“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to keep coming. That wasn’t a real curse.”

“I know. I come because I want to come.”

“Good.” She started to burrow back into her patch of muck.

“Wait—” He caught her by the wrist. (It was undoubtedly a wrist.)

Her eyes whipped up. Her lips pulled back. She hissed.

Adam let go—but he didn’t look away. He sat down in the mud with her. “Please wait. I want to talk to you . . . This is where I would say your name if I knew it. For emphasis.”

“So noted,” she said. She was still sort of hissing.

“I would say your name, and then I would say—I come here every day, because I want to come here. Because I want to see you.”

“I know that. Adam.”

“You do?”

“Well, I didn’t figure you enjoyed the smell. Or the view.”

(The view from the riverbed was dismal. The fact that it hasn’t been mentioned yet only proves that point; it was exactly the sort of thing you couldn’t see from the road.)

“I have a house,” he said, getting back on track. She was always pulling him off track.

“You told me about it once. You said it was safe.”

“Yes. I have a safe house with a soft bed. I have a warm hearth. Fresh bread, every day. Running water.”

She’d pulled her arm away, but she was still there, peeking out at him from behind long, dirt-caked ropes of hair.

“It’s right on the road,” he said. “The smoothest part of it.”

“You’re very lucky,” she said.

“You could be lucky!” He hadn’t meant to shout it. “Darling . . .” he whispered. “I could make you lucky.”

She was hidden behind the ropes. “You shouldn’t call me that.”

“I wouldn’t have to if you’d tell me your name.”

She was being very still. Adam understood that he should be still, too. That they were both trying not to crack.

She wrapped her finger-like things around his ankle. They really were webbed. “Adam,” she said, “I can’t live on the road. I’m a bridge troll.”

“I could build a bridge,” he said. He wasn’t sure where.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said.

“Don’t be mean.”

“I’m a bridge troll!”

“What do bridge trolls even do?” Adam demanded.

She wrapped her other hand around his other ankle.

He reached out to touch her cheek. (It felt like silt. But it was certainly a cheek.)

“We eat stones!” she hissed. “And children’s bones! But mostly we trick men into our clutches.”

“Fine,” Adam said, “I’m tricked!”

Her fingers were so tight around his ankles. “I can’t live on the road with you!”

“Because of the crows?”

“The crows?! No.”

“You made me feel weak because of the crows.”