Free The Strange Maid by Tessa Gratton Page A

my light, the troll’s bluish skin cracks and hardens, turning paler and mottled bluish gray, but only as long as the light remains. It turns, knocking shoulders into the wall, careening the other direction until it hits the counter and then lashes out at me.
    I fall back, seeing stubby tusks and bright fangs flash. I catch myself hard on one hand, bite my tongue, but keep the light up as my shield.
    There’s Unferth suddenly, tossing a chain around the troll’s neck, putting his sword to its throat. The monster’s small yellow eyes roll and I shine my light directly into them. It cries again, but it hunkers down. It covers its head with one arm, curls into a ball. It’s missing its other arm, and the stump bleeds thick purple ichor.
    “Hold it, Signy,” Unferth says calmly, evenly. “Take my sword in your other hand.”
    He transfers the grip to me and I try not to shake. The tip of the sword scrapes against the troll’s shoulder and the light bobs, tracing an uneven line of calcification from the troll’s head down its chest. The poor thing moans, digging its fingers into its hardening skin.
    Unbelievably, my heart aches. It must be in pain. Afraid and alone.
    Even as small as it can make itself, the troll remains a solid two meters at the shoulder, and if it stood straight it would certainly be three. Unferth tightens the chain around its neck, puts more around its wrists and feet, too, punching it to get it to shift and let him in. He’s unafraid, methodical, and excellent at looping the chains. He has a sledgehammer from somewhere and hammers the ends of the chains into the wooden floor.
    Just before my strength gives out, Unferth gently takes back his sword, and the UV light as well.
    Outside the snowstorm howls.
    “Happy birthday, Signy,” Unferth finally says.

SIX
    SNOW CRYSTALS HANG off the troll’s blunt tusks, glittering in the thin morning light from the broken windows. Because he’s young, his calcified features are a rough sketch carved into the stone. He’s a beautiful pale blue, with darker blue veins like polished marble. His right arm is missing from just below the shoulder, torn away—recently, too, by the thick purplish blood now crystallized into amethyst. The edge of the shoulder is sharp and rough, like broken rock. A line of reddish lichen crawls down his spine. Unferth says it’ll get thicker as he ages.
    We’ve waited until the sun arrived in order to take this next step in a more controlled fashion, so the troll is trapped inside the meadery just in case.
    “Shut it,” I say, gripping my seax in my fist.
    From atop a ladder missing several rungs, Unferth reaches out and swings the shutters closed. Snow puffs down. “He might be too young, and so even this ambient light could keep him calcified …” His voice fades away as the beast’s entire body shivers.
    I lift my seax to put the sharp tip of the broken back blade against the troll’s marble chest. Over his heart. I hold my breath, wondering why the entire world doesn’t pause for the occasion. Here I am, ready to slice into this martyr who came to me like a gift. The stone heart will be crusted with blood crystallized to amethyst.
    As the troll wakes, dust flakes away from his skin and settles onto the mangy rug. The chain looped around his neck rattles. Tiny cracks appear all over his body, like the bed of a sun-baked river.
    A fissure catches my eye: it looks like the rune child.
    I suck in a quick breath and pull back the seax.
    “The gift of mothers,” I whisper to myself. A kenning for sacrifice. Mothers always lose the most, they say.
    A thin layer of stone sloughs off from his chest. The pieces clatter and clink down to the floor.
    This is too easy. Here is a lost troll, crippled and weak, hardly ferocious as trolls are supposed to be. I’m not even afraid of him. Defeating him barely counts as a triumph.
    “Signy,” Unferth says softly from right beside me. “Why do you hesitate?”
    The troll opens his