Page 11 of Reap & Sow

The demon merely smiled, reaching out to wipe at the tear rolling down her cheek. “You are wise to save your grief for one more deserving, sweet Eda. Now sleep. All will be well.”

Eda, seven years old and weeping and desperate for a father she did not have, clutched her blanket and whispered, “You promise?”

“I know it.”

Now I’m a woman grown, and he looks just the same.

She sat beside him—at a healthy distance. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon.”

“Indeed. I mislike your mortal world. So full of noise and mess. But I enjoy speaking with you, dear one.” He sat angled toward her with hands clasped neatly in his lap. There was artifice in it, as one might sit for a portrait. He smelled like something wintry and ancient.

She chose her words carefully. “What would you like to speak about?”

“Our Pact, of course. I meant what I said. You should be happy with your freedom so close at hand. But dear Benjamin is ever dour. He mistrusts me, though I’ve never acted false.” Silver eyes narrowed. “Do you mistrust me?”

Eda recalled the tears he’d wiped away when she was seven. The constant presence he’d posed throughout her life, seen and unseen. He was frightening. He was dangerous. He held her life in the palm of his cruel, pale hand.

Besides her brothers and this shop, he was the only constant she’d ever known. “Perhaps I should.” She watched the flames dance in the hearth. “Ben thinks you intend to trick us.”

“Benjamin is foolish. You are not.” The praise warmed her. “You see the greed and the selfishness of man as I do, Eda Shaw. Your brothers and all the rest despise my kind, yet they yearn for our gifts—our power. Hypocrisy is in your nature. As an attraction to precious things is mine.” He looked abstract in the nebulous orange light. “And nothing is so precious as time itself.”

This was why he never seemed to age. Demons siphoned years off a mortal life to extend their own. And once our Pact is done, Mr. Night won’t have anyone to bring him his years like grapes on a platter. He hadn’t needed to lift a finger in two decades; would he so easily give that up?

“What will happen once our debt is paid? The Gateway is still here. Do you…expect us to continue looking after it?” The words came thick as treacle, reluctant as she was to give them voice.

“I’ve no expectations beyond the fulfillment of your father’s Pact. Bring me those ten years, and your life shall be your own.”

Eda chewed her lip. Logically, there was no way to trust Mr. Night, though he’d never done anything to earn that distrust beyond being what he was. Why should she resent him when it was her father who’d placed them in Mr. Night’s thrall? For all his terrible power, all the years he’d stolen, Eda could rely on his selfish nature. To demand what he was owed and nothing more.

Humans, she found, were rarely so straightforward.

“A new cleric has come to the city looking for people like us. Ben and Lawrie don’t want to carry on hunting marks. They think it’ll pass before autumn harvest, but…” She could not say it. But if it doesn’t, you’ll kill us.

She wanted him to tell her that he would never do it, no matter their agreement. But it was easy to imagine him looking at her with those cutting eyes, saying, A deal is a deal, as if her life meant nothing. Perhaps it didn’t. To him, these twenty years must have passed like twenty minutes. What care could he have, for such a fleeting acquaintance?

Eda wanted him to care. She was mad, probably—something deeply askew in her gray matter—but couldn’t help it. Her brothers had ever been terrified and hateful of him, and so Mr. Night did not come to them of his own volition. But in Eda, he’d found a willing ear. A girl both unnerved and fascinated by the creature from another world. He’d watched her grow up, and she had watched him back, this strange shadow of a man. Mr. Night showed her grace where Ben criticized, encouraged her where Lawrie doubted. He listened to her. He knew her, sometimes better than her own brothers did. Certainly better than Oswin ever had.

Mr. Night was not her family. Eda wondered what it said about her, that she craved his favor as though he were.

“I don’t want to wait for my brothers,” she confessed. “Ben’s hesitation could damn us all. I could find us one final Pact, I know I could.”

Mr. Night leaned forward. Eda held her breath as he brushed her hair over her shoulder. “Do this thing, sweet Eda, and you will be free of fear. You are more than capable. I have never doubted your ability.” His voice softened. “I have never doubted you.”

She considered him. Eda’s most scathing inner thoughts often echoed Mr. Night’s voice—perhaps because he dispensed his disparagement so freely, and she dreaded it ever turning on her. But that made his approval all the headier. He was right: Eda was as much affected by her father’s deal as Ben and Lawrie. She had a right to act. Lying low to avoid the hangman’s noose was well and good, but what use would it be if Mr. Night executed them just the same?

Better the devil you know…

Eda searched his eyes. “You’re so certain.”

He smiled, wolfish. “I know it.”

Two days passed before she gathered the courage to act.

Finding potential dealies had always been Ben and Lawrie’s task, but Eda wasn’t ignorant of their routine. She knew the way of things.

First and most important—keeping identities hidden.

She frowned at herself in the mirror. Having an attic room meant that the wall sloped sharply, leaving little space to stand back and evaluate her outfit, but she managed. She’d borrowed a pair of Lawrie’s dirty trousers from the washing basket, since he wouldn’t notice them missing, rolled up thrice at the ankles. Eda wore one of Ben’s old jerkins that he’d given her years ago; not the most flattering cut, she thought, but warm. Last was her wool cloak. It was a dreary brown affair, boasting a long hem and a deep hood. She pulled it up to assess the overall effect.