I shut Devon and Felix out of my mind, stepped forward, and took hold of the tree. The blood persimmon was old and sturdy, with lots of thick branches that would hold my weight. I’d always enjoyed climbing, no matter the surface or what I was scaling, and it was practically a job requirement for a thief.
So I shimmied up the trunk, then reached up for the first branch. I quickly went up ten, fifteen, twenty feet, smiling all the while and enjoying the earthy smell of the tree and the rough scrape of the bark against my hands. I might be an official member of the Sinclair Family now, with a thin veneer of legitimacy, but I still liked practicing all my old tricks. You never knew when they might come in handy, especially with Victor Draconi plotting something against all the other Families.
Finally, when I was about thirty feet up, that distinctive cheep-cheep-cheeping sounded again. I looked up to find the troll perched on a branch up and off to my left. The creature regarded me with open suspicion, its emerald-green eyes narrowed to slits, another blood persimmon clutched in its long, curved black claws. Three fresh, jagged scars raked down the right side of the troll’s face, as if it had tangled with a much bigger monster recently—and won. This one was a fighter. Good thing I was too.
I wrapped my legs around the branch, making sure that I wouldn’t fall, then held my hands out to my sides, trying to let the troll know that I wasn’t here to hurt it. The creature kept staring at me, but it didn’t make a move to bean me in the face with the fruit. Finally, some progress.
I dropped my right hand down to my side and unzipped one of the pockets on my cargo pants. The troll cocked its head to the side, its small, gray, triangle-shaped ears twitching at the sound of several quarters jingle-jangling together in my pocket.
But instead of coins, I drew out a dark chocolate bar, held it up above my head, and waved it back and forth. The troll’s black nose twitched, and its green eyes brightened in appreciation and anticipation.
Monsters might have more teeth and talons than the rest of us, but it was easy enough to deal with most of them. You just had to know what to bribe them with, something I totally appreciated as a thief. Most of the time, a drop of blood or a lock of hair was enough to get you safe passage through a monster’s territory. Some monsters, like the lochness that Felix had mentioned, required quarters and other shiny coins, but tree trolls went in for more immediate gratification.
Dark chocolate, and lots of it.
“C’mon,” I crooned. “You know you want it. I’m just paying the toll for climbing your tree and invading your personal space—”
The troll scrambled down, snatched the chocolate bar out of my hand, and returned to its previous branch, its lightning-quick movements almost too fast for me to follow.
Zip-zip-zip.
Its black claws made quick work of the wrapper, and the troll sank its needle-sharp teeth into the chocolate. More little cheep-cheeps sounded, but this time they were squeaks of pleasure.
I waited until the troll had downed another bite before starting my spiel, such as it was. “Listen, little furry dude. I’m not here to make trouble. But you know how it is. If you start acting out and throwing stuff at tourists, then the Sinclairs are going to make you move on. You know that. So what’s got you so upset?”
The troll chomped down on another piece of chocolate, staring at me all the while, his green eyes locked with mine. Once again, his anger and worry rippled through my body, mixed in with a bit of warm happiness brought on by eating the chocolate. Nothing strange there. Chocolate made me happy too.
But the longer I stared at the troll, the brighter and greener its eyes became, until they were practically glowing like stars in its furry face. It almost seemed as if the creature had the same soulsight that I did and was peering into me the same way I was into him—judging whether or not I was trustworthy. So I focused on remaining calm and trying to look as nonthreatening as possible.
Maybe it was a trick of the sunlight streaming down through the leaves, but I swear that I felt something . . . shift inside me. It was as if I was somehow calming down the troll just by staring at it and thinking good thoughts. Despite the hot summer day, a chill swept over me, cold enough to raise goose bumps on my arms.
I shivered and blinked, breaking the strange spell. The troll was just a troll again, and everything was normal. No glowing eyes, no odd emotions in my chest, no more cold chills. Weird—even for me.
The troll cheeped again, then reached up and pushed back a branch beside its head, revealing a large nest.