I was almost shocked how easily her power came to me. Perhaps it helped that the Merchant’s shop itself was on the edge of the cold and dark, perhaps it helped that I was extremely fucking angry.
Whatever force had been keeping me in place couldn’t cope with the rage of the Deepwild, and I was easily able to break free of its grip and spring forward, brushing the wooden spike aside like it was a sprig of bracken. The Merchant of Dreams was a trickster and a trader, their business was bargains and lies and traps—there was little they could do against a huntress on the chase. I struck them full in the chest and they fell, cracking awkwardly against the counter and gasping for air. Somehow, they still had that smug, I-know-something-you-don’t-know look in their eyes.
My mother’s voice said now was the moment for the kill, and while I normally tried to resist her, something this time was urging me on. I went for the throat.
The Merchant got their arm up just in time and my teeth closed around their wrist. I tasted blood—that hot copper taste but mingled deep beneath it with something old and cold and still. I smelled the mouldering scent of deep forests and heard the sound of water running. The shadows that had been creeping into the room faded and the chill ebbed out of the air.
Somewhere in an overgrown corner of my heart, the spirit of the hunt still told me to finish the job, to strike and be done, but another more conscious part of me was very much aware that I was in a crowded part of London, kneeling on top of a genderqueer shopkeeper with blood in my mouth.
I backed off. “Shit.”
“You did as you must.” The Merchant climbed to their feet, straightened their suit, and returned to the other side of the counter. “As did I.”
“You know, I’m really not comfortable with this we are but servants to our nature deal.”
“In spite of all evidence to the contrary, it seems.” They bent down and retrieved a slightly dusty first aid box from the floor. “Your blood is your mother’s, as mine is my patron’s.”
I’d hung out with vampires for long enough to be heartily sick of blood talk but painfully aware that it probably meant something. I still had that taste in my mouth of cold metal and dark winters. “You knew I’d attack you.” If I’m honest, it was half a question. But you didn’t ask questions of the Merchant unless you wanted to pay for answers. Of course sometimes the answer was the price in itself.
“You made a wish, and I was bound to respond. And you were bound to respond to that response.”
My eyes narrowed. “What’s your game?”
Which, of course, was a question. The Merchant smiled enigmatically. They’d have answered for a nominal payment—they only cared that they got paid, not how much, it was a faery magic thing. Still I wasn’t about to get further into that mystical bargain bullshit than I had to.
“Forget it, I don’t need an answer to that one.”
Winding a bandage around their wrist, the Merchant gave me a polite nod. “I hope that your friends remain safe, Miss Kane. Although I am forbidden to bargain for their safety against the interests of my patron.”
“I don’t like any of this.”
“Learn to. It will make your life far more bearable. And if you can’t learn to like it, at least learn to understand it. Lives may depend on how well you know yourself.”
That wasn’t happening. Knowing myself was flat bottom of my list of priorities. People who knew me got hurt, and I’d be a sucker to join them. “It’s been weird as always,” I told the Merchant. “Pleasure not doing business with you.”
“Any time.” There was that enigmatic smile again. “And you’re welcome.” They waved me goodbye, making the, I thought, rather cheap decision to use their injured hand for the gesture, despite it obviously still needing some quite serious attention.
I stepped out into the crisp air of the late morning. All this getting up early malarkey had to stop. I’d already arranged a werewolf bodyguard for two undergrads, taken a five mile run in pursuit of a shapeshifting vampire, and bitten a changeling. On any normal day it would be half-past three and I could safely start drinking myself to sleep. Instead I had plenty of time to make—ugh—progress on jobs that actually needed doing. I thought about un-cancelling Dr