“But she’s going without us,” Maisie protested. “Why would she go with them? They’re not her friends.”
“I think Mr. Sullivan would take issue with that,” Jessamy observed drily, hanging the girl’s shawl from a corner of the mantelpiece. “But Maisie, she isn’t going without us.” She returned to the door and crouched at Maisie’s side as they watched the trio walking on the water toward a bend in the river, nearly out of sight. “Just imagine. Imagine our friend. Days from now, when she and her companions reach the source of the Skidwrack. And imagine it isn’t a spring, but a crossroads.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m telling this story,” Jessamy said softly. “And because my stories are all stories of crossroads.”
Maisie sighed and nodded.
“So let me tell it properly. Listen.” She glanced over her shoulder into the parlor. “Listen. That’s the way to begin, isn’t it, Mr. Amalgam?”
Phineas Amalgam inclined his head as he left the corner table and settled once more into the vacant chair by the fire. “Tell it however you see fit, my dear. May we stay?”
“If you like.” Jessamy turned back to the river, and to the girl who watched it, searching for moving silhouettes in the darkness.
EIGHTEEN
THE CROSSROADS
The Headcutter’s Tale
LISTEN. DEEP IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY, there is a crossroads. Perhaps it is a literal one, a place where two roads intersect; perhaps it is one like the boy Foulk saw reflected in a puddle. Either way, they will come to a crossroads, these three. And at that crossroads, who will our Petra find there but that same man in his long coat and gray fedora, the one she met so many years ago on the night she sent a cat’s bone upriver.”
Jessamy could have described that crossroads from memory, and the fingerpost that stood there, one arm pointing off in the direction of the river that would twist and turn its way to Nagspeake and the others pointing, perhaps, to even stranger places. It would have looked very much like the scene painted on the music box that, without its winder, could no longer perform the one song the Devil himself could not play. (And in fact, months from that day, Mrs. Haypotten would remember that the box with the crossroads was missing its winder. When she fitted it with a new one, the innkeeper’s wife wound the box and lifted the lid, only to frown as the first notes of “Riverward” began to tinkle out. “I could’ve sworn it was the kite-shaped box as played that one,” she murmured. “This one played . . .” But for the life of her, she couldn’t remember what tune she had expected to hear. The song danced out of reach, refusing to be remembered even as it refused to be forgotten.)
But now: “She’ll meet that man again,” Jessamy said to Maisie. “And she’ll walk up to him, her feet sure and confident from miles of walking on water, and she’ll say, ‘Take the waters from my river.’ And the man in the fedora will smile at her—the smile of someone who doesn’t quite understand what’s about to happen, but thinks he knows, and thinks he has his world safely in his own hands.”
Maisie, who had seen that very expression on the face of Antony Masseter in the moments before Petra had shown him the music box, nodded. But her wide eyes did not leave the Skidwrack.
Jessamy leaned closer to Maisie’s ear. “And the man will say, ‘I will make you a bet.’ He will whisper it, because only fools who are bluffing shout their wagers.” She glanced over her shoulder, back into the parlor. “Isn’t that true, Mr. Tesserian?”
Cross-legged by the hearth, Al Tesserian nodded. “That’s the way of it, in my experience.”
“And Petra’s two companions, standing at her back, will share a look between them then. The seiche who never believed he could love anyone, who did not think he deserved to love or be loved after the things he’s done but who loves Petra, and would gladly make bets with the Devil for her sake; and the one-eyed merchant who cannot afford to see her fail. The look that passes between them, however, is not one of worry, because they have walked with her on the river for days now, and they have shared enough adventures to know better than the Devil what he is about to tangle with.”
Maisie gave a tiny, conspiratorial smirk.
“ ‘Not a bet,’ Petra will say. ‘A contest.’ The man in the fedora will grin again and show his teeth, because now that the challenge has been made, all he has to do is accept. ‘What shall the contest be?’ he will ask, still thinking he can afford to give away such advantages as choosing the conditions. And what do you think Petra will say?” Jessamy glanced at the old, gaunt lady standing at Maisie’s other side. “Madame?”
Madame lifted a hand, as if the answer could not be more obvious. “Surely Petra will say, ‘We shall dance.’”
Maisie’s smirk widened.
“Petra will say, ‘We shall dance,’” Jessamy repeated, taking one of Maisie’s hands in hers and turning the girl in a circle and drawing her away from the open doors. Far away on the river, three tiny figures disappeared around a bend and into legend; back in the parlor, a young girl laughed as a woman wearing gloves and stigmata spun her again, faster.
“Can the Devil dance?” Maisie asked, reeling.
“Mr. Amalgam, you know the lore,” Jessamy said. “Is the Devil any good at dancing?”
From his chair, Amalgam replied, “The Devil’s good at whatever he needs to be good at.”
“So the Devil can dance,” Jessamy continued, “but he bears the burden of too many secrets—every secret kept out of malice, every secret kept out of fear, every secret kept out of ignorance the Devil carries with him, in case they might be useful to him someday. And as you know,” she said, touching Maisie’s shoulder with one gloved finger, “a
