Page 68 of Sequel to the Easter Bunny

But Juun doesn’t come to me. She sits—on a stool that is just a man bent over backward, his waist and groin wrapped in thorns—at a table formed of yet more men. They’re held at contorted angles by spindly sharp cactus branches that have been dried and burnt by the harsh light from above. Those brittle lines are black against their reddened and roasting flesh.

The game in front of her might be chess, but it’s no version I’ve ever seen. And when she plucks the next piece to make her move, a wickedly jagged blade extends from its base. When she sets it back on the board, the barest whimper escapes the man beneath it.

I can’t imagine what bargain these men made that would be worth the punishment she so readily inflicts.

“Would you like to play?” Juun asks, though I don’t trust the invitation.

“I doubt I could afford to lose.”

The faintest smile touches at her lips, and she stands, leaving her stool, shaking from the loss of her weight.

That smile disappears as her eyes drag over me.

“I don’t like this,” she plucks at the flowy sleeve of the dress with a deep scowl.

“Jack chose it. I am in the habit of pleasing Jack when I can… as he is of me.”

“You do seem to like pleasing the gods. Tell me, how can you claim to love Jack and still be so quick to play with the trickster? And so publicly at that?”

“I wouldn’t have been in a position to need to trick Minoka if you hadn’t put me there.”

She watches me, emotionless, not acknowledging her own culpability.

Turning back to the table, she studies her pieces. Placing a finger on top of one of the pawns and wiggling it until the man beneath her screws his eyes shut and a tear drags down the dust-caked skin of his cheek.

“Perhaps,” she says, pulling a piece shaped like a tower with a blade dripping in blood, “You can put your seductive powers to use.”

Dread flutters over my skin and I force myself to stay still, to wait for her to tell me my next, seemingly impossible task.

“Ester has been distraught since Cupid left us.” Stabbing another pawn through the board, she looks at me with a too-satisfied smile. “You have until sunset to seduce Cupid away from their nuns and back to our realm.”

“But the nuns haven’t been around for a hundred years.”

Juun laughs cruelly. “You already know time works differently here.”

She stalks slowly to me with her hands behind her back. It’s not until she stands in front of me that I realise I should have been wary.

She snatches the egg necklace from my throat, tearing the chain away. “You’ll get this back if you complete your task.”

Before I can argue or try to snatch it back, Juun shoves me backward and I fall through a blinding brightness.

I land on my back in the middle of a thick pile of pine needles and gasp, trying to reclaim the air that’s been driven straight out of my lungs.

I don’t know how many minutes, or even hours I waste, trying to breathe again.

But when the pain and panic recede, I’m surrounded by sharp birdsong in the chill light of morning.

Like Bees & Honey

The godswood is colder this time around. Summer is gone, but I don’t know which winter this is.

From here, I can see the nunnery’s bell tower. The rising sun paints it in pinks and orange hues.

It’s pretty as a painting, but a prickling feeling slides over my skin as I take that first step toward it.

Like it’s the last place on Earth I should want to go.

A little voice at the back of my mind tells me to turn back.

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