“Then, ‘Give us light,’ the Devil will cry, and a ring of flame will surround them all.” Jessamy turned, her eyes seeking Sorcha and finding her standing by the hearth, hands clasped at her back. “What sort of fire will that be, Sorcha?”
“Not true hellfire, surely,” the firekeeper said, smiling. She reached up and took down one of the fancy paper matches she and Maisie had made earlier that day. “Flamedry, perhaps, or some other sort of border fire.” She reached the spill into the flames. When it caught, she touched the burning end to the palm of her empty hand, then drew her hands apart again. Strung between the spill in one hand and her opposite palm like the strands of a cat’s cradle was a gleaming thread of fire hung with individual flames that burned downward, fluttering like dangling flags.
Maisie stared in shock. Sorcha laughed again; then, as the paper match burned rapidly down to nothing, she flung her arms sharply wide, and the flaring flags flew to pieces like fireworks.
“So they will have their fire,” Jessamy continued as sparks rained down in the parlor. She tugged Maisie’s hand to reclaim her attention. “ ‘Give us a jury,’ the Devil will call, and the air around them will seem to thicken as spirits emerge out of nowhere, illuminated by the flames just as the ghostly sailors were revealed by the light of a storm bottle in the captain’s tale.” She turned to nod at Captain Frost in his chair by the display cabinet. “All come to determine the winner. And, ‘Give me a song,’ he’ll shout, and all the musicians who ever lost a headcutting with the Devil will find themselves there at the crossroads, their hands bound to do his bidding when he calls until their days are done and they surrender their souls at last.” Jessamy’s hands in her borrowed embroidered gloves twitched as she spoke, but her voice stayed clear and strong as wide-eyed Maisie turned to her to hear the rest of the story.
“And then the headcutters will play,” Jessamy continued, “and the Devil will dance. And a lesser person would despair, because even dancing without his entire soul, the Devil is a whirlwind. But—” She paused. “This will not be a lesser person who stands before him, waiting her turn. And so, although the seiche boy who loves her might reach for her hand, and although she might squeeze his hand back, Petra won’t despair. Because she will have two things the Devil doesn’t know about. So when his dance comes to an end in a whirl of dust and nightmare, the Devil will bow and offer his musicians to Petra. ‘Give the girl a song,’ he will order.”
She held up a finger. “But Petra will refuse. ‘None of your songs for me,’ she’ll say. Because the first thing Petra will have is a song already in her mind. The only song that beats the Devil.” And Jessamy glanced over her shoulder at the twin who sang under his breath when he thought no one could hear and who was at present stitching the binding on a book covered with swirling blue and gold and green paper. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Negret? I know you know it. Whistle a bit for us now.”
And Negret smiled apologetically, for Jessamy Butcher had been the one person he had not wanted to overhear him singing this song. But there was no anger in her face, so he tied a knot and bit off the thread, stood, and delivered the finished book to Sorcha, along with a brief kiss on her cheek. Then, perching on the arm of his chair, he began to whistle the song that the music box with the crossroads scene would never play again, and Maisie’s heart leaped into motion just as it had when she’d heard these same notes played the day before.
Jessamy’s heart did a different kind of lurch, but she forced herself to ignore it. “And the second thing she will have is even rarer than the gift of that song,” she said, compelling warmth into her voice. “And that is nothing. No secrets left to keep, nothing to lose, nothing held back, and nothing she wants more than to beat the Devil. And so she will dance.” She held out her hands to Maisie, and, when Maisie reached back with her own, Jessamy lifted her right up off the ground and twirled the girl in her arms again. “I don’t know for certain that there is any dance the Devil cannot do, and I no longer lay wagers myself. Still, if I did, I would bet that if there is a dance outside his capability, it’s this kind.” She bent the laughing girl back in a dip. “A dance of nothing: nothing hidden, nothing held back—nothing, perhaps, but joy. And if Petra had forgotten how to put those sorts of steps together—many of us do, you know, as we grow—you will have taught her again yourself.”
Maisie sighed with happiness, even though she knew Jessamy had it exactly backwards. The right dance would be everything, not nothing—but perhaps that was how the same steps done by different people could look so very dissimilar while still being technically the same dance. Or the same story told by two people could seem like such entirely different accounts, like the two versions of Amalgam’s tale of the enchanted house in the pines.
“And when she is finished,” Jessamy continued, spinning Maisie back down onto her own two feet, “all the dead and dark things of the jury will declare the winner they have chosen unanimously. ‘The lady takes the game,’ they will say in voices like the tomb, like the wind, like the
