Selah.
Yemi’s head snapped in the direction of a familiar scraping noise down the hallway past the staircase. She followed it carefully. One of these rooms was Selah’s—the stone would be there.
The scraping stopped behind the third bedroom door, and Yemi pressed it open. It was decorated in the rustic, regal tones of every other room. Selah’s things occupied a small space in front of the bedside table. Electric iron sconces lit the room dimly, just enough to make out a small black box on the nightstand itself, nondescript but for the rapid tapping coming from within it.
Yemi crossed quickly and lifted the latch on the box; the stone within it all but leaped into her hand.
“Unhand the stone,” said a cold, serious voice from the doorway.
Yemi spun and locked eyes with Selah, the words Ursla imprinted in her brain pouring from her mouth. “Enim si witch ahth emot nured ner.”
In an instant, Selah was rooted to the spot. The familiar, haunting crackle of stone skin plucked at Yemi’s ears, sending a chill down her spine.
“Here it is,” Selah croaked. “The endgame finally revealed.”
Yemi stared in confusion, nearly backing herself into the wall. Selah was turning to stone. Why was she turning to stone?
“Yemaya, listen to me. You don’t know what you’re doing,” Selah started.
“Ursla said the incantation would visit upon you the last hex you cast elsewhere,” Yemi muttered to herself. Her frown froze as a visceral horror dawned on her. “It was you. You killed my mother.”
“I would beg your understanding but there’s no time,” Selah hissed, her voice trembling. The stone spread slowly inward, up her arms from her fingertips and up her legs from her toes. “I knowherbetter than anyone. Everything she ruled of the sea was lost. Fate orfoolishness, who’s to say? When she lost power with Men as well, naturally she wanted it all back. She has no concept of tempering her vengeance, so we couldn’t let that happen. A resistance faction was formed—Helene and I were both recruited—butshecreated us. The Mer are made of her magic. We didn’t have the power to take her down.”
“We brought you into our home. Saved you from exile.” Yemi’s voice shook with the fury of grief and betrayal.
“The Old Gods exist to create,” Selah spoke faster. “She is not one of them; she has to destroy first. Yemaya, she would have purged us all and created new servants from Men once she drowned the world. I stole the seed of her power to make her weaker, but I was caught before she could be killed. I used it to come here, beyond her reach. If I so much as spoke her name, if I stepped my toe back into a natural body of water, she would find me. That’s why she neededyouto do this. You have access. It has nothing to do with believing in your cause. The rage you feel for what you’ve lost? She knows of it, infinitely deeper. That’s how she is playing you. You give her that stone, and we are all undone.”
“You haven’t known your mother in over a century,” Yemi spat. “And it isn’t because she was taken from you like you took mine from me. It’s because you abandoned her.”
“It is not a lie that you are divinely chosen. But there are forces at war within you: the blood of the Old Gods, andhermagic. The magic that created the Mer and wakes the dead.” She choked as the stone crested the bottom of her throat. “They are as opposed now as they were in the very beginning.Shehas everything to fear if you ever discover how to use them together.”
Yemi gritted her teeth. There was sense, perhaps, in what Selah was saying. But there’d been too many lies and secrets kept until now, and a cornered creature could only be trusted to bite. “You were a fool recruited to betray your own, and now you think I’m a fool as well.”
“Are you sure that isn’t you?” Selah replied calmly. “Recruited to betray your own.”
Yemi pressed the blade to just behind Selah’s chin hard enough that even its bluntness pierced what remained of the tender flesh there.
“Your mother… I tried to take it back.” Selah sipped air between the words, eyes wild. “The creeping stone… it had her lungs. It’s why no one could hear her screaming.”
“Shutup!”
“I tried… to take it from her. Heal, not… treat. It didn’t work. I couldn’t… let her suffer. When you see her… ask,” Selah said.
“You’re a liar, and she’s dead.”
“She’s not.” It wasn’t fear in her expression, though she winced in discomfort as her face began to immobilize. “The spell you were given… doesn’t cast a new hex. It displaces… an old one.”
Yemi felt the floor drop from under her and staggered back a step. Her breaths came in short, hollow gasps. Black stone swallowed Selah’s head, leaving her eyes with their intense gaze on her for last. She’d removed her mother’s curse by placing it on Selah.
There was an understanding in the witch’s final expression. A patronizing patience that said she understood Yemi to be a wounded child, deserving of a moment’s grace. Her mother had given her that look countless times. Yemi dropped the letter opener onto the rug.
At least the witch’s death appeared to be by her own hand. One less body the others could lay at her feet.
Yemi pocketed the stone alongside Ursla’s tea sachet and strode from the room, content to let the curse have her. Her heart pounded chaotically as she bounded down the stairs. The roaring fire in the great room created a stifling bog of heat on the lower floor, and she was already struggling to catch her breath.
“Yemaya?” Cutter jumped up from where he’d been reclining on the sofa, surprised and concerned to see her up so early.
“Ready the Guards,” she commanded without looking at him. “The Bear Queen is alive. We leave at dawn whether we receive the signal or not.”
