Hagitha Mysticbottom wanted to eat a prince. Not just any prince. The kingdom's beloved one, the handsome fool every girl sighed over. She planned to wear her maiden face, lure him into the reeds, and swallow him whole. But first she had a smaller problem crashing through her swamp. A hunter. He had wandered too deep, boots sucking in the black mud, crossbow raised at every shadow. Hagitha watched him from her shack, the one that stood on two enormous chicken legs. He had seen her drying racks. He had seen the bones. If he reached the tree line, he would run straight to the kingdom and scream about a hag. Then no prince would ever come close enough to kiss. "He talks, I starve," she muttered. Her raven landed on the window sill. Three eyes, all watching. It tilted its head toward the hunter, then toward the deeper swamp, where the water turned to rot. "Yes," Hagitha said. "We don't chase him out. We pull him in." She climbed down the ladder and splashed into the muck. Her ugly shape melted away. Green skin smoothed to pink. Warts shrank. A beautiful maiden rose from the mud, gown clinging, hair dark and wet. She hid the real trick behind a mangrove. It was a carved figure she kept for this. A man's face, mouth stretched in a scream, hands clawing the air, begging. From a distance it looked like a drowning stranger, half sunk and desperate. She propped it deep in the bog, past the quicksand she knew by heart. Then the maiden stumbled into the hunter's path. "Please," she cried. "My brother! He fell in the water. He's still screaming. Hurry!" The hunter lowered his crossbow. He saw a trembling girl. Behind her, in the gloom, he saw the clawing figure and heard what sounded like a man choking. His face softened. His hunter's caution drained out of him. "Where?" he said. "There!" She pointed past the mangrove. "Quick, he's sinking!" The hunter ran. The maiden walked light behind him, stepping only where the ground held. He charged toward the screaming figure and plunged in up to his knees. Then his waist. The mud gripped him and did not let go. "Help me," he gasped, twisting back toward the girl. Hagitha let her true face return. Green. Grinning. The hunter screamed for real now, but the swamp ate the sound. He went under slow. The raven flew down and perched on the clawing figure, watching with all three eyes until the bubbles stopped. Hagitha dragged his crossbow and satchel to her drying racks. Inside the satchel she found a folded letter, stamped with the royal seal. Her claw tore it open. The prince was coming. A hunt, the letter said. Three days from now, right at the swamp's edge. Hagitha smiled wide. Her supper was walking to her.

The prince came, but he did not come alone. Hagitha watched from the reeds in her maiden shape. The hunting party clustered at the swamp's edge, spears up, backs together. At their center stood a short, round man in a purple coat trimmed with white fur. Prince Teddy Poofington VI. He was shaking. His guards would not let him stray one step. Three of his servants were already gone, pulled into the dark. Now the men circled him like a wall of iron. No lure would reach him. If she cried for help, a guard would answer first, and she would eat a soldier instead of her prince. "We go back," the prince said. His voice cracked. "The thing takes us by rank. I am the prize. I will not be last." He grabbed a guard's arm. "Carry me if you must." Hagitha needed the men gone. She could not pull them all into the mud. So she would give them something else to chase. She sank into the water and called the swamp to her. A deer came, broad antlers spread, lean and quick. She touched its flank and whispered into its ear. The beast bolted from the trees, straight past the party, snapping branches. Then she cracked a dead limb to sound like a second runner deeper in. "There!" a guard shouted. "It moved!" The men saw meat and motion and a chance to be heroes. They broke from the circle and ran after the deer, spears leveled. The prince screamed for them to stop. They did not. He stood alone. Hagitha rose from the reeds as a trembling girl, gown dripping. "My lord," she gasped. "They left you. Come, I know safe ground." She reached out a soft pink hand. The prince stared. Then his face melted into relief and pride. "Of course they left. Cowards. But you came to me. You know a prince when you see one." He waddled toward her, chest out. "Lead on, girl." She led him along the quicksand's edge. He talked the whole way about his pheasant, his coat, his noble blood. Hagitha smiled and nodded and let her tooth show. He did not notice. She stepped where the ground held. She told him to step where it did not. The prince sank to his knees in the mud, then his thick waist. His pride cracked into terror. "Pull me out! I command it!" Hagitha's face went green. Her jaw stretched wide. He screamed, same as the servants, same as the hunter. The swamp swallowed the sound. But the mud here was shallow. The prince thrashed, too heavy and too stuck to free, too high to sink. The three-eyed raven dropped to the water's edge and watched. In the reeds, red eyes gathered. Hungry fish circled the trapped prince, fangs breaking the surface. They smelled blood before she had taken a bite. Hagitha hissed. Her supper was caught at last. Now she had to claim him before the swamp did.