There have always been whispers.

Whispers that promised impossible things.

Tales of simple tailors suddenly sewing the robes of kings, of plain maidens catching the eye of a handsome prince, wondrous things that were simply too far out of reach for any commoner. Whispers that made children wish for a miracle, for magic.

Whispers that tempted nuns to reach for their rosaries, for priests to murmur warnings against the Devil's work. Magic is a crime against the natural order of things, they'd say, it was simply too dangerous to give in to something so wild and sinful.

But children have no patience for such warnings. Magic was simply a thing that was, and would always be, the stuff of daydreams and silent wishes.

Alas, it is human nature to be curious, and in the case of one ambitious girl, it was nearly her undoing.

She could never have known that the choice that she made that day would throw her headlong into the arms of fate. She could never have known that she tempted the wrath of a creature far too alien for her to understand. Too old to decipher.

She could never have known that she was about to make a bargain that would change everything.