Page 58 of Sequel to the Easter Bunny

Her words are just as sharp. “How did you manage that?”

I have a feeling she’s holding back what she’d like to say.

“I made a bargain. Isn’t that what you all love so much? You made me play this game, you can’t blame me for playing by your rules.”

Snatching the flute from my hand, Juun turns her back on me and with her free hand, raises a fiery basin from the stones.

“Please don’t.”

Juun stops, rigid. “You have no place asking me to do anything.”

“Don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself.” She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t move. “There may come a time when you need something or want to trade something back to Diyo. That flute might be your only leverage.”

“There is nothing that would make me give this back to that goat.”

She throws the flute into a fire and I see its glittering reflection in her eyes when she turns back to me with a smile so wide it makes my own jaw hurt.

Behind her, the fire burns, the metal melts….

And then the horrific screech of the harmonica echoes through the domain and Juun covers her ears, eyes lit with the same sharp fire, but stoked even higher.

She turns sharply to the door from her domain. “What is that?”

“A harmonica.”

Flaring with fire, her gaze returns to me. “That wasn’t part of the arrangement.”

“You told me to get you the flute. You didn’t say anything about trading for something that sounded worse.”

She turns back to the basin and the melted pool of metal beneath those flames.

Maybe she could salvage it, but I doubt her pride would let her.

The screech she lets out is loud enough it makes her throne flinch.

I refuse to be cowed.

“What task do you require of me next?” I ask, ignoring the incessant clank of the cowbell from beyond.

Hand sweeping over her face, nails biting into her own skin this time as she grips the lower half of her face, she stalks to her throne, sitting heavily enough on it that they whimper.

I don’t know what deals they made. I cannot comment on their suffering until I’ve dealt with my own It doesn’t matter how much worse theirs is.

“If you want to keep my son,” she says after too long of a silence. “You must gain Gren’s blessing.”

The god of autumn features in more good bedtime stories than bad.

“What do you require as proof of that blessing?”

A cruel smile twitches at her lips and I know she thinks she’s beaten me again. “Tell them to rebuild the connection between my domain and Heim’s.”

The Rise & The Fall

This time, Jack doesn’t stand when I rejoin him and instead, I sink onto his lap, dropping my head to lean against him and let the sound of his heartbeat ground me. Let the darkness cool me.

“I’m glad your next task hasn’t sent you into your world without letting me say goodbye.”

“It might not require going out into my world at all.” When I look up at him, his brows quirk, waiting.

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