The Dark Tide

by Alicia Jasinska

  “Who else disappears in a puff of smoke? Who else kisses someone on St. Walpurga’s Eve wearing someone else’s face?”

  “He made it out the last time on his own.”

  “Because he made the last queen fall in love with him,” said Lina. “She’s dead.”

  “Maybe he’ll make this new one love him too.”

  In the dark, her brother’s wintry gray eyes looked almost black, making Lina think of the queen in the square, reminding her of the false version of Thomas she’d thrilled to dance with and the beautiful girl with eyes like midnight-lit waters and smile sharper than a blade. The image of Thomas kissing her was burned into Lina’s vision. She could no longer see the illusion, see the false version of herself kissing him, only the other girl, and Thomas kissing back.

  “Hey, now,” said Finley, reading her expression. “I didn’t mean it.”

  Lina hugged her arms around herself. “It’s not his fault the sacrifices aren’t working. You’re wrong.”

  Finley sighed but didn’t respond, just leaned heavily into her side. Some of her guilt and fear melted under the familiar weight of his shoulder. He might be a weaseling traitor with an unfair height advantage, but he was still her best friend, still her brother. She wasn’t alone out here. He hadn’t let her go alone. She wished she could make herself hate him. There was something terribly wrong with her that she couldn’t.

  “It’s my fault Thomas was there.” Her voice sounded shaky and small, and she hated that, too. “And yours.”

  Taut silence stretched over the boat, broken only by the slap and slosh of the waves. They sailed past the rusted spire of a clock tower, over sunken rooftops and the submerged copper-green dome of a bygone cathedral, over the swathes of the old city that had been lost to the dark tide when it had first risen two hundred years ago.

  Lina moved to sit at the stern, looking back as they glided by the old bell tower, its crumbling cupola and pointed gray hat spearing up out of the waves. When the witches froze parts of the sea in winter, you could skate out to it, if you were brave enough. Lina had ripped the top layer off her tongue when she’d tried licking the ice-crusted bell.

  Sea mist whispered and wound around her body, circling her neck like a noose. She found herself making small bargains. If she blinked three times each time they passed a spire, Thomas would be saved. If she held her breath for a count of eight, if she crossed and recrossed her fingers and toes—

  The Water Palace rose before them, but they never seemed to draw any closer. Lina ground her teeth together. She crawled to the prow, rapping her knuckles impatiently on the black lacquered wood at the front of the boat, urging it to keep going, to move faster. The tide was fighting their approach now, as if some part of it knew they had come to steal its prize.

  The boat bucked, the curved prow shooting almost vertical as a great wave rushed head-on to meet them.

  Finley yelped and cursed. Lina gripped the bench seat for dear life, heart shooting into her throat. Neither of them could swim. To learn was to tempt fate. It was just asking the tide to take you, Ma would say.

  The boat slammed back down in a great wash of spray.

  Finley spat into the water for luck. Lina spat too. Once. Twice. Three times, just to make sure. She wished she had some saint-blessed salt to feed the waves; the kind the fishermen swore helped calm them. “Why is it taking so long? Why aren’t we getting any closer?”

  Another wave smashed against the prow. The boat rocked and swerved off course. Lina rapped her knuckles on the starboard edge of the hull. If they approached from a different route, maybe…

  “Lina,” said Finley.

  “Shut up.”

  The mist writhed as if someone were stirring it with a wooden spoon, thickening until it was almost impossible to see. It stuck to their skin, trailing like damp gray cobwebs. The boat skimmed over more sunken houses, shot past an orange buoy where someone had dropped a crab pot, through a crumbling arch crusted with barnacles. The witches had sunk magic like anchors at the edges of the shallows to keep outsiders from reaching the island, to keep storms and sea monsters at bay, save the single sea serpent the queen kept as a pet. Of course they’d have placed a barrier around the palace, too, but there had to be a weak spot somewhere.

  It couldn’t end like this.

  Hadn’t Lina promised to hold on to him? Hadn’t she just discovered he liked her? Hadn’t she finally worked up the courage to show him she liked him, too?

  Violent shivers wracked Lina’s body. Her teeth started to chatter as the adrenaline wore off and doubt crept in. Minutes ticked by, maybe hours. She couldn’t see the night sky through the mist to know if it was lightening, to know how much time had already been lost.

  “Well, we tried,” said Finley. “Now let’s go back.”

  Lina didn’t even bother to turn and glare at him.

  Finley joined her at the prow, a woolen blanket slung over his shoulders. He wrapped another around her gently. Closed her half-frozen fingers around a small rectangular bottle of cobalt-blue glass.

  The bottle was hot, even through the fabric of her gloves. Her scalp prickled as her thumb brushed the cork stopper. “Where did you get this?” And then she felt like a fool, because of course he’d gotten it at the revel, another piece of free magic won while playing his violin. “What does it do?”

  “It’s a squall, I think. A thunderstorm.”

  Hair pricked on Lina’s arms. She felt the phantom patter of raindrops on her skin. Spell bottles weren’t labeled, but each gave off an idea, a sense of what magic lurked inside. An electric crackle settled into her bones. There was something dark and destructive about the bottled storm. Anger sealed behind glass.

  Finley’s voice was soft. “Let’s go home, Lina. Please.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Uncle and everyone will be fretting. This isn’t working. You can see that. They don’t want us here. The queen’s not going to let us reach her palace. We’ll try again tomorrow, maybe. Or the next day. They won’t sacrifice him until the full moon. It’s part of the magic, part of the ritual. There’s the regatta, too, where they’ll bring him out so people can say goodbye.” Finley’s eyes were pleading.

  Lina felt herself wavering. Another violent shiver wracked her body. But if she gave up now…

  She might lose her nerve. Finley gave her grief sometimes for always rushing into things, but the advantage was that she never had time for second thoughts. Never had a chance to second-guess herself. If you hesitated, if you gave yourself time to think, that was when the fear crept in.

  And there was fear, a niggling, all-consuming panic that ate at her courage more and more the longer they were out here, the harder the tide fought the boat, the more times they failed to reach the palace. She wasn’t the first person to chase after a loved one, and it rarely ended as well as it had for the girl in the song.

  It never ended as well as it had for the girl in the song.

  “You said she took him to make things right. That means they think he broke the magic too, that they blame him too. It was her sister, wasn’t it? The last queen, the one who died for him. Even if they wait to sacrifice him on the full moon, what do you think they’ll do to him until then?” Lina twisted away from Finley, rapping the prow, urging the boat to change direction, attempting another approach.

  Finley didn’t reply, but she could feel the anger burning off of him. His body going as stiff and unyielding as brick.

  They continued on in the quiet, in the cold, huddled together under the woolen blankets, hearts hammering each time the boat heaved and shuddered, water crashing over the prow, sloshing over the sides. The Witch Queen’s palace loomed out of the mist, a dark crown upon the sea, taunting them with its presence. Wicked gray spires and turrets. Slick stone walls rising from the deep, the lowermost levels completely swallowed by the tide. White foam gushed from
a row of gaping arches that might once have contained windows, though the glass that had resided there was gone.

  No visible entrance. So close and yet so far. They could swim to it, maybe, if they could swim.

  The sky was growing noticeably lighter, the mist blushing with soft streaks of ballet pink and fiery copper. The crescent-shaped broom boat bobbed in place as if its magic was dissolving with the dark, as if it too was giving up.

  A lone fish broke the surface of the water, splashing back down into the depths.

  Lina jerked when the first bell tolled. A distant, echoing clang from the city they’d left behind. Caldella’s church bells ringing in the rising sun.

  Finley scrubbed a hand down his face. “Thomas Lin is not worth this.”

  Lina’s chin shot up. “He is worth it.” Her voice was crackly with cold, hoarse from lack of sleep. “I’ve liked him forever, Finley. I love him.” It was a truth that came from somewhere deep inside her. A truth she’d known from the moment she first saw him. It was like Ma and Mama, like Laolao and Grandpa, like all the stories. There were other people sometimes—sure, she wasn’t completely naive. But you only had one true love. One love that counted more than all the rest. “He’s the only one I feel this way about, the only one I’ll ever feel this way about.”

  Finley started to roll his eyes.

  Lina waved the bottled storm at him. “Do you remember that time we sailed into a squall because you thought Jeanne’s boat was caught in it? If this were you, and you were going after some girl, you’d say this was romantic. Everyone would. So don’t you dare roll your eyes like it’s different because it’s me.” She put a hand on top of his head for support, clutching the blue bottle in the other. Shrugging the blanket off and ignoring Finley’s protests, she rose to her feet.

  She faced the palace. She could see the Witch Queen smiling at her over Thomas’s shoulder, mocking her, daring her to do something. She could hear those taunting whispered words: You’ll have to hold on to him tightly, then. The guilty memory of that dance, of hips, of another body pulled flush against her own surfacing all too easily.

  Anger and embarrassment hissed and seethed inside Lina.

  “I got Thomas into this. I’ll get him out. And if she won’t let me into her damn palace”—Lina’s voice rose, her jaw setting with grim determination—“then I will tear it down.” She pulled her arm back and hurled the bottled storm at those hateful gray walls, at that invisible barrier, with all her might.

  8

  Eva

  “What in hell was that?”

  Eva jolted awake to the shock of Yara’s voice, a sharp ringing in her ears, a choked tightness in her throat. The feel of sand and saltwater scraping her lungs, as if she’d spent the last hour drowning instead of dreaming.

  “How…” said Yara. There was a sharp crash of porcelain shattering.

  Eva sat up, squinting, the scarlet chaise lounge dipping beneath her.

  Early-morning sunbeams poured through the Amber Salon’s arched windows, light painting falling dust motes in a thousand shimmery specks, glinting off the coral bangles climbing Yara’s brown arms.

  The other girl was still at the sideboard, where she’d been when Eva had dozed off, mixing enchanted cocktails in fat-bellied teapots and sulking because Eva hadn’t kissed the boy Yara had picked for her. Marcin was on the other side of the room, a flame of red hair lolling in an armchair, a long thin cigarette holder dangling from his pale fingers, crackly old maps spilling off his lap and onto the carpet as he planned imaginary mainland conquests.

  There were other witches crowding the room, too, in various states of consciousness, still dressed in all their glittery black finery from the revel. Bodies slumped over coffee tables and low chaise lounges or twined together like rope. Other witches were still dancing, hips swaying gently to a record someone had smuggled over from the mainland.

  Last night, upon their return, a sense of giddy euphoria had seized the Water Palace. Its amber walls had lit up with a bright honey-gold glow. The air itself was syrup-sweet, scented with jasmine and rose.

  It irritated Eva that she hadn’t noticed how damp and gloomy her palace had become in the days since her sister had died, in the time since her first sacrifice—a boy with raven-black hair and a dusting of freckles—had failed. A witch’s house reflected those who dwelled within it. It was a mirror held up to their souls.

  Eva decided her soul must be a very black and twisted thing, because she missed the cold silence, the dark and its merciful shadows.

  She stood, head pounding, one stocking foot catching on a discarded feather boa. Her ears wouldn’t stop ringing, and the carpet seemed to have come alive and was currently trying to slither out from under her. She stumbled sideways, reaching a hand to the gold wall for support. She hadn’t drunk that much, only one teapot.

  And then she realized it wasn’t her. The Water Palace itself was quaking.

  “What in—”

  A forked tongue of blue lightning struck the tower outside the Amber Salon’s windows, burning her vision white. Stone cracked. Sparked. Split, flying through the air. Glass shattered, and someone shrieked. There was a great earsplitting boom of thunder.

  A second fork of lightning struck the tower they were in. Eva staggered as the walls shook, dust raining from the ceiling. The chandelier swung perilously from side to side. A candlestick flew off the marble mantel by the record player, bouncing, rolling. Vases splintered, spilling water and moon blossoms over the carpet.

  Marcin sprang to his feet, maps and cigarette abandoned. Eva ran to the windows. Wind rattled what glass remained unsplintered, howling, screaming to be let in.

  “An attack?” said someone, shrill and high pitched.

  “They made it past the anchors! A fleet from Skani?”

  “Whoever they are, they won’t make it far.” Marcin’s voice was lethal, a blade scraping bone as it thrust through flesh to pierce the heart. Everyone’s heads snapped toward him, eyes aglitter with fear. “And if they’ve come for our magic they won’t get it.”

  His face was the pale heart of a fire. The Amber Salon darkened at the edges, folding into shadow. Other faces flashed with relief, then hardened into resolve. Witches around the room turned to Marcin for orders, for reassurance.

  Not to Eva.

  She had the sudden pressing urge to hurt something, someone. “Don’t be ridiculous. Skani has no reason to attack us. If it’s anyone, it’s mainlanders.” She kept her voice low. She didn’t need to raise it in order to be heard; a queen’s voice made its own silence, Natalia had taught her that. A queen never panicked. Even when she had no damn idea what was happening or who was attacking her home.

  The hollow in her chest expanded.

  She raised a hand, gave a rapid series of orders. No prisoners. No mercy for mainlanders.

  Mainlanders who boiled witch bodies down to the bone.

  Her sisters dissolved into smoke, twisted into chill salt winds, grasped each other’s anxious hands dashing out of the room to gather and hide the witchlings. There were still those who hesitated, too many who whispered and cut glances at Marcin for permission first. Eva pinned each whisper to a face and each face to a name, filing them away to be dealt with later.

  If there was a later.

  Stay calm. Keep your head.

  A boy with silver-dyed hair tumbled out of the press of bodies at her back, blinking and rubbing crusty sleep from his eyes. Jun had a witch’s ladder already in hand: skeins of his hair tied around a length of cord, ratty gray gull’s feathers and shards of shell and bird bone tethered to seven large knots.

  Like Eva, he worked magic the island’s way, mixing small pieces of himself with sand and salt and seashells, tying sailor’s knots and playing string games like those who had taught them. Although he, like Eva, also mixed in old, half-remembered charms from the places where t
hey’d been born, like Eva’s red string, a nod to the red ribbon Natalia had tied to her wrist as a child to ward off wicked spells. Caldella’s magic was a tangle of traditions carried here by people who had fled from all across the world.

  Jun’s arm brushed hers. Eva waited the briefest second, watching his tanned fingers thread a loop, his furrowed forehead press to a pane of window glass in concentration. More witches joined him, ready to banish the storm, ready to bend its wrath to serve their own purposes. Eva forced herself to return to the scarlet chaise lounge. To sit with ankles crossed. A queen took command of the battlefield, devised a strategy; there was no point in lashing out blindly, not knowing where to aim or where to sink your knife. What was her enemy’s weakness? Was the city under attack, too? Should she release the sea serpent? Had the attackers already breached the Water Palace’s walls?

  “Yara.”

  Yara rushed forward with a tray, a teapot, and three delicate teacups rimmed with sugar. She set the tray on the oval table in front of the chaise lounge. Rain was thrashing the windows, and the Amber Salon grew murky and glacial as unnatural roiling clouds rolled in to engulf the palace. It took every ounce of Eva’s self-control not to snap at Jun and the others to hurry, not to rip another red string bracelet from her wrist and seize control of the storm herself.

  The walls shivered with each fresh crash of thunder. Wind battered the tower with angry fists.

  Yara sat on her right. Marcin on her left. Yara filled the trembling teacups, handing them out on pastel-painted saucers. “Sour cherry liqueur. For clarity. I already added a few of my tears, so you don’t have to”—Yara grimaced as Marcin spat into his cup—“do that.”

  People claimed witches were nightmares, dreams, but Eva felt they were closer to plants; wild magic grew inside of each of them, waiting to be harvested in the strands of their hair, their salt tears, their spit and blood.

  She stirred the concoction with the tip of her finger and watched the cherry liquid ripple.