Page 33 of A Magic Deep & Drowning

Maurits drew his hand through his hair, the gesture tugging her memory back to the day they stood in the drowsysunlight by the canal. Suddenly standing, he gave a huff and turned away. “It’s safe, that’s all that matters.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t know,” she said, surprised at the strength of her voice. “You don’t have a plan, and you don’t know what to do with me.”

He glanced back at her, the slight tightening of his jaw all the confirmation she needed. He had taken her from the only home she had ever known, and he didn’t even have aplan. A hard knot formed in her stomach. “What will become of me?”

“I won’t let my mother have you, I know that much.” He said it with such conviction that she was almost obliged to believe him. But then she remembered all his falsehoods and deceits. “But for now, I’m going to go find food for you,” he said. “You need to eat.”

With a graceful arc, he was in the water, disappearing into the fathomless dark. Alone, her breath was loud in her ears, every drop of water reverberating like the quivering string of a clavichord. She waited another minute or so, making certain that he was gone, and then she began her inventory of her prison. She was not going to wait and see if he would be true to his word this time; she would have to save herself. High above her, light filtered through a crevice. The walls were slick and cold, but she tried to find handholds, to fit her feet into any little divot and climb up. After several attempts all that she was left with were raw hands, her chest aching from the exertion.

Crouching at the edge of the rock to rinse her hands, something silver winked in the dim light from the opposite side of the grotto. She stood slowly, following the dancing light to a carved crevice in the wall.

Putting her face to the crack, she squinted one eye shut. The space was deeper than she’d realized. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, her breath caught. Treasures—dozens of them, if not hundreds. A little silver spoon, bent and tarnished, yetlovingly placed on a ledge. Coins with the Prince of Orange’s face stamped on them. Marbles, beads, jars. A little doll with a cracked face and missing limbs.

It was the collection of a child, mundane objects that had caught a little boy’s fancy and imagination. Reaching in, she gently lifted the spoon and ran her fingers over the smooth bowl. It felt intimate, and despite her anger at him, she found herself curious about the boy that Maurits had once been.

“What are you doing?”

The voice snapped her out of her reverie, and she spun around. “N-nothing,” she stammered, fumbling to replace the spoon.

Maurits came up beside her, but rather than reprimanding her, he simply took the spoon gently from her hands, turning it over in his own as he seemed to consider it. “A crown prince, yet these baubles were my greatest treasures as a boy.”

She was curious as to where he had gotten them, why he had bothered to save such a strange collection of items, but she was not about to give him the satisfaction of asking. All the same, he seemed to sense the question and gave her the ghost of a crooked smile.

“Anything I could get my hands on from the human world, I took and hoarded away in my little cave. If there was a shipwreck, I took whatever I could carry. Not gold or weapons or anything of that sort,” he added. “It was the simple objects that I wanted. The little things that humans take for granted, like a spoon or a button. Something useful and clever.”

Was she supposed to feel pity for him? He didn’t seem to be looking for any, but there was a vein of remorse running through his words. Returning the spoon to its ledge, Maurits cleared his throat. “I’ve brought food,” he told her. “Last night, you needed sleep more than anything. But now it is time to regain your strength.”

Still addled from the intimate glimpse of his past, Clara glanced at the brace of dead fish on the stone floor. Once, shewould have delighted in spearing the little fish on a silver fork and feeling them slide down her throat, salty and delicious. But here in the cave, fish were just one more cold and slippery thing. She pushed them away with her toe.

“You must eat,” Maurits said, not unkindly.

She turned her head away. Her hunger had gone from a persistent gnawing ache into something so painful as to be numbing. But she would not eat the fish.

With a sigh, Maurits took up the brace of fish and began scaling them. His knife strokes were deft, economical. When they were skinned and cleaned, Maurits went to the crevice and produced two rocks. She watched with wary interest as he struck them together several times, finally producing a spark, which landed on a piece of a dried seaweed. With a little coaxing, soon he had a respectable fire going. Jumping back, he took up a long stick and began skewering the fish and roasting them over the flame. Her stomach growled despite herself.

“Here.” Maurits removed the skewer, and handed it to her. Her mouth was watering, but she couldn’t bring herself to take it from him. She never wanted anything from him again, even if it meant she would starve. With a sigh, Maurits carefully placed the fish on a piece of seaweed on the ground.

“What will it take for you to trust me?”

She nearly laughed. “I didn’t trust you on land, not for one minute. I might have indulged you, sought you out, but even then, I knew better than to trust you.” And now that she washerewherever this was, she trusted him even less. But it was easier to say it than to believe her own words. There was still something deep within her that responded to him, that drew her to him. She wanted to be the object of his gaze, his attention, his heart, all while knowing that she was only giving him the opportunity to hurt her again. And he had hurt her, badly. She would be a fool to trust him.

Something flickered in Maurits’s luminous eyes and he opened his mouth, but whatever he was about to say was lost as a bubbling splash drew her attention to the water.

The head that surfaced looked human enough at first glance, but as the dark hair crowned and gave way to a preternaturally long neck with gills, Clara realized that she was beholding something that should have only existed in stories. She edged back closer to the wall.

The creature bowed her head to Maurits, though there was something like amusement in her red slit eyes, as if she did not take the gesture very seriously.

“Prince,” she said. “I heard you had returned.”

Maurits gave a low curse. “It seems that everyone knows.”

“Not everyone. Thade used some clever magic to ensure that your mother does not know where you are.”

“Did he now?”

Clara watched as Maurits and the... creature, conversed. There was an easiness between them that spoke of at least being acquainted, if not friends. Yet Maurits did not invite her to come out of the water (if she was even able to) and he made a point to stand between her and Clara at all times. Perhaps she should have been frightened, shocked at the existence of this creature, but after seeing the silver woman in the woods, and learning the truth about what Maurits was, she found that her capacity for believing the unbelievable had greatly expanded.

The creature dropped her voice, her slit eyes narrowing further over Maurits’s shoulder. Whatever they were talking about, they did not want Clara to be privy to it, yet they spoke in perfect Frisian. Clara pretended to be disinterested, but she could not help studying the strange beauty of the creature. What else lurked in these waters? What else did she not know about, simply because she had led a sheltered life, or because it had been deliberately hidden from her?

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