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He shook his head. “No, not sick exactly. I just... I can’t stay.”

She had come with the intention of saying goodbye, of letting herself drink in his beautiful, calming presence one last time

and then turning her back forever on this foolish chapter of her life. So why did it feel as if this was only the beginning?

He ran his hand through the short, thick layers of his hair, looked as if he wanted to say something, then thought better

of it. “Clara,” he said finally, taking an uneven step toward her. “I’ve thought of nothing else since the moment I first

set eyes on you. I know that I have no right to profess such feelings, especially after all my lies. And I agree—we can never

see each other again. I only hope that you will not have cause to hate me someday.”

His words took the breath out of her, left her legs weak and her mouth dry. “Why would I hate you?” she managed to ask.

Maurits gave her a heated look. He was no longer the shaft of sunshine dancing on the water’s surface, but a dark, angry storm cloud. But his anger was not directed at her. At the world perhaps, at the injustice of their situation, but not at her.

He shook his head. “This Hendrik—he’s a wealthy man, yes? He’ll take good care of you. Keep you safe.”

His words cut her like a knife. Maurits was as good as passing her off. She was not her mother’s daughter for nothing though,

and blinked back the tears that threatened to spill over, willed herself to take deep, even breaths.

Was this what love was supposed to feel like? Love was her mother’s cool hand slapping her for impudence so that she would

become a better, more obedient girl. Love was her father’s steely distance and determination to make an advantageous match

for her. Love was a distant God, watching and judging her. Surely the warm ache that Maurits elicited in her heart was some

entirely different phenomenon, for it held no place in the ranks of what she knew as love. How did she tell him that he had

begun as simply a novelty, something exciting in her wretchedly stale world, but that somehow, unbeknownst even to her, he

had turned into something else entirely? The soft shadows of his affection had shaped her while she slept, the glow of his

attention seeping into her skin and transforming her.

“I am sorry, Clara. I am sorry for more than you will ever know. You should get back to your maid now, and back to your family.”

She was being dismissed, but what choice did she have? With a heart so heavy that it threatened to drown her, she turned to

leave, when his voice stopped her once more.

“And Clara? Remember what I told you: stay away from the water.”

Maurits watched as the maid dragged Clara back to the big stone house. Even when he could no longer see the white smudge of her gown, he still stared after her into the dark ness. Saying goodbye had been harder than it had any right to be.

Rain was falling light but steady, and he tugged his torn shirt off over his head so that he might feel it on his skin. The

water felt good—more than good. It felt like a held breath let out after too long. It felt like life.

His mother was near; he could sense the heaviness in the air, the expectation. He shivered despite himself—a grown man, afraid

of his own mother. The seven days were drawing to an end, and he did not wish to find out what sort of punishment she might

devise if he did not return in time.

He could hear his mother’s dulcet voice through the canal, calling for him, asking where he was and if he had the girl yet.

As soon as he stepped back into the water she would know that he had failed, and willfully so. At least on land he was free,

if only for a time.

Pacing along the canal, Maurits forced himself to think. Clara was the last girl that his mother required. He’d never felt

right about his mother calling in a debt he had always assumed was a bluff, had hoped that as some of them grew into adults

that his mother would leave off in her quest for revenge. “The humans broke their word,” she would say, Thade, fawn-eyed,

nodding vigorously by her side. “They knew the terms of the agreement, and now they must pay.”

His mother was right; he knew that. The humans were careless with the land that they had conquered and reclaimed. And their

greed did not stop at the land; if it had, then perhaps his mother would have been content to let the tree spirits and moss

people handle them. But the humans insisted on encroaching into the sea. They hunted whales for their oils, fished herring

to the point of extinction. It seemed that their hunger for the sea’s bounty could not be sated.

As the rain fell, Maurits could feel the eyes of the widde juvven peering out at him between the trees, the elves watching from under rain-spangled flowers.

It was their land, but like all of the nature folk, they adhered to the truce.

So long as humans occupied the lowlands, the Old Ones were bound together by their common interest.

By the time Maurits reached the sea, his legs were burning and his throat was on fire. The breeze, though slight, felt good

in his hair. Waves blanketed in starlight lapped at the beach, beckoning him home. He didn’t want to go back, not yet, but

he had been out of the water much too long, and was beginning to feel faint. He had little choice but to let the waves take

him and meet his fate at the hands of his mother.