"Maybe swimming would be good," he said.
Oh no. No, no, no.
Cerise looked past him, trying to think of something to say. Her gaze caught on chunks of battered wood bobbing in the lake just beyond the boundary. She squinted at them. Yep, sure enough. Cerise swore.
He turned. "What?"
"See those muddy broken boards in the lake?"
He looked to where she pointed. "Yes?"
"I think that's our boat."
CERISE stood at the boundary, staring into the Broken and listening to a torrent of cursing ripping from William's mouth. He had used a couple of words she'd never heard before, and she filed them away for later. She'd have to ask Kaldar what they meant.
The boat was no more. And the long smudge flanked by clawed tracks left no doubt about who was responsible for demolishing it.
"I'll kill that damn fish with my bare hands!" He must have run out of swear words.
Cerise sighed. One chunk of the punt lay twenty feet to the left, the next was up on a bush, the third was in the lake . . . "Boy, he really must've flailed around to throw the pieces so far apart."
William took it as a sign to unleash another string of curses.
"It's a lake house," she said. "There is bound to be some kind of boat in there."
Twenty minutes later they climbed into a narrow canoe they'd found in the garage and paddled through the boundary. The crossing took her breath away. Tiny painful needles pierced her insides. Cerise slumped over. Everything had a price. This was how she paid for her magic. She was lucky. Most of her family couldn't even cross into the Broken.
"Are you all right?" William asked from the stern.
"Fine." She swallowed the pain. Lord Bill seemed no worse for wear. "We're aiming over there." She pointed at the opposite end of the lake where a narrow river spilled into the water.
They began to paddle. The canoe slipped along, light and easy.
In front of her William paddled, hard muscles working on his back. Why did she have to meet him now? Why not a month before? Then she could've actually flirted and had the luxury of doing something about it. She really wasn't handling this whole thing well. First, she practically invited him to frolic in the lake with her, then she let him ogle her, then . . .
The surface of the river dappled. Tiny silvery streaks burst from the waves in a reverse hail. Fish fry, scared out of their wits. Cerise grabbed her sword.
"Something's coming!"
William dropped the paddle into the boat and pulled his knife.
A long serpentine shadow slid under the water. Cerise caught a flash of stubby fat paws. Not again. Damn it all ...
The eel shot under the boat. Cerise lunged, thrusting the blade into the water, and felt the sword's tip slide off the armored head. The creature dove, vanishing into gloomy depths, and she withdrew.
The lake lay placid.
A smooth wave rose and sped toward the boat. The fry leaped into the air in a futile attempt to escape. She gripped the canoe.
"He's going to ram. Get down!"
The blunt head smashed into the boat. The small vessel careened, propped on the eel's skull. A round fish eye stared at her.
William hacked at the head with his knife. The eel shot up, snapping at William's legs. The boat careened and he fell into the water.
Oh no. She let the eel eat the blueblood.
Cerise took a breath and dived in after him.
Cold water burned her skin. Cerise hung suspended in the dense gray-green depth, seeing nothing, hearing nothing.
An icy spark of Gospo Adir magic flared to the left. She swam like a rolpie, kicking her feet in unison.
An outline of a scaly body loomed before her.
She sank her blade into it, cleaving into the spinal column, before she realized that the eel lay motionless. Pale blood leaked and spread through the water in opaque clouds. Cerise tasted copper on her tongue.
She surfaced and saw William, one hand on the boat, looking for her. He reached her in two strokes.
"You aren't happy unless you're wet," he growled.
"There are times when wet is better than dry, but this isn't one of them," she snarled. "If you got down like I told you to, the fish wouldn't have knocked you out of the boat."
"It didn't knock me out. I jumped in."
Dear Gods. "You jumped into the water with a Gospo Adir eel in it?"
"I couldn't get a good cut from the boat."
Unbelievable. "Are you crazy?"
"Look who's talking, swamp mermaid."
"I jumped in to rescue you, you fool!"
He submerged and popped out of the water right next to her. There it was again, that wild thing he hid inside, looking at her through his eyes. If she just looked at it long enough, she would figure out what it was . . .
He grinned a crazy, happy grin. "You dived in to save me."
"Don't make too much of it." Cerise dived, picked up momentum, and climbed into the boat. Idiot blueblood and his idiot eyes. What the hell was she doing? This was the last time she would let him throw her offkilter.
William hooked the eel's carcass and swam, dragging it to the shore.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to cut off its head."
"Why?"
"I'll have it stuffed and mounted on my wall."
She stared at him in disbelief. Every handsome man had a flaw. It was just her luck that in William's case that flaw was lunacy. The man was nuts.
William's feet must've hit the ground because he stood up and began to wade. "That way," he said, "I'll be sure the damn thing is dead."
WILLIAM shifted his rucksack on his shoulder. The eel head he carried on a sharpened stick stank of rancid fish, and in retrospect he decided dragging it around probably wasn't the smartest idea. But that's what a blueblood would do, and he was too stubborn to toss it away now.
Cerise walked next to him. She hadn't said two words since they had gotten back into the canoe. Apparently he really pissed her off with that fish. His plan to get her to like him had gone up in smoke. She would leave him in Sicktree and disappear in the swamp. They were getting close to town, too - the muddy path had joined a narrow one-lane road.
He was out of ideas and out of time.
"We're almost there," Cerise said.
Think. "Got a favor to ask you. Before we split, will you help me find somebody to take the fish off my hands?"
She frowned. He concentrated, trying to read her expression. It would be a no, he could see it in her eyes.
He pulled a doubloon from his pocket, holding the small coin between his index and middle finger. "I'll pay for your time."