Mina touched her fingers to her lips as the memory of his life-saving kiss came flooding back to her. She was grateful that he couldn’t see her cheeks burning in embarrassment. Deciding that the immediate threat was over, she slowly sat up and stretched. Her whole body ached from head to toe, and she couldn’t help but feel like a ton of bricks had landed on her chest. Nix came over and handed a small piece of fruit to her. It was only slightly bruised from the fall.
“Here, eat this,” he commanded, before moving to sit across from her. His skin looked lighter under the morning sun, less green.
“I don’t think I’m supposed to eat the food in the Fae world,” she said.
“That’s true for most food here. It can be addicting to your kind, but as far as aftereffects go, this is the mildest fruit there is.”
Mina took the odd-looking purple fruit and sniffed it carefully before rolling it between her fingers. She was starving, but even the simplest temptation could endanger her whole reason for being here.
“What happened back there?” she asked, hoping he would know she was referring to the sea witch. “And why did you save me, when I thought you were leaving me to die?”
Nix looked at her carefully over his own piece of fruit before raising the fruit in the air like a toast and taking his own careful bite. “You had an unfortunate run-in with one of the oldest and strongest sea witches around…my mother.”
“Your mother? I thought that…well, I don’t know what I thought. I just figured that you and Raina were the only ones left.”
“We are, I mean…were, the only nixies left. The rest have all changed. So I try to stay out of their waterways as much as possible. But you, you trespassed right into her home. You’re lucky I came when I did, or you’d be dinner. But I’ve got to hand it to you. You’re either crazy stupid or crazy brave for what you attempted. You’d almost made it out.”
“It doesn’t matter. I was crazy either way, but I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think I was going to die in that cave. You could have told me you were going to come back.” Mina paused in thought and then said in a softer, uncertain voice, “You were going to come back, right?”
His shoulders dropped, and Nix looked at the ground. “I needed time to think, to decide what I was going to do with my life. You killed the one person I loved.”
“But she was a monster. You said so yourself.”
“Yes, and I know no one has ever come back once turned. But after running into you, I knew that I would be pulled into whatever quest you’re currently embarking on. I, too, know of the book and the deal made with the Grimms. I also know of how the stories end for most of the nixies. Not good. So I had to decide if I was going to purposely turn, or join you on your quest and die sooner rather than later.”
Mina’s fingers dug into the purple fruit, and she stared at him in disbelief. “So you left because you couldn’t decide if you were going to kill me and join the monsters or help me. Talk about peer pressure,” she replied sarcastically. “So much for going out all noble.”
Nix stood up and began to pace back and forth. “No, you see, that’s what I thought at first. I thought living near Raina, even though she was a monster, would be enough for me, but now that she’s dead, I thought I should be the one to take revenge for her death, but I can’t. I told you before that we are gentle creatures until we turn. So I decided that if I can’t live with Raina, I don’t want to live without her.”
He stopped pacing and sat on the ground, eye to eye with Mina. His hands crumpled into tight fists. Mina could tell this was a difficult conversation for him.