The Treachery of Beautiful Things

by Ruth Long

  Jack took a series of rapid breaths, filling his lungs nearly to the point of bursting, and dived under the waterfall, letting the force of its descent drive him down to the lair of the Nix. Amid tangled weeds and misshapen stones, he felt his way, the sword icy cold in his hand. Through the gloom he saw a flash of light, golden, as bright as newly restored hope. He caught it for only a moment before his lungs betrayed him and he was forced back to the surface for air. Treading water, breathing calmly, he tried to fix the light’s location in his mind. Then he dived back into the depths.

  The light was gone, but he pushed himself toward its last location. The unfamiliar weight in his hand dragged him down, but at the same time the necklace tugged him forward, as if Jenny’s golden heart guided him to her. He allowed it to lead him, following the pull until he saw the riverbed. A line of jagged rocks ran across the base of the waterfall, and overhead, the surface boiled.

  His strength was failing. Out of the sun, away from the earth, out of his element, he couldn’t keep going. But he had to.

  He wasn’t sure what he had expected. Though the tales of the Nix had spoken of a stately hall and cages of gold, Jack had thought it a fancy. But under the water, his eyes adjusted. He felt the subtle shift of a magical charge and before him, the riverbed fell away, dropping down to reveal polished marble, columns and terraces. A palace spread out before him, shimmering in the water like mother-of-pearl. There were no roofs, no need for them here under the water, and mosaic floors and decorated walls spread out like intricate ruins that had never decayed. He dived deeper, passing beneath row after row of ornate arches, past faded frescos and into the largest chamber of all. Gold and precious stones decorated the walls and floor, each one glinting in the shifting light from high overhead. He glanced up. It was so very far to daylight, to air, to safety.

  Standing on a plinth that had once been a jagged rock but had been polished by water and smoothed by magic-wielding hands, stood a small and intricately crafted cage made of gold. It was the type of thing in which a queen might keep a songbird, but inside it he saw something like a will-o’-the-wisp, a single point of flickering light. It was the only light down here that wasn’t reflected from above.

  Jenny.

  He grabbed the cage, tearing the door open. The light shied back from him, colliding with the far side of the cage, desperate to avoid his touch. He drew back, willing her with his eyes alone to understand him, to seize her freedom. She darted clear of the cage, circling him like a frenzied firefly. She was lost, bewildered and terrified.

  Did she even know or recognize him? Could she in that state? She was so small, so fragile. She’d be furious to be seen as such, he knew that. She’d stick out her chin, ball up her fists, and raise herself straighter. Then do everything in her power to prove him wrong. The thought of it almost made him smile. He wanted to reach out, to gather her to him, but she was light, dancing through his fingertips.

  A roar shook the pool, the concussion throwing him back. The water twisted in a maelstrom and her soul-light was torn aside. A wave of hatred tossed Jack back toward the surface and he managed one brief, desperate lungful of air before the Nix closed hands around his throat and dragged him back under again.

  Had he been on land, Jack would have had no fear of this creature. He was a guardian, a warrior by nature, created to fight. But this was not his element. He needed earth and air. More than that, he needed sunlight, and beneath the surface of the river the sun diffused to a pale and distant glow. The Nix moved sleekly through the water, formed from it, a part of it, while he, ungainly and flailing, was forced to fight it as a second enemy.

  Jack’s back slammed against the side of a boulder. The remaining air exploded from his lungs in a chaos of bubbles. Black spots danced before his eyes. He saw the Nix snarl, revealing a row of savage teeth, and close in for the kill.

  Golden radiance exploded before his face—Jenny’s will-o’-the-wisp. She darted toward the Nix and he lunged for her, his prey forgotten for his prize. His grasping hands were claws around her, but at the last minute, she darted between his fingers, distracting him and leading him away. Jack broke for the surface and sweet air filled his lungs.

  But precious little light.

  He emerged in a cave behind the waterfall. The sound was deafening. The air hung with moisture. There was barely enough light to see at all as he hauled himself onto a wet ledge, gasping for air. It felt like someone was levering his ribs apart with each breath.

  The sword clattered from his hand, and even as he clawed after it, he didn’t have the strength to lift it anymore. Desolation drained his hope away. Moisture plastered his hair in strands over his face.

  Wayland had been right. Water would be his death.

  Light swelled in the river behind the falls. He gazed at it, a fire rising from the depths, like the sun he so desperately needed to feel on his face once more. Lying on his back, he saw Jenny’s light break the surface of the water. It darted toward him and then to the sword. He tried to sit up. He could barely breathe. It was like he was still there, at the bottom of the vast river with the full weight of water pressing down on his chest.

  “I can’t, Jenny Wren,” he told her, his body failing him. Failing her. She buzzed around his face angrily, a little glowing wasp of rage. It was Jenny all right. No doubt about that. He tried to shift his weight, to get leverage from his arms. Useless. He closed his eyes. Felt a coldness spread through him. Too late. The water had stolen whatever life was left in him. He was fading. Without the sun, without the earth, he was nothing.

  He opened his mouth to tell her that his strength was gone, then opened his eyes to see her flying straight at him. Before he knew what was happening, she shot into his mouth and his body swallowed reflexively.

  Her voice exploded into his conscious mind.

  “Get up! He’s coming to kill you!”

  The Nix erupted from the water, his mouth distended in a roar. Inside Jack’s head, Jenny screamed garbled instructions as the water demon bore down on them. Like a wave, the Nix seemed to hang there, just for a second, before crashing down against the rocks.

  “Move!” Jenny yelled, and Jack could do nothing but obey her.

  He rolled over the icy stone. The Nix’s claws slashed toward him. Jenny’s light flared in his chest, warm and brilliant as a star, right beneath the point where her locket rested against his chest. She was like the sun, the thing he needed, like the earth beneath his feet. She was breath and strength, everything.

  She was his May Queen.

  Jack came to his feet, snatching up the Jester’s sword as he did so. It filled his grasp, its song flowing through him, loud and new, and Jenny gave a shout of joy. His stance slid, the ground treacherous with water beneath him. But earth surrounded him, earth and rock and mineral. He felt the steel blade hum with expectation and tightened his grip. He was a creature of the earth. The sword was a thing born in fire. Water was the enemy of both.

  He had to trust the sword. To know it and let it be what it was.

  The Nix faltered for a moment and a slow smile spread over Jack’s face.

  “Jack?” Jenny whispered nervously when he didn’t move. “What are you—”

  The Nix lunged forward, intent only on carrying Jack back into the water, where he would be strong and the guardian would drown. Jack twisted before his assault and brought Wayland’s sword up to greet him.

  Like earth, like rock and steel, unmoving, rooted deep. Jack reached for both earth and sword and linked the two with his body. Earth and weapon, and the warrior between.

  The Nix tried to stop his rush forward, his eyes flaring at the sight of the blade. But nothing could stop the oncoming flood, nor move the earth itself. The Nix crashed onto the Jester’s sword, its full length passing through him.

  The creature shuddered, his blue eyes wide and liquid. He slid up the blade, toward Jack, reaching out with lethally sharp talons where his fingernails had been. Then his form lost cohesion. Jack watched
the blood melt away into the river, and like his sisters, the Nix was gone.

  The spell of strength snapped.

  He sank to his knees, cradling the sword. Every part of him was wrung out, broken. He needed to sleep, for just a while. He laid his head down. The world went black behind his closed lids, then crimson. His eyes snapped open.

  Gold-red light warmed his face. Sunset filtering through the curtain of water. Something stirred deep inside him, something ancient, scrabbling to get out.

  Oh Elders. He had to get her back to her own body—now.

  “Jack? Can you still hear me?”

  Sunset…And then night…Greedy fingers of exhaustion worked their way through him, as insidious as the icy water and the cold of the stone burrowing in from outside. Jenny was with him, her presence a bright spark in his mind. But if he didn’t move now, if he gave in to the great silence, she’d know him for what he truly was.

  And then?

  Puck was right. Wayland too. Even now, she’d never understand.

  He forced himself up, heard her sigh of relief. She thought the Realm a place of monsters. And he could hardly blame her for that. Sometimes he believed the same himself.

  “We haven’t much time,” he wheezed, praying that she couldn’t see his thoughts.

  “But he’s dead, isn’t he?” Fear sharpened her voice to a point.

  Her innocence glowed within him, cleansing him by virtue simply of touching him. For the first time, he could understand why those with souls were so highly prized by all of Faerie. Why she fascinated him, why Titania feared her, why Oberon wanted her…The knowledge chilled him. He didn’t want to understand how Oberon thought.

  It was her heart that did it, that made them all notice her, that made her stand out like the only still thing in a world of movement. Her heart, the very fact that she cared at all after everything she had been through, that beauty of spirit, the heart of a May Queen. No wonder Titania wanted it so badly.

  “The sun’s setting,” he said. “That’s all I meant.” He closed his eyes. Opened them. Struggled against his own exhaustion. “It isn’t safe.”

  “I know,” she replied and he heard the fear in her voice. Not fear of the Nix now. Just…fear. “I…I’m losing myself.”

  She could feel it too, he realized. The silence, the endless dark. She wasn’t losing herself, not really. He was losing himself. To the evening shadows. To the night.

  Jenny shrank back somewhere in the center of his chest. It was just as well that her fear kept her from examining her surroundings. Jack wasn’t sure if he would be able to maintain his control long enough as it was, let alone if she fought him. He lowered himself back into the river, flinching in expectation of another attack. But it was calm now. Except for the churning of the waterfall, nothing moved. The cold helped. So did being in another element. It distanced him from the earth, helped him to hang on a little longer. But even that wouldn’t last. He swam as quickly as he could for the shore.

  Strength was fading fast. It wasn’t far, but that didn’t matter if he couldn’t make it. The water might stop him changing but not for long, not forever. And in the meantime it might just kill him instead.

  “Jack? What’s happening? Jack?”

  Kill them both.

  Spots of light danced before his eyes. The world around him blurred and twisted. He was almost there, but the river was pulling him down, cold fingers as strong and insidious as those of the Nixies. He wasn’t going to make it. Water filled his mouth and nose, choking him, sucking him under. The light was going, his vision dimming, flooding with water thick with weeds, darkening. Water closed over his head. Sound and light faded away, leaving only darkness.

  Strong hands closed on his, a grip like a tree root, impossibly strong, dragging him to shore. He took a deep breath, choking and coughing up water, then blinked as his sight returned and saw the nut-brown face and copper eyes, as familiar to him as anyone’s, but full of fear. Puck, soaking wet, dragging him through the mud.

  “You’re all right, lad. You’re here. You’re safe.”

  Jack coughed up more muddy river water, choked, and pushed himself up on his aching arms. Puck? Puck had saved them? No time to riddle it out, but the relief on the hobgoblin’s face spoke more than could ever be voiced between them. Back on dry land, Jack hung on his hands and knees, breathing hard as the pull of earth and forest returned, slamming into him with renewed force. Puck tugged at his arm, trying to get him to stand. The sun was a blood-red orb hanging over the trees. Jack’s body creaked as he hauled himself upright. The change was sweeping through him now.

  “That’s it, lad,” said Puck. “All will be well now. Take it slowly.” But Jack pulled away from him. He staggered for the trees, aware that stiffness was coiling beneath his skin.

  “Jack?” Jenny felt his panic. He couldn’t disguise it from her now. She wasn’t a fool. She could feel it as clearly as he could. And it terrified her as it terrified him. “Jack? What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

  In the midst of the glade, the forest folk saw his frantic approach and scattered. They could sense it too. He fell to his knees before her body, jerked back the cloak so he could see her pale face and those wondrously human freckles.

  “Go,” he gasped.

  “I—I don’t know how.”

  “Jenny, now! Go!”

  “But I—” She fluttered within him, a firefly in a jar.

  “Old ways,” said Puck, laying a small, gnarled hand on Jack’s bent shoulder. He spoke softly, in calm and measured tones that Jack found too disturbing for words and far too great a comfort to say. “Old ways. Though they are never without danger.”

  Jack stared at Jenny’s still face. He knew of what Puck spoke. It was never without danger, just as the hobgoblin said, but he couldn’t think of anything else that might work. He took in Jenny’s features with his eyes one last time, then seized her shoulders, pulling her limp body up, and kissed her.

  It was hardly romantic. He could sense Jenny’s outrage at such a savage touch, her shock, and then…Nothing.

  She was gone, no longer inside him. But her body remained still and unmoving. Panic raked through him, even with the encroaching dark, even with the threat of what was to come. It hadn’t worked. Jenny was gone.

  With a gasp, she convulsed against him, her eyes opening, her mouth stretched, hiccoughing for air. He dropped her back down and saw her outrage turn to shock, to horror.

  It’s time, his mind screamed. It’s time. She’ll know.

  She scrambled back from him, and with a snarl of despair, Jack threw himself heedlessly toward the trees and their dark, welcome embrace.

  chapter eighteen

  Shivering, Jenny huddled against the flowery bier—it might have been her grave if it hadn’t been for Jack. She wrapped his leaf cloak tightly around herself, twisting her fingers through the material. The moon had risen and the trees whispered on and on and on. There was no sign of Jack. No sign of anything moving in there. No monsters in the darkness. But she couldn’t be sure…

  The forest seemed exceptionally dark tonight, or was it that she just couldn’t see its beauty anymore? The Nix had left her afraid. Again, afraid. Of the shadows, of the water, of the distant sound of the waterfall. Afraid of—of everything. Always afraid! She was sick of it.

  And Jack had come. He had come and gone…and left her with a—with a monster in his place.

  She was confused, that was all, her mind addled from everything that had happened. Waking up, she’d seen her nightmare made real and screamed. Puck had eventually calmed her down, but by then it was too late.

  It was gone. And so was Jack.

  She was an idiot, so afraid of the greenman, so angry with Jack, so thoughtless. She’d kissed the Nix—not willingly perhaps, but she’d done it, all the same—fallen under his spell without a moment’s resistance. So upset, so angry, so stupid and blind. But like the Goodwife and her husband, she’d slipped into a fairy trap, and almost lost eve
rything.

  She was no better than them, it seemed. The thought made her shiver more than the cold.

  And then Jack was gone. And in his place, the monstrous forest spirit that haunted her, hunted her. But she knew Jack had saved her. That she had somehow been inside him. That he had kissed her. And changed. She lifted shaking fingers to her mouth, as if his kiss still lingered there.

  What had happened? What on earth had happened?

  But of course, deep down, she knew. She just didn’t want to.

  “What ails you, lass?” asked Puck, gently enough.

  Jenny looked up as his gnarled little hand brushed her cheek and came away damp. Tears streamed from her eyes. Strange, she thought. Up to that moment she hadn’t realized they were there.

  “Will he ever forgive me, Puck?”

  “Forgive you what?”

  “The…the Nix…” she began uncertainly, unable to voice another reason. “Will Jack…will Jack come back?”

  He had to. Moments flickered like lights through her mind. The exhilaration of their escape, rushing back from the river, Jack’s hard kiss, opening her eyes to find…not Jack, but the greenman standing over her. She hadn’t been able to help herself.

  He’d lied to her all along. He wasn’t protecting her from the monster at all.

  Puck nestled himself beside her, his warm earthy scent a comfort; even that reminded her of Jack. No matter that his kiss had been brief and desperate, hurried. No matter. Its effect was the same. It wasn’t shy or uncertain. It wasn’t seductive. It had only served a purpose. And yet…it was like nothing she’d ever experienced.

  She smoothed her fingers over Puck’s wiry fur and he rested his head against her shoulder, warm as a sleeping cat. Who would ever have thought a hobgoblin could be such a comfort? Only to someone like her, she thought with a grim smile.

  “Jack would never hold another’s enchantment against you,” said Puck. “He knows that within the Realm, one’s actions are not always—”