“I told you, you’re no mother to me,” I bite out. “You left me on the shore—”
“I simply set you aside so I could have a break from you,” she says with a dismissive flutter of her hand.
Her words send a shard of glass to my chest. “A break from me,” I echo.
She moves closer, leaving the pond to step barefoot onto the surrounding grass. “You were a very difficult child, Astrid.”
A spark of rage ignites in my blood. “Then why bother seeing me now?”
Her smile shifts into something more like a snarl. “Because you’re mine. Because you were taken from me—”
“You mean when my father saved me from you?”
She moves closer, each step making a squelching sound in the sodden grass. “He didn’t save you. He abducted you. Stole you from me. That is why I had him killed.”
My breath catches in my throat, so sudden it nearly chokes me. It takes me several moments to comprehend her vile words. “You…you’re the one who orchestrated his murder?”
She lifts her chin. “It was nothing less than he deserved for stealing you from me.”
My breaths come hard and fast, making my shoulders heave from the force. Truth dawns on me in a vicious, violent wave. “You’re who Marybeth gave the power of her true name to. You made her poison the pie.”
“Yes,” she says without a hint of remorse. “Something happened the last time I saw you, daughter. I required much rest afterward, so I laid you on the shore. You couldn’t shift like me, couldn’t merge with the water like I could. Instead, you were forever in that frail humanlike body, desperate for air, wailing when you got even the slightest droplet of water in your lungs. Now do you understand why I left you alone while I rested? Do you understand why I was so upset that Edmund Snow stole you from me?”
“It doesn’t explain why you killed him.”
She scoffs. “Don’t tell me you mourn for your captor.”
“Captor? He was my rescuer! The only parent I ever had. You took him—my father, the person I loved most in the world—away from me. Yes, I mourn him.”
“Edmund Snow wasn’t your father, Astrid. Is that what he told you?” She releases a dark chuckle. “Lying humans.”
My blood turns to ice. “What…what do you mean?”
“You truly thought he sired you?” She tuts, shaking her head. “No, Astrid. Edmund Snow never came near enough to so much as touch me. He always lingered around my lake, painting me from the shadows. There was nothing I could do to tempt him closer, for he knew what I was, what I’d done to a handful of unlucky fools who dared seek their reflection in my lake. I take it you know of my magic?”
I give a shaky nod, feeling as if I’m outside of my body. “You made people fall in love with their reflections. They’d fall into your lake and drown.”
“That’s part of it,” Myrasa says. “Yes, those who looked into my lake and met my eyes were enchanted with an overwhelming feeling of love. An emotion so enticing they were immobilized, even once I started feeding off them.”
“What do you mean you fed off them?” I knew her victims drowned, but their bodies were always recovered.
“I’m a water sprite, therefore emotion is my domain. I have the ability to feed off the emotions I evoke with my magic. That’s how I survive. How I keep my lake full and expansive.”
I note that the body of water behind her is hardly full or expansive, but I keep my observation to myself. “If all you needed was emotion to feed, then why did those who fell in love with their reflections also drown?”
“Not all of them did,” she says. “It just so happens that most of whom I drained energy from fell into my lake.”
“And you just let them?”
She shrugs, as if the human lives lost meant nothing. “I understood the dangers of growing too notorious. So, yes, if someone fell into my lake, I let them drown. But that’s not the point I’m trying to make. We were supposed to be discussing your abductor, Edmund Snow, correct?”
I clench my jaw.
“Edmund was a prize I sought to claim,” she says, “but no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get him close enough to my lake to ensnare him. You see, my magic only works when at least part of my physical form is connected to my main body of water. Whether he knew this or was simply wary of me, he kept his admiration at a distance. When you were born, he came around even more frequently, watching us, painting us. And then he stole you.”
“You left me alone and crying.”
“I told you. I was resting. Something happened—”
