Yet the longer we wait for just the right moment, the longer we spend with the people who will suffer once we’re successful. Each kindness, each smile, each minute seeing a little of ourselves in them curls at the edges of my determination.
So we decide to wait until the sun goes down, take the king in his sleep that night.
With any luck, his chambers will be bare beyond his beating heart, his ring will be close at hand, and an exit will be available.
But that plan is scattered after the supper bonfire, when we learn something more about Havnestad culture. It’s tradition for the castle and all its rooms to be left to the bride the night before a wedding. Good luck or something. It certainly proved to be for the groom, who would instead board a motorcar with his groomsmen—Will, Phillip, and other laughing lads—for a property in the valley beyond Lille Bjerg Pass.
In fact, because tradition insists, we won’t evenseeNiklas until the ceremony.
So, now as the new morning turns into the afternoon, we’ve lost an entire day. Our only chance at success is tonight—the bridegroom’s wedding night. Mere hoursbefore the sunrise that will take my sister if we fail.
Despite what the sea witch thinks, I do believe in love—I’ve just never experienced the romantic kind. Still, I know Alia’s heart as well as my own. I know her love is intense, and so taking a knife to Niklas will undoubtedly be heart-wrenching, though doing so as he lies next to his new wife I fear will be even worse.
But again, we have no choice. By the time the sun comes up tomorrow, the king must be dead, or Alia will be.
I take a deep breath in front of the mirror in Alia’s room. I’m trussed up in a modern human gown—Havnestad blue, cinched by a rib-breaking corset, courtesy of our hosts. I might as well be yet another one of the decorations. The knife is still tucked against my breastbone, thin, cool coral pressing on my skin, and the ríkifjor seeds lie flat in their pouch against the small of my back.
While Alia is dressed just as I, she wears her heartbreak heavily in the set of her shoulders, the line of her lips, her downcast eyes. Even her hair seems to droop toward the earth, her curls lying limp down her back.
“We have to go to the wedding,” I implore her. “There will be too many questions if we’re not there.”
Alia shrugs exaggeratedly and flops back on the bed, fully dressed thanks only to the maids assigned to each guest’s room. Her hands fly through a flurry of frustrated gestures. No translation needed.
It doesn’t matter. Who cares if there are questions? We’ll murder him and then disappear. It will help us not to be around.
“No. No. If—when—we succeed, you will still be on land. And when you disappear, you’ll certainly be a suspect.”
No one will suspect a woman.
“Are you kidding? Were you not paying attention during our lessons? No one fears a woman when she’s a docile, dancing object, but the second she’s scorned? She’s a hysterical danger to herself and others.”
From her bed, she shrugs violently yet again.Let them think that.
“They will see you as a girl so in love with the king that if you can’t have him, you don’t want anyone to have him. You’ll be suspect number one.”
Who cares?
“It isn’t a victory for you to live the rest of your days and spend them hunted.” I sit down beside her. “We need to ensure you’re safe.”
Finally, she doesn’t shrug. But she doesn’t react at all except to shut her eyes.
I place a hand on her leg. “What do you want to do with your life once you’re human?”
I expect another shrug. Maybe some renewed blubbering about how there’s nothing to live for without Niklas at her side. Instead, she pushes herself up onto her elbows,and then shoves back against the headboard, freeing her hands.
Again, she signswitchbut points at herself. She’s not talking about the sea witch. She runs through gesture after gesture, more animated than I’ve seen her since I’ve been here.
In a minute, I’ve got it.
Alia wants to be a powerful witch. Under the sea, she’s the ninth daughter of the sea king. Something to be married off for an alliance—like Sofie. She wants the freedom to make a name for herself. For her magic to thrive in a place that’s been systematically stripped of its power for hundreds of years—the witch-hunter king; Sankt Hans Aften; burnings, drownings, banishments. For all the magic in every drop of sea water, there’s almost nothing above. She could change that.
I smile down at her. “Yes, you’ll be a great witch. To do that, we must survive this first.”
I don’t have the heart to ask her if she’s tried her hand at magic without her voice. To see if it affects her, if it only adds to the distance I feel—or if she can do it at all. I also don’t have the heart to remind her that Annemette lost her magic the second she became fully human again. Though perhaps that was because her true human form, Anna, was never a witch at all, and Annemette’s mermaid powers were not hers to keep.
Alia takes a deep breath and swings her legs over the edge of the bed. Ready to go.
Finally. We’re late.
