The Dark Tide

by Alicia Jasinska

  Finley swayed and lumped a sweaty arm over Lina’s shoulders. “Don’t be like this. Here. Look.” He struggled to dig a hand inside the inner pocket of his suit jacket and hold on to his bow and violin at the same time. “Look what I got.”

  Lina turned her head away. “You reek.” She started backward.

  Finley tottered after her, one arm still heavy around her shoulders. His breath was hot on her cheek, rank with the stench of strong alcohol. “Here. See. See.” He waved something, and the end whipped her neck. A length of braided hair and twine, knotted and threaded through with mother-of-pearl and shards of bone. A witch’s ladder, for hanging in a ship’s cabin, to calm the waves and ward off storms. A talisman to protect against the monsters that roamed the Eastern Sea.

  Magic worth more than her mothers made in a year.

  Lina stared, speechless.

  Finley tucked the witch’s ladder back into his jacket. “For the parentals, so they can come home quick and safe.” He tapped his chest proudly and winked, or tried to, face scrunching with the effort. “You didn’t think I came here just for a laugh, did you? And here, for you—”

  “You shouldn’t have come at all.” Lina headed for the edge of the square, something like envy twisting inside her stomach. She’d won magic before, impressing the witches with her dancing on St. Walpurga’s Eve. They’d said she danced so beautifully she could stop a person’s heart with her steps. But she’d never won anything so valuable as this. Glass glinted as Finley drew more magic from his pockets. A bottled spell this time, clouded glass, cork-stoppered.

  A round-bottomed bottle filled with tears and wishes, bone and breath and sand. Anchors for powerful magic. You could use a witch’s hair to weave charms, their teeth to cast curses. Mainlanders were said to boil witch bodies down to the bone. The only way to have magic if you hadn’t been born with it in your veins.

  Unless you paid for it, of course. But not everyone was willing to pay.

  “Is that—” Lina paused, biting her lip, as a flood of dancers swept by. This wasn’t the time. Bodies swelled around them on all sides, a living tide. She scanned the crush for Thomas. “Let’s just go.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Finley, misinterpreting her look. “I’ll protect you from the wicked queen.”

  “I’m not looking for the queen. I’m looking for Thomas.”

  “Of course you are.” Finley’s expression darkened. He shoved the bottled spell into his pocket. “That coward won’t come here.”

  “He was here. He was helping me look for you.”

  This was too much for Finley’s ale-addled brain. He blinked, lips parting, closing, parting again. He scrubbed a hand over his face and smudged his left eyebrow.

  “Did you draw your eyebrow on?”

  “I may have borrowed a bit of your paint.”

  “You used my makeup? I swear—” The weight on Lina’s shoulders lessened as Finley teetered sideways to smash fists with his friend Josef. Another idiot risking his life for free magic. For ropes and wreaths of sailor’s knots tied with strands of hair. For bottles filled with spit and saltwater. Why were boys so utterly stupid?

  “Mate!” The clash of their shouts almost burst her eardrums.

  The three of them skirted a group of passing musicians, Lina peering anxiously through the fray. “We’ve been looking for you for ages, Finley,” she complained. “Everywhere. And Thomas doesn’t like being here.”

  “Lin’s here?” Josef’s eyes were wide in his tanned face. His hand scraped through his tight-cropped black curls, and his hip knocked Lina’s, surprise fading quickly into the sly, crafty look worn only by the drunk. “Oh, he’d only risk that for you, hen. Only you. ‘What is it with Lina? Why won’t she talk to me? Why does her brother hate me so?’” Josef mimicked in a high-pitched version of Thomas’s lilting accent.

  Finley looked murderous.

  Lina blinked. “Wait, what are you—what do you—did he really say that?”

  “He’s too old for you,” said Finley before Josef could answer.

  “He’s only twenty, same as you, and I’m practically eighteen,” said Lina.

  “He’s dangerous. I told you,” said Finley. “It’s his fault the sacrifices have stopped working.”

  They crossed into the shadow cast by the pillar in the center of the square. Words carved deep into the dark stone shone silver, twining over its surface:

  Our love keeps us from drowning.

  A shiver ran through Finley and found Lina. Josef looked suddenly very serious and sober, almost sad. A mournful note crept into his voice. “Didn’t I point him out to you that first time? Didn’t I introduce you? Why don’t you bring your friends round to meet me, Lina?”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “Finley, tell your sister. That brunette girl, now, with the big…you know.” Josef gestured at his chest.

  Lina aimed her next step to crush his toes, but Josef dodged and stole Finley’s violin and bow, wringing a sour wail from the strings.

  Finley cursed. “Give me that!”

  Josef darted out of reach. Blond hair flashed at the corner of Lina’s vision. She spun quickly. “Fin—” The word died on her lips. Finley’s back was turned, arms gesturing madly. Lina swallowed, staring straight ahead, throat dry as sand. “Finley.” Then more urgently. “Finley.”

  Her brother didn’t respond. She didn’t dare look away. The roar of the bonfires, the pipes, the cheers and chants as another firework exploded—everything faded into the background, leaving only a ringing, a strange and soundless thunder, the pounding of blood through her veins.

  Lina moved forward as if in a trance. Revelers, dancers, reeled and whirled out of her way. Spat insults and threw dirty looks. Liquid lashed her arm. A flask clattered to the ground. Lina stumbled on with more urgency, fear cresting like a wave as she chased after the girl in the pale blue dress. The girl with beads looped around her neck. The girl with bobbed blond hair and a peacock feather in her headband.

  She chased after herself. Elbowing people, knocking them aside. The girl glanced over her shoulder once, then kept going. Panic reached out a hand to choke Lina. Dread came thundering back a hundredfold. The crackle of the bonfire flames sounded like laughter.

  The Witch Queen comes on wings of night.

  The Witch Queen has your heart’s delight.

  Who had she danced with to look like that? Who?

  Lina—False Lina, Not-Lina—called out a name. A figure turned, separating from the crowd, a second blond head catching bonfire light. Hands reached out, caught Not-Lina as she ran forward.

  A body smashed into real Lina’s side, knocking her sideways. She snatched at their shirt to steady herself. Shoved someone else out of the way.

  The crowd parted. Lina opened her mouth, but no sound escaped. For a single disorienting instant, her mind refused to comprehend what she was seeing; she couldn’t grasp the image. It shimmered before her like heat.

  Not-Lina’s arms were wrapped around Thomas’s neck, her hands tangled up in his hair. His hands were on her waist, drawing her body flush against his. And he was kissing her, hungrily, desperately, as if it were the last thing he would ever do.

  It was every dark daydream come true.

  Except it wasn’t with her.

  “Thomas.” The word escaped this time—a soft, inaudible whisper. The scene swam, rippled. Changed.

  The girl kissing Thomas looked up, her hands still tangled in his hair, her lips swollen. She wore her black hair in braids that circled her head like a crown. Her gaze locked with Lina’s, and her eyes glinted like moonlight on dark water. She smiled. A flash of sharply pointed teeth.

  Every bonfire in St. Casimir’s Square guttered and went out. A great gust of black smoke swallowed the revelers whole.

  6

  Lina

  There was a
moment of complete and utter blackness.

  Darkness settled like silt at the bottom of the sea. A heavy, choking darkness. One Lina dared not disturb with sound or movement, because it was not an empty dark.

  She did not wish to wake whatever else was in it.

  The wind was a breath and a howl in one. Great twists of bitter smoke filled Lina’s nose and throat and lungs. Clawing its way inside of her, clawing its way back out. And still she did not move. She was frozen as a statue.

  A body slammed into her back. Someone else tripped over her as she staggered forward, a splintering crunch sounding somewhere behind. An elbow caught her jaw and her vision exploded in a burst of blinding light. She spun, trapped in a dance of terror, shoulders smacking hers, turning her first one way and then the other. Shrieks rang out. Boots pounded.

  She thought she heard someone shout her name.

  Just as quickly, the press of bodies thinned. The smoke was lifting, light creeping through the haze, seeping back into the scene. The embers of thirteen bonfires flickered.

  “Lina!”

  Her eyes took a moment to focus. She was still seeing Thomas. And that girl.

  Finley’s hand was shockingly hot on her arm. His mouth tight with worry.

  Around them, people shared shaky smiles. A few started to laugh sheepishly. “Did you see it? Did you see her? That was the queen leaving. Did you see who she took? Did you see who she chose?”

  Lina’s throat closed. The words came out in a whisper, but they cut through all the other sounds. “She took him.”

  Finley’s fingers clenched around her forearm. “Who?”

  “Thomas.”

  “Oh. Well. That’s…” A medley of emotions warred for control of her brother’s face. Shock. Relief. Glee, and a hint of guilt.

  Lina didn’t wait to hear him lecture her on why this was a good thing, the right thing to happen, didn’t wait for him to offer her comfort whilst hiding his grin. Her body filled with sudden furious energy.

  “Hey, now, just hold on!” Finley chased after her, putting himself between her and the crowd, acting as a shield and clearing a path. “Hold—”

  Lina sped through a shadowed arch, past the empty shops, pushing out of the arcade and into the misty, moonlit streets, cutting down the first alley to the left. A startled water rat streaked across Finley’s boots.

  “Lina, calm down! Stop!”

  She couldn’t. Urgency had its hooks in her. She’d never been able to sit still whilst a person she loved was in danger. When Lina got an idea in her head, she was physically incapable of doing anything but acting. “I have to get him back.”

  The words drew Finley up short.

  Lina kept moving, rushing through a mist that left wet kisses on her clothes. The kind of mist you wandered into knowing you might fall through it and into a completely different world, never able to return to this one. She turned down another narrow alley. The walls on either side shimmered and swirled with enchanted murals that made you lick the bricks if you stared at them too long. Caldella’s builders had a strange sense of humor. It was a side effect of living with witches.

  Lina’s heart stuttered. Witches. Murderers. Queens who chained boys to stone pillars and drowned them on full-moon nights.

  Thomas had come after her. Thomas had tried to help her. He wouldn’t have set foot in St. Casimir’s Square or joined the revel if not for her. She’d dragged him into this. She’d asked him to help her brother and lost him instead, lost the boy she loved. Lost the boy who loved her.

  Lina bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She’d ignored his fears, had thrown them in his face. Every inch of her was on fire with shame.

  Finley overtook her, broad shoulders scraping the brick as he squeezed past, blocking her path. The alley sloped and ended at the city’s edge, crumbling and opening out onto slippery black rocks and glowing green moss.

  Behind her brother rose the gray spires of the Witch Queen’s home, jagged teeth jutting out of the ink-black sea. You could see the half-sunken palace no matter where you stood on the island. Lina didn’t know if it was magic or clever architecture. She’d never paid the place much attention. The Water Palace lost its wow factor when you passed it every day on the way to class. The wicked towers and turrets seemed unimportant when your cousin’s bike was jolting from side to side and you were trying desperately to fill in the answers to last night’s homework while leaning against their back. Now neither she nor Finley could stop their eyes from darting toward it.

  “Lina, if she’s chosen him, there’s nothing you can do.” Finley was trying to keep his voice even, his tone gentle. “You need to let him go. For the city’s sake, for everyone’s sake. It was always going to end like this, I told you. Look around.” He gestured toward the water puddled by their feet, at the ugly stains on the walls from flooding at high tide. “The last sacrifice didn’t work. He broke the magic. The new queen must have realized. She’s trying to save the island.”

  “That’s not why she took him.” Lina’s eyes had gone glassy. “I saw her. That, that thing, that girl, that witch, she looked like me. She wore my face. Finley, she wore my face.”

  “Why would she be wearing your—” Finley’s expression darkened.

  Lina tried to edge past him.

  He blocked her with his body, palms up and out but very deliberately not touching her, not grabbing for her. “Think about this.” He delved into his jacket pocket and held up a cork-stoppered bottle. The clouded green glass glowed with soft golden heat. He inched closer, carefully, as if she were something wild that might startle. “Here, for your ankle. This’ll help it heal up, good as new. Stop the pain, that throbbing you complained about.” He forced the bottled spell into her gloved hand. “Let’s go home now, and you can try it.”

  “I don’t want your stupid bottle, Finley!”

  Glass shattered against the cobbles. Gold liquid left a splatter on the wall.

  An awful sinking dread pulled Lina’s stomach toward the ground. She shouldn’t have done that.

  Finley blinked once, then slammed a fist into the wall, knuckles bursting red against the brick.

  Lina flinched.

  “I risked my life for that bloody spell! I’ve been out here risking my life for you.”

  “I didn’t ask you to!”

  “I’m trying to make things right, here. I’m trying to fix things.”

  “For who? To make yourself feel better? None of this is for me. You don’t need to fix me. I told you I didn’t want you to go.”

  “You said your ankle was hurting! I heard you talking to Ula about those strands of hair you wanted for a charm. How else am I supposed to—” Finley’s voice was almost a roar.

  Lina cowered, curling in on herself, shoulders hunching, and Finley’s words cut off abruptly. His temper was a quick thing. Fast to flare and fade. A brief righteous high followed by the deepest of self-loathing lows. A look of utter devastation crumpled his features. He sucked on a bloody knuckle, breathed out through his nose. A long breath, forcing down the anger that came so easily. His voice cracked. “I just want to make things right with us.”

  Lina shut her eyes, willing her heart to stop pounding, pounding, pounding. “If you want that, if you truly want that, and you want me to ever forgive you for everything, you’ll help me get him back.” Guilt churned inside her stomach. A part of her knew she shouldn’t throw her forgiveness around like a bribe when, deep down, she also knew he’d never truly meant to hurt her. She knew how he struggled to control his temper, knew how much he hated himself when he lost that fight. She knew that their fight and her broken ankle had been half her fault.

  But the rest of her was still furious with him and felt that he owed her. If she hadn’t been injured, Thomas wouldn’t have felt the need to join the revel to help her. And if
Finley hadn’t been so thickheaded and run off tonight in the first place.

  “He was helping me to find you. And if you try and stop me, I’ll never speak to you again.” Lina soldiered past him, aiming for the line of boats bobbing beside the mossy rocks. Fancy crescent-shaped broom boats with red velvet seats and blankets to guard against the cold. Their curving hulls painted to a shine with black lacquer.

  Her heel skidded in the moss and she staggered.

  Finley rushed to steady her. “Let’s talk about this.”

  “Oh, like we talked about it when you ran off?”

  “Most of them are still partying in the square.”

  “That’s why we need to go now. Fewer witches to worry about.”

  “There’s the queen to worry about.”

  Lina reached into Finley’s suit pocket, pinching the little sailor’s knife he always kept on his person.

  “Aye, you’re going to fight her with a toothpick.”

  “You don’t have to come.” Lina shoved the knife down the front of her dress and into her brassiere, staggering again as she reached the first boat. The wind picked up, and gooseflesh rose on her arms. She clambered aboard, landing hard on a red velvet bench seat amidst a nest of woolen blankets.

  Finley cursed, glancing back at the alley, at the city, at safety.

  He half fell across her lap as he hauled himself after her. Lina’s elbow nearly took out his eye. He let out a yelp as the boat pitched and bobbed out into the current.

  7

  Lina

  The broom boat cleaved through black water roiling like a witch’s brew. Salt spray stung Lina’s cheeks and soaked her dress. She squeezed her gloved hands tight between her thighs. The night was a blanket of cold, growing colder as they sailed farther and farther from the bonfires, from the light and warmth of the city. The Witch Queen’s palace loomed ahead, glowing with the flickering light of a flame in the dark. Its wavery reflection stretched out over the waves, which bled white where they broke against the hull.

  Finley dropped his chin to his chest. “It might not have been the queen who took him.”