Eydis sighs. “What choice did we have? I spelled the sense out of a first-year guard sweet on Runa.” Her eyes flash, a storm brewing. “Is it true? Is Alia dead? Did Runa fail? And what of her? Will she die too?”
Beside her, the other sisters lean forward, the same questions on their lips, unasked. They stare at me with their own measures of hope flickering in their tired eyes.
“Alia is dead,” I confirm, and I have to look down and away from their young faces as I deliver the news. “She failed. Runa’s deal, however, is different. She has failed, but death will not take her now.”
“What will become of her?” asks Ola, she of the moon eyes and tight curls.
“She will become human.”
“Human?Human?” Signy screams, the cords in her neck as tense as violin strings. “Alia died because shewanted to be human, but Runa will be a human forever?”
I nod.
Ola’s lips tremble and her lash line pinks like Anna’s did in her second life. “How can you be so cruel?”
Again, I examine the pewter sands of my cave’s sea floor as I answer. I really didn’t expect this to be so... difficult. My next words are chosen carefully. I’d forgotten what it was like to be gentle.
“Alia made her choice, and I do wish it had ended differently. Runa sought something other than love; therefore, her magical exchange was different.” I meet their eyes one by one. “I expect you girls understand magic well enough to recognize this.”
The mermaids nod tensely, and I go on.
“Your father will try to return Runa to the sea. He needs the magic within her and her specific talent...”
“The flowers,” the three of them say at once. I nod and the girls’ eyes wander to the mouth of my cave, where Runa planted my ríkifjor.
“He believes I can bring her back. I can’t do that. She wasn’t able to complete her portion of the exchange either. The magical exchange controls all, not the witch.”
“And Father... without the flowers... he’ll...” Signy trails off.
“I don’t know enough about ríkifjor to know if he will die,” I say, “but the complications of withdrawal and his ire during that time may be deadly enough on their own.”
Eydis resets her hands tightly across her chest. “So, what do you want? One of us to go up there after Runa? Adding more of us into the mix is not going to repair this disaster.”
“You’re right: sending another of you up there, even if you wanted to go, would be foolish. That said, I need your help—Runa needs your help.”
Eydis laughs. “If you think we’re going to help you without getting something in return, you’re crazy. We’ve beenlocked in a towerbecause of you.”
“I understand that, and I will promise you something in return for your help.”
“Good,” Eydis says. “Give us your remaining ríkifjor and then we’ll talk.”
“No.”
“Yes,”Eydis spits back. “That will buy us our freedom and Father’s good graces.”
“It won’t,” I tell her. “He’ll ask you to grow it, and when none of you is able to, he’ll ask where it came from, and you’ll have to tell him Runa grew them for me. It’ll only prove to him that you can’t be trusted, and you’ll go to a higher tower with a more intelligent guard.”
Signy’s eyes flash. “Well, we’re not doing your bidding withoutsomething.”
“I do have something I can give you in good faith that you can explain away to your father.”
One by one, each sister cocks a brow.
“Your hair,” I tell them.
Ola’s dinner-plate eyes narrow. “You can return our hair?”
“Yes. And your father will be pleased, because like with each of you and all his people, he derives a measure of his power from every bit of you, especially your hair.”
