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It took her a few minutes to understand.
"The rose!"
And the prince bent over her and woke her with a kiss.
Above them, the crescents of the two moons looked like they had been starved by the night.
"What makes you think I can wake him? Your brother doesn't love me anymore!" She tried hard to hide the pain in her voice.
Jacob took off the coat that made him look like a merchant. The only humans in the fortress were slaves, and they definitely didn't wear fur-lined collars.
"But you love him," he said. "It'll have to do."
Clara was just standing there.
"What if not?" she said eventually.
"What if it's not enough?"
Jacob didn't have to answer. They both remembered the castle and the dad under the leaves.
"How long did it take Will to pluck up the courage to ask you out?" He slipped back into his old coat.
The memory wiped the fear off Clara's face. "Two weeks. I thought he never would. Although we ran into each other every day in the hospital, when he was visiting your mother."
"Two weeks? That was quick for Will!" Something rustled in the bushes. Jacob reached for his gun, but it was just a badger weaving its way through the brush. "Where did he take you?"
"To the hospital cafeteria. Not the most romantic of places." Clara smiled. "He told me about this stray dog he'd found. He brought it to our next date." Jacob caught himself envying Will the expression on her face.
"Let's look for some water," he said.
They soon found a small pond. Next to it stood an abandoned farmer's cart. The wheels had sunk into the muddy bank, and a heron had built its nest on the rotting wooden bed. The horses greedily lapped at the clear water, and Valiant's donkey waded in to its knees. But when Clara knelt down to drink, Jacob pulled her back.
"Watermen," he said. "The cart probably belonged to some farm girl. They love to catch themselves human brides. And around here, they've probably been waiting a long time for their next victim."
Clara backed away from the pond, and Jacob through he could hear a Waterman's sigh. They were vile creatures, but at least they didn't eat their victims, as the Lorelei did. Watermen dragged the girls into a cave, fed them, and brought them presents. Shells, pearls, jewelry from people who had drowned... For a while, Jacob had worked for the desperate parents of such abductees. He'd brought three girls back to the surface — poor deranged creatures who'd never quite returned from the dark caves where, surrounded by fish bones and pearls, they'd had to endure the slimy kisses of an infatuated Waterman. In one case, the parents had refused to pay him, because they no longer recognized their daughter.
Jacob left the horses to drink and went to search for the brook that fed the pond. He soon found it, a thin trickle that emerged from a crack in the nearby rocks. Jacob fished some dead leaves off the surface, and Clara filled her cupped hand with ice-cold water. It tasted earthy and fresh. Jacob only saw the birds after both he and Clara had taken their fist sips. Two dead larks, pressed against each other among the wet pebbles. He spat out the water and yanked Clara to her feet.
"What's the matter?" she asked, alarmed.
* * * * *
Her skin smelled of autumn and the wind. Don't, Jacob. But it was too late. Clara didn't flinch as he pulled her close. He grabbed her hair, kissed her mouth, and he felt her heart beating as fast as his own. The tiny hearts of the larks had burst from the madness. Hence the name: Larks' Water. Innocent, cool, and clear, but just one sip and you were lost. Let her go, Jacob. But he kissed her again, and it was his name she whispered, not Will's.
"Jacob!"
Woman and vixen — for one moment Fox was both. But it was the vixen who bit him so hard that he finally let go of Clara, though every fiber of his being wanted to hold her.
Clara stumbled back and wiped her mouth as though she could wipe away his kisses.
"Will you look at that!" Valiant pointed the flashlight at them and gave Jacob a lecherous smile. "Does this mean we can forget about saving your brother?"
Fox looked at him as if he'd kicked her.
Human and animal. Vixen and woman. She still seemed both at the same time. But she was all fox as she approached the stream and looked at the dead birds.
"Since when are you dumb enough to drink Larks' Water?"
