10
I’d beaten him. I was the victor in a match of courage and wits against the mythical creature known as an incubus. The only trouble was I suspected this wasn’t a total victory, and the burn marks on my fingers was more proof of something awry than any of the words the incubus spoke to me.
On one hand was the burn marks, and in the other lay the golden trinket he’d given me before vanishing. I should have chucked it over the tallest hedge and left it for the priests to exorcise, but there was something enticing about its beauty, and it wasn’t just the priceless jewels that encrusted the cover. A mysterious allure surrounded the object, made no less by the fact that it was a locket, and inside every locket was something valuable.
I turned it over and saw the thin gap between the tw
