I scanned the surface of the water as we rowed. “I have a feeling it won’t hurt us while I’m in the boat.”
Lachlan’s mouth had flattened with unease. “Why’s that?”
The humid air had my hair sticking to my neck, had my lungs feeling heavy. “I think it’s tied to Eusia, and since I am too, it can’t cause me harm.”
Lachlan scoffed. “That only meansyou’resafe, not the rest of us.”
An unsettling quiet filled the boat. The only sounds were the shifting winds and the slosh of the oars. There was no denying that the spell that had infected this place was abominable. We all took in its effects with disturbed amazement, but to my growing horror a look very much like veneration had begun to fill Halla’s wide blue eyes.
She’d positioned herself at the very front of the boat, farthest from me. My breath stuck as I watched her reach out a hand and trail a finger over the surface of the black lagoon. She became lostto the rest of us, caught in her wonder. Not far ahead, a fleshy, suckered tentacle rolled across the surface of the sluggish waves. Halla was the only one of us who did not flinch.
She spoke softly into the silence. “I’d been taught they executed her here. They sliced her from sternum to groin, spilling her entrails into the water. They threw her in after.” She turned to look at us. “Did you know that a gutting is not an instant death?” Her voice sounded far off, as if the gory scene was a reverie.
A chill stole over me. Halla had figured it out, just as I had. I knew Eusia had performed a spell to keep herself alive after her execution. I knew she’d washed up on Obelia’s shore, still living despite her empty torso. They had named her a saint for it.
The spell she’d used must have keptallof her alive.
Halla’s gaze locked with mine across the boat. An air of loss and betrayal hung about her. “I was taught that she performedmiracles.That’s what my mother told me, that my flesh was paying for miracles. That Eusia’s power was singular, unable to be replicated. Then I meet you, who can perform magic that looks just like hers, and I—” She choked on a burst of emotion. Shook her head. “Last night, when I could not sleep, I read through the books piled on the king’s desk. The pages were littered with spells. Spells to perform mundane tasks, and impossible ones. And I find… I find myself angry.”
I understood the wounded heart of her words like they were my own. I’d been used, just as she had.
Though I remained wary, I nodded. “I’m angry too, Halla.”
We’d made it halfway across the lagoon, close enough to Raidne Keep—my mother’s castle—to make out its mortar lines. I could see its towering oaken door and the stones of the path that led to it.
Another churn of my stomach, and the shining pink skin of themonster rolled through the lagoon’s surface to my left. “I know the spell that animates it,” I said. “It’s the same one that I performed to keep myself alive. Perhaps if the reverse of it exists—”
“It does,” Halla interrupted. She gestured to Theodore beside me. “His Majesty marked the page.”
My attention snapped to Theodore, then to the book that he’d tucked beneath his hip. His hold on the oar was throttling, but his look was austerity itself.
“Did he?” He’d been reading the books, noting what spells might be useful. “And here I thought the king abhorred magic.”
“Oh, the king does.” Theodore raked the oar through the thick water with great effort, avoiding my gaze. “But I’ve learned a new lesson and it’s that sometimes I must do things I abhor if I am to ever get what I want.” His strong arms flexed with his next sweep through the water. “A lesson, I assume, you learned long ago.”
Lachlan glanced tensely between Halla, Theodore, and me, then looked toward the sky with discomfort.
Theodore’s understanding filled me with gratitude. “Can you show me the spell, so I can teach Halla the steps?”
He dragged the oar, his eyes dissecting and tight. He dipped his chin. “I’ll show you. But there are no directions on how to perform it.”
“That’s all right.” I expected I could stumble through the steps well enough at this point.
Theodore reached for the book and opened it to the marked page, when athunksounded through the hull of the launch. We all jolted.
“Read it quickly, Theo.”
He blew out a tight breath, eyes darting across the water, before returning to the page. “A spell for death. To seize the lungs and stop the heart. These are the words:Goetia hecates thantos.”
The words were unlike any of the spells I’d learned so far, in a tongue I’d never heard. I shook my head. “Are you sure?” I asked. “What else does it say?”
Theodore ran his finger over the page, readying to read me more, when a thick tentacle shot out of the water right beside the boat and flew high into the air. Theodore snapped the book shut as dark droplets rained down on us. The boat rocked wildly, and then the tentacle was falling. It happened so quickly, the way it fell over Lachlan’s shoulders, coiling, tightening, then ripping him straight from the boat.
Halla’s scream was shattering. Theodore stood, preparing to dive in after him.
“Stop,” I shouted. He froze, but his eyes were livid, his mouth agape. “Not you. It can’t harm me. Halla, perform the spell. Do it now.”
Fear had finally found her. She gawked at me, her head shaking harshly. “I can’t—”
