“I’ve heard they brought you only trouble,” Margaret said calmly. “They tried to claim your lake as their own, didn’t they, to make themselves a profit? I don’t know them myself, but we’ve no interest in breaching your territory or disturbing your peace. I am Lady Riven, and my only goal is to conduct a piece of scholarly research, which should benefit everyone in this forest and shouldn’t take longer than a few hours at the most.”
“A few hours?” The nixe’s slitted ears flattened against her head. “And will you be followedhere by hungry crowds? Human men who want to chase us or steal from us again?”
“We haven’t been followed by anyone,” Margaret assured her with perfect confidence.
The stories of the nixen’s revenge on those would-be pleasure-seekers must have spread throughout the area. Even that aggravating baroness hadn’t dared to chase after them once they’d neared the lake.
Something about that thought tugged at her, but she set it aside. For now, she focused on holding the nixe’s keen gaze and keeping her own expression steady.
“Will my treasure remain here with me for all those hours?” the nixe finally asked.
“That,” Margaret said, “is entirely up to her. Leonie?”
“Ah...” Still looking dazed, Leonie took a long moment to think but then nodded. “Yes. I want the answers to this research too.”
“Then I will allow it, foryoursake. Come, treasure. Let me help you through.” The nixe took Leonie’s closest clawed hand in her own and drew the nachzehrer between the trees.
Margaret followed, already composing new notes in her head to scribble down at the first opportunity. She nearly lost all of them, though, an instant later, when she stepped out from the trees and beheld the Diamantensee spread out before her like a vast, gleaming, mirrored bowl, reflecting every inch of grey sky and cloud above its still waters and all the hundreds oftall, green conifers that surrounded it. Half-blinded by the first true sunlight she had seen in hours, Margaret hurried forward on a gasp of wonder?—
And the nixe who had led her there snapped, “Careful!”
Margaret froze just in time. What she’d taken to be mere sandy ground between her and the lake’s edge shifted before her eyes, giving a long and sinuous yawn. Then he slowly rose all the way to a standing position to loom above her, shaking off the blanket of red dirt and grass that had covered his long, lean figure and stretching his arms languorously above his head.
Left shamelessly naked apart from his waist-length brown hair and the remaining fragments of sand and dirt on his bare skin, the male nix turned a deeply disgruntled gaze upon their guide. “Unfair, Gisela! Why take away my meal?”
“I’ve brought another meal for you,” Margaret said brightly, and reached into her basket to pull out an apple. “If you’re hungry?”
Eyes lighting up, he snatched it from her hand—but Gisela lunged forward to seize the whole basket from Margaret’s grip before he could reach in again.
“Onlyoneapple is for you,” she snapped. “These two are visitors, not intruders, andIwas first to greet them. I decide who eats the rest.”
“Pah.” The apple crunched under the nix’s pointed teeth. He slid a dismissive glance over Margaret’s figure before turning back to Gisela and the nachzehrer who stood behind her. “Yourpretty creature is one matter, but this boringonelooks just like all the others who’ve bothered and stolen from us in the past. Why don’t we drown her and divide her apples between us?”
“She’s with me.” Leonie’s voice trembled, but she stood firm, her red eyes narrowed against the sunlight. “She’s not like the other humans.”
“AndI gave her my entrance blessing,” Gisela said sharply. “Would you have mebreak my word now, like a human?”
“Ugh.” Sighing, the nix turned and stalked into the water with a discontented splash. Still chewing his apple, he sank under the lake’s surface a moment later, leaving the water still and calm above him.
“There,” said Gisela briskly. “Now, Lady Riven, you may freely conduct your research whileIget to know my treasure. I must learn everything about her, so I may know how to properly tempt her into letting me cherish her.”
“Ah...?” Raising her eyebrows, Margaret looked to Leonie for her reaction to that plan; research might demandsomesacrifices, but Margaret would neverallow any assistant of hers to be harassed. “I believe Fräulein Leonie actually chose to accompany me in order to take her own part in this research?—”
“Oh, but you don’tneedme looking over your shoulder right now, do you?” Leonie blurted the question out; her quick, furtive glance at the nixe by her side looked torn between wariness and dazzlement. “Imean, I mostly came to act as your protection, so if it wouldn’t harm your work...”
Well!Apparently, the nachzehrer did not, in fact, mind being flirted with by a stunning nixe maiden.
And Leonie certainly did deserve some fun after everything she’d been through...so, biting back a smile, Margaret left them both to their mutual entertainment.
Pulling out her pocket notebook and pencil, she began to scribble down estimated measurements and observations as she set off to pace the narrow, sandy bank that separated the thick line of trees from the water. Unlike the more natural arrangements found in most parts of this forest, no clear spaces had been allowed to form between any of these green guardians. Whenever that misguided tourism venture had taken place, the humans involved must have chopped some sort of entryway, but that was nowhere to be found anymore; clearly, the nixen had taken care to regrow and strengthen their lake’s living walls ever since.
Margaret would love to know just how many nixen were currently swimming nearby, far below the Diamantensee’s smooth surface—but that question was beyond the remit of today’s expedition. Instead, she focused on the astonishing reflectivity of that surface, remembering all the hints and clues in the old letters she had found.
In order to see truthful visions in Reflection’s Heart, a proper form of address had to be used. The exact details of that address remained sadly unclear,scrambled by alternate translations and languages across the centuries, but she was very nearlycertain...
Oh, hang it! There was nothing for it but to make a first attempt, embarrassingly wrong though it might be.
Oh, how Margaret did hate being wrong, though. Perhaps it was for the best, after all, that Leonie had stayed on the other side of the lake.
