Page 30 of The Demon Prince

“How many young women dangle their feet over the dangerous muck of this kingdom? I taught you a lesson.”

“You were needlessly mean. If you aren’t going to yank me into the water, then why threaten me?” Katherine wrapped her arms around her waist, sitting uncomfortably on the hard planks and waiting for whatever it was to rise out of the water.

And yet, nothing did. Nothing even moved at all.

She listened to the faint hum of zipping dragonfly wings and the burbles of popping bubbles before she cleared her throat. “Are you going to answer me?”

“I’m waiting to see what you’ll do next.”

“Why?”

“Because I have never met a human who could speak with me before. Your kind are... well, notoriously unaware of their surroundings.”

She wondered why it had struggled to find such cutting words. When it paused, she’d already assumed it was thinking less than savory thoughts. But then it seemed to pick the worst words to say to her, as though it was searching for what would insult her the most.

A fluttering memory cut through her thoughts. Gluttony, his back turned to her but golden candlelight illuminating his handsome features. He had called her brave.

So she supposed she would continue to be brave.

Katherine rolled onto her belly and crawled to the edge of the walkway. Curling her fingers over the edge, she took a deep, steadying breath before slowly pulling herself over the edge and peering underneath.

At first, all she saw were shadows. Just the green glow of the same spirit beneath her, his grin a little too toothy for her comfort. And then there was nothing at all. She’d thought to see some giant, frog-like creature with a mouth full of sharp teeth. Instead, she looked into nothing. Just boards that were covered with algae and moss, as expected, and the bubbling surface of the water.

And yet... Narrowing her eyes, she turned her attention to a strange mass of shadows that coagulated in the very corner where there was a post holding up the walkway. There it was. A strange mass of shadows that shifted when it realized it was the object of her attention.

“So it’s you,” she muttered.

“You can see me?”

“I can see spirits, yes. My mother could as well. It’s why she was so obsessed with your kind.” And perhaps her mother hadn’t been crazy after all. Katherine remembered her prattling on about spirits that looked like colored mist.

People in the town had always assumed she’d meant the ones in the water. The dead bodies that stared up through the bog, with no memories or feelings at all. Just rage.

But this was a real spirit. Like the ones her mother had spoken of.

“My mother used to tell me about balls of light that followed people around,” she murmured, still upside down and staring. “She told me they were always here, no matter how many times we tried to escape them. She said it was a gift for us to be able to see you all, and to know who you were. To speak with you as though you were like us.”

The undulating darkness paused a bit, and then shuddered. “Humans aren’t meant to know we exist.”

Perhaps not. But her mother had been deemed mad for knowing it, so really, there weren’t a lot of people like her.

Fingers carded through her hair, and she realized her horrible mistake. Her red locks had gotten too long lately, and leaning over like this only caused them to dangle just above the water. And one stray coil had touched the surface. Just enough for the spirit to reach up and run his fingers through her hair.

“Ugh!” Disgusted, she wrenched away from him before he could grab a handful and tug her into the bog. She’d never get away from him then!

Drowning would be a terrible way to die.

Landing hard on her rump yet again, Katherine stared at the water as the little black spirit burst into laughter. It seemed to enjoy her fear and her reaction to the horrible sensation of that dead man’s fingers. She would never forget that moment. Even now, her skin crawled as though he had touched her all over.

The black mass rolled up onto the boardwalk, shuddering with its own mirth. “Oh, that was hilarious! I enjoyed that very much. Do it again.”

“No,” she hissed, wringing out the stray drops of water in her curls. “Who are you, anyway?”

It gathered itself up, almost as though it was trying very hard to look larger. “Do you not recognize a dangerous spirit when you see one?”

She pointed toward the water. “Of course I do. That one is very dangerous. I don’t think you hold much danger to you at all.”

It deflated before muttering something so quiet she couldn’t hear. “Fine. You may call me Spite.”

---