“Selah says she’s not a god,” Yemi said. “So one can assume she bleeds like the rest of us, and maybe no one’s gotten close enough to try. She appeared before me casually and unguarded. I can make use of that kind of hubris.”
“You don’t think she’d say the same about you?”
“In which case our thinking alike is also an asset.”
“Sure,” Nova deadpanned. “So Ursla dies, and then what?”
“Best-case scenario, it weakens the Drakes,” Yemi panted. “Remove Ursla’s power and make Dahlia an easier target. If she even has anything to do with that.”
“Which we’re not sure of. Worst case?”
“We get certainty. And she pays for my family’s curse.”
They placed the boat at land’s edge with a clear shot to the spot in the middle of nowhere they were advised to target. “Curse? Being human?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t know! I’m human. You being like me, like your father,that’syour curse?” The desperate fatigue was showing in Nova’s face now. Yemi recognized it from exasperating her mother countlesstimes. “What else can it be? The witch didn’t have anything to do with the rest of this. Everything we’re going through is because of a decision someoneelsemade—Dahlia and Dorian and Cerro. We take the fight tothem. We don’t need to dothisshit that is clearly going to get you killed.”
“Do you want the version of me you’ll end up with if I don’t do this?” Yemi asked. The question felt like a confession. “Scared, angry, miserable, closed off the way I have been? I want to be better for you, but Ican’t let this go. It won’t come loose; do you understand? I can finally confront my past here, find the weapon powerful enough to get rid of my enemies, and go home and be rid of all of it. That’s what’s on the other side of this for me.”
Nova angled her face toward the moon, and Yemi could see her eyes were glistening.
“I want to say I can do it without you, but I can’t,” she added quietly.
After a long minute, Nova sniffed and cleared her throat, shoving the boat until it floated and gesturing for Yemi to take her hand. She thanked Nova for helping her into the boat and made a mental note that maybe more frequent spoken gratitude was in order.
It was even colder out on the water. Gentle waves jostled them back toward land periodically, and Nova took up the oars to get them back to where they hoped they were supposed to wait.
They spoke little after that. An hour passed, maybe two. Yemi distracted herself from the cold with thoughts of what to say, the careful boxes to check in any deal to be made with the sea witch.Thiscould be hubris, she considered. But surely Ursla could be bested. Yemi just had to be smarter than she was desperate.
Easy.
Something thumped the underside of the boat gently, but hard enough to make Nova reach for one of her fans. If it was possible, they were even quieter now, listening intently as if danger would announce itself as a roar from the depths.
The boat continued to rock as soft thuds peppered the planks beneath their feet in no real pattern but crept from stern to bow. Yemi’sheart raced as she gripped her spear and slowly peered over the front edge. Between the dark of the water and her own moonlit reflection in its rippling surface, it was impossible to see anything moving within it.
Impossible, it seemed, until a grin appeared.
An iridescent arc of white teeth hovered some inches below water, creeping upward as black tentacles wrapped around the front end of the boat. Ursla emerged, a dark face framed by a mane of white locs writhing like snakes.
“Well, I’ll be a starfish,” the sea witch crooned, long fingers curving over the prow. “If it isn’t our Legged Queen. I thought you’d been hunted down already.”
“Disappointed?” Yemi asked, relaxing only a little.
“Delighted, actually. The blood of ancients in your veins demands a grander death than at the hands of some human rabble. Hello.” She waved to Nova.
Nova lifted her chin warily by way of acknowledgment.
“What brings you here?”
“You made me an offer. I’ve come to collect,” Yemi declared.
“Exile not working for you?”
“No. But I mean to get my throne back.”
“Girl after my own heart. How sure are you, though, that these people want you back? The Drake girl doesn’t seem to have been met with much resistance.”
