“Piss off.”

“There he is.”

Jacob was disturbed to find himself grinning ear to ear. God, why did she have to be funny? He felt himself being dragged against his will toward the certain doom of not-hating her. Dangled over the explosive volcano of enjoying her as a person.

“And what exactly is horrific about my T-shirts?” she asked, as if she’d just remembered the comment.

“Everything.” Except for how tight they were. He was a fan of the tightness.

Wait, what?

Jacob was busy checking his own pulse (because his thoughts indicated a lack of oxygen to the brain, possibly caused by some kind of cardiac event) when the clouds covering the moon danced away again. Eve came properly into view, but this time, she wasn’t standing—or duck-chasing—safely on the banks. This time, she was at the very edge of the pond, waving her arms like a wind turbine and muttering, “Shoo! Shoo!” at a certain beady-eyed minion of poop and destruction. Which was wonderful, except for the part where she was leaning perilously far.

“Eve,” Jacob said.

“Go on, Mr. Duck. Bugger off.”

Make me, said the duck’s tranquil glide and vicious gaze.

“Eve. Be careful. The banks are uneven and you’re too—”

“Shit sticks,” said Eve, and fell right in.

* * *

The night was warm, but the pond, as it turned out, was not.

Eve sucked in a breath as she plunged into cold water, then choked and coughed when she got a mouthful of pond for her troubles. Oh, fudge knickers. Now she probably had tuberculosis, or something. Lung mold, or something. She was diseased, and all because Jacob was ridiculously anal about ducks. She would kill him. She would murder him. She would—

Another splash sounded beside her, and then a steely arm wrapped around her waist, and Eve found herself turned around and smushed chest-first against some sort of wall.

She blinked water droplets from her eyes and squinted up. The wall had a marble-carved jawline and a wintry gaze and slightly lopsided glasses. The wall was Jacob.

Her mind momentarily glitched.

He shook her about like a terrier shaking a rat. The fact that he did this with only one arm made the whole ordeal even more undignified. His other arm, or rather, his cast, was held in the air, clear of the pond, because even when leaping into bodies of water to physically assault his staff, he remained coordinated and sensible. The bastard.

“Eve,” he said, shaking her some more. “Say words. Proper words. Together.”

She slapped his arm—his strong, strong arm, which was lean and corded with muscle, and currently getting up close and personal with her not remotely lean or muscular waist. It was an . . . interesting contrast, one she absolutely did not enjoy because that would be weird. “Get off me, you prat!”

“Oh good,” he said, “you’re all right.”

She paused, then glowed for a moment. He’d been checking she was all right? He cared that she was all right? Maybe he wasn’t the worst human being on earth after all.