I

Oona had never understood what her Jack saw in the girl, with her hair that smelled plain, her flightless limbs, and her woeful ignorance of the proper way to kiss. Being fairy, and having known the fire of fairy men and women (and everything in between, for they came in many forms), Oona could not fathom how any man could choose mortal over fairy. It was akin to choosing warm milk over spiced wine, a waltz over a dizzying sahal, sleep over waking.

Oona had seen Jack born, had watched him grow into the man he was now. From his earliest days she had played with his dreams and desires, coming to him in forms that had easily enticed many a mortal. Oona had lived a thousand years and a thousand more, and mortal men were her playthings.

All but this one, who stubbornly remained innocent and unknowing of all the fruits she could offer him.

And so it was that she could not leave off chasing him. Gump and the others chided her for it, scolding that mischief was one thing, persistent meddling in the lives of mortals another. She brushed them away and listened only to the burning in her hummingbird heart, the burning that could only be quenched when she possessed this man completely.

Oona had felt sure that this girl was a momentary distraction, as all mortal girls were wont to be. Her too-tall self with its coverings of poorly-spun silk (how thoroughly they covered themselves, these mortal women!) would surely dance briefly into Jack's life and dance quickly out again, leaving him heartbroken when she was married off to one of those equally horrible mortal royals, with the stink of age hanging off them as foul as the smell of their musty robes.

But the girl remained, longer than Oona or even Gump had predicted. Oona saw that Gump was wary of her and sought an alliance to do away with her, but Gump would have none of it, only muttering that the girl would be Jack's downfall, and perhaps the downfall of everything. When Oona visited Jack's dreams she fought for space with this troublesome girl. Jack's desires would not bend so easily to her when they were already bending to another.

Oona pined, and Oona raged, and for a time she vanished into the depths of the forest, not caring whether she lived or died. Her small body grew frail, kept alive only by the spirit of the trees and the mist that had borne her.

And as she lay there on the brink of death, she knew the answer to her question. She must seek an alliance with the Creature of the Great Tree.

II

Fairy folk rarely ventured into the realm of the Great Tree, which spread its dark limbs over a darker lake, its roots twisting and penetrating the scorched earth like the veins of a long-dead monster. The air was thick where the fairy forest air was light and perfumed. The only sounds were the cries of the strange birds and lake-creatures that dwelt there, and sometimes a cry of pain, or pleasure, seemingly uttered from the lips of a ghost.

Oona did not fear this place, though she preferred trees surrounded by light. She had learned the secrets of the lake, could sing a lullaby that would send the lake-hag Meg into peaceful sleep. Her only fear was what lay inside the Tree.

She had come before—curious, as fairies were—and had seen half-human creatures eating their own flesh. Fairy-like creatures boiled in a giant pot. Satyrs and children fashioning necklaces of human bones. And all manner of copulation, among all manner of creatures.

Oona had found that the Creature of the Great Tree enjoyed playing on the mortal confusion that went hand in hand with desires forced beneath the surface. It watched gleefully as the pious man licked the flesh of a priest and shuddered with a mixture of revulsion and need. It smiled on the nubile girl whose words refused her cousin's roving hands but whose body was wet and open to his touch. It delighted in teasing out illicit desires from fertile mortal imaginations and bringing those desires to life, making the Great Tree into a circus of want, fulfillment, punishment, pleasure, and pain.

It was this great revelry that Oona saw as she entered the Great Tree, and she did not fear it, not in the way that she was sickened by the blood and carnage that were also the Creature's domain. Let mortals wring their hands over what flesh moved toward naturally—the fairy folk scoffed at such silliness.

She moved through a sea of bodies separated into groups, pairs, and even the solitary. Hands brushed her small breasts, mouths drank in the scent of her fairy skin. She saw a young boy entwined with myriad bodies and kissed his smooth neck, imagining for a moment that he was Jack.

The Creature of the Great Tree reclined on his throne in the form of a dark-haired man, clad in black silk, his pale skin gleaming in the light of the torches. A young man suckled his fingers while a red-haired girl held a yellow-haired girl firmly on the stone ground beneath his throne, hissing violent invitations as the red-haired girl writhed. The Creature's eyes were closed. Oona imagined she could see tendrils of desire wafting up from every body in the room, circling the Creature in a warm embrace from which it had no desire to awaken.

Awaken it she must, though, if she was to have what she wanted. "My Lord of Darkness." Oona's small voice rang out in the midst of moans and gasps. "I seek audience with you."

The eyelids of the dark-haired man flickered. He showed no other sign that he had heard her. "A fairy visitor to the Great Tree, such an honor." His voice crackled with the flames. "Why not join the dance, little one? Or are these mortals beneath you?"

Oona ignored the caresses of a nearby group. "I seek audience with you, my Lord. I would offer you a gift."

The dark-haired man looked her full in the face then, and Oona saw eyes that flashed red, teeth that smiled sharply. He cocked his head at her, a bird of prey intrigued by a new meal.

"I will grant you your audience, little one. Pray you that the gift be worth the trouble."

The bodies on the floor of the throne room flickered and shifted until the vast room was empty and silent. The body of the Creature also flickered and shifted. Oona saw an image of a wolf, then a dragon, then a woman with long teeth, and finally the Creature began to turn red, rising in height to tower over her, black horns and red skin glistening, yellow eyes gleaming.

The voice that emerged rumbled deeper than before. "What gift do you offer me?"

Oona met the yellow eyes. "Innocence."

The Dark Lord's expression was unreadable. "I know not of what you speak."

"A mortal girl, my Lord. One who is unknown to men. One who has no lust of her own, whose mind is empty of desires, save for the pure love of a mortal man."

The creature on the throne laughed. "You offer me a fool's gift, little one. No mortal girl who has seen thirteen summers has a mind empty of desires."

Oona shifted her own body until it grew tall. She wrapped herself in the strange, hiding garments of the mortal girl, made her hair grow long and dark, and twirled in the way that she had seen the other do for Jack.

"Jack, my Jack!" She laughed and scampered about the throne room, imagining it to be a forest. "Tell me your secrets, dearest Jack!"

She felt the Creature's eyes on her like a taut rope, felt the hunger rolling off of him in waves. She danced to the edge of his throne and stared up at him, mortal eyes like pools of pure water.

"Teach me to love, dearest Jack!"

The yellow eyes locked with hers. A taloned hand reached out slowly for the smiling face. Oona let his hand come within a hair's breadth of her smooth cheek…and quickly danced away, her form shifting back into its fairy-self.

The Dark Lord clenched his hand into a fist, and a slow smile played at the corners of his mouth. "What would you ask in return, little one?

Oona smiled. "Only that the girl be taken away from the world, my Lord, to never leave your side."

The creature stood, moving toward Oona with slow, deliberate strides. She stared up into his horned face, forcing her eyes not to look away, willing her mind not to remember the more bloody festivities that had taken place in the Great Tree.

He smiled down at her, white teeth gleaming. "I believe we have a bargain."

His hand touched her cheek, one finger trailing down from her ear to her neck. His skin was ice that burned. His touch sent a flood of images through her mind, images that would have any mortal woman in his grip, she knew. She grinned happily. Jack would be hers.