Excerpt from Craft by Ananda Lima, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Why do you keep saying that?" I shouted over the music.

He said he liked being honest.

"That's not what I hear."

He shook his head and looked away from me, as if a little disappointed. After a few seconds, he sighed, looked back at me, and began talking again. He said I should reconsider my sources. History was written by the victors, scapegoating, etc. "Boys Don't Cry" came on, to squeals of approval on the dance floor. The Devil had perfect teeth. As he talked, he had this look, a wounded look under the slight frown. His eyebrows were perfect. I wanted to run my fingers over them. I leaned just a little closer, wondering what he would smell like. And he was so tall, I thought. Like Michael.

The song ended and this time was not followed by another straightaway. It felt quiet for a second. Then, as if someone had turned up the volume of the ambient noise in the room: A woman dragged a chair to sit with a new group forming next to us. Loud laughter broke out from a loose circle of people waiting on the dance floor. "No! No! Not true!" said a tall skinny guy, also laughing. The fog had mostly dissipated.

The Devil wanted to know what was so special about Michael.

Michael had spilled a little of his drink on Angela's leg and tried to wipe it off with his sleeves. They both laughed. With his hair like that, he did look a little bit like Prince Charles, though skirting the opposite side of the ugliness threshold, like a good-looking actor begrudgingly made to play Prince Charles. Angela messed up his hair, and it pained me. Why her? Why was I not enough? They locked arms and drank in a pretend nuptial toast. I countered the Devil by asking what the Devil would be doing there, hanging out with me.

A song finally came on: "Faith" (someone was on a Cure bender). But the tempo was much slower than the previous songs, and the people dispersed from the informal dance area into the rest of the party, except for three stragglers, eyes closed, as they slowly danced to the long intro.

The Devil continued: It was his favorite night, he got around, it'd been a good year, he too deserved to celebrate, yadda, yadda, yadda. He didn't seem to want to get into his devilish ways. He paused. I stepped closer, feeling an urge to nuzzle into his neck like a feral but needy kitten. Plus, he said, he liked spending time with kindred spirits.

"Meaning?" I frowned. I might have been a little messed up at that moment, but I wasn't Devil level. I was not evil.

He sighed, paused, looked at me, and said he was not evil. Then he continued moving through each point as quickly as he had been before: He was often, lazily, offered up as a solution to the problem of evil. But he wasn't it at all.

I squinted at him and said I was more interested in what he had meant by "kindred spirits."

He apologized for the rant (he didn't even like talking about himself, preferred to listen, but this, pet peeve, sore spot, etc.). Then he told me what he meant: He also tended to want most what he couldn't have.

I looked at Michael, and the snake coiled tighter inside me.

The Devil put a hand on my shoulder and loosened the snake's grip just enough so I could keep breathing.

* * *

Pardon me if things get a little fuzzy from here on. All this was decades ago, and things get distorted like a cassette tape jammed and unraveled. Sometimes I feel like my memories merge a little with dreams, movies, music clips, maybe just absorbing their atmosphere, the shape of their threads, their hopes. And I'm sure I had some trouble remembering that night, even the next day. Boy, could I drink then. I was so young; in the pictures my face has that aura, that thing you can see clearly when looking at old pictures of celebrities when they were younger in those "look at how they aged" posts, some magical glow sparkling from their full cheeks. Also, in my old pictures, there's a sadness in my eyes, though I wonder if anyone other than me can detect it. I can almost feel it, a phantom pain that allows me to imagine it, even though I can't conjure it back completely.

Excerpted from Craft by Ananda Lima. Copyright © 2024 by Ananda Lima. Excerpted by permission of Tor Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.