“Yes.Treacherous little beast. You don’t think I know what you call yourself,Mer Queen of Ixia? You want to know the state of my military so you know how much of a fight to expect.Iam queen! I will not bebaited, no matter how precious the lure—ah!” The scream descended into a guttural baritone that vibrated in Yemi’s chest.
“Get out!” Helene shrieked.
Without another word, Yemi dashed for the hole in the ceiling.
“OUT!” the queen roared after her.
Yemi burst through the loose panel and hovered near the spire.
“Yemaya?”
She looked up to see Lirik clinging to the dome of Helene’s room as if she’d been watching the entire time.
“What have you done?” she whispered.
“Me?” Yemi hissed. “I didn’t do anything! She’s… mad or bewitched or something. I don’t—”
“Shh!” Lirik clapped a hand over Yemi’s mouth. Below, the guards converged on Helene before she took off for the exit at the city’s edge. Lirik pulled her out of sight, and before Yemi could do anything, Lirik’s lips were pressed fiercely against hers.
I will lead them astray.Lirik’s voice seeped into Yemi’s head in a way, she supposed, that others couldn’t hear.We will see each other again. But you have to go. Now.
Stunned and confused, Yemi pulled herself away with enough force that she almost backed into another tower.
Lirik mouthedGo!just as an alarm horn sounded around them.
Yemi cursed herself for having come here in the first place and took off for the exit. What had just happened? Had Selah known what the medallion would do to Helene? And what exactly had been promised?
The one certainty she had was that if Yemi was anywhere near this place when Helene’s misunderstanding about Yemi was relayed to her protectorate, there was no way she would make it home.
Home.
She dared glance behind her just once before she disappeared into the tunnel that had brought her here in the first place. It was as good as any place for a final standoff if she was being pursued. The palace was alight now, awake and furious. She caught the faintestechoes of warbled screams, but otherwise, no one was pursuing her. Maybe Lirik was to be trusted after all, but who knew what would happen once the hysterics died down?
She wound her way through the tunnel, chewing her lip so hard it hurt, until she reached the open water beyond the coral wall.
Which way is home?She spun around.
To the north. But Ursla was west.
17
• YEMI •
The witch did not live close. Yemi swam westward into the small hours of the morning, popping above the waves intermittently to check the fading stars for her course. Above water, the moon was bright, but she didn’t have to descend far to lose the light.
The glimmers of sea giants illuminated by her sporadic humming were the only proof she had that she wasn’t simply treading water in an abyss. Whales bounced their songs off her, some wandering curiously close by, knowing as well as she did how strange and dangerous it was for one so small to be so far from shore.
She’d been warned so many times, and now she swam alone in the dark, imagining the disapproving faces of Cutter, Selah, and Nova sure to greet her when she returned empty-handed. Even her mother had a way of calling her smart that often seemed to beg the question of why she was behaving foolishly. And now here she was, a fool fully realized.
Unless.
She flexed the fatigue from the hand gripping her spear. She could barely feel anything past her hips. No one had chased her from the city, but that hadn’t stopped her from moving like someone was.What she had now was less a plan than the vestiges of an insomniac’s half-formed fever dream, but it was better than the fruitless nothing promised to her otherwise.
If Ursla hadn’t misspoken and a royal—any royal—could hand her the Mer throne, Yemi as a descendant could give it to her. And every relationship with a witch was transactional. She would have to offer something in return. The question of what had happened to Hurand only had one answer. Ursla’s magic had turned him. How he’d ended up at her mercy in the first place was a question for Dahlia Drake.
The hours of swimming allowed her to convince herself she wasn’t ethically bound to preserve Helene’s position, even if Nova might insist she was. The Mer queen hadn’t treated her with any kinship. Her rule had ground the Mer nation to dust, and she was mentally unfit to continue. She hadn’t produced any heirs. What Yemi did now was not only for her benefit, but for the future of Mer. For Lirik. At least, that was what she told herself.
Somewhere in the dark around her, she felt her mother’s spirit sigh in her doleful way, the way that said Yemi knew better, but what could be done once she’d made up her mind?
