“I promise you’ll regret it if you don’t come with me now!” the woman shrieked after them. “Don’t you darewalk away! My men are only waiting in the carriage for my command. If you hadany ideahow much power I truly wield, and the trouble I could cause you—! If you refuse to listen to me now, then I’ll have tomakeyou, and it will be all your own fault! I have ahigher purposefor this forest!”
“What nonsense.” Rolling her eyes, Margaret walked even faster.
The woman’s increasingly furious and demanding calls chased after them for the next several minutes. Apparently, though, she didn’t dare go any further in that direction herself. Her voice grew fainter and fainter in the distance until it finally faded out completely.
The stillness of the forest resettled around them at last, and Margaret slowed her pace, shoulders loosening with relief. Beside her, Leonie gave a full-body shudder that vibrated through their physical connection—then jerked around to stare at Margaret’s hand on her black-robed arm as if she’d only just realized that it was there.
Margaret released her immediately, but the nachzehrer didn’t lunge away as expected. Instead, after a long moment of silence broken only by the crunch of fallen needles beneath their feet and the sounds of birds and insects among the trees, the girl finally muttered, “Thank you.”
“Pfft.” Margaret gave an uncomfortableshrug. “It was nothing. I certainly had no desire for any more conversation with her.”
“But if she really can tell you more about Reflection’s Heart...” Sighing, Leonie came to a halt and muttered her next words with her gaze fixed upon the ground. “It’s not worth ruining your quest for my sake. She didn’t say anything I haven’t heard for myself every time I’ve seen my own face in my bedroom mirror.”
“Then youalsoneed to revise your thoughts,” Margaret said tartly, “because they’re clearly incorrect, and there’s no sense in clinging to a warped reflection.” Hadn’t she realized as much about herself just this morning, in front of her own bedroom mirror?
Leonie looked even more dubious than before, but Margaret started purposefully forward across the rising ground without waiting for agreement, brushing against green needles with every step as the trees grew closer and closer together. “At any rate,” she called back, “I’ve been toldmorethan enough times in my life that I would never succeed in my ambitions for one reason or another. Nowadays, I pay no attention to such doom-laden forecasts, and neither should you.”
At that, the nachzehrer finally subsided, but this time, Margaret did not fool herself into imagining that silence heralded agreement.
Still, the next hour or two passed in a relatively companionable peace, as Margaret did her best to follow the dictates of her vacillating compass andLeonie grunted warnings more than once to save Margaret from precipitous falls.
It was just as they both emerged from a tangled patch of underbrush that Margaret held up a warning hand. “Listen!”
In the distance, beyond the thickest stretch of mingled pine and spruce, an unmistakable splash of water sounded.
For one delighted instant, Margaret glimpsed the same light of discovery in the nachzehrer’s red eyes that she felt in her own. Then, Leonie’s face tightened into a harshly set expression as she visibly braced herself for danger and Margaret nodded. “Let’s begin.”
But before either of them could take another step towards that tree line, someone else slipped through it from the other side, moving with such slippery fluidity that the needles of the spruce and fir trees on either side barely even quivered with her passing. Only damp patches were left upon the ground with every step as the tall, slim figure prowled towards Margaret in an old-fashioned, deep green gown that was sodden at its hem—and then abruptly swerved, catching sight of Leonie.
“Ohhh!” The nixe’s pale green eyes widened as she reached forwards with one graceful, long-fingered hand. “Sopretty. How did you do that?”
Leonie flinched back just before the nixe’s pale fingers could touch her face. “What?—?”
“Youreyes,” the nixe crooned in a voice like rippling water. “I’ve never seen that colorbefore.”
The nachzehrer’s chin jerked up; she crossed her arms in front of her chest and braced her legs. “I know what I look like. You don’t have to tell me.”
“Buthow?” The nixe stalked around her in a flowing circle, green gaze sweeping with open admiration across every feature of Leonie’s chalk-white face and hairless head. “You’re like a jewel, all rubies and bone. I would hoard you as my treasure! Come with me, and I’ll feed you the finest of fish for every meal. You’ll never feel any hunger again.”
“You—I—what?” Leonie blinked rapidly, a flush rising in her face as her mouth dropped open to reveal even more of her sharply pointed teeth.
Had she onlyjustrealized what was actually happening? Margaret cleared her throat, deeming it time to interrupt the incipient courtship. “Unfortunately, she wouldn’t be able to survive on that diet.”
“Not on fish?” Scowling, the nixe swept around, tucking her long, unbound fair hair behind her slitted ears. Her gaze swept impatiently across Margaret’s own features and her upper lip curled. “If she needs humans for food, I can manage that too. Do not think I cannot provide for her.”
Leonie gave a strangled, wordless sound that Margaret could only interpret as “What is happening?”
Thankfully, as expedition leader, Margaret had done her research. Lifting the basket she’d carried all this way, she said, “I’ve brought you an offering of apples.”
“Apples?” The nixe took a step forward, gaze narrowing. “Are they ripe ones?”
“The ripest,” Margaret promised. “See?” She carefully raised the cloth that had covered them for protection, and the nixe’s pink tongue darted out to sweep her lips in anticipation. All of her visible front teeth were pointed enough to rip and tear flesh, but as with humans, nixen had hidden molars suitable for crunching fruit as well as meat—and apples were known to be a favorite delicacy.
“Hmm.” The nixe drew back, green gaze darting between the basket and Leonie. “Doessheeat apples?”
“Um...no?” Leonie swallowed visibly, red eyes wide and stunned. “They’re all yours.”
“Only for you, treasure, I would share.” The nixe cocked her head to one side to study Margaret suspiciously, fair hair tumbling over her shoulders. “The last humans who visited our lake did not bring apples.”
