The clouds have gone, and the sun rises pink and promising, the sea a shimmering jewel beneath it, waters calm, glistening, at peace.
But beyond the waters’ touch, much of Havnestad is a rubbish heap.
The docks are destroyed, ships tangled together. They gape with wounds, their bellies scraped, some taking on water, soon to sink to the bottom of the harbor. The lowest roads have washed away, ancient cobblestones littering the shore while others have been swallowed out to sea. From the top of the rock wall, we can just barely see the vœrtshus and the attached shops—everything is yawning open, windows and doors, the sea cresting the sandbags and claiming them for its own.
But the people are safe, the homes and shops up the hill untouched. Below, my people are safe too. For now—the immediate U-boat threat is gone, but more than that, Father’s war is over.
And so is he.
No one needs to deliver the news. I know it as a certainty within my bones, the magic tying us together shifted into something new within me. One day I may learn what happened, but with Alia’s voice still ringing in my ears, I feel at peace.
The magical balance is still sorting itself out; the atmosphere here on land is weightier than before. What was dried up and near dead is flush with life again, finding its way into the sunlight.
Behind me, Will places his hand on my shoulder. “Runa, it’s time.”
We must go. Because dawn also brings something else—the danger of being discovered.
In the new light we’re still fugitives.
Witches.
Thieves.
Rebels.
And for me—a murderer.
The guards we dispatched last night will be regrouping, no greater mission for them than to catch us and make us pay. They don’t care about our motives, only what we did because of them.
There’s a twinge in my heart as I think about Niklas—I placed judgment on him just like it’s being placed on my head, motives misunderstood, only the outcome visible. I have to live with that blood on my hands, just like I live with my failure to save Alia. But that won’t keep me from doing as much good as possible until the end.
Alone for a moment as Sofie and Agnata scale the rock wall down to the waterlogged sand, I take Will’s hand. He turns to me, the toes of our boots touching. The pink light flatters him, erasing the exhaustion in his blue eyes.
“Do you remember what you told me when you recruited me,” I whisper, “about what would happen if we failed?”
Will raises his brows, picking through the memories of that morning Alia died and we stood in the countryside, edging around the sharper points of recognizing each other’s magic. “Something about how we’d be hunted by angry Germans before the Danes could banish us for witchcraft?”
“Yes. That. Well, what happens now that we’ve succeeded?”
“We do it all over again.”
He grins, and I can’t help myself: I have to kiss him—quick and hard enough that he has to take a steadying step, nearly losing his balance on our sliver of rock. I grab hold of him, and once we’re both solid again, we laugh.
“Will you two please come on?” Sofie whisper-shoutsfrom yards away, clearly not wanting to face another round of guards because we’re found nuzzling in broad daylight.
It doesn’t take much to climb down, and when we set foot on the black sands of the cove’s beach, the earth beneath us is soaked but solid. Will takes my hand again, and we slog through the sideways sands to the mouth of the cove, where Sofie is propping up the fallen historical marker as best she can against the boulders bracketing the entrance.
We make a collective decision to leave Freyja and walk back—she’s so sodden with seawater that she likely won’t start, even with magic. We start up the sea lane, and toward the abandoned cabin in the woods below Øldenburg Castle.
The little cottage watches us silently, its windows drooping as we pass. The scent of magic haunts this place, and though it’s only lived in my periphery, I almost feel at home here. In this place smaller than Katrine’s cabin, smaller than the bedroom I shared with my sisters, for sure. I crave the chance to linger and explore, to sit inside and let its walls tell me what they’ve seen. Hopefully it will still be standing when—if—I get the chance to return to Havnestad without a price on my head.
The stairway carved of stone curves down to the lagoon below, melting hailstones crunching beneath our boots with each step. The switchbacks pile onto each other until we’ve made it down the side of the cliff and to therough-hewn sand below, the beach packed and wet, the water still receding.
“Oh, look!” Sofie says, pointing. “Please, God, let it be undamaged.”
I glance up to see a little boat that somehow shimmied its way through the narrow mouth made between cliffs and lodged itself into the lagoon. This may be the best way to journey back to Katrine’s, the guards chasing us unlikely to be on the water with the condition of Havnestad’s docks.
I’m reminded of our promise to remove the floating mines so the fishermen’s trade can flourish and Havnestad can survive without the profits from the U-boat sale. With a boat and our magic, we could begin that process on the way to safety.
