The Devil

**The** ****D******evil** is an evil spirit. Some people, such as headcutters or the scavenger, make bets with the Devil. Nearly no one wins, although sometimes the Devil is beaten. When the Devil wins a bet, he gets the loser's soul, but when he loses, the winner gets a very long life and a favor of his choice. These sorts of challenges always happen at a crossroads.

## Biography

### *Bluecrowne*

Ignis Blister and Foulk Trigemine discussed with each other the story about how Jack Hellcoal had beaten the Devil, and been turned out of hell, and given a piece of coal to start his own hell. Trigemine didn't know if the story itself was true, but could confirm that Jack had a coal. Jack now, according to Trigemine, sought to claim a town to turn it into his own Hell.

### *The Raconteur's Commonplace Book*

In a story told by Negret Colophon, the Devil walked down the road and came to a crossroads, where there was a scavenger, a highly ranked peddler. He examined the scavenger's wagon, and the scavenger, a girl, knowing who he was, offered him things made from dead martyrs and saints, but the Devil was not interested. The Devil found a pastern bone that intrigued him, and the scavenger charged a tooth, but the Devil suggested that they play for it. The scavenger made the Devil guess what it was for in sixty seconds, and the Devil listed things that could be made from it, but he ran out of time before he could figure it out. The scavenger took two of the Devil's teeth as payment, using one to replace the one she'd lost, and the other she was not sure, but appreciated the Devil's ideas. The Devil, beaten, left.

At the end of the tale, Maisie, Negret, and Phineas Amalgam discussed stories of the Devil making bets. Sometimes the Devil was challenged musically, in a headcutting, but he almost always won because there was only one song that beat the Devil. Jessamy seemed thrown by the tale and tried to sound cheerful, and Maisie, recalling the everything-song Madame Grisaille had played that Jessamy had refused to dance to, and at once Maisie knew that Jessamy was a headcutter who'd lost.

Petra told a story about a girl called Nell. One day, the Skidwrack River flooded, and killed all of Nell's family but her. Thinking of folklore she knew, she killed a cat, and set its bones into the river. A man in black came, and after answering some of her questions about stopping the water's rising, told her that because of orphan magic she could float upriver and stop the floods. Nell did what he said, and floated upriver, although she was stopped from completing her mission by Trigemine. After telling the tale, many arrangements were made that eventually culminated in Petra, Sullivan, and Trigemine taking the orphan bone and going back up the river to stop the water rising this time around. Jessamy told a story about what would happen next.

They would come to a crossroads, she said, and Petra would meet the same man who'd come down the river when she was young and told her how to stop the water rising. The man will offer to make Petra a bet for stopping the water's rising, and Petra will challenge him to a dancing contest. The Devil, Jessamy said, could dance very well, but he bore the burden of too many secrets and would thus lose to Petra, who has nothing to hide. All the headcutters who'd lost would play a song to dance to, but Petra would request a specific one: the song the Devil cannot play. And Petra would dance with *all* her soul, and Petra would win. The Skidwrack's flooding would stop, and indeed, true to Jessamy's story, it later did; Petra had won.

### *Greenglass House*

Milo read *The Raconteur's Commonplace Book*, and when fighting Mr. Vinge, took encouragement by remembering Negret's story about the Devil being beaten, thinking that if the Devil could be beaten, he could beat Mr. Vinge too.

## Gallery

**Take a look at our **gallery for The Devil****.