The Dark Tide

by Alicia Jasinska

  Eva’s hint of a smile became a wide and wicked one. “It worked. If you didn’t like them, you could have asked for something else. Is that why you’re here, to ask for something else?”

  “I’m here because the witchlings told me a story,” Lina started, gaze skating over the ink-dark water, attention catching on the visions flitting across its surface.

  Shock stole the questions she had come to ask before she could ask them.

  She saw her brother. Dark circles lurked beneath Finley’s winter-gray eyes; rough stubble shadowed his jaw. He was dragging a hand down his face, stamping his foot down on the bottom of his broom boat, sending it surging through a soup of thick mist, sailing round and round the Water Palace.

  Trying to find a way in to steal back his little sister.

  A hot lump choked Lina’s throat. How long had he been out there? How many sleepless nights had he spent trying?

  The scene was crystal clear, like staring through a window, like the murals painted on the walls down by the floating markets that you could reach into and take things out of.

  If she touched the water, would she fall straight through and arrive dripping by the stern of his boat?

  There was a tiny splash that might have been the sea serpent stirring. The resulting ripples washed away the image of Finley and his broom boat, made it into something new.

  “Don’t gaze too deeply,” Eva warned, looking out, searching for her pet.

  “I’m not an idiot,” Lina said, even as she sank to her knees and leaned forward.

  “The visions can drink you in. Drive you mad, like a sailor who’s stared too long at the water.”

  “Like I said, I’m not an idiot.”

  “Experience would dictate otherwise.”

  Lina made a rude gesture with her hand, one she’d learned from Finley. In the new vision, she was dancing.

  A glimpse from the past? The future? How did the witches tell?

  “You’re very good,” said Eva slowly after a moment.

  “Good?” Lina was indignant. Good? She was far better than good. She couldn’t afford to be good, even very good. She had to be amazing. She had to be the best. How else would she justify becoming a dancer to Ma and Mama and Uncle instead of becoming a sailor like them?

  She glared at Eva with such ferocity that the Witch Queen actually backpedaled.

  “It was the wrong word. You are… It’s why I gave you the shoes. A dancer as talented as yourself deserves a pair worthy of her skill. On the ship, when you danced for the serpent…” Eva hesitated, pausing. “It was moving. Breathtaking. Almost magical. And incredibly foolish,” she added, sharp, not quite meeting Lina’s eyes. “But I’ve never… I’ve never felt that way watching someone dance before.”

  Heat rushed to Lina’s cheeks. Her entire face was on fire. And her ears. And her neck. “That’s…” She didn’t understand why she was blushing so badly. Wasn’t this what she’d wanted? Wasn’t she always complimented on her dancing?

  But never by someone who was by all definitions an enemy. Never by someone as remote and cold as the heartless Witch Queen herself. Somehow a compliment from Eva felt like it meant more. Like she’d won something.

  I’ve never felt that way watching someone dance before.

  “It wasn’t… It was messy. So messy.” Lina was babbling and couldn’t seem to stop. “I’m out of practice. I haven’t danced properly in months.” She looked away, looking for… looking for anything, really, anything so she wouldn’t have to look at Eva. Or the silver dancing shoes that Eva thought she deserved, thought were worthy of her.

  She focused on the water, on the shifting images flickering like a fish’s scales. The color that had rushed to her face left as quickly as it had come.

  Now the water showed her standing at the top of the steps of St. Dominic’s. Finley was there, too. Each of their shouts, each harsh breath turning to fog on the frigid air. Half the island had heard them going at it, some stupid, pointless argument about Thomas Lin.

  God, but she was almost sick to death of hearing about him.

  Finley’s voice rose up in her memory, clear as a bell.

  “What kind of man lets the girl who loves him go to her death and does nothing? What kind of man lets his queen go to her death to save him and does nothing? Thomas Lin is no man, Lina. How can he live like nothing’s happening? Like our homes aren’t flooding, knowing he could be the cause?”

  Her older brother wasn’t about to let her moon over the boy who had caused the sacrifices to stop working.

  But Lina wasn’t about to let her brother tell her who she was allowed to like. In the watery image, she shook her head, stormed past him, starting down steps still slippery from high tide.

  As she knelt on the stepping stone, Lina’s hands squeezed into fists. She knew what was coming. She did not want to relive it. She did not want to remember. She wanted to scream, to shout, to warn herself.

  But the black water was unforgiving. All she could do was watch as events unfolded unchanged. Watch as Finley grabbed after her, that beloved face turned brutal and ugly with fury, her brother towering enormously tall, determined to make her stay and listen, goddammit. Fear climbed up her throat and she ripped away, twisting, ankle rolling, slipping, feet finding only air.

  She looked like a rag doll falling. Hair the color of the sun on the sea flying out in a halo, blue scarf and coat whipping wildly. Pink lips parting in a perfect O.

  Her ears echoed with the wet crack of bone.

  “Is it terrible that a part of me doesn’t want to forgive him?” Lina didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Eva responded. And then she was painfully aware that Eva was there and had seen everything.

  “I’ll never forgive Natalia.”

  Yes, but that’s because you’re terrible.

  Lina caught her lower lip between her teeth. Sometimes she wished she could be a little more terrible. It would make life so much easier. And she really wished she could forgive Finley wholly, and not only because she so badly wanted him to stop feeling guilty. But even despite knowing how far he was willing to go to try and fix things, despite the whole family constantly, relentlessly reminding her how hard he was trying to make amends, how it wasn’t all his fault…

  The more forgiveness was demanded of her, the more she balked.

  Why should she have to forgive him? Why did she have to be the bigger person? Wasn’t she the one who’d been hurt? Even if he regretted it, even if it tortured his dreams. He wasn’t the only one who had to live with the scars.

  “Do not let anyone make you feel like you owe them forgiveness. Not even family.” Eva glided gracefully from stepping stone to stepping stone. “You don’t always have to make nice. This is what you meant when you said you broke your ankle?”

  “It’s nothing. It’s fine. My brother has a temper. He never means to hurt anyone. I can handle it.” She’d handled her family’s anger all her life. She was strong. She was used to it.

  “Just because you can handle it doesn’t mean you should, doesn’t mean you have to.” Eva’s eyes sparked with the tiniest evil glint. “Would you like me to punish him for you?”

  Lina snorted. But the words soothed an ache deep inside of her, one she hadn’t even known she was carrying. “Is that another gift? Should I start thanking you for them?”

  “You can kiss my feet if you really feel the need.”

  “I’d rather shove a fishhook up my ass. And you’re a hypocrite. You say all this, but have you punished the person who threw fire at your serpent, or is that still too complicated?”

  Eva didn’t answer.

  The image in the water changed again. Glimpses of the island flashing by so fast this time that Lina could barely catch them.

  Black water bubbling through the cracks between cobbles. A skinny dog stranded on a red-tiled roof. Smoke a
nd seething clouds on a dawn horizon. A ring around the moon.

  Eva had been moving farther away, but now she moved closer.

  Lina could taste rain and feel, as when she’d held the bottled storm, the phantom patter of raindrops on bare skin.

  Caldella couldn’t weather a serious storm. Not now. Not with the dark tide hungrier than it had ever been, rising faster than it ever had. And if the sacrifice didn’t work this year…

  “Eva.”

  “Lina,” she replied, almost like a joke. But the Witch Queen’s voice had gone distant, cold. Any hint of earlier playfulness sealed in ice. “I know. I can see it.”

  20

  Eva

  Eva had reached her limit for human interaction.

  She could feel the climbing tension in her muscles, the sharp stab of irritation every time another person spoke, the rising desire to pluck one of the hairpins out of her braids and shove it through someone’s throat.

  The audience chamber echoed with the wind-chime tinkle of messenger spells. Words carried on small spiraling winds sent from the city. Grievances. Complaints. There were stories of a wild storm brewing—the one she and Lina had glimpsed. Accusations and reports of further flooding, of looting on the evacuated North Shore, a hard thing to fathom in such an enchanted place as Caldella. The islanders were demanding restitution, money and magic, for the damage their broom boats had taken from her sea serpent in the chaos of the regatta. They were demanding to know what was happening, demanding that she return Lina, and also that she give Lina to the tide now, that she perform this year’s sacrifice early.

  As if the ritual itself were unimportant, as if Eva could afford not to wait for the full moon.

  As if she were ready to let Lina Kirk go.

  She could feel everyone in the audience chamber judging her, these well-dressed witches weighing her with their eyes, thinking her a poor substitute for the sister they had loved, the queen they had lost.

  Because of her.

  Because she had not been strong enough to break the dark tide’s curse, not strong enough to find another way to save her sister.

  “But you don’t have to be Natalia?” Yara had told her once in that husky, questioning voice. “They would love you just as much if you let them know you. If you let them in.”

  But Eva didn’t know how, didn’t think she could, and didn’t want to. She was not that type of person.

  “You’ll have to find another way to rule them, then.”

  She was trying. She raked her bitten-down nails over the arms of her throne and leaned back into the black velvet cushions. She did not sit here often, preferring to do what Natalia had jokingly referred to as “the housekeeping” from a small salon in the Queen’s Tower. Natalia’s ghost had a habit of poking its head over Eva’s shoulder in here, whispering in her ear that it was undignified to rest a foot on her knee, to sit sideways, to smoke, to look bored and snap at stupid questions.

  There were some things she did not miss about her sister, although she would never admit it aloud.

  More tinkling, this time from the bells woven into Cyla’s silver locks. The woman tossed her hair back over her shoulder, shooting a pointed look at Eva as she squabbled loudly with Jun, who took a frustrated drag on his cigarette and blew smoke that became a creature prowling the air. Omar scratched his stubbled chin and adjusted the bandages he used to bind his chest. His voice boomed out above the bickering.

  “The islanders are angry. They don’t like that we’re taking their daughters now. They sound like mainlanders, the things they’re saying about witches. Won’t be long before they band together against us. The men are scared.”

  Because that was an acceptable excuse.

  Marcin smiled at Eva’s souring expression, ignoring Jun, who was trying to get his attention.

  “Marcin, I think we need to consider…”

  Eva crossed her ankles. Recrossed them. Crossed her legs at the knee instead.

  I have to get out of here, or I will murder someone.

  But no, she was queen. Why should she be the one to leave?

  “Enough.” She raised a hand before they could go on. “Everyone out. All of you.”

  Heads turned.

  Eva inclined her own toward a small round table on the dais beside the throne. Seashells were scattered across its dark wood surface. “I’ve seen what’s coming, and I want to listen. The sea always has answers.”

  Of the nine witches present, three read her mood instantly and retreated, and three hesitated, swapping frowns as they packed up deliberately slowly, waiting for her to change her mind. The seventh and eighth of her siblings had the gall to look to Marcin.

  He waved them off and remained after the rest withdrew, the grating click-click-click of their heels cutting abruptly to quiet as the audience chamber’s doors groaned closed.

  Silence was such a gift.

  Eva rose from her throne, from Natalia’s throne, and trailed her fingers through the shells scattered across the table. Cockles and periwinkles. Cuttlebones and small spotted cowries. Abalone glowing with the brilliant rainbow iridescence of mother-of-pearl. White snail-curled moon shells.

  She pressed the pad of her thumb to a conch’s needle-sharp spire, relishing the pain. Its outside was buttercream, its inside a soft salmon pink. If she lifted it to her ear, what truths would the sea whisper? What secrets, what dark fortunes? The day and manner of her death? The name of her true love or that of the person who would one day betray her?

  Marcin came to stand by her side, red hair and the jet buttons on his black wool vest burning bright beneath the amber lights. He gave the fat braid slinking down her back a playful tug, like he used to when she was but a witchling. “You should be in bed, sweet thing. Resting. Your pet took a great bite out of your thigh, if you recall. And how much magic did you spend attempting to tame it? You need to be more careful. You’re making us all worry.”

  “If I wanted a lecture, I would have asked for one.” She was beyond tired of people telling her what to do. She did not need to rest. What she needed was for everyone to stop second-guessing her every choice, to stop undermining her. What she needed was to know who might make trouble if she punished Marcin for throwing fire at her sea serpent.

  Eva pressed a cold moon shell to the curve of her ear. She shut her eyes, chin angling toward the ceiling as if she were tipping her head back underwater, soaking in the sensation of the universe muffling, the world going quiet.

  Eva listened.

  For the secrets the sea sang to those who would hear.

  For the scurrying footsteps and anxious murmurs creeping through her palace.

  For everything they were saying about her. Her siblings’ hidden thoughts and fears, their doubts and whispered desires, the weaknesses they admitted to only in the dark.

  There was the deep pulsing rush of the ocean, a familiar drumming beneath her feet, a ravenous heartbeat rising up from the levels of the palace that had been swallowed by the sea. The tide whispered:

  You can have the city or the person you love, but you cannot have both.

  Eva’s eyes flew open.

  Marcin circled the table to stand opposite her. Maybe she should punish him now, quickly, while they were alone with no one to see.

  He drew a map from his vest pocket and unfolded it.

  Natalia had taken tithes from the other witches when they made trouble, like the queen before her had done. Snipped off their hair or the tips of their fingers. She could use this magic instead of her own, so she didn’t use herself up.

  Just the thought of it sent a chill snaking down Eva’s spine. Because that was what the mainlanders did: cut witches into pieces and stole their power. Boiled them down and carved their bones into charms. Made amulets of their teeth, used their hair to cast curses.

  It was the only way to have magic if you
didn’t buy it and it didn’t grow within you.

  Marcin brushed the seashells aside and spread his map over the table, businesslike. The craggy coastline of the mainland and Caldella’s sharp crescent were etched in charcoal.

  Eva’s gaze strayed to the last two fingers on his left hand. Or the space where two fingers should be. Fingers he’d lost to hungry mainlanders when he was thirteen, before he and Natalia and Eva had been rescued by the reigning Witch Queen.

  They’d always been inseparable, Marcin and Natalia. Fire and smoke. Neither complete without the other.

  If it had been anyone else, Eva would have punished them already, but Natalia’s death had broken Marcin as much it had broken her. They were different people now. Colder. Crueller. It had been two years, and Eva could barely remember the person she’d been before. It was all of this and the fact that he would never forgive her if she stole pieces of his magic the way the mainlanders had.

  And if she took more of his magic, how much would he have left? He was already so much older than her, had spent so much already and always used it sparingly. When she was younger, he used to trick her into casting spells for him. He did it still to some of the witchlings, said it was good practice for them. Eva didn’t know if she could bear the thought of him fading out of existence.

  In her head she could hear Lina call her a hypocrite, and in her mind’s eye she could see Marcin, panicked and stupid and shouting at her from the deck to do something about the sea serpent. After he’d made it angry. He hadn’t even bothered spending magic to control it. He’d put everyone in danger. And now her pet wouldn’t even come to her.

  “We need to start evacuating.”

  Eva blinked twice. “Evacuating?”

  Marcin tapped a star on the map. “Seldoma. The closest mainland city. I’ve dreamed of a ring around the moon—a wild storm is coming. It might break in another day or two or three, or even tomorrow. Jun says he can already smell it. We’ll go there.”

  “We’re not leaving.”