“She doesn’t have a spell over me!” Nik shouts. “You know it as much as I do!”
Iker doesn’t blink. Doesn’t acknowledge him. “Witch, the king has given orders to shoot you on the spot.”
I look to Annemette. I hope she’ll understand what we need to do. That she won’t slow us down.
I squeeze Nik’s hands, willing my fingers to remember his touch, no matter what happens.
Then I whisper into his ear.
“I love you, Nik.”
And as soon as his name hits the air, I shove him onto the sand with all my might. I grab Annemette’s hand, and dive into the water.
“To the sandbar.”
As I say it I see the shadow of a wince, but then Annemette takes a deep breath and hurtles forward. Anna and I never made it to that other sandbar, but I know Annemette and I will make it to this one.
We swim out past Picnic Rock, entering the open water of the cove as Iker and the guards pull Nik to his feet, all of them shocked into inaction. They’re slow to set their rifles, bullets unchecked—no one was expecting a witch hunt tonight.
I assume Annemette will cling to me, as she did to Nik earlier in the day. But the situation has given her strength, and she has new resolve, the fear gone. She kicks her legs, swimming as if she truly knows how.
We cross the distance in a bare minute, the guards finally getting off shots, bullets pinging through the water. A single bullet grazes my shoulder, searing heat and blood draining into the water as I paddle forward.
But I am stronger than the pain.
We reach the sandbar. The moon is just right and I know we only have moments now. My heart is pounding and my left arm is awash in blood from where the bullet struck me, but I try to stay calm. I haul myself onto the thin strip of packed sand and pull Annemette up. Half the soldiers have charged into the water now, daggers in their teeth as their counterparts reload.
Placing my hands on her shoulders, my eyes go to the sky. “Ready?”
She nods, watching me, hope daring to creep into her blue eyes.
“Skipta.” I channel Urda and the power of the waves churning beneath us. Exchange this life for the soul you took.
A breeze lifts, and a flash of far-off lightning answers.
“Skipta.” A peal of thunder.
The charge of the storm seems to radiate from my hands, the zip of energy surging all the way to my heart.
“Skipta.” The wind picks up. The thunder and lightning close in. I can feel the magic in my bones. Annemette consumes my thoughts, all of my concentration on her. On shifting the sea’s hand—forcing it to deliver my request.
“Skipta.”
“Child, what do you think you’re doing?” Tante Hansa screams from the beach. I hear her over the guns. Over the men splashing in the water. Over the thunder. It’s as if she has an amplifier aimed straight for my ears. Still, I do not turn.
Annemette. I want Annemette. I want my Anna back.
“Child! Evelyn, listen to me. Listen to my age and mistakes. Magic born of pride and spite is unwieldy. It is far too much for your little hands!”
My hands are not little—they are powerful.
I am none of those things, Tante Hansa. I come from a place of love.
Thunder pounds and the magic singes my veins with every crackle of lightning above. The magic is in my palms.
This is right—it will be enough.
From the beach, Tante Hansa shouts again, though her words no longer register in my ears. The men with daggers are almost upon us, the charging waves of the storm keeping them at bay just long enough.
I order the magic a final time.
“Skipta.”
I see Anna’s face at eleven. I see Annemette in my future.
I’m focused on all of it so tightly. All of my concentration. All of my power.
Everything I have is aimed at Urda. Determined. Ready.
The storm rages. My concentration is flawless.
But then a flash of lightning rips across the sky, so bright my eyes spring open.
And I see Annemette is smiling.
Not just smiling.
Laughing.
Her hands cup my wrists and pull them off her shoulders. Her strength is surprising. Her lips twist into a smirk.
“You studied, you tested, you planned, and your solution is to simply ask the magic for an exchange? Like you want a blue dress instead of a red one?”
Magic surges until it is swirling around us. It sparks and undulates. I realize it’s not mine. Not all mine, anyway. The storm was never mine—it has the same feel as the storm on Nik’s birthday. On Iker’s boat earlier that day. The storms are Annemette.
I am blind for the briefest of moments, and then I feel her cool magic welling up from the pit of my stomach, through my lungs, and clutching at my heart. When my vision returns, a cone of water surrounds us—shielding us from the beach.
They’re going to think I did that.
Annemette’s grip tightens as she leans into my ear, as close as Nik just minutes before.
“You know what I think? I think you didn’t really want to save me. You didn’t want to save me any more this time than you wanted me to survive four years ago.”
A gasp escapes my lips. Anna. My Anna. But there’s a knife twist in her words that my Anna didn’t have.
Between Nik’s love and Anna’s resentment, my heart stops beating for a moment.
It thuds back to life, tears stinging my eyes as I try to grab for her face, her hair, my friend. I’ve missed her for so long. Even with all my personal loss, I can’t imagine her pain. But her grip only tightens more and I can’t touch her. “Anna. Oh, Anna, I wanted you to survive. I did a spell that day, but I—”
That smirk twists into a sneer. “Failed. You failed because you didn’t understand, and you wrecked that too.” Her teeth are bared—I don’t recognize her face anymore. The torque of her grip on my hands is cutting off my circulation. “Instead of protecting my life, you caused the black plague with that magic.”
The Tørhed. The minnows at my feet, faceup and inked black, flash in my mind. Dead by my tears. My black tears. The look on Hansa’s face as she saved me. The Tørhed didn’t just start that summer; it started with me that day.
I did it.
She’s right. I know she’s right. I’ve known it deep down for a while now.
“I tried to fix it. This year, the sea life has returned—”
“The sea life you’ve ripped from where they truly belong? The spells of abundance you unleashed on the sea, killing faster than the black death? If they aren’t dying in nets, they’re dying of famine. Because there are too many.” Her hands grip tighter, her cool magic ringing my wrists along with her fingers. “The sea can’t take more of your kindness, witch.”
“Let me try—”
“To fail again? Oh, no. No. Tonight is about success.” Despite the cone of water, a swimming soldier gets a hand on the sandbar, but with a lift of her arm, Anna sends him back into the deep. We can’t see the rest of the guards, but I can feel her magic surging forth, pushing them all back and out of striking distance with a mere word under her breath. She doesn’t even break eye contact. Her eyes flash, and the cut of her teeth finally resembles something of a smile.
“Tonight, Anna Liesel Kamp reclaims her life.”
I try to move, try to touch her, implore her, but she’s done something, and I can’t move my arms. My feet. Anything. Even my magic won’t budge, frozen in my veins. My heart begins to sink, the only thing Anna cannot control.
“Anna, please!”
“Oh, no, you will get no pity from me.” Again, she laughs. The sound is guttural, mirthless. “You stole my life. You stole it with your dare. You stole it with that stupid hold you have over Nik. He chose you. He saved you. He failed me. Because of you.”
“Anna—”
“Nothing you can say will give it back. Nothing you can do will give it back.”
She removes
a hand from my shoulder and thrusts it out behind her in the direction of the rock that divides the cove. Though only one hand remains, I’m still powerless to move. My magic feels like sludge under my skin. If only I knew more about how it all worked. If only I’d studied harder. Practiced more. I’d felt so powerful moments ago, and now I’m completely helpless.
The wall of water surrounding us parts, and something bursts through into our space. Not a guard, no . . . it’s misshapen, gray, bloated, a dark hole through its middle.
But then in a blink I recognize it. I gasp and start to fight against Anna’s restraints. I need to touch him. I need to make sure. But I know when she starts laughing again that the nightmare before me is real.
The thing before me is my father. Was my father.
“While your solution was an exceedingly juvenile spell, the idea was right. A life for me to be here, a life for me to stay.”
I see it all so clearly now. True love was never going to save Anna—not with what she’s become. If it was even a solution to begin with. There’ve been so many lies.
There’s a rumble from somewhere in the clouds, and something surges deep within the water surrounding us. And I know my part in her revenge before I can see the outline of the wall of water.
Our sea didn’t claim me that day, though Urda’s choice was there. Now, Anna is giving the water another chance.
“And I’m to be the life you take to stay.” I force myself to look at her as I say it. My father paid the price for Anna’s vengeance and now I must do the same.
She smiles—the most soulless thing I’ve ever seen. “Oh, no. Your life isn’t valuable enough for that.”
Anna’s grip releases. Suddenly, I’m aloft, next to my father, floating. I’m still immobile. My muscles, fight, magic, all useless.
With a twist of her hand, a gust as strong as a cannonball strikes me in the chest. Father’s body and I shoot back through the wall of water, arcing toward the stormy churn of the cove.
As I fall, I inhale my last breath. Close my eyes.
And then I am one with the sea.
ON THE SURFACE
The little mermaid was smiling. Smiling and crying—salt water was the perfect cheat for tears.
She would be crying real tears of joy soon.
“Hold your fire!” the boy called as the guards raised their rifles to the little mermaid splashing past the footstep islands on her own two feet. Behind her somewhere, Evie had taken her last breath. The approaching guards, too, dead in the deep; she couldn’t let them ruin this next part. She didn’t have much time, but there wasn’t much left to be done.
She just had to hold on for the final piece of her plan.
“Nik! Nik! She did it! She did it!” The little mermaid crashed onto the beach—the princes and the remaining guards were the only ones nearby but at the mouth of the cove was an entire ball’s worth of gawkers. An audience. This was perfect. “She did it, and I remember!”
The little mermaid grabbed his hand. Pointed her practiced smile at his stunned face. “I’m Anna. Anna Liesel Kamp. I’m Anna!”
From the sea lane above, the little mermaid heard her batty old oma, right for once. “Anneke. My Anneke—you’re sopping wet! Out of the water with you! Out!”
A few titters came after the old woman’s outburst, but then Iker’s voice thundered over them all. “Cousin, step back. She’s no better than a witch and you know it. She’s worse. Move away.”
“Not this time, Iker,” Nik said, touching the little mermaid’s face. Reading it. Confirming the suspicions he should’ve had since the moment he set eyes on the “traveler from Odense.”
“If you’re really Anna, tell me this: What happened on Lille Bjerg Pass when I was ten?”
The little mermaid didn’t blink; rather, her answer brimmed with joy and urgency. “You bashed your right leg on a rock, you’ve got a scar as long as your shin bone. Evie and I had to carry you down the mountain.”
Those dark eyes of his widened and he grinned. “It’s you—it’s really you.” But then he broke her gaze, his eyes searching the waves for the girl she would never be. He couldn’t even give her this moment of attention. Yes, he deserves this.
“Where’s Evie? There was a wave and—” His eyes broke from hers, scanning the water.
“Niklas, what are you doing? Step away from her!” The queen—the little mermaid almost smiled again. The queen and her piety. The king and his nobility wouldn’t be far behind. “What are you waiting for, cowards?” she yelled at the guards, porcelain features cracking in fury. “You have guns, use them.”
The guards advanced—but Nik was prepared. “Stay back. That’s an order.” He turned to his mother, looking over the little mermaid’s head. Holding her tight. “You too, Mother.”
“Overruled,” the king answered, his voice stern. “You are of age, my son, but as long as I am alive, your orders will still be those of a child.” He faced the guards who were left. “Seize the prince and kill the girl.”
This time, the guards didn’t hesitate to advance, their bayonetted rifles pointed squarely toward the little mermaid. The prince stepped in front of the little mermaid, shielding her from the guards. From view.
The time was finally right. And with not a moment to spare.
The little mermaid pressed into his back as if cowering. Then she swept a single hand through her hair. Her fingers wrapped around her comb, the point glistening with seawater.
“Nik!” That voice. Evie—she’d survived, the little witch.
The prince turned toward the water. Looked toward his true love.
The little mermaid smiled then—the prince had yet again made the wrong choice.
It would be his final one.
With all the strength remaining in her body, the little mermaid plunged the knife straight through the prince’s back and into his heart.
31
MY EYES OPEN TO DARKNESS. EVERYTHING ABOUT ME IS midnight. Sad and colorless. Time does not exist.
So this is the sea.
The true sea.
The only light from above is the moon. As my eyes adjust, it gives the blackness a little color—a hint of blue in so much dark as I sink beneath the waves onto cool sands. My father lies next to me, his eyes sunken and gone. The hole in his middle—it’s the size of a harpoon. From my dart gun, surely. I want to scream as my heart aches. The cove’s octopus sweeps into view, even larger than I’d thought.
Thought. Thoughts. I have thoughts.
I’m alive.
My lungs scream.
Wait.
I’m alive, and I need air.
I test my arms. My feet. Anna’s magic has somehow gone—I can move.
Suddenly, my feet are kicking and my hands are clawing at the water in an upward stroke. Pain radiates up my arm from where blood seeps into the water.
I was shot. Yes, I was shot by the king’s men. And I survived.
I survived what Anna had planned, too.
And now I must warn Nik. Anna isn’t our friend anymore—she’s something else entirely.
She is rage.
My heart quickens, pounding harder with each foot gained toward the surface. Blood clouds every stroke, my shoulder threatening to fail.
My vision breaks the surface, and with a heaving breath I’m already moving forward, swimming and then lunging toward the beach once my feet gain purchase on the submerged sand. I try to breathe in deeply, but my necklace is too tight, the pearl still throbbing. With every ounce of energy I have left, I tear at the magic thread until the pearl bursts free, landing with a plunk in the water below.
I am free now too. I can feel my connection to the old Annemette fade away with the waves. She must have had a spell on me this whole time, or perhaps I put the spell on myself.
Water streams from my hair into my eyes. Nik. I have to find him.
He’s standing tall and regal on the beach—protecting Anna from advancing guards. My heart beats fast. He’s alive. But n
ot for long. I know now his is the life she plans to take.
He’s standing too close.
“Nik!” I scream.
I get his attention. But then I also get Anna’s. And the guards’.
Shots ring out, and a sudden burst of pain rockets through my chest. I flail back but manage to keep my momentum. I bring my fingers to the wound along my ribs and wince. It’s hot and wet, and my breathing grows shallow, each intake bringing a fresh stab of pain. But I have to keep moving, slogging through the water, now almost waist-high.
Nik is stunned still, but Anna is not. Her hand reaches for her hair.
A knife is in that hand, the blade moving straight at Nik, who is watching me.
“NO!” You will not take him! You will not!
Now Iker is yelling—running. He sees it too.
Despite the blood. Despite the pain. Despite the distance, I surge ahead as fast as I can, water just above my knees. Wet, my gown weighs more than the rest of me, but that won’t keep me from him. Nothing will.
Five yards away. Four. Three.
But it is too late. Annemette’s blade is already in a downward arc. The sharp coral pierces Nik’s back just as Iker grabs him, wrenching him onto the sand.
Nik’s blood is on the beach.
Spilling in a trail from where he was to where he fell, staining the sand.
Oh, Urda. No. Not Nik.
Even after everything, I can’t believe Anna has done it, but I have no pity for her. If she thinks she’s the only one who will get her revenge, she’ll be sorely wrong.
“Niklas!” the queen wails, and dashes forward. The king runs too, finally coming to their only son’s aid.
The onlookers go still—recognition, terror, and fear frozen upon faces I’ve known my whole life. Malvina. Ruyven. Every member of the castle kitchen staff.
Anna’s beautiful features twist as she dips her toes in Nik’s spilled blood, laughing. Laughing. “You ruined my life, and I’ve ruined yours, my prince.”
I dive for her feet, knocking her to the sand. I move on top of her, pinning her hand that still holds the knife, red with Nik’s blood. I scream for my tante. “Hansa! Nik—you must heal him!” But two guards hold Hansa back, my magic enough to condemn her, too. I reach out to the only person with the power to change their minds. “Iker, let her do her work. Please! She can save him!”
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