unloved.

” She reached out to pat the branch of the peach in much the same manner that Malediction petted his house.

“He that lives at the house doesn’t want to share.

Selfish bastard. But some of us find our way in for a while before he boots us out.

Maybe one day I’ll have strong enough roots to resist his wards entirely.

” Her smile flashed those unnaturally sharp teeth, and Gisele’s pulse began to race.

Apfela’s smile softened. “Now, don’t worry your head, lovely. I’ve no bone to pick with pretty maidens who give me peaches.”

“I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t want to share, exactly. He’s just…afraid,” Gisele began, disconcerted to be described as a pretty maiden.

Apfela gave another philosophical shrug. “Then perhaps he should stop being so afraid. What are you afraid of?” When Gisele turned startled eyes towards her, Apfela grinned. “It was worth asking, wasn’t it? A person’s fears are always a useful thing to know.”

“What are you afraid of, then?” Gisele asked, amused and unsettled in equal measure.

Apfela canted her head, and the green of her eyes grew faraway and somehow deeper than before, as if the forest were peering out of them. “Fire and leafblight and standing alone at night come winter.”

“Does that happen often?” Gisele couldn’t resist asking.

Apfela’s abstraction cleared, and her smile was wicked.

“Not often. I’m good company, or so I’m told.

Now, this has been delightful, but I can feel him that lives in the house tightening his wards.

Give him my compliments on the quality of his peaches.

” She finished the peach with a few more bites and threw the pit into the long grass.

“Unless you’d like to come for a drink outside his influence and complain about him?

There’s a pub in yonder village that does a tasty apple cider. ”

Gisele gawped at Apfela, startled by everything about that offer, from someone wanting her company to the existence of a fairy pub. But if she were truly no longer poisonous to be around, then there was no reason she couldn’t do such a thing, was there?

Apfela grinned and gestured meaningfully through the orchard. “There’s a little path right there that will take us.”

Some degree of common sense reasserted itself. Remember the ‘danger’ adjective, as so liberally applied to Faerie? This, here, is the start of one of those folktales where the heroine blithely ends up sleeping for a hundred years or transformed into a toadstool.

“And it’s…safe?” she asked. “You’ll see me back here afterwards?”

Apfela didn’t seem offended. “I’m not one for abducting people, darling. Not like others I could name.” Her gaze slipped meaningfully towards Skymallow.

“He hasn’t abducted me,” Gisele felt bound to say.

“Is that so? He’ll let you leave of your own free will, then?”

The clear doubt in Apfela’s tone spurred her to prove it.

“If you meant your invitation, about going for a drink together, I’ll meet you back here in…

half an hour? And we can go? I need to put the peaches away and tell him I’m going.

” Heady with the idea of making a friend, with the idea that she could simply go down to the pub like a normal person, she still wasn’t foolish enough to leave without telling Malediction.

It would be immature, for one thing, and for another, she was sure he’d tell her if Apfela was dangerous.

Apfela’s expression continued to show polite doubt. “I’ll look forward to it, then.”