My fury shifts into sorrow as the weight of the bargain presses on my shoulders. “Murder, death, or become an assassin. Those are my only options.”
“They are fair options,” Nimue says.
I shake my head. “What do you know about fair?”
Her expression hardens but she makes no retort. Instead, she holds out her hand again, waiting for me to seal our deal.
“I hate you,” I say through my teeth.
“Good. Direct that anger toward Dorian Ariko. He’s the real reason you’re here, isn’t it? I’ll ask you once more. Do you agree to this bargain?”
My lungs feel like they’re being squeezed by iron, and my throat burns with resentment. But what other options do I have? This bargain offers me my only chance at a normal life.
All I have to do is kill a dangerous man.
With a deep breath, I grasp the queen’s hand. My next words feel like broken shells on my tongue. “I agree to this bargain.”
* * *
With the spectacle over,Nimue dismisses the Sisters. Once we’re alone, she turns to me with a wide grin. Not one brimming with motherly approval but something else. A sickening false kindness. A childlike excitement. “We’ll need to prepare you to look your best. Come, dear daughter, I have the finest suite ready for you and ample dresses to choose from.” She begins to slither away, but I make no move to follow.
“What makes you think I’m going to stay here a minute longer?”
She turns back to face me with a furrowed brow as if she can’t comprehend my words. After a moment of silent scrutiny, a corner of her mouth lifts in a smirk. “You can’t join the pageant looking like that.”
I resist the urge to glance down at my baggy linen shirt and dingy trousers. Instead, I hold her gaze. “I can prepare for the mission on my own. Where’s the door?”
“Why should I let you leave?” she asks with a pout. I expect malice in her tone, but there is none.
“Why shouldn’t you? You have no risk in letting me return to Lumenas. If I fail my mission, your curse will kill me. If I don’t join the contest, I break our bargain, andthatwill kill me. My only valid option is to kill the man and complete my task.”
“But you just got here.” She closes the distance between us and gathers my hands in hers. I’m too tired, too empty to fight her off. She squeezes my limp fingers, then gently takes the hair comb from my hand. With an unsettling tenderness, she brushes one side of my hair behind my ear. I flinch at her touch but remain in place as she pins my hair back with the shell comb. “Allow me to dote on you. You’re my only daughter, Maisie.”
“It seems like you have plenty with your Sisters of the Black Eel. And they actually seem to like you, unlike me.”
Her lips flick between a smile and a frown. “You shouldn’t be this old. You should still be a baby.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I thought we had more time. I thought you’d manifest magic when you were still small and I’d get the chance to raise you.”
I let out a dark laugh. “Father said you snarled at me the moment I was born and refused to even hold me.”
Her expression falls before she hardens it behind a stoic mask. “I told you about the bargain I made with your father. If you were born a seal, I would turn you over to him. If anything else, you’d be mine. Every child your father ever sired was born exactly like him, no matter who their mother was, but still, I held out hope. I could feel in my womb that you were like me. You were mine in every way. Then you came out the way you did, with gray fur and flippers. I admit, I felt betrayed by you. Betrayed by the child I thought I already knew so well. The truth, though, is I was heartbroken, knowing I had to give you up. And yet, I never relinquished hope. I knew someday you would prove to have magic like mine, magic your father wants nothing to do with. That’s why he agreed to let me have you, should you prove to be like me. He knew he wouldn’t be able to live with having a daughter who wielded such dark magic. The very idea disgusted him.”
I shake my head, Father’s words echoing through it.She won’t stop until she makes you one of her assassins. I can’t live with that. You’re not a killer, my child. I can’t see you made a murderer…
She’s wrong about him. That’s not what he meant when he said he couldn’t live with me being a killer. Father loved me. He loves me still. He took the blame for Luther’s death and did everything he could to protect me from Nimue. Not because my dark magic disgusted him, but because…because… “You know nothing about my father.”
She opens her mouth but snaps it shut, as if reconsidering her words. “I know I shouldn’t speak ill of your hero, so I won’t. What matters is I was right about you all along. Youarelike me. Now I can be the mother I always wanted to be.”
“You mean, now you can threaten me with death and force me to kill.” I cross my arms and take a step back from her. “You may have claim to me as your subject, but you’re no mother of mine and never will be.”
12
Nimue’s chest heaves as she watches me with a stormy expression. I fear she might lash out at me, punish me for my insubordination, but I’m too angry to care. Silence stretches between us while I hold her gaze with defiance. Then her rage slips away and the cold mask of the Killer Queen returns. “Very well, Maisie. If you are determined to prepare for the pageant on your own, I will take you straight to Cape Vega.”
“I’ll find my own way. Just direct me to the shore.”
