It goes on like that for the next hour. Failure after failure. The only success is a handful of sparks that amount tonothing but blacked spots on the floor in front of Katrine. But Sofie, Agnata, and Will all fail to call anything. No matter how forcefully they ask. No matter how hard they concentrate. No matter how many times I try to explain the proper way to do it.
Maybe I’m a horrible teacher.
Sofie presses the heels of her hands to her eyes. “I need a few minutes.”
“Me too,” says Agnata. I’ve only watched them interact outside the castle for a few hours now, and I get the feeling Agnata’s handmaiden act wasn’t really an act. She defers to Sofie on literally everything. Which makes Sofie nothing but happy—and makes me want to vomit.
Yet this time, even with Agnata’s agreement, when Sofie’s hands come clear of her eyes, all the determination has been stripped from her face. She claims a chair at the table, props up her elbows, and drops her head into her hands.
“I don’t feel anything at all,” Sofie whines as Tandsmør hops in her lap and sticks his ginger tail in her face. “Is there such a thing as a bystander witch? I feel like a dog on a hunt—I can sniff out the rabbit, but I only get a sniff, never a taste. That’s for others.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself, Sofie. I can feel the magic, but it won’t listen to me a lick,” Agnata says, slumping into the chair beside her.
Will doesn’t chime in, but the way he’s squatting by thefire rubbing a hand through his hair shows me it’s been the same for him too.
My legs itch to move, pace, work out the disappointment and irritation mingling in the pit of my stomach. Why aren’t they getting it? I go through the motions, breaking down to the basics of how I form a spell. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. In my hand, the magic of the land beats like a pulse from the stone, and inside, the magic of the sea swirls like a whirlpool in my veins, calling the wildfire forth.
I stop and open my eyes before the spell has left my lips, shaking my head in disbelief. How blind I’ve been. This spell, this wildfire spell, is from the sea. No wonder they can’t do it. A mermaid’s sea magic comes from within, but these land witches must somehow summon it. Perhaps there is a way.
“Katrine,” I call, though I’m already entering her room. She’s in the rocking chair in the corner, paging through a reedy old book with a crooked spine, searching for something to help me go home. I gesture to the chest next to her, thrown open and full of gemstones, dusty bottles, and any books she’s already paged through and discarded. “Do any of these bottles contain octopus ink?”
“Sure, and squid too. Why?”
“I have an idea.”
I hug as many of the little bottles to my chest as possible, the inks within sloshing merrily with each step. I askKatrine to take the rest and goad Will up from his spot by the fire to grab enough gemstones for everyone.
Sofie perks up as we plunk the goods on the table.
“What’s this?” Clearly these items have never been a part of her lessons with Katrine.
“An idea,” I answer again.
The other girls’ gowns are exactly like mine. Rough-spun and long sleeved, with buttons around the wrists. But Will—he’s got his sleeves rolled up, forearms filled with the requested gemstones. Their unpolished edges mince the light into flickering pieces—lavender, sea green, fire-kissed reds. He sets them gently on the table, transferring them one by one to the corner closest to his cousin.
When the gemstones are accounted for and his arms are empty, I snag his wrist without preamble. His lips drop in surprise, ruddiness returning to the hollows of his cheeks.
I haven’t laid a finger on him since our dance at the wedding reception, when we were both pretending to be something we weren’t. My eyes rise to his. The blue in them rages near black in this light and heat immediately creeps up my cheeks. I lift his wrist up a little, gesturing with it, and ask his permission a moment too late. I hold up the bottle too, suddenly a little flabbergasted. “May I?”
He accepts without question.
I draw his arm down in front of me, uncork the bottle,and dip my forefinger inside. The ink adheres easily, half soaking in, half sitting atop. I paint the near-onyx ink from the thick band of his wrist up the farm-strong muscles of his forearm to the crook of his elbow. The process would feel something close to intimate if it weren’t for our audience, taking in each stroke with confused stares. Will watches me work, too, cheeks pinking deeper, but body completely still. When I’m finished, I hesitate to drop his arm. So I don’t. Instead, I work my fingers through his and thread them together. I lift our arms as one and give him a confident smile.
“Okay, we’re going to do this together,” I tell him. “On three, let’s tell the magic exactly what we want.”
A smile quirks up at the corners of Will’s mouth, self-effacing. “I suppose we’ll find out if my flowers are flammable.”
“Only if you say the wrong spell and have grass hidden in your fingers.” The smile on my own lips drops, and I spear him with all the concentration I have left. “On three.”
“One.” We count together, eyes locked. “Two. Three.Villieldr.”
My arm lights as it always does, despite my amethyst hanging low in my pocket—Will’s connection to the earth spinning through the power within me, tethering me to this place, an anchor in the deep.
In the moment after my arm goes alight, my stomachquivers with the mistake I’ve made. I’ll burn him like I did those castle guards. Melt his skin into something scarred, scabbed, boiling red.
But Will doesn’t rip himself away. Instead, he stays, fingers hugging the backs of my flaming knuckles. And, finally, his inked skin begins to glow, fuzzy and lavender. The disturbance grows, along with a smile on his face, and within the space of two blinks, that slow burn becomes deep purple flame as defined as my own.
In our periphery, the girls’ chairs scrape back as they stand.
