In the light of the rising sun, Sabrina was drowsy and comfortable, unwilling to open her eyes and rejoin the world of the waking. It had been ages since she'd slept so soundly. She lay on her side, wrapped in warmth, debating going back to sleep for a while.
Something was coming back to her…what did she need to remember?
Oh, right. The nightmare. Puck. Her stomach dropping as she remembered how that series of events had ended, Sabrina opened her eyes and felt them widen. She must have rolled over at some point in the night, because she was now face-to-face with the Trickster King, so completely that their noses were practically touching. He held her still, one arm wrapped around her waist, his forearm tilting up so his fingertips brushed her shoulder blade.
Sabrina did not have time to force her mind away from the feeling of his body and toward something productive before he stirred, his arm tightening briefly as he awoke. In a flurry of motion, he gave her a look that could have meant she'd grown a third eye in her sleep, jerked his head back to appraise the situation, and then sat up, edging away from her.
"What was that about?" he bleated, rubbing his eyes.
"Excuse me?" Sabrina asked, her face lighting on fire as she rolled out of her tangled sleeping bag and got to her feet. "Your arm."
Puck made a strangled noise in his throat as if he was trying and failing to think of a secure argument to that point, and kicked his way out of his own sleeping bag.
Sabrina and Puck stood on opposite ends of the tent, wishing they could be farther apart, looking anywhere aside from each other.
A faint, tinny crackling noise from the watch made them both jump.
"Guys?"
"Uncle Jake!" Sabrina cried, eternally grateful for the distraction.
Avoiding eye contact with Puck, she stared only at the ugly watch, trying to focus on figuring out where exactly the voice was coming from within its gears.
"What are your plans for today?"
Puck explained to the sleeping bags that they had to go back to New York and search for Water Toadie Eggs for Kiram.
"Okay, okay, perfect. We've got two caves left to check, so if you think you can accomplish all that by the end of today, then we can open the cave tonight. We figured out what was in it, but I don't want to say what it is through the watch, since I'm not sure how secure it is." Uncle Jake said this all like he was slightly out of breath, as if he was running.
"Is everything okay?" Sabrina asked, detangling her hair with her fingers. "Where's Daphne?"
"Right here," her sister's tinny voice replied. "We are lightly jogging."
"Lightly—what? Why?"
"Lightly jogging. It's faster than walking, but less strenuous than running," Uncle Jake replied matter-of-factly.
"Not just regular jogging? Lightly jogging, specifically?" Puck pressed, raising his eyebrows.
"Lightly jogging!" Came Daphne's breathless, cheerful reply.
If she wasn't reeling from the awkward way she'd fallen asleep and woken up, Sabrina would've laughed. Instead she blinked, processing this odd piece of information. "Well, all right. See you tonight, probably."
"Over and out!" Uncle Jake said after sucking in a large breath.
Puck's eyes flicked to Sabrina for the first time as he replied, "Over and out."
She realized with a jolt that she'd been staring at him after all.
"To New York?" she asked bracingly, eager to avoid falling back into the rut of awkwardness that Uncle Jake had unknowingly pulled them out of.
"You got it," he replied, and within minutes they'd packed up, programmed the teleporter, and were folding in on themselves, over and over.
Sabrina let out a sharp gasp. The teleporter left her hand as Puck took it to put it away, and she was left blinking in shock as darkness pressed on her eyeballs.
"It's nighttime!" she hissed, holding her hand up in front of her face. She felt like she was moving her arm through liquid blackness which was so thick and oozing that it made it impossible to see her fingers.
"Wow, Grimm! Slow clap. Nice observation," Puck shot back, a bodiless voice beside her.
Sabrina did some quick calculations in her head. "Oh, damn. The area of Russia we were in is twelve hours ahead of New England. It's yesterday again. I forgot about that."
She reached her arms out to both sides, feeling rough bark in some places, the evidence of trees. As her eyes adjusted, she could just make out their dim outlines. Overhead, stars blinked into existence, a few at a time.
"Yesterday again!" Puck exclaimed, and then felt silent. Sabrina imagined the gears in his head working until he'd figured out what she meant and nodded.
She heard him start walking, and groaned. "Puck, I can't see anything."
And then, light, as a cloud covering the moon drifted away. Sabrina let out a breath, letting it wash over her as her eyes adjusted. They were about halfway up a mountain, standing on the one flat strip of ground that Sabrina could see. Above and below them, the mountain stretched itself upwards and downwards at such sharp angles that Sabrina was surprised the slim tree trunks could grow vertically. The mountain dropped into a pool of shadows hundreds of feet below them, and extended into a wide valley.
Puck was watching her, probably analyzing her ability to see. "Let me know when you've scraped your jaw off the ground."
Sabrina shut her mouth and glared at him. "All right, Stinkface, what's the plan?"
"We've gotta go up," Puck replied, turning and scanning the higher part of the mountain. "I'm sure I'll be able to find the overlook in the dark, and then I can locate the pond. Come on."
He began to hike upwards, moving with all of the grace and endurance that living in the woods had given him.
Grumbling, Sabrina followed, grabbing tree trunks for support as she went. The moon was full and round, bright enough that she could see without a light now that her eyes had adjusted, although it made their surroundings manifest into odd shadows. At first, the climb was almost vertical, and she kept slipping on the carpet of dead leaves beneath them. But then the mountain relaxed to a steep hill, and Puck and Sabrina could hike side-by-side. She could tell that he kept glancing at her, which Sabrina thought was sort of odd. Part of her wished she had a reason to say something, but she couldn't think of anything to talk about other than to ask him what had happened in the tent, which was out of the question. It wasn't even like she could bring up the weather, because after the tundra, the late-December air felt practically balmy. So they walked in silence, Sabrina lost in thought, oscillating between believing it was nothing and believing it was something.
"Here we are," Puck murmured after what felt like an hour. "I'll need a minute to find the pond in the darkness.
"Whoa," Sabrina whispered without meaning to. He'd led her to an overlook, the edge of a cliff that dropped straight down into the valley mere feet away from where they were standing. They were looking down on a thick sea of trees, which was not a new feeling after all the flying, but different because they were rooted to the earth as well. Sabrina would have felt like a giant, except that this view allowed her to see more sky than usual, inky blue, dotted with stars and streaked with Milky Way.
Unable to speak, Sabrina took it all in, marveling at how easy it was, suddenly, to believe the planet was round as the sky curved to meet the horizon, at how many stars were truly up there, at the sheer size of everything that was enough to make her feel small. All of the time she spent in Ferryport Landing and Faerie couldn't change that she was a city girl in her bones. This was unfamiliar territory.
Puck's territory.
A frigid wind caressed their skin. Below, the trees breathed and swayed. She allowed herself to really look at him for the first time since they'd woken up. His head snapped away as hers turned—what was wrong with him? Looking at her constantly? She was not a pond, it wouldn't do him any good to look at her.
Despite her snarky thoughts, her gaze was again caught, on him this time. She knew that staring at him in this way wouldn't do her any good, either, but she couldn't help herself. He looked like a minor god in the light of the luminous moon, all of the color drained from his features as he scanned the landscape. The tips of his ears were gray, his lips a deeper silver. All of the green had gone from his eyes when he turned back to her.
Beautiful.
She could not stop looking at his lips.
"What?" he asked, raising a colorless eyebrow.
For several years, Sabrina would wonder what might have come out of her mouth, if not for the lone, eerie howl that rose and wound its way through the valley of trees below them. It was enough to startle Sabrina back to sanity, to remember the walls.
"What was that?" she hissed, groping for her sword before remembering it was in the bottomless knapsack. "Please, tell me there are no Everafters that sound like coyotes."
Puck spun in a slow circle, scanning the shadows behind them. "Uh, you're the Grimm. You're the one who's supposed to know stuff like that!"
"Yeah, but you've been an Everafter for like, four thousand years longer than me. Although I guess you probably can't fit that much information into your tiny brain," Sabrina snapped as the howl was returned by creatures in nearly every direction, from the mountain and the valley. It was a noise that made her blood run cold. She forced herself to turn away from the overlook and squint at the forest behind them. "But given the way things have been going, I'd say that the odds we're listening to just normal coyotes are low. Can you see the pond in the dark? I don't want to hang out in the woods waiting for sunrise, and waiting for something to find us."
Puck bristled. "We would be fine if something found us, Grimm."
Sabrina rolled her eyes and shoved him lightly. "Answer the question, Stinkpot."
He poked her side in return, making her jump, and then pointed out to their left. "See the glimmer?"
Sabrina scanned the area he was pointing toward and did see a faint spark of white moonlight on a changing surface. Before she could tell him, a loud snarl from behind them made her cry out and whirl around, again reaching for a hilt that wasn't there.
"Water!" Puck sang, grabbed her around the waist, and threw them both off the cliff. After a dizzying drop that left Sabrina gasping for breath, Puck extended his wings and caught the wind. They flew low, almost skimming the bare tree tops. Sometimes Sabrina thought she saw creatures running below them, and the noise of barking and yipping would grow louder and then quiet.
"What if werewolves are real?" Puck asked conversationally as they drew nearer to the pond.
Every hair on Sabrina's arms stood up straight. "Werewolves aren't real. Otherwise the Big Bad Wolf wouldn't be such a phenomenon."
She said it to convince herself as much as him. Puck's face scrunched in thought. "That sounds right to me."
But her uneasiness was mirrored on his face as he began to dive for the ground and then stopped.
"See anything below us?" he asked. They hung like a bizarre ornament in the sky for a minute as they both scanned the ground for furry bodies, but nothing dangerous was in view.
"No," Sabrina squeaked, distrusting her eyes.
"Great," Puck replied, his voice unnaturally high, and lowered them to the edge of the pond.
The actual process of collecting the eggs was rather simple. Puck dug around in the bag for a while and pulled out a pink butterfly net ("Prepared for anything, me and Jake," he'd bragged, puffing out his chest until Sabrina had remarked on the girliness of his net and he'd fallen silent) and then flew in slow circles above the water's surface, looking for the submerged logs that the Water Toadies laid their eggs on.
In her opinion, Sabrina's job was harder. She stood at the bank, trying to look at every inch of woods around them at once. The pond was vast enough that the other side was a black blur. Trying to focus on the occasional splash of the net instead of this new fear of werewolves, Sabrina paced the bank.
She was so intent on the forest that when a wet hand reached out of the water and snatched her ankle, she toppled into the pond like a stone.
Daphne knelt in the snow, her fingers trembling with cold as she inserted the small syringe into the vial of Yeti blood and drew two milliliters up. The blood was thick like syrup and smelled like dirty metal. Resisting the urge to gag, Daphne got to her feet and pushed the stopper on the syringe, squirting the blood onto the rock face in front of her.
If she'd been an innocent traveler, a random person who lived a nice, normal, life and probably owned several dogs, this rock face would not have stuck out to her. Every other unassuming cliff that Vanessa had marked for them wouldn't have seemed special to Daphne except for those red circles, but this was different. When they'd approached this sheer rock face that shot two hundred feet in the sky, she'd felt it. The pressure at the base of her spine, the indicator of ancient, powerful magic that you could only feel if you were part of a coven or something similar.
Daphne had only felt the pressure twice before, once during the Everafter War, and once in Faerie, when Titania had brought her and her mother to an vault filled with old artifacts from the old homeland of the Fair Folk.
So she watched, unsurprised, as the blood glowed green and then was absorbed into the rock. Although excitement bubbled up inside her, she arranged her face to look nonchalant. Turning to her uncle, who'd been watching her back, she waggled the vial and announced, "Half empty."
It was their code word for found it! We found it! There was every chance Moth was spying on them, even though they couldn't see her, and the last thing they wanted was for her to know they'd found the entrance. Knowing what Moth had done—and wanted to do—to Sabrina made Daphne so angry that she hoped for her sake that she didn't show herself.
Her uncle's eyes lit up and then relaxed. "Okay, one more."
They walked away. A half a mile away from the cliff, a forest of clustered pine trees began. After weaving their way through tree trunks, they reached the old road they would take back to the nearest town. From there, they would travel by train to the site of the last cave. Both Uncle Jake and Daphne had agreed before they'd left Buyan that it was important to check the final cave as well, because if the blood worked on that one too, then they would have a problem. Plus, carrying on would throw Moth off their scent. They weren't sure if she knew the real location of the cave or not, but they certainly didn't want her to think they did.
Then, they would stall until Puck and Sabrina teleported to them. They'd move to the real site of the cave as fast as possible, and hopefully get in and out before Moth caught up to them. When Daphne had pointed out that maybe Moth wasn't following them, and they should monitor the cave in case she tried to open it herself, Uncle Jake had argued that the odds of her being able to subdue a Yeti without help were low. There was a higher chance she was trying to use them to open the cave to get what she wanted, which meant they had to keep moving and constantly shake her off.
Daphne had little faith that things would go as smoothly as they hoped. She was certain this trip was giving her gray hair. She'd spent about half of it consumed with worry that Moth was simply waiting for the right moment to ambush and destroy Puck and Sabrina, and the other half of it looking over her shoulder for the crazed fairy.
When they boarded the train a few hours later, Daphne chewed her thumbnail and stared out the window at the barren landscape around them, wishing for warmth and green leaves.
"Are you okay?" Her uncle asked, looking up from the newspaper he'd been pretending to read.
Daphne's eyes flicked to the paper. "You're reading that upside down. And yes, but I'm worried that M—that my sister is going to get hurt."
No names, her uncle had warned her earlier. You don't know if she's listening.
Uncle Jake bit his lip, flipping the newspaper. "Robin wouldn't let that happen," he assured her, frowning. When Daphne's expression didn't change, he added, "You know what I mean. He would die himself before anything happened to her. And you know how hard he is to kill."
Daphne sat back hard against the plastic seat, unappeased. "I'm going to the bathroom," she announced, feeling the urge to walk, and jumped up. She brushed the rows of seats as she headed toward the back of the car. It wasn't until she was halfway down the aisle when something swept by the window outside the train, making her halt and look out.
Daphne squinted. It had been something large…something human.
Or not.
Daphne swore, dropping into a crouch as the thing flew by the window on the other side of the train. Moth. There was no way it wasn't Moth. How was she moving quickly enough to keep up with the train? Praying that her uncle had been properly concealed behind the newspaper, Daphne crawled back to their seats, ignoring the strange looks the other passengers were giving her.
Uncle Jake dropped her newspaper when he saw her. "What are you doing?" he hissed, casting a furtive look around.
"We've got company!" Daphne announced from the floor, pulling him down. A loud, metallic thud on the roof of the tent drew their attention.
"Oh, dear God," her uncle muttered, understanding what he meant. "She must know we're in here."
"What do we do?" Daphne whimpered, looking around for an escape route. Both ends of the train car had doors, but the noise had come from the middle of the car, and there was no telling which side Moth would choose to come in by.
Uncle Jake was fumbling with the pockets of his overcoat, which lay on the seat above them, his face slightly green. His lips mouthed soundlessly, as if he was praying, and as the car door farther to them flew open, he edged toward the aisle, waiting.
Daphne felt like she was about to throw up. She struggled to control her ragged breathing, terrified for her life and her uncle's as she watched Moth's boots move down aisle, stopping at every seat to examine the passengers. A few people down the car cried out in alarmed Russian as she went by. Moth spat back at them in a similar language, her voice oddly guttural, and they calmed down, which made Daphne's skin crawl.
Once the fairy was within three rows of them, Uncle Jake jumped to his feet and blew. A loud gunshot made Daphne's insides rip into pieces. She screamed her uncle's name and jumped up, gripping the back of the seat for support as she absorbed the scene in front of her.
Uncle Jake, looking very pale but alive, clutching his arm. Three feet away, a very dazed and confused looking man with pink grains of Forgetful Dust in his hair, whose gun dangled from his fingers. The other passengers in the car, screaming. One of them pulled a lever, and the train began to screech to a halt, throwing the three of them to the ground.
"Are you okay?" Daphne cried, tears streaming down her face as she crawled to her uncle.
"I'm fine. The bullet just grazed me," Uncle Jake grunted, staring at his bloodied arm. He then carried on in a tone that was horribly conversational, as if he was delirious from pain. "What I really want to know is, who just shot me? I blew Forgetful Dust at him, thinking it was Moth, of course."
His eyes, narrowed in suspicion, moved to the other man, who was sitting in the aisle with his back to them, slumped, but Daphne could not take her gaze off the dark rivers of blood that ran through his white fingers and down his arm.
"Uncle Jake," she whimpered, reaching out with a trembling hand. "Do you have any sort of salve that will heal your arm? We need to get out of here before the police turn up."
"Daphne," her uncle grunted, his eyes dull. He looked like an upended turtle, incapable of sitting up completely. "Daphne, before the Dust wears off. Grab his gun."
Gulping air, Daphne did as she was told, snatching the thing that had hurt her uncle from their attacker's side. She flicked on the safety but did not let it go, instead leveling it with the other man's head. In her gut Daphne knew she could never shoot, but perhaps the threat would be enough. With her other hand, Daphne groped for her wand.
"Gimme some ropes," she choked, and ropes shot out of the wand and wrapped themselves around the man, who continued to sit with his back to them as if he could not care less about their presence.
The train finally stopped moving, and Daphne knew that there were employees moving toward their car already, ready to Solve The Problem, who had no idea what they were actually walking into. It was time to be the Sabrina of the situation. Daphne had to move fast. She put down the gun and the wand and fumbled through the pockets of her uncle's overcoat, turning over vials and jars in her hands, frantically deciphering the spindly and cracked handwriting on the labels.
"There. That one. I drink it," her uncle croaked, his eyes half open, nodding at the thing she held in her hands. He was now the color of day-old oatmeal, and was lying flat on his back. Terrified to think about how much blood he'd lost, Daphne uncorked the vial and propped up her uncle's head so he could drink. Some of it dribbled out of his mouth, but he swallowed loudly and then flopped back down, groaning. "Give it a…minute."
And then his eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out. The door burst open, and three burly men spilled into the car. The one in the front took one look at her uncle and blanched. His eyes moved to the bound stranger, and then to Daphne, kneeling on the floor surrounded by bottles, and then to the rest of the passengers, some of whom were beginning to draw closer to see the action.
He barked something at her. Daphne blinked. "English," she replied, pointing to her mouth.
The man seemed to understand. Dropping to his knees, he placed two fingers on Uncle Jake's neck, his brow knit in concern. His face relaxed and said something to his colleagues that Daphne guessed had to do with her uncle still being alive.
Daphne's brain was working overtime. She needed this well-meaning employees gone, so that she could deal with her uncle and question their attacker, but between the language barrier and the fact that she was a scared girl who had clearly been crying, she could tell it would be difficult to convince them to not call the police and whatever Russia's equivalent of 911 was.
In the same moment, Uncle Jake sat up with an audible gasp, and the attacker began to struggle against his bonds, twisting so that he was facing them. The man who'd felt for Uncle Jake's pulse jumped up with a yell of alarm.
Uncle Jake blinked blearily, absorbing the situation they were in. Overwhelmed, Daphne flung her arms around his neck, and he gripped her with his good arm. Over her shoulder, he addressed the men in broken Russian. They argued back and forth for a bit, and then the employee in charge threw up his hands in defeat.
Uncle Jake turned to the bound man. "Who are you, and how did you find us?" he demanded, keeping a protective arm around Daphne's shoulders.
Their attacker had cold, slanting black eyes that were slightly unfocused because of the Forgetful Dust.
"Ariel," he said flatly. "I'm here to kill the King and Queen of Faerie. You are their companions."
And then comprehension returned to his eyes, and he flashed them a feral smile. "Moth sends her love. She says it's a pity we couldn't just slit your throats quietly. You may not be the ones I came here to destroy, but you'll all be dead soon, anyways. Give me back my gun, and I can make it short and painless right now."
Her uncle's free hand twitched toward the gun, as if he longed to pick it up and return the shot he'd received. Ariel sighed, allowing his shoulders to sag although his face did not relax. Clenching his fists, he began to tremble, until the ropes that Daphne had conjured burst, freeing him. He jumped to his feet and assumed a fighting stance, his wiry frame ready to lunge at Uncle Jake to finish off the job.
But Daphne's yell, coupled with the yells of the employees, made him freeze. She had risen as well, and pointed the wand squarely at his chest, giving in to the belated rage that was bubbling up inside her. "One step, and I finish you!"
Her mind was racing. What sort of command did you say in this case? Gimme some unconsciousness? Gimme some attack?
Ariel's soulless eyes flicked from Daphne, to the wand, to her uncle. He cocked his head in an unnatural fashion, like it had snapped from one position to the other without moving fluidly between them. Raising his arms, he sprouted wings and he made a motion as if he was going to do a backflip, instead zipping upside-down through the aisle and blowing the door off its hinges as he escaped.
In two steps, Daphne crossed to the window and watch him shoot into the sky, until he was a speck of dirt against the blue. Feeling weak from the emotional roller coaster she'd just embarked on, she watched her uncle speaking to the stunned employees.
A bucketful of Forgetful Dust and some fancy wandwork on the door Ariel had ruined later, the train was moving again. They'd moved to sit in a different car. Uncle Jake had found some chocolate in one of his pockets and given it to Daphne. He'd also given her the overcoat itself to wear when it was clear she couldn't stop shaking.
Daphne felt okay, for the most part. Relief that they were both fine was slowly neutralizing the paralyzing fear, terror, and anguish she'd previously been consumed by. For the most part, she was bubbling over with questions, and struggled to pick one to start with.
"Why didn't the Forgetful Dust work?" Daphne asked finally, breaking off another small piece of chocolate and staring at it. They'd given up trying to be secret, confident that Ariel and Moth were both far away. "Is it a fairy thing? Also, is it a fairy thing to have crazy strength that'll let you blow doors off of trains?"
"I can't begin to guess about his strength." Uncle Jake grimaced and bit into a granola bar. "But, about the Forgetful Dust, seeing as he shot at me, it could just be that most of it missed him. It just dazed him enough that he lost control of what he was saying, instead of working properly."
"Who is he? He said his name was Ariel," Daphne whispered, leaning against the window. Then she sat up straight, remembering, chilled. "There was a fairy named Ariel in The Tempest, he was imprisoned for twelve years by an evil witch and then forced to serve under the guy who eventually freed him. Shakespeare wrote about both him and Moth, if that means anything"
Uncle Jake stopped mid-chew, his eyes widening. "Was Ariel linked to Faerie in any way?"
Daphne shrugged. "If he wasn't then, I'm sure he is now. But if he is…what is he doing all the way over here?"
They stared at each other, slowly fitting the pieces of the puzzle together. "They must both want Kladenets. I'm not sure why Ariel would want to side with Moth, though, since he seems powerful enough to work alone," her uncle said, his lips barely moving. "I was thinking last night, trying to figure out why Moth wants the sword. You know what I came up with?"
"What?" Daphne breathed, afraid of his answer.
"I think she wants to take back the crown she thinks Sabrina stole from her," her uncle whispered, so quietly that Daphne had to lean in to hear him. "I thought it was a crazy theory, because there's no way she could still love Puck after what happened, but I figured I'd mention it."
Daphne's stomach dropped as she recalled what Ariel had said. Chills raced up her spine and down her arms.
"She wants to be Queen," Daphne realized, wrapping the overcoat more tightly around herself. "And I bet you that Ariel wants to be King. That's why he's helping Moth."
Worry carved lines into her uncle's forehead. "Oh, no."
Bile rose in Daphne's throat, and the shaking, which had finally subsided, came back with a vengeance. "He wasn't bluffing, Uncle Jake. If what they really want is to rule Faerie, then they really are going to try to kill Puck and Sabrina. And the entire court. And probably our entire family. And anyone else who might stand in their way. And if they do get their hands on Kladenets before us, they'll be really hard to stop."
Uncle Jake pushed a hand through his hair, staring off in the distance. "We shouldn't have split up. I had no idea…I didn't know. Oh man, we've got to make finding Puck and Sabrina a priority, get back with them before we check the last cave."
She rested a hand on his arm. "We will. They can take care of themselves for now. Until Kladenets falls into someone's hands."
His head snapped towards her. "We can't tell them."
"What?"
"Daphne, think about it. They'd both freak out at the idea that Moth and Ariel just assumed Sabrina would be Puck's Queen, deny, not take this seriously. I know that sounds stupid, but you know that they would be stupid enough to let something like that get in the way of fixing this problem."
Daphne pulled on her fishtail braid until her scalp hurt. "You're right. Oh, dear. We just have to act natural around them. As cheerful as possible."
Uncle Jake was nodding, although clearly still in shock. "I don't even want to think about what would have happened if we hadn't randomly decided to track down the Lost Cave when we did."
It's a pity we couldn't just slit your throats quietly. Ariel's words rang in her ears. What would have happened if they'd showed up at Faerie, or her house, in the dead of night in the middle of winter break? She shrank into the corner of the seat, overwhelmed at this situation that was both terrible and incredibly fortunate all at once.
"Thank God," she whispered, finally popping the piece of chocolate that had been melting on her fingers into her mouth.
So this was drowning. Sabrina flailed her arms, struggling to swim towards the surface of the lake as the knobby hand pulled her deeper and deeper. The coldness of the water was numbing her skin, and her lungs burned as her desperate movements slowed. Stars swam around her. She bit the insides of her mouth to stop herself from opening it to take a breath. Where was Puck?
Something shot past her from above, moving downwards. Out of nowhere the pressure on her ankle disappeared, and she stroked upward, lightheaded, afraid she wouldn't make it to the surface in time. As the edges of her vision began to go black, Sabrina surfaced and sucked in air, sinking under and then rising again, wishing she had something to cling to.
Puck's head broke the pond next to her. He shook his hair, showering her in water droplets, and yelled, "The shore! Swim!"
Sabrina's arms and legs felt leaden, and she wanted nothing more than to snap at him for ordering her around, but he had a point. She stroked with difficulty toward the edge of the pond, which was luckily not that far away, and after a few minutes was dragging herself through the aquatic vegetation. The entire world tilted aggressively to the left, and then Sabrina's head met the ground. She lay on the solid earth, gasping, too dizzy to rise.
Puck's arms went around her, and he pulled her into a sitting position. She sagged against him, still gasping for breath, and let him cradle her while she recovered.
"What…was that," she wheezed when she had the air too, rubbing her ribs as if that would alleviate the pain in her lungs.
"A kappa," Puck replied, dropping his cheek onto her hair. She closed her eyes, glad for his solidness. "I don't know what kind. Water toadies are a type of kappa, but they aren't that big. I didn't know there were other types in this pond, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"
Sabrina tried to respond and groaned instead. Another minute passed, and then she found the strength to reply, "I'll be fine. Did you get the eggs?"
He let out a humorless laugh. "No, I dropped the net when you went under. It floats, so the eggs I gathered might still be there. It doesn't matter. I'll check later." His arms, strong and somehow warm even though he was also wet, tightened.
"Can kappas walk on land? Should we move?" Sabrina asked. The pounding her in head was subsiding.
"No, it won't come up here. Kappas rarely break the surface to grab prey that was standing as far away as you are. It's your own fault," Puck replied, his voice taking on its usual teasing tone. "Being such a death magnet."
Sabrina snorted, sitting up. "You are the worst. Go check the net so we can get out of here."
Puck dropped his arms somewhat reluctantly and got to his feet. "Try not to die in the two minutes this will take."
He jumped into the air and Sabrina wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. By the time Puck came back, declaring they had enough eggs, Sabrina was sure she'd come down with hypothermia. They teleported back to the nature preserve in Russia, blinking in the sudden mid-day sunlight, and brought out the tent to change and contact Kiram. Sabrina dug around in her bag for a while and then let out a sigh of frustration.
"Do you have anything that'll instantly dry clothes?" She asked Puck around a mouthful of chattering teeth.
Puck scoffed. "Grimm, if I did we wouldn't still be wet. Don't you have a change?"
Sabrina rolled her eyes. "I do, but I don't have another jacket."
Puck threw her a coat in response. Snatching it out of the air, Sabrina turned it over in her heads. It was army green and seemed as sturdy and warm as her soaking one had been.
"I grew out of that a few years ago, but it should fit you," Puck replied, eyeing her in a way that made skin tingle.
"This isn't going to set me on fire or eat me or something, is it?" Sabrina asked, examining it.
"I don't prank when I'm in the middle of a mission," Puck explained seriously. "But I'll keep that at mind for Christmas at the Old Lady's."
Sabrina threw him a dirty look and ordered him out so she could change. Once she'd put on dry clothes, she slipped the jacket on, digging through the pockets for abandoned glop grenades or dirty tissues. Finding nothing that made her want to vomit, Sabrina zipped it up, breathing in deeply. Even if he hadn't worn it in years, the coat smelled the way Puck did, like pine trees and the earth after it rained and wood smoke and some other smell that Sabrina couldn't name but was distinctly him.
Irritated that she'd noticed what he smelled like, Sabrina left the tent. Puck pulled his phone away from his ear.
"You have a phone?" Sabrina cried. "And yet your main form of communication is a watch?"
He'd also never called her before, which was something she noted somewhat bitterly.
He waved a hand as if he couldn't be bothered by this minor detail. "Grimm, we have a problem. Kiram isn't answering his phone."
Sabrina stopped herself from saying that he could be doing a whole slew of things without his phone. "But he was waiting for our call, right?"
Puck nodded. "I think we're going to have to track him down. You still got that address from Jake?"
"I'll find it," Sabrina replied, pulling the bottomless knapsack off her back. While Puck changed, she searched, and finally pulled out her current journal, in which she'd scribbled Kiram's number and address in. They flew to the city and searched for the correct street, anxiety levels rising as Puck called Kiram a few more times and was repeatedly sent to voicemail.
"This one. His apartment is on the third floor," Sabrina muttered after a half hour of searching, folding up their map and pointing to a tall brownstone building that looked like it had seen better days. Taking a deep breath, she led the way up the front steps. There was no security that stopped them from crossing the dingy lobby and pounding up the stairs. Outside of Kiram's apartment door, Sabrina hammered on the door.
Puck and Sabrina exchanged uneasy looks as the wait dragged on and on.
"Something's wrong," Puck whispered, and then his eyes lit up. "Want to break in?"
Sabrina scowled. "No, idiot, he's probably just not home!"
But Puck tried the handle, and when the door swung inward with a soft click, Sabrina drew her sword and followed him inside without hesitation.
The front hallway was empty, but when they turned the corner to the living room, Sabrina had to clamp her jaw together to muffle her gasp.
Kiram was struggling viciously against the ropes that had him bound to a chair, his black curls flying and panic in his eyes. He was clearly trying to yell something at them, but his words were muffled by the gag in his mouth.
Puck and Sabrina exchanged glances, a silent agreement passing between them. While he covered her, Sabrina ran forward, yanked the gag out of Kiram's mouth and began sawing through his bonds with her sword.
"What happened?" Sabrina asked.
"It was the fairy!" Kiram hissed, coughing. "She showed up at the door, disguised as a human, and when I let her in she demanded the last of my poor mother's seaweed. I told her I was sorry, but it wasn't for sale. And then she pulled out a gun and ordered me to give it to her."
"Did you?" Puck growled, scanning the room. "And did she leave, or are we waiting for an ambush?"
Kiram coughed again. "She's gone. I gave her a piece. I hid every piece separately in case something like this happened, so she believed I'd given her everything. And then she tied me up and broke my window on her way out, even though I haven't done anything wrong! Why did she tie me up? Does she know you two? Is this happening because of you?"
He looked from Sabrina to Puck desperately. Biting her lip, Sabrina thought about this. Moth had left a clear message by leaving Kiram in this state: I am a step ahead of you. Stay away.
Unwilling to say this to Kiram, Sabrina shrugged and replied lightly, "Fairies are insane."
She noticed that Puck stiffened when she said this, but by some good fortune didn't say anything.
Kiram was nodding, tearing at his curls. "I have to say, this is embarrassing. I'm usually more capable when it comes to defending myself, but she was a fairy, and she caught me off guard."
"Don't worry about it," Sabrina replied weakly, her mind racing. Desperate to change the topic, she added, "We have the eggs."
Shaking off the loosened ropes, Kiram let out a frustrated sigh and disappeared into the back of his apartment.
"Fairies aren't insane, you're insane," Puck muttered defensively as Sabrina crossed the room to stand by him.
"Shut up, Stinkpot!" Sabrina hissed.
"Can I ask you something?" Kiram said abruptly as he reappeared, a wooden box in his hands. "What do you need this for?"
He turned the box over in his hands and then opened it to display several long, emerald-green strands of seaweed.
Sabrina debated lying, but part of her was curious as to how Kiram would react to the news. "We're trying to open the Lost Cave."
Kiram's eyes narrowed and he shoved the box at her. "No wonder the fairy tied me up."
"What do you mean?" Sabrina asked nervously, shoving the box deep into the rucksack before Kiram could change his mind.
"Fairies are the guardians of the Lost Cave. They wreak all sorts of havoc on anyone who tries to open it."
Puck raised an eyebrow. "Right. We'll keep that in mind. Goodbye!" He ushered Sabrina out of the room and into the hallway, where they practically ran for the stairs.
"Guardians of the Lost Cave? We are not!" Puck whispered as the went.
"Maybe other banished fairies guard it," Sabrina reasoned, flinging open the door to the stairwell and flying downwards. "And maybe Moth doesn't want it opened, maybe she's teamed up with them."
"Maybe. I don't understand what Moth is doing," Puck said, changing the topic. "Flying away mid-fight, leaving our accomplices tied up. If she wants a fight, why doesn't she finish one? I don't get why she keeps coming back if she doesn't actually want to get hurt."
Sabrina frowned. "It's like she waiting for the right moment."
As the setting sun plunged Puck and Sabrina into darkness for the third time in 36 hours, they walked downhill towards their tent, gathering firewood and shoving it in the backpack so they didn't have to carry it. Daphne and Uncle Jake had met them at the nature preserve, both seeming forcefully cheerful, and had then used the teleporter to head to the last cave.
It was unclear, really, why Uncle Jake had asked them to gather wood, since they had a space heater and had already eaten dinner, but Sabrina and Puck had obliged, eager to do something other than hang around in the tent waiting for them to come back. Puck had a flashlight, but instead of turning it on, he'd spent most of the walk swinging it around, accidentally whacking trees and dropping it once or twice. She hadn't asked him to turn it on. Both of them were used to the dark by now.
Sabrina was lost in thought, since it was almost time to go back to sleep, and what with the nightmares and what had happened last night, part of her was dreading it.
"Were you awake?" Sabrina asked abruptly, as they stumbled downhill, tripping over rocks and grabbing tree trunks for balance. She needed to know, she'd decided. It wouldn't mean anything, but she still wanted to know.
Puck looked up at her, catching the first shards of moonlight in his hair as he did. "When?" he replied, wariness encroaching on the lighthearted tone he'd taken earlier.
"Last night. When I was…also awake."
"Does it matter?"
Sabrina lengthened her stride to close the distance between them, almost falling but regaining her footing just in time. "What is that supposed to mean?"
He spun to face her, eyes glinting, catching her off guard. "Kind of hard to sleep when you were basically doing backflips beside me."
She had about a foot of hillside on him, and looked down at him for the first time since they'd been about fourteen. A roundabout answer, but an answer enough.
"Why'd you do it?" There was her heart again, pounding so hard that it could have been trying to drown out his answer with its thunder.
Almost-anguish, the same emotion that had written itself across his features the other day at the bog. "You were cold."
Sabrina's insides clenched in embarrassment. She muttered, "I wasn't that cold." Ironic that he was the one shivering now, having left his coat in the tent, claiming that the weather was practically like July after their time in the tundra.
She began to stride past him, toward the shadows that were drowning their tent.
"Why are you—Sabrina," Puck breathed, catching her arm. For some reason, perhaps because he'd called her by her first name, she allowed herself to be turned around. Then he found his voice and snapped, "Why are you mad?"
"I'm not mad," Sabrina began, looking up at him now. For the first time, she wondered what he had decided in the six years they'd been apart. Part of her was glad for the shield of darkness between them. It made it easier to blurt out, "I just didn't think you would care. I thought you'd make fun of me."
And then bit her tongue to stop any other phrase that might make her cringe from slipping out.
"I didn't think you would," Puck shot back, an agitated silhouette. "You've spent ages acting carefully uninterested. This is so unlike you, by the way. Are you feeling okay?" His question was sarcastic.
Sabrina had a feeling she was not the only one whose mouth was more in control than their mind at the moment.
"What are you talking about? Carefully uninterested?" Sabrina snapped, her blood boiling.
He gave a humorless laugh, his words laced with irritation. "You know what I mean. For a while you had me fooled, Grimm. I thought you really didn't care about me. But after these past few days, I'm not too sure."
He shook the flashlight at her as if he was accusing her of some terrible deed.
Aware that she was gaping at him, Sabrina struggled to think of a suitable way to answer this without disturbing the walls.
"What does that even mean?" she cried, indignant. "Puck, there is nothing between us!"
Her arms flailed toward him and then back toward her, as if that would get the point across.
"I know that!" Puck snapped. "But I think you're forgetting!"
"Oh, please! How could there be anything between us if you're gone all the time?" Sabrina retorted, crossing her arms. It was an accusation, not a question, and Puck knew that. She watched him struggle to answer.
"There could be!" He threw back. "If you didn't hide your love for me behind indifference!"
His challenge hung between them.
There could be. Love for me.
"You're so arrogant!" Sabrina hissed finally, clenching her fists. Her heart was starting to pound again as she thought about what he was implying. "You drive me insane!"
Before he could retaliate, Sabrina sucked in a sharp, sarcastic breath and continued angrily, "And since when did you want there to be anything between us?"
Sabrina and Puck glared at each other, and when it was clear that Puck was not going to answer her, Sabrina stormed into the tent, her face burning with anger and indignation. She ripped off his jacket and tossed it aside. Then she paced the length of the main room, digging her nails into her palm, trying to understand why she felt disappointed. Her heart was pounding a violent tattoo: there could be, there could be, there could be.
Oh, god. Sabrina felt the walls crumbling.
Her back was to the entrance when a soft rustle announced Puck's arrival. When she spun to face him, ready to continue the fight, his eyes were wide, the tip of his nose red from the cold.
"You never said you didn't," he whispered, and something about the way he was looking at her made Sabrina's cheeks warm. She felt the anger rush out of her and stopped walking a foot away from him.
"Neither did you," Sabrina replied, her voice barely audible.
Puck took a step closer, and she was looking up again, determined to hold the challenge in his eyes, despite the sudden fuzziness in her head. The tips of her fingers were hot, all she could hear was her pulse, and she was close enough that she felt like she was breathing him in.
The intensity of Puck's gaze heightened, and he reached across the space between them and brushed her cheek under the cut the Kuli-baba had made. His fingers lingered on her skin.
Feeling like he had thrown them off the cliff in New York again, Sabrina closed the distance and kissed him.
There was a soft thump as the flashlight Puck had been holding hit the ground, and then his arms were wrapped around her waist, one hand sliding across her back. His hair and shirt were soft under her fingers. Sabrina's insides imploded as his teeth grazed her bottom lip, and she pressed so close that she could feel his ribs, the beating of his heart against hers. He smelled like his old jacket, pine trees and rain, and held her like he never intended to let go. As the heat of his mouth melted her mind, she realized she didn't want him to.
They broke apart frantically, reluctantly, as someone unzipped the tent's zipper.
Daphne and Uncle Jake spilled in, pushing Sabrina and Puck apart.
"We found it! We found it!" Daphne exclaimed, doing a little happy dance.
Sabrina's brain was not working properly. "What?"
"The cave!" Daphne cried, grabbing her sister's hand and shaking it.
"Great," Sabrina replied automatically, glancing at Puck. He seemed frozen in place, but was staring at her like he'd never seen anything quite like her before. Sabrina felt both resent and relief that her sister and uncle had showed up at this exact moment.
"This is great news, really fantastic," Uncle Jake said, oblivious, running into the back room. "We haven't got much time before Moth catches up with us, though. Plus we should throw her off the scent, so I think we'll teleport somewhere else for the night. Let's all get out of this tent so I can pack it."
Sabrina and Puck's arms brushed as they filed out behind Daphne in silence, and Sabrina lost the ability to breathe, her head still reeling from what had just happened. What were they going to do? They couldn't be together, Sabrina knew that.
She knew that, and yet she tried hard to forget as she remembered the feeling of his lips on hers.
Puck will always be the smelly fairy boy who glued your head to a basketball, she scolded herself.
"Everybody holding on?" Uncle Jake asked. Sabrina jumped, blinking in surprise at their tentless site.
Puck slid his fingers through Sabrina's and put his other hand on Uncle Jake's shoulder and gave a casual affirmative.
Sabrina swallowed hard, her fingers twitching. They folded in half, then half again, and then blinked away from the nature preserve, landing somewhere slightly colder.
"Perfect!" Uncle Jake declared, clapping his hands. In moments, the tent was growing into existence. "We have a busy, busy day ahead, so I want you three to get some sleep. I'll take first watch! But first, let me show you two the map." He gestured to Sabrina and Puck.
"Okay!" Daphne cried, leading the way inside. She went straight to the back room to begin shaking out sleeping bags while Uncle Jake lit a lantern.
He dropped a pinch of blue powder onto the flame. "That'll stop anyone from overhearing us," he explained, unrolling the map they'd gotten from Vanessa. "This is where we are now. And this location—location six, is the entrance of the Lost Cave."
"Okay," Sabrina replied, doing her best to not look at Puck as embarrassment began to set in.
"Why aren't you two more excited?" Uncle Jake asked, looking slightly crestfallen. "This is what we've been working towards, and we're almost done!"
Sabrina saw the opportunity and ran with it. "Exactly. Once this is over, Daphne and I have to go," she said, realizing that her reason was not false, after all.
Uncle Jake's face melted into a smile. He ruffled Sabrina's hair and said, "You're welcome back any time. Now go sleep."
Although she felt his eyes on her, Sabrina couldn't look at Puck as they crossed into the back room and zipped the divider closed. Daphne had lined up their sleeping bags and taken the one on the far right, leaving Sabrina and Puck next to each other. She was already snoring.
"You want middle?" Puck whispered. His voice made her jump.
"Sure," Sabrina replied, proud of how normal her voice sounded. Zipping up Puck's jacket, Sabrina crawled into her bag.
Silence settled over them. Sabrina stared at the curved ceiling of the tent. Part of her wanted to move, to leave the tent and run off into the night, if only to rid herself of the jittery feeling in her arms. The other part of her wanted to close the distance between them. Trapped between two bad ideas, Sabrina breathed in deeply through her nose and blew it out her mouth, closing her eyes.
"Grimm," Puck whispered. Sabrina rolled to face him, somewhat relieved they were no longer on a first-name basis. He was lying on his back, his hands on his stomach, staring at the ceiling.
"Not now," she hissed, pointed at the divider. Uncle Jake's humming carried through it.
"I know," he replied, so quietly that Sabrina had to strain to hear him. His slanting eyes slid to meet hers. "But I want you to know that if you hadn't done that, I would've."
"I hope so," Sabrina said after a moment, sinking back onto her pillow. Heat flooded her cheeks at the confession.
You are going to hate yourself in the morning.
Puck propped himself up on his elbow, eyeing the divider. Before Sabrina could process what was happening, he leaned down and kissed her again. She put a hand on the back of his head and kissed him back, deciding that she'd already done enough damage that one more wouldn't hurt.
She was breathless when Puck let her go. Side by side, they laid in their sleeping bags, until Puck finally drifted off.
Surrounded by her sister and her…whatever Puck was, Sabrina was more alone that she had been in days. She struggled to sort through her thoughts.
She told herself the same thing she'd been saying for days, that any sort of interaction with Puck would only lead to her getting hurt. The thirst for adventure that he shared with her uncle hadn't died out yet. He was going to leave again. She knew that.
But the crazy thing was, that in that moment, Sabrina didn't care. She squeezed a handful of her sleeping bag, trying to listen to her own reasoning. Tomorrow, she ordered herself. Tomorrow you pull him aside and tell him no.
But the last thought in her mind, before she drifted off, was that whatever pain was coming might just be worth it.
A/N: Whew. Two kisses! And now we have some idea what Moth is doing! That crazy girl. That was wild (to write). It was funny, because I wrote some parts so fast and so late at night that when I went back and edited, I found so many sentences that were just completely missing important words (like "were" and "was") and there were several places where I'd followed a period at the end of a sentence with a comma? I think this either means that I need sleep, or that 3am me is attempting to recreate the English language, but either way it made me laugh.
Grammar issues aside, writing this last part was kind of hard, since I've never written a kiss scene before. And here is where I ask for your help. What do you think of the way Sabrina and Puck's relationship was built? How was the kiss scene (good, bad, boring forced, etc)? Is Sabrina acting like herself or does this seem unlike her? Some outside perspective is always useful for things like that, so please leave a review and let me know if you have the time.
To the people who reviewed my last chapter—thank you all so much! Your reviews make me smile.