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Seren turned her head, and she saw it. Saw her. There, halfway up the cliff, just outside of Crow House, a distant figure was barely visible, arms lifted toward the stormy, ash-filled skies. Yet Seren knew without a doubt that she was chanting the same words to the Water. To her Water. Commanding it to protect, to keep safe. To avenge.

Gwen Crowhart had come for redemption. A century had passed, and Gwen Crowhart had stopped hiding herself or her power.

Seren felt the craft pick her up off of her knees and allowed herself to be carried until her own two feet could finally hold her, hands extending upward, rising like the moon above the horizon. When she called her Water again, her arms were steady.

Behind Magnus, her waves grew taller, her ocean darker. It eclipsed the sky. The silence around them was eerie. For a long moment, not even her crows sounded in the night.

And in that silence, as Seren lifted the seas, Victoria found her own strength. Magnus kicked at her again, and this time she managed to grab onto his arm. Seren could make out her magic from where she stood, the golden glow of it, so familiar, so precious. Magnus howled as Victoria’s hands dug into his skin, and he let go of Lark, who fell into the shallow tide, the gun submerging close by.

Victoria was upon him like a fiend then, teeth and nails and curses and magic, as Seren watched on and held the ocean above them. Held it on arms that were starting to waver as more and more waves had arrived to obey her earlier command.

The Water has come to protect. You won’t be able to hold it.

Still shrouded in silence, Seren watched as Gwen Crowhart sent a wave to bring Lark safely to shore.

She’s safe, safe…

Seren’s heart was in her throat. She could feel, even with her sisters’ circle around her, with her crows high above them in the skies, that she would fail anytime now. The energy needed to hold the immensity of the ocean, suspended at fifteen feet above the ground, so far away from shore, the sheer volume of it⁠—

Victoria punched Magnus in the mouth, blood spattering her own face, and she turned to Seren once again, even as he grasped her by the arm.

“And you will have to make the decision. The hardest one. What are you willing to sacrifice? Whom…”

Victoria did not say the words; she did not have to. The indelible message was forever implanted in Seren’s mind. In the distance, as Seren looked back again, Gwen Crowhart’s face, much closer now, almost on the very shore by the prone Lark, was covered in tears.

She know… She knows what is coming…

Behind her, Deryn was crying. Rhiannon’s hand on Seren’s shoulder gripped harder, painfully so, and as Ceridwen chanted, keeping the circle alive, her voice was a litany of sobs.

They all know…

Seren would not be able to hold the ocean back. Not to save Victoria. Not to bring her back, not to tear her from Magnus.

“Do it!”

Victoria’s voice rang loudly above them all.

Deryn wailed. Ceridwen’s voice was almost inaudible. Rhiannon’s silence was damnation.

In the distance, Seren heard Gwen Crowhart’s voice.

“I’m here. I’m Water, and I’m you. Together.”

Seren turned briefly. The pale eyes of the century-old soul held the world in their depths, and Seren shuddered with understanding. Gwen Crowhart was offering to share in the pain, in the responsibility. And yet… And yet it was unthinkable.

No, no, no, no!

Seren bit her lip, her mouth full of blood and grief. On the shore, Lark stirred, her blue eyes unerringly finding Seren’s and the circle—and then she saw Victoria.

Lark stood up, all but coiled to run to help. Seren understood the impulse. It was the right one. She’d have done the same, jumped into the depths of the ocean to save her aunt. Her aunt, whom Lark loved like a mother. A mother whom Victoria considered herself to be for Lark. And suddenly Seren knew. Knew exactly what Victoria had been doing all along.

A mother’s love has no rules, no boundaries, no limits…

There was no more time and no other choice.

Between the Water demanding to be allowed to set things to rights, Gwen Crowhart redeeming her own cowardice, and Lark willing to sacrifice her life, Seren had run out of time. Out of choices.

“My darling heart… My strongest girl…”