The Watchtower

and moved forward, his feet gliding silently over the ground. I tried to follow him, but my footsteps crackled like fireworks in the still night. Will was already at the edge of the woods, crouched in the shadow of an overhanging branch. A pang of jealousy, sharp as Will’s teeth, tore through me. Of course, it was her he’d wanted all along. I was a pale facsimile. When I’d seen Marguerite’s face, I’d thought it was identical to mine, but now watching her whispering to the water, I realized how wrong I’d been. She radiated an unearthly serenity I could never hope to assume. No wonder Will was drawn to her. They were alike—two immortals. If Will stopped her now, they could remain immortals together. What would it matter to them if I would never be born?
    As if in response to my despair the ground beneath my feet began to shake. An earthquake, I wondered, or was the fabric of time splitting again, this time to spit me out into a limbo of the never-born? But then I realized that the rumbling was coming from the lake. With a Klaxon-like cry, the water split open, disgorging an enormous creature of sinewy muscle that shot straight up into the sky and then hovered there, held up by incongruously delicate wings. The seal creature looked down at Marguerite with cold, impassive eyes. A moment ago I couldn’t have imagined anything daunting the self-assured Marguerite, but now I marveled that she didn’t bolt and run from the apparent malevolence of this creature.
    But she didn’t. Instead she engaged the creature in calm discourse, the words of which I couldn’t make out, but the tone of which—surprisingly calm and reasoned—was clear. As they talked, I crept quietly down to the perch where Will crouched and listened, confident that the thrash of the water—still disturbed by Morgane’s rising—would cover the slight sounds of my approach. Even Will failed to hear me, so engrossed was he in Marguerite and Morgane’s conversation. By the time I was close enough to hear, I gathered that Marguerite had already asked her sister to make her mortal. Morgane was laying out the ground rules of the deal—that all Marguerite’s descendants would assume the role of Watchtower, “guarding against usurpers and vipers crossing the boundary from mortal to immortal in either direction. And even guarding humankind, loathsome as it is, along with ourselves, from those malefactors like werewolves, shape-shifters, incubi, or—”
    Morgane abruptly fell silent and raised her black eyes to look past Marguerite … directly toward Will and me. Had my movement given us away? But it wasn’t me she fixed her gaze on—it was Will. I saw Will stiffen. This would be his opportunity to step forward and reveal himself, to tell Marguerite that she needn’t make the sacrifice she was planning. But he didn’t. Instead he straightened up and stared back at the creature. In the moonlight I saw the flash of teeth as he bared his fangs. Morgane responded by baring her own longer fangs, not in a snarl but in a nasty smile.
    “—or vampires who would seek to conquer or destroy humankind, or we fey or both. You must especially swear to abhor all vampires.”
    That bitch! She knew what Will was—what he would become—and she was deliberately binding Marguerite and her descendants to perpetual enmity with the man Marguerite loved. I had half a mind to stop her myself …
    But it was already too late. Marguerite was now swearing an oath binding her to the terms of Morgane’s deal, and Morgane, with a parting taunt that Marguerite would “know soon enough” that she was a mortal, disappeared beneath the water.
    Marguerite stood up and remained for a moment staring at the water, as if she expected—or perhaps feared—her sister’s return. Then she grasped the collar of her cloak and drew something out of the cloth. Silver gleamed in the moonlight, and then, quick as a dragonfly’s dart, Marguerite stabbed her index finger with the pin. I couldn’t see the blood from where we were, but I saw Will’s nostrils quiver and I knew he could smell it. He was still hungry from his long months in Maeve’s tomb. Would he give in to his hunger and pounce?
    But he held himself in place as Marguerite turned and walked back in the direction of the inn. When she had passed out of sight, I stepped toward him and gingerly touched his arm. When he turned to me, I saw that tears of blood streaked his face. I reached for him, but he shook his