What’s left of my heart trembles for this girl. Runa, always trying to fix and heal things. Unafraid to sacrifice her needs and wants or even herself for another.
I’d say it reminds me of the girl I used to be, but that would be too generous. I was only interested in saving Nik—and when I wasn’t saving him, I was saving myself from the plague I’d caused.
There’s not much to say after that. The mermaids turn without a good-bye, dread trailing in their wake as they return to their captivity and to a guard who hopefully kept their secret.
“You’re kind to help them,” Anna says when we’re alone.
“I wish they were the only ones who needed help. So many are in danger—Runa and the witches, the merpeople—literally all magical creatures above and below are at risk.” I gesture to my surroundings. Uneaten catch litters the pewter sands; everything I own is either tucked away in my cave or strewn about, my life for the last fifty years dumped into this place. This prison. “I can’t just stay here eating shrimp while the world is at war.”
“Go up, then! You don’t need him to release you—you’ve had fifty years. Surely you can break the magic that keeps you. You’ve just made two mermaids human, one permanently. If anyone is talented enough to crack these magical bonds, it’s you.” Her voice grows more frantic and emphatic with each word. “You’ve got to go up and help them.”
It’s too much, I think. “You’re quite insistent about getting rid of me for someone who just days ago thought for sure if I died the sea king would, and I quote, ‘vaporize this whole place and those of us literally rooted to it.’”
“Evie, he’s coming for you anyway. Once Runa’s changed for good, he won’t need you anymore.”
She’s right. I don’t respond because we both know it.
After a time, Anna speaks again. “It’s probably better for all of us if you leave.”
My vision skips to Alia’s fledgling body. My cross to bear. My mistake.
I close my eyes and twist my tentacles to face the approximate direction of the little inlet cove my father would navigate with a whale heavy enough to sink a lesser ship and a lesser man.
“Koma minn knífr.”
A thread of the magic from within me shoots through the murk, past the bubbling mire, through the forest of polypi, and into the cool blue of the open ocean.
Reaching, reaching, my magic scrapes for the knife. And then I feel it coming like a shot blast from a rifle, big and bold and unstoppable. A few seconds more and the distinct whiz and whisper of an object rocketing through the water echoes through my lair. Then it’s slicing right past the spindly arms of Anna’s tree, smacking into my hand hilt-first.
The knife. It’s chipped. But its magic held—Øldenburg blood still clinging to the blade despite the ocean waters’ relentless churn and pull over the last day and more. Exactly as I’d hoped.
I turn my back to Anna and clean my cauldron for the most important spell of my life.
26
Runa
ISTAY ON THE BEACH LONGER THANISHOULD, STARINGdown the waves and praying to Urda to spare the lives of my remaining sisters. It’s early morning but still dark when I return, sodden.
I creep in quietly, the ring safely in my pocket, and bed down in the kitchen, away from the fire, away from all their unsleeping eyes. I don’t even change into anything dry—wanting to rest with the comfort of the sea’s embrace, even as the salt scratches at my skin.
When we rise I let their unanswered questions hang. Let them pile up one by one onto each other like rays of the sun until they’re blinding and only shining on me. But even if they ask again, I’m not sure I will answer. Or how. What happened last night just feels too close, too important to trust someone else with.
Without a word among us, we gather ’round Katrine’s table for bread and butter served with a pot of steaming tea. Sofie and Agnata glower at me across the long end of the table, frowning into their tea, eyes untrusting. Will sits closer, but there’s still a distance between us, as if he’s put up the shield spell he’s recently mastered.
Katrine silently refills my tea, Tandsmør snaking around her ankles.
Though it’s daylight now, the night’s fire is still going, and even the shutters are pulled back. The rain has returned, slanting down in an utter pour, surely flooding the unpaved country roads. No one is likely to be out in this weather looking for us.
I would thank Urda for this, but I have doubts that this weather is her doing. Ever since the night Niklas died, each storm has been stranger than the last, the clouds coming from the Øresund Strait, a weather pattern moving in the opposite direction of what is typical for this time of year. I’ve tried to ignore it, but today’s angry gale has Father’s fingerprints all over it. I want to believe it’s his sadness or his grief, but more likely, it’s part of the plan my sisters relayed. The first step is testing his ability to call upon the weather to do his bidding.
The sea gives life in the Kingdom of Havnestad as easily as it can steal it away. When Father wages war here, it won’t be with soldiers, bombs, or shotguns. No, he’ll use the fury of the sea first. Turning everyday life on its head,making his opponent weak while using his strengths.
I have to tell the coven. They have to know Father’s plans so they can prepare. Sowecan prepare. It’s my duty. My fault. My responsibility to help. And once I do, I must try my best to go home and stop Father from coming at all.
Another impossible task. My sisters’ optimism, so reassuring last night, is beginning to wane inside me, but I need to hold tight to what’s left. Niklas’s ring sits heavily in the pocket of my ruined dress, right next to the remaining twenty or so ríkifjor seeds I removed from Alia’s garden. Somewhere in this house is Sofie’s nightgown from her wedding night, and unlike my feet, it was splattered in Niklas’s blood. It’s dried now, but if I’m able to draw the liquid out and onto my toes before dawn, along with the right spell, I might be able to regain my tail fin and stave off a war. Yet this task and any preparations for Father’s surge must wait. We have a mission to complete. It’s the one thing we can control.
After the plates are put away and the mugs of tea cold, Will’s eyes find mine. It’s time to begin. I stand and he follows. The girls stay put, pretending to ignore me. Katrine tamps down the fire. The rain has finally calmed—perhaps Father is tired—and the sun is peeking through the clouds. The smoke will make us too conspicuous.
