The steel edge dug painfully into my wrists as the demons argued over my fate. The boar-headed one grumbled. “The metal singed my fingers to the bone.”

The goat-footed one growled. “Boss Lady says make sure she don’t come back.”

“The furnace?”

“An excellent plan.” I grinned. The two stopped dead in their tracks, looking puzzled. “Pop me in, the manacles melt, and I’m on my way.”

Boar-head asked, “Is she demon? Looks Fae but for them mechanical wings.”

I fluttered them open and closed against my back, reaming both demons on the head. “Get on with it.”

“Not the furnace.” Goat-foot jerked me towards the river bridge. A familiar face appeared at the edge of the island.

I gasped and struggled to get free. “Not the river.”

Boar-head sneered. “Drown her.”

They tossed me over the bridge, and muddy water enveloped me. I sank to the riverbed as a dark form followed. Reaching me, the large creature began grappling with me as bubbles escaped its grimacing maw.

“Buford, breathe.” I reminded him. My housemate, the mechanic who built my mechanical wings, was heroic if a bit ignorant. The river, first home to all mayfly, was still foreign to him, and he could not survive its fury without me.

“May, you fooled them.” He panted, picking the locks.

“Demons are fools.” The manacles opened, and the river washed welts from my wrists.

“I’m half demon.”

“True,” I conceded, making for the surface, leaving him behind, flailing.

“Buford, breathe.”

Foolish demon.

Photo by Stormseeker