Yara licked a dash of sugar from her teacup’s rim.
The rain and wind cut off abruptly, leaving behind a quiet so deafening it seemed to sing.
“That was fast,” said Marcin.
“I am just that good,” called Jun from the window.
“Shh,” shushed Yara.
Clouds continued to shade the salon. Eva shut her eyes and concentrated. Yara and Marcin did the same, all three going perfectly still. When the liquid in all three cups was also still, mirror still, Eva opened her eyes. Three teacups reflected three different skies. Night, day, and dusk. Starry, stormy, clear.
Yara let out an irritated huff. Eva leaned in next to her to peer at Marcin’s stormy-skied cup. He had always been able to conjure the clearest visions—Eva told herself it was only because he was older. Thirty-two to her nineteen years. Ancient, practically.
Jun shuffled across the room, peering over their bent heads. “Children?”
“Oh.” Yara clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, that’s him.”
“You know them?” demanded Marcin.
“The boy was my pick at the revel. The one I told you about, that I found for E.”
“What’s he doing here? How did they get here? How did they conjure a storm?” Marcin looked at Eva, a lock of red hair falling across his brow.
But Eva didn’t respond. She was too busy watching the girl from the revel. The blond whose face she’d worn when she’d stolen Thomas away.
She leaned closer to the image in the teacup. The girl and boy were in another tower, far below the Amber Salon, in one of the lowest levels of the Water Palace, one half swallowed by the sea. Their battered broom boat knocked against the bottom of a wide stone staircase flanked by faceless statues, steep gray steps climbing up and up and up.
They were drenched. And they were arguing. The girl’s lips were white and pinched, her shoulders hunched defensively, making her body small. The boy was shouting and waving his fists.
“Islanders,” said Jun with so much relief it sounded like a sigh. “Ordinary islanders.” A beat passed in silence. “Do you think they’ve come after Thomas? It’s been a long time since anyone tried to save a sacrifice. At the spring regatta, wasn’t it? That mother who begged for her son’s return. No one’s ever breached the palace before though.”
“They can’t have him.” The acid, the anger in Marcin’s tone startled Eva so much that she almost dropped her teacup. Its contents sloshed from side to side, and the dusky sky it had shown vanished in a flurry of ripples.
“How I am going to enjoy watching that boy drown.”
That was what Marcin had said when he’d learned who Eva had chosen as this year’s sacrifice, gifting her a genuine smile of his rare and treasured approval.
And it was strange how that enthusiasm, that savage eagerness, had put a damper on her own. Before that moment, all she’d felt was triumph. This was revenge. This was justice. This was what Thomas Lin deserved. This was the boy who had taken Natalia from them.
This was also the boy Natalia had given everything to save.
Eva set her cup on its saucer, memories and unease surging through her veins.
“I want him to live. I want him to be happy. I’m so tired, Eva. They all leave while I remain. I don’t know if I can be the one left behind again.”
And yet Natalia had been content to leave her behind.
Tiny pinpricks of fury danced across Eva’s skin. Thomas was happy, happy enough with someone else. With this girl stealing through the palace like a rat. How dare he disrespect her sister’s memory like that? Was Natalia so easily forgotten? Was she merely a thing to be used and discarded?
And how dare this girl disrespect her by coming here? How dare she attack Eva’s home?
“You can have the boy,” she told Yara.
Yara let out a breath she might have been holding, breaking into a catlike smile that would send any sane creature scurrying fast and far in the opposite direction.
“Mar—”
“I’ll check the damage and calm the others. See if anyone was injured. Jun, take Omar and check what state the East Tower is in.”
Eva’s lips pressed together. She’d been about to give that order. There were times when Marcin still treated her like a witchling, acted as if Natalia had made him queen.
“And then I’m going to have some fun with our visitors.” Marcin drank the tempest from his teacup and smiled with storm-stained teeth. “If you don’t find them first.”
Yara immediately pushed off the lounge, hips swishing to a beat only she could hear. She downed the contents of her cup in a single quick gulp. “And you? What are you going to do, E?”
Eva’s gaze strayed to the ceiling, where a giant mural in gold leaf depicted figures from two hundred years ago. The very first Witch Queen kneeling on a rock-strewn shore, her long hair streaming out behind her, her face hidden as she tied stones to the ankles of the boy she loved, as the great ravenous waves of the dark tide bore down on them both.
It’s a bit morbid, isn’t it? Natalia had whispered to her once when they were younger. Macabre.
Which was exactly why Eva liked it. She placed her cup and saucer on the table in front of the chaise lounge with a soft clink. “I’ll take the girl.”
9
Lina
“We’re dead. We are so dead. We are beyond dead.” Finley’s voice spiked into hysteria. “They’re going to kill us. The queen’ll feed us to her sea serpent. She’ll sew our lips shut and fill our lungs with saltwater like she does to criminals. Turn our hearts and eyes to stone. Peel our skin off like we’re grapes and carve our bones to make bone whistles and—”
“That’s mainlanders,” said Lina. “The bone whistles.”
“I don’t care!”
“I told you not to shout!”
Finley stalked ahead, fuming. Even his panic managed to twist itself into fury; his every emotion did. His hands, clenched into white-knuckled fists, swung at his sides.
Lina struggled to keep up, following the ripples her brother left behind, his black boots splashing through puddles that made mirrors on the floor. They’d scaled an endless spiral of stairs to find themselves in an equally endless corridor, its walls and ceiling gilded gold with amber. There were closed doors to their left—dark polished wood, shimmering with shifting glyphs and changing symbols—and to their right soaring windows and a series of balconies stretching out over the sea. Gossamer drapes billowed and snapped in the doorless archways leading onto each one. A bitter breeze carried in the scent of salt and the raucous cry of seagulls.
Guilt knotted Lina’s insides.
Why, why was every choice she made the wrong one? Why couldn’t she ever do anything right? Everything she did only made things worse. She’d been so focused on Finley. She’d tried to protect him and damned Thomas, tried to save Thomas and nearly capsized the crescent boat, almost dooming Finley and herself.
Tears pricked at her eyes, furious and burning.
Don’t think. Don’t think. Keep moving. Keep going. Find Thomas. Get out of here.
Somehow.
She was limping badly now. Her nose and fingers were numb with cold.
But she was used to pushing herself, used to forcing her body past its limit. She plastered on her dancer face, a determined mask that didn’t crack even when an ankle turned, when blisters burst and toenails broke. She might look small and slight, but underneath it all her body and will were iron, shaped by thirteen years of punishing daily practice.
A single drop of water fell from the high vaulted ceiling and struck the crown of her head. It was from the rain, from the storm she’d unleashed, like the puddles speckling the floor.
Or maybe it was always like this. This was the Water Palace, after all, a palace the witches had dredged up from the depths of the sea. Damp and cold.
> Like she was. The storm had soaked her to the bone. Lina rubbed her hands up and down her arms in vain. She’d stripped her gloves off, left them behind in the crescent-shaped broom boat. The tips of her fingers were pale frozen prunes.
Finley paused, wringing out the hem of his shirt for the hundredth time, unkempt black hair plastered flat to his skull. Save for his cowlick, which stuck up with an air of stubborn defiance. It, too, would not be beaten.
Lina hurried to catch up, free hand digging into her brassiere for the little sailor’s knife she’d stolen from him, unsheathing it. They hadn’t glimpsed a soul so far. But it was barely past dawn, so maybe everyone in the palace was still in bed, too exhausted and hungover after the revel to have been woken by the thunder.
She hoped. Prayed. Though for that matter…
Did dreams and nightmares sleep?
Music was playing somewhere. A tune she knew. Hide him, hide him, out of sight. Hold him, hold him, hold on tight. The melody teasing, lilting and low, muffled and indistinct, like a sailor’s chantey heard from underwater.
Lina’s heart pounded as she ran through all the battle dances she knew, traditional flings and jigs where you flourished a blade, imitating the use of the weapon in fighting. It wasn’t as good as knowing how to fight, but it was certainly better than nothing.
Finley’s eyes flicked to her and away as she drew even with him. He opened his mouth, then shut it abruptly.
Footsteps. Percussive. Heels clipping stone.
Lina grasped for the handle of the nearest door, nearly collapsing with relief when it opened. Finley shoved her inside ahead of him. Lina drew the door closed with excruciating slowness so it wouldn’t slam and give them away.
They held their breath as the footsteps grew louder and louder. Closer and closer.
Pausing.
Before starting up again, a little faster this time. Fading, finally.
The breath Lina let out blew the bangs off her forehead. Finley cracked an uneasy, relieved grin.
They were in somebody’s bedroom. Their tiptoeing, waterlogged steps left damp prints on creamy carpet. Their anxious faces flashed like ghosts in mirrored wall panels, in the glowing amber sunburst stamped on the ceiling and the silver filigree screen standing guard over a merrily crackling hearth.
Lina and Finley rushed past the massive canopy bed to hover around the flames, hands outstretched toward the glorious, glorious heat.
They both kept looking over their shoulders.
The room had an eerie, just-vacated feel, like a still-warm chair. The bedsheets were flung back in a tangle. The air was heady, as if someone spritzed in sweet perfume had just moved through it. Smoke curled from a long, ebony cigarette holder left idling on an ashtray.
A record was spinning on the player in the corner—silently now, save a barely audible crackle.
Lina set the knife down and picked up a half-empty teacup from a tray on the dressing table. Crimson lipstick stained its porcelain rim.
She gulped the contents down. Choked and pounded her chest.
Cherry liqueur?
Oh, thank God.
She reached for the teapot, refilling the cup to the brim, drowning fear and worry with liquid courage. As she often did before a performance, a classmate’s secret hip flask passed from dancer to dancer, anxious mouth to anxious mouth. She hadn’t had anything to drink since before the revel. Her throat was desert parched.
Finley struggled to keep his voice down. “Hey, don’t drink it all.” He spied the plate of egg tarts at the same time as she did and lunged.
“Halves!” hissed Lina.
“I think the hell not,” said Finley, and crammed one into his mouth. “It’s punishment.”
Lina cursed, and when he darted close and stole the teapot, too, she kicked him in the shin.
Finley skipped back out of reach, sculling straight from the teapot’s spout. But then he relented and gave her the remaining two egg tarts.
Lina ate them, sipping from her cup, savoring the burn in her throat, the warmth starting to curl in her belly. Her eyes skimmed their surroundings. Even in disarray, this bedroom was much tidier than hers. No clothes were spilling out of the wardrobe. The shelves were dusted, strung prettily with bundles of dried seagrass, stacked neat with rows of bottled spells and old jam jars containing tiny, luminous jellyfish.
So this was a witch’s bedroom? A little part of her couldn’t help thrilling at the thought. The same part that had thrilled when she’d danced with the Witch Queen in disguise at the revel.
Though the islanders lived in peace with the witches, they still lived somewhat separately. The queen and the rest secluded themselves in the palace, coming to shore only for festivals and to sell their magic at the city’s markets. And though the islanders might bow and be grateful to the queen for keeping Caldella from sinking, they were not overly grateful. There was still dislike and superstition.
There was something so deliciously forbidden about being here.
“It’s not like how I imagined,” said Finley quietly. His expression was calmer now, pinched by something that might have been wistfulness. Or longing. It brought back memories of when they were little and had played at being witches, watching for pictures in plumes of candle smoke, climbing the slick, crumbling ruins in the sunken harbor and pretending the old bell tower was their Water Palace.
“Why?” said Lina. “Because the room’s not full of decapitated heads and all the different faces the queen wears?”
She trailed her fingers over the rouge and mascara pots on the dressing table, over vials of strange perfume and a gold compact shaped like a seashell, eyes lighting up when she spied a blush-pink sugar bowl labeled “Sweet.”
It was overflowing with fat black pearls. Each one flawless and shiny as a promise.
Lina couldn’t help herself. She shot a glance at Finley in the dressing table mirror—he was frowning at the door they’d come in—then plucked a pearl from the bowl and dropped it into her teacup, snatching a spoon from the tray and stirring as the pearl dissolved. Red cherry liqueur turned an oily midnight black, tiny rainbows dancing across the liquid’s surface.
She licked the spoon and downed the entire cup. It tasted like seaweed and licorice, like enchantment. “Finley,” she whispered afterward.
His head snapped toward her.
Her voice was not her own. It was warm honey, hypnotic. “Fetch me a coat?” She batted her lashes.
Finley’s eyes glazed over.
“A nice one! And some house slippers?”
He’d taken a sumptuous fur coat down from the witch’s ash-wood wardrobe and was obediently helping a gleeful Lina into it before the charm’s effects faded and his face turned suddenly to thunder.
“It’s harmless,” she said quickly, the words tripping over one another in their hurry to leave her mouth. “A spell to make your voice sweet. Irresistible. The sopranos at the Conservatoire are always accusing each other of buying them.” Usually when they were vying for a solo. Lina grasped a handful of the black pearls, letting them fall through her fingers and clink back into the sugar bowl. “You take one too. If we meet anyone, we can charm them, compel them. It’ll help. Don’t be mad.”
Anger and uncertainty warred on Finley’s features, fighting the cloying sweetness of her voice. “Don’t be mad,” she stressed. “Please.” Every muscle in her body had braced instinctively at the first sign of his temper rising. She wondered if it would always be this way between them now. As if it wasn’t just her ankle that had broken, but something else, something irreparable.
“I’m not angry,” said Finley, sounding slightly dazed, words sticking to his tongue like thick molasses.
Lina pulled the fur coat tight around her shoulders, pushing away the question of whether things would ever go back to normal, growing angry at herself now for getting distract
ed. Thomas was here somewhere, alone and in danger.
“Did you hear that?” Finley cocked his head. “It’s that music again, that song.”
“It’s been playing for ages.” And the witch she’d danced with at the revel had claimed they didn’t like it. What a liar. “You should borrow a coat, too.” Lina shoved her feet into a pair of house slippers and cast about the room for anything else they could take. Like the black pearls, some small charm that might help.
She grabbed Finley’s knife from the dressing table, gaze lingering on a handheld fan with a tortoiseshell handle and great plumes of peacock feathers. The kind of fan that not only cooled and veiled your face but could fan away bad luck.
“I swear it’s like—” Finley paused, drifting away from her. “It sounds like my playing, doesn’t it?”
Lina held back a shiver. Did it? That faint, thin, high, and unearthly wail. For a second, she swore she could feel the vibrato of the strings in her teeth. Feel each note curling around her wrists and ankles, tugging at her, attempting to steer her body like a ship.
Sock-soft footsteps padded behind her. The door creaked open. Clicked shut.
Lina whirled around. “Finley?”
10
Lina
Lina was across the carpet in an instant, cursing, knife in hand.
She ripped the door open, burst through, and almost tripped over her own feet in shock.
Where was the corridor? The balconies and their billowing gossamer drapes? The gleaming walls of gold leaf and glowing amber? The door had taken her someplace else. Lina sucked in a breath. The air tasted tight. Metallic. Like licking the striking side of a matchbox. Dragging her tongue across her bottom lip would end in a mouthful of sparks.
She stood in a room at the top of a storm-ravaged tower. Its roof was caved in, its stained-glass windows shattered, a light rain falling sideways through the holes. Candles, books, and ruined furniture littered a sodden, blackened carpet.
Sudden guilt speared Lina. This was their fault. Her fault. When she’d thrown the bottled spell to summon the storm, she’d seen lightning strike the palace towers. She’d wanted to bring the whole hateful place down, but she hadn’t thought—
The Dark Tide Page 6