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Like Zephyr, the kraken’s only crime was standing against my father when he blocked the portal to the fae realm. I can’t believe they’d make an argument for such violence.
They spin the shaft like a baton, and I try to hide my surprise because that’s one of the weapons Darcy is planning to use against them.
How are they touching iron with their bare hands?
“House of Cinder sure knows what they’re doing when it comes to monster hunting,” they say, adding a flourish.
“Thank you, Professor,” Darcy says, unaware that she’s being taunted. “I’ll take on the task alone if I must, but I ask that you’ll all be brave and board that ship with me–”
“First thing in the morning,” Zephyr says, still twirling. “We’ll need to be able to see the water clearly to avoid sailing into the kraken’s vortex.”
“Yes, we’ll set sail at sunrise.” Darcy’s fingers twitch with tension, unnoticeable to anyone but me. “Flee in the night if you must, but fate has chosen us for this task. Protecting the Heartbreak Isles is up to us.”
The crew starts talking amongst themselves, their enthusiasm increasing after Darcy’s speech. Zephyr refuses a mug of cider from a woman wearing a blanket around her shoulders and strides around the bonfire.
“May I speak to you privately?” they ask Darcy. “I’m working on that article I plan on publishing once our excursion is over, and I’d appreciate your insight on something.”
“Yes, I have a few points I’d like to make.” Darcy’s annoyance slips away, and she lifts our clasped hands to her lips, kissing my knuckles. “Wait for me here, love.”
They walk off together, and Zephyr looks back at me.
“What are you doing?” I mouth, pointing to the iron harpoon they have notched over their shoulder.
They cast their eyes forward, but their voice finds me, a breeze that only I can hear. “Buying you some time. The rune mark for the kraken is carved on the log where I was standing. You have until sunrise to do whatever you can with it.”
Darcy asks them a question I can’t hear, and Zephyr responds normally.
I run to find the rune and copy it into my memory, tracing the lines and interlocking loops.
Earlier today, I had a fleeting thought about countering the sea witch’s control over the rune keys, but I never mentioned that to Zephyr. They’ve learned to anticipate my every move after spending twenty years immersed in my thought process.
The crew is breaking up. Several of them head into their tents and stay there. A few others sneak back out with their bags on their backs.
I dodge the two men who attempt to speak to me while I sit on a log and drag a driftwood stick through the sand. Binding spells aren’t my area of expertise, but I know they’re rooted in a far wilder type of magic than the rites of transformation.
They require focus and emotion, while I prefer rituals based on steps and precision—clean exchanges with clear payoffs over focused manifestations that can easily get out of hand.
I miss the heavy silence of the underwater temple and my organized shelves. I could lose days down there, re-ordering jars so that they’d be perfectly aligned around a single moonbeam at a specific time.
But I filter out the noise of the camp and start drawing in the sand, allowing my mind to wander organically toward what it wants.
My lips move without actually speaking my intention as I loop over my markings in the sand. “Sever the ties between the monster and the sea witch, and let me hold the threads.”
The wind blows colder, and the moon rises higher, but I retrace the rune marks over and over again. “Sever the ties between the monster and the sea witch, and let me hold the threads.”
A man on the crew elbows his friend and whispers some rude remark about me that never sinks in. I’m too focused on a shadow between the flames as I etch my markings deeper in the sand.
A naked woman appears on the other side of the fire, long white-blonde strands framing her face and covering her full breasts. Her pale skin is cast in a green glow, as if she’s seated before an unnatural fire.
“Cordelia,” the sea witch says, crawling in the sand, but never crossing the flames. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”
I’m doing my best. “Sever the ties between the monster and the sea witch, and let me hold the threads.”
“So close, little tempest.” I flinch at the nickname my mother used to call me, and an ember pops in the pit as she cackles. “You’re more powerful than you know, but you’re asking a lot for nothing.”
A lot for nothing.
I have to offer the magic something. That’s the order of things.
