Chapter thirty-four
Tidings
Rose
Beware the Sea-Skin Wife who walks on land,
for kindness is not her nature
and longing is not her flaw—
it is her tether to the deep,
and she will drag down any who grasp it.
— Northern Coast Ballad, origin disputed
Ihad imagined a witch’s house a hundred ways—smoke-black rafters, bones dangling like wind chimes, the scent of old curses simmering in the walls. But this… this was worse.
The door groaned open behind her, and a wave of warm, heavy air rolled out, thick with the smell of brine and crushed herbs.
I stepped in first, because if someone was going to die for this fool’s errand, it might as well be me.
The room swallowed us whole.
The ceilings were low enough that Bash had to stoop, shadows catching in the unruly black of his hair. Oscar hovered behind me, one hand drifting unconsciously to the hilt of his dagger. Dilly remained glued to his side, her freckles standing out starkly on a face that had gone sheet-white.
Inside, everything looked… crooked. Slanted shelves bowed under the weight of glass jars filled with floating things—things that had too many eyes, or not enough limbs, or colors that fish should never possess. The liquid they floated in pulsed faintly, like the heartbeat of a living creature.
A latticework of dried kelp strips hung from the rafters, swaying though no breeze touched them. Runes were carved into the beams—Nordic, if I wasn’t mistaken—each one darkened as though inked with blood. Or perhaps it simply wanted me to think that.
The witch—Edmonds’ mother, gods help us all—lit a taper with a flick of her fingers. Fire curled obediently around the wick. No flint. No spark. Just will.
“I see you admire my children,” she rasped, gesturing to the jars as if she were pointing out family portraits.
“I’d hate to see the ones you don’t display,” Bash muttered under his breath. His hand brushed mine, just barely, a silent warning to stay close.
I sank into the knowledge of how warm it made me feel.
The walls were crowded with maps of sea trenches and mythic coastlines, all inked in a crabbed hand. Some shorelines I recognized; others looked like no earthly place I’d ever seen.
Dilly was instantly drawn to it, forgetting her previous apprehension.
“Incredible,” she whispered, tracing her fingers over each depiction.
On a far table sat a bowl carved from whale bone, filled with black sand that hissed as though alive. Next to it, a stack of dried seaweed pages was weighted with a rusty harpoon head. A single candle burned beside them, its flame colored an unnatural green, casting sickly light over everything it touched.
Oscar leaned toward me. “This feels wrong.”
“It is wrong,” I whispered back. “She’s Edmonds’ mother.”
Dilly made a small strangled noise. “He’s a conniving prick. What does that make her?”
The witch’s withered lips curved, as if she’d heard. Of course, she had. Women like her always heard things you never meant to speak aloud.
“It makes me,” she said, turning toward us with bright blue eyes. “The only person in these islands who can tell you what he truly wants.”
“He wants a shell at the bottom of Atlantis,” I said.
