“Of course,” I say.
Will doesn’t grab a cloak, a jacket, or anything else—only my hand. We step into a night much like the last one, the day’s sun a distant memory as clouds hover low in the sky, the air damp enough to collect in the hollows under our eyes. Like the morning that Alia died, we walk in silence. This time, I lead him, tugging him along by the crook of his fingers. The wind whips the hair off my face with each step closer to the beach.
At the water’s edge, the waves are furious. Frothing. Wicked. They toss themselves against the sands, against the rocks dotting the shore as a warning call. The buglethrough the forest before the attack.
The breeze whips color into our cheeks, chins, and noses as we walk along—brisker than it should be for September, but Will doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t let go of my hand. He just keeps walking.
The sea witch might have been right when she assumed I didn’t believe in love. I’m not sure I believe in it now. But what I do believe is that I have a connection with this boy that won’t die in this world or the one I’m from. No matter what’s to come.
After a long while, we come upon two sturdy rocks on the dry beach, flat like tables and paired together as if they’re meant for us.
I take a seat on the nearest one, its surface slick with sea spray and dew that soaks into my cloak on contact. Will squats on the other, his long legs coming up at a sharp angle in front of him, knees to the shrouded sky.
“What needs to be done for you to go home?”
I squeeze his hand and then disentangle our fingers, immediately sorry that I must.
Will cups his hands together and blows warm breath into them, eyes on me as I draw the nightgown out of my cloak, the tiny glass bottle too.
“The spell that made me human was uttered by the famed sea witch—the one who saved Niklas’s grandfather from death.” Will nods, knowing the story like everyone else. “The spell required four items from me for my return:Niklas’s ring, his life, his dying blood on my feet, and the knife that killed him.”
I can’t believe I’m telling him this any more than I can believe I shared my true identity as a merprincess, but Will listens calmly, his chin propped on his knuckles, his blue eyes watching silently as though nothing can surprise him.
“I have the ring, and the knife has hopefully gone back to the sea witch, so now I have to retrieve the blood,” I say, holding up the nightgown. I don’t want to tell him about the spell I must offer. The uncertainty of Urda’s response is too much to explain right now. He believes that I and my magic can do anything. And he’ll need that confidence in magic if he’s to have any chance at destroying the U-boats.
“What did Alia need?” he asks. “Was she here to kill him? That whole time? I mean, I really believed she was in love with him.”
“She did love him,” I say immediately. It’s important to me that much is understood. “She never intended to kill him—she saved him this summer when he nearly drowned with his brothers and father. Alia was sure he’d recognize her in an instant and marry her on the spot when she came ashore as human, that the love in his heart would be enough to satisfy the spell that would have kept her alive. He adored her, but he didn’t love her, and so...”
Will’s voice drops. “And so the only way for her to survive was to kill him, like the legend of Annemette.”
“Yes. Stabbed through with a specific knife, his blooddripping upon our toes, but we never got to that part.”
Will eyes the nightgown. “And that’s his blood, then?” I nod. “And if it doesn’t work, you’ll be human forever?”
Inhaling a deep breath of the thick salt air, I nod again. “Those were the terms of my exchange.”
I spread the nightgown across my knees, the red-black smear angry as it faces the moon. The amethyst I’ve used so successfully sits heavy in my palm, the little bottle in the other, shining like midnight. I pop the cork and hand it to Will for safekeeping.
Then I drive my feet into the sand, the earth fast to my soles, meeting my magic, holding tight to the amethyst and my intentions.
“Slita sasí bló∂.”Rend this blood.
Shimmer and shine, the stain quivers deep within the ruined fabric.
“Slita sasí bló∂,”I command again.
The massive smear is no longer a monolith. It separates and shifts.
“Slita sasí bló∂.”
Finally, finally, the droplets pull and lift, evaporating into the air in a red mist.
“Hálmr, lœkr.”
The mist clings to itself, creating a stream thinner than the pencil tip Will used to mark our plan on the map.
“Efna.”
