As it turned out, it was not at all hard to find the lights. After all, they followed the path. They didn’t dog-leg off into the swamp, to lead people to their doom. In fact, I could only find them on the only bits of solid ground in the entire poxy place. I was standing on the path in the gathering darkness, and starting to shiver in the growing chill. This was strange behaviour. Not the sort of thing some child-eating monster from a fairytale would do. I was not overly familiar with the geography of Darkstone and its surroundings - when we had originally come to Vendisport, we had followed the coastline to the east. But if I had to bet, I would say that the winding path I was standing on likely led through the swamp to towns beyond. It was maintained, to a point, and well-travelled, stamped hard and flat by many feet.

If your whole schtick was chowing down on kiddies, why would you light the solid, safe path? Surely the lights should have led off, into boggier and more hazardous terrain. But there was only one split I could find, a path that divided from the main road. It was a little more overgrown, and the lights were a little dimmer. They still hung disconcerting at about knee level, little globes pulsating like maxi-fireflies. Stepping through them made the light waver, and jiggle. The path looked like it had fallen into disuse. But the surface told me that this was not always the case. It had been sturdily built, and packed hard and flat. The trees now overgrew it, and I would have to push past a number of branches to continue down it.

It seemed like the only obvious choice. I made my way down carefully, feeling for exposed roots with my feet, having left my mount tethered at the mouth of the bog. Mercifully, it was easy enough to avoid any trip hazards, my feet illuminated by the steady, gentle glow of what to me looked more like “fairy lights” than anything I had ever seen a witch produce.

To be perfectly honest with myself, I would rather have had the supposed witch. Witches were, after all, almost human. You would have to be a mad old bitch to live in the middle of a bog, to be sure, but even crazy witches were manageable. The only thing that made fairy lights were well, fairies. Or fey. Which could be really good, or very, very bad. But it was almost always aggravating.

I had dealt with fey before. I have even lived with them. They were self-absorbed, appearance-driven creatures that usually insisted on being the tyrant of their own little patch of earth. Light fey and dark were as different as sun and moon, but all of them tended to be frustrating to deal with. I was hoping for light fey. They were often a great deal more amenable, and almost passing fond of humans. They were still vain, but at least they were relatively non-destructive.

Dark fey were a different kettle of fish.

“Fuck me.”

I had come to the end of the pathway. At my feet was a tiny shrine. The grass seemed to bend away from it, and no weeds grew at the feet of the little stone deity that stood there. The flowers that had been placed at her tiny stone toes were still somehow fresh and vibrant, though if I had to hazard a guess I would say that no one had been here to leave tribute in many years. The effigy’s face was worn smooth, all expression rubbed away by time and worshipping fingers. What concerned me were the teeth.

Why anyone would leave teeth at the feet of a minor godling was beyond me. Gods were a mystifying lot, and I would not put it past them to request something quite so extreme. It was hard to decide whether it was a comfort at all that most of the teeth seemed small, like the milk teeth of children. Maybe they fell out naturally and some deranged soul had just dutifully collected them up to lay at the feet of their goddess. Or maybe not.

A little frog sat amongst the offering of teeth. It gazed up at me with glassy eyes and burped a question. Looking at it made my nose itch.

I would have loved to say that I heard her coming. That I chose to stand there like a muppet with my back to obvious danger. But I hadn’t. I was still staring gormlessly at the blighted frog when breath gusted across the nape of my neck, and someone whispered,

“Care for a cup of tea, love?”