“Did you try to help her?”
Odo looked down at my feet, as if abashed. “Not for a very long time, I’m sorry to say. We were afraid of that stone, you see. But the longer your mother held out against Pressina, the more some of us began to wonder if we might be able to make an alliance with her. So we started to try to devise a plan to put ourselves in touch with her, which was itself a great challenge. For years we struggled to find our way to her. And then Melisande came, and everything became much more urgent.”
“Did Pressina take possession of her?”
“Not in the way she took your mother, no. She needed two things from Melisande, and both required that Melisande stay alive and intact. One was her ability to impersonate other humans in a convincing manner.”
That I already knew about. “And the other?”
“Her magic. Once a Chantress surrenders her stone, Melisande knows how to destroy it—something we ourselves cannot do, since contact with it kills us.” The great eye rose and fixed on me. “At the time, we didn’t know exactly what bargain Pressina and Melisande were making, but we could see they were hatching a plan. The one benefit was that Pressina was distracted, and that gave us the chance to reach Viviane. I was the one chosen to approach her. She was doubtful at first, but she didn’t try to kill me. She listened. And then she chose to trust me. We talked about you. It was how she endured everything, she said—by thinking about you.”
My throat tightened.
“We made plans then,” Odo said. “And we almost got her out. But we were too late. Melisande came to her and tricked her—”
“I know,” I said. “She told me.” I burned, remembering her glee in the telling: She hung it around my neck with her own fair hands. Anything to protect her daughter!
The great head shook sadly from side to side. “We felt Pressina’s power grow as she took possession of your mother. And we saw the stone destroyed with our own eyes, in a pool of blue fire.”
My mother’s stone, gone forever. I wanted to touch my own stone for reassurance, but I checked myself. I mustn’t strike fear into the creatures around me.
“We despaired,” Odo said. “But now we have you, and you have your own stone. You have the power to kill Pressina.”
“And I will,” I said. “So help me, I will. And then I will take my mother home.”
There was a flurry of consternation from the creatures. Odo’s eye dropped down again.
“What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
The starfish said something I couldn’t quite catch.
“No, we have to tell her,” Odo said in reply. “It wouldn’t be right if we didn’t.” It wriggled and raised a sorrowful eye. “I’m afraid it won’t happen like that, Chantress.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Your mother and Pressina are bound by enchantment now.” The great eye held mine. “If you kill Pressina, you will kill your mother, too.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
BLOOD MAGIC
I stared at Odo in shock, feeling as if I’d been hollowed out. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. If Pressina dies, so does your mother. That is the nature of their bond.”
The hollow feeling was still there, but there was resistance now too. “Then I can’t do it,” I said. “I can’t kill Pressina.”
“You must,” said the starfish who had helped cage me.
“Not if it means killing my own mother. No.”
The starfish shot out an extra arm. “She would want you to.”
“No,” I said again.
The creatures shape-shifted around me, eyes multiplying, till I felt as if thousands were judging me.
At last Odo said, “Then we must find a way to break the bond first.”
A tremor passed through the creatures. They didn’t have to speak for me to perceive their unhappiness. Many of them turned white. Others deflated to half their size.
A flash of anger went through me. Was it so much to ask, that I should be allowed to rescue my mother?
“You needn’t be involved,” I said. “I’ll do it myself.”
“You can’t,” said the starfish. “You have to get past the spell of protection to reach her, and you need our help for that.”
“The spell of protection?” My anger dwindled, and so did my confidence. There was so much in this world that I didn’t understand. I turned to Odo. “Is that what threw me back when I tried to reach my mother before?”
“Yes,” Odo said. “Pressina has set that spell around your mother to guard her. But do not fear. I know how to get you through. And I myself will go with you.”
A tremulous hum came from the crowd of sea creatures.
I looked at Odo doubtfully. “Are you sure it will work?”
“Quite sure.” And Odo did sound certain, though I sensed a deep sadness in him that I didn’t understand. But perhaps the source of the sadness was somewhere else.
“Once I’m through, is that all?” I asked.
“No, Chantress,” Odo said. “That is not all. It is not that easy to possess a person, not even for Pressina. It requires blood magic—songs that can be sung only if the magic-worker draws blood from the captive. In the case of your mother, it was especially strong blood magic, for she comes from Pressina by a direct line of descent. As do you.”
I shivered. I didn’t want to be related to Pressina in any way. “Pressina is my ancestor? Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Odo said. “The precise shape of your mark proves it.”
I looked down at my Chantress mark, seeing for the first time how much it resembled a tiny coiled serpent.
Odo wasn’t done instructing me. “You must not attempt to take your mother away from her rock until the link is broken, or else her mind will shatter.”
A shattered mind? I could hardly bear to think of it.
“How do I free her?” I asked.
“It is simple. You must get her to recognize you. You must bring her back to herself.”
Simple, yes—but was it possible? My heart fell. Already I had called to her so many times, and she hadn’t even blinked. “And how do I do that?”
“We do not know.” Odo wriggled in what might have been frustration or apology. “I can only tell you this: Blood magic can always be undone. And with Chantresses, the undoing usually has nothing to do with magic and everything to do with being human. Once you pass through that spell of protection, even saying her name might be enough to break the spell. Failing that, you could touch her, or perhaps anoint her with a drop of your own blood—”
“But you don’t know if any of that will work?”
“Not for certain,” Odo conceded. “But we can give you time. At least we can if we create a disturbance beforehand to draw Pressina and her creatures away. Her chamber is very close to your mother’s, you see.”
The creatures’ reluctance was more understandable now. “But if you do that, you might die. And if I fail, you will have given up your lives for nothing.”
A shiver went through the creatures.
I bent my head. Perhaps it was too much to ask.
“She is our enemy as well as yours,” Odo said. “We have a right to risk our lives for this—if we chose to.” It swept its tentacles in a wide arc, as if appealing to the whole company. “Take courage, all of you. Remember that Pressina is drawing no small part of her power from Viviane. If Chantress Lucy can sever the link, then Pressina will be easier to defeat. It is worth the risk.”
The creatures seemed to find strength in that. Their colors came back, pale at first but brightening.
“And if we succeed, there will be two Chantresses to fight Pressina,” a small silver fish peeped. “Mother and daughter.”
Vivid colors rippled through the crowd in response.
Odo’s color was deepening too, from gold to orange-red to crimson. “Tell me now, all of you, shall we help the Chantress rescue her mother?”
“YES.” The low vibrating hum filled the cave
.
“Then let us go now,” Odo called. “They are already in disarray, searching for the Chantress. There is no better time than the present.”
So soon? I needed time to prepare.
“NOW,” the company sang. They were trembling again, but this time with purpose and resolve. All around me, creatures were inflating to twice their size, popping out spikes, growing mouths full of teeth. When I turned back to look, Odo had thirty legs that glowed like coals.
“How do you do that?” I asked.
Bubbles of laughter came from it. “Better to ask, how could we not?” More soberly Odo added, “In your world, as I understand it, you try to keep magic and emotion separate. But here we use our emotions to power our magic. And as our moods and desires change, we change our outward forms. For change is in the music all around us, Chantress. It’s the strongest magic there is—the magic of transformation.” The great eye swiveled. “Indeed, to us the wonder isn’t that we shift; it’s that you stay the same.”
Odo turned to the others, murmuring too fast for me to understand. But as I stood there, another worry came to the fore. Events had moved so quickly that I hadn’t had time to address it, but I had to speak up now.
“Odo?” I put a hand on one of its tentacles.
Odo turned back to me. “Yes?”
“Do you know anything about Nat, the human who came here with me?” I said. “He is missing—”
“Ah, yes,” said Odo. “That is one of the matters we were discussing. It is something that worries us, for no one knows where he is or what side he is on. Two of his guards disappeared with him, and we do not know what has become of them. Do you know him well? Is he a friend?”
“Yes.” I was anxious that they understand he was not an enemy, that they not attack him. “He is here only because he was with me. He means you no harm, believe me. He is thoughtful and loyal and kind.”
“And you love him.” Odo spoke as if it were plain as day.
Maybe it was. I bit my lip. “Yes.”
“He may yet be safe, Chantress,” Odo said gently. “There are many kinds of resistance here, and it may be that someone, somewhere is protecting him.”
Please may it be true, I prayed silently.
“But for now you must put him out of your mind,” Odo said. “We must give everything to what we do next, or we cannot succeed.” Again he spoke to the others. When he finished, different parties split off in various directions.
“Come!” Odo curved a glowing tentacle around my hand. “There is one thing more I must ask of you.”
“Yes?”
“You must step inside the cage again, so that I may transport you.”
I turned doubtful eyes on first the cage, then Odo.
“Trust me,” Odo said. “Please.”
Hoping I was making the right choice, I stepped inside.
“There.” Odo shut the door. “I will take you to your mother.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
BREAKING THE BOND
Up and up we traveled, mostly through darkness. Odo’s arms no longer glowed, although several of them continued to be wrapped tightly around my cage. In occasional rays of emerald light, I caught sight of some of the other creatures who were accompanying us: four giant eels, a band of many-legged starfish, two creatures with teeth that gleamed like a shark’s, and a school of spotted silver fish.
After a while, I began to hear singing—the raw and terrible voice of my mother.
At last Odo halted, setting me down on a ledge. All but the very end of one arm dropped away from me. “We must wait here,” it whispered.
I stood still. The fins of the silver fish fluttered outside my cage.
The singing was coming from just above us—above and to the left. In the slight space between beats I could hear faint sounds on my right, too. Laughter? Moaning? I wasn’t sure what I was listening to, but Odo’s arms were guiding me to look toward it. When I did, my heart skipped a beat. My eyes were level with a tiny aperture in the stone, and through it I could see down into another chamber. Within it, Pressina was holding court. Twice as large as everyone else, her snake-hair head coming and going, she screamed at the hordes around her.
“Do not fail me again! You must find her. You must find them both!”
My stomach lurched at the hatred in her voice. But she had said “both.” Did that mean that Nat was still free?
“Find them NOW!”
Before the horde could obey, a reverberation like a gong came from deep below. Cries of alarm went up from both Pressina and the horde. Shouting orders, Pressina led the charge out of the chamber, down to the regions where the alarm was sounding.
“Now!” Odo grabbed my cage and shot up into the great cavern where my mother stood on her rock, singing. Odo charged toward her headfirst, tentacles wrapped tightly around my cage. The eels and fish darted beside us, flashing green in the pale light.
I braced myself for the impact.
Just before we touched the rock, the shock hit. Eels and fish went spinning back, bright as lightning bolts. An instant later Odo convulsed around me. But it seemed the eels and fish had drawn away some of the magic’s power, because instead of bouncing back, we kept going.
A great heart-walloping jolt made my fingers shoot sparks. And then we were through, falling against the rock on which my mother stood. Odo’s tentacles went limp, and the cage came down hard, smashing into pieces. My palms scraped against the rock, stinging as the blood came. But that was nothing compared to what Odo had suffered. The long limbs sprawled around me, burnt and unmoving.
I know how to get you through, Odo had said—and yet had looked so sad. Was this why?
I cried out, and the great eye half-opened. “Go,” Odo whispered. “Go to your mother.”
The eye rolled up and shut, like a light going out.
Odo was gone.
Appalled, I glanced up at my mother, her face uncannily serene as she sang down destruction on us all. For a second I almost hated her. How many deaths could be laid at her door—including Odo’s?
But of course the spell of protection hadn’t been her idea, just as it hadn’t been her choice to sing. She was merely Pressina’s pawn. As I would be, if Pressina got hold of me.
And she was so tired, my mother. Despite her seeming serenity, I could see the hollows under her eyes from here, at the foot of her rock. She seemed to be aging even as I watched, her skin growing dull and tight, as if it were shrinking. Under it you could see the shape of her bones.
She is wasting away, Pressina had said.
Could I make her recognize me? Could I bring her back to her true self?
I started climbing the rock. “Mama!” Odo had said my voice might be enough, once I was inside whatever bubble it was that protected her. “Mama, it’s Lucy.”
Nothing. I climbed the rock, touched her feet, then her hand. Her fingers remained as still and cold as stone. I might as well have been touching a statue.
Blood, Odo had said. It might take blood to get her to recognize me.
I bent and swiped my hands against the rock again, opening the grazes on my palms. Scarlet drops seeped through the scored skin. Again I touched my mother’s hand, then touched my bloody palm to her face, her lips.
Nothing made her recognize me. Nothing stopped the song. Even when my hand was right up against her mouth, the singing poured out from her. She was unshaken, unbroken, unmoved.
“Mama?” I tried again. And then, “Viviane?”
I was standing right in front of her—eye to eye, as I had never been tall enough to stand when I was a child. Yet she gave no sign that she even saw me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a few silver fish shaking frantically. A warning sign? Was Pressina coming? How much time did I have?
If only I could work magic here! But no, that was all wrong. It wasn’t magic that would break this spell, Odo had said. It was something human. But what?
Not my voice, not my touch, not my blood. And I co
uldn’t think of anything else.
I squeezed my mother’s stiff hand. “Mama, you have to listen. You have to come back.”
But no matter what I did, she wouldn’t, she couldn’t. And Pressina was coming and I was about to be caught and Odo had died for nothing . . .
With my bloody palm, I rubbed at my brimming eyes. What good would crying do? I needed something that would break the spell, something human, something that could reach inside the walls that Pressina had built around my mother and send them crashing down. But I couldn’t come up with anything. My mind was blank. And—
Tears.
I touched my hand to my wet lashes, then seized her hand again. “Mama, can you hear me? It’s Lucy.”
Unbelievably, her fingers twitched, then curved around mine. The singing broke off.
“Lucy?”
I looked up to find my mother’s eyes—aware, alert—pinned on me.
“It’s really you?” The hoarse voice spoke with the sweet intonation I remembered. “It isn’t a trick?”
When I spoke, my voice was hoarse too. “It’s me, Mama. I promise you. This time it’s for real.”
A moment later she had her arms around me, and both of us were laughing and crying. Ten years we’d lost, and yet now I’d found her. I was shaking with grief and joy.
I thought she would ask about Pressina right away, but she didn’t. She just stroked my hair and held me to her, and when she finally did speak, it was about something else entirely.
“You’re so tall,” she said in wonder. “You’re all grown up. I knew you must be, but . . .”
With a shake of her head, she pulled back from me. I tensed. Did she doubt I really was her daughter?
But it seemed she just wanted to see me properly. “You still have your father’s curls,” she said with delight. “And the tilt of your head—that’s his too.” She pulled me back into an embrace. “Oh, if only he’d lived to see you! He would have loved you so much.”
I said hesitantly, “Did he . . . know about me?”
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