Read Chapter 1: The Bargain

The wind carried the smell of rain and the dying bonfires from the village below. Maeve O'Connell stood at the edge of the standing stones, her mother's shawl pulled tight against the Samhain chill, and she did not feel the cold at all. She felt nothing but the hollow scrape of fear in her chest, the kind that had been gnawing at her for three weeks now, since the doctor had looked at Declan's pale face and said *consumption* in that soft, sorry way of his.

The stones were older than the church, older than the village, older than any story her gran had ever told her. And her gran had told her plenty. Maeve had grown up on tales of the Good People, of the thin places between worlds, of what happened to girls who made bargains on Samhain night. She had laughed at them then, the way you laugh at a ghost story with the lights on.

The lights were off now.

"Declan O'Connell," she said into the wind, her voice cracking on the first word. She cleared her throat and tried again, louder. "Declan O'Connell, aged nine years, of the townland of Ballymore. I'm calling on the Good People. I'm calling on whoever's listening. I've got whiskey and bread and a silver coin, and I need—"

"You need more than that."

The voice came from behind her, smooth as cream poured over a scarred wooden bar. Maeve spun, and there he was, leaning against the largest of the stones as if he'd been there all along. A man, or something wearing a man's shape. Tall, dark-haired, with eyes the color of peat smoke and a smile that didn't quite reach them. He wore a coat of deep green velvet, old-fashioned in its cut, and silver rings glinted on his fingers.

Maeve's gran had a word for men like this: *fae*. And her gran had another word for girls who spoke to fae men at crossroads on Samhain: *foolish*.

"You're not the doctor," Maeve said. Her voice shook, but she held her ground. "And you're not welcome unless you can help."

The man—the thing—laughed, a sound like water over stones. "Straight to it, then. No dancing around the fire for you, Maeve O'Connell."

"You know my name."

"I know a great many things." He pushed off the stone and circled her slowly, his boots making no sound on the wet grass. "I know your brother is dying. I know you've already tried every cure the mortal world can offer, and every one of your gran's old remedies besides. I know you pawned your mother's brooch yesterday to pay for the doctor's last visit, and it wasn't enough."

Maeve's hand flew to her collar, where the brooch should have been. Her fingers found only wool. "You're watching me."

"Watching is such an ugly word." He stopped in front of her, close enough that she could smell him—wood smoke and autumn leaves and something else, something green and growing. "I prefer to say I've been *aware* of you, Maeve O'Connell. Of your brother's plight. Of your desperation. It's a rare thing, to see such devotion in a mortal. Most of your kind would have given up by now."

"I won't give up." The words came out harder than she meant them to. "Not on Declan. He's just a boy. He's—he's all I have left, since Mam and Da—"

"Died in the fever of '98." Ciarán finished her sentence with an almost gentle smile. "Yes. I know that too. You've been running that pub on your own since you were seventeen, raising a child who isn't yours to raise—"

"He *is* mine." Maeve's voice broke on the word. "He's mine. I changed his nappies. I taught him his letters. I sang him to sleep through every storm, and I will not—" She stopped, pressed her fist to her mouth, and forced herself to breathe. "I will not let him die."

For a long moment, the fairy said nothing. The wind picked up, carrying the scent of the bonfires below, and somewhere in the distance a dog howled. Ciarán studied her with those smoke-colored eyes, and Maeve had the uncomfortable feeling of being weighed on a scale in some marketplace she couldn't see.

"Seven years," he said at last.

"What?"

"A bargain. You will give me seven years of your life. Not your soul—souls are such messy currency, and frankly, I've never seen the appeal. Just your time. Seven years, bound to my service, in my court and at my pleasure."

Maeve's heart was beating so hard she could feel it in her throat. "And Declan?"

"Declan will be cured. The consumption will leave his lungs as if it had never been. He'll grow up strong and whole, and he'll live a long, full life—or as full a life as any mortal can manage."

She should have been relieved. She should have felt the weight lift off her chest. Instead, something cold settled in her stomach, something that whispered *too easy, too easy, nothing from the fairies is ever easy*. She'd heard the old stories. She knew the price was never just what it seemed.

"And what does 'service' mean, exactly?" she asked, keeping her voice steady. "Am I to be your servant? Your—" she swallowed—"your plaything?"

Ciarán laughed again, but there was something almost kind in it this time. "You've been listening to too many fireside tales, girl. I'm not asking for your body or your children or your firstborn. I'm asking for your time. Seven years of it, given freely and without complaint. You'll work in my household, tend to the gardens, maybe pour a glass of wine for a guest now and then. You'll find it not unlike the pub, if you squint."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then your brother dies." He said it simply, without cruelty, as if he were remarking on the weather. "He'll be dead by the new moon, and you'll bury him in the churchyard beside your parents, and you'll spend the rest of your life wondering if you could have saved him."

The words hit her like a physical blow. She thought of Declan's face, thin and pale against the pillow. He'd smiled at her this morning, a weak, brave little smile, and said, *"Don't worry, Maeve. I'll be grand."* He'd been trying to comfort her. Even now, with death scratching at his door, he was trying to protect her.

Maeve lifted her chin. "How do I know you'll keep your word?"

For the first time, something flickered in Ciarán's eyes—respect, maybe, or surprise. He reached into his coat and pulled out a small silver whistle, delicate and intricate, engraved with patterns that seemed to shift and move when she looked at them directly. He held it out to her.

"This is my token. Take it, and keep it with you always. As long as you hold it, you hold a claim on me, and no one in my court will harm you." His smile turned sharp. "It's a rare gift, Maeve O'Connell. Most of our bargains don't come with insurance."

She reached for the whistle, and at the moment her fingers touched the cool metal, a shiver ran up her arm. The whistle was warm, almost alive, and she had the sudden, dizzying sensation of standing on the edge of a very high cliff.

"Say the words," Ciarán said. "Say them freely, of your own will, and the bargain is sealed."

Maeve wrapped her fingers around the whistle and thought of Declan. She thought of the way he laughed, loud and bright, when she told him bad jokes. She thought of the way he'd learned to pour a proper pint last summer, standing on a stool behind the bar, his face a mask of concentration. She thought of the future she'd imagined for him—university, maybe, or a trade. A wife. Children of his own. A life.

A life.

"I, Maeve O'Connell," she said, and her voice rang out across the stones, clear and certain, "do freely give seven years of my life to the service of the fairy lord Ciarán. In exchange for the healing of my brother Declan, and his protection from all harms, mortal and otherwise, until the end of his natural days."

The words felt strange in her mouth, heavier than they should have been. The wind died. The bonfire smoke hung still in the air. And Ciarán smiled—a real smile this time, or close enough to one that it made something in Maeve's chest twist.

"Sealed," he said.

The ground lurched beneath her feet. The stones around her seemed to stretch and warp, the sky wheeling overhead like a painted backdrop caught in a storm. Maeve cried out and grabbed for Ciarán, her fingers closing on the velvet of his sleeve, and he caught her easily, steadying her with a hand on her elbow.

"Steady now," he murmured. "The crossing can be rough the first time."

The world snapped back into focus—but not the same world. The sky was a deep, burnished gold, the color of autumn at its height, and the air was warm and thick with the scent of ripening apples. The stones were still there, but they were covered in climbing roses now, red and white and deep purple, and beyond them stretched a meadow of impossible green, dotted with trees that bore fruit and flowers at once.

"Where—" Maeve started.

"The court of Autumn," Ciarán said. "Your new home, for the next seven years." He looked at her, and that flicker of something moved in his eyes again. "You'll have a moment to catch your breath. The queen will want to meet you."

Maeve looked down at the whistle in her hand, then back at the impossible sky. Somewhere, in another world, Declan was breathing easier. She had to believe that. She had to hold on to it, the way she held on to the silver whistle, a talisman against the fear creeping up her spine.

"What does the queen want with me?" she asked.

Ciarán's smile turned enigmatic. "That, Maeve O'Connell, is a very good question. One I suspect you'll be answering sooner than you'd like."