The walk to the farmhouse took way longer than it should have, reinforcing Eve's impression that things here weren't working as they should. When they were finally approaching the front porch, she heard Jacob mumble something under his breath.

"What?"

"It's my house...Well, not mine. It's the house I grew up in. It's more worn and weathered, but ..."

"Something's playing with your head." Eve instinctively reached for a gun she didn't have.

He briefly put his hand on her back. "I don't think a gun would help."

"Should we enter the house or check out the outbuildings?"

He looked around. "I think they're just for show. What we want's inside."

They cautiously walked up to the front steps. Eve was tense and ready, waiting for something to leap out at them. Everything was quiet. It was too quiet. She hadn't spent much time in the country, but she was sure birds should be singing. Chimes on the porch lay limp and still.

"Something's watching us," she said quietly.

"Probably." Jacob seemed unconcerned as he crossed from the steps to the nearest window and peered inside.

"Anything?"

He shook his head. "The house is empty. No furniture. Nothing...The wallpaper's the same. My grandmother bought it. She liked roses."

Eve frowned and tried the doorknob. It turned easily in her hand.

"What are you doing?"

"We're going in, aren't we?"

"What, no checking the parameter? No arming ourselves to the teeth? No sending in a decoy?"

"You're not funny." She hit him lightly in the bicep. "Now, are we going in or not?"

"Of course we are."

"I knew you'd say that."

She slowly pulled the door open. It didn't even squeak despite the rust encrusted hinges. Inside was a simple entryway. There were two doors leading out of it, a hallway, and a set of scarred stairs. Faded wallpaper, peeled in places, covered the walls, and there was a layer of dust on everything.

"This is a replica of your parents' house, which way do we go?"

"My father doesn't have a room hiding Merlin's prison, so I have no idea."

"All right. Random direction it is."

She started down the hall. A worn rug covered a painted wooden floor. It muffled her footfalls.

"What is this room?" she asked, pointing to an oddly small wooden door.

"That leads to the cellar."

Eve curiously opened the door to a staircase with a rock wall leading down into darkness. "What do you think?"

"The stairs don't look right."

"The wrong stairs. Creepy stone basement. Well, it sounds like a good hiding place to me."

She ducked and entered the stairwell, flicking the switch just inside the door. Nothing happened.

"Here," Jacob said and shoved something into her other hand.

She looked down to see a flashlight. Clicking it on, she was disappointed to see it barely cut through the murk.

"I don't think this darkness is natural."

"An even better reason to give this way a try."

She started descending hesitantly, peering into the darkness below. The continued silence was eerie, but she refused to be creeped out. If she could deal with the House of Refuge under Katie Bender's influence, she could deal with this.

Jacob's hand on her shoulder stopped her. "Wait."

"What is it?"

"I just want to turn on my light." A second beam of light joined hers, but it too was swallowed up by the darkness.

It wasn't long before Eve realized the stairs were even more unusual than she'd thought. Instead of the handful there should have been going down to a cellar, they went on and on. After several minutes of descending, she started counting. When she got to fifty, she stopped.

"Jacob?"

"I know."

"Should we go back?" She turned and shone her light behind her. The way up was just as black as the way down.

"I don't know if we can."

She reached out with her right hand and traced the rock wall with her fingertips. Its realness was reassuring. "So, we go down."

His hand closed over hers on the wall, his calloused palm rough against her skin. Startled, she met his gaze. In the shadowed light, she couldn't make out his expression. Her chest felt tight as her stomach reacted not just to his touch but the way he touched her. She swallowed, dropping her eyes to their joined hands.

"I think we're about to meet the monsters." His voice was soft, with an intensity that did nothing to lighten the sudden flutter in her middle.

She realized how close they were standing, with him on the stair behind her and her facing the way they'd come. With just one step and his arm between them, their height almost even, she could feel his breath on her face. It stirred her hair and smelled faintly of apples.

Common sense told her that she should take her hand away, that she was not the woman he wanted and that this was neither the time nor the place to react to his misplaced tenderness. The rest of her wanted the touch to go on, wanted it to deepen. She wondered if his lips would taste like apples, too.

Eve opened her mouth to speak, trying to focus on his words and not the sudden intimate quality of his touch. She didn't get the opportunity to say anything, however, because Jacob's posture changed, and he loosed her hand.

He lightly put a finger on her lips. "Shh. Do you hear that?"

Leaving her conflicted feelings for Jacob to think about at a safe time, she turned her senses outward. At first, she didn't hear anything. Trusting him, she remained completely still, straining for sound in the silence.

There!

"Is that..." she whispered against his fingers.

"Water? Do you hear lapping?"

A chill went through her, and she shivered.

"Eve, I've changed my mind. Go back up. Go quickly."

He turned, grabbing her wrist and moving back up the stairs. She followed behind him, pausing once to shine the light behind her. Just a couple of steps below, where they'd just been, water had covered the stair, and it was rising. Quickly.

"Jacob!"

"Come on. Let's go," he insisted, tugging on her wrist to make her go faster.

She didn't need any encouragement. She freed her wrist and started pushing him up ahead of her, the water following swiftly behind. She stopped only when she heard a horrible cracking noise. It seemed to come from all directions at once. It reminded her of ice breaking or tall trees snapping. It echoed around them.

"What the hell was that?" Eve used her light to look around but could see no source of the noise.

"I don't know but, whatever it is, it's trouble." He reached his hand out to the rock wall and jerked back.

"What's wrong?"

"The wall. It's moving."

"What do you mean moving?"

"Moving as in moving."

The sound of stone scraping against stone punctuated his words. Eve pointed her light at the wall and could see it moving slowly but steadily towards her.

"Perfect."

"I think we're going to have to jump."

Eve peered down at the black water with a frown. "Sometimes working for the Library is disgusting."

"I can't argue with you."

"We could drown or get eaten in there. Maybe we'll catch some horrible disease."

"Do you want me to go first?"

In answer, she sighed and stepped off the side of the stairs. She hit the water with a splash, feeling it go over her head. Her pack weighed her down, and she fought to break the surface.

There was a splash near her, but she only half noticed it. Most of her was focused on not drowning. Her struggles with her pack pushed her further and further underwater.

Finally, her lungs felt as if they were bursting, and she had to give up and slip out of the straps. At first, they refused to cooperate, and she had a moment of real fear.

She heard Jacob's voice, but she couldn't tell what he was saying. Thinking of him going on with no one to protect him made her fight more fiercely with the clingy strap. It gave one final bit of resistance, and then it fell away, down into the water.

Eve reached for the surface, hoping she was going in the right direction. Breaking the surface was almost a shock, and she took in huge gulps of air.

"Eve!" Jacob yelled, her name echoing around them.

"I'm here. Are you all right?"

It was pitch black. As Eve tread water, she waited to see if her eyes would adjust. They didn't. It remained darker than a starless night.

"I'm okay. You?"

"Fine, but I can't see."

"The water knocked out my flashlight."

"I dropped mine. I had to let go of the pack. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me, too. But at least we're alive."

"For now." She was acutely aware of how vulnerable they were.

"Swim towards the wall," he said. "At least that way we'll have a fixed point, and it's better than treading water until we drown."

Eve was pretty sure she knew what direction she'd jumped from, so she started out without answering. Unnecessary talking would just tire them out more quickly. She could hear Jacob splashing nearby and, even though their situation was dire, she felt lighter.

She was just starting to think she'd gone in the wrong direction when her fingers grazed rocks.

"Jacob?" She could hear him still splashing to her left.

"I must have gotten turned around."

"It's this way. You're almost there."

"Keep talking."

Eve used the uneven rocks to pull herself a little further out of the water. She remembered how dark the water was, and she didn't want to chance swallowing any more than she already had.

"It's an awful, deep, dark predicament you've gotten us into this time, Librarian. Just think, I could be at home doing, well, actually, pretty much this kind of thing. My Librarians haven't gotten me lost in unfathomable amounts of water in the pitch dark before, but that's not saying they never will. Librarians are always so intent on getting themselves killed. It's no wonder Jenkins says they rarely last past five years. I guess you must be good..."

She stopped when she felt something brush her side. It was the only warning she had before Jacob's body collided with hers. Startled, she let go of the wall, and her elbow connected with something solid.

"Ow," he said, water garbling his words.

"I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

One of his arms went around her, and he drew her back to the wall. "Besides the fact that I now have a headache, I'm fine."

"I'm really sorry," she said again, adding a teasing, "Your skull is so thick, I'm surprised you felt it."

"Hey!" He let out a small laugh, and suddenly she was trapped between his body and the wall.

It was so unexpected that her breath caught, and her hands went to his shoulders in surprise.

"Are you trying to say I'm stubborn?" His lips moved against her ear and, even with the chill of the water, his cheek was warm against hers.

She had to answer the playfulness in his voice with a laugh of her own. "Jacob Stone, you are the most stubborn man I've ever met—in both universes."

"I can't believe you're calling me stubborn." There was no mistaking his amusement, even in the dark.

"If the shoe fits, Librarian." He fell silent for a few seconds, and she felt him suddenly tense. "What is it?"

"It's my turn to apologize," he said. "I shouldn't have..."

He released her so abruptly that she wasn't prepared for the absence of his body. She slipped down under the surface and came up sputtering, grabbing for the wall.

"Eve?"

"I swallowed some water." She didn't add that it was his fault. "Is it still rising?"

"It's hard to tell."

"Then our best bet is to follow the wall."

"Unless you have a better idea."

Unfortunately, she didn't.

XXX

In the dark, there was no way to note the passage of time, so Jake had no idea how long they swam beside the wall. All he knew was that his body was sore and tired, and he had to stop more and more often to hold onto the wall and rest.

They moved in near silence, conserving their energy. The only sounds were the lapping of the water, their heavy breaths, and the splashes as their arms broke the surface. Jake was beginning to think he'd spend the rest of his life slowly moving aching and exhausted limbs through the water.

The quiet gave him lots of time to think. He reflected on his growing certainty that Eve's leaving would tear him up and that the changing feelings he had for her might be love.

He'd almost kissed her. Twice.

When they were going down the stairs, something about the way she stood, her tentative touch on the rock wall to anchor herself, had touched him. It was a little bit of vulnerability in someone who was steadily and unflinchingly brave. Those moments with this Eve were so rare that they were infinitely precious.

Then there'd been his reaction to the teasing and affection in her voice. Feeling playful, he'd answered in kind, forgetting she had no idea how his feelings for her had evolved. She hadn't shoved him away; instead, she'd willingly played with him. Even so, that didn't mean she'd welcome his kiss. Maybe she never would.

This sad thought was interrupted when the hand he had against the wall came down on nothing but air. He stopped swimming, and she bumped him from behind.

"What is it?"

"A ledge of some kind. Maybe even a room or a corridor."

"Really?" She sounded exhausted.

"Yeah. Right here." He moved forward a little so she could feel the absence of stone.

"We can finally get out of this liquid prison."

"Thank God."

She grunted in agreement, and he felt her pull herself out of the water. "I wish I had a light."

"Me, too."

"Come up. It's definitely big enough for the both of us—though there could be a giant snake in here, and I'd never know it."

The thought made Jake's skin crawl, but he pulled himself up out of the water and into whatever lay in front of them.

The floor didn't feel like stone. Instead, his hands touched hard packed dirt. It was cool but dry, though he imagined it turned to mud where it touched them. He could hear Eve moving around, and he wondered where she found the energy. Now that he'd stopped moving, he didn't want to ever start again.

"It's not just a room," she said, her voice coming from a level close to his, showing she hadn't stood up. "I think it goes somewhere. Hopefully, somewhere with light."

"Anywhere's got to be better than here. Let's wait a few minutes and see if the water's still rising."

"And if it's not?"

"We rest."

"Good. Resting is good."

Jake didn't move except for to dangle his hand in the water to see if it was coming into the tunnel. His damp clothes clung to him, and the scruff on his face itched. The earth beneath him wasn't cold, but it wasn't warm either, and he shivered in the absence of heat.

Eve remained so silent, he wondered if she'd fallen asleep.

When it was obvious that the water was no longer rising, Jake sighed and crawled far enough away from the edge that he didn't have to worry about rolling off. He flopped down and closed his eyes.

"Jacob?"

"The water's stopped rising. Let's get our breath back."

There was shuffling nearby and something hit him solidly in the stomach, making him grunt softly. He grabbed the offending object and found it to be an ice like bare foot.

"Where are your shoes?"

"I lost them when I lost everything else," she sounded near sleep.

"Your foot is frozen." He started rubbing it absently, trying to get warmth back into it.

"How is that different from the rest of me?"

"It's not exactly warm in here, is it?" he asked, still rubbing her foot and fighting the temptation to tickle it.

"I don't think I'll ever be warm again."

"Maybe we'll be lucky, and this will lead to sunshine."

She sighed. "I wonder how long we've been down here."

"I don't know." He released her. "It feels like days."

"You really know how to show a girl a good time."

He grinned. "The flowers and chocolates come later."

"They'd better be good ones."

Her foot was back, bringing its pair. They settled across Jake's middle, so he shifted a little to keep them from poking into his stomach. Absently, he rested his wrist on her ankles.

"We shouldn't fall asleep," she said, though she sounded mostly there already.

He didn't point out that there would be nothing they could do if something came, not without their sight. He knew she was aware of this but didn't want to give up the last shreds of her control of the situation. Without saying anything, he patted her leg and closed his eyes.