Page 62 of Devils Don’t Deal

My soul trembled at his words. I grabbed his silky fingers too tightly. “I’m not worried about you loving me. It’s like birthday presents. It just is what it is, without any obligation of presents in return or love in return. I shouldn’t have told you, I didn’t mean to, just the part about dating for real, because pretending to date when I’m madly in love with you is getting awkward. Like the kiss earlier. And snuggling your rabbit. Wouldn’t it be nice to snuggle you? It would be. Very nice.” I smiled at him, trying to keep my voice light without any of the desperation that was starting to creep in. What if my declaration disgusted him so much that he told me to stop and focus on the deal?

“I don’t have a heart,” he said slowly, regretfully.

“Oh. You can only date for real if your heart is around? I bet you could make a deal with someone and get their heart.”

He slowly reached up and brushed my hair back from my face, around my ear, fingers lingering on my skin while my pulse pounded and I ached in the most pleasantly agonizing way.

“I’ve been dating you for real from the beginning,” he finally said in a low voice, smooth and silky as caramel ganache.

“From the beginning like after the hospital?”

“From the beginning like when you stepped into my garden with your blood spilling in the air, declaring your goodness, your sweetness, your magic.”

I frowned at him. “How can you date without a soul?”

He smiled slowly then his body convulsed, and he gripped his chest, where he would’ve had a heart if he hadn’t lost it somewhere.

“That looks painful,” I said, staring at the grimace on his face. “I’m sorry to cause you so much pain.”

He looked at me, his own eyes desperate and horrified, before he disappeared in a puff of smoke that smelled of lilacs and citrus.

Chapter

Eighteen

Istood up while the floor shook and cracks grew in the ceiling and walls above me, like a cracked teacup in pale porcelain.

Divinity hit my chest, and I barely didn’t fall down, what with the shaking floor and the fact that my devil was gone. Did telling him I loved him break Wonderland? Impossible, but that was what it felt like. What had I done? My stomach tangled while I clung to his soul. As long as I had his soul, everything would be okay, right?

The floor shook hard then started tipping, until I fell, slipping across the marble like a slip and slide, holding onto Divinity as I crashed into the wall with my feet.

The wall tore like paper, and I fell through, but I was falling slowly enough to look around and see everyone else falling in a swirl of stripes and pottery shards. Were we all small? Big? Drunk? Maybe the elixirs at the ball were drugged.

I spread my wings and beat my way down to the spiraling floor, landing on my bare feet instead of sprawling like most of the Wonderland occupants.

There were people in pajamas with hair dyed various Wonderland shades, looking irritated, and Rawley, who dropped next to me in her enormous blue saber-toothed tiger shape.

I was nearly crushed when a floating man in full-bodied, red-and-white striped armor tried to fall on me. I kept an eye on the ripped ceiling until everyone had landed. The walls were rounded, like we were all inside a large teapot.

“Does this happen often?” I asked Rawley, but then she bared her teeth at me and I backed away. Right. The cat killed people by accident.

“Does everyone have their contracts?” a voice like wind chimes and rainbow sprinkles called, bringing my attention to the far end of the teapot, where a creature of such luminous beauty that I’d never be able to forget it stood on a mushroom, a sparkling wand that matched the loveliness of her wings in one hand, while in her other hand she held a small dark clock that looked like a clockwork heart.

A poof of sparkles and glitter brought my contract to my hand, just like all the other people there. Ah. We’d all made deals with the devil.

“Excellent,” the magical fairy creature said.

I blinked and peered through her glamour. What I saw was even more terrifying. Beneath the glorious beauty was inhuman perfection, ice-cold and brutal. An enchantress. A fairy enchantress.

I held very still and tried not to hyperventilate. Fairies were scary enough, raging and mad most of the time, but a fairy enchantress? Enchantresses were notoriously cruel, and I was in a teapot with her. Where was the devil? When would he show up and fix this mess? We were in his pocket world. What had she done to throw him out? He’d come back. He’d save me.

The fairy enchantress waved her wand, and someone screamed while lines of light raced over their skin. “You haven’t been keeping your side of the bargain.” She tsked and smiled sadly. Or sadistically. Her face was so perfect, it was difficult to have much expression.

The person, a woman in pajamas with bright-red dyed hair while the rest of her was normal skin-color, because she wasn’t painted while she was sleeping, cried out as she was raised into the air, covered in white lights. Then, with a pop, she vanished with the scent of ozone and burned hair.

The enchantress strolled to the edge of her mushroom, waving her wand gracefully. “So many good children, carefully following the rules outlined in the deal you’ve been dealt. Such good children.” She pursed her lips, pouting because she couldn’t blow anyone else up. Wait. Why was she bound by the devil’s contracts? Had the devil signed all his contracts over to her? Impossible.

“Back to work with you.” She made shooing motions with her wand.