Pebbles clattered as Fig gasped upon dirt. She felt twigs and rocks cutting at her knees and palms. Her vision flashed with too-bright colors like the rings of the demon’s eyes.

The demon. It was groaning.

She blinked the colors away and heaved as if resurfaced from deep water. The twisted shape of the black hare appeared between strobes. Its head hung limp, angled away from the rest of its body a pace to her right. She watched as it pressed up with its legs and used its antlers as a fulcrum to tuck its neck back into place.

“Good one,” it huffed over cracking joints.

Fig fell to her side and watched the demon shake itself back into shape. The edges of its hare body trembled with far more black fur than before.

“What happened to your eyes?” she asked. All but the traditional two were gone.

The demon twitched its nose at her. “Everything has a cost.”

Fig considered this as the world skewed sideways. If she squinted, the creature could be a normal animal. Almost.

She looked up and beyond it. They lay beneath a canopy of leaves. The curves and branches of the trees were a mostly familiar sight, and although she spotted a few plants she did not recognize, they were similar in shape or color to those she knew. She wondered how far they’d gone.

“Get up,” the demon ordered. “He doesn’t like to wait.”

She rolled onto her feet. Her pack felt heavier than before and threw off her balance. The demon waited as she steadied herself against a tree. So much of magic was dizziness, disorientation. She might as well train by throwing herself into the sea.

“Straight ahead,” the demon squeaked.

She blinked. There was nothing ahead but more trees. She said so, and yet the demon only stared at her. Snapping its neck seemed to have soured its mood.

So she walked. As much as she tried to block the demon’s magic from her mind, a stronger, more overwhelming sensation thrust itself into her head as she stepped. A magic like screaming. Deafening, horrible screaming that tasted of spoiled food.

Fig had just opened her mouth to complain of this when before her, as if hardened from vapor, appeared the bleached skull of an elk. It was stretched to twice the length it ought to be, crowned with dark horns, and gouged by a dozen orbits. The skull hovered above her — no, not hovered, but perched on a gangly, twisted spine with the posture of a cat and dripping with a gossamer cloak. Dots of the same otherworldly brightness as the hare demon shimmered from beneath the fabric, but only four eyes glowed blue like flame in their sockets. The rest were empty as if plucked by scavengers. Fig pressed her lips together as she watched each eye roll forward to meet her gaze.

“Welcome.”

She bowed her head. Part in respect, part to hide her fear-stricken face from the creature. The magic festering in it was revolting, even more pungent than the hare’s. It crawled beneath her skin. She wanted to run, run forever. Instead she bit down on her cheek.

“No thanks?” it mused, head rattling on its neck in a staccato. “Fair to begin with a clean slate.”

The demon — for that’s what it must be — paced in a tight circle before settling on a flat slab of stone. Its body folded like a human’s if its proportions had been stretched from clay. Fig scanned the sudden, unfamiliar clearing. Where once was forest now lay a darkened meadow dotted with winding, sickly flora.

The gaping skull clicked forward, then down. The enormity of its horns loomed as the wretched hole where a nose once was bounced twice in the puppetry of a sniff. “Though perhaps not so clean, hm?”

Fig’s pulse raced. She worked to keep her voice steady. “I understand you have information for me.”

“Information.” The demon ate each syllable. “Could be. That depends, of course.”

“On?”

“On who exactly you are.”

She thought for only a moment before raising her chin. “I go by Fig.”

The demon clucked a nonexistent tongue. “That name is almost empty.”

She scrounged for what scraps she threw the townspeople. “Ila. Nor. Rye. Fennel. Marjoram.”

It shook its head with each one. “No, no, no, no, no.”

She heard her mother’s voice, darkened with sleep, whispering her true name, the name she could not part with. “I have no other name to give.”

“Then we have no business here.” The elk demon unfolded to stand. The not-hare bounded up the creature’s arm to rest on its shoulder and mutter imperceptibly.

Fig shifted her weight between her feet.

“Ah,” the elk demon focused its eyes upon her once more. “Well, we should have begun with that.” It gestured to the hare. “Lepocapra tells me you’re the born daughter of the occultist Iroche. Is this true?”

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” Fig replied honestly.

“Hm,” the demon hummed. The not-hare, Lepocapra, muttered more. “We can confirm that you are.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“I am a creature of honor, despite what you may believe. I do not lie. The terms of my deals are clear. I take only what is freely given. You may call me Cervus.”

Fig watched it, him, carefully. His wide antlers communicated an unnatural grandness.

“You have lived twenty summers now, no? Your mother has forked, violet markings on her skin. A scar below her left ear, another at her ankle. You found one of Lepocapra’s feet somewhere on your land. Does this all sound correct?”

To hear another creature speak of her mother so plainly was a breach of her most intimate life. He might have described the inside of her eyelids, the timbre of the voice inside her head. A part of her had held onto the idea of this entire ordeal as some farce, the hare’s foot in the garden the remnant of some prior, haunted tenant. Fig now abandoned this doubt with a pang of finality. Unable to bring herself to answer the question, she only nodded.

If the demon sensed this effect in her he did not show it. “You have one active contract. You are here to discuss it?”

“What does that mean?” She did her best to sound assured and curious rather than confused.

“You are under the constraints of an agreement with myself, the demon Cervus.”

“I have made no such agreement.”

“You are not the contract’s holder.”

“The what?”

Cervus’ antlers rustled the leaves above as he spoke. “A deal was made on your behalf by a guardian before you were of age.”

“What age was I?”

“Technically,” Lepocapra thumped its leg as if counting, “gestating.”

When her mother told the story of their life, she began it pregnant, in the clearing. She’d focused much on the cutting of trees, the shaping of logs, the bringing of life to their cottage.

The image now warped in Fig’s mind. Her mother, hands at her stomach, walked backwards into this meadow, into the wretched stench and darkness. No, no it need not be her. Fig imagined a broad man, or perhaps a lean one, short, or tall — a man with her waved hair and pouting mouth. A man disappeared from the story entirely. Fig felt her legs shake.

“What is this contract?” she demanded.

“Largely confidential.”

“Excuse me?”

“As a beneficiary, most details are confidential. Restricted.”

“Most?”

The dots of color beneath Cervus’ cloak shifted like fish scales catching the light. “You are entitled to your personal stake in the contract, as well as some information about services rendered.”

“Alright,” Fig replied slowly, trying to catalogue the unfamiliar words. “What is my stake in the contract?”

The demon’s voice was drawn out as if on the edge of a cough. “I am the lawful proprietor of your magic.”

“Proprietor?”

“Owner.”

Fig balked. She remembered the bodiless certainty she had felt that night at the alder; the certainty that her thumbs would slip between the wings of her carving. She remembered the call of the wood, the enormous feeling that something would happen, change. She remembered the force of it pressing for release like steam, instead pushing violently against the underside of her skin.

All of Cervus’ eyes wandered her face. “You’ve felt it. The loss.”

“Magic is not something to be owned.” She knew this innately; the fact needed no teaching. She pressed each of her fingertips against her healing thumbnails. His words pricked a hole within her. With each passing moment it grew and grew.

“It was a highly unusual deal. Something a witch is rare to part with.”

The hole pushed Fig’s organs aside, then her ribs. She took deep breaths as if to pack it down with her lungs like hands upon dirt.

Cervus observed her with curiosity. “To clarify, you’ve kept your attunement. I retain only your ability.”

Blood rushed to her face. “You said lawful. What law?”

“Demon law.”

Fig’s voice rose. “What in the void does that have to do with me? I’m no demon.”

“You’ve been assigned as beneficiary under the stipulations of the contract.”

“Who is the,” Fig scrambled for the word it kept using, “holder? Who is that?”

“Iroche of the Fastened occultist pack.”

Days of exhaustion struck her all at once. She was there again, lying under the stars with her mother. Sky above, ground below, everything between made up of just the two of them. Her pastless, present mother with a body of tattoos made by no one, nowhere.

“My mother gave you my magic?” she whispered.

“Traded it.”

“For what?”

“Safety.”

“From what?”

“Beyond my purview.”

Hot, angry tears gathered on Fig’s lower lashes as she dropped her hand to the knife at her belt. The hole growing inside her gaped. She was empty. She was missing something essential, something that belonged at the very core of her. Her entire life blurred.

“I want it back. All of it. Give it back.”

Cervus crawled onto his two font limbs to bring his bone face close to hers. The force of his presence chilled her anger into fear. “Violence is not your ally here.”

She did not flinch but felt a tear fall. She withdrew her hand. Cervus returned to his seat. The clearing was silent.

After a few minutes, the demon continued as if uninterrupted. “The return of your magic is not presently negotiable.”

Fig swallowed. “Why?”

“Such a condition is not stipulated in your contract.”

“What is in my contract?”

“Contract holder: the occultist Iroche. Beneficiary: her unborn child. To be surrendered: the magic on her person and a vessel with which to contain it. To be provided: safe passage.”

Fig’s head felt like water was sloshing around inside. “You keep saying ‘occultist’ — what is that?”

“An archetypal classification,” Lepocapra chirped.

“What does it mean?”

“A witch who specializes in the occult,” it chirped again.

These creatures spoke in circles. Fig massaged her temples. “My mother is no witch.”

“A witch is more than their ability. But perhaps one might not think so, anymore.” Cervus nodded. The wide shadows cast from his antlers shifted on the ground.

Her mother the hunter, the builder, the gardener, the collector, the weaver, the killer. Her mother who carved a life for them the way Fig carved animals from wood. Her mother who was not like the townspeople. Her mother who did not shine like Vaani. Her mother whose creations, though skillful, though practiced, did not form clouds of color or hum strange songs. What becomes a witch with no magic? What becomes magic with no witch?

“What did you do with it? My magic?”

“Here we end discussion of your contract,” Cervus declared. “That is all we owe you as a beneficiary. If you wish to exchange further, we do not trade for free.”

Fig worked to suppress her anger. Her mother had come to this foul, twisting place, shed her past, traded their magic — all to escape something. The same something that had lurked at the edge of their life together, at the edge of her sanity. Something dark enough to make her lunge at Vaani with a knife, dark enough to pull her away and keep her from returning.

“What do you want?” she whispered.

Cervus took a deep, rattling breath. “One of my favorite questions.”

Fig squeezed her hands to stop their shaking.

“Is there a part of your body you’d be willing to part with?” the demon asked. “An eye perhaps? An ear? I have a client quite interested in limbs at the moment.”

“No.” She crossed her arms as if to hold them to her person. Lepocapra looked at her hungrily. She scowled at it.

“What about something less physical?,” Cervus queried. “Your voice, your sense of taste?”

“No,” she repeated more forcefully.

“I see,” he said, clicking the vertebra of his neck. “You know where to find me if you change your mind.” She did not, but she saw no need to correct him. With good fortune, she’d never see him again. “Perhaps it would aid us to begin with your desires.”

“I want my magic,” Fig said, surprising herself. The loss at the center of her rippled, consumed her attention. She gripped her stomach to still it. That was not why she had come. “And to know what my mother needed safety from. Why she sought your aid.”

Though Fig was overwhelmed with new information, the core of things went unsolved. Her mother was missing. She was no closer to finding her.

Cervus was absorbed in watching her, but she kept her gaze steady as his bones twitched and ticked. It was a long while before he spoke. “Despite your lack of cooperation, little fruit, you’re in a position of rare luck. Our interests are aligned.”

She tried to keep the suspicion from her voice. “How so?”

“You search further into your mother’s past than her meeting with me, yes?”

“Yes.”

The demon’s spine lengthened as he brought his head forward again. Fig swallowed against the smell. “There are few beings alive with such knowledge,” he drawled. “Excluding her adversaries, I know of only one.”

Lepocapra began to jump from foot to foot. Fig pushed away the sound. “Who?”

“Her firstkin, Iraya.”

The name fell over her with the same foreignness as her mother’s. Yet — it was not so foreign, now. The names’ twin syllables stung her with an inexplicable heat. “Firstkin? What is that?”

“The first of her blood. Her eldest progeny.”

“A child?” Fig recoiled.

“Not so much, anymore. Some might say your elder sister.”

Time stopped. The world squeezed to encompass only this clearing, entire. The stinging heat flooded her chest. There was too much sensation to manage. “I have a sister?”

“In a way.”

“What does that mean?”

“You were born.”

Witches from stars, witches from caves, witches from storms, witches from wax. Her breath caught. “And she was not?”

Cervus nodded. “Occultist kin structures are beyond my comprehension, but a non-occultist may call you sisters.”

“What would an occultist call us?”

The demon said nothing. Lepocapra choked back a laugh. She could have snapped its neck again.

A sister. She knew not much of that. A first child. She thought of her mother holding her in her lap, carrying her across her back, teaching her how to jump, to run, to climb. Her mother dangling her feet above waves, her mother dancing with her in starlight, her mother rubbing poultice on her feverish brow, her bandaged knees. Her mother reading her stories, her mother writing her letters, her mother pressing her lips to the top of her head. It went unspoken that these moments were new to the both of them, fresh to the both of them, wound up in the experience of being themselves, being one another.

Now, Fig imagined her mother younger, softer, doing the same with some other shadowy, missing child. Her life just an echo of another, a first. Her learnings as repetition, not discovery. Her eyes dried over from staring.

Cervus continued. “Iraya and I have outstanding business, but we’ve lost contact with her. We believe you to be uniquely positioned to reinstate contact.”

“That can’t be true,” Fig replied, dazed. “I’ve only just learned she exists.”

“The ties of blood are manifold. Useful. You find her and ask her your questions. Get her working again, and I return your magic.”

She felt her spine straighten at the word. The hole where her magic belonged hungered for it. But another word gave her pause. “Working? At what?”

“That is none of your concern.”

Fig looked at Lepocapra for help but found none. “How am I meant to get her to do it then?”

“Like I said, our interests are aligned,” Cervus purred. “As you accomplish your goals, so will mine fall into place.”

She did not know what to make of this. She did not see a path where it would even be possible to know so. She did not sense that the demon had deceived her, and yet she felt details hidden, obscured, skulked around. But a demon’s lair was no place to pick at them.

“If you wish to be rid of your hesitations, we may deal on it,” Cervus offered. “Though a new contract would, of course, require your name.”

“Of course?”

“Under our law, contracts are sealed with names.”

“I have no name to give,” Fig repeated. The more time passed in this wretched place, the more she understood her mother’s protection. “You’ve discarded all of mine.”

“All?” Cervus needled.

“All I am willing to share.”

“Very well,” he tutted. “Then I offer you a rare opportunity. Not a deal, but a prelude to one. When all is sorted, may we meet again and settle our offerings to one another. Are we aligned, little fruit?”

The thought of seeing the demon again made her shudder. But the hole inside her gnawed. The idea of a sister was opaque to her. A girl out there — a woman? A witch? With her blood and her face but without her memories, her shared life with her mother, anything that made up her body or her mind. She felt distant from even the idea.

In contrast, the draw of her magic called to her like a love she’d never known. A togetherness. She could almost feel it, now, tucked into one of Cervus’ many empty eye sockets, singing to her, begging to be plucked out with the tip of her knife. If she could just swallow it, grasp it, feel it fill the pit inside her, she would be whole.

“Yes.”