The Treachery of Beautiful Things

by Ruth Long

The Nix’s sisters interlinked their hands and swam around her cage. Their voices rose in song, buffeting her and cajoling her frantic senses, lulling her until she felt her limited strength draining away. In the final moments before she slept she was reminded of another story of mermaids—that of the sirens who lured men to their death with the beauty of their voices.

  Led by Puck, the forest folk had raised a bier for her, layer upon layer of sticks and stones, topped with soft moss, herbs, and grasses. They had decked it with every flower imaginable and Jenny lay upon it, her hands lightly folded on her stomach, her face turned up to the trees overhead, her eyes closed, her skin pale as the cherry blossoms scattered around her face.

  They’d laid her out for burial. The significance of that didn’t escape Jack. But it had been done with respect. And that was a comfort, however small. They stood at the end of the trees now, tall and small, beautiful and ugly, all the fae folk. And in front of them, Puck sat with his back to Jack, his shoulders hunched and eyes downcast, while the others watched avidly, some in view, some out of sight amid the trees.

  Jack dropped to his knees beside the bier, staring at Jenny’s unmoving face. He could feel the fae watching him, the warmth of their gaze, their closeness and affinity. And not just him. They watched her too. It was a kind of love. She’d saved one of their own, shown true kindness. Now they offered her respect, and honor.

  The girl lay amid flowers and fragrant herbs, her chest moving only shallowly now, her skin so pale that the freckles stood out like stars in the night’s sky. So pretty. He had never managed to tell her how pretty they were. Perhaps he never would. On a glance anyone would think she was dead, but not the forest fae. They knew all about appearances and just how deceptive they could be. Puck had called them and they had come. For Jenny. And for that Jack was grateful.

  “I’ll find you,” he said to her now. He didn’t know if she could hear him or not, but he wanted to believe she could.

  You have no place in the water. If you go in after her, you won’t come out again.

  The chill that had dogged him since he sat before the blast of Wayland’s furnace and heard those words returned again. He wasn’t coming back from the water. He was a thing of earth. He knew that. It was ingrained in the most basic part of his being.

  The Nix was too powerful. He knew that as well. And the water would only aid its own creatures and hinder Jack.

  But he’d failed Jenny too many times. If he could get her out at least, give her the opportunity to continue her quest, then maybe his part in this wouldn’t have been in vain.

  Jack sat back on his heels and took Wayland’s gift from his belt pouch. Then he leaned forward and tucked the leather-wrapped iron into her hand, closing her fingers gently around it. He noticed for the first time that her nails were ragged, the earth of the Realm blackening underneath the tips. Her hands were covered in small, partially healed cuts that stood out against the pale skin and freckles. They were strong hands. They’d endured so much already. The gold heart necklace suddenly felt very heavy around his neck. It seemed to strain toward her. He winced.

  “What is it?” Puck asked. Jack hadn’t noticed him move from where he’d sat with his back turned. He’d thought Puck would ignore him altogether.

  “It’s for her alone, Puck,” he warned. “A gift from Wayland and it’s made of iron. Keep your light fingers under control. That goes for the others too.” He glanced toward the line of trees. “It could kill any of the folk, even the strongest.”

  Puck shied back as if burned. “What were you thinking, bringing something like that through?”

  Jack ignored the outburst. “It’s hers. Wayland wanted her to have it and it might be…I don’t know. He said it would make her smile.” He so wanted to see her smile again, and frown too. If she threw a handful of grass in his face again, he’d welcome it. Puck didn’t look convinced, but Jack didn’t particularly care. “I should go.” He pushed the cloak from his shoulders and draped it over her. The sword was unnaturally heavy across his back. It dragged at him. Steel was almost as dangerous as iron to any from the Realm, and this sword called to be used. It murmured a song of war right on the edge of his hearing. “Keep a watch over her for me, Puck…This time—”

  Puck bowed solemnly, a courtly bow. It was easy to forget how high he stood in Oberon’s court. The stunted little hobgoblin had the grace of an elf when he put his mind to it. As if he noticed Jack’s observation, Puck tried to smile reassuringly.

  “I won’t let you down again, Jack. I’ll watch her from morn ’til night. I’ll keep her safe.”

  Jack looked at him. Puck had told Oberon everything. There was no doubt he would do it again if the situation demanded it. But the forest fae were here, at least, and—

  “Just hide her, and keep her safe until I…”

  The words choked in his throat. Get back? He was leaving earth and sunlight behind, the source of any strength he had in him. He was going into another element, one that didn’t love him.

  Puck nodded and pulled the leaf cloak up to cover Jenny’s face. With a wave of his hand, he muttered a few words and the cloak shimmered until the bier appeared to be no more than a small raised area of fallen leaves and flowers, a mound of earth that blended flawlessly with the forest. Jack frowned again. It looked like a well-tended grave.

  “I’m sorry, Jack.” The hobgoblin’s subdued voice snapped him back and Jack turned. He watched Puck’s bowed head, waiting for more. “I had to tell him.”

  Jack held himself perfectly still as a fury like an inferno surged through him once more, threatening to incinerate the logic he had carefully built up. He could not lose control. He didn’t have time for it now.

  Slowly, every movement measured and careful, he closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and opened them to find Puck gazing up at him like a kicked dog.

  “And what will Oberon do to her, Puck?” His voice was quiet.

  Puck winced, pursing his mouth. “She has to go to him willingly. Why would she do that? He can’t touch her otherwise. I thought…I hoped…”

  No hopes. No dreams. He had bargained them away. They were fools. And Puck hadn’t answered him either. But it didn’t really matter. “You were wrong.”

  “We were both wrong,” Puck said miserably. “And neither of us can stand against the king now.”

  Jack grimaced and turned to look out at the river. What could he say to Puck? He was right. None of them could possibly resist their duty to Oberon. Not without suffering a dreadful retribution. Part of Jack wanted to wring the life out of the hobgoblin for telling, but another part of him understood profoundly why Puck had done it. And that hurt more than anything.

  He’d thought they were friends. Even though he knew better. He didn’t have any friends. Not really. But he’d thought, of all the friends he didn’t have, Puck came the closest to transcending that barrier.

  He took a deep breath. It didn’t matter now, though the thought made him acutely aware of the gaping hole the lack of that particular loss left. Puck had failed him, just as he had failed Jenny. Puck was trying to apologize, to make amends. Much as Jack himself was.

  So what else was there to say?

  “Help her,” he whispered to Puck. “Find her brother and get them out of the Realm safely.” If it sounded like a command, so be it. They both knew it was a plea.

  Puck’s pained expression collapsed still further. He bowed again. “I will. On my life, Jack.”

  On his life. Even Puck couldn’t break that vow. And so simple a promise couldn’t be twisted into something else. He had to believe Puck in this.

  Jack hesitated for another moment trying to think of something more to say, and then, finding nothing, he turned away. Stripping off his boots and adjusting the sword for ease of movement, he prepared himself. He knelt to the earth and pressed both hands and his lips to it. The warmth was fleeting. He looked up to the sun and then slipped into the water’s chill embrace.

  If you go in after her,
you won’t come out again.

  His skin contracted around his bones. It was colder than he had imagined it could be, forcing his breath from his body in a single gasp of shock. Used to the summer sun and the woodland’s gentle breezes as Jack was, the cold teeth of the river gnawed at him. The waterfall thundered in his bones, threatening, taunting. Weeds tugged at his legs, the mud sucking at his feet, claiming him. He stood on the edge of a drop. Another step would take him into deep water. The Nix’s world.

  He looked back over his shoulder at dry land. The forest folk, Puck foremost amongst them, had gathered at the tree line. Great and small they stood there, watching him. Elegant Dames Vertes in gowns the same colors as the leaves of their trees, the brightly hued sparks of flighty Foletti, the gnomes, birch-boys, and the leaf-clad pixies…The light of their ancient lives burned brighter than he had ever seen it. They stood still for him, bearing witness.

  Jack drew the Jester’s sword from its sheath—the Blade of the Fool, Wayland had called it—and the blade rang out in challenge, a pure note that echoed around him. He could sense the hunger in it, could feel the enchantments woven into it as if they were now a part of him. They promised glory and fame. Things he neither wanted nor needed. But its song was as charming as that of the Nix. Powerful too. Lifting a sword changes a man, or so the old saying went. And it was truer in the Realm than anywhere else, as most stories and sayings were.

  The sword’s energies touched him and he knew it had faced the Nix before, or something of his ilk. It was ready. Jack swallowed hard as the sword drained away his doubts and fear. Better to die nobly than to eke out a pathetic existence as a slave, the sword sang. Better to save Jenny, even if it cost him everything, than to continue on knowing how badly he’d failed. He had to try. A grim smile spread over Jack’s face. He looked into the troubled faces of the folk, one after the other, and wondered if he was seeing them for the last time.

  “Wait for me here,” he said, then turned, and with the great sword held above his head, he plunged into the depths.

  chapter seventeen

  Beneath the waterfall, the Nix stirred and Jenny came to herself again, woken by his movement. One of his sisters knelt before him. Jenny watched her, feeling the water’s ripples differently now. Somehow she could read it as they did, could feel an invasion in their world. The Nixie spread her arms wide, her finger undulating with the current. Her hair billowed around her head, moved by the same disturbance. Her eyes were wide and she searched the water overhead relentlessly.

  “What is it?” the Nix asked, his voice drifting through the water like whale song, an eerie, beautiful sound that rocked through Jenny’s consciousness, leaving behind the impression of the words and the sorrow of a thousand years.

  “He’s coming.”

  Was it Jack? It had to be Jack. Jenny’s spirit soared at the thought, and the next words dashed her down again.

  “Then he’s yours. Yours and our sister’s. Do what you will.”

  The Nix turned back to Jenny, thrusting his hand into the cage, toying with her, running his fingers through her warm and radiant light. It would destroy her in the end, drain all the energy she held. She knew it instinctively, as surely as she knew herself. Each time it was worse. Eventually, she would just melt away. Not released, not set free, just gone.

  “You stir the sentimental side of my nature,” the Nix said, his voice winding through the water. “You’re a tragedy, a tiny, glittering tragedy, locked away in my gold cage.”

  Jenny struggled, trying to avoid him.

  “You’re stronger and more brilliant than any I’ve snatched away for centuries,” he continued, his voice lulling her like his music. “Mortals don’t stray to my riverbank anymore. So pretty a thing. So delicate. So amusing.”

  His sister was watching them, gray eyes ravenous. Jenny knew that look. Cats wore it as they stalked their prey. She only wanted to feed.

  “Have you sent word to the queen?” she asked.

  The Nix scowled at the interruption. “I have. She knows where the body lies, but this fancy is mine until she pays my price. And she would want to hurry. She can’t have both without the promised gold.” Still his sister didn’t move. He narrowed his eyes. “What else?”

  “The queen isn’t here to protect us. He’s coming for her.” She nodded toward Jenny’s cage. “He’s coming to kill us. You know what he is, what he can do.”

  The Nix narrowed his blue gaze to icy shards.

  “In the water? I think not. Take your sister with you and sing to him. Drag him into your embrace and then he is yours. Now leave me.”

  Jack was almost at the waterfall itself when he first heard it. It was a whispering in the water…a noise like a dream in audible form. And then a voice rose in a half-remembered song, and though he could not make out words, he felt compelled to listen. After a second, it faded. He turned in a circle, treading water, and then in another, until the spray of the falls once more rained onto his face.

  To his left, a second voice took up the refrain, the tone trailing to laughter as he splashed around in search of the source. Behind him, he heard the first voice begin again, and his body relaxed in the water, the song soothing him, the river cradling him.

  Both voices joined together in harmony, the sound of all his desires, from the simplest to the most complex. The song worked on his body, on the taut muscles and lines of tension. These were creatures who understood what he was, for they were the same. He had no need to fear them, or hide from them. Magic knows magic, his mind murmured, lulled by their music. It sang of freedom, of dreams, of never struggling again.

  A hand ran up the column of his leg. Another encircled his shoulders. Golden hair spread out in the water like the fronds of some exotic plant. Chill fingers played with the tender skin over his Adam’s apple, while another hand ran down the length of his arm. The hairs on his skin shivered.

  The song was everywhere, in his ears, in his mind, in the water that played against his body. A woman surfaced before him, her heart-shaped face pale as porcelain, shimmering with a touch of silver like scales on a minnow. Blue eyes gazed at him, liquid with desire and need, her pupils wide. Her mouth parted, revealing a flash of white teeth, and her song grew louder. Under the water, another circled him, her hands unfastening the baldric, uncurling his fingers where he held the sword. Their song was wound about with secrets and enchantments. Even knowing that, Jack wilted beneath the onslaught, his body betraying him. A traitor to the last. As the first laid her frozen lips on his, their grip on him tightened to silver bands, drawing him under the surface of the river. Wayland’s great sword slipped from his loosened fingers.

  The cold shock of the water drove breath from him and brought a frightening moment of clarity. The Blade of the Fool…He knew it now, as the water closed over him and the river sisters drew him down. He was the fool. Wayland had called him as much, had given him the Jester’s sword as if to prove it. It glinted several feet below him, sticking out of the black, consuming mud. Mud that would suck a man down and trap him forever.

  The second sister pushed herself between him and the first, her kisses even more savage. His breath felt caught, stolen. His energy drained and diminished. Her hands traced lines across his bare skin. She pulled at his leaf shirt to get beneath it, murmuring a song of sweet seduction, saw the bright glint of gold around his neck and her eyes widened. A new fascination entered them. She smiled, her full lips parting to reveal small, sharp white teeth, and her grip closed on the chain, ready to rip it from his throat.

  Jack’s hand came up, forcing its way through the water, closing on her wrist and wrenching her away. Her shock fragmented the spell. He flipped over, diving straight for the sword before their song could engulf him again.

  The play of seduction dissolved with his escape. He was their prey, in their element, and he had gold. They circled him like predatory eels, their long bodies brushing against him, trying to disorient him and knock him away from the weapon.

&nb
sp; His fingers closed on the sword hilt, closed into a fist, and he pulled.

  Mimung stuck fast, lodged in the clinging mud. He heard laughter and the Nixies stopped their circling. They hung before him, beautiful and terrible, waiting for him to move. He would need air. The moment he broke for the surface, they would be on him. He could see the intention in their flawless faces. He tugged at the sword, but it stayed where it was, wedged in the riverbed. Panic rose in his throat like bile.

  Please. You have to come out.

  His lungs ached, his eyes burned as he glanced for the surface. He needed air. He didn’t belong down here. His muscles strained, tearing, the water leeching his strength from him. Closing his eyes, he placed both hands on the sword hilt again.

  By oak and holly, he prayed, by ash and thorn, you’re earth, no matter how the water holds you down. Help me.

  The sword jerked free. The Nixies gave twin cries of rage and flung themselves at him, but the blade was still moving. His muscles strained to control it, fighting the water even as he fought its creatures. The Nixies rushed toward him, teeth and claws bared. Mimung, who had fought and destroyed water spirits many times before, arched toward them. The impact shuddered up his arm. The blade swept through them, leaving a long line of blood in the depths, billowing out and dispersing like ink. The Nixies shrieked, the steel destroying them. Dragging the sword back against his body, Jack pushed skyward with all his strength, forcing himself toward light and air.

  He broke the surface, his mouth distended, the sword still gripped in his hand. Blood burst around him, a huge bubble that polluted the clear water, churned up by the crashing waterfall. Jack heaved another breath and held the sword close, treading water desperately as he fought to keep from vomiting. When he could bring himself to dive again, the Nix’s sisters were gone.

  He surfaced and breathed. Breath was all he could cling to. His breath…and the sword. The waterfall thundered down, agitating the water around him. The Nix was down there somewhere. Had to be. He was down there. And so was Jenny.