“I have a lot of it,” said Eva with such a straight face that it took Lina a second to register it.
“Did you just make a joke?” She almost dropped the loops of string.
Another tiny smile tugged at Eva’s mouth, but a real smile this time, not taunting or spiteful or wicked, the kind of smile that appeared no matter how hard you fought to hide it.
Lina’s stomach flipped with a strange, uneasy kind of pride.
“It’s personal preference. There are even foreign witches who dance their magic. They slit the balls of their feet open with knives. Some like to say there’s more power in blood and spit and bone, but it’s a risk spending so much magic at once. And it’s messy. Strands of hair mix well with Caldella’s traditional knot magic, and the red string is… Good. You’ll need to form the fish next, and then the tower.”
Lina pulled the loops taut, hating the helpless, intoxicating thrill that shot through her from head to toe as the strands glowed hot.
“Now the tower,” said Eva, “for change and transformation.”
“What are we transforming?”
“The rain, seeing as you are so concerned about it.”
And afterward, the tide, Lina promised silently.
So much power at the tips of her fingers. She couldn’t quite believe she was working magic. Like a witch. With a witch. In a tempest at the top of a tower, alone but for the vengeful sea crashing far, far below and the Witch Queen watching her with eyes that glinted like the moon on dark water.
“Do you have to stare like that?”
“Like what?”
Like you’re planning to eat me.
Lina ducked her head and focused solely on forming the final shape. She and Finley had always lingered at the markets when the witches sold the wind to Ma in twists of string and hair, had tried to memorize the movements of their fingers.
Her brother would love this. If Eva let her keep the comb, she’d save some of the remaining loops of string for him. She half wished he were here now, even if got angry and frowned and called her a fool for enjoying working magic with Eva. She couldn’t remember a time without Finley. Couldn’t imagine a future where they weren’t close.
The wind picked up, plucking at her dress, fanning the black drapes behind her.
“Are you going to hide in the curtains forever?”
Lina shot a glare at Eva. The tower she’d shaped between her fingers glowed bright as burning coals, as the lit ends of cigarettes. Her ears filled with a roar, a new kind of thunder coming from everywhere at once. Her skin tingled. Her heart raged. But it was a rush. A fever and thrill that set her alight. Pure magic.
And then the light winked out, the strands of hair and red string burning away to ash, to nothing.
Lina looked from her empty, tingling fingers to the sky.
But it hadn’t changed. Lightning still danced coquettishly through desolate clouds. Thunder still rumbled.
Her stomach sank. She’d failed.
Eva held out a hand. Lina reached forlornly to take it, joining her at the balustrade, hunching, braced for the wind, for the icy chill of rain.
Something hot landed on her bare shoulder. She flinched, but the heat merely melted into her skin, sending out little ripples of warmth. Something blindingly bright struck the tip of her nose. Fire greeted her when she flung her head back, eyes going wide. Tiny teardrop flames dripped from the sky, tiny sparks in place of rain, winking out as soon as they hit skin or balcony stone.
The patch of sky directly overhead was ablaze, a single storm cloud weeped orange and crimson and gold. Lina opened her mouth, catching falling fire with her lips, on the tip of her tongue, hot and peppery.
Eva brushed against her side, a different kind of heat, leaning in to be heard above the rumbling thunder, hair wild in the wind. “A little more exciting than braiding each other’s hair, no?” Her tone was so smug that Lina wanted to shove her off the balcony.
But she couldn’t stop playing with the fiery rain tumbling over them like falling stars. She cupped her hands together and tiny tongues of flame pooled between her palms.
“There’s no reason we couldn’t do both. Couldn’t we do this with the tide, change it into something else? What if we worked together like this? I can help you. Let me help you.”
Fire was pooling between Eva’s palms too, little orange teardrops dancing. “You never give up, do you?” Her tone was both exasperated and something else. “Don’t you ever rest?”
“No.” Fear doesn’t let me.
And she had to hold onto her fears, to stay focused, because it was so easy to get distracted here, by all of this, by all her unanswered questions.
Why did you say the sacrifice couldn’t be anyone but me?
Eva shaped the flames she’d caught into a band, a shifting, dancing circlet of fire that she set on Lina’s head. A crown of light to match her dark one. “For a would-be witch.” There was something so solemn, so deliberately grand about the gesture that Lina almost laughed.
Instead, her stomach turned over. They were standing too close. Eva’s hands on the circlet, grazing her temples, framing her face. Eva’s chin angled down, her own tilted up. Almost as if…as if they were about to… Eva’s breath hitched as if she too had just realized…
“Why did you have to come here?” She sounded angry.
“What did you mean when you—” said Lina.
A mouth pressed to hers. Soft. Firm. Insistent.
Oh.
Eva’s hands tangled in Lina’s hair. Lina’s lips parted in surprise. Heat swooped through her center. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it through her entire body.
She sucked Eva’s bottom lip into her mouth, blood coursing through her like flames when Eva inhaled sharply. Something dark and violent curled low in her stomach. A thrill, vicious and shocking as victory. Her hands gripped Eva’s hips hard enough to leave bruises. Fingers clenched and knotted in Lina’s hair, almost painful, pulling her impossibly closer. And something inside of her broke free, the lock wrenched off a door she hadn’t known existed, endless possibilities spilling out. Why hadn’t she ever thought of this? She was the rain—transformed. Floating and burning and falling, falling, falling.
The scrape of nails sent tingles racing across her scalp. Their noses bumped. Flames were raining down all around them. Lina couldn’t catch her breath. She didn’t know if she was doing this right or if she—
Eva nipped her lip, and a jolt snaked through Lina like lightning. The soft, curving pieces of her seemed to slot and fit and press into the soft, curving pieces of Eva as if that’s what they were made for. She was on fire, dizzy with the sensation of Eva’s mouth closing over her own, the climbing need. She needed to get closer, she needed—
Lina pulled back for breath. Eva stared down at her. Lips swollen. Eyes wide. Black hair a wild tangle, swept back to expose her shocked face. She stared at Lina like she was something astounding, something strange, like nothing she had ever seen before.
Lina’s lips throbbed. Her heart beat a painful rhythm.
What are you doing?
What are you doing what are you doing what are you doing?
She was almost grateful for the scream.
It made them both jump. A faint, piercing cry from somewhere inside the Water Palace.
Lina tore away from Eva’s touch, racing inside, stumbling through the thick drapes and across the hazy, smoke-sweet salon, speeding past the desk, the low lounge, unsure if she was running toward the sound or away from Eva. Her heart thudded against her rib cage.
What are you doing what are you doing what are you doing?
Oh God.
She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to feel like this. This was all Eva’s fault.
The scuff of her stockings on the carpet became a squelch.
Lina
halted, looked down.
The carpet was wine-red, deepening to the color of old blood as water oozed through the crack between the floor and the salon’s shimmering, glyph-engraved door, a great half moon bleeding outward.
Eva rushed past, the silver dancing shoes she was still wearing stepping lightly, sparkling with diamond fire as she flung open the door. It didn’t misbehave for her. A wall of cold horror and sound hit them as they burst through, bodies colliding with a flock of shrieking witches and witchlings fleeing down a murky corridor as towering ink-black waves crashed round a bend.
The dark tide had come to reap what it was owed, to take what it was promised, what it had been denied for two long years.
Blood drained from Lina’s face. The water moved like a living, breathing thing. Serpentine and ravenous. Pouring itself down the corridor with deliberate intent, gushing eagerly over the floor, reaching, touching, tasting. Liquid darkness clawed forward on wet black fingers. Teeth of froth and foam raked along the walls, cresting white and biting down.
Lina didn’t move fast enough. Waves smashed into her head-on with strength enough to sweep her off her feet, to drag her under, to swallow her whole. She tumbled into a ball, saltwater flooding her nose, her mouth, her ears. She sloshed and slapped against other screaming, squirming, drowning bodies.
Rough hands seized her by the hair, tearing at her scalp, hauling her up. She gasped as she burst from the water’s hold. She gripped Eva for dear life.
“Marcin!” Eva was shouting as red hair flashed past. The water seethed, hissing its hunger, roiling and swirling around their knees, their waists. Light rippling off its pitch-dark skin, webbing over the ceiling.
Marcin was struggling to stay upright against the swell, fighting the fierce push and pull of the waves. He fished a witchling out of the flow, hauled the small boy over his shoulder.
Eva’s grip loosened on Lina’s hair. She shoved Lina roughly back through the door they’d just come from, a small wave going with her, spewing into the salon, soaking more of the wine-red carpet.
Lina stumbled, catching herself against the back of the low lounge.
Eva grasped the edge of the door, face grim as she heaved it shut. “Stay here.”
24
Lina
Lina didn’t stay.
Inaction was agony. There wasn’t a force on earth that could have kept her still. Her fingers curled around the door handle a heartbeat after Eva shoved her through to safety.
She fled the salon, fear chasing her through door after door after door, through rooms blissfully free of that writhing, living tide. She ran until she found herself back in her marble-floored bedroom, stumbling past the amber-and-gold-leaf screens, collapsing, shivering, onto a daybed in shock.
No one chased after her.
Minutes passed. Then hours. Hours where her mind refused to stop spinning. Her thoughts flooded with too many terrible scenarios to banish with a magical bargain or a tap on the wall.
Had it been like this for Thomas when he was taken? Had he felt this lost and alone, this damn frightened? This confused? This helpless? Lina’s eyes burned. She swiped furiously at her face as a tear escaped to scald her cheek.
The little reef snake Eva had gifted her slid from beneath a pillow, coiling its stripes around her wrist and fingers as if to squeeze her hand.
Lina prised the little creature free, pacing up and down, up and down, ignoring the growing hot ache in her ankle, almost enjoying it, because she deserved pain and because at least that was familiar—that she could handle. Her eyes skimmed unseeing over the chaos of magical gifts as she struggled to think of something, anything, other than what had happened on Eva’s balcony before the dark tide had come to claim what it was owed.
To claim her.
What the sea wants, the sea shall have, as sailors said.
She suddenly couldn’t stand the still-damp clothes clinging to her. It felt like she’d been licked, swallowed, tasted, and then spat out. Lina stripped, shimmying into a short, glittery green shift with matching gloves. She tied her blood-coral beads in a double knot around her neck and felt a little more in control. The familiar ritual settled her nerves. It was like putting on makeup before a performance, like putting on armor, like prepping for war.
She combed her bangs out, brushed the sleek, damp bob of her hair, wincing at the state of her roots. Put on lipstick, rouged her cheeks, painted her eyes with shadow.
Keep moving. Do something. Don’t think.
Don’t think.
A hum sang through her skin as she picked up the comb Eva had given her, thumb sliding over red string and silken black strands threaded tight through the shiny teeth. Heat flooded Lina’s cheeks, and she hesitated, then shoved the comb back into her brassiere. A gift was a gift. And a piece of emergency magic was always useful to have, no matter where it came from.
No matter the witch it came from.
Where was Eva now? Had those black waves washed her away, drowned her in the dark corridors of her own palace? Drowned all the witches? Maybe Lina was the only one in here left alive.
Maybe that was for the best. Now that she was calmer, Lina didn’t think she could face anyone ever again, especially Eva.
Her fingers reached up questioningly to trace her lips, as if she could recapture the feeling of the Eva’s mouth crashing down on her own.
What even was that kiss?
And why had she enjoyed it?
Lina knew what love was supposed to look like. She knew what she was supposed to want, who she was supposed to want. She’d been brought up on sweeping tales of soft, sweet caresses, stories of hand-holding, butterflies fluttering in stomachs, and epic, tongue-tied romance.
She didn’t want to hold Eva’s hand. She wanted to shove her up against a wall and scream, “What have you done to me?” She’d wanted to bruise her hips when she’d kissed her. She’d liked how powerful she’d felt. When she thought of Eva, there were no butterflies; only this heated swoop in her stomach, like a thrill, like adrenaline. This violent uneven rhythm of her heart.
Trying to reconcile what she was currently feeling with all those soft, sweet tales, with all the scenes she’d rehearsed in her head, with all she knew… She didn’t know anymore. What if what she thought was love wasn’t what anyone else felt when they said the word? How would she ever know if what she was feeling was right? Was truly love?
Lina paced out onto the balcony. The rain was still falling, but as mist now, not as fire. Ordinary gray clouds roiled and readied themselves for the next brutal onslaught.
The shadow of a lonely seabird threaded through the gloom. Lina gripped the hip-high balustrade, the only thing standing between her and the sea below.
Did the waves look closer than they had a day ago? Was the inky water climbing higher?
And what of the moon? Last night, the storm-ravaged sky had hidden it. How full and fat had it grown?
She tried to distract herself with a story, seeking refuge in fantasy and wild imaginings, envisioning herself in a different time, a different place.
It didn’t work.
The balcony faced the city, and even in the overcast gloom Caldella was clearly visible, a faded pastel tapestry of town houses and winding cobbled streets. The crescent isle looked fragile somehow, slim, like the moon the day before it went dark. Waves with white teeth gnawed at its edges, swallowing districts piece by piece. Black water snaked toward the city center in sickly, swollen veins.
Something caught in Lina’s throat. Her beautiful fairy-tale city. Her sinking city. Her home.
Drowning.
She backed away from the balustrade, knuckles white.
At least if Eva… Did Eva really care? Was it possible she truly…
Was it terrible of Lina to want to believe it, to want it, for her stomach to flip at the thought? To think that she of al
l people could have captured the wicked Witch Queen’s heart? A girl people claimed had no heart?
Lina’s own heart skipped a beat.
She shook the thought away.
At least if the magic worked, her death would mean something. Finley was out there, and Uncle and Laolao and all her aunties and cousins, and Ma and Mama were sailing home. Ensuring their happiness and survival—that was less a sacrifice and more her duty, wasn’t it? If she thought of it that way…
No. She shouldn’t be thinking of it that way. She should be thinking about how she could use Eva’s affection to her advantage to save herself. If Eva cared for her, how could she choose between saving the person she loved and saving everyone? It would be like with Thomas and Natalia.
And yet, just thinking that, thinking of taking advantage of someone’s feelings like that, someone she might even…
Something inside of Lina rebelled. A burst of panic like a caught bird fluttering inside her rib cage.
A voice drifted out onto the balcony, calling her name. Lina whirled around, fighting her way through the balcony drapes, gossamer lace catching like cobwebs at her arms, her face, blindfolding her before she stumbled into the warm embrace of the room.
A boy was weaving past the amber-and-gold-leaf screens, a boy with sea-tanned skin and sun-kissed hair. A boy in soaking, storm-wet clothes. The boy who’d once carried her home when she turned an ankle.
Lina stopped cold. Thomas rushed forward. Amber lanterns swinging from the ceiling faded the scene like an old photograph.
He didn’t feel real. He looked like someone from a dream, someone she was struggling to remember, to grasp the shape of. Who was Thomas Lin? How well did she really know him?
He stopped before her. “Lina.”
The way he said her name, like a prayer or a wish, turned her legs to jelly. All her old shyness flooded back. A thousand questions raced through her mind, a thousand things she longed to say, wanted to shout. A queer part of her wanted to apologize. But what came out was a question. The very last she expected herself to ask.
The Dark Tide Page 17