“I can’t directly hurt you, Evelyn. I promised as much on our picnic. I may be able to lie, but that doesn’t mean I’m immune to vows and promises. Instead, I’ll leave you here. It won’t be long before the tide comes in.”
Panic seizes me, the taste of salt still fresh on my tongue, my lungs still raw from being filled with seawater.
Cobalt frowns. “Don’t make me do this, Evelyn. It will break your sister’s heart. Think of her. Think of everything she sacrificed to save you.”
My heart sinks, and I do think of her. Amelie, with her fickle heart and reckless ways. Did she know what she was getting herself into when she made her bargain with Cobalt? I know he deceived her, made her believe everything was going to work out perfectly for all of us, but did she stop to think what her actions could do to me? No. When she made the bargain, she didn’t do it for me. She did it for herself. For Cobalt.For love.
“Make the logical choice, Evelyn.”
The logical choice. I could accept Cobalt’s bargain and save my people from war, but in doing so, Aspen loses his throne and his life. I lose the heart of the lover I was just beginning to know and care for. And Faerwyvae will take one step closer to a radical seelie reign. The only other choice is my own death. With that, I alleviate nothing. All else will likely still come to pass, but the blood Aspen spills in my village could belong to someone I care about.
“Live or die?” Cobalt says. “Those are your only choices.”
I take a deep breath and close my eyes, running through the options in my mind, piecing logic with logic, trying to formulate an answer that doesn’t make me feel like my heart is being ripped in two. The options twist and blur, fueling my anxiety until it rages inside me. My head is pounding, lungs heaving. There’s no way out of this. No way out.
Then something tugs at me. Not at my mind, but at something else. Something calm and quiet. My heart? I breathe away my thoughts, let my swirling deliberations cool to a simmer as I focus on the calm inside me. A surgeon’s calm, the kind I felt when treating Aspen’s injury. It’s a strange certainty that no logic can explain. I open myself to it, let it wrap around me like a blanket.
“Do the right thing, Evelyn.”
“Get out of my sight,” I say through my teeth.
His expression darkens. “You’re making a mistake.”
I burn him with my glare. “Get. Out.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The tide comes in fast, as does my panic. I pull my cloak around my arm and throw my weight against the bars of the cage. The coral shards go straight through the fabric, spearing my skin. I wince, then double the fabric, triple it. Throw myself at the bars again. Again. They don’t budge.
I may have refused Cobalt’s bargain, but that doesn’t mean I’ve accepted the fate he left me with.
If only I had my dagger. If only I hadanythingto get me out of here.
I aim a kick at the bars, but my beaded slippers are no match for their strength, especially with the water rising higher and higher, slowing my momentum. Before long it’s around my waist.
I grit my teeth as another surge of water floods in. The echo of waves overhead is louder than before. Terror seizes me, sending memories to the surface, reminding me what it felt like to nearly drown, twice now. I remember the kelpie dragging me under the water with me powerless and stuck on his back. My fingers clench into fists. I’m even more furious now that I know Cobalt had been to blame. He likely distracted me on purpose while I ate the honey pyrus, laughed as I tumbled away from our picnic to wander alone. The forest had been silent, empty until the kelpie found me. A kelpie—a water fae—the only creature in the woods. There’s no mistaking every moment had been Cobalt’s design.
Something sparks in my mind. An idea. A dangerous idea.
The kelpie.
I remember what Amelie had said about them. They seek out lost travelers and take them to their deaths. My idea is so foolish, so reckless, it sends my pulse racing.
“Help!” I shout at the top of my searing lungs. “Help! I’m lost!”
All that answers is more water, more waves. The flood reaches my chest now.
“Help! I’m lost and I can’t find my way. Please come help me. Anyone.” I repeat my plea over and over, trying to ignore the water that laps into my mouth as the tide rises to my neck. I have to brace myself on the bars of the cage to maintain my footing, and its sharp edges cut into my palms. I shout again. Screaming. Begging. “I’m lost! Help!”
A dark mass enters the cave, slithering beneath the surface of the water. I swallow my shouts, terrified I’ve called in something worse. As the shape draws near, a horse-like head breaches the water, its mane of black swirling around it. I remember the other kelpie, how its mane seemed to flow in a wind I didn’t feel. Now I know it was an invisible current it was flowing in.
“Will you help me?” I ask, coughing water as a wave douses my face.
“Come with me,” it says. Its voice sounds the same as the first kelpie—ethereal and chilling.
“First, will you break me out of this cage?”
It watches me with its glowing red eyes. “Break you out?”
