The Dark Tide

by Alicia Jasinska

  A second boy knelt beside the sea chest, singing and humming an eerie, silky tune, knotting hair and string as Omar cleaned her wound, working a healing charm to ease the pain.

  Some of it was fading. She stopped shaking. Omar smeared some horrible herbal concoction over her cut. It smelled just like the teas Ma made her drink, which tasted exactly like dirt. As soon as he was done bandaging her arm, he stood and headed for the captain’s bed and Eva.

  Darkness ate at the edges of Lina’s vision.

  She clutched her knees, shut her eyes, and breathed deeply, the way she’d been taught to do when she was seasick.

  In for three, hold for three, out for three. Repeat.

  The air in the cabin was suffocating, stale and sickening, scented with sweet jasmine perfume, healing herbs, and the harsh, metallic note of freshly spilled blood.

  In for three, hold for three, out for three.

  The world receded.

  In for three, hold…

  “You have a death wish,” said Eva quietly.

  Lina’s eyes fluttered open. She must have blacked out for a second. A minute. More. The cabin was less crowded all of a sudden, practically empty. Most of the witches were gone. Yara was hitching up the hem of her dress, clattering up the stairs to the deck. Marcin followed, throwing a troubled glance at Lina over his shoulder.

  Eva was perched beside her on the old buckled sea chest. In this dark corner of the dark cabin, she could have been a shadow, a mere piece of the night itself.

  She scowled at the bandage on Lina’s forearm. “You could have bled out. Or fainted. Your arm will probably still fall off from infection. I’m not wasting anyone’s magic to heal you.” The words came out in a rush, as if Eva had been holding them in all this time. She’d left a careful distance between their bodies. Pale smoke twisted from the end of her cigarette. “I think I finally understand you. This isn’t about Thomas at all, is it? You just have a death wish. You just don’t want to live.”

  “Of course I want to—”

  “Is it because of your injury? Because you worry you can’t dance the way you did before?”

  Lina stared. And then something sparked deep inside of her, an ember that grew into an inferno, seething through her body like wildfire. Her nails dug deep crescents into her palms. “How dare you.”

  “I could have let the serpent eat you.”

  “Why didn’t you, then?” Lina’s voice spiked.

  Eva took a long, shaky drag from her cigarette. She had a blanket wrapped around her waist, but the bandages on her leg flashed as she crossed one ankle over the other. She winced, pressing a hand to her thigh. “I can’t have you dying before the full moon. I need you as this year’s sacrifice.” There was a pause, and her voice dipped lower. “It has to be you. I don’t think it can be anyone but you.”

  “Should I be flattered?” Lina spat. A shiver traveled through the ship. Her ears pricked at the grinding, at the creak and squeak of timber, footsteps falling above their heads, the scrape and thump of rope. The familiar sounds of a ship setting sail. “Wait, where are we—”

  “Did it make you angry,” said Eva, “that Thomas didn’t come to the regatta? That he was too cowardly to risk himself for you the way you did for him?”

  “I don’t care!”

  “Don’t you?”

  Lina was silent for a beat too long. Why hadn’t he come? Why hadn’t he been there? Had the thought of the sea serpent scared him that much? Or did he really not…

  Eva met her eyes, seeing far too much of her hidden thoughts. Her smile was a knife’s edge in the dark. “I tried to warn you. Selfish, and a coward through and through. The first time I snuck him into the sea cave to see the serpent, he fainted dead away.”

  “So? Boys can be weak sometimes. They’re allowed to be scared.” Lina didn’t mind being the strong one, the one who did the rescuing. She could be brave enough for both of them. Although she wouldn’t have minded too, if it had been the other way around, if he had been the one to come rescue her, if only to know she was someone he thought worth rescuing. “I imagine your sister would have been so pleased with you luring him down there.”

  Eva’s smile didn’t falter. “Natalia was livid. More furious than I’d ever seen her. She threatened to turn me on her knee like she used to when I was a witchling and spank me.”

  The revelation was so unexpected, the image it conjured so astounding, that a startled laugh burst out of Lina. She immediately bit the inside of her cheek as punishment.

  Eva’s eyes had gone a little distant, fixed on something far in the past.

  Curiosity got the best of Lina. “What was she like?” She wanted to know, wanted to know everything about the queen she’d watched drown, the girl whose story she’d admired and stolen courage from for so, so long.

  Eva didn’t immediately answer. She flicked ash off the end of her cigarette. “She was everything. She was my best friend. And she was foolish and selfish. You have a brother who clearly loves you. Did you consider how he will feel? What it will be like to lose you?”

  Lina fingered the blood-coral beads Finley had given her for her seventeenth birthday. That she’d worn every day since. “Oh, he’ll be fine. We’re always fighting, anyway. I’m just a burden to him. The fact that he always has to walk me home from dancing is like the great tragedy of his life. Give it a month, and he’ll forget all about me.”

  “There isn’t a day that passes when I don’t think of Natalia. Don’t disrespect your brother by thinking he wouldn’t mourn you.”

  Lina’s cheeks heated. “I wasn’t disrespecting him.”

  “Your brother will remember every insult he’s ever uttered toward you. He won’t be able to walk past the Conservatoire without thinking of you. It will happen every time he sees someone dance, whenever he hears music. This morning when I woke, my first thought was, I have to tell Natalia…” Eva cut off.

  Lina stayed quiet. But Eva didn’t even know Finley. Finley was a fool. Finley would be fine.

  And she wasn’t planning to let herself be sacrificed, anyway. She’d just have to find another way out of it.

  “Give me that,” she snapped, suddenly needing to do something, needing to say something to break the silence. “If you’re going to smoke in front of someone, the least you can do is share.”

  Eva blinked, dark brows knitting in confusion. She hesitated, then held out the cigarette.

  Lina took it, deliberately nonchalant, heart beating faster, trying not to think about her own lips closing over Eva’s damp lipstick prints. She wasn’t really a fan of smoking; when girls at the Conservatoire took breaks, she always made the excuse that she preferred cigars. It sounded cooler, classier, and was easier than just saying no. She tried to keep her expression casual, to infuse a loftiness into it. The same indifference Eva so easily summoned.

  “Oh.”

  The smoke didn’t taste of tobacco. It tasted bittersweet, like broken dreams, like longing, like dark, sour chocolate and citrus tea gone cold. A shiver tingled all the way to Lina’s toes.

  Eva was watching her with undisguised wariness. Eyes narrowed, tension coiled beneath her skin, a snake about to strike. There was something almost funny about it. A reversal in their roles that made Lina feel strangely powerful.

  She blew a cloud at the cabin roof. “Thank you, anyway. For saving Finley. I saw what you did.”

  “I didn’t do it for you.” Eva was scandalized. “I didn’t do it for him. It’s my pet; if I’m going to let it eat anyone, it’s going to be someone I want it to eat. Like Thomas Lin. So I can enjoy it.”

  Lina shot her an exasperated look. “The way you keep bringing him up, it’s like you’re the one with feelings for him.”

  Eva didn’t bat an eyelash. “What can I say? He left a very large hole in my life.”

  Smoke curled sour off Lina’s
tongue. She passed the cigarette back, gaze drawn to the curve of Eva’s neck where it dipped to meet her collarbone, the sharp planes of her face that were illuminated as she raised it to her red, red lips. “Will it be okay? The serpent?” Eva’s face had been terrible when she’d forced it below the waves.

  “It will be fine once I’ve fed it the witch responsible for this disaster.”

  “The witch…the person who threw fire at it?”

  Again, Eva didn’t immediately answer.

  “It’s complicated.”

  Complicated? How was it complicated? Marcin was the one who had thrown fire. The one who had attacked the serpent when Eva was trying to calm it. But maybe Lina understood. All witches were family regardless of blood. And things with family were always complicated.

  “And stop doing that,” said Eva. “Thinking of everyone else before yourself. Worrying about the monster that tried to eat you.” She sucked in one last breath and stubbed the cigarette out. “I’ll have someone prepare a cold compress for your ankle. Did Jun tie a charm for you for the pain? If your arm starts to hurt, I’ll have him sent down to you.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t going to waste magic on me.”

  “I also said I can’t afford for you to die before the full moon.”

  Lina scowled, glancing down at her ankle, twisting her injured arm. “It’s fine. It isn’t a deep cut. It’s not going to get infected. You don’t need—”

  But Eva was already gone, nothing left beside Lina on the sea chest save shadow. The witch might never have been there at all. She could have been a dream, but for a single waning twist of black smoke.

  Lina let her head thump back against the cabin wall. “I really hate it when you do that. I really, really hate it.”

  18

  Lina

  Lina slept for a long time after the ship returned to the Water Palace, waking only when a witch came in to change her bandage and urge her to eat and drink. A whole day drifted past, and then half of another. They’d given her the same room as before, the one with the marble floor and amber-and-gold-leaf screens and pillow-packed daybeds.

  She was so tired. She’d been going, going, going nonstop since the night of the revel—maybe even before then, worrying about her brother, about her ankle—and now her mind and body were giving out, giving up…

  Or maybe it was just the witches’ magic luring her into this daze, ensnaring her in sleep like a princess placed under a curse. Her chest gently rising and falling, rising and falling, trapped in the rhythm of a deep and dreamless slumber.

  Every time Lina’s eyes fluttered shut, a little more magic snuck into the room.

  A tingly body balm to ease her bruises and aches appeared on a nearby shelf. A little striped reef snake with iridescent scales slithered across the daybed and curled around her wrist and up her arm like a bracelet. Handfuls of those licorice-black pearls that made your voice siren-sweet spilled from a bowl on a side table.

  Burrowed so deeply beneath a heavy blanket that only the tip of her nose peeked out, Lina watched as a tiny silver spoon stirred three sugars into a steaming cup on a silver tray without her having to ask.

  But she didn’t want any more of the witches’ milky tea or any of their other treats. Too much rich, greasy, milky food was turning her stomach. What she was really craving was a piping hot bowl of rice porridge with ginger and chicken broth, the kind her grandmother made for her when she was sick, the kind she got at home.

  She started to curl farther under the blanket, a crab burying itself in the sand. But she stilled at a faint patter of footsteps.

  A shiver of anticipation chased up her spine. The same breathless feeling she got while waiting in the wings before a performance. Lina let a count of eight pass, as if listening for her cue. Another count. She pretended to sleep, gave a little snore, and then…

  Something touched the blanket. She flung it back, heart thundering, searching for a flash of black braids, the hem of a dusky dress, a whisper of cold smoke.

  She found no one—so far she’d only managed to catch Eva once.

  But heaped on top of the daybed, on top of the heavy blanket, on top of her, was a pile of dresses. Silk, chiffon, taffeta. Slinky, scandalous slips in sea greens and stormy blues. A sugar-pink feather boa. Lacy fingerless gloves. And at the very bottom of the bed, a charmed pair of silver dancing shoes, glittering all over with diamonds.

  The most perfect dancing shoes Lina had ever seen.

  Her eyes widened.

  She slipped off the bed, wincing as her joints cracked liked an old woman’s. She was so stiff—she hadn’t stretched or done any of her strength-building exercises. She tiptoed around the bed, stepping over and around all the other trinkets and gifts that had appeared, all as silently and anonymously as the clothes.

  Guilty delight shot through her as she brushed her fingers over shimmering amber rings and necklaces set with fallen stars, over spells to banish bad dreams, bottled in smoky jars. There were seashells in a velvet drawstring pouch that whispered dark fortunes and the secrets of those you held dear when you lifted them to your ear. A black case containing a gleaming violin carved from caramel-colored wood that played itself, played the songs Lina loved to dance to. As well as darker melodies. Lyrical, calamitous nocturnes and twisting sonatas. She couldn’t help but wonder if they might be Eva’s favorites.

  Did Eva realize the secrets she was giving away about herself with each new gift? Was she hidden somewhere, watching for Lina’s reaction to each one?

  Lina plucked a crimson lipstick from the chaos, rolling it across her palm. It was the exact shade Eva always wore, and her heart beat off-rhythm as she popped the lid and drew a wicked bloodred bow upon her own lips, checking her reflection in a little shell-shaped mirror, imitating Eva’s haughty expression, her scowl.

  She knew what the gifts were: morbid reminders. The queen always made sure the sacrifice’s final days were filled with as much magic as possible.

  And yet she couldn’t quite quash the thrill of it—the thought of Caldella’s infamous Witch Queen plying her with gifts, racking her brain to think what Lina would like best, like next, thinking of nothing but her.

  Because each gift was strangely thoughtful, fitting. She couldn’t help basking in the attention, couldn’t help feeling just the tiniest bit special.

  Lina threw down the lipstick and mirror, hating herself.

  She started to pace, all the tension that had drained out of her rushing back. Here she was again at the palace, taking Thomas’s place—Thomas, whom she hadn’t even glimpsed at the regatta. Had he meant to come? Had the sea serpent really scared him off? Or had he decided she wasn’t worth the trouble? After all, she was the idiot who had dragged him back into all of this. Maybe he thought her too stupid to rescue.

  A hot lump choked Lina’s throat. She cursed softly, and then again louder, words that would have made most people blush—her mothers were sailors, after all.

  Every night, the moon grew fatter and fuller. She was running out of time.

  A crisp breeze blew in from the balcony, the pale drapes hanging in the archway leading onto it rippling, making it seem as if ghosts were dancing in and out of the room. The little reef snake that had curled around Lina’s wrist and up her arm, then slithered off and disappeared somewhere beneath the blanket, poked its head back out, thin black tongue flicking out.

  “We thought we were going to have to kiss you to wake you up.”

  Lina jerked, whirling toward the singsong voice.

  A witchling peered at her from the other side of the daybed. A wee thing with bouncy brown curls and freckles dotted in a thick band across her nose. She gave Lina a leering vampire smile, made so by the fact that she was missing her two front teeth. “Like in a fairy story.”

  “That doesn’t actually work,” said a second voice, acid and monotone. “I told
her we should pinch you.”

  Lina didn’t jump this time, only scowled as a second witchling popped up behind her. Another little black-clad ghoul. She had the same olive skin as Eva and long dark hair, which she’d braided in obvious imitation atop her head. Lina took an instant dislike to her, to both of them. Where was Finley when she needed him? Her brother was the one who turned all gooey over children.

  The main door was still closed. There was nothing to indicate whether they’d materialized from thin air or blown in with the breeze from the balcony.

  Miniature Eva climbed onto the daybed and pinched the lipstick, smearing crimson all over her mouth.

  “Don’t do that!”

  “Why? You did.”

  “That’s… Were you spying on me?”

  “We wanted to see what presents Eva gave you.” The freckled witchling joined her friend on the bed, the mattress dipping beneath their weight. She poked at the dresses. “They’re not as good as Natalia’s presents. She gave much better things to Thomas.”

  A current of irritation surged through Lina, and she wasn’t sure exactly at whom she was annoyed. “Like what?”

  Miniature Eva smacked her newly red lips. The witchlings traded glances and spoke as one. “Kisses!” They burst into uncontrollable giggles, Miniature Eva crawling toward the silver dancing shoes.

  Lina slapped the girl’s hands away before she could smear her lipstick-stained fingers all over them. Curiosity once again got the best of her. “What was she like? Natalia?” She’d asked in the ship’s cabin but hadn’t really gotten answers.

  “She looked like Eva.”

  Lina’s overly helpful imagination instantly conjured the memory of Thomas and Eva kissing at the revel. His lips on her lips. His hands on her waist. His hands sliding up into her hair.

  Heat swooped through her stomach, crawled up her neck. What did it feel like to kiss someone like that? What was it like, kissing a witch? Someone so powerful they could slay sea monsters with string and strands of their hair?